For the next few years Peer managed his estate and his workshop, without
giving too much of his time to either. He had his bailiff and his
works-manager, and the work went on well enough in its accustomed
grooves. If anyone had asked him what he actually did himself all the
time, he would have found it hard to answer. He seemed to be going
round gathering up something not clearly defined. There was something
wanting--something missed that now had to be made good. It was not
knowledge now, but life--life in his native land, the life of youth,
that he reached out to grasp. The youth in him, that had never had free
play in the years of early manhood, lay still dammed up, and had to find
an outlet.
There were festive gatherings at Loreng. Long rows of sleighs drove in
the winter evenings up from the town and back again. Tables were spread
and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms were brightly lit, and
the wine was good. And sometimes in the long moonlit nights respectable
citizens would be awakened by noisy mirth in the streets of the little
town, and, going to the window in their night-shirts, would see sleighs
come galloping down, with a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing
young people, returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where
there had been feasting and dancing. Here a young lawyer--newly married
and something of a privileged buffoon--was sitting on the lap of
somebody else’s wife, playing a concertina, and singing at the top of
his voice. “Some of that Loreng man’s doings again,” people would say.
“The place has never been the same since he came here.” And they would
get back to bed again, shaking their heads and wondering what things
were coming to.
Peer drove out, too, on occasion, to parties at the big country houses
round, where they would play cards all night and have champagne sent
up to their rooms next morning, the hosts being men who knew how to
do things in style. This was glorious. Not mathematics or religion any
more--what he needed now was to assimilate something of the country
life of his native land. He was not going to be a stranger in his own
country. He wanted to take firm root and be able to feel, like others,
that he had a spot in the world where he was at home.
Then came the sunny day in June when he stood by Merle’s bed, and she
lay there smiling faintly her one-sided smile, with a newborn girl on
her arm.
“What are we to call her, Peer?”
“Why, we settled that long ago. After your mother, of course.”
“Of course her name’s to be Louise,” said Merle, turning the tiny red
face towards her breast.
This came as a fresh surprise. She had been planning it for weeks
perhaps, and now it took him unawares like one of her spontaneous
caresses, but this time a caress to his inmost soul.
He made a faint attempt at a joke. “Oh well, I never have any say in
my own house. I suppose you must have it your own way.” He stroked her
forehead; and when she saw how deeply moved he was, she smiled up at him
with her most radiant smile.
On one of the first days of the hay-harvest, Peer lay out on a sunny
hillside with his head resting on a haycock, watching his people at
work. The mowing machine was buzzing down by the lake, the spreader at
work on the hill-slopes, the horses straining in front, the men sitting
behind driving. The whole landscape lay around him breathing summer and
fruitfulness. And he himself lay there sunk in his own restful quiet.
A woman in a light dress and a yellow straw hat came down the field
road, pushing a child’s cart before her. It was Merle, and Merle was
looking round her, and humming as she came. Since the birth of her child
her mind was at peace; it was clear that she was scarcely dreaming now
of conquering the world with her music--there was a tiny being in the
little cart that claimed all her dreams. Never before had her skin
been so dazzling, her smile so red; it was as if her youth now first
blossomed out in all its fullness; her eyes seemed opened wide in a dear
surprise.
After a while Peer went down and drove the mowing machine himself. He
felt as if he must get to work somehow or other to provide for his wife
and child.
But suddenly he stopped, got down, and began to walk round the machine
and examine it closely. His face was all alert now, his eyes keen and
piercing. He stared at the mechanism of the blades, and stood awhile
thinking.
What was this? A happy idea was beginning to work in his mind. Vague
only as yet--there was still time to thrust it aside. Should he?
Warm mild days and luminous nights. Sometimes he could not sleep for
thinking how delicious it was to lie awake and see the sun come up.
On one such night he got up and dressed. A few minutes later there was
a trampling of hoofs in the stable-yard and the chestnut stallion
appeared, with Peer leading him. He swung himself into the saddle, and
trotted off down the road, a white figure in his drill suit and cork
helmet.
Where was he going? Nowhere. It was a change, to be up at an unusual
hour and see the day break on a July morning.
He trotted along at an easy pace, rising lightly in the stirrups, and
enjoying the pleasant warmth the rider feels. All was quiet around him,
the homesteads still asleep. The sky was a pearly white, with here and
there a few golden clouds, reflected in the lake below. And the broad
meadows still spread their many-coloured flower-carpet abroad; there was
a scent in the air of leaf and meadow-grass and pine, he drew in deep
breaths of it and could have sung aloud.
He turned into the by-road up the hill, dismounting now and again to
open a gate; past farms and little cottages, ever higher and higher,
till at last he reached the topmost ridge, and halted in a clearing. The
chestnut threw up his head and sniffed the air; horse and rider were
wet with the dew-drip from the trees, that were now just flushing in the
first glow of the coming sun. Far below was the lake, reflecting sky
and hills and farmsteads, all asleep. And there in the east were the red
flames--the sun--the day.
The horse pawed impatiently at the ground, eager to go on, but Peer
held him back. He sat there gazing under the brim of his helmet at the
sunrise, and felt a wave of strange feeling passing through his mind.
It seemed to him impossible that he should ever reach a higher pitch of
sheer delight in life. He was still young and strong; all the organs of
his body worked together in happy harmony. No cares to weigh upon his
mind, no crushing responsibilities; the future lying calm and clear in
the light of day, free from dizzy dreams. His hunger after knowledge
was appeased; he felt that what he had learned and seen and gathered was
beginning to take living organic form in his mind.
But then--what then?
The great human type of which you dreamed--have you succeeded in giving
it life in yourself?
You know what is common knowledge about the progress of humanity; its
struggle towards higher forms, its gropings up by many ways toward the
infinite which it calls God.
You know something of the life of plants; the nest of a bird is a
mystery before which you could kneel in worship. A rock shows you the
marks of a glacier that scraped over it thousands of years ago, and
looking on it you have a glimpse of the gigantic workings of the solar
system. And on autumn evenings you look up at the stars, and the light
and the death and the dizzy abysses of space above you send a solemn
thrill through your soul.
And this has become a part of yourself. The joy of life for you is to
grasp all you can compass of the universe, and let it permeate your
thought and sense on every side.
But what then? Is this enough? Is it enough to rest thus in yourself?
Have you as yet raised one stepping-stone upon which other men can climb
and say: Now we can see farther than before?
What is your inner being worth, unless it be mirrored in action?
If the world one day came to be peopled with none but supermen--what
profit in that, as long as they must die?
What is your faith?
Ah, this sense of exile, of religious homelessness! How many times have
you and Merle lain clasping each other’s hands, your thoughts wandering
together hand in hand, seeking over earth or among the stars for some
being to whom you might send up a prayer; no slavish begging cry for
grace and favour, but a jubilant thanksgiving for the gift of life.
But where was He?
He is not. And yet--He is.
But the ascetic on the cross is a God for the sick and aged. What of us
others? When shall the modern man, strong, scientifically schooled, find
a temple for the sacred music, the anthem of eternity in his soul?
The sun rose up from behind a distant hill-crest, scattering gold
over the million spires of the pine-forest. Peer bent forward, with
red-gleaming dewdrops on his hand and his white sleeve, and patted the
neck of his restless beast.
It was two o’clock. The fires of morning were lit in the clouds and in
all the waters over the earth. The dew in the meadows and the pearls on
the wings of butterflies began to glisten.
“Now then, Bijou!--now for home!”
And he dashed off down the grass-grown forest paths, the chestnut
snorting as he galloped.