Pan by Knut Hamsun

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A little after there came a knock at the door.

It was the Doctor.

"Sorry to disturb you," he began. "You went off so suddenly, I thought
it might do no harm if we had a little talk together. Smell of powder,
isn't there...?"

He was perfectly sober. "Did you see Edwarda? Did you get your stick?"
I asked.

"I found my stick. But Edwarda had gone to bed... What's that? Heavens,
man, you're bleeding!"

"No, nothing to speak of. I was just putting the gun away, and it went
off; it's nothing. Devil take you, am I obliged to sit here and give you
all sorts of information about that...? You found your stick?"

But he did not heed my words; he was staring at my torn boot and the
trickle of blood. With a quick movement he laid down his stick and took
off his gloves.

"Sit still--I must get that boot off. I _thought_ it was a shot I
heard."

XVIII

How I repented of it afterward--that business with the gun. It was a mad
thing to do. It was not worth while any way, and it served no purpose,
only kept me tied down to the hut for weeks. I remember distinctly even
now all the discomfort and annoyance it caused; my washerwoman had to
come every day and stay there nearly all the time, making purchases of
food, looking after my housekeeping, for several weeks. Well, and
then...

One day the Doctor began talking about Edwarda. I heard her name, heard
what she had said and done, and it was no longer of any great importance
to me; it was as if he spoke of some distant, irrelevant thing. So
quickly one can forget, I thought to myself, and wondered at it.

"Well, and what do you think of Edwarda yourself, since you ask? I have
not thought of her for weeks, to tell the truth. Wait a bit--it seems to
me there must have been something between you and her, you were so often
together. You acted host one day at a picnic on the island, and she was
hostess. Don't deny it, Doctor, there was something--a sort of
understanding. No, for Heaven's sake don't answer me. You owe me no
explanation, I am not asking to be told anything at all--let us talk of
something else if you like. How long before I can get about again?"

I sat there thinking of what I had said. Why was I inwardly afraid lest
the Doctor should speak out? What was Edwarda to me? I had forgotten
her.

And later the talk turned on her again, and I interrupted him once
more--God knows what it was I dreaded to hear.

"What do you break off like that for?" he asked. "Is it that you can't
bear to hear me speak her name?"

"Tell me," I said, "what is your honest opinion of Edwarda? I should be
interested to know."

He looked at me suspiciously.

"My honest opinion?"

"Perhaps you may have something new to tell me to-day. Perhaps you have
proposed, and been accepted. May I congratulate you? No? Ah, the devil
trust you--haha!"

"So that was what you were afraid of?"

"Afraid of? My dear Doctor!"

Pause.

"No," he said, "I have not proposed and been accepted. But you have,
perhaps. There's no proposing to Edwarda--she will take whomever she has
a fancy for. Did you take her for a peasant girl? You have met her, and
seen for yourself. She is a child that's had too little whipping in her
time, and a woman of many moods. Cold? No fear of that! Warm? Ice, I
say. What is she, then? A slip of a girl, sixteen or seventeen--
exactly. But try to make an impression on that slip of a girl, and she
will laugh you to scorn for your trouble. Even her father can do nothing
with her; she obeys him outwardly, but, in point of fact, 'tis she
herself that rules. She says you have eyes like an animal..."

"You're wrong there--it was someone else said I had eyes like an
animal."

"Someone else? Who?"

"I don't know. One of her girl friends. No, it was not Edwarda said
that. Wait a bit though; perhaps, after all, it was Edwarda..."

"When you look at her, it makes her feel so and so, she says. But do you
think that brings you a hairbreadth nearer? Hardly. Look at her, use
your eyes as much as you please--but as soon as she marks what you are
doing, she will say to herself--'Ho, here's this man looking at me with
his eyes, and thinks to win me that way.' And with a single glance, or a
word, she'll have you ten leagues away. Do you think I don't know her?
How old do you reckon her to be?" "She was born in '38, she said."

"A lie. I looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might
well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in
that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and
the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of
pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for
tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is
waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-_daler_ note
you were supposed to have given someone?"

"A jest. It was nothing..."

"It was something all the same. She did something of the same sort with
me once. It's a year ago now. We were on board the mail-packet while it
was lying here in the harbour. It was raining, and very cold. A woman
with a child in her arms was sitting on deck, shivering. Edwarda asked
her: 'Don't you feel cold?' Yes, she did. 'And the little one too?' Yes,
the little one was cold as well. 'Why don't you go into the cabin?' asks
Edwarda. 'I've only a steerage ticket,' says the woman. Edwarda looks at
me. 'The woman here has only a steerage ticket,' she says. 'Well, and
what then?' I say to myself. But I understand her look. I'm not a rich
man; what I have I've worked to earn, and I think twice before I spend
it; so I move away. If Edwarda wants someone to pay for the woman, let
her do it herself; she and her father can better afford it than I. And
sure enough, Edwarda paid. She's splendid in that way--no one can say
she hasn't a heart. But as true as I'm sitting here she expected me to
pay for a saloon passage for the woman and child; I could see it in her
eyes. And what then, do you think? The woman gets up and thanks her for
her kindness. 'Don't thank me--it was that gentleman there,' says
Edwarda, pointing to me as calmly as could be. What do you think of
that? The woman thanks me too; and what can I say? Simply had to leave
it as it was. That's just one thing about her. But I could tell you many
more. And as for the five _daler_ to the boatman--she gave him the money
herself. If you had done it, she would have flung her arms round you and
kissed you on the spot. You should have been the lordly cavalier that
paid an extravagant sum for a worn-out shoe--that would have suited her
ideas; she expected it. And as you didn't--she did it herself in your
name. That's her way--reckless and calculating at the same time."

"Is there no one, then, that can win her?" I asked.

"Severity's what she wants," said the Doctor, evading the question.
"There's something wrong about it all; she has too free a hand; she can
do as she pleases, and have her own way all the time. People take
notice of her; no one ever disregards her; there is always something at
hand for her to work on with effect. Have you noticed the way I treat
her myself? Like a schoolgirl, a child; I order her about, criticise her
way of speaking, watch her carefully, and show her up now and again. Do
you think she doesn't understand it? Oh, she's stiff and proud, it hurts
her every time; but then again she is too proud to show it. But that's
the way she should be handled. When you came up here I had been at her
for a year like that, and it was beginning to tell; she cried with pain
and vexation; she was growing more reasonable. Then you came along and
upset it all. That's the way it goes--one lets go of her and another
takes her up again. After you, there'll be a third, I suppose--you never
know."

"Oho," thought I to myself, "the Doctor has something to revenge." And I
said:

"Doctor, what made you trouble to tell me all that long story? What was
it for? Am I to help you with her upbringing?"

"And then she's fiery as a volcano," he went on, never heeding my
question. "You asked if no one could ever win her? I don't see why not.
She is waiting for her prince, and he hasn't come yet. Again and again
she thinks she's found him, and finds out she's wrong; she thought you
were the one, especially because you had eyes like an animal. Haha! I
say, though, Herr Lieutenant, you ought at least to have brought your
uniform with you. It would have been useful now. Why shouldn't she be
won? I have seen her wringing her hands with longing for someone to come
and take her, carry her away, rule over her, body and soul. Yes ... but
he must come from somewhere--turn up suddenly one day, and be something
out of the ordinary. I have an idea that Herr Mack is out on an
expedition; there's something behind this journey of his. He went off
like that once before, and brought a man back with him."

"Brought a man back with him?"

"Oh, but he was no good," said the Doctor, with a wry laugh. "He was a
man about my own age, and lame, too, like myself. He wouldn't do for the
prince."

"And he went away again? Where did he go?" I asked, looking fixedly at
him.

"Where? Went away? Oh, I don't know," he answered confusedly. "Well,
well, we've been talking too long about this already. That foot of
yours--oh, you can begin to walk in a week's time. _Au revoir._"

XIX

A woman's voice outside the hut. The blood rushed to my head--it was
Edwarda. "Glahn--Glahn is ill, so I have heard."

And my washerwoman answered outside the door:

"He's nearly well again now."

That "Glahn--Glahn" went through me to the marrow of my bones; she said
my name twice, and it touched me; her voice was clear and ringing.

She opened my door without knocking, stepped hastily in, and looked at
me. And suddenly all seemed as in the old days. There she was in her
dyed jacket and her apron tied low in front, to give a longer waist. I
saw it all at once; and her look, her brown face with the eyebrows
high-arched into the forehead, the strangely tender expression of her
hands, all came on me so strongly that my brain was in a whirl. I have
kissed _her_! I thought to myself.

I got up and remained standing.

"And you get up, you stand, when I come?" she said. "Oh, but sit down.
Your foot is bad, you shot yourself. Heavens, how did it happen? I did
not know of it till just now. And I was thinking all the time: What can
have happened to Glahn? He never comes now. I knew nothing of it all.
And you had shot yourself, and it was weeks ago, they tell me, and I
knew never a word. How are you now? You are very pale: I should hardly
recognize you. And your foot--will you be lame now? The Doctor says you
will not be lame. Oh, I am so fond of you because you are not going to
be lame! I thank God for that. I hope you will forgive me for coming up
like this without letting you know; I ran nearly all the way..."

She bent over me, she was close to me, I felt her breath on my face; I
reached out my hands to hold her. Then she moved away a little. Her eyes
were still dewy.

"It happened this way," I stammered out. "I was putting the gun away in
the corner, but I held it awkwardly--up and down, like that; then
suddenly I heard the shot. It was an accident."

"An accident," she said thoughtfully, nodding her head. "Let me see--it
is the left foot--but why the left more than the right? Yes, of course,
an accident..."

"Yes, an accident," I broke in. "How should I know why it just happened
to be the left foot? You can see for yourself--that's how I was holding
the gun--it couldn't be the right foot that way. It was a nuisance, of
course." She looked at me curiously.

"Well, and so you are getting on nicely," she said, looking around the
hut. "Why didn't you send the woman down to us for food? What have you
been living on?"

We went on talking for a few minutes. I asked her:

"When you came in, your face was moved, and your eyes sparkled; you gave
me your hand. But now your eyes are cold again. Am I wrong?"

Pause.

"One cannot always be the same..."

"Tell me this one thing," I said. "What is it this time that I have said
or done to displease you? Then, perhaps, I might manage better in
future."

She looked out the window, towards the far horizon; stood looking out
thoughtfully and answered me as I sat there behind her:

"Nothing, Glahn. Just thoughts that come at times. Are you angry now?
Remember, some give a little, but it is much for them to give; others
can give much, and it costs them nothing--and which has given more? You
have grown melancholy in your illness. How did we come to talk of all
this?" And suddenly she looked at me, her face flushed with joy. "But
you must get well soon, now. We shall meet again."

And she held out her hand. Then it came into my head not to take her
hand. I stood up, put my hands behind my back, and bowed deeply; that
was to thank her for her kindness in coming to pay me a visit.

"You must excuse me if I cannot see you home," I said.

When she had gone, I sat down again to think it all over. I wrote a
letter, and asked to have my uniform sent.

XX

The first day in the woods.

I was happy and weary; all the creatures came up close and looked at me;
there were insects on the trees and oil-beetles crawling on the road.
Well met! I said to myself. The feeling of the woods went through and
through my senses; I cried for love of it all, and was utterly happy; I
was dissolved in thanksgiving. Dear woods, my home, God's peace with
you from my heart... I stopped and turned all ways, named the things
with tears. Birds and trees and stones and grass and ants, I called them
all by name, looked round and called them all in their order. I looked
up to the hills and thought: Now, now I am coming, as if in answer to
their calling. Far above, the dwarf falcon was hacking away--I knew
where its nests were. But the sound of those falcons up in the hills
sent my thoughts far away.

About noon I rowed out and landed on a little island, an islet outside
the harbour. There were mauve-coloured flowers with long stalks reaching
to my knees; I waded in strange growths, raspberry and coarse grass;
there were no animals, and perhaps there had never been any human being
there. The sea foamed gently against the rocks and wrapped me in a veil
of murmuring; far up on the egg-cliffs, all the birds of the coast were
flying and screaming. But the sea wrapped me round on all sides as in an
embrace. Blessed be life and earth and sky, blessed be my enemies; in
this hour I will be gracious to my bitterest enemy, and bind the latchet
of his shoe...

"_Hiv ... ohoi..._" Sounds from one of Herr Mack's craft. My heart
was filled with sunshine at the well-known song. I rowed to the quay,
walked up past the fishers' huts and home. The day was at an end. I had
my meal, sharing it with Asop, and set out into the woods once more.
Soft winds breathed silently in my face. And I blessed the winds
because they touched my face; I told them that I blessed them; my very
blood sang in my veins for thankfulness. Asop laid one paw on my knee.

Weariness came over me; I fell asleep.

* * * * *

_Lul! lul!_ Bells ringing! Some leagues out at sea rose a mountain.
I said two prayers, one for my dog and one for myself, and we entered
into the mountain there. The gate closed behind us; I started at its
clang, and woke.

Flaming red sky, the sun there stamping before my eyes; the night, the
horizon, echoing with light. Asop and I moved into the shade. All quiet
around us. "No, we will not sleep now," I said to the dog, "we will go
out hunting tomorrow; the red sun is shining on us, we will not go into
the mountain." ... And strange thoughts woke to life in me, and the
blood rose to my head.

Excited, yet still weak, I felt someone kissing me, and the kiss lay on
my lips. I looked round: there was nothing visible. "Iselin!" A sound in
the grass--it might be a leaf falling to the ground, or it might be
footsteps. A shiver through the woods--and I told myself it might be
Iselin's breathing. Here in these woods she has moved, Iselin; here she
has listened to the prayers of yellow-booted, green-cloaked huntsmen.
She lived out on my farm, two miles away; four generations ago she sat
at her window, and heard the echo of horns in the forest. There were
reindeer and wolf and bear, and the hunters were many, and all of them
had seen her grow up from a child, and each and all of them had waited
for her. One had seen her eyes, another heard her voice. When she was
twelve years old came Dundas. He was a Scotsman, and traded in fish, and
had many ships. He had a son. When she was sixteen, she saw young Dundas
for the first time. He was her first love...

And such strange fancies flowed through me, and my head grew very heavy
as I sat there; I closed my eyes and felt for Iselin's kiss. Iselin, are
you here, lover of life? And have you Diderik there? ... But my head
grew heavier still, and I floated off on the waves of sleep.

_Lul! lul!_ A voice speaking, as if the Seven Stars themselves were
singing through my blood; Iselin's voice:

"Sleep, sleep! I will tell you of my love while you sleep. I was
sixteen, and it was springtime, with warm winds; Dundas came. It was
like the rushing of an eagle's flight. I met him one morning before the
hunt set out; he was twenty-five, and came from far lands; he walked by
my side in the garden, and when he touched me with his arm I began to
love him. Two red spots showed in his forehead, and I could have kissed
those two red spots.

"In the evening after the hunt I went to seek him in the garden, and I
was afraid lest I should find him. I spoke his name softly to myself,
and feared lest he should hear. Then he came out from the bushes and
whispered: 'An hour after midnight!' And then he was gone.

"'An hour after midnight,' I said to myself--'what did he mean by that?
I cannot understand. He must have meant he was going away to far lands
again; an hour after midnight he was going away--but what was it to me?'

"An hour after midnight he came back."

"'May I sit there by you?' he said.

"'Yes,' I told him. 'Yes.'

"We sat there on the sofa; I moved away. I looked down.

"'You are cold,' he said, and took my hand. A little after he said:
'How cold you are!' and put his arm round me.

"And I was warmed with his arm. So we sat a little while. Then a cock
crew.

"'Did you hear,' he said, 'a cock crow? It is nearly dawn.'

"'Are you quite sure it was the cock crow?' I stammered.

"Then the day came--already it was morning. Something was thrilling all
through me. What hour was it that struck just now?

"My maid came in.

"'Your flowers have not been watered,' she said.

"I had forgotten my flowers.

"A carriage drove up to the gate.

"'Your cat has had no milk,' said the maid.

"But I had no thought for my flowers, or my cat; I asked:

"'Is that Dundas outside there? Ask him to come in here to me at once; I
am expecting him; there was something...'

"He knocked. I opened the door.

"'Iselin!' he cried, and kissed my lips a whole minute long.

"'I did not send for you,' I whispered to him.

"'Did you not?' he asked.

"Then I answered:

"'Yes, I did--I sent for you. I was longing so unspeakably for you
again. Stay here with me a little.'

"And I covered my eyes for love of him. He did not loose me; I sank
forward and hid myself close to him.

"'Surely that was something crowing again,' he said, listening.

"But when I heard what he said, I cut off his words as swiftly as I
could, and answered:

"'No, how can you imagine it? There was nothing crowing then.'

"He kissed me.

"Then it was evening again, and Dundas was gone. Something golden
thrilling through me. I stood before the glass, and two eyes all alight
with love looked out at me; I felt something moving in me at my own
glance, and always that something thrilling and thrilling round my
heart. Dear God! I had never seen myself with those eyes before, and I
kissed my own lips, all love and desire, in the glass...

"And now I have told you. Another time I will tell you of Svend
Herlufsen. I loved him too; he lived a league away, on the island you
can see out there, and I rowed out to him myself on calm summer
evenings, because I loved him. And I will tell you of Stamer. He was a
priest, and I loved him. I love all..."

Through my helf-sleep I heard a cock crowing down at Sirilund.

"Iselin, hear! A cock is crowing for us too!" I cried joyfully, and
reached out my arms. I woke. Asop was already moving. "Gone!" I said in
burning sorrow, and looked round. There was no one--no one there. It was
morning now; the cock was still crowing down at Sirilund.

By the hut stood a woman--Eva. She had a rope in her hand; she was going
to fetch wood. There was the morning of life in the young girl's figure
as she stood there, all golden in the sun.

"You must not think..." she stammered out.

"What is it I must not think, Eva?"

"I--I did not come this way to meet you; I was just passing..."

And her face darkened in a blush.

XXI

My foot continued to trouble me a good deal. It often itched at nights,
and kept me awake; a sudden spasm would shoot through it, and in
changeable weather it was full of gout. It was like that for many days.
But it did not make me lame, after all.

The days went on.

Herr Mack had returned, and I knew it soon enough. He took my boat away
from me, and left me in difficulties, for it was still the closed
season, and there was nothing I could shoot. But why did he take the
boat away from me like that? Two of Herr Mack's folk from the quay had
rowed out with a stranger in the morning.

I met the Doctor.

"They have taken my boat away," I said.

"There's a new man come," he said. "They have to row him out every day
and back in the evening. He's investigating the sea-floor."

The newcomer was a Finn. Herr Mack had met him accidentally on board the
steamer; he had come from Spitzbergen with some collections of scales
and small sea-creatures; they called him Baron. He had been given a big
room and another smaller one in Herr Mack's house. He caused quite a
stir in the place.

"I am in difficulties about meat; I might ask Edwarda for something for
this evening," I thought. I walked down to Sirilund. I noticed at once
that Edwarda was wearing a new dress. She seemed to have grown; her
dress was much longer now.

"Excuse my not getting up," she said, quite shortly, and offered her
hand.

"My daughter is not very well, I'm sorry to say," said Herr Mack. "A
chill--she has not been taking care of herself... You came to ask about
your boat, I suppose? I shall have to lend you another one instead. It's
not a new one, but as long as you bail it out every now and then ...
We've a scientist come to stay with us, you see, and with a man like
that, of course, you understand... He has no time to spare; works all
day and comes home in the evening. Don't go now till he comes; you will
be interested in meeting him. Here's his card, with coronet and all;
he's a Baron. A very nice man. I met him quite by accident."

Aha, I thought, so they don't ask you to supper. Well, thank Heaven, I
only came down by way of a trial; I can go home again--I've still some
fish left in the hut. Enough for a meal, I daresay. _Basta!_

The Baron came in. A little man, about forty, with a long, narrow face,
prominent cheek bones, and a thinnish black beard. His glance was sharp
and penetrating, but he wore strong glasses. His shirt studs, too, were
ornamented with a little five-pointed coronet, like the one on his card.
He stooped a little, and his thin hands were blue-veined, but the nails
were like yellow metal.

"Delighted, Herr Lieutenant. Have you been here long, may I ask?"

"A few months."

A pleasant man. Herr Mack asked him to tell us about his scales and
sea-things, and he did so willingly--told us what kind of clay there was
round Korholmerne--went into his room and fetched a sample of weed from
the White Sea. He was constantly lifting up his right forefinger and
shifting his thick gold spectacles back and forward on his nose. Herr
Mack was most interested. An hour passed.

The Baron spoke of my accident--that unfortunate shot. Was I well again
now? Pleased to hear it.

Now who had told him of that? I asked:

"And how did you hear of that, Baron?"

"Oh, who was it, now? Froken Mack, I think. Was it not you, Froken
Mack?"

Edwarda flushed hotly.

I had come so poor! for days past, a dark misery had weighed me down.
But at the stranger's last words a joy fluttered through me on the
instant. I did not look at Edwarda, but in my mind I thanked her:
Thanks, for having spoken of me, named my name with your tongue, though
it be all valueless to you. _Godnat._

I took my leave. Edwarda still kept her seat, excusing herself, for
politeness' sake, by saying she was unwell. Indifferently she gave me
her hand.

And Herr Mack stood chatting eagerly with the Baron. He was talking of
his grandfather, Consul Mack:

"I don't know if I told you before, Baron; this diamond here was a gift
from King Carl Johan, who pinned it to my grandfather's breast with his
own hands."

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