Look Back on Happiness by Knut Hamsun

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"But she's got money, too. No, I don't think he's going into his father's
firm. He said once he wanted to edit a paper. Well, what's so funny about
that?"

"I'm not laughing."

"Yes, you were. Anyhow, Flaten wants to edit a paper. And since Lind
publishes a kennel journal, Flaten wants to publish a human journal, he
says."

"A human journal?"

"Yes. And you ought to subscribe to it," she added suddenly, almost
throwing the words into my face.

She was now in a state of excitement the cause of which I did not
understand, so I remained silent, merely replying, "Ought I? Yes, perhaps
I ought." Then she began to cry.

"Dear child, don't cry. I shan't torment you any more."

"You're not tormenting me."

"Yes, by talking nonsense; I don't seem to strike the right note."

"Yes, go on talking--that isn't it--I don't know--"

What could I say to her? But since there is, after all, nothing so
interesting as a question about oneself, I said:

"You're nervous about something, but it will pass. Perhaps--well, not at
once, of course--but perhaps it has hurt you that--well, that he's going
his own way now. But remember--"

"You're wrong," she said, shaking her head. "That doesn't really mean
anything to me; I was just slightly attracted to him."

"But you said he was the only one!"

"Oh--you know, you think that sort of thing sometimes. Of course I've been
in love with other people, too; I can't deny that. Flaten was very nice,
and took me out driving sometimes, or to a dance or something like that.
And of course I was proud of his paying attention to me in spite of my
having lost my post. I think I could have got a job in his father's shop
but--anyhow, I'm looking for a job now."

"Are you? I hope you'll find a good one."

"That's just the point. But I'm not getting any job at all. That is, I
shall in the end, of course, but--well, for instance, in old Flaten's
shop--I shouldn't fit in there."

"Not very good pay either, I expect?"

"I'm sure it's not. And then--I don't know; I feel I know too much for it.
That wretched academic training of mine does nothing but harm. Oh, well,
let's not talk any more about me. It must be late; I'd better go."

I saw her to her door, said good night, and went home. I thought about her
ceaselessly. It was wintry weather, with raw streets and an invisible sky.
No, really, she's not suited for marriage. No man is served with a wife
who is nothing but a student. Why has no one in the country noticed what
the young women are coming to! Miss Torsen's tale of the wild party proved
how accustomed she was to sitting and listening, and then herself
disgorging endless tales. She had done it very well and not omitted much,
but she paid attention only to the fun. A grown-up, eternal schoolgirl,
one who had studied her life away.

When I reached my own door, Miss Torsen arrived there at the same time;
she had been close at my heels all the way. I guessed this from the fact
that she was not in the least breathless as she spoke.

"I forgot to ask you to forgive me," she said.

"My dear girl--?"

"Oh, for saying what I did. You mustn't subscribe. I'm so sorry about
that. Please be kind and forgive me."

She took my hand and shook it.

In my amazement I stammered:

"It was really a very witty remark: a human journal--ha, ha! Now don't
stand there and get cold; put your gloves on again. Are you walking back?"

"Yes. Good night. Forgive me for the whole evening."

"Let me take you home; why not stay a few minutes--"

"No, thank you."

She pressed my hand firmly and left me.

I suppose she wanted to spare my aging legs, damn them! Nevertheless I
stole after her to see that she got home safely.

* * * * *

It happened that Josephine came to the town--Josephine, that spirit of
labor from the Tore Peak farm. I saw her, too, for she came to pay me a
visit. She had looked up my address, and I joked with her again and called
her Josefriendly.

How was everybody at Tore Peak? Josephine had good news about all of them,
but she shook her head over Paul. Not that he drank much now; but he did
little of anything else either, and had definitely lost interest in his
work. He wanted to sell the farm. He wanted to try carting and delivery by
horse cart in Stordalen. I asked if he had any prospective purchaser. Yes;
Einar, one of the cotters, had had rather an eye on the farm. It all
depended on Manufacturer Brede, who had put so much money into it.

I remembered her father, the old man from another world, the man with
mittens, who had to be spoon-fed on porridge because he was ninety, who
smelled like an unburied corpse. I remembered him and asked Josephine:

"Well, I expect your old father is dead by now?"

"No, praise be," she replied. "Father is better than we dared hope. We
must be thankful he's still on his feet."

I took Josephine to the cinema and the circus, and she thought it all
quite delightful. But she was shocked at the behavior of the ladies who
rode with so little clothing on. She wanted to go to one of the great
churches, too, and found her way there alone. For several days she was in
the town and did a good deal of shopping. I never once saw her dejected or
brooding about anything, and at length she said good-bye, because she was
going back next day.

Oh, so she was going home?

Yes, she had done what she had come to do. She had also been to see Miss
Torsen and got the money for the actor, because of course he had never
sent it.

"Poor Miss Torsen! She was furious with him for not sending it, and turned
quite red and ashamed, too. She didn't seem to find it very easy either,
because she asked me to wait till next day, but she gave it to me then."

So Josephine had nothing more to do in the town.
She had just visited Miss Palm, but she had not, on this occasion, met
Miss Palm's brother, Nikolai, who was apprenticed to a master carpenter.
Not that it mattered, Josephine said, because the last time she had seen
him, nothing came of it, anyhow. So that was that. Because she was not a
one to beg--she had some money of her own and livestock as well. As far as
that was concerned, she had some woolen blankets, and two beds complete
with bedding, too, nor did she lack clothes: she had many changes, both
underthings and top ones. Yet in spite of that she had started some more
weaving.

I asked in some surprise whether they had been engaged. I had had no
inkling--

No, but--. Well, not exactly engaged with a ring, and plighting the troth
and all. But that had been their intention. Because otherwise why should
that schoolmistress, that sister of his, Sophie Palm, have come up and
stayed for nothing at the Tore Peak farm for two whole summers, and
behaved as though she were a lady? No, thank you, that was the end of
that. Anyhow, that was what she, Josephine, had thought once, but it was a
Providence that it wasn't going to happen, because there would never have
been anything but trouble. So it was just as well.

Suddenly Josephine caught herself up:

"Good gracious--I nearly forgot to buy the indigo. It's for my weaving.
Lucky I remembered it! Well--thanks for your hospitality."

XXXIV

It was between Christmas and the New Year, and I had accompanied Nikolai
to his home. Since the town workshop was closed in any case, he had
decided to go home and fell timber in the woods.

It was a big farmhouse, enlarged from the old cottage by Nikolai's father,
while Nikolai himself had moved up the roof and built on a second story.
He has plenty of room for me; I have a small room to myself.

His mother is hard-working and honest; she has a few animals to see to,
and usually she is washing something or other, even if it is nothing more
than some empty potato sacks. She cooks on the kitchen stove, and keeps
her pots and pans shining. She is cleanly, and strains her milk through a
muslin cloth, which she afterward washes and rinses twice. But she picks
food remnants from between the prongs of forks with a hairpin!

A mirror, pictures of the German Kaiser's family, and a crucifix hang on
the walls of the living room; in one corner are two shelves with oddments,
including a hymnbook and a book of sermons. They are still simple and
orthodox in these parts. The rest of the furniture in the house, the
chairs and tables and cupboards and a cleverly constructed chest, have all
been made by Nikolai himself.

Nikolai is just as slow and speechless here as in the town; the day after
we arrived he went out to the woods without telling his mother. When I
asked for him, she said:

"I saw him take the sleigh, so I expect he's gone to the woods."

His mother's name is Petra, and judging from her appearance she cannot be
much over forty; like her son, she is ruddy and big-muscled, with a fair
complexion and thick, graying hair, a veritable lion's mane. Her eyes are
good companions to her hair--dark, and a little worn now, but still good
enough to see far and sharply across the fjord. She, too, is taciturn,
like all the peasants here, and usually keeps her large mouth shut.

I ask her how long she has been a widow, and she says, "For nearly a
generation--no, don't let me tell a lie," she corrects herself. "Sophie is
four and twenty now, and it was the year after her birth that he died."

They had only been married a couple of years. Nikolai is six and twenty.

I ponder over this arithmetic, but as I am old and incapable, I cannot
make it tally.

Petra was very proud of her children, especially Sophie, who had gone to
school and passed an examination, and now held such an important post. Of
course her inheritance was used up, but she had her learning instead.
Nobody could ever take that from her. A big, handsome girl, Sophie--look,
here is her portrait.

I said I had met her at Tore Peak.

At Tore Peak? Oh, yes, she spent her summers there so as to be among her
equals; you couldn't blame her for that. But she came home every year,
too, as sure as the year came round itself. So I had met her at Tore Peak?

Sometimes I went with Nikolai to the forest for timber, and made myself
slightly useful. He is as strong as an ox, and has endurance almost to the
point of insensibility--a cut, black eye--nothing. And now it becomes
evident that his brain works well, too. He should have had a horse, yes,
but he cannot keep a horse till he can provide more fodder. But he cannot
buy more pasture land till he has more money. But he was learning more
about his trade in the town, and when he had finished his course of
training, he would earn more money. After that he would buy a horse.

I visited the neighbors, too. The farms were small, but the farmers
cultivated as much land as they required, and there was no poverty. Here
were no flowerpots in the windows or pictures on the walls, as at Petra's;
but good, thick furs with woven backs hung over the doors, and the
children looked healthy and well-fed. The neighbors all knew I lived at
Petra's house; every visitor to this district lived at Petra's house--had
done so as long as they could remember. I could sense no hostility to
Petra in these silent people, but the old schoolmaster was more talkative,
and he was quite ready to spread gossip about her. This man was a
bachelor; he had his own house and did his own housework. Had he, perhaps,
at some time felt a secret desire for the widow Petra?

The schoolmaster gossiped thus:

People who had visited the village in Petra's girlhood always used to live
at her parents' house. There was a room and a loft, and the engineer that
planned the big road lived there, and so did the two traveling preachers,
to say nothing of the itinerant peddlers who toured the district all the
year round. So it went on for many a year, with the children growing up,
and Petra getting big and hearty. Then Palm came; he was a Swede, a big
merchant--a wholesale merchant, one might almost say, for that period,
with his own boat and even a boy to carry his wares. Well, there were
glass panes again in the windows of Petra's parents' house, and there was
meat on Sundays, for Palm liked things done in style. He gave Petra
presents of dress materials and sweets. Then he was finished with Petra,
and went away to do business elsewhere. But it happened that the child
Petra gave birth to was a boy, and when Palm returned and saw him, he
stayed, and traveled no more. They married, and Palm added two rooms to
the house, for it was his intention to open a shop there. But when he had
built honestly and well, he died. His widow was left with two small
children, but she had means enough, for Palm had had plenty of money. Then
why did not Petra remarry? She could have got a man in spite of the
handicap of two small children, for Petra herself was still a young girl.
But from her childhood days, said the schoolmaster, she had been spoiled
by this love of roving company, and again housed itinerant tramps and
Swedes and peddlers, and thoroughly disgraced herself. Some of them stayed
there for weeks, eating and drinking and idling. It was shameful. Her
parents saw nothing wrong in this because it had always been their way of
living, and besides it brought them a little money. So the years went by.
When the children were grown and Sophie was out of the way, she might have
married even then, for she still had half her money left, and being
childless again, it was not too late. But no, Petra didn't want to, and it
_was_ too late, she said; it was the children's turn to marry now,
she said.

"Well, she's pretty old now, isn't she?" I said.

"Yes, time passes," the schoolmaster replied. "I don't know whether anyone
has asked her this year, but last year there was someone--one person--or
so I've heard, so I've been told. But Petra didn't want to. If I could
only guess what she's waiting for."

"Perhaps she's not waiting at all."

"Well, it's all the same to me," says the schoolmaster. "But she takes in
all these tramps and peddlers and carries on and makes a public nuisance
of herself...."

As I walked home from the schoolmaster's, I found I understood Petra's
arithmetic much better.

* * * * *

Nikolai has gone back to his workshop in the town, but I have remained
behind. It matters little where I am, for the winter makes a dead man of
me in any case.

To pass the time, I carefully measure the piece of land that Nikolai is
going to break up when he can afford it, and I calculate what it will cost
him, with drainage and everything: a bare two hundred _kroner_. Then
he could keep a horse. It would have been an act of charity to give him
this money in case his mother could not. He could have added another field
to his land then.

"Look here, Petra--why don't you give Nikolai the two hundred
_kroner_ he needs for fodder for a horse?"

"And four hundred to buy the horse," she muttered.

"That makes six."

"I haven't got such a lot of six hundred _kroners_ lying about."

"But wouldn't the horse be useful for plowing?"

A pause. Then:

"He can break the ground himself."

I was not unfamiliar with this line of reasoning. Everyone has his own
problems, and Petra had hers. But the strange thing is that each one of us
struggles for himself as though he had a hundred years to live. I once
knew two brothers named Martinsen who owned a large farm, the produce of
which they sold. Both were well-to-do bachelors without heirs. But both
had diseased lungs, the younger brother's much worse than the elder's. In
the spring, the younger brother became permanently bedridden, but though
he approached his end, he still maintained an interest in everything that
went on at the farm. He heard strangers talking in the kitchen and called
his brother in.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Only someone to buy eggs."

"What's the price per score now?"

His brother told him.

"Then give him the small eggs," he cautioned.

A few days later he was dead. His brother lived till his sixty-seventh
year, though his lungs were diseased. When anybody came to buy eggs, he
always gave him the smallest....

"But," I insisted to Petra, "Nikolai doesn't want to waste time breaking
his ground himself, does he? Surely if he works at his trade he'll earn
more!"

"They don't pay for joinery here," Petra replied. "People buy their chairs
and tables from the shops now; it's cheaper."

"Then why is Nikolai working as an apprentice?"

"I've asked him the same question," she replied. "Nikolai just wants to be
a carpenter, but it won't get him anywhere. Still, he can do as he likes."

"Well, what else could he do?"

A pause. Petra's big mouth is closed. But at length she says:

"There's plenty of traffic now and a lot of tourists in the summer, both
at Tore Peak and down here on the headland. One time we had two Danes
living here; they had traveled on foot. 'If you had a horse, you could
have driven us here,' they said to me."

"Ah," I thought to myself, "the cat sticking its nose out of the bag!"

"'You've got a big house and four rooms,' the Danes said, and 'There are
high mountains and big woods,' they said, 'and fish in the fjord and fish
in the river; there are lots of things here, and there's a broad road
here,' they said. Nikolai was standing next to them and heard it all, too.
'Now we're here,' they said, 'but we can't get away again unless we
walk.'"

Just to say something, I asked her:

"Four rooms--I thought you only had three?"

"Yes, but the workshop could be turned into a room, too," the big mouth
replied.

"So that's it!" I thought. With hardly a pause, I continued:

"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to get a
horse, wouldn't he?"

"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied.

"It's four hundred _kroner_."

"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty."

"But this land won't feed a horse!"

"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy sacks of oats
on the headland."

"That's eighteen _kroner_ a sack."

"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first tourist."

Yes, Petra had it all figured out; she was the born landlady, and had
grown up in a lodginghouse. She could cook, too, for had she not put two
snakes of Italian macaroni in the barley broth? The money for coffee, for
the bed at night and waffles in the morning, had grown so dear to her that
she hid it away, watched it increase, and grew rich on it. She did not
produce like other peasant women, but no one can do everything at one
time, and Petra was a parasite. She did not want to live by earning
something; she wanted to live on the tourists who earned enough
themselves, and could afford to come.

Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all works out as
it should--and it probably will.

* * * * *

It is February. I have an idea, a vagrant idea that comes to me, and I
harbor it: now that there is a little snow, and its crust is hard, I shall
walk across the fields into Sweden. That is what I shall do.

But before I can do it, I must wait for my laundry, and Petra, who is
cleanly, washes in many waters. So I pass the time in Nikolai's workshop,
where there are many kinds of planes and saws and drills and lathes, and
there I fashion strange things. For the small boys of the neighboring
farm, I make a windmill that will really turn in the wind. It whirls and
rattles well, and I remember my own childhood when we called this
apparatus onomatopoeically a _windwhirr_.

Besides this, I go out walking, and use my winter head as well as I can,
which is not very well. I do not blame the winter, nor do I blame
anything. But where are the red-hot irons and the youth of omnipotence?
For hours sometimes I walk along a path in the woods with my hands folded
on my back, an old man, my mind gilded for a moment by an occasional
memory; I stop, and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Can this be an iron in
the fire? It is not, for it fades again, and I am left behind in a quiet
melancholy.

But in order to recall my young days, I pretend to be filled with a
heaven-sent energy. It is by no means all pretense, and pictures rise in
my mind, fragmentary flageolet tones:

We came from the meadow
and downy heather;
we came from friendship,
too-loo-loo-lay!
A star that watched
saw lips meet lips.
None else so dear,
so sweet as you.

Those youthful days,
those happy days,
unmatched since then!
but what am I now?
The bees once swarmed,
the swan once played.
There's no play now,
yet too-loo-loo-lay!

I break off, and put the pencil in my pocket with a tone still resounding
within me. I walk on with some pleasure to myself, at least.

There is a letter for me. Who on earth has found me out here? The letter
is as follows:

Forgive me for writing you, but I should like to talk to you about
something that has happened. I should like to see you as soon as you come
back. There's nothing the matter. Please don't say no.

Yours,

Ingeborg Torsen

I reread it many times. "Something that has happened." But I'm going to
Sweden, I'm going to move about a little, and stop losing myself in the
affairs of others. Do they think I am mankind's old uncle, that I can be
summoned hither and thither to give advice? Excuse me, but I am going to
assert myself and become quite inaccessible; the snow is just right, and I
have planned a big journey--a business tour, I might almost call it, very
important to me--I have a great deal at stake.... How composite is the
mind of man! As I sit talking drivel to myself, and even sometimes saying
an angry word aloud in order that Petra may hear it, I am not at all
displeased at having received this letter; in fact secretly I am so
pleased that I feel ashamed. It is merely because I shall soon see the
town again--the town with its frostbitten gardens and its ships.

But what on earth can this mean? Has she been to my landlady's and got my
address? Or has she met Nikolai?

I left at once.

XXXV

My landlady was surprised.

"Why, good evening. How well and happy you look! Here's your mail."

"Let it lie. I must tell you, Madame Henriksen, that you are a jewel."

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"Yes, you are. You are a very kind woman. But you have given my address to
someone."

"No, indeed; I swear I haven't."

"No? Well, then someone else must have done so. Yes, you're right, I am
happy, and tomorrow morning I shall get up very early and walk down by the
shore."

"But I did send a message," said my landlady. "I hope it wasn't wrong of
me. To a lady who wanted to know as soon as you arrived."

"A lady? You sent a message just now?"

"A little while ago, as soon as you came in. A young, handsome lady; she
might have been your daughter, you know."

"Thank you."

"Well, I'm only saying what's so. She said she would come at once, because
she had to see you about something."

The landlady left me.

So Miss Torsen was coming this very evening; something must have happened.
She had never visited me before. I looked round; yes, everything was neat
and tidy. I washed and made myself ready. There, she can have that chair;
I'd better light the other lamp, too. It might not be a bad idea to sit
down to my correspondence; that would make a good impression, and if I put
some letters in a small, feminine hand on top, it might even make her a
little jealous--hee, hee. Oh, God, ten or fifteen years ago one could play
such tricks; it's too late now....

Then she knocked and came in.

I made no move to shake hands, and neither did she; I merely drew out a
chair for her.

"Excuse my coming like this," she said. "I asked Mrs. Henriksen to send me
a message; it's nothing serious, and now I feel a little embarrassed about
it, but--"

I saw that it was something serious, and my heart began to pound. Why
should my heart be affected?

"This is the first time you've been in my rooms," I said, expectant and on
the defensive.

"Yes. It's very nice," she said, without looking round. She began to clasp
her hands and pull them apart again till the tips of her gloves projected
beyond her finger tips. She was in a state of great excitement.

"Perhaps _now_ I've done something you'll approve of?" she said,
suddenly pulling off her glove.

She had a ring on her finger.

"Good," I said. It didn't affect me immediately; I was to understand more
later, and merely asked:

"Are you engaged?"

"Yes," she replied. And she looked at me with a smile, though her mouth
shook.

I looked back at her, and I believe I said something like, "Well, now,
well, well!" Then I nodded in a fatherly fashion, bowed formally, and
said: "My heartiest congratulations!"

"Yes, that's what it's come to," she said. "I think it was the best thing
to do. Perhaps you think it's a bit unreliable of me or rash or--well,
don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know--"

"But it was absolutely the best thing. And I just thought I'd tell you."

I got up. She started, evidently in a very nervous state. But I had only
risen to turn down the lamp behind her, which had begun to smoke.

A pause. She said nothing more, so what could I say? But as the minutes
passed and I saw she was distressed, I said:

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