Knut Hamsun

“ We lived in plenty, taking food and coffee with us when we started for the woods, and getting a hot meal in the evening when we came home. Then we washed and tidied ourselves—to be nicer-mannered than the farm-hands—and sat in the kitchen, with a big lamp alight, and three girls. Falkenberg had become Emma's sweetheart.
And every now and then there would come a wave of music from the piano in the parlour; sometimes Fruen herself would come out to us with her girlish youth and her blessed kindly ways. “And how did you get on today?” she would ask. ”

“ Lars Falkenberg wanted to know where I had been and where I was going. Reservoir? A senseless business that reservoir thing. As if people couldn't carry water for themselves. The Captain went in too much for these new-fangled inventions and ploughing over standing crops and such-like; he'd find himself landed one day. A rich harvest, they said. Ho, yes, but they never troubled to think what it must cost, with machines for this and that, and a pack of men to every machine again. What mustn't it have cost, now, for Grindhusen and me that summer! ”

“ Down on the raft of tangled logs the men are shouting, as they strain to free the timber that has caught and stuck fast among the rocks and boulders in the river-bed. Stick after stick comes floating down and joins the mass already gathered; the jam grows and grows; at times there may be a couple of hundred dozen balks hung up at one spot. But if all goes well, the gang can clear the jam in time. And if fate will have it ill, some unlucky lumberman may be carried down as well, down the rapids to his death. ”

“ There's two or three months yet till the late autumn berries are ripe; yes, I know. But there are other joys than berries in the wilds. Spring and summer they are still only in bloom, but there are harebells and ladyslippers, deep, windless woods, and the scent of trees, and stillness. There is a sound as of distant waters from the heavens; never so long-drawn a sound in all eternity. And a thrush may be singing as high as ever its voice can go, and then, just at its highest pitch, the note breaks suddenly at a right angle ”

“ But I'm not quite an old woman yet, and that you should see if only . . . But I'm older than Elisabet and every one else. Oh, what am I talking about? Not a bit of it. I don't know what else the years may have done to me, but they haven't made me an old woman yet. Have they? What do you think yourself? Oh, but what do you know about it? . . .”
“No, no,” he said softly. “But is there any sense in going on like this? Here are you, young as you are, with nothing on earth to do all the time but keep guard over yourself and get others to do the same. ”

“ There is a faint soughing of the wind in the forest behind; close up to the house are foliage trees, and the aspens rustle like silk.
I walk back home. Night is deepening; all the birds are silent; the air calm and warm, in a soft bluish gloom.
“Let us be young to-night!” It is a man's voice, loud and bright, from behind the lilacs. “Let's go and dance, or do something wild.”
“Have you forgotten what you were like last year?” answers Fru Falkenberg. ”

“ No sooner have I hidden the sack than I realize I am not concerned at all with Falkenberg and sleeping in the loft. I am a fool and a madman, for the thing I want is not shelter for the night, but a sight of just one creature there before I leave the place. And I say to myself: “My good sir, was it not you that set out to live a quiet life among healthy folk, to win back your peace of mind?” ”

“ Grindhusen is right, perhaps: tomorrow will surely look after itself, just as today. I have not seen a paper now these last two weeks, and, for all that, here I am, alive and well, making great progress in respect of inward calm; I sing, and square my shoulders, and stand bareheaded watching the stars at night.
For eighteen years past I have sat in cafés, calling for the waiter if a fork was not clean: I never call for Gunhild in the matter of forks clean or not! There's Grindhusen, now, I say to myself ”

“ Oh, but Fruen sat there irresponsible as ever, letting her eyes play this way and that. Why could she not rid herself of this new habit of hers? Her eyes were too earnest for such playing; it did not suit her. I thought to myself, either she was trying to make up for her foolishness towards Nils by favouring us in turn, or starting a new game altogether—which would it be? I could not make it out, and as for Grindhusen, he saw nothing in it at all, but only said, when Fruen had gone: “Eh, she's a strange, kind-hearted soul, is Fruen. Almost like a mother. ”

“ I would rather wander about and be my own master, doing such work as I could find here and there, sleeping in the open, and finding a trifle to wonder at in myself. I had come across a man here in the potato fields that I might join company with when Grindhusen was gone. This new man was a fellow after my own mind, and from what I had heard and seen of him a good worker; Lars Falkberget was his name, wherefore he called himself Falkenberg. ”

“ With Hamsun that age seemed to stand principally for the high water mark of passion. Because of the fire burning within themselves, his heroes had the supreme courage of being themselves in utter defiance of codes and customs. Because of that fire they were capable of rising above everything that life might bring—above everything but the passing of the life-giving passion itself. A Glahn dies, but does not grow old. ”

“ Grindhusen was a grandfather already. As soon as he'd done painting Gunhild's cottage—two coats it was to have—he was going off to the vicarage to dig a well. There was always work of some sort to be had about the villages. And when winter set in, and the frost began to bind, he would either take a turn of woodcutting in the forests or lie idle for a spell, till something else turned up. He'd no big family to look after now, and the morrow, no doubt, would look after itself just as today. ”

“ Nils decided, then, that Grindhusen had better drive, he being the one who could best be spared.
The rest of us went on with our field-work while they were away. There was plenty to do; besides the rye and barley not yet in, there were still potatoes to hoe and turnips to see to. But Ragnhild and the dairymaid both lent a hand; all youth and energy they were.
It might have been pleasant enough to work side by side with my old mate Lars Falkenberg once more, but he and Nils could not get on together, and instead of cheerful comradeship, a gloomy silence hung over the fields. ”

“ Lord God in heaven, but love is a fleeting thing!
All went well enough at first. She said, no doubt, that it was quite a nice little place, with a great big river and the rapids, and so strange to hear the roar of the waters all the time; and here was a real little town with streets and people in—“And then you here, too!” And he of course, would answer: “Yes, and you!” Oh, they were everything to each other at first! But then they grew weary of good things; they took too much—took love in handfuls, such was their foolishness. ”

“ No one to stick up impertinent photographs on the piano, but no one to play on that piano, either; dumb now, it stands, since the last note sounded. No, for Fru Falkenberg is not here now; she can do no more hurt to herself or any other. Nothing of all that used to be here now. Remains, then, to be seen if all will be flowers and joy at Øvrebø hereafter.
“If only he doesn't take to drinking again,” I said to Nils.
“No, surely,” he said. “And I don't believe he ever did. It was just a bit of foolery, if you ask me, his going on like that just for the time. ”

“ Fruen walked out far across the courtyard, looked at the house, and clapped her hands. I heard her, too, loud in wonder as she entered the hall—at sight of the stairs, no doubt, and the new red carpet.
Grindhusen had no sooner got the horses in than he came up to me, all agape with astonishment over something, and drew me aside to talk.
“There must be something wrong,” he said. “That's not Fru Falkenberg, surely? Is she married to him—the Captain, I mean?”
“Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married to the Captain. What makes you ask?” ”

“ Sometimes the shouting of the gang can be heard all day long from the river, silenced only for meals; ay, it may happen that it goes on for days together. Then suddenly a new sound falls on the ear: the stroke of the ax; some devil of a log has fixed itself so cunningly there is no hauling it free, and it has to be cut through. It does not take many strokes to do it, for the pressure on it already is enormous; soon it breaks, the great confused mass yields, and begins to move. All the men are on their guard now, holding back to see what is coming next ”

“ There sat Captain Falkenberg and Elisabet, talking together at the round stone table; they took no notice of me. There was a light in Fruen's bedroom upstairs. And suddenly it occurred to me that to-night I looked as I had done six years before, clean-shaven as then. I took the letter out of my pocket and went in the main entrance to give it to Fruen myself.
At the top of the stairs Ragnhild comes slipping noiselessly towards me and takes the letter. She is evidently excited. I can feel the heat of her breath as she points along the passage. There is a sound of voices from the far end. ”

“ The cold and discomfort of the morning gradually disappear; it amuses me to watch the various things I meet with on my way, and think a little, idly enough, of every one. The birds were most diverting; also, it was cheering to reflect that I had my pocket full of money.
Falkenberg had chanced to mention that morning where Petter's home was, and I now made for that. There would hardly be work for me on so small a place; but now that I was rich, it was not work I sought for first of all. Petter would be coming home soon, no doubt, and perhaps have some news to tell. ”

“ And whatever there be of such shortcomings is more than balanced by the wonderful feeling for and understanding of nature that most frequently tempt Hamsun into straying from the straight and narrow path of conventional story telling. What cannot be forgiven to the man who writes of “faint whisperings that come from forest and river as if millions of nothingnesses kept streaming and streaming,” and who finds in those whisperings “one eternity coming to an understanding with another eternity about something”? ”

“ So the maids had found me out, I thought to myself, and was ill pleased at the thought. Ragnhild it must be, a devil of a girl, sharp as a needle; she must have said a lot more than Nils was willing to confess. And what if Fruen herself had seen me from the window!
I resolved now to be cold and indifferent as ice henceforward all the days of my life.
Ragnhild is properly in clover. The thick stair carpet muffles every step; she can run upstairs whenever she pleases and slip down again in a moment without a sound. ”

“ Eh, but it is hard to take that perilous transition to old age in any quiet and beautiful way. There comes a forcedness, a play of jerky effort and grimaces, the fight against those younger than ourselves, and envy.
“Frøken....” I ask this of her now with all my heart. “Frøken, couldn't you ring up Fru Falkenberg and get her to come round here now?”
She thinks for a moment.
“Yes, we will,” she says generously.
We go out to the telephone, ring up the Victoria: Fruen is there.
“Is that you, Lovise? You'd never guess who I'm with now? Won't you come along? Oh, good! We're at the Grand. ”

“ Going and visiting and making yourself sweet to folk when you find them all alone. But not for me, thank you!”
Nils comes up to us now, guessing, no doubt, what's the trouble, and ready to put in a word for me, like the good comrade he is. He catches the last words, and gives me a testimonial on the spot, to the effect that he's never seen anything wrong about me all the time I've been on the place.
But Lars Falkenberg bridles up at once and puts on airs, looking Nils up and down with contempt. He has a grudge against Nils already. ”

“ Then Falkenberg declares it's like losing part of himself to have me go. If it wasn't for Emma, he'd break his word to the Captain after all.
“Here,” he says, “I'll give you these.”
“What's that?”
“It's the certificates. I shan't want them now, but they may be the saving of you at a pinch. If you ever wanted to tune a piano, say.”
And he hands me the papers and the key.
But, seeing I haven't his ear for music, the things are no use to me; and I tell him so. I could better handle a grindstone than a piano. ”

“ Surely this must be the perfect wedded life, that dreamers dreamed of here on earth....
XIX
The woods are stripped of leaf now, and the bird sounds are gone; only the crows rasp out their screeching note at five in the morning, when they spread out over the fields. We see them, Falkenberg and I, as we go to our work; the yearling birds, that have not yet learned fear of the world, hop along the path before our feet. ”

“ We went down to the carriage; she got in, and I made to help her to rights with the rug she had. Then I pulled out my own from under the front seat, taking care to keep the border out of sight lest she should recognize it.
“Oh, what a blessing!” cried Fruen. “Why, where was it?”
“Under the seat here.”
“Well.... Of course, I might have borrowed some more rugs from the vicarage, but the poor souls would never have got them back again.... Thanks; I can manage ... no, thank you; I can manage by myself. You can drive on now.” ”

“ I saw a fly crawling over his hand, but he simply let it crawl; perhaps he never noticed it was there. That is the way a man should feel towards flies....
In the evening, Grindhusen takes the boat and rows off. I wander along the beach, singing to myself a little, throwing stones at the water, and hauling bits of driftwood ashore. The stars are out, and there is a moon. In a couple of hours Grindhusen comes back, with a good set of bricklayer's tools in the boat. Stolen them somewhere, I think to myself. We shoulder each our load, and hide away the tools among the trees. ”

“ It is pitiful to see such a dead place, trying to pretend it is alive. It is the same with Bruges, the great city of the past, and with many cities in Holland, in South Germany, the north of France, the Orient. Standing in the marketplace of such a town one cannot but think: “Once, once upon a time this was a living place; there are still human beings walking in the streets!” ”

“ Of all the many children crossing the bridge and running errands to the shops, there are none that go naked, probably few that suffer want, and all are decent looking enough. And here are big, tall, half-grown girls, the quaintest of all, with their awkward movements, and their laughter, and their earnest occupation with their own little affairs. Now and again they stop on the bridge to watch the lumbermen at work among the logs below, and join in the song of the men as they haul—“Hoi-aho!”—and then they giggle and nudge one another and go on. ”

“ I look about for some means of warning them; here is an empty bottle; I go to the window and fling it as hard as I can over towards the summer-house. There is a crash, bottle and tiles are broken, and the pieces go clattering down over the roof; a cry of dismay from within, and Fru Falkenberg rushes out, her companion behind her still grasping her dress. They stop for a moment and look about them. “Bror!” cries Fru Falkenberg, and sets off at a run down the shrubbery. “No, don't come,” she calls back over her shoulder. “You mustn't, I tell you.”
But the engineer ran after her, all the same. ”

“ In old age one takes no real part in life, but keeps oneself on memories. We are like letters that have been delivered; we are no longer on the way, we have arrived. It is only a question whether we have whirled up joys and sorrows out of what was in us, or have made no impression at all. ”

“ There is a light in the parlour.
And now, although it is dark, I let down the sack from over my shoulder, not to look like a beggar, and thrust it under my arm as if it were a parcel. So I steal up cautiously towards the house. When I have got near enough, I stop, stand there upright and strong before the windows, take off my cap and stand there still. There is no one to be seen within, not a shadow. The dining-room is all dark; they have finished their evening meal. ”

“ There's no rule for how much one ought to eat at a meal.' 'But to have to sit and look at you—it makes me sick. It's that that makes me ill.' 'Well, anyhow, you can't say I drink too much now,' said he. 'So it's better than it was.' 'No, indeed, it's worse!' Then says the Captain: 'Well, really, I do think you might make allowances for me a little, after I've—I mean, considering what you did yourself this summer.' 'Yes, you're right,' says Fruen, beginning to cry. ”

“ Time has had its wear on me; I am grown dull and faded and indifferent; I look upon a woman now as literature, no more. It has come to the end. Well, and what then? Everything comes to an end. When first I entered on this stage I had a feeling as if I had lost something ”

“ I began to fear I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to Øvrebø. It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen himself as much, and that pretty plainly.
“Fruen here's the mistress of the place, and good and kind as could be to every one, and the Captain as well, remember that. But you'll find yourself whipped out of here, and at once, if you go gossiping and telling tales. Take my advice and be careful. You've got a good job here, with good pay and decent food. Think of that, and keep quiet while you're here.” ”