Look Back on Happiness by Knut Hamsun

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"A vision," you say. "No, a little insight into things," I reply. "Am I
making a god of nature? Do not you? Have not the Mohammedans their god,
the Jews theirs, the Hindus theirs? No one knows God, my friend; man knows
only gods. And sometimes I meet mine."

I go home by a different route, which forms a vast arc with the one I came
by. The sun is warmer now and the ground less smooth. I reach a great
ruin, the remnant of a landslide, and here, to amuse myself, I pretend to
be tired, flinging myself on the ground exactly as though someone were
watching me and saw how exhausted I am. It is only for my amusement,
because my brain has been idle so long. The sky is clear everywhere; the
clusters of mist over the Tore peaks are gone, heaven knows where, but
they have stolen away. In their place, an eagle swings in great circles
over the valley. Huge, black, and inaccessible, he traces ring after ring
as though held on a rail in the air, moving with voluptuous languor, a
thick-necked male, a winged stallion exulting. It is like music to watch
him. At length he disappears behind the peaks.

And here are only myself and the ruin and the little juniper trees. What
miracles all things are! These stones in the ruin perhaps hold some
meaning; they have lain here for thousands of years, but perhaps they,
too, roam, and make an inexpressible journey. The glaciers move, the land
rises, and the land falls; there is no hurry here. But since my
consciousness cannot associate fact with such a conception, it grows blind
with fury and revolts: The ruin cannot move; these are mere words, a game!

This ruin is a town; here and there lie scattered buildings of stone. It's
a peaceable gathering, without sensations or suicides, and perhaps a
well-shaped soul sits in each of these stones. But heaven protect me just
the same from the inhabitants of these towns! Rolling stones cannot bark,
neither do they attract thieves; they are mere ballast. Quiet behavior:
that is what I hold against them, that they make no fiery gestures; it
would become them to roll a little, but there they lie, with even their
sex unknown. But you saw the eagle instead! Be still....

A gentle wind begins to blow, swaying the bracken a little, the flowers
and the straw; but the straw cannot sway, it only trembles.

I walk on along my great arc and come down by the first cotter's house.

"Well, I expect you'll end up by building a summer resort too," I tell him
in the course of our conversation.

"Oh, no; we couldn't venture on anything like that," he replies cunningly.
In his heart I daresay he has no desire to, for he has seen what it leads
to.

I didn't like him; his eyes were fawning and rested on the ground. He
thought of nothing but land; he was land-greedy, like an animal that
sought to escape its padlock. The other cotter had bought a slightly
larger piece of land than he, a marsh that would feed one cow more; but he
himself had only got this bit of a field. Still, this would amount to
something, too, as long as he kept his health to work it.

He gripped his spade again.

XIII

Solem was being discussed at dinner; I don't know who began it, but some
of the ladies thought he was good-looking, and they nodded and said, Yes,
he was the right sort.

"What do you mean by the right sort?" Associate Master Hoey asked, looking
up from his plate.

No one answered.

Then Associate Master Hoey could not help smiling broadly, and said:

"Well, well! I must have a look at this Solem some time. I've never paid
any attention to him."

Associate Master Hoey might look at Solem all he pleased; he would grow no
bigger for that, nor Solem smaller. The good Mr. Hoey was annoyed, and that
was the truth. It is catching for a woman to discover that a man is "the
right sort"; the other women grow curious, and stick their noses into it:
"So-o-o, is he?" And a few days later the whole flock of them are of one
opinion: "Yes, indeed, he's the right sort!"

Pity the poor, left-over associate masters then!

Poor Mr. Hoey; there was Mrs. Molie, too, nodding her head for Solem. To
tell the truth, she had no appearance of knowing much about the matter,
but she could not lag behind the others.

"So, Mrs. Molie is nodding, too!" said Mr. Hoey, and smiled again. He was
intensely annoyed. Mrs. Molie turned pink and pretty.

At the next meal, Mr. Hoey could contain himself no longer.

"Ladies," he said, "mine eyes have now beheld Master Solem."

"Well?"

"Common sneak-thief!"

"Oh, shame!"

"You must admit he has a brazen look on his face. No beard. Blue chin, a
perfect horse-face...."

"There's no harm in that," said Mrs. Molie.

Mrs. Molie doesn't seem to have gone quite out of circulation after all, I
thought. In fact, she had lately been developing quite a little cushion
over her chest, and no longer looked so hunched up. She had eaten well and
slept well, and improved at this resort. Mrs. Molie, I suspect, still has
plenty of life left in her.

This proved true a few days later. Once again: poor Associate Master Hoey!
For now we had a new visitor at the farm, a gay dog of a lawyer, and he
talked more to Mrs. Molie than to anyone else. Had there been anything
between her and Mr. Hoey? True, he was not much to look at, but then
neither was she.

The young lawyer was a sportsman, yet he was learned in the social
sciences, too, had been in Switzerland and studied the principle of the
referendum. At first he had worked a few years in an architect's office,
he told us, but then he had changed to the law instead, which in its turn
had led him into social problems. No doubt he was a rich and unselfish man
to be able to change his vocation and to travel in this way. "Ah,
Switzerland!" he said, and his eyes watered. None of us could understand
his fervor.

"Yes, it must be a wonderful country," Mrs. Molie said.

The Associate Master looked ready to burst, and was quite incapable of
restraining himself.

Speaking of Solem, he said suddenly, "I've changed my mind about him
lately. He's ten times better than many another."

"There, you see!"

"Yes, he is. And he doesn't pretend to be anything more than he is. And
what he is, is of some use. I saw him slaughter the lame goat."

"Did you stop to watch that?"

"I happened to be passing. It was the work of a moment for him. And later
I saw him in the woodshed. He knows his job, that fellow. I can well
understand that the ladies see something in him."

How the Associate Master clowned! He finished by imploring the wife of the
captain who was sailing the China seas to be sure and remain faithful to
her Chinaman.

"Do be quiet and let the lawyer tell us about Switzerland," said Mrs.
Molie.

Witch! Did she want to drive her fellow-being the Associate Master into
jumping off the highest peak of the Tore tonight?

But then Mrs. Brede took a hand. She understood Mr. Hoey's torment and
wanted to help him. Had not this same Mr. Hoey just expressed himself
kindly about Solem, and was not Solem the lad who one fine evening had
caused her to tear down her window blind? There is cause and effect in all
things.

"Switzerland," said Mrs. Brede in her gentle fashion, and then she
reddened and laughed a little. "I don't know anything about Switzerland;
but once I bought some dress material that was Swiss, and I've never in my
life been so cheated."

The lawyer only smiled at this.

Schoolmistress Johnsen talked about what she had learned, watchmakers and
the Alps and Calvin---

"Yes, those are the only three things in a thousand years," said the
Associate Master, his face quite altered and pale with suppressed rage.

"Really, really, Associate Hoey!" exclaimed Schoolmistress Palm with a
smile.

But the lawyer focused everyone's admiration on himself by telling them
all about Switzerland, that wonderful country, that model for all small
countries of the world. What social conditions, what a referendum, what
planning in the exploitation of the country's natural wonders! There they
had sanatoriums; there they knew how to deal with tourists! Tremendous!

"Yes, and what Swiss cheese," said the Associate Master. "It smells like
tourists' feet."

Dead silence. So Associate Master Hoey was prepared to go to such lengths!

"Well, what about Norwegian old-milk cheese?" said a Danish voice mildly.

"Yes, that's filthy stuff, too," Mr. Hoey replied. "Just the thing for
Schoolmaster Staur pontificating in his armchair."

Laughter.

Since matters were now smoothed over again, the lawyer could safely
continue:

"If we could only make such Swiss cheese here," he said, "we should not be
so poor. Generally speaking, I found after my modest investigations in
that country that they are ahead of us in every respect. We have
everything to learn from them: their frugality, their diligence, their
long working hours, the small home industries--"

"And so on," interrupted Associate Master Hoey. "All trifles, nothingness,
negativity! A country that exists thanks only to the mercy of its
neighbors ought not to be a model for any other country on earth. We must
try to rise above the wretched stench of it, which only makes us ill. The
big countries and big circumstances should be our model. Everything grows,
even the small things, unless they're predestined to a Lilliput existence.
A child can learn from another child, of course, but the model is the
adult. Some day the child will be an adult itself. A pretty state of
affairs it would be if an eternal child, a born pygmy, were to be its
model! But that's what all this rubbish about Switzerland really amounts
to. Why on earth should we, of all people, take the smallest and meanest
country as our model? Things are small enough here anyhow. Switzerland is
the serf of Europe. Have you ever heard of a young South American country
of Norway's size trying to be on a level with Switzerland? Why do you
think Sweden is taking such great strides forward now? Not because it
looks to Switzerland, or to Norway, but to Germany! Honor to Sweden for
that! But what about us? We don't want to be a piddling little nation
stuck up in our mountains, a nation that brings forth peace conferences,
ski-runners, and an Ibsen once every thousand years; we have
potentialities for a thousand times more--"

The lawyer had for some time been holding up his hand to indicate that he
wanted to reply; now he shouted at the top of his voice:

"Just a moment!"

The Associate Master stopped.

"Just one question--a small, trifling question," said the lawyer,
preparing his ground well. "Have you ever once set foot in the country you
speak of?"

"I should think I have," replied the Associate Master.

There! The lawyer got nothing for his trifling question. And then it all
came out what a heartless jilt Mrs. Molie was. She had known all the time
that Mr. Hoey had been on a traveling scholarship in Switzerland, but she
had never mentioned it. What a snake in the grass! She had even encouraged
the lawyer, but no one else, to talk about Switzerland.

"Oh, yes, of course Associate Master Hoey has been in Switzerland" she
said, as though to clinch the matter.

"In that case, the Associate Master and I have looked on the country with
different eyes; that's all," said the lawyer, suddenly anxious to end the
controversy.

"They haven't even folk tales there," said the Associate Master, who
seemed unable to stop. "There they sit, generation after generation,
filing watch springs and piloting Englishmen up their mountains. But it's
a country without folk music or folk tales. I suppose you think we ought
to work hard to resemble the Swiss in that, too?"

"What about William Tell?" asked Miss Johnsen.

Several of the ladies nodded, or at any rate Miss Palm did.

At this point Mrs. Molie turned her head and looked out of the window as
she said:

"You really had a very different opinion about Switzerland before, Mr.
Associate Master."

This was a hit below the belt. He wanted to reply, wanted to annihilate
her, but he restrained himself and remained silent.

"Don't you remember?" she asked, goading him.

"No," he replied. "You mistook my meaning. Really, I can't understand it,
I usually make myself quite clear; after all, I'm accustomed to explaining
to children."

Another foul. Mrs. Molie said no more, merely smiling patiently.

"I can only say that my opinion is diametrically opposed to yours," the
lawyer repeated. "But I did think," he went on, "that this was one thing I
knew something about, however...."

Mrs. Molie got up and went out with her head bent, seemingly on the point
of bursting into tears. The Associate Master sat still for a moment, and
then followed her, whistling and putting on as brave a manner as though he
felt quite easy in his mind.

"What's your opinion?" asked Mrs. Brede, turning to the doyen of the
company, namely myself.

And as becomes a man of settled years, I replied:

"Probably there has been a little exaggeration on both sides."

Everybody agreed with this. But I could never have acted as a mediator,
for I thought the Associate Master was right. In one's early seventies,
one still has many pathetically young ideas.

The lawyer rounded off the discussion thus:

"Well, when all's said and done we have Switzerland to thank for being
able to sit here at our ease in this comfortable mountain resort. We get
tourists into the country on the Swiss model, and earn money and pay off
our debts. Ask this man if he would have been willing to do without all we
have learned from Switzerland...."

That evening Mrs. Brede asked,

"Why did you make Mr. Hoey look so unreasonable today, Mrs. Molie?"

"I?" said Mrs., Molie innocently. "Well, really--!"

As a matter of fact, it seemed as though Mrs. Molie had really been
innocent, for the very next morning she and the Associate Master set off
up the fjeld together in a very gay mood, and remained away till midday.
If they had the matter out between them, then no doubt the lady spoke to
her much-tried friend as follows:

"Surely you can see I'm not interested in that lawyer-person! What an
idea! I only drew him out so you'd have the chance to give him a good
dressing down--don't you understand that? Really, you're the silliest,
sweetest--come here, let me kiss you...."

XIV

Since the departure of the great caravan, there have been no other
visitors. Some of us cannot understand it; others have in a manner of
speaking got a whiff of what is wrong; but all of us still believe there
will be more visitors, because after all we're the only ones that have the
Tore peaks!

But no one appears.

The women of the house do their daily work for the inmates and do not
complain, but they are not happy. Paul still takes things quietly; he
sleeps a great deal in his room behind the kitchen, but once or twice I
have seen him walking away from the house at night, walking in deep
thought toward the woods.

From the neighboring valley comes the rumor that the motor traffic has
started there now. So this is the explanation of the quiet in our valley!
Then one day a Dane came down to us from the fjeld. He had climbed the
Tore peaks from the other side, something that had been thought impossible
till now. He had simply driven in a car to the foot of the mountains and
walked across!

So we no longer had the Tore peaks to ourselves, either.

I wonder whether, after all, Paul is not going to try to sow green-fodder
in the long strip of land down by the river. That, at any rate, had been
his original intention, but then came the great caravan, and he neglected
it. Now, of course, the season is too far advanced for sowing, and there
will be nothing but docks and chickweed. Could not the field be turfed, at
least, and sown? Why didn't Paul think of such things instead of walking
the woods at night?

But Paul has many thoughts. At an early age, his interest in farming was
diverted to the tourist traffic, and there it has remained. He hears that
our lawyer is also an architect and asks him to draw a plan for the big
new house with the six rooms, the hall and the bathroom. Paul has already
ordered the log chairs and the reindeer horns for the hall.

"If you weren't alone up here, you might have got some of the cars coming
here too," said the lawyer.

"I've thought of that," Paul replied. "It's not impossible I can do
something about it. But I must have the house first. And I must have a
road."

The lawyer promised to draw a plan of the house, and went round to look at
the site. The house was to cost such and such a sum. Paul was already
quite convinced that three or four good tourist summers would pay it off.

Paul was not worrying. As we looked over the site together, I discovered
that he smelled of brandy.

Finally a small party of Norwegians and foreigners arrived, travelers who
were out to walk, and not to drive in cars. Everyone's spirits rose; the
strangers stayed a few days and nights, and were guided across the fjeld
by Solem, who earned a fair penny. Paul, too, was visibly cheered, and
strolled about the farm in his Sunday clothes. He had a few things to
discuss with the lawyer about the house.

"If there's anything to consult about, we had better do it now," he said.
"I shall be away for a couple of days."

So they attended to a few minor matters.

"Are you going to town?" asked the lawyer.

"No," Paul replied; "only down to the village. I want to see if I can get
the people there to co-operate on a few ideas of mine: a telephone and
automobile service and so on."

"Good luck!" said the lawyer.

So the lawyer sat drafting plans while the rest of us went about our own
affairs. Josephine went to Solem and said:

"Will you go and sow the field by the river?"

"Has Paul said so?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

Solem went very unwillingly. While he was drawing the harrow, Josephine
went down to him and said:

"Harrow it once more."

What a brisk little thing she was, with far more forethought than the men!
She looked bewitching, for all her hard work. I have seen her many times
with her hair tumbled, but it didn't matter. And when she pretended that
none but the maids milked the goats and did outside work, it was for the
good name of the house. She had learned to play the piano for the same
reason. The mistress of the house helped her nobly, for both women were
thoughtful and industrious, but Josephine was everywhere, for she was
light as a feather. And the chaste little hands she had!

"Josephine, Josefriendly!" I called her wittily.

XV

Our dark beauty, Miss Torsen, was now seriously considering taking her
departure. She was healthy enough in any case, so she did not need a stay
in the mountains on that account, and if she was bored, why should she
stay?

But a minor event caused her to stay.

In their lack of occupation, the ladies at the resort began to cultivate
Solem. They ate so much and grew so fat and healthy that they felt a need
to busy themselves with something, and to find someone to make a fuss
over. And here was the lad Solem. They got into the habit of telling one
another what Solem had said and what Solem believed, and they all listened
with great interest. Solem himself had grown spoiled, and joked
disrespectfully with the ladies; he called himself a great chap, and once
he had even bragged in a most improper way, saying:

"Look, here's a sinful devil for you!"

"Do you know what Solem said to me?" asked Miss Palm. "He's chopping wood
and he's got a bandage on his finger, and it keeps getting caught in the
wood and bothers him, poor fellow. So he said: 'I wish I had time to stop
so I could chop this blasted finger right off my hand!'"

"Tough, isn't he?" said the other ladies. "He's quite capable of doing it,
too!"

A little later I passed the woodshed and saw Mrs. Brede there, tying a
fresh bandage on Solem's finger.... Poor lady! She was chaste, but young.

The days have been oppressively warm for some time now, with the heat
coming down in waves from the mountain and robbing us of all our strength.
But in the evenings we recovered somewhat, and busied ourselves in various
ways: some of us wrote letters or played forfeit games in the garden,
while others were so far restored that they went for a walk "to look at
nature."

Last Sunday evening I stood talking to Solem outside his room. He had on
his Sunday clothes, and seemed to have no intention of going to bed.

Miss Torsen came by, stopped, and said:

"I hear you're going for a walk with Mrs. Brede?"

Solem removed his cap, which left a red ring round his forehead.

"Who, me?" he said. "Well, maybe she said something about it. There was a
path through the woods she wanted me to show her, she said."

Miss Torsen was filled with madness now; handsome and desperate, she paced
back and forth; you could almost see the sparks flying. Her red felt hat
was held on the back of her head by a pin, the brim turned up high in
front. Her throat was bare, her frock thin, her shoes light.

It was extraordinary to watch her behavior; she had opened a window onto
her secret desires. What cared she for Tradesman Batt! Had she not toiled
through her youth and gained school knowledge? But no reality! Poor Miss
Torsen. Solem must not show a path to any other lady tonight.

As nothing more was said, and Solem was preparing to depart, Miss Torsen
cleared her throat.

"Come with me instead!" she said.

Solem looked round quickly and said, "All right."

So I left them; I whistled as I walked away with exaggerated indifference,
as though nothing on earth were any concern of mine.

"Come with me instead," she said. And he went. They were already behind
the outhouses, then behind the two great rowan trees; they hurried lest
Mrs. Brede should see them. Then they were gone.

A door wide open, but where did it lead? I saw no sweetness in her,
nothing but excitement. She had learned grammar, but no language; her soul
was undernourished. A true woman would have married; she would have been a
man's wife, she would have been a mother, she would have been a
benediction to herself. Why pounce on a pleasure merely to prevent others
from having it? And she so tall and handsome!

The dog stands growling over a bone. He waits till another dog approaches.
Then suddenly he is overcome with gluttony, pounces on the bone and
crushes it between his teeth. Because the other dog is approaching.

It seemed as though this small event had to happen before my mind was
ready for the night. I awoke in the dark and felt within me the nursery
rhyme I had dawdled over so long: four rollicking verses about the juniper
tree.

To the top of the steepest mountains,
where the little juniper stands,
no other tree can follow
from all the forest lands.
Halfway to the hilltop
the shivering pine catches hold;
the birch has actually passed him,
though sneezing with a cold.
But a little shrub outstrips them,
a sturdy fellow he,
and stands quite close to the summit,
though he measures barely a yard.
They look like a train from the valley below
with the shortest one for the guard.
Or else perhaps he's a coachman now---
why, it's only a juniper tree.

Down dale there's summer lightning,
green leaves and St. John's feast,
with songs and games of children,
and a dozen dances at least.
But high on the empty mountain
stands a shrub in lonely glory,
with only the trolls that prowl about,
just like in a story.
The wind with the juniper's forelock
is making very free;
it sweeps across the world beneath
that lies there helpless and bare,
but the air on the heights is fresher
than you'll ever find it elsewhere.
None can see so far around
as such a juniper tree.

There hovers over the mountain
for a moment summer's breath;
at once eternal winter
brings back his companion, death.
Yet sturdy stands the juniper
with needles ever green.
I wonder how the little chap
can bear a life so lean.
He's hard as bone and gristle,
as anyone can see;
when every other tree is stripped,
his berries are scarlet and sleek,
and every berry's plainly marked
with a cross upon its cheek.
So now we know what he looks like too,
this jolly juniper tree.

At times I think he sings to himself
a cheerful little song:
"I've got a bright blue heaven
to look at all day long!"
Sometimes to his juniper brothers
he calls that they need not fear
the trolls that are prowling and peering
about them far and near.
Gently the winter evening
falls over the copse on the height,
and a thousand stars and candles
are lit in the plains of the sky.
The juniper trees grow weary
and nod their heads on the sly;
before we know it they're fast asleep,
so we say: "Good night, good night!"

I got up and wrote out these rhymes on a sheet of paper, which I sent to a
little girl, a child with whom I had walked much in the country, and she
learned them at once. Then I read them to Mrs. Brede's little girls, who
stood still like two bluebells, listening. Then they tore the paper out of
my hand and ran to their mother with it. They loved their mother very
much. And she loved them too; they had the most delightful fun together at
bedtime.

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