For why these high demands on life? What have we earned? All the boxes
of sweetmeats a sweet-tooth could wish for? Well and good. But have we
not had the world to look upon each day, and the soughing of the woods
to hear? There is nothing so grand in all the world as that voice of the
woods.
There was a scent of jasmine in a shrubbery, and one I know thrilled
with joy, not for the jasmine's scent but for all there was--for the
light in a window, a memory, the whole of life. He was called away from
the jasmines after, but he had been paid beforehand for that little
mishap.
And so it is; the mere grace that we are given life at all is generous
payment in advance for all the miseries of life--for every one of them.
No, do not think we have the right to more sweetmeats than we get. A
wanderer's advice: no superstition. What is life's? All. But what is
yours? Is fame? Oh, tell us why! A man should not so insist on what
is “his.” It is comical; a wanderer laughs at any one who can be so
comical. I remember one who could not give up that “his.” He started
to lay a fire in his stove at noon, and by evening he got it to burn
at last. He couldn't leave the comfortable warmth to go to bed, but sat
there till other people got up, lest it should be wasted. A Norwegian
writer of stage plays, it was.
I have wandered about a good deal in my time, and am grown foolish
now, and out of bloom. But I do not hold the perverse belief of old men
generally, that I am wiser than I was. And I hope I may never grow wise;
'tis a sign of decrepitude. If I thank God for life, it is not by virtue
of any riper wisdom that has come to me with age, but because I have
always taken a pleasure in life. Age gives no riper wisdom; age gives
nothing but age.
* * * * *
I was too late for the berries this year, but I am going up that way all
the same. I am allowing myself this little treat, by way of reward
for having worked well this summer. And I reach my goal on the 12th of
December.
It is true, no doubt, that I might have stayed down among the villages.
I could have managed somehow, no doubt, as did all the others who had
found it time to settle down. And Lars Falkenberg, my colleague and
mate, he had urged me to take up a holding with keep for a wife and two
cows and a pig. A friend's advice; _vox populi._ And then, why, one of
the cows might be an ox to ride, a means of transport for my shivering
age! But it came to naught--it came to naught! My wisdom has not come
with age; here am I going up to Trovatn and the waste lands to live in a
wooden hut!
What pleasure can there be in that? _Ai_, Lars Falkenberg, and _ai,_
every one else, have no fear; I have a man to come up with things I
need.
* * * * *
So I drift about and about by myself, looking after myself, living
alone. I miss that seal of Bishop Pavel's. One of his descendants gave
it to me, and I had it in my waistcoat pocket this summer, but, looking
for it now, I find I have lost it. Well, well; but, anyhow, I have been
paid in advance for that mishap, in having owned it once.
But I do not feel the want of books to read.
The 12th of December--I can keep a date in mind and carelessly forget
things more important. It is only just now I remember about the
books--that Captain Falkenberg and his wife had many books in their
house--novels and plays--a whole bookcase full. I saw it one day when
I was painting windows and doors at Øvrebø. Entire sets of authors they
had, and authors' complete works--thirty books. Why the complete works?
I do not know. Books--one, two, three, ten, thirty. They had come out
each Christmas--novels, thirty volumes--the same novel. They read them,
no doubt, the Captain and his wife; knew every time what they should
find in the poets of the home; there was always such a lot about all
coming right in the end. So they read them, no doubt. How should I know?
Heavens, what a host of books! Two men could not shift the bookcase when
I wanted to paint behind; it took three men and a cook to move it. One
of the men was Grindhusen; he flushed under the weight of those poets of
the home, and said: “I can't see what folk want with such a mighty crowd
of books!”
Grindhusen! As if he knew anything about it! The Captain and his wife
had all those books, no doubt, that none should be lacking; there they
were all complete. It would make a gap to take away a single one;
they were paired each with the rest, uniform poetry, the same story
throughout.
* * * * *
An elk-hunter has been up here with me in the hut. Nothing much; and his
dog was an ill-tempered brute. I was glad when he went on again. He took
down my copper saucepan from the wall, and used it for his cooking, and
left it black with soot.
It is not my copper saucepan, but was here in the hut, left by some one
who was here before. I only rubbed it with ashes and hung it up on the
wall as a weather-guide for myself. I am rubbing it up again now, for it
is a good thing to have; it turns dim unfailingly when there is rain or
snow coming on.
If Ragnhild had been here, now, she would have polished up that saucepan
herself. But then, again, I tell myself, I would rather see to my own
weather-guides; Ragnhild can find something else to do. And if this
place up in the woods were our clearing, then she would have the
children, and the cows, and the pig. But _my_ copper things I prefer to
do myself, Ragnhild.
I remember a lady, the mistress of a house: she did no work at all, and
saw to nothing, least of all to herself. And ill she fared in the end.
But six or seven years back I had never believed any one could be so
delicate and lovely to another as she. I drove her once, upon a journey,
and she was shy with me, although she was a lady, and above me. She
blushed and looked down. And the strange thing was that she made me
feel a kind of shyness myself, although I was only her servant. Only
by looking at me with her two eyes when she spoke to me, she showed me
treasures and beauty beyond what I knew before; I remember it still. Ay,
here I sit, remembering it yet, and I shake my head and say to myself
how strange it was--how strange! And then she died. And what more?
Nothing more. I am still here, but she is gone. But I should not grieve
at her death. I had been paid beforehand, surely, for that loss, in that
she looked at me with her two eyes--a thing beyond my deserts. Ay, so it
must be.
Woman--what do the sages know of woman?
I know a sage, and he wrote of woman. Wrote of woman in thirty volumes
of uniform theatre-poetry: I counted the volumes once in a big bookcase.
And at last he wrote of the woman who left her own children to go in
search of--the wonderful! But what, then, were the children? Oh, it was
comical: a wanderer laughs at anything so comical.
What does the sage know of woman?
To begin with, he was not a sage at all till he grew old, and all he
knew of woman then was from memory. But then, again, he can have no
memory of her, seeing he never knew her. The man who has an aptitude
for wisdom busies himself jealously with his little aptitude and nothing
else; cultivates and cherishes it; holds it forth and lives for it.
We do not turn to woman for wisdom. The four wisest heads in the world,
who have delivered their findings on the subject of woman, simply sat
and invented her out of their own heads--octogenarians young or old they
were, that rode on oxen. They knew nothing of woman in holiness, woman
in sweetness, woman as an indispensable, but they wrote and wrote about
her. Think of it! Without finding her.
Heaven save me from growing wise! And I will mumble the same to my last
turn: Heaven save me from growing wise!
* * * * *
Just cold enough now for a little outing I have had in mind: the
snow-peaks lie rosy in the sun, and my copper saucepan points to fair.
It is eight in the morning.
Knapsack and a good stock of food, an extra lashing in my pocket in case
anything should break, and a note on the table for the man with supplies
in case he should come up while I am away.
Oh, but I have been showing off nicely all to myself: pretending I was
going far, and needed to equip myself with care, had occasion for all my
presence of mind and endurance. A man can show off like that when he is
going far; but I am not. I have no errand anywhere, and nothing calls
me; I am only a wanderer setting forth from a hut, and coming back to it
again; it does not matter where I am.
It is quiet and empty in the woods; all things deep in snow, holding
their breath as I come. At noon, looking back from a hill, I can see
Trovatn far behind; white and flat it lies, a stretch of chalk, a desert
of snow. After a meal I go on again, higher and higher, nearing the
fjeld now, but slowly and thoughtfully, with hands in my pockets. There
is no hurry; I have only to find a shelter for the night.
Later on in the afternoon I sit down again to eat, as if I needed a
meal and had earned it. But it is only for something to do; my hands are
idle, and my brain inclined to fancies. It gets dark early: well to find
a sheltered cleft in the hillside here; there are fallen firs enough
lying about for a fire.
Such are the things I tell of now, playing with muted strings.
I was out early next morning, as soon as it began to get light. A quiet,
warm snowfall came on, and there was a soughing in the air. Bad weather
coming, I thought to myself; but who could have foreseen it? Neither I
nor my weather-guide looked for it twenty-four hours ago.
I left my shelter and went on again over moor and heath; full day again
now, and snowing. It was not the best of shelters I had found for the
night: passably soft and dry, with branches of fir to lie on, and I had
not felt the cold, but the smoke from my fire drifted in over me and
troubled my breathing.
But now, this afternoon, I found a better place--a spacious and elegant
cave with walls and roof complete. Room here for me and my fire, and the
smoke went up. I nodded at this, and decided to settle down here, though
it was early yet, and still quite light; I could distinctly make out
the hills and valleys and rocks on a naked fjeld straight ahead some few
hours' march away. But I nodded, as if I had reached my goal, and set to
work gathering firewood and bedding for the night.
I felt so thoroughly at home here. It was not for nothing I nodded and
took off my knapsack. “Was this the place you were making for?” I say,
talking to myself in jest. “Yes,” I answer.
The soughing in the air grew stronger; it was not snow that was falling
now, but rain. Strange--a great wet rainfall down over the cave,
over all the trees outside, and yet it was the cold Christmas
month--December. A heat-wave had taken it into its head to visit us.
It rained and rained that night, and there was a soughing all through
the trees outside. It was like spring; it filled my sleep at last with
so rich an ease, that I slept on sound and deep till it was broad day.
Ten o'clock.
The rain had ceased, but it is still warm. I sit looking out of the
cave, and listening to the bend and whisper of the trees. Then a stone
breaks loose on the fjeld opposite; it butts against a rock and brings
that down as well; a few faint thuds are heard. Then a rumble: I see
what is happening, and the sound echoes within me; the rock loosened
other rocks, an avalanche goes thundering down the mountain-side, snow
and earth and boulders, leaving a smoky cloud in its wake. The stream of
rubble seems in a living rage; it thrusts its way on, tearing down other
masses with it--crowding, pouring, pouring, fills up a chasm in the
valley--and stops. The last few boulders settle slowly into place, and
then no more. The thunder over, there is silence, and within myself is
only a breathing as of a slowly descending bass.
And so I sit once more, listening to the soughing of the woods. Is it
the heaving of the AEgean sea, or is it the ocean current Glimma? I grow
weak from just listening. Recollections of my past life rise within me,
joys by the thousand, music and eyes, flowers. There is nothing more
glorious than the soughing of the woods. It is like swinging, rocking--a
madness: Uganda, Antananarivo, Honolulu, Atacama, Venezuela.
But it is all the years, no doubt, that make me so weak, and my nerves
that join in the sounds I hear. I get up and stand by the fire to get
over it; now I think of it, I feel I could talk to the fire a little,
make a speech to the dying fire. I am in a fire-proof house here, and
the acoustic conditions are good. H'm!
Then the cave is darkened; it is the elk-hunter again with his dog.
It begins to freeze as I trudge along homeward to my hut. The frost soon
hardens the ground, moor and heath, making it easy walking. I trudge
along slowly and carelessly, hands in my pockets. There is no hurry now;
it matters little where I am.