Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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The sun went down. It was growing chilly, perhaps, in the garden; anyway,
the party went indoors. But the big windows were thrown wide, and waves of
melody from Fru Falkenberg's piano poured out. After a while it changed to
dance tunes; jovial Captain Bror, no doubt, was playing now.

"Nice lot, aren't they?" said Nils. "Sit up playing and dancing all night,
and stay in bed all day. I'm going to turn in."

I stayed behind, looking out of the window, and saw my mate Lars
Falkenberg come walking across the courtyard and go up into the house. He
had been sent for to sing to the company. When he has sung for a while,
Captain Bror and some of the others begin to chime in and help, making a
fine merry noise between them. After about an hour in comes Lars
Falkenberg to the servants' quarters with a half-bottle of spirit in his
pocket for his trouble. Seeing no one but me, a stranger, in the room, he
goes in to Nils in the bedroom next door, and they take a dram together;
after a little they call to me to come in. I am careful not to say too
much, hoping not to be recognized; but when Lars gets up to go home, he
asks me to go part of the way with him. And then it appears that I am
discovered already; Lars knows that I am his former mate of the
woodcutting days.

The Captain had told him.

Well and good, I think to myself. Then I've no need to bother about being
careful any more. To tell the truth, I was well pleased at the way things
had turned out; it meant that the Captain was completely indifferent as to
having me about the place; I could do as I pleased.

I walked all the way home with Lars, talking over old times, and of his
new place, and of the people at Ovrebo. It seemed that the Captain was not
looked up to with the same respect as before; he was no longer the
spokesman of the district, and neighbours had ceased to come and ask his
help and advice. The last thing of any account he did was to have the
carriage drive altered down to the high road, but that was five years ago.
The buildings needed painting, but he had put it off and never had it
done; the road across the estate was in disrepair, and he had felled too
much timber by far. Drink? Oh, so folk said, no doubt, but it couldn't be
fairly said he drank--not that way. Devil take the gossiping fools. He
drank a little, and now and again he would drive off somewhere and stay
away for a bit; but when he did come home again things never seemed to go
well with him, and that was the pity of it! An evil spirit seemed to have
got hold of him, said Lars.

And Fruen?

Fruen! She went about the house as before, and played on her piano, and
was as pretty and neat as ever any one could wish. And they keep open
house, with folk for ever coming and going; but taxes and charges on this
and that mount up, and it costs a deal to keep up the place, with all the
big buildings to be seen to. But it is a sin and a shame for the Captain,
and Fruen as well, to be so dead-weary of each other, you'd never think.
If they do say a word to each other, it's looking to the other side all
the time, and hardly opening their lips. They barely speak at all, except
to other people month after month the same. And all summer the Captain's
out on manoeuvres, and never comes home to see how his wife and the place
are getting on. "No, they've no children; that's the trouble," says Lars.

Emma comes out and joins us. She looks well and handsome still, and I tell
her so.

"Emma?" says Lars. "Ay, well, she's none so bad. But she's for ever having
children, the wretch!" and, pouring out a drink from his half-bottle, he
forces her to drink it off. Now Emma presses us to come in; we might just
as well be sitting down indoors as standing about out here.

"Oh, it's summer now!" says Lars, evidently none so anxious to have me in.
Then, when I set off for home, he walks down again with me a bit of the
way, showing me where he's dug and drained and fenced about his bit of
land. Small as it is, he has made good and sensible use of it. I find a
strange sense of pleasure coming over me as I look at this cosy homestead
in the woods. There is a faint soughing of the wind in the forest behind;
close up to the house are foliage trees, and the aspens rustle like silk.

I walk back home. Night is deepening; all the birds are silent; the air
calm and warm, in a soft bluish gloom.

* * * * *

"Let us be young to-night!" It is a man's voice, loud and bright, from
behind the lilacs. "Let's go and dance, or do something wild."

"Have you forgotten what you were like last year?" answers Fru Falkenberg.
"You were nice and young then, and never said such things."

"No, I never said such things. To think you should remember that! But you
scolded me one evening last year too. I said how beautiful you were that
evening, and you said no, you weren't beautiful any more; and you called
me a child, and told me not to drink so much."

"Yes, so I did," says Fru Falkenberg, with a laugh.

"So you did, yes. But as to your being beautiful or not, surely I ought to
know when I was sitting looking at you all the time?"

"Oh, you child!"

"And this evening you're lovelier still."

"There's some one coming!"

Two figures rise up suddenly behind the lilacs. Fruen and the young
engineer. Seeing it is only me, they breathe more easily again, and go on
talking as if I did not exist. And mark how strange is human feeling; I
had been wishing all along to be ignored and left in peace, yet now it
hurt me to see these two making so little account of me. My hair and beard
are turning grey, I thought to myself; should they not respect me at least
for that?

"Yes, you're lovelier still tonight," says the man again. I come up
alongside them, touching my cap carelessly, and pass on.

"I'll tell you this much: you'll gain nothing by it," says Fruen. And
then: "Here, you've dropped something," she calls to me.

Dropped something? My handkerchief lay on the path; I had dropped it on
purpose. I turned round now and picked it up, said thank you, and walked
on.

"You're very quick to notice things of no account," says the engineer. "A
lout's red-spotted rag.... Come, let's go and sit in the summer-house."

"It's shut up at night," says Fruen. "I dare say there's somebody in
there."

After that I heard no more.

My bedroom is up in the loft in the servants' quarters, and the one open
window looks out to the shrubbery. When I come up I can still hear voices
down there among the bushes, but cannot make out what is said. I thought
to myself: why should the summer-house be shut up at night, and whose idea
could it be? Possibly some very crafty soul, reckoning that, if the door
were always kept locked, it would be less risky to slip inside one evening
in good company, take out the key, and stay there.

Some way down along the way I had just come were two people walking up--
Captain Bror and the old lady with the shawl. They had been sitting
somewhere among the trees, no doubt, when I passed by, and I fell to
wondering now if, by any chance, I could have been talking to myself as I
walked, and been overheard.

Suddenly I see the engineer get up from behind the bushes and walk swiftly
over to the summer-house. Finding it locked, he sets his shoulder against
the door and breaks it open with a crash.

"Come along, there's nobody here!" he cries.

Fru Falkenberg gets up and says: "Madman! Whatever are you doing?"

But she goes towards him all the same.

"Doing?" says he. "What else should I do? Love isn't glycerine--it's
nitro-glycerine."

And he takes her by the arm and leads her in.

Well, 'tis their affair....

But the stout Captain and his lady are coming up; the pair in the
summer-house will hardly be aware of their approach, and Fru Falkenberg
would perhaps find it far from agreeable to be discovered sitting there
with a man just now. I look about for some means of warning them; here is
an empty bottle; I go to the window and fling it as hard as I can over
towards the summer-house. There is a crash, bottle and tiles are broken,
and the pieces go clattering down over the roof; a cry of dismay from
within, and Fru Falkenberg rushes out, her companion behind her still
grasping her dress. They stop for a moment and look about them. "Bror!"
cries Fru Falkenberg, and sets off at a run down the shrubbery. "No, don't
come," she calls back over her shoulder. "You _mustn't_, I tell you."

But the engineer ran after her, all the same. Wonderfully young he was,
and all inflexible.

Now the stout Captain and his lady come up, and their talk is a marvel to
hear. Love: there is nothing like it, so it seems. The stout cavalier must
be sixty at the least, and the lady with him, say forty; their infatuation
was a sight to see.

The Captain speaks:

"And up to this evening I've managed to hide it somehow, but now--well,
it's more than any man can. You've bewitched me Frue, completely."

"I didn't think you cared so much, really," she answers gently, trying to
help him along.

"Well, I do," he says. "And I can't stand it any longer, and that's the
truth. When we were up in the woods just now, I still thought I could get
through one more night, and didn't say anything much at the time. But now;
come back with me, say you will!"

She shook her head.

"No; oh, I'd love to give you ... do what you...."

"Ah!" he exclaims, and, throwing his arms about her, stands pressing his
round paunch against hers. There they stood, looking like two
recalcitrants that would not. Oh, that Captain!

"Let me go," she implored him.

He loosened his hold a trifle and pressed her to him again. Once more it
looked as if both were resisting.

"Come back up into the wood," he urged again and again.

"Oh, it's impossible!" she answered. "And then it's all wet with the dew."

But the Captain was full of passionate words--full and frothing over.

"Oh, I used to think I didn't care much about eyes! Blue eyes--huh! Grey
eyes--huh! Eyes any sort of colour--huh! But then you came with those
brown eyes of yours...."

"They are brown, yes...."

"You burn me with them; you--you roast me up!"

"To tell the truth, you're not the first that's said nice things about my
eyes. My husband now...."

"Ah, but what about me!" cries the Captain. "I tell you, Frue, if I'd only
met you twenty years ago, I wouldn't have answered for my reason. Come;
there's no dew to speak of up in the wood."

"We'd better go indoors, I think," she suggests.

"Go in? There's not a corner anywhere indoors where we can be alone."

"Oh, we'll find somewhere!" she says.

"Well, anyhow, we must have an end of it to-night," says the Captain
decisively.

And they go.

I asked myself: was it to warn anybody I had thrown that empty bottle?

* * * * *

At three in the morning I heard Nils go out to feed the horses. At four he
knocked to rouse me out of bed. I did not grudge him the honour of being
first up, though I could have called him earlier myself, any hour of that
night indeed, for I had not slept. 'Tis easy enough to go without sleep a
night or two in this light, fine air; it does not make for drowsiness.

Nils sets out for the fields, driving a new team. He has looked over the
visitors' horses, and chosen Elisabet's. Good country-breds, heavy in the
leg.

II

More visitors arrive, and the house-party goes on. We farm-hands are busy
measuring, ploughing, and sowing; some of the fields are sprouting green
already after our work--a joy to see.

But we've difficulties here and there, and that with Captain Falkenberg
himself. "He's lost all thought and care for his own good," says Nils. And
indeed an evil spirit must have got hold of him; he was half-drunk most of
the time, and seemed to think of little else beyond playing the genial
host. For nearly a week past, he and his guests had played upside down
with day and night. But what with the noise and rioting after dark the
beasts in stable and shed could get no rest; the maids, too, were kept up
at all hours, and, what was more, the young gentlemen would come over to
their quarters at night and sit on their beds talking, just to see them
undressed.

We working hands had no part in this, of course, but many a time we felt
shamed instead of proud to work on Captain Falkenberg's estate. Nils got
hold of a temperance badge and wore it in the front of his blouse.

One day the Captain came out to me in the fields and ordered me to get out
the carriage and fetch two new visitors from the station. It was in the
middle of the afternoon; apparently he had just got up. But he put me in
an awkward position here--why had he not gone to Nils? It struck me that
he was perhaps, after all, a little shy of Nils with his temperance badge.

The Captain must have guessed my difficulty, for he smiled and said:

"Thinking what Nils might say? Well, perhaps I'd better talk to him
first."

But I wouldn't for worlds have sent the Captain over to Nils just then,
for Nils was still ploughing with visitors' horses, and had asked me to
give him warning if I saw danger ahead. I took out my handkerchief to wipe
my face, and waved a little; Nils saw it, and slipped his team at once.
What would he do now, I wondered? But Nils was not easily dismayed; he
came straight in with his horses, though it was in the middle of a working
spell.

If only I could hold the Captain here a bit while he got in! Nils realizes
there is no time to be lost--he is already unfastening the harness on the
way.

Suddenly the Captain looks at me, and asks:

"Well, have you lost your tongue?"

"'Twas Nils," I answer then. "Something gone wrong, it looks like; he's
taken the horses out."

"Well, and what then?"

"Nay, I was only thinking...."

But there I stopped. Devil take it, was I to stand there playing the
hypocrite? Here was my chance to put in a word for Nils; the next round he
would have to manage alone.

"It's the spring season now," I said, "and there's green showing already
where we're done. But there's a deal more to do yet, and we...."

"Well, and what then--what then?"

"There's two and a half acres here, and Nils with hard on three acres of
corn land; perhaps Captain might give it another thought."

At that the Captain swung on his heel and left me without a word.

"That's my dismissal," I thought to myself. But I walked up after him with
my cart and team, ready to do as he had said.

I was in no fear now about Nils; he was close up to the stables by now.
The Captain beckoned to him, but without avail. Then "Halt!" he cried,
military fashion; but Nils was deaf.

When we reached the stables the horses were back in their places already.
The Captain was stiff and stern as ever, but I fancied he had been
thinking matters over a little on the way.

"What have you brought the horses in for now?" he asked.

"Plough was working loose," answered Nils. "I brought them in just while
I'm setting it to rights again; it won't take very long."

The Captain raps out his order:

"I want a man to drive to the station."

Nils glances at me, and says half to himself:

"H'm! So that's it? A nice time for that sort of thing."

"What's that you're muttering about?"

"There's two of us and a lad," says Nils, "for the season's work this
spring. 'Tis none so much as leaves any to spare."

But the Captain must have had some inkling as to the two brown horses Nils
had been in such a hurry to get in; he goes round patting the animals in
turn, to see which of them are warm. Then he comes back to us, wiping his
fingers with his handkerchief.

"Do you go ploughing with other people's horses, Nils?"

Pause.

"I'll not have it here; you understand?"

"H'm! No," says Nils submissively. Then suddenly he flares up: "We've more
need of horses this spring than any season ever at Ovrebo: we're taking up
more ground than ever before. And here were these strange cattle standing
here day after day eating and eating, and doing never so much as the worth
of the water they drank. So I took them out for a bit of a spell now and
then, just enough to keep them in trim."

"I'll have no more of it. You hear what I say?" repeated the Captain
shortly.

Pause.

"Didn't you say one of the Captain's plough horses was ailing yesterday?"
I put in.

Nils was quick to seize his chance.

"Ay. So it was. Standing all a-tremble in its box. I couldn't have taken
it out anyway."

The Captain looked me coldly up and down.

"What are you standing here for?" he asked sharply.

"Captain said I was to drive to the station."

"Well, then, be off and get ready."

But Nils took him up on the instant.

"That can't be done."

"Bravo, Nils!" said I to myself. The lad was thoroughly in the right, and
he looked it, sturdily holding his own. And as for the horses, our own had
been sorely overdone with the long season's work, and the strange cattle
stood there eating their heads off and spoiling for want of exercise.

"Can't be done?" said the Captain, astounded. "What do you mean?"

"If Captain takes away the help I've got, then I've finished here, that's
all," says Nils.

The Captain walked to the stable door and looked out, biting his moustache
and thinking hard. Then he asked over his shoulder:

"And you can't spare the lad, either?"

"No," said Nils; "he's the harrowing to do."

This was our first real encounter with the Captain, and we had our way.
There were some little troubles again later on, but he soon gave in.

"I want a case fetched from the station," he said one day. "Can the boy go
in for it?"

"The boy's as ill to spare as a man for us now," said Nils. "If he's to
drive in to the station now, he won't be back till late tomorrow; that's a
day and a half lost."

"Bravo!" I said to myself again. Nils had spoken to me before about that
case at the station; it was a new consignment of liquor; the maids had
heard about it.

There was some more talk this way and that. The Captain frowned; he had
never known a busy season last so long before. Nils lost his temper, and
said at last: "If you take the boy off his field work, then I go." And
then he did as he and I had agreed beforehand, and asked me straight out:

"Will you go, too?"

"Yes," said I.

At that the Captain gave way, and said with a smile: "Conspiracy, I see.
But I don't mind saying you're right in a way. And you're good fellows to
work."

But the Captain saw but little of our work, and little pleasure it gave
him. He looked out now and again, no doubt, over his fields, and saw how
much was ploughed and sown, but that was all. But we farm-hands worked our
hardest, and all for the good of our master; that was our way.

Ay, that was our way, no doubt.

But maybe now and again we might have just a thought of question as to
that zeal of ours, whether it was so noble after all. Nils was a man from
the village who was anxious to get his field work done at least as quickly
as any of his neighbours; his honour was at stake. And I followed him. Ay,
even when he put on that temperance badge, it was, perhaps, as much as
anything to get the Captain sober enough to see the fine work we had done.
And here again I was with him. Moreover, I had perhaps a hope that Fruen,
that Fru Falkenberg at least, might understand what good souls we were. I
doubt I was no better than to reckon so.

The first time I saw Fru Falkenberg close to was one afternoon as I was
going out of the kitchen. She came walking across the courtyard, a
slender, bareheaded figure. I raised my cap and looked at her; her face
was strangely young and innocent to see. And with perfect indifference she
answered my "_Goddag_," and passed on.

It could not be all over for good between the Captain and his wife. I
based this view upon the following grounds:

Ragnhild, the parlour-maid, was her mistress's friend and trusted spy. She
noted things on Fruen's behalf, went last to bed, listened on the stairs,
made a few swift, noiseless steps when she was outside and somebody
called. She was a handsome girl, with very bright eyes, and fine and
warm-blooded into the bargain. One evening I came on her just by the
summer-house, where she stood sniffing at the lilacs; she started as I
came up, pointed warningly towards the summer-house, and ran off with her
tongue between her teeth.

The Captain was aware of Ragnhild's doings, and once said to his wife so
all might hear--he was drunk, no doubt, and annoyed at something or other:

"That Ragnhild's an underhanded creature; I'd be glad to be rid of her."

Fruen answered:

"It's not the first time you've wanted to get Ragnhild out of the way;
Heaven knows what for! She's the best maid we've ever had."

"For that particular purpose, I dare say," he retorted.

This set me thinking. Fruen was perhaps crafty enough to keep this girl
spying, simply to make it seem as if she cared at all what her husband
did. Then people could imagine that Fruen, poor thing, went about secretly
longing for him, and being constantly disappointed and wronged. And then,
of course, who could blame her if she did the like in return, and went her
own way? Heaven knows if that was the way of it!

One day later on the Captain changed his tactics. He had not managed to
free himself from Ragnhild's watchfulness; she was still there, to be
close at hand when he was talking to Elisabet in some corner, or making
towards the summer-house late in the evening to sit there with some one
undisturbed. So he tried another way, and began making himself agreeable
to that same Ragnhild. Oho! 'twas a woman's wit--no doubt, 'twas
Elisabet--had put him up to that!

We were sitting at the long dining-table in the kitchen, Nils and I and
the lad; Fruen was there, and the maids were busy with their own work.
Then in comes the Captain from the house with a brush in his hand.

"Give my coat a bit of a brush, d'you mind?" says he to Ragnhild.

She obeyed. When she had finished, he thanked her, saying: "Thank you, my
child."

Fruen looked a little surprised, and, a moment after, sent her maid
upstairs for something. The Captain looked after her as she went, and
said:

"Wonderfully bright eyes that girl has, to be sure."

I glanced across at Fruen. Her eyes were blazing, her cheeks flushed, as
she moved to leave the room. But in the doorway she turned, and now her
face was pale. She seemed to have formed her resolution already. Speaking
over her shoulder, she said to her husband:

"I shouldn't be surprised if Ragnhild's eyes were a little too bright."

"Eh?" says the Captain, in surprise.

"Yes," says Fruen, with a slight laugh, nodding over towards the table
where we sat. "She's getting a little too friendly with the men out here."

Silence.

"So perhaps she'd better go," Fruen went on.

It was incomparable audacity on Fruen's part, of course, to say such a
thing to our face, but we could not protest; we saw she was only using us
to serve her need.

When we got outside, Nils said angrily:

"I'm not sure but I'd better go back and say a word or two myself about
that."

But I dissuaded him, saying it was not worth troubling about.

A few days passed. Again the Captain found an opportunity of paying
barefaced compliments to Ragnhild: "... with a figure like yours," he
said.

And the tone of everything about the house now--badly changed from of old.
Gone down, grown poorer year by year, no doubt, drunken guests doing their
share to help, and idleness and indifference and childlessness for the
rest.

In the evening, Ragnhild came to me and told me she was given notice;
Fruen had made some reference to me, and that was all.

Once more a piece of underhand work. Fruen knew well I should not be long
on the place; why not make me the scapegoat? She was determined to upset
her husband's calculations, that was the matter.

Ragnhild, by the way, took it to heart a good deal, and sobbed and dabbed
her eyes. But after a while she comforted herself with the thought that,
as soon as I was gone, Fruen would take back her dismissal and let her
stay. I, for my part, was inwardly sure that Fruen would do nothing of the
kind.

Yes, the Captain and Elisabet might be content: the troublesome
parlour-maid was to be sent packing, surely enough.

* * * * *

But who was to know? I might be out in my reckoning after all. New
happenings set me questioning anew; ay, forced me to alter my judgment
once again. 'Tis a sorely difficult thing to judge the truth of humankind.

I learned now, beyond doubt, that Fru Falkenberg was truly and honestly
jealous of her husband; not merely pretending to be, as so by way of
covering her own devious ways. Far, indeed, from any pretence here. True,
she did not really believe for a moment that he was interested in her
maid. But it suited her purpose to pretend she did; in her extremity, she
would use any means that came to hand. She had blushed during that scene
in the kitchen; yes, indeed, but that was a sudden and natural indignation
at her husband's ill-chosen words, nothing more.

But she had no objections to her husband's imagining she was jealous of
the girl. This was just what she wanted. Her meaning was clear enough. I'm
jealous again, yes; you can see it's all the same as before with me: here
I am! Fru Falkenberg was better than I had thought. For many years now the
pair had slipped farther and farther from each other through indifference,
partly perhaps towards the last, in defiance; now she would take the first
step and show that she cared for him still. That was it, yes. But, in face
of the one she feared most of all, she would not show her jealousy for
worlds--and that was Elisabet, this dangerous friend of hers who was so
many years younger than herself.

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