Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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He quailed as if at a blow, and only said:

"From your mother. Why, then, it didn't matter at all?"

"No; there you are. Oh, but of course it did matter in a way, but
still...."

He leaned up against the fence, and began to work it out:

"From your mother.... I see. A letter from your mother came and
interrupted us. Do you know what I think? You've been cheating. You've
been fooling me all along. I can see it all now."

She tried again.

"It was an important letter. Mama is coming--she's coming here to stay
very soon. And I was waiting to hear."

"You were cheating all the time, weren't you?" he said again. "Let them
bring in the letter just at the right moment, when we'd put out the light.
Yes, that's it. You were just leading me on, to see how far I'd go, and
kept your maid close at hand to protect you."

"Oh, do be sensible! It's ever so late; we must go in."

"Ugh! I had too much to drink up there, I think. Can't talk straight now."

He could think of nothing but the letter, and went on about it again:

"For there was no need to have all that mystery about a letter from home.
No; I see it all now. Want to go in, you say? Well then, go in, Fru, by
all means. _Godnat, Frue_. My dutiful respects, as from a son."

He bowed, and stood watching her with a sneering smile.

"A son? Oh yes," she replied, with sudden emotion. "I am old, yes. And you
are so young, Hugo, that's true. And that's why I kissed you. But I
couldn't be your mother--no, it's only that I'm older, ever so much older
than you. But I'm not quite an old woman yet, and that you should see if
only . . . But I'm older than Elisabet and every one else. Oh, what am I
talking about? Not a bit of it. I don't know what else the years may have
done to me, but they haven't made me an old woman yet. Have they? What do
you think yourself? Oh, but what do you know about it? . . ."

"No, no," he said softly. "But is there any sense in going on like this?
Here are you, young as you are, with nothing on earth to do all the time
but keep guard over yourself and get others to do the same. And the Lord
in heaven knows you promised me a thing, but it means so little to you;
you take a pleasure in putting me off and beating me down with your great
white wings."

"Great white wings," she murmured to herself.

"Yes, you might have great red wings. Look at yourself now, standing there
all lovely as you are, and all for nothing."

"Oh, I think the wine has gone to my head! All for nothing, indeed!"

Then suddenly she takes his hand and leads him down the steps. I can hear
her voice: "Why should I care? Does he imagine Elisabet's so much better?"

They pass along the path to the summer-house. Here she hesitates, and
stops.

"Oh, where are we going?" she asks. "Haha, we must be mad! You wouldn't
have thought I was mad, would you? I'm not, either--that is to say, yes, I
am, now and again. There, the door's locked; very well, we'll go away
again. But what a mean trick to lock the door, when we want to go in."

Full of bitterness and suspicion, he answered:

"Now, you're cheating again. You knew well enough the door was locked."

"Oh, must you always think the worst of me? But why should he lock the
door so carefully and have the place all to himself? Yes, I _did_
know it was locked, and that's why I came with you. I dare not. No, Hugo,
I won't, I mean it. Oh, are you mad? Come back!"

She took his hand again and tried to turn back; they stood struggling a
little, for he would not follow. Then in his passion and strength he threw
both arms round her and kissed her again and again. And she weakened ever
more and more, speaking brokenly between the kisses:

"I've never kissed any other man before--never! It's true--I swear it.
I've never kissed...."

"No, no, no," he answers impatiently, drawing her step by step the way he
will.

Outside the summer-house he looses his hold of her a moment, flings
himself, one shoulder forward, heavily against the door, and breaks it
open for the second time. Then in one stride he is beside her once more.
Neither speaks.

But even at the door, she checks again--stands clinging to the door-post,
and will not move.

"No, no, I've never been unfaithful to him yet. I won't; I've never--
never...."

He draws her to him suddenly, kisses her a full minute, two minutes, a
deep, unbroken kiss; she leans back from the waist, her hand slips where
it holds, and she gives way....

A white mist gathers before my eyes. So ... they have come to it now. Now
he takes her, has his will and joy of her....

A melancholy weariness and rest comes over me. I feel miserable and alone.
It is late; my heart has had its day....

Through the white mist comes a leaping figure; it is Ragnhild coming up
from among the bushes, running with her tongue thrust out.

* * * * *

The engineer came up to me, nodded _Godmorgen_, and asked me to mend
the summer-house door.

"Is it broken again?"

"Yes, it got broken last night."

It was early for him to be about--no more than halfpast four; we
farm-hands had not yet started for the fields. His eyes showed small and
glittering, as if they burned; likely enough he had not slept all night.
But he said nothing as to how the door had got broken.

Not for any thought of him, but for Captain Falkenberg's sake, I went down
at once to the summer-house and mended the door once again. No need for
such haste, maybe; the Captain had a long drive there and back, but it was
close on twenty-four hours now since he started.

The engineer came down with me. Without in the least perceiving how it
came about, I found myself thinking well of him; he had broken open that
door last night--quite so, but he was not the man to sneak out of it
after. He and no one other it was who had it mended. Eh, well, perhaps
after all 'twas only my vanity was pleased. I felt flattered at his
trusting to my silence. That was it. That was how I came to think well of
him.

"I'm in charge of some timber-rafting on the rivers," he said. "How long
are you staying here?"

"Not for long. Till the field-work's over for the season."

"I could give you work if you'd care about it."

Now this was work I knew nothing of, and, what was more, I liked to be
among field and forest, not with lumbermen and proletariat. However, I
thanked him for the offer.

"Very good of you to come and put this right. As a matter of fact, I broke
it open looking for a gun. I wanted to shoot something, and I thought
there might be a gun in there."

I made no answer; it would have pleased me better if he had said nothing.

"So I thought I'd ask you before you started out to work," he said, to
finish off.

I put the lock right and set it in its place again, and began nailing up
the woodwork, which was shattered as before. While I was busy with this,
we heard Captain Falkenberg's voice; through the bushes we could see him
unharnessing the horses and leading them in.

The engineer gave a start; he fumbled for his watch, and got it out, but
his eyes had grown all big and empty--they could see nothing. Suddenly he
said:

"Oh, I forgot, I must . . ."

And he hurried off far down the garden.

"So he's going to sneak out of it, after all," I thought to myself.

A moment later the Captain himself came down. He was pale, and covered
with dust, and plainly had not slept, but perfectly sober. He called to me
from a distance:

"Hei! how did you get in there?"

I touched my cap, but said nothing.

"Somebody been breaking in again?"

"It was only . . . I just remembered I'd left out a couple of nails here
yesterday. It's all right now. If Captain will lock up again . . ."

Fool that I was! If that was the best excuse I could find, he would see
through it all at once.

He stood for a few seconds looking at the door with half-closed eyes; he
had his suspicions, no doubt. Then he took out the key, locked up the
place, and walked off. What else could he do?

V

All the guests are gone--stout Captain Bror, the lady with the shawl,
Engineer Lassen as well. And Captain Falkenberg is getting ready to start
for manoeuvres at last. It struck me that he must have applied for leave
on very special grounds, or he would have been away on duty long before
this.

We farm-hands have been hard at work in the fields the last few days--a
heavy strain on man and beast. But Nils knew what he was doing; he wanted
to gain time for something else.

One day he set me to work cleaning up all round outside the house and
buildings. It took all the time gained and more, but it made the whole
place look different altogether. And that was what Nils wanted--to cheer
the Captain up a little before he left home. And I turned to of my own
accord and fixed up a loose pale or so in the garden fence, straightened
the door of a shed that was wry on its hinges, and such-like. And the barn
bridge, too, needed mending. I thought of putting in new beams.

"Where will you be going when you leave here?" asked the Captain.

"I don't know. I'll be on the road for a bit."

"I could do with you here for a while; there's a lot of things that want
doing."

"Captain was thinking of paintwork, maybe?"

"Painting, too--yes. I'm not sure about that, though; it would be a costly
business, with the outbuildings and all. No, I was thinking of something
else. Do you know anything about timber, now? Could you mark down for
yourself?"

It pleased him, then, to pretend he did not recognize me from the time I
had worked in his timber before. But was there anything left now to fell?
I answered him:

"Ay, I'm used to timber. Where would it be this year?"

"Anywhere. Wherever you like. There must be something left, surely."

"Ay, well."

I laid the new beams in the barn bridge, and when that was done, I took
down the flagstaff and put on a new knob and line. Ovrebo was looking
quite nice already, and Nils said it made him feel better only to look at
it. I got him to talk to the Captain and put in a word about the
paintwork, but the Captain had looked at him with a troubled air and said:
"Yes, yes, I know. But paint's not the only thing we've got to think
about. Wait till the autumn and see how the crops turn out. We've sowed a
lot this year."

But when the flagstaff stood there with the old paint all scraped off, and
a new knob and halliards, the Captain could not help noticing it, and
ordered some paint by telegraph. Though, to be sure there was no such
hurry as all that; a letter by the post had been enough.

Two days passed. The paint arrived, but was put aside for the time being;
we had not done with the field-work yet by a long way, though we were
using both the carriage horses for sowing and harrowing, and when it came
to planting potatoes, Nils had to ask up at the house for the maids to
come and help. The Captain gave him leave, said yes to all that was asked,
and went off to manoeuvres. So we were left to ourselves.

But there was a big scene between husband and wife before he went.

Every one of us on the place knew there was trouble between them, and
Ragnhild and the dairymaid were always talking about it. The fields were
coming on nicely now, and you could see the change in the grassland from
day to day; it was fine spring weather, and all things doing well that
grew, but there was trouble and strife at Ovrebo. Fruen could be seen at
times with a face that showed she had been crying; or other times with an
air of exaggerated haughtiness, as if she cared nothing for any one. Her
mother came--a pale, quiet lady with spectacles and a face like a mouse.
She did not stay long--only a few days; then she went back to
Kristianssand--that was where she lived. The air here did not agree with
her, she said.

Ah, that great scene! A bitter final reckoning that lasted over an hour--
Ragnhild told us all about it afterwards. Neither the Captain nor Fruen
raised their voices, but the words came slow and strong. And in their
bitterness the pair of them agreed to go each their own way from now on.

"Oh, you don't say so!" cried all in the kitchen, clasping their hands.

Ragnhild drew herself up and began mimicking:

"'You've been breaking into the summer-house again with some one?' said
the Captain. 'Yes,' said Fruen. 'And what more?' he asked. 'Everything,'
said she. The Captain smiled at that and said: 'There's something frank
and open about an answer like that; you can see what is meant almost at
once.' Fruen said nothing to that. 'What you can see in that young puppy,
I don't know--though he did help me once out of a fix.' Fruen looked at
him then, and said: 'Helped you?' 'Yes,' said the Captain; 'backed a bill
for me once.' And Fruen asked: 'I didn't know that.' Then the Captain:
'Didn't he tell you that?' Fruen shook her head. 'Well, what then?' he
said again. 'Would it have made any difference if he had?' 'Yes,' said
Fruen at first, and then, 'No.' 'Are you fond of him?' he asked. And she
turned on him at once. 'Are you fond of Elisabet?' 'Yes,' answered the
Captain; but he sat smiling after that. 'Well and good,' said Fruen
sharply. Then there was a long silence. The Captain was the first to
speak, 'You were right when you said that about thinking over things. I've
been doing so. I'm not a vicious man, really; queerly enough, I've never
really cared about drinking and playing the fool. And yet I suppose I did,
in a way. But there's an end of it now.' 'So much the better for you,' she
answered sullenly. 'Quite so,' says he again. 'Though it would have been
better if you'd been a bit glad to hear it.' 'You can get Elisabet to do
that,' says she. 'Elisabet,' says he--just that one word--and shakes his
head. Then they said nothing for quite a while. 'What are you going to do
now?' asks the Captain. 'Oh, don't trouble yourself about me,' said Fruen
very slowly. 'I can be a nurse, if you like, or cut my hair short and be a
school teacher, if you like.' 'If I like,' says he; 'no, decide for
yourself.' 'I want to know what you are going to do first,' she says, 'I'm
going to stay here where I am,' he answered, 'but you've turned yourself
out of doors.' And Fruen nodded and said: 'Very well.'"

"Oh," from all in the kitchen. "Oh but, _Herregud_! it will come
right again surely," said Nils, looking round at the rest of us to see
what we thought.

For a couple of days after the Captain had gone, Fruen sat playing the
piano all the time. On the third day Nils drove her to the station; she
was going to stay with her mother at Kristianssand. That left us more
alone than ever. Fruen had not taken any of her things with her; perhaps
she felt they were not really hers; perhaps they had all come from him
originally, and she did not care to have them now. Oh, but it was all a
misery.

Ragnhild was not to go away, her mistress had said. But it was cook that
was left in charge of everything, and kept the keys, which was best for
all concerned.

On Saturday the Captain came back home on leave. Nils said he never used
to do that before. Fine and upright in his bearing he was, for all that
his wife was gone away, and he was sober as could be. He gave me orders,
very short and clear, about the timber; came out with me and showed me
here and there. "Battens, down to smallest battens, a thousand dozen. I
shall be away three weeks this time," he said. On the Sunday afternoon he
went off again. He was more determined in his manner now--more like
himself.

We were through with the field-work at last, and the potato-planting was
done; after that, Nils and the lad could manage the daily work by
themselves, and I went up to my new work among the timber.

Good days these were for me, all through. Warm and rainy at first, making
the woods all wet, but I went out all the same, and never stayed in on
that account. Then a spell of hot weather set in, and in the light
evenings, after I got home from work, it was a pleasure to go round
mending and seeing to little things here and there--a gutter-pipe, a
window, and the like. At last I got the escape ladder up and set to
scraping the old paint from the north wall of the barn--it was flaking
away there of itself. It would be a neat piece of work if I could get the
barn done this summer after all, and the paint was there all ready.

But there was another thing that made me weary at times of the work and
the whole place. It was not the same working there now as when the Captain
and Fruen were home; I found here confirmation of the well-known truth
that it is well for a man to have some one over him at his work, that is,
if he is not himself in charge as leading man. Here were the maids now,
going about the place with none to look after them. Ragnhild and the
dairymaid were always laughing and joking noisily at meal-times and
quarreling now and again between themselves; the cook's authority was not
always enough to keep the peace, and this often made things uncomfortable.
Also, it seemed that some one must have been talking to Lars Falkenberg,
my good old comrade that had been, and made him suspicious of me now.

Lars came in one evening and took me aside; he had come to say he forbade
me to show myself on his place again. His manner was comically
threatening.

Now, I had not been there more than a few times with washing--maybe half a
dozen times in all; he had been out, but Emma and I had talked a bit of
old things and new. The last time I was there Lars came home suddenly and
made a scene the moment he got inside the door, because Emma was sitting
on a stool in her petticoat. "It's too hot for a skirt," she said. "Ho,
yes, and your hair all down your back--too hot to put it up, I suppose?"
he retorted. Altogether he was in a rage with her. I said good-night to
him as I left, but he did not answer.

I had not been there since. Then what made him come over like this all of
a sudden? I set it down as more of Ragnhild's mischievous work.

When he had told me in so many words he forbade me to enter his house,
Lars nodded and looked at me; to his mind, I ought now to be as one dead.

"And I've heard Emma's been down here," he went on. "But she'll come no
more, I fancy, after this."

"She may have been here once or twice for the washing."

"Ho, yes, the washing, of course. And you coming up yourself Heaven knows
how many times a week--more washing! Bring up a shirt one day and a pair
of drawers the next, that's what you do. But you can get Ragnhild to do
your washing now."

"Well and good."

"Aha, my friend, I know you and your little ways. Going and visiting and
making yourself sweet to folk when you find them all alone. But not for
me, thank you!"

Nils comes up to us now, guessing, no doubt, what's the trouble, and ready
to put in a word for me, like the good comrade he is. He catches the last
words, and gives me a testimonial on the spot, to the effect that he's
never seen anything wrong about me all the time I've been on the place.

But Lars Falkenberg bridles up at once and puts on airs, looking Nils up
and down with contempt. He has a grudge against Nils already. For though
Lars had managed well enough since he got his own little place up in the
wood, he had never equalled Nils' work here on the Captain's land. And
Lars Falkenberg feels himself aggrieved.

"What have you got to come cackling about?" he asks.

"I'm saying what is the truth, that's all," answers Nils.

"Ho, are you, you goat? If you want me to wipe the floor with you, I'll do
it on the spot!"

Nils and I walked away, but Lars still shouted after us. And there was
Ragnhild, of course, sniffing at the lilacs as we passed.

That evening I began to think about moving on again as soon as I had
finished my work in the timber. When the three weeks were up, the Captain
came back as he had said. He noticed I had scraped the northern wall of
the barn, and was pleased with me for that. "End of it'll be you'll have
to paint that again, too," he said. I told him how far I had got with the
timber; there was not much left now. "Well, keep at it and do some more,"
was all he said. Then he went back to his duty again for another three
weeks.

But I did not care to stay another three weeks at Ovrebo as things were
now. I marked down a few score dozen battens, and reckoned it all out on
my paper--that would have to do. But it was still too early for a man to
live in the forests and hills; the flowers were come, but there were no
berries yet. Song and twitter of birds at their mating, flies and midges
and moths, but no cloudberries, no angelica.

* * * * *

In town.

I came in to Engineer Lassen, Inspector of rafting sections, and he took
me on as he had promised, though it was late in the season now. To begin
with, I am to make a tour of the water and see where the logs have
gathered thickest, noting down the places on a chart. He is quite a good
fellow, the engineer, only still very young. He gives me over-careful
instructions about things he fancies I don't know already. It makes him
seem a trifle precocious.

And so this man has helped Captain Falkenberg out of a mess? The Captain
was sorry for it now, no doubt, anxious to free himself from the debt--
that was why he was cutting down his timber to the last lot of battens, I
thought. And I wished him free of it myself. I was sorry now I had not
stayed on marking down a few more days, that he might have enough and to
spare. What if it should prove too little, after all?

Engineer Lassen was a wealthy man, apparently. He lived at an hotel, and
had two rooms there. I never got farther than the office myself, but even
there he had a lot of costly things, books and papers, silver things for
the writing-table, gilt instruments and things; a light overcoat,
silk-lined, hung on the wall. Evidently a rich man, and a person of
importance in the place. The local photographer had a large-sized
photograph of him in the show-case outside. I saw him, too, out walking in
the afternoons with the young ladies of the town. Being in charge of all
the timber traffic, he generally walked down to the long bridge--it was
four hundred and sixty feet--across the foss, halted there, and stood
looking up and down the river. Just by the bridge piers, and on the flat
rocks below them, was where the logs were most inclined to jam, and he
kept a gang of lumbermen regularly at hand for this work alone. Standing
on the bridge there, watching the men at work among the logs, he looked
like an admiral on board a ship, young and strong, with power to command.
The ladies with him stopped willingly, and stood there on the bridge,
though the rush of water was often enough to make one giddy. And the roar
of it was such that they had to put their heads together when they spoke.

But just in this position, at his post on the bridge, standing there and
turning this way and that, there was something smallish and unhandsome
about his figure; his sports jacket, fitting tightly at the waist, seemed
to pinch, and showed up over-heavy contours behind.

The very first evening, after he'd given me my orders to start off up the
river next day, I met him out walking with two ladies. At sight of me he
stopped, and kept his companions waiting there, too, while he gave me the
same instructions all over again. "Just as well I happened to meet you,"
he said. "You'll start off early, then, tomorrow morning, take a hooking
pole with you, and clear all the logs you can manage. If you come across a
big jam, mark it down on the chart--you've got a copy of the chart,
haven't you? And keep on up river till you meet another man coming down.
But remember to mark in red, not blue. And let me see how well you can
manage.--A man I've got to work under me," he explained to the ladies. "I
really can't be bothered running up and down all the time."

So serious he was about it all; he even took out a notebook and wrote
something down. He was very young, and could not help showing off a little
with two fair ladies to look on.

Next morning I got away early. It was light at four, and by that time I
was a good way up the river. I carried food with me, and my hooking pole--
which is like a boat-hook really.

No young, growing timber here, as on Captain Falkenberg's land; the ground
was stony and barren, covered with heather and pine needles for miles
round. They had felled too freely here; the sawmills had taken over much,
leaving next to no young wood. It was a melancholy country to be in.

By noon I had cleared a few small jams, and marked down a big one. Then I
had my meal, with a drink of water from the river. A bit of a rest, and I
went on again, on till the evening. Then I came upon a big jam, where a
man was already at work among the logs. This was the man I had been told
to look out for. I did not go straight up to him at first, but stopped to
look at him. He worked very cautiously, as if in terror of his life; he
was even afraid of getting his feet wet. It amused me to watch him for a
little. The least chance of being carried out into the stream on a
loosened log was enough to make him shift at once. At last I went up close
and looked at him--why ... yes, it was my old friend, Grindhusen.

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