Chapter XIII

Once more Peer stood in his workroom down at the foundry, wrestling with

fire and steel.

A working drawing is a useful thing; an idea in one’s head is all very

well. But the men he employed to turn his plans into tangible models

worked slowly; why not use his own hands for what had to be done?

When the workmen arrived at the foundry in the morning there was

hammering going on already in the little room. And when they left in the

evening, the master had not stopped working yet. When the good citizens

of Ringeby went to bed, they would look out of their windows and see his

light still burning.

Peer had had plenty to tire him out even before he began work here. But

in the old days no one had ever asked if he felt strong enough to do

this or that. And he never asked himself. Now, as before, it was a

question of getting something done, at any cost. And never before had

there been so much at stake.

The wooden model of the new machine is finished already, and the

castings put together. The whole thing looks simple enough, and

yet--what a distance from the first rough implement to this thing, which

seems almost to live--a thing with a brain of metal at least. Have not

these wheels and axles had their parents and ancestors--their pedigree

stretching back into the past? The steel has brought forth, and its

descendants again in turn, advancing always toward something finer,

stronger, more efficient. And here is the last stage reached by human

invention in this particular work up to now--yet, after all, is it

good enough? An invention successful enough to bring money in to the

inventor--that is not all. It must be more; it must be a world-success,

a thing to make its way across the prairies, across the enormous plains

of India and Egypt--that is what is needed. Sleep? rest? food? What are

such things when so much is at stake!

There was no longer that questioning in his ear: Why? Whither? What

then? Useless to ponder on these things. His horizon was narrowed down

to include nothing beyond this one problem. Once he had dreamed of a

work allied to his dreams of eternity. This, certainly, was not it. What

does the gain amount to, after all, when humanity has one more machine

added to it? Does it kindle a single ray of dawn the more in a human

soul?

Yet this work, such as it was, had now become his all. It must and

should be all. He was fast bound to it.

When he looked up at the window, there seemed to be faces at each pane

staring in. “What? Not finished yet?” they seemed to say. “Think what it

means if you fail!” Merle’s face, and the children’s: “Must we be driven

from Loreng, out into the cold?” The faces of old Uthoug and his wife:

“Was it for this you came into an honourable family? To bring it to

ruin?” And behind them, swarming, all the town. All knew what was at

stake, and why he was toiling so. All stared at him, waiting. The Bank

Manager was there too--waiting, like the rest.

One can seize one’s neck in iron pincers, and say: You shall! Tired?

difficulties? time too short?--all that doesn’t exist. You shall!

Is this thing or that impossible? Well, make it possible. It is your

business to make it possible.

He spent but little time at home now; a sofa in the workshop was his

bed. Often Merle would come in with food for him, and seeing how pale

and grey and worn out he was, she did not dare to question him. She

tried to jest instead. She had trained herself long ago to be gay in a

house where shadows had to be driven off with laughter.

But one day, as she was leaving, he held her back, and looked at her

with a strange smile.

“Well, dear?” she said, with a questioning look.

He stood looking at her as before, with the same far-off smile. He was

looking through her into the little world she stood for. This home, this

family that he, a homeless man, had won through her, was it all to go

down in shipwreck?

Then he kissed her eyes and let her go.

And as her footsteps died away, he stood a moment, moved by a sudden

desire to turn to some Power above him with a prayer that he might

succeed in this work. But there was no such Power. And in the end his

eyes turned once more to the iron, the fire, his tools, and his own

hands, and it was as though he sighed out a prayer to these: “Help

me--help me, that I may save my wife and children’s happiness.”

Sleep? rest? weariness? He had only a year’s grace. The bank would only

wait a year.

Winter and spring passed, and one day in July he came home and rushed in

upon Merle crying, “To-morrow, Merle! They will be here to-morrow!”

“Who?”

“The people to look at the machine. We’re going to try it to-morrow.”

“Oh, Peer!” she said breathlessly, gazing at him.

“It’s a good thing that I had connections abroad,” he went on. “There’s

one man coming from an English firm, and another from America. It ought

to be a big business.”

The morrow came. Merle stood looking after her husband as he drove off,

his hat on the back of his head, through the haze that followed the

night’s rain. But there was no time to stand trembling; they were to

have the strangers to dinner, and she must see to it.

Out in the field the machine stood ready, a slender, newly painted

thing. A boy was harnessing the horses.

Two men in soft hats and light overcoats came up; it was old Uthoug,

and the Bank Manager. They stopped and looked round, leaning on their

sticks; the results of the day were not a matter of entire indifference

to these two gentlemen. Ah! here was the big carriage from Loreng, with

the two strangers and Peer himself, who had been down to fetch them from

the hotel.

He was a little pale as he took the reins and climbed to his seat on

the machine, to drive it himself through the meadow of high, thick

timothy-grass.

The horses pricked up their ears and tried to break into a gallop, the

noise of the machine behind them startling them as usual at first, but

they soon settled down to a steady pace, and the steel arm bearing the

shears swept a broad swath through the meadow, where the grass stood

shining after the rain.

The two strangers walked slowly in the rear, bending down now and again

to look at the stubble, and see if the shears cut clean. The tall man

with the heavy beard and pince-nez was the agent for John Fowler of

Leeds; the little clean-shaven one with the Jewish nose represented

Harrow & Co. of Philadelphia.

Now and again they called to Peer to stop, while they investigated some

part of the machine.

They asked him then to try it on different ground; on an uneven slope,

over little tussocks; and at last the agent for Fowler’s would have it

that it should be tried on a patch of stony ground. But that would spoil

the shears? Very likely, but Fowler’s would like to know exactly how the

shears were affected by stones on the ground.

At last the trials were over, and the visitors nodded thoughtfully to

each other. Evidently they had come on something new here. There were

possibilities in the thing that might drive most other types out of the

field, even in the intense competition that rages all round the world in

agricultural machinery.

Peer read the expression in their eyes--these cold-blooded specialists

had seen the vision; they had seen gold.

But all the same there was a hitch--a little hitch.

Dinner was over, the visitors had left, and Merle and Peer were alone.

She lifted her eyes to his inquiringly.

“It went off well then?” she asked.

“Yes. But there is just one little thing to put right.”

“Still something to put right--after you have worked so hard all these

months?” She sat down, and her hands dropped into her lap.

“It’s only a small detail,” he said eagerly, pacing up and down. “When

the grass is wet, it sticks between the steel fingers above the shears

and accumulates there and gets in the way. It’s the devil and all that

I never thought of testing it myself in wet weather. But once I’ve got

that right, my girl, the thing will be a world-success.”

Once more the machine was set up in his workshop, and he walked around

it, watching, spying, thinking, racking his brain to find the little

device that should make all well. All else was finished, all was

right, but he still lacked the single happy thought, the flash of

inspiration--that given, a moment’s work would be enough to give this

thing of steel life, and wings with which to fly out over the wide

world.

It might come at any moment, that happy thought. And he tramped round

and round his machine, clenching his fists in desperation because it was

so slow in coming.

The last touch only, the dot upon an i, was wanting. A slight change in

the shape or position of the fingers, or the length of the shears--what

was it he wanted? How could he sleep that night?

He felt that he stood face to face with a difficulty that could have

been easily solved had he come fresh to the work, but that his tortured

brain was too worn out to overcome.

But when an Arab horse is ready to drop with fatigue, then is the time

when it breaks into a gallop.

He could not wait. There were the faces at the window again, staring and

asking: “Not finished yet?” Merle, the children, Uthoug and his wife,

the Bank Manager. And there were his competitors the world over. To-day

he was a length ahead of them, but by to-morrow he might be left behind.

Wait? Rest? No!

It was autumn now, and sleepless nights drove him to a doctor, who

prescribed cold baths, perfect quiet, sleeping draughts, iron and

arsenic. Ah, yes. Peer could swallow all the prescriptions--the one

thing he could not do was rest or sleep.

He would sit late into the night, prostrate with exhaustion, watching

the dying embers of the forge, the steel, the tools. And innumerable

sparks would begin to fly before his eyes, and masses of molten iron to

creep about like living things over walls and floor.--And over by the

forge was something more defined, a misty shape, that grew in size and

clearness and stood at last a bearded, naked demigod, with fire in one

hand and sledgehammer in the other.

“What? Who is that?”

“Man, do you not know me?”

“Who are you, I ask?”

“I have a thing to tell you: it is vain for you to seek for any other

faith than faith in the evolution of the universe. It will do no good to

pray. You may dream yourself away from the steel and the fire, but you

must offer yourself up to them at last. You are bound fast to these

things. Outside them your soul is nothing. God? happiness? yourself?

eternal life for you? All these are nothing. The will of the world rolls

on towards its eternal goal, and the individual is but fuel for the

fire.”

Peer would spring up, believing for a moment that someone was really

there. But there was nothing, only the empty air.

Now and again he would go home to Loreng, but everything there seemed to

pass in a mist. He could see that Merle’s eyes were red, though she

sang cheerily as she went about the house. It seemed to him that she had

begged him to go to bed and rest, and he had gone to bed. It would be

delicious to sleep. But in the middle of the night it was borne in upon

him that the fault lay in the shape of the shears after all, and

then there was no stopping him from getting up and hurrying in to the

workshop. Winter has come round again, and he fights his way in through

a snow-storm. And in the quiet night he lights his lamp, kindles the

forge fire, screws off the blades of the shears once more. But when he

has altered them and fixed them in place again, he knows at once that

the defect was not in them after all.

Coffee is a good thing for keeping the brain clear. He took to making it

in the workshop for himself--and at night especially a few cups did him

good. They were so satisfying too, that he felt no desire for food. And

when he came to the conclusion that the best thing would be to make each

separate part of the machine over again anew, coffee was great help,

keeping him awake through many a long night.

It began to dawn upon him that Merle and his father-in-law and the Bank

Manager had taken to lurking about the place night and day, watching and

spying to see if the work were not nearly done. Why in the devil’s name

could they not leave him in peace--just one week more? In any case, the

machine could not be tried before next summer. At times the workers at

the foundry would be startled by their master suddenly rushing out from

his inner room and crying fiercely: “No one is to come in here. I WILL

be left in peace!”

And when he had gone in again, they would look at each other and shake

their heads.

One morning Merle came down and walked through the outer shops, and

knocked at the door of her husband’s room. There was no answer; and she

opened the door and went in.

A moment after, the workmen heard a woman’s shriek, and when they ran in

she was bending over her husband, who was seated on the floor, staring

up at her with blank, uncomprehending eyes.

“Peer,” she cried, shaking his shoulder--“Peer, do you hear? Oh, for

God’s sake--what is it, my darling--”

*****

One April day there was a stir in the little town of Ringeby, and

a stream of people, all in their best clothes (though it was only

Wednesday), was moving out along the fjord road to Loreng. There were

the two editors, who had just settled one of their everlasting disputes,

and the two lawyers, each still intent on snatching any scraps of

business that offered; there were tradesmen and artisans; and nearly

everyone was wearing a long overcoat and a grey felt hat. But the tanner

had put on a high silk hat, so as to look a little taller.

Where the road left the wood most of them stopped for a moment to look

up at Loreng. The great white house seemed to have set itself high on

its hill to look out far and wide over the lake and the country round.

And men talked of the great doings, the feasting and magnificence, the

great house had seen in days gone by, from the time when the place had

been a Governor’s residence until a few years back, when Engineer Holm

was in his glory.

But to-day the place was up to auction, with stock and furniture,

and people had walked or driven over from far around. For the bank

management felt they would not be justified in giving any longer grace,

now that Peer Holm was lying sick in hospital, and no doctor would

undertake to say whether he would ever be fit to work again.

The courtyard was soon crowded. Inside, in the great hall, the

auctioneer was beginning to put up the lots already, but most people

hung back a little, as if they felt a reluctance to go in. For the

air in there seemed charged with lingering memories of splendour and

hospitality, from the days when cavaliers with ruffles and golden spurs

had done homage there to ladies in sweeping silk robes--down to the last

gay banquets to which the famous engineer from Egypt had loved to gather

all the gentry round in the days of his prosperity.

Most of the people stood on the steps and in the entrance-hall. And now

and again they would catch a glimpse of a pale woman, dressed in black,

with thick dark eyebrows, crossing the courtyard to a servant’s house or

a storehouse to give some order for moving the things. It was Merle, now

mistress here no longer.

Old Lorentz D. Uthoug met his sister, the mighty lady of Bruseth, on

the steps. She looked at him, and there was a gleam of derision in

her narrowed eyes. But he drew himself up, and said as he passed her,

“You’ve nothing to be afraid of. I’ve settled things so that I’m not

bankrupt yet. And you shall have your share--in full.”

And he strode in, a broad-shouldered, upright figure, looking calmly

at all men, that all might see he was not the man to be crushed by a

reverse.

Late in the day the chestnut, Bijou, was put up for sale. He was led

across the courtyard in a halter, and as he came he stopped for a

moment, and threw up his head, and neighed, and from the stables the

other horses neighed in answer. Was it a farewell? Did he remember

the day, years ago, when he had come there first, dancing on his

white-stockinged feet, full of youth and strength?

But by the woodshed there stood as usual a little grey old man, busy

sawing and chopping, as if nothing at all was the matter. One master

left, another took his place; one needed firewood, it seemed to him, as

much as the other. And if they came and gave him notice--why, thank the

Lord, he was stone deaf. Thud, thud, the sound of the axe went on.

A young man came driving up the hill, a florid-faced young man, with

very blue eyes. He took off his overcoat in the passage, revealing a

long black frock coat beneath and a large-patterned waistcoat. It was

Uthoug junior, general agent for English tweeds. He had taken no part

in his brother-in-law’s business affairs, and so he was able to help his

father in this crisis.

But the auction at Loreng went on for several days.

BOOK III

Chapter I

Once more a deep valley, with sun-steeped farms on the hillsides between

the river and the mountain-range behind.

One day about midsummer it was old Raastad himself that came down to

meet the train, driving a spring-cart, with a waggon following behind.

Was he expecting visitors? the people at the station asked him. “Maybe

I am,” said old Raastad, stroking his heavy beard, and he limped about

looking to his horses. Was it the folk who had taken the Court-house?

“Ay, it’s likely them,” said the old man.

The train came in, and a pale man, with grey hair and beard, and blue

spectacles, stepped out, and he had a wife and three children with him.

“Paul Raastad?” inquired the stranger. “Ay, that’s me,” said the old

man. The stranger looked up at the great mountains to the north, rising

dizzily into the sky. “The air ought to be good here,” said he. “Ay, the

air’s good enough, by all accounts,” said Raastad, and began loading up

the carts.

They drove off up the hill road. The man and his wife sat in the

spring-cart, the woman with a child in her lap, but a boy and a girl

were seated on the load in the baggage-waggon behind Raastad. “Can we

see the farm from here?” asked the woman, turning her head. “There,”

said the old man, pointing. And looking, they saw a big farmstead high

up on a sunny hill-slope, close under the crest, and near by a long

low house with a steep slate roof, the sort of place where the district

officers used to live in old days. “Is that the house we are to live

in?” she asked again. “Ay, that’s it, right enough,” said old Raastad,

and chirruped to his horses.

The woman looked long at the farm and sighed. So this was to be their

new home. They were to live here, far from all their friends. And

would it give him back his health, after all the doctors’ medicines had

failed?

A Lapland dog met them at the gate and barked at them; a couple of pigs

came down the road, stopped and studied the new arrivals with profound

attention, then wheeled suddenly and galloped off among the houses.

The farmer’s wife herself was waiting outside the Court-house, a tall

wrinkled woman with a black cap on her head. “Welcome,” she said,

offering a rough and bony hand.

The house was one of large low-ceiled rooms, with big stoves that would

need a deal of firewood in winter. The furniture was a mixture of every

possible sort and style: a mahogany sofa, cupboards with painted roses

on the panels, chairs covered with “Old Norse” carving, and on the walls

appalling pictures of foreign royal families and of the Crucifixion.

“Good Heavens!” said Merle, as they went round the rooms alone: “how

shall we ever get used to all this?”

But just then Louise came rushing in, breathless with news.

“Mother--father--there are goats here!” And little Lorentz came toddling

in after her: “Goats, mother,” he cried, stumbling over the doorstep.

The old house had stood empty and dead for years. Now it seemed to have

wakened up again. Footsteps went in and out, and the stairs creaked once

more under the tread of feet, small, pattering, exploring feet, and

big feet going about on grown-up errands. There was movement in every

corner: a rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen; fires blazed up, and

smoke began to rise from the chimney; people passing by outside looked

up at it and saw that the dead old house had come to life again.

Peer was weak still after his illness, but he could help a little with

the unpacking. It took very little, though, to make him out of breath

and giddy, and there was a sledge-hammer continually thumping somewhere

in the back of his head. Suppose--suppose, after all, the change here

does you no good? You are at the last stage. You’ve managed to borrow

the money to keep you all here for a year. And then? Your wife and

children? Hush!--better not think of that. Not that; think of anything

else, only not that.

Clothes to be carried upstairs. Yes, yes--and to think it was all to end

in your living on other people’s charity. Even that can’t go on long. If

you should be no better next summer--or two years hence?--what then?

For yourself--yes, there’s always one way out for you. But Merle and the

children? Hush, don’t think of it! Once it was your whole duty to finish

a certain piece of work in a certain time. Now it is your duty to get

well again, to be as strong as a horse by next year. It is your duty. If

only the sledge-hammer would stop, that cursed sledge-hammer in the back

of your head.

Merle, as she went out and in, was thinking perhaps of the same thing,

but her head was full of so much else--getting things in order and the

household set going. Food had to be bought from the local shop; and how

many litres of milk would she require in the morning? Where could she

get eggs? She must go across at once to the Raastads’ and ask. So the

pale woman in the dark dress walked slowly with bowed head across the

courtyard. But when she stopped to speak to people about the place, they

would forget their manners and stare at her, she smiled so strangely.

“Father, there’s a box of starlings on the wall here,” said Louise as

she lay in bed with her arms round Peer’s neck saying good-night. “And

there’s a swallow’s nest under the eaves too.”

“Oh, yes, we’ll have great fun at Raastad--just you wait and see.”

Soon Merle and Peer too lay in their strange beds, looking out at the

luminous summer night.

They were shipwrecked people washed ashore here. But it was not so clear

that they were saved.

Peer turned restlessly from side to side. He was so worn to skin and

bone that his nerves seemed laid bare, and he could not rest in any

position. Also there were three hundred wheels whirring in his head, and

striking out sparks that flew up and turned to visions.

Rest? why had he never been content to rest in the days when all went

well?

He had made his mark at the First Cataract, yes, and had made big sums

of money out of his new pump; but all the time there were the gnawing

questions: Why? and whither? and what then? He had been Chief Engineer

and had built a railway, and could have had commissions to build more

railways--but again the questions: Why? and what then? Home, then, home

and strike root in his native land--well, and had that brought him rest?

What was it that drove him away again? The steel, the steel and the

fire.

Ah! that day when he had stepped down from the mowing machine and had

been ensnared by the idea of improving it. Why had he ever taken it

up? Did he need money? No. Or was the work at a standstill? No. But the

steel would on; it had need of a man; it had taken him by the throat and

said, “You shall!”

Happiness? Rest? Ah no! For, you see, a stored-up mass of knowledge and

experience turns one fine day into an army of evil powers, that lash

you on and on, unceasingly. You may stumble, you may fall--what does

it matter? The steel squeezes one man dry, and then grips the next. The

flame of the world has need of fuel--bow thy head, Man, and leap into

the fire.

To-day you prosper--to-morrow you are cast down into a hell on earth.

What matter? You are fuel for the fire.

But I will not, I will not be swallowed up in the flame of the world,

even though it be the only godhead in the universe. I will tear myself

loose, be something in and for myself. I will have an immortal soul.

The world-transformation that progress may have wrought a thousand years

hence--what is it to me?

Your soul? Just think of all your noble feelings towards that true-born

half-brother of yours--ha-ha-ha! Shakespeare was wrong. It’s the bastard

that gets cheated.

“Dearest Peer, do, for God’s sake, try to get to sleep.”

“Oh yes. I’ll get to sleep all right. But it’s so hot.” He threw off the

clothes and lay breathing heavily.

“I’m sure you’re lying thinking and brooding over things. Can’t you do

what the Swedish doctor told you--just try to think that everything is

dark all round you.”

Peer turns round, and everything around him is dark. But in the heart of

that darkness waves arise, waves of melody, rolling nearer, nearer.

It is the sound of a hymn--it is Louise standing playing, his sister

Louise. And what peace--O God, what peace and rest!

But soon Louise fades away, she fades away, and vanishes like a flame

blown out. And there comes a roaring noise, nearer and nearer, grinding,

crashing, rattling--and he knows now what it is only too well: it is the

song of the steel.

The roar of steel from ships and from railway-trains, with their pairs

of yellow evil eyes, rushing on, full of human captives, whither?

Faster, faster--driven by competition, by the steel demon that hunts men

on without rest or respite--that hurries on the pulse of the world to

fever, to hallucination, to madness.

Crashing of steel girders falling, the hum of wheels, the clash of

cranes and winches and chains, the clang of steam-hammers at work--all

are in that roar. The fire flares up with hellish eyes in every dark

corner, and men swarm around in the red glow like evil angels. They are

the slaves of steel and fire, lashed onwards, never resting.

Is this the spirit of Prometheus? Look, the will of steel is flinging

men up into the air now. It is conquering the heavens. Why? That it may

rush the faster. It craves for yet more speed, quicker, quicker, dizzier

yet, hurrying--wherefore?--whither? Alas! it knows not itself.

Are the children of the earth grown so homeless? Do they fear to take a

moment’s rest? Do they dread to look inward and see their own emptiness?

Are they longing for something they have lost--some hymn, some harmony,

some God?

God? They find a bloodthirsty Jehovah, and an ascetic on the cross. What

gods are these for modern men? Religious history, not religion.

“Peer,” says Merle again, “for God’s sake try to sleep.”

“Merle, do you think I shall get well here?”

“Why, don’t you feel already how splendid the air is? Of course you’ll

get well.”

He twined his fingers into hers, and at last the sound of Louise’s hymn

came to him once more, lifting and rocking him gently till his eyes

closed.

Chapter II

A little road winds in among the woods, two wheel-tracks only, with a

carpet of brown pine-needles between; but there are trees and the sky,

quiet and peace, so that it’s a real blessing to walk there. It rises

and falls so gently, that no one need get out of breath; indeed,

it seems to go along with one all the time, in mere friendliness,

whispering: “Take it easy. Take your time. Have a good rest here.” And

so on it goes, winding in among the tree-trunks, slender and supple as a

young girl.

Peer walked here every day. He would stop and look up into the tops of

the fir trees, and walk on again; then sit down for a moment on a mossy

stone; but only for a moment--always he was up again soon and moving on,

though he had nowhere to go. But at least there was peace here. He would

linger watching an insect as it crept along a fir branch, or listening

to the murmur of the river in the valley far below, or breathing in the

health-giving scent of the resin, thick in the warm air.

This present life of his was one way of living. As he lay, after a

sleepless night, watching the window grow lighter with the dawn, he

would think: Yet another new day--and nothing that I can do in it.

And yet he had to get up, and dress, and go down and eat. His bread had

a slightly bitter taste to him--it tasted of charity and dependence, of

the rich widow at Bruseth and the agent for English tweeds. And he must

remember to eat slowly, to masticate each mouthful carefully, to rest

after meals, and above all not to think--not to think of anything in the

wide world. Afterwards, he could go out and in like other people, only

that all his movements and actions were useless and meaningless in

themselves; they were done only for the sake of health, or to keep

thoughts away, or to make the time go by.

How had this come to pass? He found it still impossible to grasp how

such senseless things can happen and no Providence interfere to set them

right. Why should he have been so suddenly doomed to destruction?

Days, weeks and months of his best manhood oozing away into empty

nothingness--why? Sleeplessness and tortured nerves drove him to do

things that his will disowned; he would storm at his wife and children

if a heel so much as scraped on the floor, and the remorse that

followed, sometimes ending in childish tears, did no good, for the next

time the same thing, or worse, would happen again. This was the burden

of his days. This was the life he was doomed to live.

But up here on the little forest track he harms no one; and no racking

noises come thrusting sharp knives into his spine. Here is a great

peace; a peace that does a man good. Down on the grassy slope below

stands a tumble-down grey barn; it reminds him of an old worn-out horse,

lifting its head from grazing to gaze at you--a lonely forsaken creature

it seems--to-morrow it will sink to the ground and rise no more--yet IT

takes its lot calmly and patiently.

Ugh! how far he has got from Raastad. A cold sweat breaks out over his

body for fear he may not have strength to walk back again uphill. Well,

pull yourself together. Rest a little. And he lies down on his back in a

field of clover, and stares up at the sky.

A stream of clean air, fresh from the snow, flows all day long down the

valley; as if Jotunheim itself, where it lies in there beneath the sky,

were breathing in easy well-being. Peer fills his lungs again and again

with long deep draughts, drinking in the air like a saving potion. “Help

me then, oh air, light, solitude! help me that I may be whole once more

and fit to work, for this is the one and only religion left me to cling

to.”

High above, over the two mountain ranges, a blue flood stands immovable,

and in its depths eternal rest is brooding. But is there a will there

too, that is concerned with men on earth? You do not believe in it, and

yet a little prayer mounts up to it as well! Help me--thou too. Who?

Thou that hearest. If Thou care at all for the miserable things called

men that crawl upon the earth--help me! If I once prayed for a great

work that could stay my hunger for things eternal, I repent me now

and confess that it was pride and vanity. Make me a slave, toiling at

servile tasks for food, so that Merle and the children be not taken from

me. Hearest Thou?

Does anyone in heaven find comfort in seeing men tortured by blind

fortune? Are my wife and my children slaves of an unmeaning chance--and

yet can smile and laugh? Answer me, if Thou hearest--Thou of the many

names.

A grasshopper is shrilling in the grass about him. Suddenly he starts up

sitting. A railway-train goes screaming past below.

And so the days go on.

Each morning Merle would steal a glance at her husband’s face, to see

if he had slept; if his eyes were dull, or inflamed, or calm. Surely he

must be better soon! Surely their stay here must do him good. She

too had lost faith in medicines, but this air, the country life, the

solitude--rest, rest--surely there must soon be some sign that these

were helping him.

Many a time she rose in the morning without having closed her eyes all

night. But there were the children to look after, the house to see to,

and she had made up her mind to get on without a maid if she possibly

could.

“What has taken you over to the farm so much lately?” she asked one day.

“You have been sitting over there with old Raastad for hours together.”

“I--I go over to amuse myself and pass the time,” he said.

“Do you talk politics?”

“No--we play cards. Why do you look at me like that?”

“You never cared for cards before.”

“No; but what the devil am I to do? I can’t read, because of these

cursed eyes of mine--and the hammering in my head. . . . And I’ve

counted all the farms up and down the valley now. There are fifty in

all. And on the farm here there are just twenty-one houses, big and

little. What the devil am I to take to next?”

Merle sighed. “It is hard,” she said. “But couldn’t you wait till the

evening to play cards--till the children are in bed--then I could play

with you. That would be better.”

“Thank you very much. But what about the rest of the day? Do you know

what it’s like to go about from dawn to dark feeling that every minute

is wasted, and wasted for nothing? No, you can’t know it. What am I

to do with myself all through one of these endless, deadly days? Drink

myself drunk?”

“Couldn’t you try cutting firewood for a little?”

“Firewood?” He whistled softly. “Well, that’s an idea. Ye--yes. Let’s

try chopping firewood for a change.”

Thud, thud, thud!

But as he straightened his back for a breathing-space, the whirr, whirr

of Raastad’s mowing machine came to him from the hill-slope near by

where it was working, and he clenched his teeth as if they ached. He

was driving a mowing machine of his own invention, and it was raining

continually, and the grass kept sticking, sticking--and how to put it

right--put it right? It was as if blows were falling on festering wounds

in his head, making him dance with pain. Thud, thud, thud!--anything to

drown the whirr of that machine.

But a man may use an axe with his hands, and yet have idiotic fancies

all the time bubbling and seething in his head. The power to hold in

check the vagaries of imagination may be gone. From all sides they come

creeping out in swarms, they swoop down on him like birds of prey--as if

in revenge for having been driven away so often before--they cry: here

we are! He stood once more as an apprentice in the mechanical works,

riveting the plates of a gigantic boiler with a compressed-air

tube--cling, clang! The wailing clang of the boiler went out over

the whole town. And now that same boiler is set up inside his

head--cling-clang--ugh! A cold sweat breaks out upon his body; he throws

down the axe; he must go--must fly, escape somewhere--where, he cannot

tell. Faces that he hates to think of peer out at him from every corner,

yapping out: “Heh!--what did we say? To-day a beggar--to-morrow a madman

in a cell.”

But it may happen, too, that help comes in the night. Things come back

to a man that it is good to remember. That time--and that other. . . . A

woman there--and the one you met in such a place. There is a picture

in the Louvre, by Veronese: a young Venetian woman steps out upon the

marble stairway of a palace holding a golden-haired boy by the hand;

she is dressed in black velvet, she glows with youth and happiness. A

lovers’ meeting in her garden? The first kiss! Moonlight and mandolins!

A shudder of pleasure passes through his weary body. Bright

recollections and impressions flock towards him like spirits of

light--he can hear the rushing sound of their wings--he calls to them

for aid, and they encircle him round; they struggle with the spirits of

darkness for his soul. He has known much brightness, much beauty in his

life--surely the bright angels are the stronger and must conquer. Ah!

why had he not lived royally, amidst women and flowers and wine?

One morning as he was getting up, he said: “Merle, I must and will hit

upon something that’ll send me to bed thoroughly tired out.”

“Yes dear,” she answered. “Do try.”

“I’ll try wheeling stones to begin with,” he said. “The devil’s in it if

a day at that doesn’t make a man sleep.”

So that day and for many days he wheeled stones from some newly broken

land on the hillside down to a dyke that ran along the road.

Calm, golden autumn days; one farm above another rising up towards the

crest of the range, all set in ripe yellow fields. One little cottage

stands right on the crest against the sky itself, and it, too, has its

tiny patch of yellow corn. And an eagle sails slowly across the deep

valley from peak to peak.

People passing by stared at Peer as he went about bare-headed, in his

shirt-sleeves, wheeling stones. “Aye, gentlefolks have queer notions,”

they would say, shaking their heads.

“That’s it--keep at it,” a dry, hacking voice kept going in Peer’s head.

“It is idiocy, but you are doomed to it. Shove hard with those skinny

legs of yours; many a jade before you has had to do the same. You’ve got

to get some sleep tonight. Only ten months left now; and then we shall

have Lucifer turning up at the cross-roads once more. Poor Merle--she’s

beginning to grow grey. And the poor little children--dreaming of father

beating them, maybe, they cry out so often in their sleep. Off now,

trundle away. Now over with that load; and back for another.

“You, that once looked down on the soulless toil for bread, you have

sunk now to something far more miserable. You are dragging at a load

of sheer stupidity. You are a galley-slave, with calamity for your

task-master. As you move the chains rattle. And that is your day.”

He straightens himself up, wipes the sweat from his forehead, and begins

heaving up stones into his barrow again.

How long must it last, this life in manacles? Do you remember Job?

Job? Aye, doubtless Jehovah was sitting at some jovial feast when he

conceived that fantasy of a drunken brain, to let Satan loose upon a

happy man. Job? His seven sons and daughters, and his cattle, and his

calves were restored unto him, but we read nothing of any compensation

made him for the jest itself. He was made to play court fool, with his

boils and his tortures and his misery, and the gods had their bit

of sport gratis. Job had his actual outlay in cattle and offspring

refunded, and that was all. Ha-ha!

Prometheus! Is it you after all that are the friend of man among the

gods? Have you indeed the power to free us all some day? When will you

come, then, to raise the great revolt?

Come, come--up with the barrow again--you see it is full.

“Father, it’s dinner-time. Come along home,” cries little Louise, racing

down the hill with her yellow plaits flying about her ears. But she

stops cautiously a little distance off--there is no knowing what sort of

temper father may be in.

“Thanks, little monkey. Got anything good for dinner to-day?”

“Aha! that’s a secret,” said the girl in a teasing voice; she was

beaming now, with delight at finding him approachable. “Catch me,

father! I can run quicker than you can!”

“I’m afraid I’m too tired just now, my little girl.”

“Oh, poor papa! are you tired?” And she came up and took him by the

hand. Then she slipped her arm into his--it was just as good fun to walk

up the hill on her father’s arm like a grown-up young lady.

Then came the frosts. And one morning the hilltops were turned into

leaden grey clouds from which the snow came sweeping down. Merle stood

at the window, her face grey in the clammy light. She looked down the

valley to where the mountains closed it in; it seemed still narrower

than before; one’s breath came heavily, and one’s mind seemed stifled

under cold damp wrappings.

Ugh! Better go out into the kitchen and set to work again--work--work

and forget.

Then one day there came a letter telling her that her mother was dead.

Chapter III

DEAR KLAUS BROCK,--

Legendary being! Cast down from Khedivial heights one day and up again

on high with Kitchener the next. But, in Heaven’s name, what has taken

you to the Soudan? What made you go and risk your life at Omdurman? The

same old desperation, I suppose, that you’re always complaining about.

And why, of all things, plant yourself away in an outpost on the edge

of the wilderness, to lie awake at nights nursing suicidal thoughts over

Schopenhauer? You have lived without principles, you say. And wasted

your youth. And are homeless now all round, with no morals, no country,

no religion. But will you make all this better by making things much

worse?

You’ve no reason to envy me my country life, by the way, and there’s

no sense in your going about longing for the little church of your

childhood, with its Moses and hymns and God. Well, longing does no harm,

perhaps, but don’t ever try to find it. The fact is, old fellow, that

such things are not to be found any more.

I take it that religion had the same power on you in your childhood

as it had with me. We were wild young scamps, both of us, but we liked

going to church, not for the sake of the sermons, but to bow our heads

when the hymn arose and join in singing it. When the waves of the

organ-music rolled through the church, it seemed--to me at least--as if

something were set swelling in my own soul, bearing me away to lands

and kingdoms where all at last was as it should be. And when we went out

into the world we went with some echo of the hymn in our hearts, and we

might curse Jehovah, but in a corner of our minds the hymn lived on as

a craving, a hunger for some world-harmony. All through the busy day

we might bear our part in the roaring song of the steel, but in the

evenings, on our lonely couch, another power would come forth in our

minds, the hunger for the infinite, the longing to be cradled and borne

up on the waves of eternity, whose way is past all finding out.

Never believe, though, that you’ll find the church of your childhood

now in any of our country places. We have electric light now everywhere,

telephones, separators, labour unions and political meetings, but the

church stands empty. I have been there. The organ wails as if it had the

toothache, the precentor sneezes out a hymn, the congregation does not

lift the roof off with its voice, for the very good reason that there

is no congregation there. And the priest, poor devil, stands up in his

pulpit with his black moustache and pince-nez; he is an officer in

the army reserve, and he reads out his highly rational remarks from a

manuscript. But his face says all the time--“You two paupers down there

that make up my congregation, you don’t believe a word I am saying;

but never mind, I don’t believe it either.” It’s a tragic business when

people have outgrown their own conception of the divine. And we--we

are certainly better than Jehovah. The dogma of the atonement, based

on original sin and the bloodthirstiness of God, is revolting to us; we

shrug our shoulders, and turn away with a smile, or in disgust. We are

not angels yet, but we are too good to worship such a God as that.

There is some excuse for the priest, of course. He must preach of some

God. And he has no other.

Altogether, it’s hardly surprising that even ignorant peasants shake

their heads and give the church a wide berth. What do they do on

Sundays, then? My dear fellow, they have no Sunday. They sit nodding

their heads over a long table, waiting for the day to pass. They remind

one of plough horses, that have filled their bellies, and stand snoring

softly, because there’s no work today.

The great evolutionary scheme, with its wonders of steel and miracles of

science, goes marching on victoriously, I grant you, changing the face

of the world, hurrying its pulse to a more and more feverish beat. But

what good will it do the peasant to be able to fly through the air on

his wheelbarrow, while no temple, no holy day, is left him any more on

earth? What errand can he have up among the clouds, while yet no heaven

arches above his soul?

This is the burning question with all of us, with you in the desert as

with us up here under the Pole. To me it seems that we need One who will

make our religion new--not merely a new prophet, but a new God.

You ask about my health--well, I fancy it’s too early yet to speak about

it. But so much I will say: If you should ever be in pain and suffering,

take it out on yourself--not on others.

Greetings from us all.

Yours,

PEER DALESMAN.

Chapter IV

Christmas was near, the days were all grey twilight, and there was a

frost that set the wall-timbers cracking. The children went about

blue with cold. When Merle scrubbed the floors, they turned into small

skating-rinks, though there might be a big fire in the stove. Peer waded

and waded through deep snow to the well for water, and his beard hung

like a wreath of icicles about his face.

Aye, this was a winter.

Old Raastad’s two daughters were in the dairy making whey-cheese. The

door was flung open, there was a rush of frosty air, and Peer stood

there blinking his eyes.

“Huh! what smokers you two are!”

“Are we now?” And the red-haired one and the fair-haired one both

giggled, and they looked at each other and nodded. This queer

townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn’t crack

jokes.

“By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be

married.”

Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.

“And Mari, you were married to the bailiff.”

“Oh my! That old creature down at Moen?”

“He was much older. Ninety years old he was.”

“Uf!--you’re always at your nonsense,” said the red-haired girl,

stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.

Peer went out again. The girls were hardly out of their teens, and yet

their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness. And whenever

Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they seemed frightened

the next minute at having been betrayed into doing something there was

no profit in.

Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down over

his ears. Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an icy-blue

cold out over the world.

And he? Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a burden

that weighed and bowed him down continually? Why the devil could he not

shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely at his evil fate?

“Peer,” asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, “what did you think of

giving the children for a Christmas present?”

“Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course. When you’ve more

money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy. And what

about you, my girl? Any objection to a couple of thousand crowns’ worth

of furs?”

“No, but seriously. The children haven’t any ski--nor a hand-sleigh.”

“Well, have you the money to buy them? I haven’t.”

“Suppose you tried making them yourself?”

“Ski?” Peer turned over the notion, whistling. “Well, why not? And a

sleigh? We might manage that. But what about little Asta?--she’s too

little for that sort of thing.”

“She hasn’t any bed for her doll.”

Peer whistled again. “There’s something in that. That’s an idea. I’m not

so handless yet that I couldn’t--”

He was soon hard at it. There were tools and a joiner’s bench in an

outhouse, and there he worked. He grew easily tired; his feet tried

constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to go on. Is

there anything in the notion that a man can get well by simply willing

it? I will, will, will. The thought of others besides himself began to

get the upper hand of those birds of prey ravening in his head. Presents

for the children, presents that father had made himself--the picture

made light and warmth in his mind. Drive ahead then.

When it came to making the iron ribbons for the sleigh runners he had

to go across to the smithy; and there stood a cottar at work roughing

horseshoes. Red glowing iron once more, and steel. The clang of hammer

on anvil seemed to tear his ears; yet it drew him on too. It was long

since last he heard that sound. And there were memories.

“Want this welded, Jens? Where’s the borax? Look here, this is the way

of it.”

“Might ha’ been born and bred a smith,” said Jens, as he watched the

deft and easy hammer-strokes.

Christmas Eve came, and the grey farm-pony dragged up a big wooden case

to the door. Peer opened it and carried in the things--a whole heap of

good things for Christmas from the Ringeby relations.

He bit his lips when he saw all the bags piled up on the kitchen table.

There had been a time not long ago when Merle and he had loaded up a

sledge at the Loreng storehouse and driven off with Christmas gifts to

all the poor folk round. It was part of the season’s fun for them. And

now--now they must even be glad to receive presents themselves.

“Merle--have WE nothing we can give away this year?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“A poor man’s Christmas it’ll be with a vengeance--if we’re only to take

presents, and haven’t the least little thing to give away.”

Merle sighed. “We must hope it won’t happen to us again,” she said.

“I won’t have it happen to us now,” he said, pacing up and down.

“There’s that poor devil of a joiner down at Moen, with consumption. I’m

going down there with a bit of a parcel to chuck in at his door, if I

have to take your shift and the shirt off my back. You know yourself it

won’t be any Christmas at all, if we don’t do something.”

“Well--if you like. I’ll see if we can’t find something among the

children’s clothes that they can do without.”

The end of it was that Merle levied toll on all the parcels from home,

both rice and raisins and cakes, and made up little packets of them to

send round by him. That was Merle’s way; let her alone and she would hit

upon something.

The snow creaked and crackled underfoot as Peer went off on his errand.

A starry sky and a biting wind, and light upon light from the windows of

the farms scattered over the dark hillsides. High above all, against the

sky, there was one little gleam that might be a cottage window, or might

be a star.

Peer was flushed and freshened up when he came back into the warmth of

the room. And a chorus of joyful shouts was raised when Merle announced

to the children: “Father’s going to bath you all to-night.”

The sawed-off end of a barrel was the bathing-tub, and Peer stood in the

kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, holding the naked little bodies as

they sprawled about in the steaming water.

Mother was busy with something or other in the sitting-room. But it was

a great secret, and the children were very mysterious about it. “No, no,

you mustn’t go in,” they said to little Asta, who went whimpering for

her mother to the door.

And later in the evening, when the Christmas-tree was lit up, and the

windows shone white with frost, there were great doings all about the

sitting room floor. Louise got her ski on and immediately fell on her

face; Lorentz, astride of the new sleigh, was shouting “Hi, hi!--clear

the course there!”, and over in a corner sat little Asta, busy putting

her baby to bed and singing it to sleep.

Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled.

“What did I tell you?” said Merle.

Slowly, with torturing slowness, the leaden-grey winter days creep by.

For two hours in the middle of the day there is pale twilight--for two

hours--then darkness again. Through the long nights the north wind howls

funeral dirges--hu-u-u-u--and piles up the snow into great drifts across

the road, deep enough, almost, to smother a sleigh and its driver. The

days and nights come and go, monotonous, unchanged; the same icy grey

daylight, and never a human soul to speak to. Across the valley a great

solid mountain wall hems you in, and you gaze at it till it nearly

drives you mad. If only one could bore a hole through it, and steal a

glimpse of the world beyond, or could climb up to the topmost ridge and

for a moment look far round to a wide horizon, and breathe freely once

more.

At last one day the grey veil lifts a little. A strip of blue sky

appears--and hearts grow lighter at the sight. The snow peaks to the

south turn golden. What? Is it actually the sun? And day by day now a

belt of gold grows broader, comes lower and lower on the hillside, till

the highest-lying farms are steeped in it and glow red. And at last one

day the red flame reaches the Courthouse, and shines in across the floor

of the room where Merle is sitting by the window patching the seat of a

tiny pair of trousers.

What life and cheer it brings with it!

“Mother--here’s the sun,” cries Louise joyfully from the doorway.

“Yes, child, I see it.”

But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for Lorentz

and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-slopes. “Thank you,

mother--you’re a darling!” And with a slice in each hand she dashes out,

glowing with health and the cold air.

If only Peer could glow with health again! But though one day they might

persuade themselves that now--now at last he had turned the corner--the

next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it all seemed

more hopeless than ever. He had taken to the doctors’ medicines

again--arsenic and iron and so forth--and the quiet and fresh air they

had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do him any good? There

were not so many months of their year left now.

And then? Another winter here? And living on charity--ah me! Merle shook

her head and sighed.

The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.

“Send the children over to me--all three of them, if you like,” wrote

Aunt Marit from Bruseth. No, thanks; Merle knew what that meant. Aunt

Marit wanted to keep them for good.

Lose her children--give away her children to others? Was the day to come

when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?

But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to fit

them to make a living when they grew up. And if their own parents could

not afford them schooling, why--why then perhaps they had no right to

keep them?

Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that the

sunlight fell on her face.

How the snow shone--like purple under the red flood of sunlight. After

all, their troubles seemed a little easier to bear to-day. It was as if

something frozen in her heart were beginning to thaw.

Louise was getting on well with her violin. Perhaps one day the child

might go out into the world, and win the triumphs that her mother had

dreamed of in vain.

There was a sound of hurried steps in the passage, and she started and

sat in suspense. Would he come in raging, or in despair, or had the

pains in his head come back? The door opened.

“Merle! I have it now. By all the gods, little woman, something’s

happened at last!”

Merle half rose from her seat, but sank back again, gazing at his face.

“I’ve got it this time, Merle,” he said again. “And how on earth I never

hit on it before--when it’s as simple as shelling peas!”

He was stalking about the room now, with his hands in his pockets,

whistling.

“But what is it, Peer?”

“Why, you see, I was standing there chopping wood. And all the time

swarms of mowing machines--nine million of them--were going in my head,

all with the grass sticking fast to the shears and clogging them up. I

was in a cold sweat--I felt myself going straight to hell--and then,

in a flash--a flash of steel--it came to me. It means salvation for us,

Merle, salvation.”

“Oh, do talk so that I can understand a little of what you’re saying.”

“Why, don’t you see--all that’s wanted is a small movable steel brush

above the shears, to flick away the grass and keep them clear. Hang it

all, a child could see it. By Jove, little woman, it’ll soon be changed

times with us now.”

Merle laid her work down in her lap and let her hands fall. If this were

true!

“I’ll have the machine up here, Merle. Making the brushes and fixing

them on will be no trouble at all--I can do it in a day in the smithy

here.”

“What--you had better try! You’re just beginning to get a little better,

and you want to spoil it all again!”

“I shall never get well, Merle, as long as I have that infernal machine

in my head balancing between world-success and fiasco. It presses on my

brain like a leaden weight, I shall never have a decent night’s sleep

till I get rid of it. Oh, my great God--if times were to change some

day--even for us! Well! Do you think I wouldn’t get well when that day

came!”

This time she let him take her in his arms. But when he had gone, she

sat still, watching the sun sink behind the snow-ranges, till her eyes

grew dim and her breath came heavily.

A week later, when the sun was flaming on the white roofs, the grey pony

dragged a huge packing-case up to Raastad. And the same day a noise of

hammer and file at work was heard in the smithy.

What do a few sleepless nights matter now? And they are sleepless not so

much from anxiety--for this time things go well--as because of dreams.

And both of them dream. They have bought back Loreng, and they wander

about through the great light rooms once more, and all is peace and

happiness. All the evil days before are as a nightmare that is past.

Once more they will be young, go out on ski together, and dine together

after, and drink champagne, and look at each other with love in their

eyes. Once more--and many times again.

“Good-night, Merle.”

“Good-night, Peer, and sleep well.”

Day after day the hammering went on in the smithy.

A few years back he could have finished the whole business in a couple

of days. But now, half an hour’s work was enough to tire him out. It is

exhausting work to concentrate your thoughts upon a single point, when

your brain has long been used to play idly with stray fancies as they

came. He found, too, that there were defects to be put right in the

parts he thought were complete before, and he had no assistants now, no

foundry to get castings from, he must forge out each piece with his own

hands, and with sorry tools.

What did it matter?

He began to discipline his brain, denying himself every superfluous

thought. He drew dark curtains across every window in his consciousness,

save one--the machine. After half an hour’s work he would go back to bed

and rest--just close his eyes, and rest. This too was discipline. Again

he flooded all his mind with darkness, darkness, to save his strength

for the half-hour of work next day.

Was Merle fearful and anxious? At all events she said no word about the

work that so absorbed him. He was excited enough as it was. And now when

he was irritable and angry with the children, she did not even look

at him reproachfully. They must bear it, both she and the children--it

would soon be all over now.

In the clear moonlight nights, when the children were in bed, the two

would sometimes be seen wandering about together. They went with their

arms about each other’s waists, talking loudly, laughing a great deal,

and sometimes singing. People going by on the road would hear the

laughter and singing, and think to themselves: It’s either someone

that’s been drinking, or else that couple from the Court-house.

The spring drew on and the days grew lighter.

But at the Hamar Agricultural Exhibition, where the machine was tried,

an American competitor was found to be just a little better. Everyone

thought it a queer business; for even if the idea hadn’t been directly

stolen from Peer, there could be no doubt that his machine had suggested

it. The principles adopted were the same in both cases, but in the

American machine there was just enough improvement in carrying them out

to make it doubtful whether it would be any use going to law over the

patent rights. And besides--it’s no light matter for a man with no money

at his back to go to law with a rich American firm.

In the mighty race, with competitors the wide world over, to produce the

best machine, Peer had been on the very point of winning. Another man

had climbed upon his chariot, and then, at the last moment, jumped a few

feet ahead, and had thereby won the prize.

So that the achievement in itself be good, the world does not inquire

too curiously whether it was honestly achieved.

And there is no use starting a joint-stock company to exploit a new

machine when there is a better machine in the field.

The steel had seized on Peer, and used him as a springboard. But the

reward was destined for another.

Chapter V

Herr Uthoug Junior, Agent for English tweeds, stepped out of the train

one warm day in July, and stood for a moment on the station platform

looking about him. Magnificent scenery, certainly. And this beautiful

valley was where his sister had been living for more than a year.

Splendid air--and yet somehow it didn’t seem to have done his

brother-in-law much good. Well, well! And the neatly dressed young

gentleman set off on foot towards Raastad, asking his way from time

to time. He wanted to take them by surprise. There had been a family

council at Ringeby, and they had agreed that some definite arrangement

must be made for the future of the sister and her husband, with whom

things had gone so hopelessly wrong.

As he turned up the by-road that led to the farm, he was aware of a

man in his shirt-sleeves, wheeling a barrow full of stones. What? He

thought--could he be mistaken? No--sure enough it was Peer Holm--Peer

Holm, loading up stones and wheeling them down the hill as zealously as

if he were paid for every step.

The Agent was not the man for lamentations or condolences. “Hullo!” he

cried. “Hard at it, aren’t you? You’ve taken to farming, I see.”

Peer stood up straight, wiped his hands on his trousers, and came

towards him. “Good heavens! how old he has grown!” thought Uthoug to

himself. But aloud he said, “Well, you do look fit. I’d hardly have

known you again.”

Merle caught sight of the pair from the kitchen window. “Why, I do

believe--” she exclaimed, and came running out. It was so long since she

had seen any of her people, that she forgot her dignity and in a moment

had her arms round her brother’s neck, hugging him.

No, certainly Uthoug junior had not come with lamentations and

condolences. He had a bottle of good wine in his bag, and at supper he

filled the glasses and drank with them both, and talked about theatres

and variety shows, and gave imitations of well-known actors, till he had

set the two poor harassed creatures laughing. They must need a little

joy and laughter--ah! well he knew how they must need it.

But he knew, too, that Merle and Peer were on tenterhooks waiting to

know what the family had decided about their future. The days of their

life here had been evil and sad, but they only hoped now that they might

be able to stay on. If the help they had received up to now were taken

from them, they could neither afford to stay here nor to go elsewhere.

What then could they do? No wonder they were anxious as they sat there.

After supper he went out for a stroll with Peer, while Merle waited at

home in suspense. She understood that their fate was being settled as

she waited.

At last they returned--and to her astonishment they came in laughing.

Her brother said good-night, and kissed her on the forehead, and patted

her arm and was kindness itself. She took him up to his room, and would

have liked to sit there a while and talk to him; but she knew Peer had

waited till they were alone to tell her the news that concerned them so

nearly. “Good-night, then, Carsten,” she said to her brother, and went

downstairs.

And then at last she and Peer were sitting alone together, at her

work-table by the window.

“Well?” said Merle.

“The thing is this, Merle. If we have courage to live at all, we must

look facts in the face as they are.”

“Yes, dear, but tell me . . .”

“And the facts are that with my health as it now is I cannot possibly

get any employment. It is certain that I cannot. And as that is the

case, we may as well be here as anywhere else.”

“But can we stay on here, Peer?”

“If you can bear to stay with a miserable bungler like me--that, of

course, is a question.”

“Answer me--can we stay here?”

“Yes. But it may be years, Merle, before I’m fit to work again--we’ve

got to reckon with that. And to live on charity year after year is what

I cannot and will not endure.”

“But what are we to do, then, Peer? There seems to be no possible way

for me to earn any money.”

“I can try, at any rate,” he answered, looking out of the window.

“You? Oh no, Peer. Even if you could get work as a draughtsman, you know

quite well that your eyes would never stand . . .”

“I can do blacksmith’s work,” he said.

There was a pause. Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she could

hardly believe her ears. Could he be in earnest? Was the engineer of the

Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?

She sighed. But she felt she must not dishearten him. And at last she

said with an effort: “It would help to pass the time, I daresay. And

perhaps you would get into the way of sleeping better.” She looked out

of the window with tightly compressed lips.

“And if I do that, Merle, we can’t stay on in this house. In fact a

great box of a place like this is too big for us in any case--when you

haven’t even a maid to help you.”

“But do you know of any smaller house we could take?”

“Yes, there’s a little place for sale, with a rood or two of ground. If

we had a cow and a pig, Merle--and a few fowls--and could raise a

bushel or two of corn--and if I could earn a few shillings a week in the

smithy--we wouldn’t come on the parish, at any rate. I could manage the

little jobs that I’d get--in fact, pottering about at them would do me

good. What do you say?”

Merle did not answer; her eyes were turned away, gazing fixedly out of

the window.

“But there’s another question--about you, Merle. Are you willing to sink

along with me into a life like that? I shall be all right. I lived in

just such a place when I was a boy. But you! Honestly, Merle, I don’t

think I should ask it of you.” His voice began to tremble; he pressed

his lips together and his eyes avoided her face.

There was a pause. “How about the money?” she said, at last. “How will

you buy the place?”

“Your brother has promised to arrange about a loan. But I say again,

Merle--I shall not blame you in the least if you would rather go and

live with your aunt at Bruseth. I fancy she’d be glad to have you, and

the children too.”

Again there was silence for a while. Then she said: “If there are two

decent rooms in the cottage, we could be comfortable enough. And as you

say, it would be easier to look after.”

Peer waited a little. There was something in his throat that prevented

speech. He understood now that it was to be taken for granted, without

words, that they should not part company. And it took him a little time

to get over the discovery.

Merle sat facing him, but her eyes were turned to the window as before.

She had still the same beautiful dark eyebrows, but her face was faded

and worn, and there were streaks of grey in her hair.

At last he spoke again. “And about the children, Merle.”

She started. “The children--what about them?” Had it come at last, the

thing she had gone in fear of so long?

“Aunt Marit has sent word to ask if we will let your brother take Louise

over to stay with her.”

“No!” Merle flung out. “No, Peer. Surely you said no at once. Surely you

wouldn’t let her go. You know what it means, their wanting to have her

over there.”

“I know,” he nodded. “But there’s another question: in Louise’s own

interest, have we any right to say no?”

“Peer,” she cried, springing up and wringing her hands, “you mustn’t ask

it of me. You don’t want to do it yourself. Surely we have not come to

that--to begin sending--giving away--no, no, no!” she moaned. “Do you

hear me, Peer? I cannot do it.”

“As you please, Merle,” he said, rising, and forcing himself to speak

calmly. “We can think it over, at any rate, till your brother leaves

tomorrow. There are two sides to the thing: one way of it may hurt us

now; the other way may be a very serious matter for Louise, poor thing.”

Next morning, when it was time to wake the children, Peer and Merle

went into the nursery together. They stopped by Louise’s bed, and stood

looking down at her. The child had grown a great deal since they came

to Raastad; she lay now with her nose buried in the pillow and the fair

hair hiding her cheek. She slept so soundly and securely. This was home

to her still; she was safer with father and mother than anywhere else in

the world.

“Louise,” said Merle, shaking her. “Time to get up, dear.”

The child sat up, still half asleep, and looked wonderingly at the two

faces. What was it?

“Make haste and get dressed,” said Peer. “Fancy! You’re going off with

Uncle Carsten today, to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth. What do you say to

that?”

The little girl was wide awake in a moment, and hopped out of bed at

once to begin dressing. But there was something in her parents’ faces

which a little subdued her joy.

That morning there was much whispering among the children. The two

youngest looked with wondering eyes at their elder sister, who was going

away. Little Lorentz gave her his horse as a keepsake, and Asta gave her

youngest doll. And Merle went about trying to make believe that Louise

was only going on a short visit, and would soon be coming back.

By dinner-time they had packed a little trunk, and Louise, in her

best dress, was rushing about saying goodbye all round the farm, the

harvesters, whom she had helped to drive in the hay, coming in for a

specially affectionate farewell. Her last visit was to Musin, the grey

horse, that was grazing tethered behind the smithy. Musin was busy

cropping the turf, but he just lifted his head and looked at her--she

plucked a handful of grass, and offered it, and when he had disposed of

that, she patted his muzzle, and he let her cling round his neck for a

moment.

“I’ll be sure to write,” she cried out to no one in particular, as she

went back over the courtyard again.

The train moved out of the station, taking with it Uthoug junior and

Louise, each waving from one of the windows of the compartment.

And Peer and Merle were left on the platform, holding their two youngest

children by the hand. They could still see a small hand with a white

handkerchief waving from the carriage window. Then the last carriage

disappeared into the cutting, and the smoke and the rumble of the train

were all that was left.

The four that were left behind stood still for a little while, but they

seemed to have moved unconsciously closer together than before.

Chapter VI

Some way up from the high-road there stands a little one-storeyed house

with three small windows in a row, a cowshed on one side of it and a

smithy on the other. When smoke rises from the smithy, the neighbours

say: “The engineer must be a bit better to-day, since he’s at it in the

smithy again. If there’s anything you want done, you’d better take it to

him. He doesn’t charge any more than Jens up at Lia.”

Merle and Peer had been living here a couple of years. Their lives had

gone on together, but there had come to be this difference between them:

Merle still looked constantly at her husband’s face, always hoping that

he would get better, while he himself had no longer any hope. Even

when the thump, thumping in his head was quiet for a time, there was

generally some trouble somewhere to keep him on the rack, only he did

not talk about it any more. He looked at his wife’s face, and thought

to himself: “She is changing more and more; and it is you that are to

blame. You have poured out your own misery on her day and night. It is

time now you tried to make some amends.” So had begun a struggle to keep

silence, to endure, if possible to laugh, even when he could have found

it in his heart to weep. It was difficult enough, especially at first,

but each victory gained brought with it a certain satisfaction which

strengthened him to take up the struggle again.

In this way, too, he learned to look on his fate more calmly. His humour

grew lighter; it was as if he drew himself up and looked misfortune in

the eyes, saying: “Yes, I know I am defenceless, and you can plunge me

deeper and deeper yet; but for all that, if I choose to laugh you cannot

hinder me.”

How much easier all things seemed, now that he looked no longer for any

good to come to him, and urged no claims against anyone either in heaven

or on earth. But when he was tired out with his work at the forge, there

was a satisfaction in saying to his wife: “No, Merle, didn’t I tell

you I wouldn’t have you carrying the water up? Give me the bucket.”

“You?--you look fit for it, don’t you?” “Hang it all, am I a man, or am

I not? Get back to your kitchen--that’s the place for a woman.” So he

carried water, and his mood was the brighter for it, though he might

feel at times as if his back were breaking. And sometimes, “I’m feeling

lazy, to-day, Merle,” he would say. “If you don’t mind I’ll stay in bed

a bit longer.” And she understood. She knew from experience that these

were the days when his nightmare headache was upon him, and that it was

to spare her he called it laziness.

They had a cow now, and a pig and some fowls. It was not exactly on the

same scale as at Loreng, but it had the advantage that he could manage

it all himself. Last year they had raised so many potatoes that they had

been able to sell a few bushels. They did not buy eggs any more--they

sold them. Peer carried them down himself to the local dealer, sold them

at market price, and bought things they might need with the money. Why

not? Merle did not think it beneath her to wash and scrub and do the

cooking. True enough, things had been different with them once, but it

was only Merle now who ever had moments of dreaming that the old days

might come back. Otherwise, for both him and her it was as if they had

been washed ashore on a barren coast, and must try to live through the

grey days as best they could.

It would happen once in a while that a mowing machine of the new

American type would be sent in by some farmer to the smithy for repairs.

When this happened, Peer would shut his lips close, with a queer

expression, look at the machine for a moment, and swallow something in

his throat. The man who had stolen this thing from him and bettered it

by a hairsbreadth was doubtless a millionaire by now on the strength of

it.

It cost him something of an effort to take these repairs in hand, but he

bowed his head and set to. Merle, poor girl, needed a pair of shoes.

At times, too, he would turn from the anvil and the darkness within and

come out into the doorway for a breath of air; and here he would look

out upon the day--the great broad empty day.

A man with a sledge-hammer in his hands instinctively looks up at the

heavens. He has inherited that instinct from his great ancestor, who

brought down fire and thought to men, and taught them to rebel against

God.

Peer looked at the sky, and at the clouds, sweeping across it in a

meaningless turmoil. Rebellion against someone up there? But heaven is

empty. There is no one to rebel against.

But then all the injustice, the manifold iniquity! Who is to sit in

judgment on it at the great day?

Who? No one.

What? Think of the millions of all kinds of martyrs, who died under the

bloodiest torments, yet innocent as babes at the breast--is there to be

no day of reparation for them?

None.

But there must be a whole world-full of victims of injustice, whose

souls flit restlessly around, because they died under a weight of

undeserved shame--because they lost a battle in which the right was

theirs--because they suffered and strove for truth, but went down

because falsehood was the stronger. Truth? Right? Is there no one, then,

who will one day give peace to the dead in their graves and set things

in their right places? Is there no one?

No one.

The world rolls on its way. Fate is blind, and God smiles while Satan

works his will upon Job.

Hold your peace and grip your sledge-hammer, idiot. If ever your

conscience should embrace the universe, that day the horror of it would

strike you dead. Remember that you are a vertebrate animal, and it is by

mistake that you have developed a soul.

Cling, clang. The red sparks fly from the anvil. Live out your life as

it is.

But there began to dawn in him a strange longing to be united to

all those unfortunates whom fate had blindly crushed; to gather them

together, not to a common lamentation, but to a common victory. Not for

vengeance, but for a song of praise. Behold, Thou eternal Omnipotence,

how we requite Thy cruelty--we praise life: see how much more godlike we

are than Thou.

A temple, a temple for the modern spirit of man, hungry for

eternity--not for the babbling of prayers, but for a hymn from man’s

munificent heart sent pealing up to heaven. Will it come--will it one

day be built?

One evening Peer came home from the post-office apparently in high

spirits. “Hi, Merle, I’ve got a letter from the Bruseth lady.”

Merle glanced at Lorentz, who had instinctively come close to her, and

was looking at his father.

“From Bruseth? How is Louise getting on?” she asked.

“You can see for yourself. Here’s the letter,” said he.

Merle read it through hurriedly, and glanced at Lorentz once more.

That evening, after the children had gone to bed, the father and mother

sat up talking together in a low voice.

And Merle had to admit that her husband was right. It would be selfish

of them to keep the boy here, when he might be heir to Bruseth some day

if they let him go.

Suppose he stayed and worked here under his father and learned to be a

smith? The blacksmith’s day is over--factories do all the work now.

And what schooling could he get away here in the country? Aunt Marit

offered to send him to a good school.--And so the die was cast for him

too.

But when they went with the boy to see him off at the station, the

mother’s handkerchief was at her eyes all the time, do what she would.

And when they came home she had to lie down in bed, while Peer went

about the place, humming to himself, while he got ready a little supper

and brought it to her bedside.

“I can’t understand how you can take it so easily,” she burst out.

“No--no,” he laughed a little oddly. “The less said about that the

better, perhaps.”

But the next day it was Peer who said he felt lazy again and would lie

still a bit. Merle looked at him and stroked his forehead.

And the time went on. They worked hard and constantly to make both ends

meet without help, and they were content to take things as they came.

When the big dairy was started close by, he made a good deal of money

setting up the plant, but he was not above sharpening a drill for the

road-gangs either. He was often to be seen going down to the country

store in a sleeved waistcoat with a knapsack on his back. He carried his

head high, the close-trimmed beard was shading over into white, his face

often had the strained look that comes from sleeplessness, but his step

was light, and he still had a joke for the girls whom he met.

In summer, the neighbours would often see them shutting up the house and

starting off up the hill with knapsack and coffee-kettle and with little

Asta trotting between them. They were gone, it might be, to try and

recapture some memory of old days, with coffee in the open air by a

picnic fire.

In the autumn, when the great fields yellowed all the hillsides, Peer

and Merle had a little plot of their own that showed golden too. The

dimensions of things had shrunk not a little for these two. A bushel

of corn was much to them now. It hit them hard if their potato-patch

yielded a couple of measures less than they had reckoned on. But the

housewives from the farms near by would often look in on Merle to see

how bright and clean she kept her little house; and now that she had

no one to help her, she found time herself to teach the peasant girls

something of cooking and sewing.

But one habit had grown upon her. She would stand long and long by the

window looking down the valley to where the hills closed it in. It

was as if she were looking constantly for something to come in sight,

something that should bring them better days. It was a kind of Sunday

for her to stand there and look and wait.

And the time went on.

Chapter VII

DEAR KLAUS BROCK,

I write to tell you of what has lately happened to us here, chiefly in

the hope that it may be some comfort to yourself. For I have discovered,

dear friend, that this world-sorrow of ours is something a man can get

over, if only he will learn to see with his own eyes and not with those

of others.

Most men would say things have steadily gone from bad to worse with

me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for suffering

in itself. On the contrary, it hurts. It does not ennoble. It rather

brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it embraces all things. I

was once Engineer in charge at the First Cataract--now I am a blacksmith

in a country parish. And that hurts. I am cut off from reading because

of my eyes, and from intercourse with people whose society would be a

pleasure because there are no such people here. All this hurts, even

when you’ve grown used to it--a good thing in itself it is not. Many

times I have thought that we must have reached the very bottom of the

inclined plane of adversity, but always it proved to be only a break.

The deepest deep was still to come. You work on even when your head

feels like to split; you save up every pin, every match; and yet the

bread you eat often tastes of charity. That hurts. You give up hoping

that things may be better some day; you give up all hope, all dreams,

all faith, all illusions--surely you have come to the end of all things.

But no; the very roots of one’s being are still left; the most precious

thing of all is still left. What can that be, you ask?

That is what I was going to tell you.

The thing that happened came just when things were beginning to look

a little brighter for us. For some time past my head had been less

troublesome, and I had got to work on a new harrow--steel again; it

never lets one rest--and you know what endless possibilities a man sees

in a thing like that. Merle was working with fresh courage. What do you

think of a wife like that? taking up the cross of her own free will, to

go on sharing the life of a ruined man? I hope you may meet a woman of

her sort one day. True, her hair is growing grey, and her face lined.

Her figure is not so straight as once it was; her hands are red and

broken. And yet all this has a soul of its own, a beauty of its own,

in my eyes, because I know that each wrinkle is a mark left by the time

when some new trouble came upon us, and found us together. Then one day

she smiles, and her smile has grown strained and full of sadness, but

again it brings back to me times when both heaven and earth breathed

cold upon us and we drew closer to each other for warmth. Our happiness

and our sufferings have moulded her into what she now is. The world may

think perhaps that she is growing old; to me she is only more beautiful

than before.

And now I am coming to what I was going to tell you. You will understand

that it was not easy to send away the two children, and it doesn’t make

things better to get letters from them constantly begging us to let them

come home again. But we had still one little girl left, little Asta, who

was just five. I wish you could have seen her. If you were a father and

your tortured nerves had often made you harsh and unreasonable with

the two elder ones, you would try--would you not?--to make it up in

loving-kindness to the one that was left. Asta--isn’t it pretty? Imagine

a sunburnt little being with black hair, and her mother’s beautiful

eyebrows, always busy with her dolls, or fetching in wood, or baking

little cakes of her own for father when mother’s baking bread for us

all, chattering to the birds on the roof, or singing now and then, just

because some stray note of music has come into her head. When mother is

busy scrubbing the floor, little Asta must needs get hold of a wet rag

behind her back and slop away at a chair, until she has got herself in a

terrible mess, and then she gets smacked, and screams for a moment, but

soon runs out and sings herself happy again. When you’re at work in

the smithy, there comes a sound of little feet, and “Father, come to

dinner”; and a little hand takes hold of you and leads you to the door.

“Are you going to bath me to-night, father?” Or “Here’s your napkin,

father.” And though there might be only potatoes and milk for dinner,

she would eat as if she were seated at the grandest banquet. “Aren’t

potatoes and milk your favourite dish, father?” And she makes faces at

you in the eagerness of her questionings. At night she slept in a box

at the foot of our bed, and when I was lying sleepless, it would often

happen that her light, peaceful breathing filled me too with peace; and

it was as if her little hand took mine and led me on to sleep itself, to

beautiful, divine sleep.

And now, as I come to the thing that happened, I find it a little hard

to write--my hand begins to tremble. But my hope is that there may be

some comfort in it for you too, as there has proved to be for Merle and

me in the end.

Our next neighbours here were a brazier and his wife--poor folks, like

ourselves. Soon after we first came I went over to have a talk with him.

I found him a poor wizened little creature, pottering about with his

acids, and making a living as best as he could, soldering and tinning

kettles and pans. “What do you want?” he asked, looking askance at me;

and as I went out, I heard him bolt the door behind me. Alas! he was

afraid--afraid that I was come to snatch his daily bread from him. His

wife was a big-boned fleshy lump of a woman, insolent enough in her

ways, though she had just been in prison for criminal abetment in the

case of a girl that had got into trouble.

One Sunday morning I was standing looking at some apple trees in bloom

in his garden. One of them grew so close to the fence that the branches

hung over on my side, and I bent one down to smell the blossom. Then

suddenly I heard a cry: “Hi, Tiger! catch him!” and the brazier’s great

wolf-dog came bounding down, ready to fly at my throat. I was lucky

enough to get hold of its collar before it could do me any harm, and I

dragged it up to its owner, and told him that if anything of the sort

happened again I’d have the sheriff’s officer after him. Then the music

began. He fairly let himself go and told me what he thought of me. “You

hold your jaw, you cursed pauper, coming here taking the bread out

of honest working people’s mouths,” and so on. He hissed it out,

flourishing his arms about, and at last it seemed to me he was fumbling

about for a knife or something to throw at my head. I couldn’t help

laughing. It was a scene in the grand style between two Great Powers in

the world-competition.

A couple of days later I was standing at the forge, when I heard a

shriek from my wife. I rushed out--what could be the matter? Merle was

down by the fence already, and all at once I saw what it was--there was

Asta, lying on the ground under the body of a great beast.

And then--Well, Merle tells me it was I that tore the thing away from

the little bundle of clothes beneath it, and carried our little girl

home.

A doctor is often a good refuge in trouble, but though he may sew up a

ragged tear in a child’s throat ever so neatly, it doesn’t necessarily

follow that it will help much.

There was a mother, though, that would not let him go--that cried and

prayed and clung about him, begging him to try once more if nothing

could be done. And when at last he was gone, she was always for going

after him again, and grovelled on the floor and tore her hair--could

not, would not, believe what she knew was true.

And that night a father and mother sat up together, staring strangely in

front of them. The mother was quiet now. The child was laid out, decked

and ready. The father sat by the window, looking out. It was in May, and

the night was grey.

Now it was that I began to realise how every great sorrow leads us

farther and farther out on the promontory of existence. I had come to

the outermost point now--there was no more.

And I discovered too, dear friend, that these many years of adversity

had shaped me not in one but in various moulds, for I had in me the

stuff for several quite distinct persons, and now the work was done, and

they could break free from my being and go their several ways.

I saw a man rush out into the night, shaking his fist at heaven and

earth; a madman who refused to play his part in the farce any more, and

so rushed down towards the river.

But I myself sat there still.

And I saw another, a puny creature, let loose; a humble, ashen-grey

ascetic, that bent his head and bowed under the lash, and said: “Thy

will be done. The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away--” A pitiful being

this, that stole out into the night and disappeared.

But I myself sat there still.

I sat alone on the promontory of existence, with the sun and the stars

gone out, and ice-cold emptiness above me, about me, and in me, on every

side.

But then, my friend, by degrees it dawned on me that there was still

something left. There was one little indomitable spark in me, that began

to glow all by itself--it was as if I were lifted back to the first day

of existence, and an eternal will rose up in me, and said: Let there be

light!

This will it was that by and by grew and grew in me, and made me strong.

I began to feel an unspeakable compassion for all men upon earth, and

yet in the last resort I was proud that I was one of them.

I understood how blind fate can strip and plunder us of all, and yet

something will remain in us at the last, that nothing in heaven or

earth can vanquish. Our bodies are doomed to die, and our spirit to

be extinguished, yet still we bear within us the spark, the germ of an

eternity of harmony and light both for the world and for God.

And I knew now that what I had hungered after in my best years was

neither knowledge, nor honour, nor riches; nor to be a priest or a great

creator in steel; no, friend, but to build temples; not chapels for

prayers or churches for wailing penitent sinners, but a temple for the

human spirit in its grandeur, where we could lift up our souls in an

anthem as a gift to heaven.

I could never do this now. Perhaps there was nothing that I could do any

more. And yet it seemed to me as I sat there that I had conquered.

What happened then? Well, there had been a terrible drought all that

spring--it is often so in this valley. The eternal north wind sent the

dry mould sweeping in clouds over the whole countryside, and we were

threatened with one of our worst years of scarcity if the rain didn’t

come.

At last people ventured to sow their corn, but then the frosts set in,

and snow and sleet, and the seed froze in the earth. My neighbour the

brazier had his patch of ground sown with barley--but now he would have

to sow it again, and where was he to get the seed? He went from farm to

farm begging for some, but people hated the sight of him after what had

happened about Asta--no one would lend him any, and he had no money to

buy. The boys on the roads hooted after him, and some of the neighbours

talked of driving him out of the parish.

I wasn’t able to sleep much the next night either, and when the clock

struck two I got up. “Where are you going?” asked Merle. “I want to see

if we haven’t a half-bushel of barley left,” I said. “Barley--what do

you want with barley in the middle of the night?” “I want to sow the

brazier’s plot with it,” I said, “and it’s best to do it now, so that

nobody will know it was me.”

She sat up and stared at me. “What? His--the--the brazier’s?”

“Yes,” said I. “It won’t do us any good, you know, to see his bit of

field lying bare all summer.”

“Peer--where are you going?”

“I’ve told you,” said I, and went out. But I knew that she was dressing

and meant to come too.

It had rained during the night, and as I came out the air was soft and

easy to breathe. The morning still lay in a grey half-light with yellow

gleams from the wind-clouds to the north. The scent of the budding

birches was in the air, the magpies and starlings were up and about,

but not a human soul was to be seen; the farms were asleep, the whole

countryside was asleep.

I took the grain in a basket, climbed over the neighbour’s fence and

began to sow. No sign of life in the house; the sheriff’s officer had

come over and shot the dog the day before; no doubt the brazier and his

wife were lying sleeping, dreaming maybe of enemies all around, trying

their best to do them harm.

Dear friend, is there any need to tell the rest? Just think, though, how

one man may give away a kingdom, and it costs him nothing, and another

may give up a few handfuls of corn, and it means to him not only all

that he has, but a world of struggle and passion before he can bring his

soul to make that gift. Do you think that is nothing? As for me--I did

not do this for Christ’s sake, or because I loved my enemy; but because,

standing upon the ruins of my life, I felt a vast responsibility.

Mankind must arise, and be better than the blind powers that order its

ways; in the midst of its sorrows it must take heed that the god-like

does not die. The spark of eternity was once more aglow in me, and said:

Let there be light.

And more and more it came home to me that it is man himself that must

create the divine in heaven and on earth--that that is his triumph over

the dead omnipotence of the universe. Therefore I went out and sowed the

corn in my enemy’s field, that God might exist.

Ah, if you had known that moment! It was as if the air about me grew

alive with voices. It was as though all the unfortunates I had seen and

known were bearing me company; more and more they came; the dead too

were joined to us, an army from times past and long ago. Sister Louise

was there, she played her hymn, and drew the voices all together into a

choir, the choir of the living and the dead, the choir of all mankind.

See, here are we all, your sisters and brothers. Your fate is ours. We

are flung by the indifferent law of the universe into a life that we

cannot order as we would; we are ravaged by injustice, by sickness and

sorrow, by fire and blood. Even the happiest must die. In his own home

he is but on a visit. He never knows but that he may be gone tomorrow.

And yet man smiles and laughs in the face of his tragic fate. In the

midst of his thraldom he has created the beautiful on earth; in the

midst of his torments he has had so much surplus energy of soul that he

has sent it radiating forth into the cold deeps of space and warmed them

with God.

So marvellous art thou, O spirit of man! So godlike in thy very nature!

Thou dost reap death, and in return thou sowest the dream of everlasting

life. In revenge for thine evil fate thou dost fill the universe with an

all-loving God.

We bore our part in his creation, all we who now are dust; we who sank

down into the dark like flames gone out;--we wept, we exulted, we felt

the ecstasy and the agony, but each of us brought our ray to the mighty

sea of light, each of us, from the negro setting up the first mark above

the grave of his dead to the genius raising the pillars of a temple

towards heaven. We bore our part, from the poor mother praying beside

a cradle, to the hosts that lifted their songs of praise high up into

boundless space.

Honour to thee, O spirit of man. Thou givest a soul to the world,

thou settest it a goal, thou art the hymn that lifts it into harmony;

therefore turn back into thyself, lift high thy head and meet proudly

the evil that comes to thee. Adversity can crush thee, death can blot

thee out, yet art thou still unconquerable and eternal.

Dear friend, it was thus I felt. And when the corn was sown, and I went

back, the sun was glancing over the shoulder of the hill. There by the

fence stood Merle, looking at me. She had drawn a kerchief forward over

her brow, after the fashion of the peasant women, so that her face was

in shadow; but she smiled to me--as if she, too, the stricken mother,

had risen up from the ocean of her suffering that here, in the daybreak,

she might take her share in the creating of God. . . .

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES

For the convenience of readers a few points in which Norwegian

pronunciation differs from English are noted below:

The vowels a, e, and i in the middle of words are pronounced much as in

Italian.

aa = long o, as in “post” or “pole.”

e final is sounded, as in German; thus Louise, Merle, etc.

d final is nearly always elided; thus Raastad = Rosta’.

g before e or i is hard; thus Ringeby, not Rinjeby.

j = the English y; thus Bojer = Boyer, Jens = Yens.

l before another consonant is sounded; thus Holm, not Home.

CURRENCY

The unit of currency in Norway is the crown (krone), which in normal

conditions is worth something over thirteen pence, so that about

eighteen crowns go to the pound sterling. Thus Peer Holm’s fortune in

the Savings Bank represented about L100 in English money, and a million

crowns is equivalent to about $260,000 in American money.

To avoid encumbering the reader unnecessarily with the details of

Norwegian currency, small amounts have been represented in this

translation by their equivalents in English money.