"What's that?" asks Axel all at once.

"Nay, 'tis only me," says Barbro, and steps in. "You couldn't house me

for the night?" she says.

Axel looks at her and is slow to think, and sits there in his

underclothes, looking at her. "So 'tis you," says he. "And where'll

you be going?"

"Why, depends first of all if you've need of help to the summer work,"

says she.

Axel thinks over that, and says: "Aren't you going to stay where you

were, then?"

"Nay; I've finished at the Lensmand's."

"I might be needing help, true enough, for the summer," said Axel.

"But what's it mean, anyway, you wanting to come back?"

"Nay, never mind me," says Barbro, putting it off. "I'll go on again

tomorrow. Go to Sellanraa and cross the hills. I've a place there."

"You've fixed up with some one there?"

"Ay."

"I might be needing summer help myself," says Axel again.

Barbro is wet through; she has other clothes in her sack, and must

change. "Don't mind about me," says Axel, and moves a bit toward the

door, no more.

Barbro takes off her wet clothes, they talking the while, and Axel

turning his head pretty often towards her. "Now you'd better go out

just a bit," says she.

"Out?" says he. And indeed 'twas no weather to go out in. He stands

there, seeing her more and more stripped; 'tis hard to keep his eyes

away; and Barbro is so thoughtless, she might well have put on dry

things bit by bit as she took oft the wet, but no. Her shift is thin

and clings to her; she unfastens a button at one shoulder, and turns

aside, 'tis nothing new for her. Axel dead silent then, and he sees

how she makes but a touch or two with her hands and washes the last of

her clothes from her. 'Twas splendidly done, to his mind. And there

she stands, so utterly thoughtless of her....

A while after, they lay talking together. Ay, he had need of help for

the summer, no doubt about that.

"They said something that way," says Barbro.

He had begun his mowing and haymaking all alone again; Barbro could

judge for herself how awkward it was for him now.--Ay, Barbro

understood.--On the other hand, it was Barbro herself that had run

away and left him before, without a soul to help him, he can't forget

that. And taken her rings with her into the bargain. And on top of all

that, shameful as it was, the paper that kept on coming, that Bergen

newspaper it seemed he would never get rid of; he had had to go on

paying for it a whole year after.

"'Twas shameful mean of them," says Barbro, taking his part all the

time.

But seeing her all submissive and gentle, Axel himself could not be

altogether heartless towards her; he agreed that Barbro might have

some reason to be angry with him in return for the way he had taken

the telegraph business from her father. "But as for that," said he,

"your father can have the telegraph business again for me; I'll have

no more of it, 'tis but a waste of time."

"Ay," says Barbro.

Axel thought for a while, then asked straight out: "Well, what about

it now, would you want to come for the summer and no more?"

"Nay," says Barbro, "let it be as you please."

"You mean that, and truly?"

"Ay, just as you please, and I'll be pleased with the same. You've no

call to doubt about me any more."

"H'm."

"No, 'tis true. And I've ordered about the banns."

H'm. This was not so bad. Axel lay thinking it over a long time. If

she meant it in earnest this time, and not shameful deceit again, then

he'd a woman of his own and help for as long as might be.

"I could get a woman to come from our parts," said he, "and she's

written saying she'd come. But then I'd have to pay her fare from

America."

Says Barbro: "Ho, she's in America, then?"

"Ay. Went over last year she did, but doesn't care to stay."

"Never mind about her," says Barbro. "And what'd become of me then?"

says she, and begins to be soft and mournful.

"No. That's why I've not fixed up all certain with her."

And after that, Barbro must have something to show in return; she

confessed about how she could have taken a lad in Bergen, and he was

a carter in a big brewery, a mighty big concern, and a good position.

"And he'll be sorrowing for me now, I doubt," says Barbro, and makes

a little sob. "But you know how 'tis, Axel; when there's two been so

much together as you and I, 'tis more than I could ever forget. And

you can forget me as much as you please."

"What! me?" says Axel. "Nay, no need to lie there crying for that, my

girl, for I've never forgot you."

"Well...."

Barbro feels a deal better after that confession, and says: "Anyway,

paying her fare all the way from America when there's no need...." She

advises him to have nothing to do with that business; 'twould be over

costly, and there was no need. Barbro seemed resolved to build up his

happiness herself.

They came to agreement all round in the course of the night. 'Twas not

as if they were strangers; they had talked over everything before.

Even the necessary marriage ceremony was to take place before St.

Olaf's Day and harvest; they had no need to hide things, and Barbro

was now herself most eager to get it done at once. Axel was not any

put out at her eagerness, and it did not make him any way suspicious;

far from it, he was flattered and encouraged to find her so. Ay, he

was a worker in the fields, no doubt, a thick-skinned fellow, not used

to looking over fine at things, nothing delicate beyond measure; there

were things he was obliged to do, and he looked to what was useful

first of all. Moreover, here was Barbro all new and pretty again, and

nice to him, almost sweeter than before. Like an apple she was, and he

bit at it. The banns were already put up.

As to the dead child and the trial, neither said a word of that.

But they did speak of Oline, of how they were to get rid of her. "Ay,

she must go," said Barbro. "We've nothing to thank her for, anyway.

She's naught but tale-bearing and malice."

But it proved no easy matter to get Oline to go.

The very first morning, when Barbro appeared, Oline was clear, no

doubt, as to her fate. She was troubled at once, but tried not to show

it, and brought out a chair. They had managed up to then at Maaneland.

Axel had carried water and wood and done the heaviest work, and Oline

doing the rest. And gradually she had come to reckon on staying the

rest of her life on the place. Now came Barbro and upset it all.

"If we'd only a grain of coffee in the house you should have it," said

she to Barbro. "Going farther up, maybe?"

"No," said Barbro.

"Ho! Not going farther?"

"No."

"Why, 'tis no business of mine, no," says Oline. "Going down again,

maybe?"

"No. Nor going down again. I'm staying here for now."

"Staying here, are you?"

"Ay, staying here, I doubt."

Oline waits for a moment, using her old head, full of policy. "Ay,

well," says she. "'Twill save me, then, no doubt. And glad I'll be for

the same."

"Oho," says Barbro in jest, "has Axel here been so hard on you this

while?"

"Hard on me? Axel! Oh, there's no call to turn an old body's words,

there's naught but living on and waiting for the blessed end. Axel

that's been as a father and a messenger from the Highest to me day and

hour together, and gospel truth the same. But seeing I've none of my

own folks here, and living alone and rejected under a stranger's roof,

with all my kin over across the hills...."

But for all that, Oline stayed on. They could not get rid of her till

after they were wed, and Oline made a deal of reluctance, but said

"Yes" at last, and would stay so long to please them, and look to

house and cattle while they went down to the church. It took two days.

But when they came back wedded and all, Oline stayed on as before. She

put off going; one day she was feeling poorly, she said; the next it

looked like rain. She made up to Barbro with smooth words about the

food. Oh, there was a mighty difference in the food now at Maaneland;

'twas different living now, and a mighty difference in the coffee

now. Oh, she stopped at nothing, that Oline; asked Barbro's advice on

things she knew better herself. "What you think now, should I milk

cows as they stand in their place and order, or should I take cow

Bordelin first?"

"You can do as you please."

"Ay, 'tis as I always said," exclaims Oline. "You've been out in the

world and lived among great folks and fine folks, and learned all and

everything. 'Tis different with the likes of me."

Ay, Oline stopped at nothing, she was intriguing all day long. Sitting

there telling Barbro how she herself was friends and on the best of

terms with Barbro's father, with Brede Olsen! Ho, many a pleasant hour

they'd had together, and a kindly man and rich and grand to boot was

Brede, and never a hard word in his mouth.

But this could not go on for ever; neither Axel nor Barbro cared to

have Oline there any longer, and Barbro had taken over all her work.

Oline made no complaint, but she flashed dangerous glances at her

young mistress and changed her tone ever so little.

"Ay, great folk, 'tis true. Axel, he was in town a while last

harvest-time--you didn't meet him there, maybe? Nay, that's true, you

were in Bergen that time. But he went into town, he did; 'twas all

to buy a mowing-machine and a harrow-machine. And what's folk at

Sellanraa now beside you here? Nothing to compare!"

She was beginning to shoot out little pinpricks, but even that did not

help her now; neither of them feared her. Axel told her straight out

one day that she must go.

"Go?" says Oline. "And how? Crawling, belike?" No, she would not go,

saying by way of excuse that she was poorly, and could not move her

legs. And to make things bad as could be, when once they had taken the

work off her hands, and she had nothing to do at all, she collapsed,

and was thoroughly ill. She kept about for a week in spite of it, Axel

looking furiously at her; but she stayed on from sheer malice, and at

last she had to take to her bed.

And now she lay there, not in the least awaiting her blessed end, but

counting the hours till she should be up and about again. She asked

for a doctor, a piece of extravagance unheard of in the wilds.

"Doctor?" said Axel. "Are you out of your senses?"

"How d'you mean, then?" said Oline quite gently, as to something she

could not understand. Ay, so gentle and smooth-tongued was she, so

glad to think she need not be a burden to others; she could pay for

the doctor herself.

"Ho, can you?" said Axel.

"Why, and couldn't I, then?" says Oline. "And, anyway, you'd not have

me lie here and die like a dumb beast in the face of the Lord?"

Here Barbro put in a word, and was unwise enough to say:

"Well, what you've got to complain of, I'd like to know, when I bring

you in your meals and all myself? As for coffee, I've said you're

better without it, and meaning well."

"Is that Barbro?" says Oline, turning just her eyes and no more to

look for her; ay, she is poorly is Oline, and a pitiful sight with her

eyes screwed round cornerways. "Ay, maybe 'tis as you say, Barbro, if

a tiny drop of coffee'd do me any harm, a spoonful and no more."

"If 'twas me in your stead, I'd be thinking of other things than

coffee at this hour," says Barbro.

"Ay, 'tis as I say," answers Oline. "'Twas never your way to wish and

desire a fellow-creature's end, but rather they should be converted

and live. What ... ay, I'm lying here and seeing things.... Is it with

child you are now, Barbro?"

"What's that you say?" cries Barbro furiously; and goes on again: "Oh,

'twould serve you right if I took and heaved you out on the muck-heap

for your wicked tongue."

And at that the invalid was silent for one thoughtful moment, her

mouth trembling as if trying so hard to smile, but dare not.

"I heard a some one calling last night," says she.

"She's out of her senses," says Axel, whispering.

"Nay, out of my senses that I'm not. Like some one calling it was.

From the woods, or maybe from the stream up yonder. Strange to

hear--as it might be a bit of a child crying out. Was that Barbro went

out?"

"Ay," says Axel. "Sick of your nonsense, and no wonder."

"Nonsense, you call it, and out of my senses, and all? Ah, but not so

far as you'd like to think," says Oline. "Nay, 'tis not the Almighty's

will and decree I should come before the Throne and before the Lamb as

yet, with all I know of goings-on here at Maaneland. I'll be up and

about again, never fear; but you'd better be fetching a doctor, Axel,

'tis quicker that way. What about that cow you were going to give me?"

"Cow? What cow?"

"That cow you promised me. Was it Bordelin, maybe?"

"You're talking wild," says Axel.

"You know how you promised me a cow the day I saved your life."

"Nay, that I never knew."

At that Oline lifts up her head and looks at him. Grey and bald she

is, a head standing up on a long, scraggy neck--ugly as a witch, as an

ogress out of a story. And Axel starts at the sight, and fumbles with

a hand behind his back for the latch of the door.

"Ho," says Oline, "so you're that sort! Ay, well--say no more of it

now. I can live without the cow from this day forth, and never a word

I'll say nor breathe of it again. But well that you've shown what sort

and manner of man you are this day; I know it now. Ay, and I'll know

it another time."

But Oline, she died that night--some time in the night; anyway, she

was cold next morning when they came in.

Oline--an aged creature. Born and died....

'Twas no sorrow to Axel nor Barbro to bury her, and be quit of her for

ever; there was less to be on their guard against now, they could be

at rest. Barbro is having trouble with her teeth again; save for that,

all is well. But that everlasting woollen muffler over her face, and

shifting it aside every time there's a word to say--'twas plaguy and

troublesome enough, and all this toothache is something of a mystery

to Axel. He has noticed, certainly, that she chews her food in a

careful sort of way, but there's not a tooth missing in her head.

"Didn't you get new teeth?" he asks.

"Ay, so I did."

"And are they aching, too?"

"Ah, you with your nonsense!" says Barbro irritably, for all that Axel

has asked innocently enough. And in her bitterness she lets out what

is the matter. "You can see how 'tis with me, surely?"

How 'twas with her? Axel looks closer, and fancies she is stouter than

need be.

"Why, you can't be--'tis surely not another child again?" says he.

"Why, you know it is," says she.

Axel stares foolishly at her. Slow of thought as he is, he sits there

counting for a bit: one week, two weeks, getting on the third week....

"Nay, how I should know...." says he.

But Barbro is losing all patience with this debate, and bursts out,

crying aloud, crying like a deeply injured creature: "Nay, you can

take and bury me, too, in the ground, and then you'll be rid of me."

Strange, what odd things a woman can find to cry for!

Axel had never a thought of, burying her in the ground; he is a

thick-skinned fellow, looking mainly to what is useful; a pathway

carpeted with flowers is beyond his needs.

"Then you'll not be fit to work in the fields this summer?" says he.

"Not work?" says Barbro, all terrified again. And then--strange what

odd things a woman can find to smile for! Axel, taking it that way,

sent a flow of hysterical joy through Barbro, and she burst out: "I'll

work for two! Oh, you wait and see, Axel; I'll do all you set me to,

and more beyond. Wear myself to the bone, I will, and be thankful, if

only you'll put up with me so!"

More tears and smiles and tenderness after that. Only the two of them

in the wilds, none to disturb them; open doors and a humming of flies

in the summer heat. All so tender and willing was Barbro; ay, he might

do as he pleased with her, and she was willing.

After sunset he stands harnessing up to the mowing-machine; there's a

bit he can still get done ready for tomorrow. Barbro comes hurrying

out, as if she's something important, and says:

"Axel, how ever could you think of getting one home from America? She

couldn't get here before winter, and what use of her then?" And that

was something had just come into her head, and she must come running

out with it as if 'twas something needful.

But 'twas no way needful; Axel had seen from the first that taking

Barbro would mean getting help for all the year. No swaying and

swinging with Axel, no thinking with his head among the stars. Now

he's a woman of his own to look after the place, he can keep on the

telegraph business for a bit. 'Tis a deal of money in the year, and

good to reckon with as long as he's barely enough for his needs from

the land, and little to sell. All sound and working well; all good

reality. And little to fear from Brede about the telegraph line,

seeing he's son-in-law to Brede now.

Ay, things are looking well, looking grand with Axel now.

Chapter XI

And time goes on; winter is passed; spring comes again.

Isak has to go down to the village one day--and why not? What for?

"Nay, I don't know," says he. But he gets the cart cleaned up all

fine, puts in the seat, and drives off, and a deal of victuals and

such put in, too--and why not? 'Twas for Eleseus at Storborg. Never a

horse went out from Sellanraa but there was something taken down to

Eleseus.

When Isak came driving down over the moors, 'twas no little event, for

he came but rarely, Sivert going most ways in his stead. At the two

farms nearest down, folk stand at the door of the huts and tell one

another: "'Tis Isak himself; and what'll he be going down after

today?" And, coming down as far as to Maaneland, there's Barbro at the

glass window with a child in her arms, and sees him, and says: "'Tis

Isak himself!"

He comes to Storborg and pulls up. "_Ptro_! Is Eleseus at home?"

Eleseus comes out. Ay, he's at home; not gone yet, but just going--off

on his spring tour of the towns down south.

"Here's some things your mother sent down," says his father. "Don't

know what it is, but nothing much, I doubt."

Eleseus takes the things, and thanks him, and asks:

"There wasn't a letter, I suppose, or anything that sort?"

"Ay," says his father, feeling in pockets, "there was. 'Tis from

little Rebecca I think they said."

Eleseus takes the letter, 'tis that he has been waiting for. Feels it

all nice and thick, and says to his father:

"Well, 'twas lucky you came in time--though 'tis two days before I'm

off yet. If you'd like to stay a bit, you might take my trunk down."

Isak gets down and ties up his horse, and goes for a stroll over the

ground. Little Andresen is no bad worker on the land in Eleseus'

service; true, he has had Sivert from Sellanraa with horses, but he

has done a deal of work on his own account, draining bogs, and hiring

a man himself to set the ditches with stone. No need of buying fodder

at Storborg that year, and next, like as not, Eleseus would be keeping

a horse of his own. Thanks to Andresen and the way he worked on the

land.

After a bit of a while, Eleseus calls down that he's ready with his

trunk. Ready to go himself, too, by the look of it; in a fine blue

suit, white collar, galoshes, and a walking-stick. True, he will have

two days to wait for the boat, but no matter; he may just as well stay

down in the village; 'tis all the same if he's here or there.

And father and son drive off. Andresen watches them from the door of

the shop and wishes a pleasant journey.

Isak is all thought for his boy, and would give him the seat to

himself; but Eleseus will have none of that, and 'sits up by his side.

They come to Breidablik, and suddenly Eleseus has forgotten something.

"_Ptro_!--What is it?" asks his father.

Oh, his umbrella! Eleseus has forgotten his umbrella; but he can't

explain all about it, and only says: "Never mind, drive on."

"Don't you want to turn back?"

"No; drive on."

But a nuisance it was; how on earth had he come to leave it? 'Twas all

in a hurry, through his father being there waiting. Well, now he had

better buy a new umbrella at Trondhjem when he got there. 'Twas no

importance either way if he had one umbrella or two. But for all that,

Eleseus is out of humour with himself; so much so that he jumps down

and walks behind.

They could hardly talk much on the way down after that, seeing Isak

had to turn round every time and speak over his shoulder. Says Isak:

"How long you're going to be away?"

And Eleseus answers: "Oh, say three weeks, perhaps, or a month at the

outside."

His father marvels how folk don't get lost in the big towns, and never

find their way back. But Eleseus answers, as to that, he's used to

living in towns, and never got lost, never had done in his life.

Isak thinks it a shame to be sitting up there all alone, and calls

out: "Here, you come and drive a bit; I'm getting tired."

Eleseus won't hear of his father getting down, and gets up beside

him again. But first they must have something to eat--out of Isak's

well-filled pack. Then they drive on again.

They come to the two holdings farthest down; easy to see they are

nearing the village now; both the houses have white curtains in the

little window facing toward the road, and a flag-pole stuck up on top

of the hayloft for Constitution Day. "'Tis Isak himself," said folk on

the two new farms as the cart went by.

At last Eleseus gives over thinking of his own affairs and his own

precious self enough to ask: "What you driving down for today?"

"H'm," says his father. "'Twas nothing much today." But then, after

all, Eleseus was going away; no harm, perhaps, in telling him. "'Tis

blacksmith's girl, Jensine, I'm going down for," says his father; ay,

he admits so much.

"And you're going down yourself for that? Couldn't Sivert have gone?"

says Eleseus. Ay, Eleseus knew no better, nothing better than to think

Sivert would go down to the smith's to fetch Jensine, after she had

thought so much of herself as to leave Sellanraa!

No, 'twas all awry with the haymaking the year before. Inger had put

in all she could, as she had promised. Leopoldine did her share too,

not to speak of having a machine for a horse to rake. But the hay

was much of it heavy stuff, and the fields were big. Sellanraa was a

sizeable place now, and the women had other things to look to besides

making hay; all the cattle to look to, and meals to be got, and all

in proper time; butter and cheese to make, and clothes to wash, and

baking of bread; mother and daughter working all they could. Isak was

not going to have another summer like that; he decided without any

fuss that Jensine should come back again if she could be got. Inger,

too, had no longer a word against it; she had come to her senses

again, and said: "Ay, do as you think best." Ay, Inger was grown

reasonable now; 'tis no little thing to come to one's senses again

after a spell. Inger was no longer full of heat that must out, no

longer full of wild blood to be kept in check, the winter had cooled

her; nothing beyond the needful warmth in her now. She was getting

stouter, growing fine and stately. A wonderful woman to keep from

fading, keep from dying off by degrees; like enough because she had

bloomed so late in life. Who can say how things come about? Nothing

comes from a single cause, but from many. Was Inger not in the best

repute with the smith's wife? What could any smith's wife say against

her? With her disfigurement, she had been cheated of her spring, and

later, had been set in artificial air to lose six years of her summer;

with life still in her, what wonder her autumn gave an errant growth?

Inger was better than blacksmiths' wives--a little damaged, a little

warped, but good by nature, clever by nature ... ay....

Father and son drive down, they come to Brede Olsen's lodging-house

and set the horse in a shed. It is evening now. They go in themselves.

Brede Olsen has rented the house; an outbuilding it had been,

belonging to the storekeeper, but done up now with two sitting-rooms

and two bedrooms; none so bad, and in a good situation. The place

is well frequented by coffee-drinkers and folk from round about the

village going by the boat.

Brede seems to have been in luck for once, found something suited to

him, and he may thank his wife for that. 'Twas Brede's wife had hit on

the idea of a coffee-shop and lodging-house, the day she sat selling

coffee at the auction at Breidablik; 'twas a pleasant enough thing to

be selling something, to feel money in her fingers, ready cash. Since

they had come down here they had managed nicely, selling coffee in

earnest now, and housing a deal of folk with nowhere else to lay their

heads. A blessing to travellers, is Brede's wife. She has a good

helper, of course, in Katrine, her daughter, a big girl now and clever

at waiting--though that is only for the time, of course; not long

before little Katrine must have something better than waiting on folk

in her parents' house. But for the present, they are making money

fairly well, and that is the main thing. The start had been decidedly

favourable, and might have been better if the storekeeper had not run

short of cakes and sweet biscuits to serve with the coffee; here were

all the feast-day folk calling for cakes with their coffee, biscuits

and cakes! 'Twas a lesson to the storekeeper to lay in a good supply

another time.

The family, and Brede himself, live as best they can on their takings.

A good many meals are nothing but coffee and stale cakes left over,

but it keeps them alive, and gives the children a delicate, sort of

refined appearance. 'Tis not every one has cakes with their coffee,

say the village folk. Ay, Bredes are doing well, it seems; they even

manage to keep a dog, that goes round begging among the customers and

gets bits here and there and grows fat on it. A good fat dog about the

place is a mighty fine advertisement for a lodging-house; it speaks

for good feeding anywhere.

Brede, then, is husband and father in the house, and apart from that

position, has got on variously beside. He had been once more installed

as Lensmand's assistant and deputy, and had a good deal to do that way

for a time. Unfortunately, his daughter Barbro had fallen out with

the Lensmand's wife last autumn, about a trifling matter, a mere

nothing--indeed, to tell the truth, a flea; and Brede himself is

somewhat in disfavour there since. But Brede counts it no great loss,

after all; there are other families that find work for him now on

purpose to annoy the Lensmand's; he is frequently called upon, for

instance, to drive for the doctor, and as for the parsonage, they'd

gladly send for Brede every time there's a pig to be killed, and

more--Brede says so himself.

But for all that there are hard times now and again in Brede's house;

'tis not all the family are as fat and flourishing as the dog. Still,

Heaven be praised, Brede is not a man to take things much to heart.

"Here's the children growing up day by day," says he, though, for that

matter, there's always new little ones coming to take their place. The

ones that are grown up and out in the world can keep themselves, and

send home a bit now and again. There's Barbro married at Maaneland,

and Helge out at the herring fishery; they send home something in

money or money's worth as often as they can; ay, even Katrine, doing

waiting at home, managed, strangely enough, to slip a five-_Krone_

note into her father's hand last winter, when things were looking

extra bad. "There's a girl for you," said Brede, and never asked her

where she'd got the money, or what for. Ay, that was the way! Children

with a heart to think of their parents and help them in time of need!

Brede is not altogether pleased with his boy Helge in that respect; he

can be heard at times standing in the store with a little group about

him, developing his theories as to children and their duty toward

their parents. "Look you, now, my boy, Helge; if he smokes tobacco a

bit, or takes a dram now and then, I've nothing against that, we've

all been young in our time. But 'tis not right of him to go sending

one letter home after another and nothing but words and wishes in.

'Tis not right to set his mother crying. 'Tis the wrong road for a

lad. In days gone by, things were different. Children were no sooner

grown than they went into service and started sending home a little to

help. And quite right, too. Isn't it their father and mother had borne

them under their breast first of all, and sweating blood to keep the

life in them all their tender years? And then to forget it all!"

It almost seemed as if Helge had heard that speech of his father's,

for there came a letter from him after with money in--fifty _Kroner_,

no less. And then Bredes had a great time; ay, in their endless

extravagance they bought both meat and fish for dinner, and a lamp all

hung about with lustres to hang from the ceiling in the best room.

They managed somehow, and what more could they ask? Bredes, they kept

alive, lived from hand to mouth, but without great fear. What more

could they wish for?

"Here's visitors indeed!" says Brede, showing Isak and Eleseus into

the room with the new lamp. "And I'd never thought to see. Isak,

you're never going away yourself, and all?"

"Nay, only to the smith's for something, 'tis no more."

"Ho! 'Tis Eleseus, then, going off south again?"

Eleseus is used to hotels; he makes himself at hojne, hangs up his

coat and stick on the wall, and calls for coffee; as for something to

eat, his father has things in a basket. Katrine brings the coffee.

"Pay? I'll not hear of it," says Brede. "I've had many a bite and sup

at Sellanraa; and as for Eleseus, I'm in his books already. Don't take

it, Katrine." But Eleseus pays all the same, takes out his purse and

pays out the money, and twenty _Ore_ over; no nonsense about him.

Isak goes across to the smith's, and Eleseus stays where he is.

He says a few words, as in duty bound, to Katrine, but no more than is

needed; he would rather talk to her father. No, Eleseus cares nothing

for women; has been frightened off by them once, as it were, and takes

no interest in them now. Like as not he'd never much inclination

that way to speak of, seeing he's so completely out of it all now.

A strange man to live in the wilds; a gentleman with thin writer's

hands, and the sense of a woman for finery; for sticks and umbrellas

and galoshes. Frightened off, and changed, incomprehensibly not a

marrying man. Even his upper lip declines to put forth any brutal

degree of growth. Yet it might be the lad had started well enough,

come of good stock, but been turned thereafter into an artificial

atmosphere, and warped, transformed? Had he worked so hard in an

office, in a shop, that his whole originality was lost thereby? Ay,

maybe 'twas so. Anyway, here he is now, easy and passionless, a little

weak, a little heedless, wandering farther and farther off the road.

He might envy every soul among his fellows in the wilds, but has not

even strength for that.

Katrine is used to jesting with her customers, and asks him teasingly

if he is off to see his sweetheart in the south again.

"I've other things to think of," says Eleseus. "I'm out on

business--opening up connections."

"No call to be so free with your betters, Katrine," says her father

reprovingly. Oh, Brede Olsen is all respect towards Eleseus, mighty

respectful for him to be. And well he may, 'tis but wise of him,

seeing he owes money up at Storborg, and here's his creditor before

him. And Eleseus? Ho, all this deference pleases him, and he is kind

and gracious in return; calls Brede "My dear sir," in jest, and goes

on that way. He mentions that he has forgotten his umbrella: "Just as

we were passing Breidablik, I thought of it; left my umbrella behind."

Brede asks: "You'll be going over to our little store this evening,

belike, for a drink?"

Says Eleseus: "Ay, maybe, if 'twas only myself. But I've my father

here."

Brede makes himself pleasant, and goes on gossiping: "There's a fellow

coming in day after tomorrow that's on his way to America."

"Been home, d'you mean?"

"Ay. He's from up in the village a bit. Been away for ever so many

years, and home for the winter. His trunk's come down already by

cart--and a mighty fine trunk."

"I've thought of going to America myself once or twice," says Eleseus

frankly.

"You?" cries Brede. "Why, there's little need for the likes of you

going that way surely!"

"Well, 'twas not going over to stay for ever I was thinking. But I've

been travelling about so many places now, I might just as well make

the trip over there."

"Ay, of course, and why not? And a heap of money and means and all, so

they say, in America. Here's this fellow I spoke of before; he's paid

for more feasting and parties than's easy to count this winter past,

and comes in here and says to me, 'Let's have some coffee, a potful,

and all the cakes you've got.' Like to see his trunk?"

They went out in the passage to look at the trunk. A wonder to look

at on earth, flaming all sides and corners with metal and clasps and

binding, and three flaps to hold it down, not to speak of a lock.

"Burglar-proof," says Brede, as if he had tried it himself.

They went back into the room, but Eleseus was grown thoughtful. This

American from up in the village had outdone him; he was nothing beside

such a man. Going out on journeys like any high official; ay, natural

enough that Brede should make a fuss of him. Eleseus ordered more

coffee, and tried to play the rich man too; ordered cakes with his

coffee and gave them to the dog--and all the time feeling worthless

and dejected. What was his trunk beside that wonder out there? There

it stood, black canvas with the corners all rubbed and worn; a

handbag, nothing more--ho, but wait! He would buy a trunk when he got

to the towns, a splendid one it should be, only wait!

"'Tis a pity to feed the dog so," says Brede.

And Eleseus feels better at that, and ready to show off again. "'Tis a

marvel how a beast can get so fat," says he.

One thought leading to another: Eleseus breaks off his talk with Brede

and goes out into the shed to look at the horse. And there he takes

out a letter from his pocket and opens it. He had put it away at once,

never troubling to look what money was in it; he had had letters

of that sort from home before, and always a deal of notes

inside--something to help him on the way. What was this? A big sheet

of grey paper scrawled all over; little Rebecca to her brother

Eleseus, and a few words from his mother. What else? Nothing else. No

money at all.

His mother wrote that she could not ask his father for more money

again now, for there was none too much left of all they had got for

the copper mine that time; the money had gone to buy Storborg, and pay

for all the goods after, and Eleseus' travelling about. He must try

and manage by himself this time, for the money that was left would

have to be kept for his brother and sisters, not to leave them all

without. And a pleasant journey and your loving mother.

No money.

Eleseus himself had not enough for his fare; he had cleaned out the

cash box at Storborg, and that was not much. Oh, but he had been a

fool to send that money to the dealers in Bergen on account; no hurry

for that; he might have let it stand over. He ought, of course, to

have opened the letter before starting out at all; he might have saved

himself that journey down to the village with his miserable trunk and

all. And here he was....

His father comes back from the smith's after settling his business

there; Jensine was to go back with him next morning. And Jensine, look

you, had been nowise contrary and hard to persuade, but saw at once

they wanted help at Sellanraa for the summer, and was ready to come. A

proper way to do, again.

While his father is talking, Eleseus sits thinking of his own affairs.

He shows him the American's trunk, and says: "Only wish I was where

that's come from."

And his father answers: "Ay, 'twas none so bad, maybe."

Next morning Isak gets ready to start for home again; has his food,

puts in the horse and drives round by the smith's to fetch Jensine and

her box. Eleseus stands looking after them as they go; then when they

are lost to sight in the woods, he pays his score at the lodging-house

again, and something over. "You can leave my trunk here till I come

back," he tells Katrine, and off he goes.

Eleseus--going where? Only one place to go; he turns back, going back

home again. So he too takes the road up over the hills again, taking

care to keep as near his father and Jensine as he can without being

seen. Walks on and on. Beginning now to envy every soul of them in the

wilds.

'Tis a pity about Eleseus, so changed he is and all.

Is he doing no business at Storborg? Such as it is; nothing to make a

fortune out of there, and Eleseus is overmuch out and abroad, making

pleasant journeys on business to open up connections, and it costs

too much; he does not travel cheaply. "Doesn't do to be mean," says

Eleseus, and gives twenty _Ore_ over where he might save ten. The

business cannot support a man of his tastes, he must get subsidies

from home. There's the farm at Storborg, with potatoes and corn and

hay enough for the place itself, but all provisions else must come

from Sellanraa. Is that all? Sivert must cart up his brother's goods

from the steamer all for nothing. And is that all? His mother must get

money out of his father to pay for his journeys. But is that all?

The worst is to come.

Eleseus manages his business like a fool. It flatters him to have folk

coming up from the village to buy at Storborg, so that he gives them

credit as soon as asked; and when this is noised abroad, there come

still more of them to buy the same way. The whole thing is going to

rack and ruin. Eleseus is an easy man, and lets it go; the store is

emptied and the store is filled again. All costs money. And who pays

it? His father.

At first, his mother had been a faithful spokesman for him every way.

Eleseus was the clever head of the family; they must help him on and

give him a start; then think how cheaply he had got Storborg, and

saying straight out what he would give for it! When his father thought

it was going wrong somehow with the business, and naught but foolery,

she took him up. "How can you stand there and say such things!"

Ay, she reproved him for using such words about his son; Isak was

forgetting his place, it seemed, to speak so of Eleseus.

For look you, his mother had been out in the world herself; she

understood how hard it was for Eleseus to live in the wilds, being

used to better things, and accustomed to move in society, and with

none of his equals near. He risked too much in his dealings with folk

that were none of the soundest; but even so, 'twas not done with any

evil intent on his part of ruining his parents, but sheer goodness of

heart and noble nature; 'twas his way to help those that were not so

fine and grand as himself. Why, wasn't he the only man in those parts

to use white handkerchiefs that were always having to be washed? When

folk came trustingly to him and asked for credit, if he were to say

"No," they might take it amiss, it might seem as if he were not the

noble fellow they had thought, after all. Also, he had a certain duty

towards his fellows, as the town-bred man, the genius among them all.

Ay, his mother bore all these things in mind.

But his father, never understanding it all in the least, opened her

eyes and ears one day and said:

"Look you here. Here's all that is left of the money from that mine."

"That's all?" said she. "And what's come of the rest?"

"Eleseus, he's had the rest."

And she clasped her hands at that and declared it was time Eleseus

began to use his wits.

Poor Eleseus, all set on end and frittered away. Better, maybe, if

he'd worked on the land all the time, but now he's a man that has

learned to write and use letters; no grip in him, no depth. For all

that, no pitch-black devil of a man, not in love, not ambitious,

hardly nothing at all is Eleseus, not even a bad thing of any great

dimensions.

Something unfortunate, ill-fated about this young man, as if something

were rotting him from within. That engineer from the town, good

man--better perhaps, if he had not discovered the lad in his youth

and taken him up to make something out of him; the child had lost his

roothold, and suffered thereby. All that he turns to now leads back to

something wanting in him, something dark against the light....

Eleseus goes on and on. The two in the cart ahead pass by Storborg.

Eleseus goes a long way round, and he too passes by; what was he to do

there, at home, at his trading station and store? The two in the cart

get to Sellanraa at nightfall; Eleseus is close at their heels. Sees

Sivert come out in the yard, all surprised to see Jensine, and the two

shake hands and laugh a little; then Sivert takes the horse out and

leads it to stable.

Eleseus ventures forward; the pride of the family, he ventures up a

little. Not walking up, but stealing up; he comes on Sivert in the

stable. "'Tis only me," he says.

"What--you too?" says Sivert, all astonished again.

The two brothers begin talking quietly; about Sivert getting his

mother to find some money; a last resource, the money for a journey.

Things can't go on this way; Eleseus is weary of it; has been thinking

of it a long time now, and he must go tonight; a long journey, to

America, and start tonight.

"America?" says Sivert out loud.

"Sh! I've been thinking of it a long time, and you must get her to do

as I say; it can't go on like this, and I've been thinking of going

for ever so long."

"But America!" says Sivert. "No, don't you do it."

"I'm going. I've settled that. Going back now to catch the boat."

"But you must have something to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"But rest a bit, then?"

"No."

Sivert is trying to act for the best, and hold his brother back, but

Eleseus is determined, ay, for once he is determined. Sivert himself

is all taken aback; first of all it was a surprise to see Jensine

again, and now here's Eleseus going to leave the place altogether, not

to say the world. "What about Storborg?" says he. "What'll you do with

it?"

"Andresen can have it," says Sivert.

"Andresen have it? How d'you mean?"

"Isn't he going to have Leopoldine?"

"Don't know about that. Ay; perhaps he is."

They talk quietly, keep on talking. Sivert thinks it would be best if

his father came out and Eleseus could talk to him himself; but "No,

no!" whispers Eleseus again; he was never much of a man to face a

thing like that, but always must have a go-between.

Says Sivert: "Well, mother, you know how 'tis with her. There'll be no

getting any way with her for crying and talking on. She mustn't know."

"No," Eleseus agrees, "she mustn't know."

Sivert goes off, stays away for ages, and comes back with money,

a heap of money. "Here, that's all he has; think it'll be enough?

Count--he didn't count how much there was."

"What did he say--father?"

"Nay, he didn't say much. Now you must wait a little, and I'll get

some more clothes on and go down with you."

"'Tis not worth while; you go and lie down."

"Ho, are you frightened of the dark that I mustn't go away?" says

Sivert, trying a moment to be cheerful.

He is away a moment, and comes back dressed, and with his father's

food basket over his shoulder. As they go out, there is their father

standing outside. "So you're going all that way, seems?" says Isak.

"Ay," answered Eleseus; "but I'll be coming back again."

"I'll not be keeping you now--there's little time," mumbles the old

man, and turns away. "Good luck," he croaks out in a strange voice,

and goes off all hurriedly.

The two brothers walk down the road; a little way gone, they sit down

to eat; Eleseus is hungry, can hardly eat enough. 'Tis a fine spring

night, and the black grouse at play on the hilltops; the homely sound

makes the emigrant lose courage for a moment. "'Tis a fine night,"

says he. "You better turn back now, Sivert," says he.

"H'm," says Sivert, and goes on with him.

They pass by Storborg, by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all

the way from the hills here and there; 'tis no military music like

in the towns, nay, but voices--a proclamation: Spring has come. Then

suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking

others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song,

it is a hymn of praise. The emigrant feels home-sick already, maybe,

something weak and helpless in him; he is going off to America, and

none could be more fitted to go than he.

"You turn back now, Sivert," says he.

"Ay, well," says his brother. "If you'd rather."

They sit down at the edge of the wood, and see the village just below

them, the store and the quay, Brede's old lodging-house; some men are

moving about by the steamer, getting ready.

"Well, no time to stay sitting here," says Eleseus, getting up again.

"Fancy you going all that way," says Sivert.

And Eleseus answers: "But I'll be coming back again. And I'll have a

better sort of trunk that journey."

As they say good-bye, Sivert thrusts something into his brother's

hand, a bit of something wrapped in paper. "What is it?" asks Eleseus.

"Don't forget to write often," says Sivert. And so he goes.

Eleseus opens the paper and looks; 'tis the gold piece, twenty-five

_Kroner_ in gold. "Here, don't!" he calls out. "You mustn't do that!"

Sivert walks on.

Walks on a little, then turns round and sits down again at the edge of

the wood. More folk astir now down by the steamer; passengers going on

board, Eleseus going on board; the boat pushes off from the side and

rows away. And Eleseus is gone to America.

He never came back.

Chapter XII

A notable procession coming up to Sellanraa; Something laughable to

look at, maybe, but more than that. Three men with enormous burdens,

with sacks hanging down from their shoulders, front and back. Walking

one behind the other, and calling to one another with jesting words,

but heavily laden. Little Andresen, chief clerk, is head of that

procession; indeed, 'tis his procession; he has fitted out himself,

and Sivert from Sellanraa, and one other, Fredrik Ström from

Breidablik, for the expedition. A notable little man is Andresen; his

shoulder is weighed down slantwise on one side, and his jacket pulled

all awry at the neck, the way he goes, but he carries his burden on

and on.

Storborg and the business Eleseus had left--well, not bought it

straight out on the spot, perhaps, 'tis more than Andresen could

afford; better afford to wait a bit and get the whole maybe for

nothing. Andresen is no fool; he has taken over the place on lease for

the meanwhile, and manages the business himself.

Gone through the stock in hand, and found a deal of unsalable truck in

Eleseus' store, even to such things as toothbrushes and embroidered

table centres; ay, and stuffed birds on springs that squeaked when you

pressed in the right place.

These are the things he has started out with now, going to sell them

to the miners on the other side of the hills. He knows from Aronsen's

time that miners with money in their pockets will buy anything on

earth. Only a pity he had to leave behind six rocking-horses that

Eleseus had ordered on his last trip to Bergen.

The caravan turns into the yard at Sellanraa and sets down its load.

No long wait here; they drink a mug of milk, and make pretence of

trying to sell their wares on the spot, then shoulder their burdens

and off again. They are not out for pretence. Off they go, trundling

southward through the forest.

They march till noon, rest for a meal and on again till evening. Then

they camp and make a fire, lie down, and sleep a while. Sivert sleeps

resting on a boulder that he calls an arm-chair. Oh, Sivert knows what

he is about; here's the sun been warming that boulder all day, till

it's a good place to sit and sleep. His companions are not so wise,

and will not take advice; they lie down in the heather, and wake up

feeling cold, and sneezing. Then they have breakfast and start off

again.

Listening now, for any sound of blasting about; they are hoping to

come on the mine, and meet with folk some time that day. The work

should have got so far by now; a good way up from the water towards

Sellanraa. But never a sound of blasting anywhere. They march till

noon, meeting never a soul; but here and there they come upon holes in

the ground, where men have been digging for trial. What can this mean?

Means, no doubt, that the ore must be more than commonly rich at the

farther end of the tract; they are getting out pure heavy copper, and

keeping to that end all the time.

In the afternoon they come upon several more mines, but no miners;

they march on till evening, and already they can make out the sea

below; marching through a wilderness of deserted mines, and never a

sound. 'Tis all beyond understanding, but nothing for it; they must

camp and sleep out again that night. They talk the matter over: Can

the work have stopped? Should they turn and go back again? "Not a bit

of it," says Andresen.

Next morning a man walks into their camp--a pale, haggard man who

looks at them frowningly, piercingly. "That you, Andresen?" says the

man. It is Aronsen, Aronsen the trader. He does not say "No" to a cup

of hot coffee and something to eat with the caravan, and settles down

at once. "I saw the smoke of your fire, and came up to see what it

was," says he. "I said to myself, 'Sure enough, they're coming to

their senses, and starting work again.' And 'twas only you, after all!

Where you making for, then?"

"Here."

"What's that you've got with you?"

"Goods."

"Goods?" cries Aronsen. "Coming up here with goods for sale? Who's to

buy them? There's never a soul. They left last Saturday gone."

"Left? Who left?"

"All the lot. Not a soul on the place now. And I've goods enough

myself, anyway. A whole store packed full. I'll sell you anything you

like."

Oh, Trader Aronsen in difficulties again! The mine has shut down.

They ply him with coffee till he grows calmer, and asks what it all

means.

Aronsen shakes his head despairingly. "'Tis beyond understanding,

there's no words for it," says he. All had been going so well, and he

had been selling goods, and money pouring in; the village round all

flourishing, and using the finest meal, and a new schoolhouse, and

hanging lamps and town-made boots, and all! Then suddenly their

lordships up at the mine take it into their heads that the thing isn't

paying, and close down. Not paying? But it paid them before? Wasn't

there clean copper there and plain to see at every blasting? 'Twas

rank cheating, no less. "And never a thought of what it means to a man

like me. Ay, I doubt it's as they say; 'tis that Geissler's at the

bottom of it all, same as before. No sooner he'd come up than the work

stopped; 'twas as if he'd smelt it out somehow."

"Geissler, is he here, then?"

"Is he not? Ought to be shot, he ought! Comes up one day by the

steamer and says to the engineer: 'Well, how's things going?'--'All

right, as far as I can see,' says the engineer. But Geissler he just

stands there, and asks again: 'Ho, all right, is it?'--'Ay, as far as

I know,' says the engineer. But as true as I'm here, no sooner the

post comes up from that same boat Geissler had come by, than there's

letter and telegram both to the engineer that the work wasn't paying,

and he's to shut down at once."

The members of the expedition look at one another, but the leader,

Andresen himself, has not lost courage yet.

"You may just as well turn back and go home again," is Aronsen's

advice.

"We're not doing that," says Andresen, and packs up the coffee-pot.

Aronsen stares at the three of them in turn. "You're mad, then," says

he.

Look you, Andresen he cares little now for what his master that was

can say; he's master himself now, leader of an expedition equipped at

his own expense for a journey to distant parts; 'twould lose him his

prestige to turn back now where he is.

"Well, where will you go?" asks Aronsen irritably.

"Can't say," answers Andresen. But he's a notion of his own all the

same, no doubt; thinking, maybe, of the natives, and coming down into

the district three men strong, with glass beads and finger rings.

"We'll be getting on," says he to the rest.

Now, Aronsen had thought like enough to go farther up that morning,

seeing he'd come so far, wanting, maybe, to see if all the place was

quite deserted, if it could be true every man on the place was gone.

But seeing these pedlar-folk so set on going on, it hinders him, and

he tells them again and again they're mad to try. Aronsen is furious

himself, marches down in front of the caravan, turning round and

shouting at them, barking at them, trying to keep them out of his

district. And so they come down to the huts in the mining centre.

A little town of huts, but empty and desolate. Most of the tools and

implements are housed under cover, but poles and planks, broken carts

and cases and barrels, lie all about in disorder; here and there a

notice on a door declares "No admittance."

"There you are," cries Aronsen. "What did I say? Not a soul in the

place." And he threatens the caravan with disaster--he will send for

the Lensmand; anyway, he's going to follow them every step now, and

if he can catch them at any unlawful trading 'tis penal servitude and

slavery, no mistake!

All at once somebody calls out for Sivert. The place is not altogether

dead, after all, not utterly deserted; here is a man standing

beckoning at the corner of a house. Sivert trundles over with his

load, and sees at once who it is--Geissler.

"Funny meeting you here," says Geissler. His face is red and

flourishing, but his eyes apparently cannot stand the glare of spring,

he is wearing smoked glasses. He talks as brilliantly as ever.

"Luckiest thing in the world," says he. "Save me going all the way up

to Sellanraa; and I've a deal to look after. How many settlers are

there in the _Almenning_ now?"

"Ten."

"Ten new holdings. I'll agree. I'm satisfied. But 'tis

two-and-thirty-thousand men of your father's stamp the country wants.

Ay, that's what I say, and I mean it; I've reckoned it out."

"Sivert, are you coming on?" The caravan is waiting.

Geissler hears, and calls back sharply: "No."

"I'll come on after," calls Sivert, and sets down his load.

The two men sit down and talk. Geissler is in the right mood today;

the spirit moves him, and he talks all the time, only pausing when

Sivert puts in a word or so in answer, and then going on again. "A

mighty lucky thing--can't help saying it. Everything turned out just

as I wanted all the way up, and now meeting you here and saving all

the journey to Sellanraa. All well at home, what?"

"All well, and thank you kindly."

"Got up that hayloft yet, over the cowshed?"

"Ay, 'tis done."

"Well, well--I've a heap of things to look to, almost more than I can

manage. Look at where we're sitting now, for instance. What d'you say

to that, Sivert man? Ruined city, eh? Men gone about to build it all

against their nature and well-being. Properly speaking, it's all

my fault from the start--that is to say, I'm a humble agent in the

workings of fate. It all began when your father picked up some bits

of stone up in the hills, and gave you to play with when you were a

child. That was how it started. I knew well enough those bits of stone

were worth exactly as much as men would give for them, no more; well

and good, I set a price on them myself, and bought them. Then the

stones passed from hand to hand, and did no end of damage. Time went

on. And now, a few days ago, I came up here again, and what for, d'you

think? To buy those stones back again!"

Geissler stops for a moment, and looks at Sivert. Then suddenly he

glances at the sack, and asks: "What's that you're carrying?"

"Goods," says Sivert. "We're taking them down to the village."

Geissler does not seem interested in the answer; has not even heard

it, like as not. He goes on:

"Buy them back again--yes. Last time, I let my son manage the deal; he

sold them then. Young fellow about your own age, that's all about him.

He's the lightning in the family, I'm more a sort of fog. Know what's

the right thing to do, but don't do it. But he's the lightning--and

he's entered the service of industry for the time being. 'Twas he sold

for me last time. I'm something and he's not, he's only the lightning;

quick to act, modern type. But the lightning by itself's a barren

thing. Look at you folk at Sellanraa, now; looking up at blue peaks

every day of your lives; no new-fangled inventions about that, but

fjeld and rocky peaks, rooted deep in the past--but you've them for

companionship. There you are, living in touch with heaven and earth,

one with them, one with all these wide, deep-rooted things. No need of

a sword in your hands, you go through life bareheaded, barehanded, in

the midst of a great kindliness. Look, Nature's there, for you and

yours to have and enjoy. Man and Nature don't bombard each other,

but agree; they don't compete, race one against the other, but go

together. There's you Sellanraa folk, in all this, living there. Fjeld

and forest, moors and meadow, and sky and stars--oh, 'tis not poor and

sparingly counted out, but without measure. Listen to me, Sivert: you

be content! You've everything to live on, everything to live for,

everything to believe in; being born and bringing forth, you are the

needful on earth. 'Tis not all that are so, but you are so; needful on

earth. 'Tis you that maintain life. Generation to generation, breeding

ever anew; and when you die, the new stock goes on. That's the meaning

of eternal life. What do you get out of it? An existence innocently

and properly set towards all. What you get out of it? Nothing can put

you under orders and lord it over you Sellanraa folk, you've peace and

authority and this great kindliness all round. That's what you get for

it. You lie at a mother's breast and suck, and play with a mother's

warm hand. There's your father now, he's one of the two-and-thirty

thousand. What's to be said of many another? I'm something, I'm the

fog, as it were, here and there, floating around, sometimes coming

like rain on dry ground. But the others? There's my son, the lightning

that's nothing in itself, a flash of barrenness; he can act.

"My son, ay, he's the modern type, a man of our time; he believes

honestly enough all the age has taught him, all the Jew and the Yankee

have taught him; I shake my head at it all. But there's nothing

mythical about me; 'tis only in the family, so to speak, that I'm like

a fog. Sit there shaking my head. Tell the truth--I've not the power

of doing things and not regretting it. If I had, I could be lightning

myself. Now I'm a fog."

Suddenly Geissler seems to recollect himself, and asks: "Got up that

hayloft yet, above the cowshed?"

"Ay, that's done. And father's put up a new house."

"New house?"

"'Tis in case any one should come, he says--in case Geissler he should

happen to come along."

Geissler thinks over this, and takes his decision: "Well, then, I'd

better come. Yes, I'll come; you can tell your father that. But I've a

heap of things to look to. Came up here and told the engineer to

let his people in Sweden know I was ready to buy. And we'd see what

happened. All the same to me, no hurry. You ought to have seen that

engineer--here he's been going about and keeping it all up with men

and horses and money and machines and any amount of fuss; thought it

was all right, knew no better. The more bits of stone he can turn

into money, the better; he thinks he's doing something clever and

deserving, bringing money to the place, to the country, and everything

nearing disaster more and more, and he's none the wiser. 'Tis not

money the country wants, there's more than enough of it already; 'tis

men like your father there's not enough of. Ay, turning the means to

an end in itself and being proud of it! They're mad, diseased; they

don't work, they know nothing of the plough, only the dice. Mighty

deserving of them, isn't it, working and wasting themselves to nothing

in their own mad way. Look at them--staking everything, aren't they?

There's but this much wrong with it all; they forget that gambling

isn't courage, 'tis not even foolhardy courage, 'tis a horror. D'you

know what gambling is? 'Tis fear, with the sweat on your brow, that's

what it is. What's wrong with them is, they won't keep pace with life,

but want to go faster--race on, tear on ahead, driving themselves into

life itself like wedges. And then the flanks of them say: here, stop,

there's something breaking, find a remedy; stop, say the flanks! And

then life crushes them, politely but firmly crushes them. And then

they set to complaining about life, raging against life! Each to his

own taste; some may have ground to complain, others not, but there's

none should rage against life. Not be stern and strict and just with

life, but be merciful to it, and take its part; only think of the

gamblers life has to bear with!"

Geissler recollects himself again, and says: "Well, all that's as it

may be; leave it!" He is evidently tired, beginning to breathe in

little gasps. "Going down?" says he.

"Ay."

"There's no hurry. You owe me a long walk over the hills, Sivert man,

remember that? I remember it all. I remember from the time I was a

year and a half; stood leaning down from the barn bridge at Garmo, and

noticed a smell. I can smell it again now. But all that's as it may

be, that too; but we might have done that trip over the hills now if

you hadn't got that sack. What's in it?"

"Goods. 'Tis Andresen is going to sell them."

"Well, then, I'm a man that knows what's the right thing to do, but

doesn't do it," says Geissler. "I'm the fog. Now perhaps I'll buy that

mine back again one of these days, it's not impossible; but if I do,

it wouldn't be to go about staring up at the sky and saying, 'Aerial

railway! South America!' No, leave that to the gamblers. Folk

hereabout say I must be the devil himself because I knew beforehand

this was going to break up. But there's nothing mystical about me,

'tis simple enough. The new copper mines in Montana, that's all. The

Yankees are smarter than we are at that game; they are cutting us

to death in South America--our ore here's too poor. My son's the

lightning; he got the news, and I came floating up here. Simple, isn't

it? I beat those fellows in Sweden by a few hours, that's all."

Geissler is short of breath again; he gets on his feet, and says: "If

you're going down, let's get along."

They go on down together, Geissler dragging behind, all tired out. The

caravan has stopped at the quay, and Fredrik Ström, cheerful as ever,

is poking fun at Aronsen: "I'm clean out of tobacco; got any tobacco,

what?"

"I'll give you tobacco," said Aronsen threateningly.

Fredrik laughs, and says comfortingly: "Nay, you've no call to take it

all heavy-like and sad, Aronsen. We're just going to sell these things

here before your eyes, and then we'll be off home again."

"Get away and wash your dirty mouth," says Aronsen furiously.

"Ha ha ha! Nay, you've no call to dance about that way; keep still and

look like a picture!"

Geissler is tired, tired out, even his smoked glasses do not help him

now, his eyes keep closing in the glare.

"Good-bye, Sivert man," says he all at once. "No, I can't get up to

Sellanraa this time, after all; tell your father. I've a heap of

things to see to. But I'll come later on--say that...."

Aronsen spits after him, and says: "Ought to be shot!"

* * * * *

For three days the caravan peddles its wares, selling out the contents

of the sacks, and getting good prices. It was a brilliant piece of

business. The village folk were still well supplied with money after

the downfall of the mine, and were excellently in form in the way of

spending; those stuffed birds on springs were the very thing they

wanted; they set them up on chests of drawers in their parlours, and

also bought nice paper-knives, the very thing for cutting the leaves

of an almanac. Aronsen was furious. "Just as if I hadn't things every

bit as good in my store," said he.

Trader Aronsen was in a sorry way; he had made up his mind to keep

with these pedlars and their sacks, watching them all the time; but

they went separate ways about the village, each for himself, and

Aronsen almost tore himself to pieces trying to follow all at once.

First he gave up Fredrik Ström, who was quickest at saying unpleasant

things; then Sivert, because he never said a word, but went on

selling; at last he stuck to following his former clerk, and trying to

set folk against him wherever he went in. Oh, but Andresen knew his

master that was--knew him of old, and how little he knew of business

and unlawful trading.

"Ho, you mean to say English thread's not prohibited?" said Aronsen,

looking wise.

"I know it is," answered Andresen. "But I'm not carrying any this

way; I can sell that elsewhere. I haven't a reel in my pack; look for

yourself, if you like."

"That's as it may be," says Aronsen. "Anyway, I know what's forbidden,

and I've shown you, so don't try to teach me."

Aronsen stood it for a whole day, then he gave up Andresen, too, and

went home. The pedlars had no one to watch them after that.

And then things began to go swimmingly. It was in the day when

womenfolk used to wear loose plaits in their hair; and Andresen, he

was the man to sell loose plaits. Ay, at a pinch he could sell fair

plaits to dark girls, and be sorry he'd nothing lighter; no grey

plaits, for instance, for that was the finest of all. And every

evening the three young salesmen met at an appointed place and went

over the day's trade, each borrowing from another anything he'd sold

out of; and Andresen would sit down, often as not, and take out a file

and file away the German trade-mark from a sportsman's whistle, or rub

out "Faber" on the pens and pencils. Andresen was a trump, and always

had been.

Sivert, on the other hand, was rather a disappointment. Not that he

was any way slack, and failed to sell his goods--'twas he, indeed,

sold most--but he did not get enough for them. "You don't put in

enough patter with it," said Andresen.

No, Sivert was no hand at reeling off a lot of talk; he was a

fieldworker, sure of what he said, and speaking calmly when he spoke

at all. What was there to talk about here? Also, Sivert was anxious to

be done with it and get back home, there was work to do in the fields.

"Tis that Jensine's calling him," Fredrik Ström explained. Fredrik,

himself, by the way, had work on his own fields to be done that

spring, and little time to waste; but for all that, he must look in on

Aronsen the last day and get up an argument with him. "I'll sell him

the empty sacks," said he.

Andresen and Sivert stayed outside while he went in. They heard grand

goings-on inside the store, both talking at once, and Fredrik setting

up a laugh now and again; then Aronsen threw open the door and showed

his visitor out. Oh, but Fredrik didn't come out--no, he took his

time, and talked a lot more. The last thing they heard from outside

was Fredrik trying to sell Aronsen a lot of rocking-horses.

Then the caravan went home again--three young men full of life and

health. They marched and sang, slept a few hours in the open, and went

on again. When they got back to Sellanraa on the Monday, Isak had

begun sowing. The weather was right for it; the air moist, with the

sun peeping out now and again, and a mighty rainbow strung right

across the heavens.

The caravan broke up--_Farvel, Farvel_....

* * * * *

Isak at his sowing; a stump of a man, a barge of a man to look at,

nothing more. Clad in homespun--wool from his own sheep, boots from

the hide of his own cows and calves. Sowing--and he walks religiously

bareheaded to that work; his head is bald just at the very top, but

all the rest of him shamefully hairy; a fan, a wheel of hair and

beard, stands out from his face. 'Tis Isak, the Margrave.

'Twas rarely he knew the day of the month--what need had he of that?

He had no bills to be met on a certain date; the marks on his almanac

were to show the time when each of the cows should bear. But he knew

St. Olaf's Day in the autumn, that by then his hay must be in, and he

knew Candlemas in spring, and that three weeks after then the bears

came out of their winter quarters; all seed must be in the earth by

then. He knew what was needful.

A tiller of the ground, body and soul; a worker on the land without

respite. A ghost risen out of the past to point the future, a man from

the earliest days of cultivation, a settler in the wilds, nine hundred

years old, and, withal, a man of the day.

Nay, there was nothing left to him now of the copper mine and its

riches--the money had vanished into air. And who had anything left of

all that wealth when the working stopped, and the hills lay dead and

deserted? But the _Almenning_ was there still, and ten new holdings on

that land, beckoning a hundred more.

Nothing growing there? All things growing there; men and beasts and

fruit of the soil. Isak sowing his corn. The evening sunlight falls on

the corn that flashes out in an arc from his hand, and falls like a

dropping of gold to the ground. Here comes Sivert to the harrowing;

after that the roller, and then the harrow again. Forest and field

look on. All is majesty and power--a sequence and purpose of things.

_Kling_ ... _eling_ ... say the cow bells far up on the hillside,

coming nearer and nearer; the cattle are coming home for the night.

Fifteen head of them, and five-and-forty sheep and goats besides;

threescore in all. There go the women out with their milk-pails,

carried on yokes from the shoulder: Leopoldine, Jensine, and little

Rebecca. All three barefooted. The Margravine, Inger herself, is not

with them; she is indoors preparing the meal. Tall and stately, as she

moves about her house, a Vestal tending the fire of a kitchen stove.

Inger has made her stormy voyage, 'tis true, has lived in a city a

while, but now she is home; the world is wide, swarming with tiny

specks--Inger has been one of them. All but nothing in all humanity,

only one speck.

Then comes the evening.

Knut Hamsun

_by_

W.W. Worster

Knut Hamsun [Footnote: December, 1920.]

By W.W. Worster

Knut Hamsun is now sixty. For years past he has been regarded as the

greatest of living Norwegian writers, but he is still little known in

England. One or two attempts have been made previously to introduce

Hamsun's work into this country, but it was not until this year, with

the publication of _Growth of the Soil_, that he achieved any real

success, or became at all generally known, among English readers.

_Growth of the Soil_ (Markens Gröde) is Hamsun's latest work. Its

reception here was one of immediate and unstinted appreciation,

such as is rarely accorded to a translated work by an alien author

practically unknown even to the critics. A noticeable feature was the

frankness with which experienced bookmen laid aside stock phrases, and

dealt with this book as in response to a strong personal appeal. To

the reviewer, aged with much knowledge, hardened by much handling of

mediocrity, it is a relief to meet with a book that can and must be

dealt with so.

Those readers are, perhaps, most fortunate who come upon such a book

as this without foretaste or preparation. To the mind under spell of

an aesthetic or emotional appeal, the steps that went to make it, the

stages whereby the author passed, are as irrelevant as the logarithms

that went to build an aeroplane. Yet it is only by knowledge of such

steps that the achievement can be fully understood.

_Growth of the Soil_ is very far indeed from Hamsun's earliest

beginnings: far even from the books of his early middle period, which

made his name. It is the life story of a man in the wilds, the genesis

and gradual development of a homestead, the unit of humanity, in

the unfilled, uncleared tracts that still remain in the Norwegian

Highlands. It is an epic of earth; the history of a microcosm. Its

dominant note is one of patient strength and simplicity; the mainstay

of its working is the tacit, stern, yet loving alliance between Nature

and the Man who faces her himself, trusting to himself and her for the

physical means of life, and the spiritual contentment with life which

she must grant if he be worthy. Modern man faces Nature only by proxy,

or as proxy, through others or for others, and the intimacy is lost.

In the wilds the contact is direct and immediate; it is the foothold

upon earth, the touch of the soil itself, that gives strength.

The story is epic in its magnitude, in its calm, steady progress and

unhurrying rhythm, in its vast and intimate humanity. The author looks

upon his characters with a great, all-tolerant sympathy, aloof yet

kindly, as a god. A more objective work of fiction it would be hard to

find--certainly in what used to be called "the neurasthenic North."

And this from the pen of the man who wrote _Sult_, _Mysterier_, and

_Pan_.

Hamsun's early work was subjective in the extreme; so much so, indeed,

as almost to lie outside the limits of aesthetic composition. As a boy

he wrote verse under difficulties--he was born in Gudbrandsdalen, but

came as a child to Bodö in Lofoten, and worked with a shoemaker there

for some years, saving up money for the publication of his juvenile

efforts. He had little education to speak of, and after a period of

varying casual occupations, mostly of the humblest sort, he came to

Christiania with the object of studying there, but failed to make his

way. Twice he essayed his fortune in America, but without success. For

three years he worked as a fisherman on the Newfoundland Banks.

His Nordland origin is in itself significant; it means an environment

of month-long nights and concentrated summers, in which all feelings

are intensified, and love and dread and gratitude and longing are

nearer and deeper than in milder and more temperate regions, where

elemental opposites are, as it were, reciprocally diluted.

In 1890, at the age of thirty, Hamsun attracted attention by the

publication of _Sult_ (Hunger). _Sult_ is a record of weeks of

starvation in a city; the semi-delirious confession of a man whose

physical and mental faculties have slipped beyond control. He speaks

and acts irrationally, and knows it, watches himself at his mental

antics and takes himself to task for the same. And he asks himself: Is

it a sign of madness?

It might seem so. The extraordinary associations, the weird fancies

and bizarre impulses that are here laid bare give an air of convincing

verisimilitude to the supposed confessions of a starving journalist.

But, as a matter of fact, Hamsun has no need of extraneous influences

to invest his characters with originality. Starving or fed, they can

be equally erratic. This is seen in his next book, _Mysterier_.

Here we have actions and reactions as fantastic as in _Sult_,

though the hero has here no such excuse as in the former case. The

"mysteries," or mystifications, of Nagel, a stranger who comes, for no

particular reason apparent, to stay in a little Norwegian town, arise

entirely out of Nagel's own personality.

_Mysterier_ is one of the most exasperating books that a publisher's

reader, or a conscientious reviewer, could be given to deal with. An

analysis of the principal character is a most baffling task. One is

tempted to call him mad, and have done with it. But, as a matter of

fact, he is uncompromisingly, unrestrainedly human; he goes about

constantly saying and doing things that we, ordinary and respectable

people, are trained and accustomed to refrain from saying or doing at

all. He has the self-consciousness of a sensitive child; he is for

ever thinking of what people think of him, and trying to create an

impression. Then, with a paradoxical sincerity, he confesses that the

motive of this or that action _was_ simply to create an impression,

and thereby destroys the impression. Sometimes he caps this by

wilfully letting it appear that the double move was carefully designed

to produce the reverse impression of the first--until the person

concerned is utterly bewildered, and the reader likewise.

_Mysterier_ appeared in 1893. In the following year Hamsun astonished

his critics with two books, _Ny Jord_ (New Ground) and _Redaktör

Lynge_, both equally unlike his previous work. With these he passes at

a bound from one-man stories, portrait studies of eccentric characters

in a remote or restricted environment, to group subjects, chosen

from centres of life and culture in Christiania. _Redaktör

Lynge_--_redaktör_, of course, means "editor"--deals largely with

political manoeuvres and intrigues, the bitter controversial politics

of Norway prior to the dissolution of the Union with Sweden. _Ny Jord_

gives an unflattering picture of the academic, literary, and

artistic youth of the capital, idlers for the most part, arrogant,

unscrupulous, self-important, and full of disdain for the mere

citizens and merchants whose simple honesty and kindliness are laughed

at or exploited by the newly dominant representatives of culture.

Both these books are technically superior to the first two, inasmuch

as they show mastery of a more difficult form. But their appeal is

not so great; there is lacking a something that might be inspiration,

personal sympathy--some indefinable essential that the author himself

has taught us to expect. They are less _hamsunsk_ than most of

Hamsun's work. Hamsun is at his best among the scenes and characters

he loves; tenderness and sympathy make up so great a part of his charm

that he is hardly recognizable in surroundings or society uncongenial

to himself.

It would almost seem as if he realized something of this. For in his

next work he turns from the capital to the Nordland coast, reverting

also, in some degree, to the subjective, keenly sensitive manner of

_Sult_, though now with more restraint and concentration.

_Pan_ (1894) is probably Hamsun's best-known work. It is a love-story,

but of an extraordinary type, and is, moreover, important from the

fact that we are here introduced to some of the characters and types

that are destined to reappear again and again in his later works.

Nagel, the exasperating irresponsible of _Mysterier_, is at his

maddest in his behaviour towards the woman he loves. It is natural

that this should be so. When a man is intoxicated his essential

qualities are emphasized. If he have wit, he will be witty; if a

brutal nature, he will be a brute; if he be of a melancholy temper, he

will be disposed to sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the

death of kings.

We see this in _Pan_. The love-making of the hero is characterized

by the same irrational impulses, the same extravagant actions, as

in _Sult_ and _Mysterier_. But they are now less frequent and less

involved. The book as a whole is toned down, so to speak, from the

bewildering tangle of unrestraint in the first two. There is quite

sufficient of the erratic and unusual in the character of Glahn, the

hero, but the tone is more subdued. The madcap youth of genius has

realized that the world looks frigidly at its vagaries, and the

secretly proud "_au moins_ je suis autre"--more a boast than a

confession--gives place to a wistful, apologetic admission of the

difference as a fault. Here already we have something of that

resignation which comes later to its fulness in the story of the

Wanderer with the Mute.

The love-story in _Pan_ takes the form of a conflict; it is one of

those battles between the sexes, duels of wit and _esprit_, such as

one finds in the plays of Marivaux. But Hamsun sets his battle in the

sign of the heart, not of the head; it is a _marivaudage_ of feeling,

none the less deep for its erratic utterance. Moreover, the scene is

laid, not in salons and ante-chambers, but in a landscape such as

Hamsun loves, the forest-clad hills above a little fishing village,

between the _höifjeld_ and the sea. And interwoven with the story,

like an eerie breathing from the dark of woods at dusk and dawn, is

the haunting presence of Iselin, _la belle dame sans merci_.

Otto Weininger, the author of _Sex and Character_, said of _Pan_ that

it was "perhaps the most beautiful novel ever written." Weininger, of

course, was an extremist, and few would accept his judgment without

reserve. It is doubtful whether any writer nowadays would venture to

make such a claim for any book at all.

_Pan_ is a book that offends against all sorts of rules; as a literary

product it is eminently calculated to elicit, especially in England,

the Olympian "this will never do." To begin with, it is not so much a

novel as a _novelle_--a form of art little cultivated in this country,

but which lends itself excellently to delicate artistic handling, and

the creation of that subtle influence which Hamsun's countrymen call

_stemning_, poorly rendered by the English "atmosphere." The epilogue

is disproportionately long; the portion written as by another hand

is all too recognizably in the style of the rest. And with all his

chivalrous sacrifice and violent end, Glahn is at best a quixotic

hero. Men, as men, would think him rather a fool, and women, as

women, might flush at the thought of a cavalier so embarrassingly

unrestrained. He is not to be idolized as a cinema star, or the

literary gymnastic hero of a perennial Earl's Court Exhibition set

to music on the stage. He could not be truthfully portrayed on a

flamboyant wrapper as at all seductively masculine. In a word, he is

neither a man's man nor a woman's man. But he is a human being, keenly

susceptible to influence which most of us have felt, in some degree.

Closely allied to _Pan_ is _Victoria_, likewise a story of conflict

between two lovers. The actual plot can only be described as

hackneyed. Girl and boy, the rich man's daughter and the poor man's

son, playmates in youth, then separated by the barriers of social

standing--few but the most hardened of "best-sellers" catering for

semi-detached suburbia would venture nowadays to handle such a theme.

Yet Hamsun dares, and so insistently unlike all else is the impress

of his personality that the mechanical structure of the story is

forgotten. It is interspersed with irrelevant fancies, visions and

imaginings, a chain of tied notes heard as an undertone through the

action on the surface. The effect is that of something straining

towards an impossible realization; a beating of wings in the void; a

striving for utterance of things beyond speech.

_Victoria_ is the swan-song of Hamsun's subjective period. Already, in

the three plays which appeared during the years immediately following

_Pan_, he faces the merciless law of change; the unrelenting "forward"

which means leaving loved things behind. Kareno, student of life,

begins his career in resolute opposition to the old men, the

established authorities who stand for compromise and resignation. For

twenty years he remains obstinately faithful to his creed, that the

old men must step aside or be thrust aside, to make way for the youth

that will be served. "What has age that youth has not? Experience.

Experience, in, all its poor and withered nakedness. And what use

is their experience to us, who must make our own in every single

happening of life?" In _Aftenröde_, the "Sunset" of the trilogy,

Kareno himself deserts the cause of youth, and allies himself to the

party in power. And the final scene shows him telling a story to a

child: "There was once a man who never would give way...."

The madness of _Sult_ is excused as being delirium, due to physical

suffering. Nagel, in _Mysterier_, is shown as a fool, an eccentric

intolerable in ordinary society, though he is disconcertingly human,

paradoxically sane. Glahn, in _Pan_, apologizes for his uncouth

straightforwardness by confessing that he is more at home in the

woods, where he can say and do what he pleases without offence.

Johannes, in _Victoria_, is of humble birth, which counts in

extenuation of his unmannerly frankness in early years. Later he

becomes a poet, and as such is exempt in some degree from the

conventional restraint imposed on those who aspire to polite society.

All these well-chosen characters are made to serve the author's

purpose as channels for poetic utterance that might otherwise seem

irrelevant. The extent to which this is done may be seen from the way

in which Hamsun lets a character in one book enter upon a theme

which later becomes the subject of an independent work by the author

himself. Thus Glahn is haunted by visions of Diderik and Iselin;

Johannes writes fragments supposed to be spoken by one Vendt the Monk.

Five years after _Victoria_, Hamsun gives us the romantic drama of

_Munken Vendt_, in which Diderik and Iselin appear.

Throughout these early works, Hamsun is striving to find expression

for his own sensitive personality; a form and degree of expression

sufficient to relieve his own tension of feeling, without fusing the

medium; adequate to his own needs, yet understandable and tolerable

to ordinary human beings; to the readers of books. The process, in

effect, is simply this: Hamsun is a poet, with a poet's deep and

unusual feeling, and a poet's need of utterance. To gain a hearing, he

chooses figures whom he can conveniently represent as fools. Secretly,

he loves them, for they are himself. But to the world he can present

them with a polite apology, a plea for kindly indulgence.

It is not infrequent in literature to find the wisest and most

poignant utterances thus laid in the mouths of poor men clad in

motley. Some of the most daring things in Shakespeare, the newest

heresies of the Renaissance, are voiced by irresponsibles. Of all

dramatic figures, that of the fool is most suited to the expression

of concentrated feeling. There is an arresting question in a play of

recent years, which runs something like this: "Do you think that the

things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and

true than the things they behave sensibly about?"

Most of us have at some time or another felt that uncomfortable,

almost indecently denuding question which comes to us at rare moments

from the stage where some great drama is being played: What is higher,

what is more real: this, or the life we live? In that sudden flash,

the matters of today's and tomorrow's reality in our minds appear as

vulgar trifles, things of which we are ashamed. The feeling lasts but

a moment; for a moment we have been something higher than ourselves,

in the mere desire so to be. Then we fall back to ourselves once more,

to the lower levels upon which alone we can exist. And yet it is by

such potentials that we judge the highest art; by its power to give

us, if only for a moment, something of that which the divinity of our

aspiring minds finds wanting in the confines of reality.

The richness of this quality is one of the most endearing things in

Hamsun's characters. Their sensitiveness is a thing we have been

trained, for self-defence, to repress. It is well for us, no doubt,

that this is so. But we are grateful for their showing that such

things _are_, as we are grateful for Kensington Gardens who cannot

live where trees are everywhere. The figures Hamsun sets before us

as confessedly unsuited to the realities of life, his vagabonds, his

failures, his fools, have power at times to make us question whether

our world of comfort, luxury, success, is what we thought; if it were

not well lost in exchange for the power to _feel_ as they.

It has been said that life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy

to those who feel. Humanly speaking, it is one of the greatest merits

of Hamsun's work that he shows otherwise. His attitude towards life

is throughout one of feeling, yet he makes of life no tragedy, but a

beautiful story.

"I will be young until I die," says Kareno in _Aftenröde_. The words

are not so much a challenge to fate as a denial of fact; he is not

fighting, only refusing to acknowledge the power that is already hard

upon him.

Kareno is an _intellectual_ character. He is a philosopher, a man

whose perceptions and activity lie predominantly in the sphere of

thought, not of feeling. His attempt to carry the fire of youth beyond

the grave of youth ends in disaster; an unnecessary _débâcle_ due to

his gratuitously attempting the impossible.

Hamsun's poet-personality, the spirit we have seen striving for

expression through the figures of Nagel, Glahn, Johannes, and the

rest, is a creature of _feeling_. And here the development proceeds on

altogether different lines. The emotion which fails to find adequate

outlet, even in such works as _Sult_, _Mysterier_, _Victoria_, and

_Pan_, might well seem more of a peril than the quixotic stubbornness

of Kareno's philosophy. Such a flood, in its tempestuous unrest, might

seem to threaten destruction, or at best the vain dispersal of its own

power into chaos. But by some rare guidance it is led, after the storm

of _Munken Vendt_, into channels of beneficent fertility.

In 1904, after an interval of short stories, letters of travel, and

poems, came the story entitled _Svoermere_. The word means "Moths." It

also stands for something else; something for which we English, as

a sensible people, have no word. Something pleasantly futile,

deliciously unprofitable--foolish lovers, hovering like moths about a

lamp.

But there is more than this that is untranslatable in the title. _As_

a title it suggests an attitude of gentleness, tenderness, sympathy,

toward whomsoever it describes. It is a new note in Hamsun; the

opening of a new _motif_.

The main thread of the story bears a certain similarity to that of

_Mysterier_, _Vicioria_, and _Pan_, being a love affair of mazy

windings, a tangled skein of loves-me-loves-me-not. But it is pure

comedy throughout. Rolandsen, the telegraph operator in love with

Elsie Mack, is no poet; he has not even any pretensions to education

or social standing. He is a cheerful, riotous "blade," who sports

with the girls of the village, gets drunk at times, and serenades the

parson's wife at night with his guitar. _Svoermere_ is the slightest

of little stories in itself, but full of delightful vagaries and the

most winning humour.

The story of _Benoni_, with its continuation _Rosa_, is in like vein;

a tenderly humorous portrayal of love below stairs, the principal

characters being chosen from the class who appear as supers in _Pan_;

subjects or retainers of the all-powerful Trader Mack. It is as if

the sub-plots in one of Shakespeare's plays had been taken out for

separate presentment, and the clown promoted to be hero in a play of

his own. The cast is increased, the _milieu_ lightly drawn in _Pan_

is now shown more comprehensively and in detail, making us gradually

acquainted with a whole little community, a village world, knowing

little of any world beyond, and forming a microcosm in itself.

Hamsun has returned, as it were, to the scene of his passionate

youth, but in altered guise. He plays no part himself now, but is an

onlooker, a stander-by, chronicling, as from a cloistered aloofness,

yet with kindly wisdom always, the little things that matter in the

lives of those around him. Wisdom and kindliness, sympathy and humour

and understanding, these are the dominant notes of the new phase.

_Svoermere_ ends happily--for it is a story of other people's lives.

So also with Benoni and Rosa at the last. And so surely has the author

established his foothold on the new ground that he can even bring in

Edvarda, the "Iselin" figure from _Pan_, once more, thus linking up

his brave and lusty comedies of middle age with the romantic tragedies

of his youth, making a comprehensive pageant-play of large-hearted

humanity.

Meantime, the effect upon himself is seen--and avowed. Between

_Svoermere_ and _Benoni_ comes the frankly first-personal narrative

of a vagabond who describes himself, upon interrogation, as "Knut

Pedersen"--which is two-thirds of Knut Pedersen Hamsund--and hailing

from Nordland--which embraces Lofoten.

It does not need any showing of paper, however, to establish the

identity of Knut Pedersen, vagabond, with the author of _Pan_. The

opening words of the book ("Under Höststjaernen") are enough. "Indian

summer, mild and warm ... it is many years now since I knew such

peace. Twenty or thirty years maybe--or maybe it was in another life.

But I have felt it some time, surely, since I go about now humming a

little tune; go about rejoicing, loving every straw and every stone,

and feeling as if they cared for me in return...."

This is the Hamsun of _Pan_. But Hamsun now is a greater soul than in

the days when Glahn, the solitary dweller in the woods, picked up a

broken twig from the ground and held it lovingly, because it looked

poor and forsaken; or thanked the hillock of stone outside his hut

because it stood there faithfully, as a friend that waited his return.

He is stronger now, but no less delicate; he loves not Nature less,

but the world more. He has learned to love his fellow-men.

Knut Pedersen, vagabond, wanders about the country with his

tramp-companions, Grindhusen, the painter who can ditch and delve at a

pinch, or Falkenberg, farm-labourer in harvest-time, and piano-tuner

where pianos are. Here is brave comradeship, the sharing of

adventures, the ready wit of jovial vagrants. The book is a harmless

picaresque, a _geste_ of innocent rogue-errantry; its place is with

_Lavengro_ and _The Cloister and the Hearth_, in that ancient, endless

order of tales which link up age with age and land with land in the

unaltering, unfrontiered fellowship of the road that kept the spirit

of poetry alive through the Dark Ages.

The vagabond from Nordland has his own adventures, his _bonnes

fortunes_. There is a touch of Sterne about the book; not

the exaggerated super-Sterne of Tristram Shandy, with

eighteenth-century-futurist blanks and marbled pages, but the fluent,

casual, follow-your-fancy Sterne of the _Sentimental Journey_. Yet

the vagabond himself is unobtrusive, ready to step back and be a

chronicler the moment other figures enter into constellation. He moves

among youth, himself no longer young, and among gentlefolk, as one

making no claim to equal rank.

Both these features are accentuated further in the story of the

Wanderer with the Mute. It is a continuation of _Under Höststjaernen_,

and forms the culmination, the acquiescent close, of the

self-expressional series that began with _Sult_. The discords of

tortured loveliness are now resolved into an ultimate harmony of

comely resignation and rich content. "A Wanderer may come to fifty

years; he plays more softly then. Plays with muted strings." This is

the keynote of the book. The Wanderer is no longer young; it is for

youth to make the stories old men tell. Tragedy is reserved for those

of high estate; a wanderer in corduroy, "such as labourers wear here

in the south," can tell the story of his chatelaine and her lovers

with the self-repression of a humbler Henry Esmond, winning nothing

for himself even at the last, yet feeling he is still in Nature's

debt.

Hamsun's next work is _Den Siste Gloede_ (literally "The Last Joy").

The title as it stands is expressive. The substantive is "joy"--but

it is so qualified by the preceding "last," a word of overwhelming

influence in any combination, that the total effect is one of sadness.

And the book itself is a masterly presentment of gloom. Masterly--or

most natural: it is often hard to say how much of Hamsun's effect is

due to superlative technique and how much to the inspired disregard of

all technique. _Den Siste Gloede_ is a diary of wearisome days, spent

for the most part among unattractive, insignificant people at a

holiday resort; the only "action" in it is an altogether pitiful love

affair, in which the narrator is involved to the slightest possible

degree. The writer is throughout despondent; he feels himself out of

the race; his day is past. Solitude and quiet, Nature, and his own

foolish feelings--these are the "last joys" left him now.

The book might have seemed a fitting, if pathetic, ending to the

literary career of the author of _Pan_. Certainly it holds out no

promise of further energy or interest in life or work. The closing

words amount to a personal farewell.

Then, without warning, Hamsun enters upon a new phase of power. _Börn

av Tilden_ (Children of the Age) is an objective study, its main theme

being the "marriage" conflict touched upon in the Wanderer

stories, and here developed in a different setting and with fuller

individuality. Hamsun has here moved up a step in the social scale,

from villagers of the Benoni type to the land-owning class. There is

the same conflict of temperaments that we have seen before, but less

violent now; the poet's late-won calm of mind, and the level

of culture from which his characters now are drawn--perhaps by

instinctive selection--make for restraint. Still a romantic at heart,

he becomes more classic in form.

_Börn av Tilden_ is also the story of Segelfoss, in its passing from

the tranquil dignity of a semi-feudal estate to the complex and

ruthless modernity of an industrial centre. _Segelfoss By_ (1915)

treats of the fortunes of the succeeding generation, and the further

development of Segelfoss into a township ("By").

Then, with _Growth of the Soil_, Hamsun achieves his greatest triumph.

Setting aside all that mattered most to himself, he turns, with the

experience of a lifetime rich in conflict, to the things that matter

to us all. Deliberately shorn of all that makes for mere effect, Isak

stands out as an elemental figure, the symbol of Man at his best,

face to face with Nature and life. There is no greater human

character--reverently said--in the Bible itself.

* * * * *

These, then, are the steps of Hamsun's progress as an author, from the

passionate chaos of _Sult_ to the Miltonic, monumental calm of _Growth

of the Soil_. The stages in themselves are full of beauty; the

wistfulness of _Pan_ and _Victoria_, the kindly humour of _Svoermere_

and _Benoni_, the autumn-tinted resignation of the Wanderer with the

Mute--they follow as the seasons do, each with a charm of its own,

yet all deriving from one source. His muse at first is Iselin, the

embodiment of adolescent longing, the dream of those "whom delight

flies because they give her chase." The hopelessness of his own

pursuit fills him with pity for mortals under the same spell, and he

steps aside to be a brave, encouraging chorus, or a kindly chronicler

of others' lives. And his reward is the love of a greater divinity,

the goddess of field and homestead. No will-o'-the-wisp, but a

presence of wisdom and calm.

THE END