Look Back on Happiness by Knut Hamsun

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Brave Mrs. Brede with her children! She might have committed a madness,
but could not find it in her heart to do so. Yet did anyone prize her for
that? Who? Her husband?

A man should take his wife to Iceland with him. Or risk the consequences
of her being left behind for endless days.

XVI

Miss Torsen no longer talks about leaving. Not that she looks very happy
about staying, either; but Miss Torsen is altogether too restless and
strange to be contented with anything.

Naturally she caught cold after that evening in the woods with Solem, and
stayed in bed with a headache next day; when she got up again, she was
quite all right.

Was she? Why was her throat so blue under the chin, as though someone had
seized her by it?

She never went near Solem any more, and behaved as though he were
nonexistent. Apparently there had been a struggle in the woods that had
made her blue under the chin, and they were friends no longer! It was like
her to want nothing real, nothing but the sensation, nothing but the
triumph. Solem had not understood that, and had flown into a passion. Had
it been thus?

Yes, there was no doubt that Solem had been cheated. He was more direct
and lacked subtlety; he made allusions, and said things like "Oh, yes,
that Miss Torsen, she's a fine one; I'll bet she's as strong as a man!"

And then he laughed, but with repressed fury. He followed her with gross
eyes wherever she went, and in order to assert himself and seem
indifferent, he would sing a song of the linesman's life whenever she was
about. But he might have saved himself the trouble. Miss Torsen was
stone-deaf to his songs.

And now it seemed she was going to stay at the resort out of sheer
defiance. We enjoyed her company no more than we had done before, but she
began to make herself agreeable to the lawyer, sitting by his work table
in the living room as he drew plans of houses. Such is the perverse
idleness of summer resorts.

* * * * *

So the days pass; they hold no further novelty for me, and I begin to
weary of them. Now and then comes a stranger who is going across the
fjeld, but things are no longer, I am told, as they were in other years,
when visitors came in droves. And things will not improve until we, too,
get roads and cars.

I have not troubled to mention it before this, but the neighboring valley
is called Stordalen (Great Valley), while ours is only called Reisa after
the river: the whole of the Reisa district is no more than an appendage.
Stordalen has all the advantages, even the name. But Paul, our host, calls
the neighboring valley Little Valley, because, says Paul, the people there
are so petty and avaricious.

Poor Paul! He has returned from his tour to the village as hopeless as he
went, and hopelessly drunk besides. For more than a day, he stayed in his
room without once emerging. When he reappeared at last, he was aloof and
reserved, pretending he had been very successful during his absence; he
should manage about the cars, never fear! In the evening, after he had had
a few more drinks, he became self-important in a different way: oh, those
fools in the village had no sense of any kind, and had refused to give
their consent to a road to his place. He was the only one with any sense.
Would not such a bit of a road be a blessing to the whole appendage?
Because then the caravans would come, scattering money over the valley.
They understood nothing, those fools!

"But sooner or later there will have to be a road here," said the lawyer.

"Of course," replied Paul with finality.

Then he went to his room and lay down again.

On another day, a small flock of strangers came again; they had toiled up
themselves, carrying their luggage in the hot sun, and now they wanted
some help. Solem was ready at once, but he could not possibly carry all
the bags and knapsacks; Paul was lying down in his room. I had seen Paul
again during the night go out to the woods, talking loudly and flinging
his arms about as though he had company.

And here were all the strangers.

Paul's wife and Josephine came out of the house and sent Solem across to
Einar, the first cotter, to ask if he would come and help them carry. In
the meantime the travelers grew impatient and kept looking at their
watches, for if they could not cross the Tore fjeld before nightfall, they
would have to spend the night outdoors. One of them suggested to the
others that perhaps this delay was intentional. The owner of the place
probably wanted them to spend the night there; they began to grumble among
themselves, and at last they asked:

"Where is the master, the host?"

"He's ill," said Josephine.

Solem returned and said:

"Einar hasn't time to come; he's lifting his potatoes."

A pause.

Then Josephine said:

"I've got to go across the fjeld anyhow--wait a minute!"

She was gone for a moment, then returned, loaded the bags and knapsacks on
her little back, and trotted off. The others followed.

I caught up with Josephine and took her burden from her. But I would not
allow her to turn back, for this little tour away from the house would do
her good. We walked together and talked on the way: she had really no
complaints, she said, for she had a tidy sum of money saved up.

When we reached the top of the fjeld, Josephine wanted to turn back. She
thought it a waste of time to walk by my side, with nothing to do but
walk.

"I thought you had to cross the fjeld anyhow?" I said.

She was too shrewd to deny it outright, for in that case she, the daughter
of the old man at the Tore Peak farm, would have been going with the
tourists solely to carry their luggage.

"Yes, but there's no hurry. I was to have visited someone, but that can
wait till the winter."

We stood arguing about this, and I was so stubborn that I threatened to
throw all the luggage down the mountainside, and then she would see!

"Then I'll just take them and carry them myself," replied Josephine, "and
then _you'll_ see!"

By this time the others had caught up with us, and before I knew what had
happened, one of the strangers had come forward and lifted the burden from
my back, taken off his cap with a great deal of ceremony, and told me his
own and his companions' names. I must excuse them, I really must forgive
them; this was too bad, he had been so unobserving....

I told him I could easily have carried him as well as the bags. It is not
strength I lack; but day and night I carry about with me the ape of all
the diseases, who is heavy as lead. Ah, well, many another groans under a
burden of stupidity, which is little better. We all have our cross to
bear....

Then Josephine and I turned homeward again.

* * * * *

Yes, indeed, people treat me with uncontrollable politeness; this is
because of my age. People are indulgent toward me when I am troublesome to
others, when I am eccentric, when I have a screw loose; people forgive me
because my hair is gray. You who live by your compass will say that I am
respected for the writing I have been doing all these years. But if that
were so, I should have had respect in my young days when I deserved it,
not now when I no longer deserve it so well. No one--no one in the world--
can be expected to write after fifty nearly so well as before, and only
the fools or the self-interested pretend to improve after that age.

Now it is a fact that I have been practicing a most distinctive
authorship, better than most; I know that very well. But this is due, not
so much to my endeavors, as to the fact that I was born with this ability.

I have made a test of this, and I know it is true. I have thought to
myself: "Suppose someone else had said this!" Well, no doubt others have
said it sometimes, but that has not hurt me. I have gone even further than
this: I have intentionally exposed myself to direct contempt from other
literary men, and this has not hurt me either. So I am sure of my ground.
On the other hand, my way of life has lent me an inner distinction for
which I have a right to demand respect, because it is the fruit of my own
endeavors. You cannot make me out a small man without lying. Yet one can
endure even such a lie if one has character.

You may quote Carlyle against me--how authors are misjudged!--
"_Considering what book-writers do in the world, and what the world does
with book-writers, I should say it is the most anomalous thing the world
at present has to show_." You may quote many others as well; they will
assert that a great to-do is made over me for my authorship as well as my
native ability, and my struggle to hammer this ability into a useful
shape. And I say only what is the truth, that most of the fuss is made
because I have reached an age in which my years are revered.

And that is what seems to me so wrong; it is a custom which makes it easy
to hold down the gifted young in a most hostile and arrogant fashion. Old
age should not be honored for its own sake; it does nothing but halt and
delay the march of man. The primitive races, indeed, have no respect for
old age, and rid themselves unhesitatingly of it and of its defects. A
long time ago I deserved honor much more, and valued it; now, in more than
one sense, I am a richer man and can afford to do without.

Yet now I have it. If I enter a room, respectful silence falls. "How old
he's grown!" everyone present thinks. And they all remain silent so that I
may speak memorable words in that room. Amazing nonsense!

The noise should raise the roof when I enter: "Welcome, old fellow and old
companion; for pity's sake don't say anything memorable to us--you should
have done that when you were better able to. Sit down, old chap, and keep
us company. But don't let your old age cast a shadow on us, and don't
restrain us; you have had your day--now it's our turn..."

This is honest speech.

In peasant homes they still have the right instinct: the mothers preserve
their daughters, the fathers their sons, from the rough, unpleasant
labors. A proper mother lets her daughter sew while she herself works
among the cattle. And the daughter will do the same with her own daughter.
It is her instinct.

XVII

Dear me, these human beings grow duller every day, and I see nothing in
them that I have not known before. So I sink to the level of watching
Solem's increasing passion for Miss Torsen. But that too is familiar and
dull.

Solem, after all the attention the ladies have paid him, has a delusion of
greatness; he buys clothes and gilt watch chains for the money he earns,
and on Sundays wears a white woolen pullover, though it is very warm;
round his neck and over his chest lies a costly silk tie tied in a
sailor's knot. No one else is so smart as he, as he well knows; he sings
as he crosses the farmyard, and considers no one too good for him now.
Josephine objects to his loud singing, but Solem lad has grown so
indispensable at the resort that he no longer obeys all orders. He has his
own will in many things, and sometimes Paul himself takes a glass in his
company.

Miss Torsen appears to have settled down. She is very busy with the
lawyer, and makes him explain each and every angle he draws in his plans.
Quite right of her, too, for undeniably the lawyer is the right man for
her, a wit and a sportsman, well-to-do, rather simple-minded,
strong-necked. At first Mrs. Molie seemed unable to reconcile herself to
the constant companionship of these two in the living room, and she
frequently had some errand that took her there; what was she after, Mrs.
Molie, of the ice-blue teeth?

At last the lawyer finished his plans and was able to deliver them. He
began to speak again about a certain peak of the Tore range which no one
had yet climbed, and was therefore waiting to be conquered by him. Miss
Torsen objected to this plan, and as she grew to know him better, begged
him most earnestly not to undertake such a mad climb. So he promised with
a smile to obey her wishes. They were in such tender agreement, these two!

But the blue peak still haunted the lawyer's mind; he pointed it out to
his lady, and smacked his lips, his eyes watering again.

"Gracious, it makes me dizzy just to look at it!" she said.

So the lawyer put his arm round her to steady her.

The sight was painful to Solem, whose eyes were continually on the pair.
One day as we left the luncheon table, he approached Miss Torsen and said:

"I know another path; would you like to see it tonight?"

The lady was confused and a little embarrassed, and said at length:

"A path? No, thank you."

She turned to the lawyer, and as they walked away together, she said:

"I never heard of such brazenness!"

"What got into him?" said the lawyer.

Solem went away, his teeth gleaming in a sneer.

That evening, Solem repeated the performance. He went up to Miss Torsen
again and said:

"What about that path? Shall we go now?"

As soon as she saw him coming, she turned quickly and tried to elude him.
But Solem did not hesitate to follow her.

"Now I've just got one thing to say," she said, stopping. "If you're
insolent to me again, I'll see that you're driven off the farm...."

But it was not easy to drive Solem off the farm. After all, he was guide
and porter to the tourists, and the only permanent laborer on the farm as
well. And soon the hay would have to be brought in, and casual laborers
would be engaged to work under him. No, Solem could not be driven off.
Besides, the other ladies were on his side; the mighty Mrs. Brede alone
could save him by a word. She held the Tore Peak resort in the palm of her
hand.

Solem was not discharged; but he held himself in check and became a little
more civil. He seemed to suffer as much as ever. Once at midday, as he was
standing in the woodshed, I saw him make a scratch with the ax across the
nail of his thumb.

"What on earth are you doing?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm just marking myself," he replied, laughing gloomily. "When this
scratch grows out--"

He stopped.

"What then?"

"Oh, I'll be away from here then," he said.

But I had the impression that he meant to say something different, so I
probed further.

"Let me look. Well, it's not a deep scratch; you won't be here long then,
will you?"

"Nails grow slowly," he muttered.

Then he strolled away whistling, and I set about chopping wood.

A little later Solem returned across the farmyard with a cackling hen
under his arm. He went to the kitchen window and called:

"This the kind of hen you want me to kill?"

"Yes," was the reply.

Solem came back to the woodshed and asked me for the ax, as he wanted to
behead a few hens. It was easy to see that he did everything on the farm;
he was, hand and brain, indispensable.

He laid the hen on a block and took aim, but it was not easy, for she
twisted her head like a snake and would not lie still. She had stopped
cackling now.

"I can feel her heart jumping inside her," said Solem.

Suddenly he saw his chance and struck. There lay the head; Solem still
held the body, which jerked under his hand. The thing was done so quickly
that the two sections of the bird were still one in my eyes; I could not
grasp a separation so sudden and unbelievable, and it took my sight a
second or two to overtake the event. Bewilderment was in the expression of
this detached head, which looked as though it could not believe what had
happened, and raised itself a little as if to show there was nothing the
least bit wrong. Solem let the body go. It lay still for a moment, then
kicked its legs, leaped to the ground and began to hop, the headless body
reeling on one wing till it struck the wall and spattered blood in wide
arcs before it fell at last.

"I let her go too soon after all," said Solem.

Then he went off to fetch another hen.

XVIII

I return to the mad idea of Solem's being discharged. This would, to be
sure, have averted a certain disaster here at the farm: but who would
fetch and carry then? Paul? But I've told you he just lounges all day in
his room, and has been doing so lately more than ever; the guests never
see him except through an unsuccessful maneuver on his part.

One evening he came walking across the lawn. He must, in his disregard of
time, have thought the guests had already retired, but we all sat outside
in the mild darkness. When Paul saw us, he drew himself up and saluted as
he passed; then, calling Solem to him, he said:

"You mustn't cross the field again without letting me know. I was right
there in my room, writing. The idea of Josephine carrying luggage!"

Paul strode on. But even yet he felt he had not appeared important enough,
so he turned round and asked:

"Why didn't you take one of my cotters with you to act as porter?"

"They wouldn't go," Solem replied. "They were busy lifting potatoes."

"Wouldn't go?"

"That's what Einar said."

Paul thought this over.

"What insolence! They'd better not go too far or I'll drive them off the
place."

Then the law awoke in the lawyer's bosom, and he asked:

"Haven't they bought their land?"

"Yes," said Paul. "But I'm the master of this farm. I have a say in things
too. I'm not without power up here in Reisa, believe me...."

Then he said sternly to Solem:

"You come to me next time."

Whereupon he stalked off to the woods again.

"He's a bit tight again, our good Paul," said the lawyer.

Nobody replied.

"Can you imagine an innkeeper in Switzerland behaving like that?" the
lawyer remarked.

Mrs. Brede said gently:

"What a pity! He never drank before."

And at once the lawyer was charitable again:

"I'll have a good talk with him," he said.

* * * * *

There followed a period in which Paul was sober from morning till night,
when Manufacturer Brede paid us a visit. The flag was hoisted, and there
was great commotion at the farm; Josephine's feet said _whrr_ under
her skirt. The manufacturer arrived with a porter; his wife and children
went far down the road to meet him, and the visitors at the resort sallied
forth too.

"Good morning!" he greeted us with a great flourish of his hat. He won us
all over. He was big and friendly, fat and cheerful, with the broad good
cheer that plenty of money gives. He became good friends with us at once.

"How long are you staying, Daddy?" his little girls asked, as they clung
to him.

"Three days."

"Is that all!" said his wife.

"Is that all?" he replied, laughing. "That's not such a short time, my
dear; three days is a lot for me."

"But not for me and the children," she said.

"Three whole days," he repeated. "I can tell you I've had to do some
moving to be able to stay as quiet as this, ha, ha!"

They all went in. The manufacturer had been here before and knew the way
to his wife's cottage. He ordered soda water at once.

In the evening, when the children had gone to bed, the manufacturer and
his wife joined us in the living room; he had brought whisky with him for
the gentlemen, and ordered soda water; for the ladies he had wine. It was
quite a little party, the manufacturer playing the host with skill, and we
were all well satisfied. When Miss Palm played folk melodies on the piano,
this heavy-built man grew quiet and sentimental; but he didn't think only
of himself, for suddenly he went out and lowered the flag. Flags should be
lowered at sunset, he said. Once or twice he went across to the cottage,
too, to see if the children were sleeping well. Generally speaking, he
seemed fond of the children. Though he owned factories and hotels and many
other things, yet he seemed to take the greatest pride of all in
possessing a couple of children.

One of the men from Bergen struck his glass for silence, and began to make
a speech.

The Bergensians had all long been very quiet and retiring, but here was a
perfect occasion for making speeches. Was not here a man from the great
world outside, from the heart of life, who had brought them wine and good
cheer and festivity? Strange wares up here in this world of blue
mountains ... and so on.

He talked for about five minutes, and became very animated.

The manufacturer told us a little about Iceland--a neutral country that
neither the Associate Master nor the lawyer had visited, and therefore
could not disagree about. One of the Danes had been there and was able to
confirm the justness of the manufacturer's impressions.

But most of the time he told cheerful anecdotes:

"I have a servant, a young lad, who said to me one day, when I was in a
bad temper: 'You've become a great hand at swearing in Icelandic!' Ha, ha,
ha--he appreciated me: 'a great hand at swearing in Icelandic,' he said!"

Everybody laughed, and his wife asked:

"And what did you say?"

"What did I say? Why, I couldn't say anything, could I, ha, ha, ha!"

Then another man from Bergen took the floor: we must not forget we had the
family of a real man of the world with us here--his wife, "this peerless
lady, scattering charm and delight about her," and the children, dancing
butterflies! And a few minutes later, "Hip, hip, hurrah!" followed by a
flourish on the piano.

The manufacturer drank a toast with his wife.

"Well, that's that!" was all he said.

Mrs. Molie sat off in a corner talking in a loud voice with the Dane who
had come over the top of the Tore from the wrong end; she seemed purposely
to be talking so audibly. The manufacturer's attention was attracted, and
he asked for further information about the motor cars in the neighboring
valley: how many there were, and how fast they could go. The Dane told
him.

"But just imagine coming across the fjeld from the other side!" said Mrs.
Molie. "It hasn't been done before."

In response to the manufacturer's questions, the Dane told him about this
adventurous journey also.

"Isn't there a blue peak somewhere in the mountains about here?" said Mrs.
Molie. "I suppose you'll be going up that next. Where ever will you stop?"

Yes, the Dane felt quite tempted by this peak, but said he believed it was
unconquerable.

"I should have climbed that peak long ago if you, Miss Torsen, hadn't
forbidden me," said the lawyer.

"You'd never have made it," said Mrs. Molie in an indifferent tone. This
was probably her revenge. She turned to the Dane again as though ready to
believe him capable of anything.

"I shouldn't want anyone to think of climbing that peak," said Miss
Torsen. "It's as bare as a ship's mast."

"What if I tried it, Gerda?" the manufacturer asked his wife with a smile.
"After all, I'm an old sailor."

"Nonsense," she said, smiling a little.

"Well, I climbed the mast of a schooner last spring."

"Where?"

"In Iceland."

"What for?"

"I don't know, though--all this mountain climbing--I haven't much use for
it," said the manufacturer.

"What did you do it for? What did you climb the mast for?" his wife
repeated nervously.

The manufacturer laughed.

"The curiosity of the female sex--!"

"How can you do a thing like that! And what about me and the children if
you--"

She broke off. Her husband grew serious and took her hand.

"It was stormy, my dear; the sails were flapping, and it was a question of
life and death. But I shouldn't have told you. Well--we'd better say good
night now, Gerda."

The manufacturer and his wife got up.

Then the first man from Bergen made another speech.

* * * * *

The manufacturer stayed with us for the promised three days, and then made
ready to travel again. His mood never changed; he was contented and
entertaining the whole time. Every evening one whisky and soda was brought
him--no more. Before their bedtime, his little girls had a wildly
hilarious half-hour with him. At night a tremendous snoring could be heard
from his cottage. Before his arrival, the little girls had spent a good
deal of time with me, but now they no longer knew I existed, so taken up
with their father were they. He hung a swing for them between the two
rowan trees in the field, taking care to pack plenty of rag under the rope
so as not to injure the tree.

He also had a talk with Paul; there were rumors that he was intending to
take his money out of the Tore Peak resort. Paul's head was bent now, but
he seemed even more hurt that the manufacturer should have paid a visit to
the cotters to see how they were getting on.

"So that's where he's gone?" he said. "Well, let him stay there, for all I
care!"

The manufacturer cracked jokes to the very end. Of course he was a little
depressed by the farewells, too, but he had to keep his family's courage
up. His wife stood holding one of his arms with both hands, and the
children clung to his other arm.

"I can't salute you," the manufacturer said to us, smiling. "I'm not
allowed to say good-bye."

The children rejoiced at this and cried, "No, he can't have his arm back;
Mummy, you hold him tight, too!"

"Come, come!" the father said. "I've got to go to Scotland, just a short
trip. And when you come home from the mountains, I'll be there, too."

"Scotland? What are you going to Scotland for?" the children asked.

He twisted round and nodded to us.

"These women! All curiosity!" he said.

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