It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in
the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded,
and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of
whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay,
which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home,
though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from
the soil where I have my roots.
Why, indeed, do I stay here any longer, at a resort full of
schoolmistresses, with a host who has once more said farewell to sobriety?
Nothing is happening to me; I do not grow here. The others go out and lie
on their backs; I steal off and find relish in myself, and feel poetry
within me for the night. The world wants no, poetry; it wants only verses
that have not been sung before.
And Norway wants no red-hot irons; only village smiths forge irons now,
for the needs of the mob and the honor of the country.
No one came; the stream of tourists went up and down Stordalen and left
our little Reisa valley deserted. If only the Northern Railway could have
come to Reisa with Cook's and Bennett's tours--then Stordalen in its turn
would have lain deserted. Meanwhile, the cotters who are cultivating the
soil will probably go on harvesting half the crop of the outlying fields
for the rest of time. There is every reason to think so--unless our
descendants are more intelligent than we, and refuse to be smitten with
the demoralizing effects of the tourist traffic.
Now, my friend, you mustn't believe me; this is the point where you must
shake your head. There is a professor scuttling about the country, a born
mediocrity with a little school knowledge about history; you had better
ask him. He'll give you just as much mediocre information, my friend, as
your vision can grasp and your brain endure.
* * * * *
Hardly had Manufacturer Brede left when Paul began to live a most
irregular life again. More and more all roads were closed to him; he saw
no way out and therefore preferred to make himself blind, which gave him
an excuse for not seeing. Seven of our permanent guests now left together:
the telephone operators, Tradesman Batt, Schoolmistresses Johnsen and
Palm, and two men who were in some sort of business, I don't quite know
what. This whole party went across the fjeld to Stordalen to be driven
about in cars.
Cases of various kinds of foodstuffs arrived for Paul; they were carried
up one evening by a man from the village. He had to make several journeys
with the side of his cart let down, and bring the cases over the roughest
spots one by one. That was the kind of road it was. Josephine received the
consignment, and noticed that one of the cases gave forth the sound of a
liquid splashing inside. That had come to the wrong place, she said, and
writing another address on it, she told the man to take it back. It was
sirup that had come too late, she said; she had got sirup elsewhere in the
meantime.
Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen; the sirup
had not come too late, Paul said angrily.
"And I've told you to clear these newspapers away!" he cried. We heard the
sound of paper and glass being swept to the floor.
Well, things were not too easy for Paul; the days went by dull and empty,
nor had he any children to give him pleasant thoughts at times. Though he
wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had
already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of
them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone
in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in
the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of
motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get
no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. And now to make
matters worse Manufacturer Brede had said he would withdraw his money....
Paul's careworn face looked out of the kitchen door. Before going out
himself he wanted to make sure there was no one about, but he was
disappointed in this, for the lawyer at once greeted him loudly: "Good
evening, Paul!" and drew him outside.
They strolled down the field in the dusk.
Assuredly there is little to be gained by "having a good talk" with a man
about his drinking; such matters are too vital to be settled by talking.
But Paul seems to have admitted that the lawyer was right in all he said,
and probably left him with good resolutions.
Paul went down to the village again. He was going to the post office; the
money he had from the seven departed guests would be scattered to all
quarters of the globe. And yet it was not enough to cover everything--in
fact not enough for anything, for interest, repayments, taxes, and
repairs. It paid only for a few cases of food from the city. And of course
he stopped the case of sirup from going back.
Paul returned blind-drunk because he no longer wished to see. It was the
same thing all over again. But his brain seemed in its own way to go on
searching for a solution, and one day he asked the lawyer:
"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish
in--goldfish?"
"Do you mean an aquarium?"
"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"I wonder if I could get one."
"What do you want it for?"
"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well, perhaps
it wouldn't."
And Paul withdrew.
Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish.