Look Back on Happiness by Knut Hamsun

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But none of his family laughed.

He continued to us:

"I was telling my wife a story about a rich man who was curious, too. He
shot himself just to find out what comes after death. Ha, ha, ha! That's
the height of curiosity, isn't it? Shooting yourself to find out what
comes after death!"

But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His wife
stood still; her face was beautiful.

"So you're leaving now," was all she said.

Mr. Brede's porter came out with his luggage; he had stayed at the farm
for these three days in order to be at hand.

Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied by his
wife and children.

I don't know--this man with his good humor and kindliness and money and
everything, fond of his children, all in all to his wife--

Was he really everything to his wife?

The first evening he wasted time on a party, and every night he wasted
time in snoring. And so the three days and nights went by....

XIX

It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in
the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded,
and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of
whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay,
which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home,
though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from
the soil where I have my roots.

Why, indeed, do I stay here any longer, at a resort full of
schoolmistresses, with a host who has once more said farewell to sobriety?
Nothing is happening to me; I do not grow here. The others go out and lie
on their backs; I steal off and find relish in myself, and feel poetry
within me for the night. The world wants no, poetry; it wants only verses
that have not been sung before.

And Norway wants no red-hot irons; only village smiths forge irons now,
for the needs of the mob and the honor of the country.

No one came; the stream of tourists went up and down Stordalen and left
our little Reisa valley deserted. If only the Northern Railway could have
come to Reisa with Cook's and Bennett's tours--then Stordalen in its turn
would have lain deserted. Meanwhile, the cotters who are cultivating the
soil will probably go on harvesting half the crop of the outlying fields
for the rest of time. There is every reason to think so--unless our
descendants are more intelligent than we, and refuse to be smitten with
the demoralizing effects of the tourist traffic.

Now, my friend, you mustn't believe me; this is the point where you must
shake your head. There is a professor scuttling about the country, a born
mediocrity with a little school knowledge about history; you had better
ask him. He'll give you just as much mediocre information, my friend, as
your vision can grasp and your brain endure.

* * * * *

Hardly had Manufacturer Brede left when Paul began to live a most
irregular life again. More and more all roads were closed to him; he saw
no way out and therefore preferred to make himself blind, which gave him
an excuse for not seeing. Seven of our permanent guests now left together:
the telephone operators, Tradesman Batt, Schoolmistresses Johnsen and
Palm, and two men who were in some sort of business, I don't quite know
what. This whole party went across the fjeld to Stordalen to be driven
about in cars.

Cases of various kinds of foodstuffs arrived for Paul; they were carried
up one evening by a man from the village. He had to make several journeys
with the side of his cart let down, and bring the cases over the roughest
spots one by one. That was the kind of road it was. Josephine received the
consignment, and noticed that one of the cases gave forth the sound of a
liquid splashing inside. That had come to the wrong place, she said, and
writing another address on it, she told the man to take it back. It was
sirup that had come too late, she said; she had got sirup elsewhere in the
meantime.

Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen; the sirup
had not come too late, Paul said angrily.

"And I've told you to clear these newspapers away!" he cried. We heard the
sound of paper and glass being swept to the floor.

Well, things were not too easy for Paul; the days went by dull and empty,
nor had he any children to give him pleasant thoughts at times. Though he
wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had
already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of
them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone
in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in
the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of
motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get
no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. And now to make
matters worse Manufacturer Brede had said he would withdraw his money....

Paul's careworn face looked out of the kitchen door. Before going out
himself he wanted to make sure there was no one about, but he was
disappointed in this, for the lawyer at once greeted him loudly: "Good
evening, Paul!" and drew him outside.

They strolled down the field in the dusk.

Assuredly there is little to be gained by "having a good talk" with a man
about his drinking; such matters are too vital to be settled by talking.
But Paul seems to have admitted that the lawyer was right in all he said,
and probably left him with good resolutions.

Paul went down to the village again. He was going to the post office; the
money he had from the seven departed guests would be scattered to all
quarters of the globe. And yet it was not enough to cover everything--in
fact not enough for anything, for interest, repayments, taxes, and
repairs. It paid only for a few cases of food from the city. And of course
he stopped the case of sirup from going back.

Paul returned blind-drunk because he no longer wished to see. It was the
same thing all over again. But his brain seemed in its own way to go on
searching for a solution, and one day he asked the lawyer:

"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish in--
goldfish?"

"Do you mean an aquarium?"

"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"I wonder if I could get one."

"What do you want it for?"

"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well, perhaps
it wouldn't."

And Paul withdrew.

Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish.

XX

The lawyer is constantly in Miss Torsen's company; he even swings her in
the children's swing, and puts his arm around her to steady her when the
swing stops. Solem watches all this from the field where he is working,
and begins to sing a ribald song. Certainly these two have so ill-used him
that if he is going to sing improper songs in self-defense, this is the
time to do it; no one will gainsay that. So he sang his song very loud,
and then began to yodel.

But Miss Torsen went on swinging, and the lawyer went on putting his arm
round her and stopping her....

It was a Saturday evening. I stood talking to the lawyer in the garden; he
didn't like the place, and wanted to leave, but Miss Torsen would not go
with him, and going alone was such a bore. He did not conceal that the
young woman meant something to him.

Solem approached, and lifted his cap in greeting. Then he looked round
quickly and began to talk to the lawyer--politely, as became his position
of a servant:

"The Danish gentleman is going to climb the peak tomorrow. I'm to take a
rope and go with him."

The lawyer was startled.

"Is he--?"

The blankness of the lawyer's face was a remarkable sight. His small,
athletic brain failed him. A moment passed in silence.

"Yes, early tomorrow morning," said Solem. "I thought I'd tell you.
Because after all it was your idea first."

"Yes, so it was," said the lawyer. "You're quite right. But now he'll be
ahead of me."

Solem knew how to get round that.

"No, I didn't promise to go," he said. "I told him I had to go to the
village tomorrow."

"But we can't deceive him. I don't want to do that."

"Pity," said Solem. "Everybody says the first one to climb the Blue Peak
will be in all the papers."

"He'll take offense," the lawyer murmured, considering the matter.

But Solem urged him on:

"I don't think so. Anyhow, you were the first one to talk about it."

"Everybody here will know, and I'll be prevented," said the lawyer.

"We can go at dawn," said Solem.

In the end they came to an agreement.

"You won't tell anyone?" the lawyer said to me.

* * * * *

The lawyer was missed in the course of the morning; he was not in his
room, and not in the garden.

"Perhaps the Danish mountaineer can tell us where he is," I said. But it
transpired that the Dane had not even thought of climbing the Blue Peak
that day, and knew nothing whatever about the expedition.

This surprised me greatly.

I looked at the clock; it was eleven. I had been watching the peak through
my field glasses from the moment I got up, but there was nothing to be
seen. It was five hours since the two men had left.

At half-past eleven Solem came running back; he was drenched in sweat and
exhausted.

"Come and help us!" he called excitedly to the group of guests.

"What's happened?" somebody asked.

"He fell off."

How tired Solem was and drenched to the skin! But what could we do? Rush
up the mountainside and look at the accident too?

"Can't he walk?" somebody asked.

"No, he's dead," said Solem, looking from one to another of us as though
to read in our faces whether his message seemed credible. "He fell off; he
didn't want me to help him."

A few more questions and answers. Josephine was already halfway across the
field; she was going to the village to telephone for the doctor.

"We shall have to get him down," said the Danish mountaineer.

So he and I improvised a stretcher; Solem was instructed to take brandy
and bandages to the site of the accident, and the Bergensians, the
Associate Master, Miss Torsen, and Mrs. Molie went with him.

"Did you really say nothing to Solem about climbing the peak today?" I
asked the Dane.

"No," he replied. "I never said a word about it. If I had meant to go, I
should certainly not have wanted company...."

Later that afternoon we returned with the lawyer on the stretcher. Solem
kept explaining all the way home how the accident had happened, what he
had said and what the lawyer had said, pointing to objects on the way as
though this stone represented the lawyer and that the abyss into which he
had plunged.... Solem still carried the rope he had not had a chance to
use. Miss Torsen asked no more than anyone else, and made purely
conventional comments: "I advised him against it, I begged him not to
go...."

But however much we talked, we could not bring the lawyer back to life.
Strange--his watch was still going, but he himself was dead. The doctor
could do nothing here, and returned to his village.

There followed a depressing evening. Solem went to the village to send a
telegram to the lawyer's family, and the rest of us did what we thought
decent under the circumstances: we all sat in the living room with books
in our hands. Now and again, some reference would be made to the accident:
it was a reminder, we said, how small we mortals were! And the Associate
Master, who had not the soul of a tourist, greatly feared that this
disaster would injure the resort and make things still more difficult for
Paul; people would shun a place where they were likely to fall off and be
killed.

No, the Associate Master was no tourist, and did not understand the
Anglo-Saxon mind.

Paul himself seemed to sense that the accident might benefit him rather
than do him harm. He brought out a bottle of brandy to console us on this
mournful evening.

And since it was a death to which we owed this attention, one of the men
from Bergen made a speech.

XXI

The accident became widely known. Newspapermen came from the city, and
Solem had to pilot them up the mountain and show them the spot where it
had taken place. If the body had not been removed at once, they would have
written about that, too.

Children and ignoramuses might be inclined to think it foolish that Solem
should be taken from the work in the fields at harvest time, but must not
the business of the tourist resort go before all else?

"Solem, tourists!" someone called to him. And Solem left his work. A flock
of reporters surrounded him, asked him questions, made him take them to
the mountains, to the river. A phrase was coined at the farm for Solem's
absences:

"Solem's with death."

But Solem was by no means with death; on the contrary, he was in the very
midst of life, enjoying himself, thriving. Once again he was an important
personage, listened to by strangers, doling out information. Nor did his
audience now consist of ladies only--indeed, no; this was something new, a
change; these were keen, alert gentlemen from the city.

To me, Solem said:

"Funny the accident should have happened just when the scratch on my nail
has grown out, isn't it?"

He showed me his thumbnail; there was no mark on it.

The newspaper reporters wrote articles and sent telegrams, not only about
the Blue Peak and the dreadful death, but about the locality, and about
the Tore Peak resort, that haven for the weary, with its wonderful
buildings set like jewels in the mountains. What a surprise to come here:
gargoyles, living room, piano, all the latest books, timber outside ready
for new jewels in their setting, altogether a magnificent picture of
Norway's modern farming.

Yes, indeed, the newspapermen appreciated it. And they did their
advertising.

The English arrived.

"Where is Solem?" they asked, and "Where is the Blue Peak?" they asked.

"We ought to get the hay in," said Josephine and the wife at the farm.
"There'll be rain, and fifty cartloads are still out!"

That was all very well, but "Where is Solem?" asked the English. So Solem
had to go with them. The two casual laborers began to cart away the hay,
but then the women had no one to help them rake. Confusion was rife.
Everyone rushed wildly hither and thither because there was no one to lead
them.

The weather stayed fine overnight; it was patient, slow-moving weather. As
soon as the dew dried up, more hay would be brought in, perhaps all the
hay. Oh, we should manage all right.

More English appeared; and "Solem--the Blue Peak?" they said. Their
perverse, sportsmen's brains tingled and thrilled; they had successfully
eluded all the resorts on the way, and arrived here without being caught.
There was the Blue Peak, like a mast against the sky! They hurried up so
fast that Solem was hardly able to keep pace with them. They would have
felt for ever disgraced if they had neglected to stand on this admirable
site of a disaster, this most excellent abyss. Some said it would be a
lifelong source of regret to them if they did not climb the Blue Peak
forthwith; others had no desire but to gloat over the lawyer's death fall,
and to shout down the abyss, gaping at the echo, and advancing so far out
on the ledge that they stood with their toes on death.

But it's an ill wind that blows good to none, and the resort earned a
great deal of money. Paul began to revive again, and the furrows in his
face were smoothed out. A man of worth grows strong and active with good
fortune; in adversity he is defiant. One who is not defiant in adversity
is worth nothing; let him be destroyed! Paul stopped drinking; he even
began to take an interest in the harvesting, and worked in the field in
Solem's place. If only he had begun when the weather was still slow and
patient!

But at least Paul began to tackle things in the right spirit again; he
only regretted that he had set aside for the cotters those outlying fields
from which they were used to getting half the hay; this year he would have
liked to keep it himself. But he had given his word, and there was nothing
to be done about it.

Besides, it was raining now. Haymaking had to stop; they could not even
stack what had already been gathered. Outside, three cartloads of fodder
were going to waste.

* * * * *

Before long the novelty of the Tore Peak resort wore off again. The
newspapermen wrote and sent telegrams about other gratifying misfortunes,
the death on the Blue Peak having lost its news value. It had been an
intoxication; now came the morning after.

The Danish mountaineer quite simply deserted. He strapped on his knapsack
and walked across the field like one of the villagers, caring no more for
the Blue Peak. The commotion he had witnessed in the last week had taught
him a lesson.

And the tourists swarmed on to other places.

"What harm have I done them," Paul probably
thought, "that they should be going again? Have I been
too much in the fields and too little with them? But I
greeted them humbly and took my man out of the
harvesting work to help them...."

Then two young men arrived, sprouts off the Norwegian tree, sportsmen to
their finger tips, who talked of nothing but sailing, cycling, and
football; they were going to be civil engineers--the young Norway. They,
too, wanted to see the Blue Peak to the best of their ability; after all,
one must keep pace with modern life. But they were so young that when they
looked up at the peak, they were afraid. Solem had learned more than one
trick in tourist company; craftily he led them on, and then extorted money
from them in return for a promise not to expose their foolishness. So all
was well; the young sprouts came down the mountain again, bragging and
showing off their sportsmanship. One of them brought down a bloodstained
rag which he flung on the ground, saying,

"There's what's left of your lawyer that fell off."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other sprout.

Yes, truly, they had acquired dashing ways among their sporting
acquaintances.

It rained for three weeks; then came two fine days, and then rain again
for a fortnight. The sun was not to be seen, the sky was invisible, the
mountain tops had disappeared; we saw nothing but rain. The roofs at the
Tore Peak resort began to leak more and more.

The hay that still lay spread on the ground was black and rotting, and the
stacks had gone moldy.

The cotters had got their hay indoors during the patient spell. They had
carried it, man, woman, and child, on their backs.

The men from Bergen and Mrs. Brede with her children have left for home.
The little girls curtsied and thanked me for taking them walking in the
hills and telling them stories. The house is empty now. Associate Master
Hoey and Mrs. Molie were the last to go; they left last week, traveling
separately, though both were going to the same small town.

He went by way of the village--a very roundabout route--while she crossed
the field. It is very quiet now, but Miss Torsen is still here.

Why do I not leave? Don't know. Why ask? I'm here. Have you ever heard
anyone ask: "How much is a northern light?" Hold your tongue.

Where should I go if I did leave? Do you imagine I want to go to the town
again? Or do you think I'm longing for my old hut and the winter, and
Madame? I'm not longing for any specific place; I am simply longing.

Of course I ought to be old enough to understand what all sensible
Norwegians know, that our country is once more on the right road. The
papers are all writing about the splendid progress the tourist traffic has
made in Stordalen since the motor road was opened--ought I not to go there
and feel gratified?

From old habit, I still take an interest in the few of us who are left;
Miss Torsen is still here.

Miss Torsen--what more is there to be said about her? Well, she does not
leave; she stays here to complete the picture of the woman Torsen, child
of the middle class who has read schoolbooks all through her formative
years, who has learned all about _Artemis cotula_, but undernourished
her soul. That is what she is doing here.

I remember a few weeks ago, when we were infested with Englishmen, a young
sprout coming down from the mountain top with a bloodstained rag which he
threw on the ground, saying, "Here's what's left of your lawyer that fell
off!" Miss Torsen heard it, and never moved a muscle. No, she never
mourned the death of the lawyer very keenly; on the contrary, she wrote
off at once to ask another friend to come. When he came, he turned out to
be a swaggering scatterbrain--a "free lance," he called himself in the
visitors' book. I have not mentioned him before because he was less
important than she; less important, in fact, than any of us. He was
beardless and wore his collar open; heaven knows if he wasn't employed at
a theater or in the films. Miss Torsen went to meet him when he came, and
said, "Welcome to our mountains," and "Thanks for coming." So evidently
she had sent for him. But why did she not leave? Why did she seem to
strike root in the place, and even ask others to come here? Yet she had
been the first to want to leave last summer! There was something behind
this.

XXII

I muse on all this, and understand that her staying here is somehow
connected with her carnal desires, with the fact that Solem is still here.
How muddled it all is, and how this handsome girl has been spoiled! I saw
her not long ago, tall and proud, upright, untouched, walking
intentionally close to Solem, yet not replying to his greeting. Did she
suspect him of complicity in the death of the lawyer and avoid him for
that reason? Not in the least; she avoided him less than before, even
letting him take her letters to the post office, which she had not done
previously. But she was unbalanced, a poor thing that had lost her
bearings. Whenever she could, she secretly defiled herself with pitch,
with dung; she sniffed at foulness and was not repelled.

One day, when Solem swore a needlessly strong oath at a horse that was
restless, she looked at him, shivered, and went a deep red. But she
mastered herself at once, and asked Josephine:

"Isn't that man leaving soon?"

"Yes," Josephine replied, "in a few days."

Though she had seized this opportunity to ask her question with a great
show of indifference, I am certain it was an important one to her. She
went away in silence.

Yes, Miss Torsen stayed, for she was sexually bound to Solem. Solem's
despair, Solem's rough passion that she herself had inflamed, his
brutality, his masculinity, his greedy hands, his looks--she sniffed at
all this and was excited by it. She had grown so unnatural that her sexual
needs were satisfied by keeping this man at a distance. The Torsen type no
doubt lies in her solitary bed at night, reveling in the sensation that in
another house a man lies writhing for her.

But her friend, the actor? He was in no sense the other's equal. There was
nothing of the bull in him, nothing of action, only the braggadocio of the
theater....

* * * * *

Here am I, growing small and petty with this life. I question Solem about
the accident. We are alone together in the woodshed.

Why had he lied and said the Dane wanted to climb the Blue Peak that
unfortunate Sunday morning?

Solem looked at me, pretending not to understand.

I repeated my question.

Solem denied he had said any such thing.

"I heard you," I said.

"No, you didn't," he said.

A pause.

Suddenly he dropped to the floor of the shed, convulsed, without shape, an
outline merely; a few minutes passed before he got up again. When he was
on his feet once more, pulling his clothes to rights, we looked at each
other. I had no wish to speak to him further, and left him. Besides, he
was going away soon.

After this, everything was dull and empty again. I went out alone, aping
myself and shouting: "Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger
today!" And when this was done, I did other nothings, and when my money
began to run out, I wrote to my publisher, pretending I would soon send
him an unbelievably remarkable manuscript. In short, I behaved like a man
in love. These were the typical symptoms.

And to take the bull by the horns: no doubt you suspect me of dwelling on
the subject of Miss Torsen out of self-interest? In that case I must have
concealed well in these pages that I never think of her except as an
object, as a theme; turn back the pages and you will see! At my age, one
does not fall in love without becoming grotesque, without making even the
Pharaohs laugh.

* * * * *

_Finis._

But there is one thing I cannot finish doing, and that is withdrawing to
my room, and sitting alone with the good darkness round me. This, after
all, is the last pleasure.

An interlude:

Miss Torsen and her actor are walking this way; I hear their footsteps and
their voices; but since I am sitting in the dark of the evening, I cannot
see them. They stop outside my open window, leaning against it, and the
actor says something, asks her to do something she does not want to do,
tries to draw her with him; but she resists.

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