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<pre>

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Look Back on Happiness, by Knut Hamsun

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Title: Look Back on Happiness

Author: Knut Hamsun

Posting Date: September 8, 2014 [EBook #8445]
Release Date: July, 2005
First Posted: July 11, 2003

Language: English

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</pre>


<h1 class="spaced">LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS</h1>

<h1 class="spaced">KNUT HAMSUN</h1>

<h2 class="spaced">Translated from the Norwegian<br>
<br>
By PAULA WIKING</h2>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<h2 class="spaced">I</h2>

<p>I have gone to the forest.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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:</p>

<p>"Great heavens, this is a buck reindeer, he's dangerous!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>You say nothing happens here?</p>

<p>One day I saw two Lapps meet. A boy and a girl. At first they
behaved as people do. "<em>Boris!</em>" 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.</p>

<p>In all my weatherbeaten days, I have never seen such a greeting
as that.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Is this a life worth living?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>My friend, come here to me and I will take a mirror from my
pocket and reflect the sun on your face, my friend.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And you? Have you read in a newspaper, which disagrees with
another newspaper, what the public in Norway is thinking of old-age
insurance?</p>

<h2 class="spaced">II</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Good morning," we said to each other. "Fine weather in the
woods."</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"He may know something about me," I thought, "since he is such a
man."</p>

<p>"Have you lived here long?" he asked. "And are you leaving
soon?"</p>

<p>"Is the hut yours, perhaps?" I asked in my turn.</p>

<p>Then he looked at me.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>I spoke gently and jestingly to avoid committing a blunder by my
speech.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>When I asked him to come in, he was grateful and said:</p>

<p>"Thank you, but I'm afraid I'll get snow all over your
floor."</p>

<p>Then he took special pains to wipe his boots clean, and bringing
his sack with him, crawled in.</p>

<p>"I could give you some coffee," I said.</p>

<p>"You shouldn't trouble on my account," he replied, wiping his
face and panting with the heat, "though I've been walking all
night."</p>

<p>"Are you crossing the fjeld?"</p>

<p>"That depends. I don't suppose there's work to be got on a
winter day on the other side, either."</p>

<p>I gave him coffee.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Yes, I've got bread, butter, and reindeer cheese. Help
yourself."</p>

<p>"It's not so easy for a lot of people in the winter," said the
man as he ate.</p>

<p>"Could you take some letters to the village for me?" I asked.
"I'll pay you for it."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>I felt his sack and said:</p>

<p>"What's this you're lugging about with you? Heavy things?"</p>

<p>"Mind your own business!" was his instant retort, as he drew the
sack closer to him.</p>

<p>"I wasn't going to steal any of it; I'm no thief," I said,
jesting again.</p>

<p>"I don't care what you are," he muttered.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>He had his midday meal with me, and when he had eaten, he
said:</p>

<p>"Do you mind if I cut myself some pine twigs to sit on?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Do you think there'll be snow tonight?"</p>

<p>"You ask me questions and I ask you questions," I said, "but it
looks like snow; the smoke is blowing down."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"You leave me alone!" he shouted, tearing the sack from my
grasp. "Don't you touch that sack, or I'll show you!"</p>

<p>I replied that I had meant nothing by it, and had no intention
of stealing anything from him.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"So you've got crisp-bread after all," I said.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p class="poetry">"You might buy this cloth from me," he said.
"I'll<br>
 let you have it cheap. It's duffle. It only gets in my way."<br>
</p>

<p>"How much do you want for it?" I asked.</p>

<p>"There's enough for a whole suit of clothes, maybe more," he
said to himself as he spread it out.</p>

<p>I said to the man:</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"You'd better leave enough for a whole suit in one piece," I
said, "and cut up the rest for trousers."</p>

<p>"You think so? Yes, maybe you're right."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"You haven't been able to sell me much," I said, "but I don't
need any more than that."</p>

<p>"Business is business," said he. "I don't complain."</p>

<p>It was quite decent of him.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I think after all I'd better stop the night here with you, if
you don't mind."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"You shouldn't have expenses for me," he said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Now if I take the neck of the sack over the other shoulder,
I'll find it easier to carry," he said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Where do you live?" I asked him.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"How many children have you?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Man, oh man, thou art worse than a mouse!</p>

<p>I questioned him no further, but asked him to sing something, a
ballad or a song, since we had nothing else to do.</p>

<p>"I've no heart to sing now," he replied. "Except possibly a
hymn."</p>

<p>"All right; sing a hymn, then."</p>

<p>"Not now. I'd like to do you a favor, but--"</p>

<p>His uneasiness was rising. A little later he took his sack and
went out.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>I made an elaborate agreement with myself that I should have no
more truck with men.</p>

<p>"Madame, come here," I said. "I esteem you highly, and herewith,
Madame, I undertake to enter upon a union with you for life!"</p>

<p>Half an hour later, the man returned. He carried no sack.</p>

<p>"I thought you'd gone," I said.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"What have you done with the sack?"</p>

<p>"I've carried it part of the way."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I expect you've raised plenty of dust in your day? Still do,
for that matter?"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"It's nothing," I said.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"It's nothing."</p>

<p>We lay down for the night.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>In the morning I burned the man's bed of pine needles; it made a
lively fire of crackling pine in the hut.</p>

<p>Outside, the ground was covered with new-fallen snow.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">III</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>Two men came to my hut; they were in a great hurry, and one of
them called to me:</p>

<p>"Good morning. Has a man passed this way?"</p>

<p>I didn't like his face. I was not his servant and his question
was too stupid.</p>

<p>"Many people may have passed this way. Do you mean have I
<em>seen</em> a man go by?"</p>

<p>So much for him!</p>

<p>"I meant what I said," the man replied surlily. "I'm asking you
in the name of the law."</p>

<p>"Oh."</p>

<p>I had no desire for further conversation, and crawled into my
hut.</p>

<p>The two men followed me. The constable grinned and said:</p>

<p>"Did you <em>see</em> a man pass by here yesterday?"</p>

<p>"No," I said.</p>

<p>They looked at each other, and took counsel together; then they
left the hut and returned to the village.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">IV</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Heaven help me, I am no longer too near men. And probably I will
not build that peat hut still further away from them.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>That was in the winter.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger today!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What?" he called from the wood.</p>

<p>"Careful below!" I called back to save my face. "I've put out a
trap."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">V</h2>

<p>I fill the fireplace with pine wood, hoist my belongings to my
back, and leave the hut. "Farewell, Madame."</p>

<p>That was the end.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>No, you have not my pleasures in the town.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What!" I say to myself. "Surely it couldn't be--"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Perhaps it was the anticipation of soon seeing men again that
made me playful and happy!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Heigh-ho--what untuned strings!</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;But where are the birds all gone
away,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and what kind of place is this?<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Here where I stand nothing moves or stirs,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;in this world that is dead, no event occurs;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;I stand in a silvermine.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;My eyes sweep round, but I sorely miss<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;a homely, well-known outline.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;And so he came to a silver wood--<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;thus ran an ancient tale.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Here rests a song of shimmering fire<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;as though it were sung by a starry choir.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;And swift in my youth, I leap<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;to bind fast the troll, the cunning male,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and awaken a maid from her sleep.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Today I smile at childish tales,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;old age has made me wise.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Once proudly in prodigal youth I trod,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;now by age my foot is heavily shod;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;yet my heart--my heart would fly.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;I am driven by fire and bound by ice,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;no rest nor repose have I.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;A shuddering chill falls on the
night,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;like a cloud from the lungs in the cold.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;There passed a great gust through the silver lace<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;of the woods, like a lion's royal pace<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;on paws that are soundless and still.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;It may be a god on his evening stroll.<br>
 &nbsp;The roots of the forest thrill.<br>
</p>

<p>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.
"<em>Boris</em>!" they said and fell on their noses.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"You know me, Olga, don't you?"</p>

<p>"Mm."</p>

<p>"But you look so angry."</p>

<p>"M-no."</p>

<p>"How's the snow track across the fjeld?"</p>

<p>"All right."</p>

<p>I knew there was a deserted hut the family had once lived in,
and asked:</p>

<p>"How far is it to your old hut?"</p>

<p>"Not far," said Olga.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">VI</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Who am I now among men? Or am I lost already? Am I nothing
already?"</p>

<p>And I cry out and call my name to hear if it still lives.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The storm passed on.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">VII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>"Were you?" I said. "Haven't you passed my hut today?" I
added.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"It wasn't easy to sit there without taking some of it," he
said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Soon after this he went out.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">VIII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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:</p>

<p>"Just like a doorway; what can it be? Looks exactly like a
doorway...."</p>

<p>And he stands still a long time staring at it.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"See how everything is better!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"See the irons!" Simplicity said. "See how red they are!"</p>

<p>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? <em>That
young trees grow there</em>.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">IX</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Now they'll be coming," he said. "If only they would leave us
in peace," he added.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 Höy 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Where's Miss Torsen?" Batt would ask us.</p>

<p>"Here I am; I'm coming," the lady answered.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I'm going out now, Miss Torsen; are you coming?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But why had she ever entered on such a life in the first
place?</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"And of course we were independent. We got jobs in offices, at
forty <em>kroner</em> 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 <em>kroner</em> 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!"</p>

<p>"But surely some of you have become schoolmistresses with good
salaries?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Tradesman Batt opened the door and said:</p>

<p>"Are you coming, Miss Torsen? It's stopped raining now."</p>

<p>"Oh, leave me alone," she replied.</p>

<p>Tradesman Batt withdrew.</p>

<p>"Why do you turn him away like that?" I asked.</p>

<p>"Because ... well, the weather is bad," she said, looking out of
the window. "Besides, he's such a fool. And he takes such
liberties."</p>

<p>How sure of herself she looked, and how right she seemed!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>So that was it.</p>

<p>But certainly what she had told me was nonetheless true.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">X</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The master has taken a large mortgage.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>No wonder she has a house to herself; after all, it's her own
house.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"How can the cotters get power to do that?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"All you can do with such a goat," she said, "is to slaughter
it."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>What an iron face he had, and what a rogue he was!</p>

<p>Mrs. Brede departed.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XI</h2>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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-<em>öre</em> 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.</p>

<p><em>"Mehr,</em> more," said he.</p>

<p>No, they would not. Solem flung the coin on the ground and
struck his hands together repeatedly. This had the required effect,
and one <em>krone</em> made its appearance. But on Solem's taking
the noble lord by the shoulder and exerting a little pressure, two
<em>kroner</em> were at last forthcoming.</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>Then I went out.</p>

<p>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--<em>have</em> 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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"But I'm going to enlarge; don't you see all the timber outside?
And I'm planning to get a telephone...."</p>

<p>The caravan paid the exact amount of their small bill and
departed, accompanied by the master and Solem, both carrying
trunks.</p>

<p>Peace descended on us again.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Here you see an <em>Artemis cotula</em>," he said.</p>

<p>Miss Torsen, who had also imbibed much learning, recognized the
name and said:</p>

<p>"Yes, take plenty of it with you."</p>

<p>"What for?"</p>

<p>"It's insect powder."</p>

<p>Schoolmaster Staur knew nothing of that, and there was a good
deal of discussion in which Associate Master Höy had to take a
hand.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p><em>Artemis cotula</em>....</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XII</h2>

<p>When I get tired of Associate Master Höy 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?</p>

<p>When I get tired of Associate Master Höy 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>A gentle wind begins to blow, swaying the bracken a little, the
flowers and the straw; but the straw cannot sway, it only
trembles.</p>

<p>I walk on along my great arc and come down by the first cotter's
house.</p>

<p>"Well, I expect you'll end up by building a summer resort too,"
I tell him in the course of our conversation.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>He gripped his spade again.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XIII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What do you mean by the right sort?" Associate Master Höy
asked, looking up from his plate.</p>

<p>No one answered.</p>

<p>Then Associate Master Höy could not help smiling broadly, and
said:</p>

<p>"Well, well! I must have a look at this Solem some time. I've
never paid any attention to him."</p>

<p>Associate Master Höy might look at Solem all he pleased; he
would grow no bigger for that, nor Solem smaller. The good Mr. Höy
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!"</p>

<p>Pity the poor, left-over associate masters then!</p>

<p>Poor Mr. Höy; 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.</p>

<p>"So, Mrs. Molie is nodding, too!" said Mr. Höy, and smiled
again. He was intensely annoyed. Mrs. Molie turned pink and
pretty.</p>

<p>At the next meal, Mr. Höy could contain himself no longer.</p>

<p>"Ladies," he said, "mine eyes have now beheld Master Solem."</p>

<p>"Well?"</p>

<p>"Common sneak-thief!"</p>

<p>"Oh, shame!"</p>

<p>"You must admit he has a brazen look on his face. No beard. Blue
chin, a perfect horse-face...."</p>

<p>"There's no harm in that," said Mrs. Molie.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>This proved true a few days later. Once again: poor Associate
Master Höy! 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. Höy? True, he was not much
to look at, but then neither was she.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Yes, it must be a wonderful country," Mrs. Molie said.</p>

<p>The Associate Master looked ready to burst, and was quite
incapable of restraining himself.</p>

<p>Speaking of Solem, he said suddenly, "I've changed my mind about
him lately. He's ten times better than many another."</p>

<p>"There, you see!"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Did you stop to watch that?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Do be quiet and let the lawyer tell us about Switzerland," said
Mrs. Molie.</p>

<p>Witch! Did she want to drive her fellow-being the Associate
Master into jumping off the highest peak of the Tore tonight?</p>

<p>But then Mrs. Brede took a hand. She understood Mr. Höy's
torment and wanted to help him. Had not this same Mr. Höy 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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>The lawyer only smiled at this.</p>

<p>Schoolmistress Johnsen talked about what she had learned,
watchmakers and the Alps and Calvin--</p>

<p>"Yes, those are the only three things in a thousand years," said
the Associate Master, his face quite altered and pale with
suppressed rage.</p>

<p>"Really, really, Associate Höy!" exclaimed Schoolmistress Palm
with a smile.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Yes, and what Swiss cheese," said the Associate Master. "It
smells like tourists' feet."</p>

<p>Dead silence. So Associate Master Höy was prepared to go to such
lengths!</p>

<p>"Well, what about Norwegian old-milk cheese?" said a Danish
voice mildly.</p>

<p>"Yes, that's filthy stuff, too," Mr. Höy replied. "Just the
thing for Schoolmaster Staur pontificating in his armchair."</p>

<p>Laughter.</p>

<p>Since matters were now smoothed over again, the lawyer could
safely continue:</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"And so on," interrupted Associate Master Höy. "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--"</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Just a moment!"</p>

<p>The Associate Master stopped.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"I should think I have," replied the Associate Master.</p>

<p>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. Höy 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.</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, of course Associate Master Höy has been in
Switzerland" she said, as though to clinch the matter.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"What about William Tell?" asked Miss Johnsen.</p>

<p>Several of the ladies nodded, or at any rate Miss Palm did.</p>

<p>At this point Mrs. Molie turned her head and looked out of the
window as she said:</p>

<p>"You really had a very different opinion about Switzerland
before, Mr. Associate Master."</p>

<p>This was a hit below the belt. He wanted to reply, wanted to
annihilate her, but he restrained himself and remained silent.</p>

<p>"Don't you remember?" she asked, goading him.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Another foul. Mrs. Molie said no more, merely smiling
patiently.</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What's your opinion?" asked Mrs. Brede, turning to the doyen of
the company, namely myself.</p>

<p>And as becomes a man of settled years, I replied:</p>

<p>"Probably there has been a little exaggeration on both
sides."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The lawyer rounded off the discussion thus:</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>That evening Mrs. Brede asked,</p>

<p>"Why did you make Mr. Höy look so unreasonable today, Mrs.
Molie?"</p>

<p>"I?" said Mrs., Molie innocently. "Well, really--!"</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XIV</h2>

<p>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!</p>

<p>But no one appears.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>So we no longer had the Tore peaks to ourselves, either.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"If you weren't alone up here, you might have got some of the
cars coming here too," said the lawyer.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Paul was not worrying. As we looked over the site together, I
discovered that he smelled of brandy.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"If there's anything to consult about, we had better do it now,"
he said. "I shall be away for a couple of days."</p>

<p>So they attended to a few minor matters.</p>

<p>"Are you going to town?" asked the lawyer.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Good luck!" said the lawyer.</p>

<p>So the lawyer sat drafting plans while the rest of us went about
our own affairs. Josephine went to Solem and said:</p>

<p>"Will you go and sow the field by the river?"</p>

<p>"Has Paul said so?" he asked.</p>

<p>"Yes," she replied.</p>

<p>Solem went very unwillingly. While he was drawing the harrow,
Josephine went down to him and said:</p>

<p>"Harrow it once more."</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Josephine, Joséfriendly!" I called her wittily.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XV</h2>

<p>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?</p>

<p>But a minor event caused her to stay.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Look, here's a sinful devil for you!"</p>

<p>"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!'"</p>

<p>"Tough, isn't he?" said the other ladies. "He's quite capable of
doing it, too!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Miss Torsen came by, stopped, and said:</p>

<p>"I hear you're going for a walk with Mrs. Brede?"</p>

<p>Solem removed his cap, which left a red ring round his
forehead.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>As nothing more was said, and Solem was preparing to depart,
Miss Torsen cleared her throat.</p>

<p>"Come with me instead!" she said.</p>

<p>Solem looked round quickly and said, "All right."</p>

<p>So I left them; I whistled as I walked away with exaggerated
indifference, as though nothing on earth were any concern of
mine.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;To the top of the steepest
mountains,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;where the little juniper stands,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;no other tree can follow<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;from all the forest lands.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Halfway to the hilltop<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;the shivering pine catches hold;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;the birch has actually passed him,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;though sneezing with a cold.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;But a little shrub outstrips them,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;a sturdy fellow he,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and stands quite close to the summit,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;though he measures barely a yard.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;They look like a train from the valley below<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;with the shortest one for the guard.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Or else perhaps he's a coachman now--<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;why, it's only a juniper tree.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Down dale there's summer
lightning,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;green leaves and St. John's feast,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;with songs and games of children,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and a dozen dances at least.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;But high on the empty mountain<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;stands a shrub in lonely glory,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;with only the trolls that prowl about,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;just like in a story.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;The wind with the juniper's forelock<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;is making very free;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;it sweeps across the world beneath<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;that lies there helpless and bare,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;but the air on the heights is fresher<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;than you'll ever find it elsewhere.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;None can see so far around<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;as such a juniper tree.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;There hovers over the mountain<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;for a moment summer's breath;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;at once eternal winter<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;brings back his companion, death.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Yet sturdy stands the juniper<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;with needles ever green.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;I wonder how the little chap<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;can bear a life so lean.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;He's hard as bone and gristle,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;as anyone can see;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;when every other tree is stripped,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;his berries are scarlet and sleek,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and every berry's plainly marked<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;with a cross upon its cheek.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;So now we know what he looks like too,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;this jolly juniper tree.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;At times I think he sings to
himself<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;a cheerful little song:<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;"I've got a bright blue heaven<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;to look at all day long!"<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Sometimes to his juniper brothers<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;he calls that they need not fear<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;the trolls that are prowling and peering<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;about them far and near.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Gently the winter evening<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;falls over the copse on the height,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and a thousand stars and candles<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;are lit in the plains of the sky.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;The juniper trees grow weary<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and nod their heads on the sly;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;before we know it they're fast asleep,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;so we say: "Good night, good night!"<br>
</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>A man should take his wife to Iceland with him. Or risk the
consequences of her being left behind for endless days.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XVI</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Was she? Why was her throat so blue under the chin, as though
someone had seized her by it?</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"But sooner or later there will have to be a road here," said
the lawyer.</p>

<p>"Of course," replied Paul with finality.</p>

<p>Then he went to his room and lay down again.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And here were all the strangers.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Where is the master, the host?"</p>

<p>"He's ill," said Josephine.</p>

<p>Solem returned and said:</p>

<p>"Einar hasn't time to come; he's lifting his potatoes."</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>Then Josephine said:</p>

<p>"I've got to go across the fjeld anyhow--wait a minute!"</p>

<p>She was gone for a moment, then returned, loaded the bags and
knapsacks on her little back, and trotted off. The others
followed.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I thought you had to cross the fjeld anyhow?" I said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Yes, but there's no hurry. I was to have visited someone, but
that can wait till the winter."</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Then I'll just take them and carry them myself," replied
Josephine, "and then <em>you'll</em> see!"</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>Then Josephine and I turned homeward again.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>You may quote Carlyle against me--how authors are misjudged!--
"<em>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</em>." 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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...."</p>

<p>This is honest speech.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XVII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Gracious, it makes me dizzy just to look at it!" she said.</p>

<p>So the lawyer put his arm round her to steady her.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I know another path; would you like to see it tonight?"</p>

<p>The lady was confused and a little embarrassed, and said at
length:</p>

<p>"A path? No, thank you."</p>

<p>She turned to the lawyer, and as they walked away together, she
said:</p>

<p>"I never heard of such brazenness!"</p>

<p>"What got into him?" said the lawyer.</p>

<p>Solem went away, his teeth gleaming in a sneer.</p>

<p>That evening, Solem repeated the performance. He went up to Miss
Torsen again and said:</p>

<p>"What about that path? Shall we go now?"</p>

<p>As soon as she saw him coming, she turned quickly and tried to
elude him. But Solem did not hesitate to follow her.</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What on earth are you doing?" I asked.</p>

<p>"Oh, I'm just marking myself," he replied, laughing gloomily.
"When this scratch grows out--"</p>

<p>He stopped.</p>

<p>"What then?"</p>

<p>"Oh, I'll be away from here then," he said.</p>

<p>But I had the impression that he meant to say something
different, so I probed further.</p>

<p>"Let me look. Well, it's not a deep scratch; you won't be here
long then, will you?"</p>

<p>"Nails grow slowly," he muttered.</p>

<p>Then he strolled away whistling, and I set about chopping
wood.</p>

<p>A little later Solem returned across the farmyard with a
cackling hen under his arm. He went to the kitchen window and
called:</p>

<p>"This the kind of hen you want me to kill?"</p>

<p>"Yes," was the reply.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I can feel her heart jumping inside her," said Solem.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I let her go too soon after all," said Solem.</p>

<p>Then he went off to fetch another hen.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XVIII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>Paul strode on. But even yet he felt he had not appeared
important enough, so he turned round and asked:</p>

<p>"Why didn't you take one of my cotters with you to act as
porter?"</p>

<p>"They wouldn't go," Solem replied. "They were busy lifting
potatoes."</p>

<p>"Wouldn't go?"</p>

<p>"That's what Einar said."</p>

<p>Paul thought this over.</p>

<p>"What insolence! They'd better not go too far or I'll drive them
off the place."</p>

<p>Then the law awoke in the lawyer's bosom, and he asked:</p>

<p>"Haven't they bought their land?"</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>Then he said sternly to Solem:</p>

<p>"You come to me next time."</p>

<p>Whereupon he stalked off to the woods again.</p>

<p>"He's a bit tight again, our good Paul," said the lawyer.</p>

<p>Nobody replied.</p>

<p>"Can you imagine an innkeeper in Switzerland behaving like
that?" the lawyer remarked.</p>

<p>Mrs. Brede said gently:</p>

<p>"What a pity! He never drank before."</p>

<p>And at once the lawyer was charitable again:</p>

<p>"I'll have a good talk with him," he said.</p>

<hr>
<p>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 <em>whrr</em> 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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"How long are you staying, Daddy?" his little girls asked, as
they clung to him.</p>

<p>"Three days."</p>

<p>"Is that all!" said his wife.</p>

<p>"Is that all?" he replied, laughing. "That's not such a short
time, my dear; three days is a lot for me."</p>

<p>"But not for me and the children," she said.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>One of the men from Bergen struck his glass for silence, and
began to make a speech.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>He talked for about five minutes, and became very animated.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But most of the time he told cheerful anecdotes:</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>Everybody laughed, and his wife asked:</p>

<p>"And what did you say?"</p>

<p>"What did I say? Why, I couldn't say anything, could I, ha, ha,
ha!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The manufacturer drank a toast with his wife.</p>

<p>"Well, that's that!" was all he said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"But just imagine coming across the fjeld from the other side!"
said Mrs. Molie. "It hasn't been done before."</p>

<p>In response to the manufacturer's questions, the Dane told him
about this adventurous journey also.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>Yes, the Dane felt quite tempted by this peak, but said he
believed it was unconquerable.</p>

<p>"I should have climbed that peak long ago if you, Miss Torsen,
hadn't forbidden me," said the lawyer.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"I shouldn't want anyone to think of climbing that peak," said
Miss Torsen. "It's as bare as a ship's mast."</p>

<p>"What if I tried it, Gerda?" the manufacturer asked his wife
with a smile. "After all, I'm an old sailor."</p>

<p>"Nonsense," she said, smiling a little.</p>

<p>"Well, I climbed the mast of a schooner last spring."</p>

<p>"Where?"</p>

<p>"In Iceland."</p>

<p>"What for?"</p>

<p>"I don't know, though--all this mountain climbing--I haven't
much use for it," said the manufacturer.</p>

<p>"What did you do it for? What did you climb the mast for?" his
wife repeated nervously.</p>

<p>The manufacturer laughed.</p>

<p>"The curiosity of the female sex--!"</p>

<p>"How can you do a thing like that! And what about me and the
children if you--"</p>

<p>She broke off. Her husband grew serious and took her hand.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>The manufacturer and his wife got up.</p>

<p>Then the first man from Bergen made another speech.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"So that's where he's gone?" he said. "Well, let him stay there,
for all I care!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I can't salute you," the manufacturer said to us, smiling. "I'm
not allowed to say good-bye."</p>

<p>The children rejoiced at this and cried, "No, he can't have his
arm back; Mummy, you hold him tight, too!"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Scotland? What are you going to Scotland for?" the children
asked.</p>

<p>He twisted round and nodded to us.</p>

<p>"These women! All curiosity!" he said.</p>

<p>But none of his family laughed.</p>

<p>He continued to us:</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His
wife stood still; her face was beautiful.</p>

<p>"So you're leaving now," was all she said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied
by his wife and children.</p>

<p>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--</p>

<p>Was he really everything to his wife?</p>

<p>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....</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XIX</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen;
the sirup had not come too late, Paul said angrily.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>They strolled down the field in the dusk.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish
in--goldfish?"</p>

<p>"Do you mean an aquarium?"</p>

<p>"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?"</p>

<p>"I don't know. Why?"</p>

<p>"I wonder if I could get one."</p>

<p>"What do you want it for?"</p>

<p>"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well,
perhaps it wouldn't."</p>

<p>And Paul withdrew.</p>

<p>Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XX</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But Miss Torsen went on swinging, and the lawyer went on putting
his arm round her and stopping her....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"The Danish gentleman is going to climb the peak tomorrow. I'm
to take a rope and go with him."</p>

<p>The lawyer was startled.</p>

<p>"Is he--?"</p>

<p>The blankness of the lawyer's face was a remarkable sight. His
small, athletic brain failed him. A moment passed in silence.</p>

<p>"Yes, early tomorrow morning," said Solem. "I thought I'd tell
you. Because after all it was your idea first."</p>

<p>"Yes, so it was," said the lawyer. "You're quite right. But now
he'll be ahead of me."</p>

<p>Solem knew how to get round that.</p>

<p>"No, I didn't promise to go," he said. "I told him I had to go
to the village tomorrow."</p>

<p>"But we can't deceive him. I don't want to do that."</p>

<p>"Pity," said Solem. "Everybody says the first one to climb the
Blue Peak will be in all the papers."</p>

<p>"He'll take offense," the lawyer murmured, considering the
matter.</p>

<p>But Solem urged him on:</p>

<p>"I don't think so. Anyhow, you were the first one to talk about
it."</p>

<p>"Everybody here will know, and I'll be prevented," said the
lawyer.</p>

<p>"We can go at dawn," said Solem.</p>

<p>In the end they came to an agreement.</p>

<p>"You won't tell anyone?" the lawyer said to me.</p>

<hr>
<p>The lawyer was missed in the course of the morning; he was not
in his room, and not in the garden.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>This surprised me greatly.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>At half-past eleven Solem came running back; he was drenched in
sweat and exhausted.</p>

<p>"Come and help us!" he called excitedly to the group of
guests.</p>

<p>"What's happened?" somebody asked.</p>

<p>"He fell off."</p>

<p>How tired Solem was and drenched to the skin! But what could we
do? Rush up the mountainside and look at the accident too?</p>

<p>"Can't he walk?" somebody asked.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>A few more questions and answers. Josephine was already halfway
across the field; she was going to the village to telephone for the
doctor.</p>

<p>"We shall have to get him down," said the Danish
mountaineer.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Did you really say nothing to Solem about climbing the peak
today?" I asked the Dane.</p>

<p>"No," he replied. "I never said a word about it. If I had meant
to go, I should certainly not have wanted company...."</p>

<p>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...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>No, the Associate Master was no tourist, and did not understand
the Anglo-Saxon mind.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And since it was a death to which we owed this attention, one of
the men from Bergen made a speech.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXI</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>"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:</p>

<p>"Solem's with death."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>To me, Solem said:</p>

<p>"Funny the accident should have happened just when the scratch
on my nail has grown out, isn't it?"</p>

<p>He showed me his thumbnail; there was no mark on it.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Yes, indeed, the newspapermen appreciated it. And they did their
advertising.</p>

<p>The English arrived.</p>

<p>"Where is Solem?" they asked, and "Where is the Blue Peak?" they
asked.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And the tourists swarmed on to other places.</p>

<p class="poetry">"What harm have I done them," Paul probably<br>
 thought, "that they should be going again? Have I been<br>
 too much in the fields and too little with them? But I<br>
 greeted them humbly and took my man out of the<br>
 harvesting work to help them...."<br>
</p>

<p>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,</p>

<p>"There's what's left of your lawyer that fell off."</p>

<p>"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other sprout.</p>

<p>Yes, truly, they had acquired dashing ways among their sporting
acquaintances.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The hay that still lay spread on the ground was black and
rotting, and the stacks had gone moldy.</p>

<p>The cotters had got their hay indoors during the patient spell.
They had carried it, man, woman, and child, on their backs.</p>

<p>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 Höy and Mrs. Molie were the last to go; they
left last week, traveling separately, though both were going to the
same small town.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>From old habit, I still take an interest in the few of us who
are left; Miss Torsen is still here.</p>

<p>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 <em>Artemis
cotula</em>, but undernourished her soul. That is what she is doing
here.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Isn't that man leaving soon?"</p>

<p>"Yes," Josephine replied, "in a few days."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<hr>
<p>Here am I, growing small and petty with this life. I question
Solem about the accident. We are alone together in the
woodshed.</p>

<p>Why had he lied and said the Dane wanted to climb the Blue Peak
that unfortunate Sunday morning?</p>

<p>Solem looked at me, pretending not to understand.</p>

<p>I repeated my question.</p>

<p>Solem denied he had said any such thing.</p>

<p>"I heard you," I said.</p>

<p>"No, you didn't," he said.</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p><em>Finis.</em></p>

<p class="poetry">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.
</p>

<p>An interlude:</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then he grows angry.</p>

<p>"What the devil did you send for me for?" he asks roughly.</p>

<p>And she begins to weep and says:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The sound caught his attention at once, and he hushed her,
trying to listen; but she said:</p>

<p>"No, it was nothing...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>The pair drifted away.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;What would my heart, where would I
stray?<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Shall I leave the forest behind me?<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;It was my home but yesterday;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;now toward the city I wend my way;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;to the darkness of night I've resigned me.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;The world round me sleeps as I tarry,
alone,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;soothing my ear with its quiet.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;How large and gray is the city of stone<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;in which the many all hopes enthrone!<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;Shall I, too, accept their fiat?<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Hark! Do the bells ring on the
hillside?<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Back to the peace of the forest I
turn<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;in the nightly hour that's hoarest.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;There's a sweet-smelling hedgerow to which I
yearn;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;I shall rest my head on heather and fern,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and sleep in the depths of the forest.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Hark, how the bells ring on the
hillside!<br>
</p>

<p>Romantic? Yes. Mere sentimentality, mood, rhyme--nothing?
Yes.</p>

<p>It is the last happiness.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXIII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Now it is sunset, and the woods bend under a rustling that
passes through them sweet and heavy; it is the evening.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Suddenly I stop.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Not a single cry.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>What a man!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXIV</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then Solem was gone.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Where is Solem?" she asked indignantly.</p>

<p>"Solem has gone now," Josephine replied.</p>

<p>"Lucky for him!"</p>

<p>"Why?" asked Josephine.</p>

<p>"Oh, he's a dreadful creature!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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 <em>über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'</em> 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.</p>

<p>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 <em>wanted</em> me to hear.</p>

<p>Why should I listen to him still pleading with her?</p>

<p>"I've had enough of this," he said. "I'm leaving tomorrow."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Dear child, Pharaoh laughs before his pyramids; standing before
his pyramids he laughs. He would laugh at me, too.</p>

<hr>
<p>Next day we three remaining guests were sitting in the living
room. The lady and the actor read one book; I read another.</p>

<p>"Will you," she says to him, "do me a great favor?"</p>

<p>"With pleasure."</p>

<p>"Would you go out in the grounds where we sat yesterday and
fetch my galoshes?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>She turned to me.</p>

<p>"You seem silent."</p>

<p>"Do I?"</p>

<p>"Yes, you're very silent."</p>

<p>"Listen to this," I said, and began to read to her from the book
I held in my hands. I read a longish bit.</p>

<p>She tried to interrupt me several times, and at length said
impatiently:</p>

<p>"What is this you want me to listen to?"</p>

<p>"The <em>Musketeers</em>. You must admit it's entertaining."</p>

<p>"I've read it," she said. And then she began to clasp her hands
and drag them apart again.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned.</p>

<p>"I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said.</p>

<p>"No?" she replied absently.</p>

<p>"No, I really looked everywhere, but...."</p>

<p>She got up and left the room.</p>

<p>He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a
moment. Then it occurred to him.</p>

<p>"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he
said, and hurried after her.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She
had turned him out; she had wept.</p>

<p>I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her
type.</p>

<p>"Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I
shall leave tomorrow."</p>

<p>"Have you found the galoshes?" I asked.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"She'll get over it."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>He sat on a while, but he had no peace of mind, and soon went
out again.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then it probably dawned on him that he had betrayed her, and he
tried to cover it up somehow.</p>

<p>"Well, here goes for food!" he said, as though he were going to
require all his energy for the task of eating.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXV</h2>

<p>A few days later, they were going to leave. They would travel
together, and that would be the end.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>That was the end of the act. But there were more acts to
come--many more.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>This is the Torsen type.</p>

<p>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 <em>mensa</em>.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>He strolled about the garden waiting for her to get ready. Once
she was visible through the doorway, and he called to her:</p>

<p>"Aren't you coming soon? Don't forget we've got to cross the
mountain!"</p>

<p>"Well, I can't go bareheaded," she replied.</p>

<p>He was impatient.</p>

<p>"No, you've got to put your hat on, and what a lot of time that
takes! Ugh!"</p>

<p>She measured him coldly and said:</p>

<p>"You're very--familiar."</p>

<p>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,</p>

<p>"Familiar? Well--perhaps. Sorry!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Why don't you say something?" she asks in order to seem bright
and easy in her mind.</p>

<p>"Because I don't want to hurt you in the great error of your
ways."</p>

<p>"Ha, ha, ha," she laughs, too loudly and in a forced tone; "the
great error of my ways! Well, really!"</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Don't throw yourself away, Miss Torsen!"</p>

<p>She raises her head then; yes, the Torsen type would raise her
head and reply, pale and offended:</p>

<p>"Throw myself away?--I don't understand you."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Good-bye," I say to the actor. "Will you remember me to Miss
Torsen? I must go now."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>Here they come.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>They disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.</p>

<p>Her name was Ingeborg.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXVI</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>And Josephine went off to serve me my dinner.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then I reached my own hut of last winter where I had passed so
many lonely months. I did not enter it.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<hr>
<p>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. "<em>Thalatta!</em>" 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I expect you want a boat?"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Great changes here; the motor traffic in Stordalen must have
completely altered all the other traffic since my last visit ten
months ago.</p>

<p>"Where can I stop for a few days?" I asked.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>She showed me the two places on this side of the water, close to
the shore, and I proceeded thither.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXVII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>This was Eilert. He took in paying guests now.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Well, well," he said, "what a nice surprise! You are most
welcome under my humble roof, and such it is!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"So you've turned into a hotelkeeper," I said.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"Lucky I've met you," I said. "Why, I might have gone on down
the road to his place!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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 <em>had</em> recognized her face at an
upper window. Yes, indeed, the world is small.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>As we stood there, a rather stout girl came down from the loft
and addressed the actor:</p>

<p>"The missis wants you to come right upstairs."</p>

<p>"Oh? Very well, at once.... Well, see you later. You'll be
stopping here, too, I expect?"</p>

<p>He hurried up the stairs.</p>

<p>Eilert and I followed to my room.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>It all looks good to me, Eilert: your wife and everything you
tell me about your family.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert
said, as long as there was not too much of it.</p>

<p>"Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky;
"the bigger the wind, the stronger the current."</p>

<p>At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of
Eilert's French words: <em>travali, prekevary, sutinary,
mankémang</em>, and many others. They've had a long way to travel,
coming here by ancient routes via Bergen, and now they're common
property.</p>

<p>And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt
extremely ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock.</p>

<p>"Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore
for a while."</p>

<p>But we got nothing there either, and as the wind increased and
the sea rose, "We'd better go home," said Eilert.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>We rowed in the foam and feathery jets of spray. "She's rising
fast!" cried Eilert, rowing with all his might.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Yes, I get seasick sometimes, too," says Eilert.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXVIII</h2>

<p>Next morning they had gone.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>"Do you know where your husband is?" I asked her.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"Maybe," was all I said. But I thought to myself: "They're
leaving, all right. They had their knapsacks on their backs."</p>

<p>"Funny couple," Regine resumed. "Nothing to eat, no coffee, not
a thing! And the missis not wanting anything to eat last night,
neither!"</p>

<p>I merely shook my head and went out. Regine called to me that
coffee was nearly ready, so if I'd like a cup--</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>Of course it was the bill again.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Well, there was no help for it.</p>

<p>"Here's their address," says Eilert. "We can send the clothes
next Thursday; that's the next trip the boat goes south again."</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>Eilert shook a long-armed fist at the sky.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>So he had caught it, too--the great, modern Norwegian
disease!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXIX</h2>

<p>Once more I was run into a party of English, the last for this
year.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And what a sensation they made!</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Where's the car? Bring the car down!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Stordalen!" he cried.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>Then the horn of the car was heard tooting in the woods, and
everyone raced to meet it.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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?"</p>

<p>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....</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What are you doing?" I said.</p>

<p>At first he tried to brazen it out.</p>

<p>"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:</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>May no one ever grow worse with a new livelihood!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Enough of these clothes!</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXX</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Everything is changed; I am changed. The tale lies within the
teller.</p>

<p>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
<em>alias</em>, 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.</p>

<p>Let sitting men wear warm stockings.</p>

<hr>
<p>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....</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>No, thank you, I'm only just in my seventies.</p>

<p>And so in my errand of the head I pass by the barn.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>It doesn't matter.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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...."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXI</h2>

<p>What now?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Isn't it--? Oh, no, excuse me, I thought--"</p>

<p>"Yes, it is. Good evening, Miss Torsen."</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"Do you live here? What a strange coincidence!"</p>

<p>"Yes, I live here; those are my windows. You wouldn't like to
come up, would you? No, perhaps you wouldn't."</p>

<p>"But I know where there are some benches down by the shore.
Unless you're cold?" I suggested.</p>

<p>"No, I'm not cold. Yes, thank you, I'd like to."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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...</p>

<p>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 <em>his</em> preoccupation. So she was not
the center of the universe after all.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>At one place they stopped for food.</p>

<p>"Will you pay for mine for the time being?" he said.</p>

<p>She hesitated and then said briefly that she could not pay "for
the time being" all the way.</p>

<p>"Of course not, by no means," said he. "Just for the moment.
Perhaps we can get a loan further down the valley."</p>

<p>"I don't borrow."</p>

<p>"Ingeborg!" said he, pretending playfully to whimper.</p>

<p>"What is it?"</p>

<p>"Nothing. Can't I say 'Ingeborg' to my own wife?"</p>

<p>"I'm not your own wife," she said, getting up.</p>

<p>"Pish! We were man and wife last night. It says so in the
visitors' book."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"'Miss Torsen,' then?" he whimpered.</p>

<p>And to put an end to the game, she paid for both of them and
took her knapsack on her back.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Go away--go on by yourself; I don't want you in my room any
more!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>She ate alone that evening.</p>

<p>"Isn't your husband coming in?" asked the woman of the
house.</p>

<p>"Perhaps he doesn't want anything," she replied.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Go in and eat!"</p>

<p>But he had not sunk quite so low; he would not go in to eat, and
slept under no roof that night.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Of course I shouldn't accept this, but there's no other way,"
he said, and left her.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Go on, don't mind me," she said.</p>

<p>So he lit it, but he was careful not to blow the smoke into her
face.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Please eat," she said. "You don't mind my sitting here?"</p>

<p>"Not at all," he replied. He knocked out his pipe slowly, taking
plenty of time over it; then sat still again.</p>

<p>"I don't really need anything to eat yet, either," he said.</p>

<p>"Oh--haven't you come far?"</p>

<p>"No, only last night. Where do you come from, lady?"</p>

<p>"From the town. I've been on holiday."</p>

<p>"That's what I thought," he said, nodding his head.</p>

<p>"I've been up at the Tore Peak farm," she added.</p>

<p>"The Tore Peak? So."</p>

<p>"Do you know it?"</p>

<p>"No, but I know some of the people there."</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>"Josephine's there," he resumed.</p>

<p>"Yes. Do you know her?"</p>

<p>"Oh, no."</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>"Why, yes, thank you." Could she have a little of his, "just a
little in the saucer?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Haven't you a berth?" he asked.</p>

<p>"Yes, but I'd rather stay here," she said. "If I go below, I'll
be sick."</p>

<p>"That's what I thought. Well, now I wonder--"</p>

<p>With that he got up and walked slowly and heavily away. She
watched his back disappearing down the companion to the lower
deck.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>She threw up her hands and overdid things a little:</p>

<p>"Great heavens! Really, you're much, much too kind!"</p>

<p>"Well, I thought since you were sitting here anyhow--"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I wonder if he's afraid he'll wake me," she thought.</p>

<p>At one stop, her former traveling companion turned up again; he
had been below in the cabin.</p>

<p>"Aren't you coming down, Ingeborg?" he asked.</p>

<p>She did not reply.</p>

<p>The carpenter looked from one to the other.</p>

<p>"Miss Torsen, then!" whimpered the traveling companion
playfully. He stood waiting a moment, and finally went away.</p>

<p>"Ingeborg," the carpenter was probably thinking. "Miss Torsen,"
he was thinking.</p>

<p>"How long will you be in the town?" she asked, getting up.</p>

<p>"Oh, I'll be there some time."</p>

<p>"What are you doing there?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I want to learn a little more in my trade, be an apprentice,
maybe. It all depends."</p>

<p>"Oh, I see."</p>

<p>"What do you think of it?" he asked.</p>

<p>"I think it's a good idea."</p>

<p>"Do you?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Her quondam traveling companion stuck his head out of a doorway,
the wind blowing his hair forward over his forehead, and cried:</p>

<p>"Ingeborg, go below, will you!"</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>"Good gracious!" he exclaimed and disappeared.</p>

<p>At about three o'clock, the carpenter turned up with coffee and
sandwiches again.</p>

<p>"Really you mustn't be doing this all the time," she said.</p>

<p>He merely laughed good-naturedly again, and told her to eat if
she thought it was good enough.</p>

<p>"We'll soon be there now," she said as she ate. "Have you
someone to go to?"</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, I have a sister."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"Yes, indeed."</p>

<p>"You think so too?"</p>

<p>"Oh, yes. I think so."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>As the boat drew alongside the pier, he offered her his hand and
said:</p>

<p>"My name is Nikolai."</p>

<p>"Oh, yes?"</p>

<p>"I thought in case we meet again--Nikolai Palm--but I expect the
town's too big--"</p>

<p>"Yes, I expect it is. Well, thanks ever so much for all your
kindness. Good-bye."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXII</h2>

<p>I ask Miss Torsen:</p>

<p>"Have you met the carpenter since?"</p>

<p>"What carpenter? Oh--no, I haven't. I only told you about him
because he's a sort of mutual acquaintance."</p>

<p>"Acquaintance?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Well, the world's a small place. We all belong to the same
family."</p>

<p>"And that's why I've told you all this about him."</p>

<p>"But you didn't find out about this relationship on the boat,
did you? So you must have met him since."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Ha, ha, ha!"</p>

<p>"It was just in passing, quite by accident."</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>"That's right."</p>

<p>"I expect you and the carpenter will be getting married," I
said.</p>

<p>"Ha, ha! No, indeed, I shan't marry anyone."</p>

<p>"No?"</p>

<p>"You have to be pretty naïve to marry."</p>

<p>"Well, I don't know that being naïve 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."</p>

<p>"I should have thought being clever is just the thing to protect
you against being cheated. What else would it do?"</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>"Well, in that case it's pretty hopeless!"</p>

<p>"Relying on your cleverness--yes. That was your own opinion last
summer, you know."</p>

<p>"Yes, I remember that. I thought--oh, I don't know. But when I
came back to town again it was as though--"</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>"I don't know what to think," she said.</p>

<p>"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 naïve. 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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Yes, that's what it says in the Oslo morning paper. Because it
used to say so in the <em>Neue Freie Presse</em>. But a person with
character goes his own way up to a point, even if the majority go a
different way."</p>

<p>"Yes--well, I'm really going to tell you something now," she
said, stopping. "I go to a really sensible school during the
day."</p>

<p>"Do you?" I said.</p>

<p>"Only this time I'm learning housekeeping; isn't that a good
thing?"</p>

<p>"You mean you're learning to cut sandwiches for yourself?"</p>

<p>"Ha, ha!"</p>

<p>"Well, you said you weren't going to marry!"</p>

<p>"Oh, I don't know."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"His valley? Whose valley?"</p>

<p>"You'd much better go to his mother's and learn all the
housekeeping you're going to need from her."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"So much the worse for you. There ought to be somebody."</p>

<p>"Yes, but suppose it's not the one I want."</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, it will be the one you want. You're big enough and
handsome enough and capable enough."</p>

<p>"Thank you very much, but--well. Thanks so much. Good
night."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then something happened.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"Going to post a letter, I see."</p>

<p>"Yes, I was going to post a letter. It's only--it's not--"</p>

<p>We went to a newspaper office with the letter. It was evidently
an advertisement; perhaps she was trying to find a situation.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>"Look, I have a suggestion," he said. Then they discussed
something, agreed about something, and she nodded. After that he
left her.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Hans Flaten never changes," she said finally.</p>

<p>"Is that who it was?" I asked.</p>

<p>"His name's Flaten."</p>

<p>"Yes, I remember you mentioned the name last summer. Who is
he?"</p>

<p>"His father's a merchant."</p>

<p>"But he himself?"</p>

<p>"His father owns the big shop in Almes Street, you know."</p>

<p>"Yes, but what about <em>him</em>; what does he do?"</p>

<p>"I don't know if he does anything special; he just studies. His
father's so rich, you know."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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!'"</p>

<p>"He dresses as though he were a baron," I said.</p>

<p>"Yes," she replied, rather offended. "Yes, he dresses
well--always has."</p>

<p>"Is that the man you want?" I asked lightly.</p>

<p>She was silent a moment, and then said with a resolute nod:</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"What--that dandy?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Then I suppose he's too rich to marry her," I thought, and
asked nothing more.</p>

<p>When we parted, I said:</p>

<p>"Where does Carpenter Nikolai work?"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"Nothing. I just wondered if he's at a good place, with a
competent master."</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>No, what could I expect?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>On the way home he said:</p>

<p>"I ought not to ask you, I expect, but would you go to the
<em>Krone</em> with me tomorrow evening?"</p>

<p>"The <em>Krone</em>--what's that?"</p>

<p>"It's a place where they dance."</p>

<p>"A dance hall, in other words. Where is it? Do you feel so much
like dancing?"</p>

<p>"No, not much."</p>

<p>"You want to see what goes on there?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"All right, I'll go."</p>

<hr>
<p>It was on a Sunday evening, the girls' and boys' own evening,
that the carpenter and I went to the dance.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"We can't do anything about it," I called after him.</p>

<p>"No," he said. "But I wonder--?"</p>

<p>He crossed the yard and began to look up at all the windows.</p>

<p>A man came down the stairs.</p>

<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>

<p>"My friend wanted to buy a ticket," I replied. The carpenter
still showed no inclination to return from the yard.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Come along, we can't get in!" I called to my companion.</p>

<p>But he was in no hurry, so I chatted with the landlord while
waiting for him.</p>

<p>"Yes, it's rather an exclusive club. Only eight couples, but
just the same they've hired a full orchestra--rich people, you
see."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>The carpenter, who had come halfway back, stood listening to
us.</p>

<p>"What sort of people are they, generally speaking?" I inquired.
"Businessmen, officers, or what?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"It's Flaten," said the carpenter.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>The landlord left us.</p>

<p>But the carpenter followed him.</p>

<p>"Couldn't we look on?" he asked.</p>

<p>"What, at the dancing? Oh, no."</p>

<p>"In a corner somewhere?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Are you coming or--?" I called, as though for the last
time.</p>

<p>"Yes, I'm coming," said the carpenter, turning back.</p>

<p>"So you knew about this party?" I said.</p>

<p>"Yes," he replied. "She talked about it last Friday."</p>

<p>"Who talked about it? Miss Torsen?"</p>

<p>"Yes. She said I might sit in the gallery."</p>

<p>We walked on down the street, each busy with his own
thoughts--or perhaps with the same thought. I, at least, was
furious.</p>

<p class="poetry">"Really, my good Nikolai, I have no desire to
buy<br>
 tickets in order to look at Mr. Flaten and his ladies!"<br>
</p>

<p>"No."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Did Miss Torsen want me to sit in the gallery, too--did she say
anything about that?"</p>

<p>"No," he replied.</p>

<p>"Didn't she say anything about me?"</p>

<p>"No."</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>Cars rolled up behind us and stopped at the <em>Krone</em>.
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>We had to pass the <em>Krone</em> again. The cars had gone.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"No, let's go inside," I said.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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 <em>öre</em>. 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Can that be Solem down there dominating the crowd?" I
thought.</p>

<p>"Wouldn't you like to dance?" I asked Carpenter Nikolai.</p>

<p>"Oh, no," he replied with a smile.</p>

<p>"Then we can leave any time you like."</p>

<p>"All right," he said and remained seated.</p>

<p>"Your thoughts seem to be far away."</p>

<p>A long pause.</p>

<p>"I was thinking that I haven't a horse on my farm. I have to
carry all the manure and the wood myself."</p>

<p>"So that's why you're so strong."</p>

<p>"I'll have to go home in a few days and chop wood for the
winter."</p>

<p>"Yes, of course you will."</p>

<p>"I was going to say--," he persisted, and then fell silent.</p>

<p>"Yes?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Why should I go there?" Still--it wasn't a bad idea.</p>

<p>"It would be nice if you could," said the carpenter.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>This was a woman for Solem.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then something happened.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Ah, Solem, Solem--how the ladies loved him!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXIII</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 <em>kroner</em>, but he got it for
eighteen! I am sure Nikolai is much happier about his overcoat than
Flaten is about his.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"And you're not wearing mourning?" I said.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"I think you've hit the truth there."</p>

<p>She looked startled.</p>

<p>"What do you mean?"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>This was all too gravely spoken, but I was like a father and
meant well.</p>

<p>She began to walk on, her head bent in thought. Then she said
something very sensible:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Would you like to go to a concert with me?" I asked.</p>

<p>"Now? No, thank you, I'm not dressed for it."</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>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:
<em>Ballads, Bachiads, Offenbachiads, Bacchanales</em>. 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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Whoa!" said the gentleman and caught hold of her. "Is that your
child!"</p>

<p>"Yes, he's mine."</p>

<p>"What, a boy?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Are you going off to drown the child?" somebody says.</p>

<p>"No," says the girl in confusion.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Poor bastard," he said. "Born of a maiden!"</p>

<p>"That's better!" the others remarked. "Now let's do something,"
they said. "Where do you live?" to the girl.</p>

<p>"I've lived at such and such places," she replied.
"<em>Have</em> 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.</p>

<p>"Wait a minute--wait--I haven't given her enough; I asked her
such a nasty question," said the first of them.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Go ahead--I want to go to Langes Street!" he called to the
driver.</p>

<p>Bengt was taking the child home to his mother, the others said.
The group were rather silent after this.</p>

<p>"Your eyes are so ridiculously wet, Bolt; are you crying about
the money?"</p>

<p>"What about you?" Bolt replied. "You're as sentimental as an old
woman!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"Take it to this address," they said to the peasant.</p>

<p>By the time they had finished with this, Bengt had returned.</p>

<p>"Where have <em>you</em> been?" they asked in surprise.</p>

<p>"The old lady said yes," was all he replied.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p><em>"Walk!"</em> someone mocks. "No, indeed, we'll drive-waiter,
cars!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Where to?" asked the drivers.</p>

<p>"Next door," they said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The bar was closed.</p>

<p>"Shall we break in?" they said.</p>

<p>"Of course," they said.</p>

<p>So they all ran against the door together, till it said
<em>ump!</em> 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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>Later we were discussing Miss Torsen's story; she had forgotten
one or two details which she filled in afterwards.</p>

<p>"Anyhow, it was lucky for the girl with the baby," she said.</p>

<p>"And for the baby itself," I said.</p>

<p>"Yes. But what an idea! Poor old lady, to be told such a
tale!"</p>

<p>"Some day perhaps you'll change your mind about that."</p>

<p>"You think so? But it would have been nicer still if I'd got the
money they settled on the child."</p>

<p>"You'll change your mind about that, too."</p>

<p>"Shall I? Why? When?"</p>

<p>"When you yourself have a baby that smiles at you."</p>

<p>"Ugh, how can you say such things!"</p>

<p>She must have misunderstood my meaning, for she was childishly
offended. To restore her to good humor I asked at random:</p>

<p>"What sort of food did you get at the party?"</p>

<p>"Don't know," she replied.</p>

<p>"Don't you know?"</p>

<p>"Good lord, no--I wasn't there," she returned in the greatest
amazement.</p>

<p>"Well, no, of course not, I only thought--"</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Oh, so you just make conversation with me; you adapt your
speech to suit my narrow outlook!"</p>

<p>A pause.</p>

<p>"Anyhow, perhaps you're right up to a point; I might have asked
about the food, only I forgot."</p>

<p>She seemed very irritable that evening. Would it interest her to
talk about Flaten? A little apprehensively, I ventured:</p>

<p>"But you haven't told me whom Flaten is going to marry."</p>

<p>"She's not pretty at all," she replied suddenly. "What do you
want to know for? You don't know her."</p>

<p>"I suppose Flaten will be entering his father's firm now?" I
persisted.</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>"I only thought once he's married--"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"I'm not laughing."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"A human journal?"</p>

<p>"Yes. And you ought to subscribe to it," she added suddenly,
almost throwing the words into my face.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Dear child, don't cry. I shan't torment you any more."</p>

<p>"You're not tormenting me."</p>

<p>"Yes, by talking nonsense; I don't seem to strike the right
note."</p>

<p>"Yes, go on talking--that isn't it--I don't know--"</p>

<p>What could I say to her? But since there is, after all, nothing
so interesting as a question about oneself, I said:</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"You're wrong," she said, shaking her head. "That doesn't really
mean anything to me; I was just slightly attracted to him."</p>

<p>"But you said he was the only one!"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Are you? I hope you'll find a good one."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Not very good pay either, I expect?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I forgot to ask you to forgive me," she said.</p>

<p>"My dear girl--?"</p>

<p>"Oh, for saying what I did. You mustn't subscribe. I'm so sorry
about that. Please be kind and forgive me."</p>

<p>She took my hand and shook it.</p>

<p>In my amazement I stammered:</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"Yes. Good night. Forgive me for the whole evening."</p>

<p>"Let me take you home; why not stay a few minutes--"</p>

<p>"No, thank you."</p>

<p>She pressed my hand firmly and left me.</p>

<p>I suppose she wanted to spare my aging legs, damn them!
Nevertheless I stole after her to see that she got home safely.</p>

<hr>
<p>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 Joséfriendly.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Well, I expect your old father is dead by now?"</p>

<p>"No, praise be," she replied. "Father is better than we dared
hope. We must be thankful he's still on his feet."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Oh, so she was going home?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>I asked in some surprise whether they had been engaged. I had
had no inkling--</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Suddenly Josephine caught herself up:</p>

<p>"Good gracious--I nearly forgot to buy the indigo. It's for my
weaving. Lucky I remembered it! Well--thanks for your
hospitality."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXIV</h2>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"I saw him take the sleigh, so I expect he's gone to the
woods."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>They had only been married a couple of years. Nikolai is six and
twenty.</p>

<p>I ponder over this arithmetic, but as I am old and incapable, I
cannot make it tally.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>I said I had met her at Tore Peak.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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?</p>

<p>The schoolmaster gossiped thus:</p>

<p>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
<em>was</em> too late, she said; it was the children's turn to
marry now, she said.</p>

<p>"Well, she's pretty old now, isn't she?" I said.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Perhaps she's not waiting at all."</p>

<p>"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...."</p>

<p>As I walked home from the schoolmaster's, I found I understood
Petra's arithmetic much better.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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 <em>kroner</em>. 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.</p>

<p class="poetry">"Look here, Petra--why don't you give Nikolai the
two hundred<br>
 <em>kroner</em> he needs for fodder for a horse?"<br>
</p>

<p>"And four hundred to buy the horse," she muttered.</p>

<p>"That makes six."</p>

<p>"I haven't got such a lot of six hundred <em>kroners</em> lying
about."</p>

<p>"But wouldn't the horse be useful for plowing?"</p>

<p>A pause. Then:</p>

<p>"He can break the ground himself."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>

<p>"Only someone to buy eggs."</p>

<p>"What's the price per score now?"</p>

<p>His brother told him.</p>

<p>"Then give him the small eggs," he cautioned.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>"They don't pay for joinery here," Petra replied. "People buy
their chairs and tables from the shops now; it's cheaper."</p>

<p>"Then why is Nikolai working as an apprentice?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Well, what else could he do?"</p>

<p>A pause. Petra's big mouth is closed. But at length she
says:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Ah," I thought to myself, "the cat sticking its nose out of the
bag!"</p>

<p>"'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.'"</p>

<p>Just to say something, I asked her:</p>

<p>"Four rooms--I thought you only had three?"</p>

<p>"Yes, but the workshop could be turned into a room, too," the
big mouth replied.</p>

<p>"So that's it!" I thought. With hardly a pause, I continued:</p>

<p>"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to
get a horse, wouldn't he?"</p>

<p>"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied.</p>

<p>"It's four hundred <em>kroner</em>."</p>

<p>"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty."</p>

<p>"But this land won't feed a horse!"</p>

<p>"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy
sacks of oats on the headland."</p>

<p>"That's eighteen <em>kroner</em> a sack."</p>

<p>"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first
tourist."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all
works out as it should--and it probably will.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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
<em>windwhirr</em>.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;We came from the meadow<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;and downy heather;<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;we came from friendship,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;too-loo-loo-lay!<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;A star that watched<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;saw lips meet lips.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;None else so dear,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;so sweet as you.<br>
</p>

<p class="poetry">&nbsp;&nbsp;Those youthful days,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;those happy days,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;unmatched since then!<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;but what am I now?<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;The bees once swarmed,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;the swan once played.<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;There's no play now,<br>
 &nbsp;&nbsp;yet too-loo-loo-lay!<br>
</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>There is a letter for me. Who on earth has found me out here?
The letter is as follows:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>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.</p>

<p>Yours,</p>

<p>Ingeborg Torsen</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But what on earth can this mean? Has she been to my landlady's
and got my address? Or has she met Nikolai?</p>

<p>I left at once.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXV</h2>

<p>My landlady was surprised.</p>

<p>"Why, good evening. How well and happy you look! Here's your
mail."</p>

<p>"Let it lie. I must tell you, Madame Henriksen, that you are a
jewel."</p>

<p>"Ha, ha, ha!"</p>

<p>"Yes, you are. You are a very kind woman. But you have given my
address to someone."</p>

<p>"No, indeed; I swear I haven't."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"A lady? You sent a message just now?"</p>

<p>"A little while ago, as soon as you came in. A young, handsome
lady; she might have been your daughter, you know."</p>

<p>"Thank you."</p>

<p>"Well, I'm only saying what's so. She said she would come at
once, because she had to see you about something."</p>

<p>The landlady left me.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>Then she knocked and came in.</p>

<p>I made no move to shake hands, and neither did she; I merely
drew out a chair for her.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>I saw that it was something serious, and my heart began to
pound. Why should my heart be affected?</p>

<p>"This is the first time you've been in my rooms," I said,
expectant and on the defensive.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"Perhaps <em>now</em> I've done something you'll approve of?"
she said, suddenly pulling off her glove.</p>

<p>She had a ring on her finger.</p>

<p>"Good," I said. It didn't affect me immediately; I was to
understand more later, and merely asked:</p>

<p>"Are you engaged?"</p>

<p>"Yes," she replied. And she looked at me with a smile, though
her mouth shook.</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"Oh, I don't know--"</p>

<p>"But it was absolutely the best thing. And I just thought I'd
tell you."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>A pause. She said nothing more, so what could I say? But as the
minutes passed and I saw she was distressed, I said:</p>

<p>"Why did you want to tell me this?"</p>

<p>"Yes--why did I?"</p>

<p>"Perhaps for a moment you thought you were the center of the
world again, but--"</p>

<p>"Yes, I expect so."</p>

<p>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--</p>

<p>"Miss Ingeborg!"</p>

<p>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--</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What's the matter?" she asked.</p>

<p>"Don't go, not yet, not at once; sit down again and talk to me
more."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>And with that I swept them up and threw them into the fire.</p>

<p>"Oh--what are you doing?" she cried, and ran to the fireplace,
trying to save them.</p>

<p>"Don't bother," I said. "I expect no happiness to come to me
through the post, and sorrows I do not seek."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>No doubt she had been taken aback by my violence, for she sank
into her chair almost absently.</p>

<p>"I'm not unhappy," she said.</p>

<p>"Aren't you? So much the better!"</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"But you don't even know who it is!" she interrupted, looking at
me apprehensively again.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>She shook her head.</p>

<p>"Then a big, good-natured man who wants to dance with you--"</p>

<p>"Yes, perhaps," she said slowly.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"How did you like the country?" she asked suddenly. As I could
not see the drift of this question, I merely looked at her.</p>

<p>"Weren't you at Nikolai's mother's house?" she persisted.</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"What is she like?"</p>

<p>"Are you interested in her?"</p>

<p>"No, I don't suppose so. Oh dear!" she sighed wearily.</p>

<p>"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....'"</p>

<p>But she was looking at the wall again, drifting away from me
again. I changed the subject clumsily:</p>

<p>"Of course you'd rather hear about people you know--about Tore
Peak, for instance. Josephine has been in town."</p>

<p>"Yes, I know," she said, nodding her head.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>She stared at me foolishly.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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:</p>

<p>"So you think I ought to do it?"</p>

<p>I was taken aback by the question, and replied:</p>

<p>"Ought to do it? Haven't you done it already?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Well, I don't know. I can't tell."</p>

<p>I crossed the room to her.</p>

<p>"Who is it?"</p>

<p>"Oh, God, no; let's drop it. I can't bear any more now. Good
night."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"I'll try to see her tomorrow," I thought.</p>

<hr>
<p>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--</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>She's already gone away; they left as soon as they were married,
last week. She's married to Nikolai, Carpenter Nikolai.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>What, do I hear someone objecting?</p>

<p>Yes, Switzerland.</p>

<p>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!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>Mrs. Henriksen brings catkins in a vase into my room.</p>

<p>"What, is it spring?"</p>

<p>"Oh, it's getting on."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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!"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"No, thank you, I'm too busy."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Excuse my asking, but where are you going to?"</p>

<p>"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
Öland, but that was too far, so I turned back. No one cares to know
where I am, least of all myself."</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXVI</h2>

<p>You get used to everything; you even get used to the passage of
two years.</p>

<p>And now it is spring again....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"She's too smart for my crags," says one of them with a
laugh.</p>

<p>"What do you think's her price?" says another with a laugh.</p>

<p>"Why, do you want to buy her?"</p>

<p>"No, haven't got fodder enough this year."</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>At last the man re-emerges--yes, it <em>is</em> Nikolai. It was
his back and hands, but he has got a beard now, too. He looks
splendid. Imagine Carpenter Nikolai being here!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"You've not bought the silver cow, have you?"</p>

<p>"Oh, no, not that. It didn't amount to anything, really. In
fact, I didn't buy anything."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"By the way," he said, "have you come here over the fjeld?"</p>

<p>"Yes, I came last winter. In December."</p>

<p>"What a pity I didn't know!"</p>

<p>I explained that I hadn't had the time to visit his home then; I
was in a hurry, there was some business--</p>

<p>"Yes, I understand," he said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Have you bought your horse yet?"</p>

<p>"Well, no, I haven't."</p>

<p>"Do you think you will?"</p>

<p>"I don't know yet. I'm trying to split a difference of five and
twenty <em>kroner</em>."</p>

<p>Later I saw Nikolai going to the goldsmith's again. He seemed to
do a great deal of business there.</p>

<p>"I could have company across the fjeld now," I thought. "It's
spring, and do I not always travel in the spring?"</p>

<p>I began to pack my knapsack.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"N-no--the man won't meet my price."</p>

<p>"Well, can't you meet his?"</p>

<p>"Y-yes, I could," he replied slowly. "But I don't think I've got
enough money on me."</p>

<p>"I could lend you some."</p>

<p>At this Nikolai smiled and shook his head as though my offer
were a fairy tale.</p>

<p>"Thank you just the same," he said, turning to walk away.</p>

<p>"Where are you going now?" I asked.</p>

<p>"To look at another horse. It's old and small, still--"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>I met Nikolai in the street with a colt, and we stopped to
exchange a few words.</p>

<p>"Is it yours?"</p>

<p>"Yes, I've bought her; the man met me halfway after all," he
replied with a smile.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>How could I offend him again?</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Hullo!" Nikolai roared in a tremendously loud voice, stopping
dead in his tracks as he did so.</p>

<p>The woman in the doorway looked round; her hair was gray, but it
was she, Miss Ingeborg, <em>Fru</em> <a name="fn"></a><a class=
"fnsuper" href="#fn1">1</a> Ingeborg.</p>

<p>"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, hastily mopping up the rest of
the floor.</p>

<p>"Look at all the cleaning that goes on here!" Nikolai said,
laughing. "That's her idea of fun!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"What a lovely horse!" I heard her exclaim.</p>

<p>Nikolai went on stroking the mare.</p>

<p>"I've brought a visitor with me," he said.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Well, of all people!" she replied.</p>

<p>I persisted in my formal attitude.</p>

<p>"You must blame your husband," I said. "It's his fault that I'm
here."</p>

<p>"I wish you heartily welcome," she returned. "How lucky I've
just got through the cleaning!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Come in, won't you!" she called back over her shoulder.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"How's your mother?" I asked Nikolai.</p>

<p>As usual he was slow to reply. His wife answered for him:</p>

<p>"She's very well."</p>

<p>I wanted to ask, "Where is she?" but I refrained.</p>

<p>"Look, I want to show you something," said Fru Ingeborg.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>How happy and beautiful the young mother looked! Peerless,
indeed, with her eyes full of an inscrutable graciousness she had
not possessed before.</p>

<p>"What a fine little <em>man!</em>" I said, admiring the boy.</p>

<p>"I should think he was!" said the mother.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>Had she ever thought her matriculation would land her up here,
amid livestock and Saturday cleaning?</p>

<p>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--</p>

<p>"Has Petra gone away?"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Nikolai!" she called.</p>

<p>"Yes," his reply came from the stable.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Is the child asleep?" I asked. I had to say something.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Well, you see they are."</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"Well, you've lost one tooth, but I've hardly got one left!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Then she consoled me in her turn, as people do when they can
well afford it:</p>

<p>"What, you old? Nonsense!"</p>

<p>"Have you met the schoolmaster?" I asked abruptly.</p>

<p>"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!</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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....</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Nikolai entered the room.</p>

<p>"Did you want me?"</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>I stayed behind, thinking:</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"Good luck to you, Ingeborg, good luck!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Bravo, Fru Ingeborg!</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXVII</h2>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And so the days wear on.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>"Can't you stop a while longer?" he says. "But I suppose it
isn't the kind of place--"</p>

<p>"God bless you, Nikolai; it <em>is</em> 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."</p>

<p>This, too, I hoped he would mention.</p>

<p>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 <em>was</em> 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:</p>

<p>"I'm afraid I shall have to be leaving today."</p>

<p>"No! Really? Why do you want to go away?" she said.</p>

<p>"Why? Well, don't you think I should?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>That was all we said about it, and then she went back to her
work.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<hr>
<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>"Nikolai, isn't it a bit early to let the cows out?"</p>

<p>"Yes, but they're getting restless in the cow houses."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Nikolai looks uneasily at the mare through the window.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>Nikolai does not reply to my nonsense. After all, it is only the
incoherent expression of a vague feeling, a gentle melancholy.</p>

<p>We go outside together.</p>

<p>"Nikolai, I'm not going."</p>

<p>He turns around and looks at me, his eyes smiling
good-humoredly.</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"Well, I'm very glad to hear that," says Nikolai. "As long as
you like being here...."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>And here stand I. A fine old specimen, I am!</p>

<hr>
<p>Nikolai returned with my mail; quite a little pile had
accumulated in the past few weeks.</p>

<p>"I thought you're not in the habit of reading your letters,"
said Fru Ingeborg banteringly. Nikolai sat listening to us.</p>

<p>"No," I returned. "Just say the word, and I'll burn them
unread."</p>

<p>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:</p>

<p>"Better read them."</p>

<p>She was deeply flushed now.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>A minor occurrence, of no importance to anyone. Perhaps I should
not have mentioned it.</p>

<hr>
<p>A few days later.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>A little later I heard someone say "Good morning" in the living
room.</p>

<p>Fru Ingeborg did not return the greeting. Instead, I heard her
ask in loud, hostile tones:</p>

<p>"What do you want?"</p>

<p>"I've come to pay you a visit."</p>

<p>"My husband isn't in--he's in the field."</p>

<p>"Never mind."</p>

<p>"I do mind," she cried. "Go away!"</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The stranger was Solem. Another meeting with Solem. He was
everywhere. Our eyes met.</p>

<p>"I think you were asked to leave?" I said.</p>

<p>"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?"</p>

<p>"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....</p>

<p>At this juncture, Nikolai entered the house.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>Well, let us be human. That fall to the ground was bad. The
heavy burden hanging down so uncomfortably from one shoulder looked
bad.</p>

<p>Indoors I heard a sound of sobbing; Fru Ingeborg was in a state
of collapse in a chair. And in her condition, too!</p>

<p>Well, give it time--it will pass off. Gradually we begin to
talk, and by asking her questions, I force her to collect
herself.</p>

<p>"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--"</p>

<p>"No, no. He has too much sense. Besides, he doesn't know, does
he, that Solem has done anything to you?"</p>

<p>She looked up at me then.</p>

<p>"Are you asking on your own account?"</p>

<p>"What do you mean?--I don't understand--"</p>

<p>"I want to know if you're asking on your own account! Sometimes
you seem as though you were trying to find me out. <em>No</em>, I
<em>haven't</em> 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?"</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"On the contrary."</p>

<p>"Really? Don't you think that?"</p>

<p>"Quite the contrary. What you've told me is absolutely right,
entirely true and right. And not only that--it's fine."</p>

<p>"God bless you," she said, and began to sob again.</p>

<p>"There now, you mustn't cry. Here comes Nikolai walking up the
road as good and placid as ever."</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Oh, there you are! You haven't done anything rash, have
you?"</p>

<p>Nikolai's features were still a little drawn as he replied:</p>

<p>"No, I just took him over to see his son."</p>

<p>"Has Solem got a son here?" I asked.</p>

<p>Neither of them replied. Nikolai turned to go back to his work,
and his wife went with him across the field.</p>

<p>Suddenly I understood: Sophie's child.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<hr>
<p>I ought to have understood before this. I don't understand
anything any more.</p>

<p>But something has happened to me now.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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....</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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
<em>au revoirs</em>, believe me!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>"Yes, indeed," I said, "I must begin to move about again."</p>

<p>"Are you really going?" said Fru Ingeborg.</p>

<p>"Why not?"</p>

<p>"But so suddenly?"</p>

<p>"Didn't I tell you yesterday?"</p>

<p>"Yes, of course, but--would you like Nikolai to drive you?"</p>

<p>"No, thank you."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Fru Ingeborg said to me:</p>

<p>"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."</p>

<p>"But, my dear child, I must leave <em>some</em> time--I have
work to do, too, you know."</p>

<p>"Well, of course," said Fru Ingeborg, giving it up.</p>

<p>Nikolai offered to drive me, but did not press me when I thanked
him and refused.</p>

<p>They came to the gate with me, and watched me walk away, the boy
sitting on his mother's arm.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2 class="spaced">XXXVIII</h2>

<p>I have written this story for you.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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, <em>because</em> 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

 <a class="footnote" name="fn1"></a>[<a href="#fn">1</a>] Mrs.
(Translator's note.)








<pre>





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