Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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Grindhusen, that I had worked with as a young man at Skreia--my partner in
the digging of a certain well six years before.

And now to meet him here.

We gave each other greeting, and sat down on the logs to talk, asking and
answering questions for an hour or more. Then it was too late to get any
more done that day. We got up and went back a little way up the river,
where Grindhusen had a bit of a log hut. We crept in, lit a fire, made
some coffee, and had a meal. Then, going outside again, we lit our pipes
and lay down in the heather.

Grindhusen had aged, and was in no better case than I myself; he did not
care to think of the gay times in our youth, when we had danced the whole
night through. He it was that had once been as a red-haired wolf among the
girls, but now he was thoroughly cowed by age and toil, and had not even a
smile. If I had only had a drop of spirits with me it might have livened
him up a little, but I had none.

In the old days he had been a stiff-necked fellow, obstinate as could be;
now he was easy-going and stupid. "Ay, maybe so," was his answer to
everything. "Ay, you're right," he would say. Not that he meant it; only
that life had taught him to seek the easiest way. So life does with all of
us, as the years go by--but it was an ill thing to see, meeting him so.

Ay, he got along somehow, he said, but he was not the man he used to be.
He'd been troubled with gout of late, and pains in the chest as well. His
pains in the chest were cardialgic. But it was none so bad as long as he'd
the work here for Engineer Lassen. He knew the river right up, and worked
here all spring and early summer in his hut. And as for clothes, he'd
nothing to wear out save breeches and blouse all the year round. Had a bit
of luck, though, last year, he said suddenly. Found a sheep with nobody to
own it. Sheep in the forest? Up that way, he said, pointing. He'd had meat
on Sundays half through the winter off that sheep. Then he'd his folks in
America as good as any one else: children married there and well-to-do.
They sent him a little to help the first year or so, but now they'd
stopped; it was close on two years now since he'd heard from them at all.
Eyah! well, that's how things were now with him and his wife. And getting
old....

Grindhusen lapsed into thought.

A dull, rushing sound from the forest and the river, like millions of
nothings flowing and flowing on. No birds here, no creatures hopping
about, but if I turn up a stone, I may find some insect under it.

"Wonder what these tiny things live on?" I say.

"What tiny things?" says Grindhusen. "Those? That's only ants and things."

"It's a sort of beetle," I tell him. "Put one on the grass and roll a
stone on top of it, and it'll live."

Grindhusen answers: "Ay, maybe so," but thinking never a word of what I've
said, and I think the rest to myself; but put an ant there under the stone
as well, and very soon there'll be no beetle left.

And the rush of the forest and river goes on: 'tis one eternity that
speaks with another, and agrees. But in the storms and in thunder they are
at war.

"Ay, so it is," says Grindhusen at last. "Two years come next fourteenth
of August since the last letter came. There was a smart photograph in,
from Olea, it was, that lives in Dakota, as they call it. A mighty fine
photograph it was, but I never got it sold. Eyah, but we'll manage
somehow, please the Lord," says Grindhusen, with a yawn. "What was I going
to say now?... What is he paying for the work?"

"I don't know."

But Grindhusen looks at me suspiciously, thinking it is only that I will
not say.

"Ay, well, 'tis all the same to me," he says. "I was only asking."

To please him, I try to guess a wage. "I dare say he'll give me a couple
of Kroner a day, or perhaps three, d'you think?"

"Ay, dare say you may," he answers enviously. "Two Kroner's all I get, and
I'm an old hand at the work."

Then fancying, perhaps, I may go telling of his grumbling, he starts off
in praise of Engineer Lassen, saying what a splendid fellow he is in every
way. "He'll do what's fair by me, that I know. Trust him for that! Why,
he's been as good as a father to me, and that's the truth!"

It sounds quaint, indeed, to hear Grindhusen, half his teeth gone with
age, talking of the young engineer as a father. I felt pretty sure I could
find out a good deal about my new employer from this quarter, but I did
not ask.

"He didn't say anything about me coming down into town?" asked Grindhusen.

"No."

"He sends up for me now and again, and when I get there, it's not for
anything particular--only wants to have a bit of a chat with me, that's
all. Ay, a fine fellow is the engineer!"

It is getting late. Grindhusen yawns again, creeps into the hut and lies
down.

* * * * *

Next morning we cleared the jam. "Come up with me my way a bit," says
Grindhusen. And I went. After an hour's walking, we sighted the fields and
buildings of a hill farm up among the trees. And suddenly I recollect the
sheep Grindhusen had found.

"Was it up this way you found that sheep?" I ask.

Grindhusen looks at me.

"Here? No, that was ever so far away--right over toward Trovatn."

"But Trovatn's only in the next parish, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's what I say. It's ever so far away from here."

But now Grindhusen does not care to have my company farther; he stops, and
thanks me for coming up so far. I might just as well go up to the farm
with him, and I say so; but Grindhusen, it seems, is not going up to the
farm at all--he never did. And I'd just have an easy day back into town,
starting now.

So I turned and went back the way I had come.

VI

It was no sort of work this for a man; I was not satisfied. Nothing but
walk, walk up and down the river, clearing a few logs here and there, and
then on again. And after each trip, back to my lodging-house in the town.
All this time I had but one man to talk to--the boots or porter at the
hotel where the engineer was staying. He was a burly fellow, with huge
fists, and eyes like a child's. He had fallen down and hurt his head as a
youngster, he said, and never got on in life beyond hauling things and
carrying heavy loads. I had a talk with him now and again, but found no
one else to talk to in the town.

That little town!

When the river is high, a mighty roar of sound goes rushing through the
place, dividing it in two. Folk live in their little wooden houses north
or south of the roar, and manage, no doubt, to make ends meet from day to
day. Of all the many children crossing the bridge and running errands to
the shops, there are none that go naked, probably few that suffer want,
and all are decent looking enough. And here are big, tall, half-grown
girls, the quaintest of all, with their awkward movements, and their
laughter, and their earnest occupation with their own little affairs. Now
and again they stop on the bridge to watch the lumbermen at work among the
logs below, and join in the song of the men as they haul--
"_Hoi-aho!_"--and then they giggle and nudge one another and go on.

But there are no birds here.

Strange, that there should be no birds! On quiet evenings, at sunset-time,
the great enclosed pool lies there with its deep waters unmoved; moths and
midges hover above it, the trees on the banks are reflected there, but
there are no birds in the trees. Perhaps it is because of the roar of the
water, that drowns all other sound; birds cannot thrive there, where none
can hear another's song. And so it comes about that the only winged
creatures here are flies and moths. But God alone knows why even the crows
and common birds shun us and our town.

Every small town has its daily event that every one turns out for--and, as
for that, the big towns too, with their promenades. Out Vestland way it is
the postpacket. Living in Vestland, it's hard to keep away from the quay
when the little vessel comes in. Here, in this inland town, with a dozen
miles or more to the sea, and nothing but rocks and hills all about, here
we have the river. Has the water risen or fallen in the night? Will they
be clearing logs from the booms today? Oh, we are all so interested! True,
we have a little railway as well, but that doesn't count for much. The
line ends here; it runs as far as it can go, and then stops, like a cork
in a bottle. And there's something cosy and pleasant about the tiny
carriages on the trains; but folk seem ashamed of them, they are so
ridiculously old and worse for wear, and there's not even room to sit
upright with a hat on!

Not but what we've other things besides--a market, and a church, and
schools, and post office, and all. And then there's the sawmills and works
by the riverside. But as for grocery shops and stores, there's more than
you'd believe.

We've so many things altogether. I am a stranger here myself--as indeed I
am everywhere--yet I could reckon up a host of things we have besides the
river. Was the town a big place once upon a time? No, it has been a little
town for two hundred and fifty years. But there was once a great man over
all the smaller folk--one who rode lordly fashion with a servant behind
him--a great landowner. Now we are all equal; saving, perhaps, with
Engineer Lassen, this something-and-twenty-year-old Inspector of rafting
sections, who can afford two rooms at his hotel.

I have nothing to do, and find myself pondering over the following matter:

Here is a big house, somewhere about a couple of hundred years old, the
house of the wealthy Ole Olsen Ture. It is of enormous size, a house of
two stories, the length of a whole block; it is used as a depot now. In
the days when that house was built there was no lack of giant timber
hereabouts; three beams together make the height of a man, and the wood is
hard as iron; nothing can bite on it. And inside the building are halls
and cells as in a castle. Here Ture the Great ruled like a prince in his
day.

But times changed. Houses were made not only big, not only to live in for
shelter from cold and rain, but also to look on with pleasure to the eye.
On the opposite side of the river stands an old archaic building with
carefully balanced verandah in the Empire style, pillars, fronton, and
all. It is not faultless, but handsome all the same; it stands out like a
white temple on the green hillside. One other house I have seen and
stopped to look at; one near the market-place. Its double street door has
old handles and carved rococo mirrors, but the frames cannelated in the
style of Louis XVI. The cartouche above the doorway bears the date 1795 in
Arabic numerals--that was our transition period here! So there were folk
here at that time who kept in touch with the times, without the aid of
steam and telegraph.

But later on, again, houses were built to keep off rain and snow and
nothing else. They were neither big nor beautiful to look at. The idea was
to put up some sort of a dwelling, Swiss fashion--a place to keep a wife
and children in, and that was all. And we learned from a miserable little
people up in the Alps, a people that throughout its history has never been
or done anything worth speaking of--we learned to pay no heed to what a
homestead really looked like, as long as it met with the approval of
loafing tourist. Is there something of the calm and beauty of a temple
about that white building on the hillside? And pray, what's the use of it
if there is? And the great big house that dates from the time of Ole Olsen
Ture, why hasn't it been pulled down long ago? There would be room for a
score of cheap dwellings on the site.

Things have gone downhill, gone to the depths. And now the little
cobbler-soul can rejoice--not because we're all grown equally great, but
because we're all equally small. 'Tis our affair!

The long bridge is pleasant to walk on because it is paved with planks,
and even as a floor; all the young ladies can walk gracefully here. And
the bridge is light and open at the sides, making an excellent lookout
place for us inquisitive folk.

Down on the raft of tangled logs the men are shouting, as they strain to
free the timber that has caught and stuck fast among the rocks and
boulders in the river-bed. Stick after stick comes floating down and joins
the mass already gathered; the jam grows and grows; at times there may be
a couple of hundred dozen balks hung up at one spot. But if all goes well,
the gang can clear the jam in time. And if fate will have it ill, some
unlucky lumberman may be carried down as well, down the rapids to his
death.

There are ten men with boat-hooks on the jam, all more or less wet from
falling in. The foreman points out the log next to be freed, but we,
watching from the bridge, can see now and again that all the gang are not
agreed. There is no hearing what is said, but we can see some of them are
inclined to get another log out first; one of the old hands protests.
Knowing his speech as I do, I fancy I can hear him say stubbornly and
calmly: "I doubt we'd better see and get _that_ one clear first." Ten
pairs of eyes are turned towards the stick he has chosen, tracing the lie
of it in among its tangled fellows; if the men agree, ten boat-hooks are
thrust into it. Then for a moment the poles stand out from the log like
the strings of a harp; a mighty "_Ho!_" from the gang, a short, tense
haul, and it moves a trifle forward. A fresh grip, another shout, and
forward again. It is like watching half a score of ants about a twig. And
at last the freed log slides out and away down the foss.

But there are logs that are almost immovable, and often it is just one of
the worst that has to be cleared before anything else can be done. Then
the men spread out and surround it, fixing their hooks wherever they can
get a sight of it in the tangle, some hauling, others thrusting outward;
if it is dry, they splash water over it to make it slippery. And here the
poles are nowise regularly set like harp-strings, but lie crosswise at all
angles like a cobweb.

Sometimes the shouting of the gang can be heard all day long from the
river, silenced only for meals; ay, it may happen that it goes on for days
together. Then suddenly a new sound falls on the ear: the stroke of the
ax; some devil of a log has fixed itself so cunningly there is no hauling
it free, and it has to be cut through. It does not take many strokes to do
it, for the pressure on it already is enormous; soon it breaks, the great
confused mass yields, and begins to move. All the men are on their guard
now, holding back to see what is coming next; if the part they are
standing on shows signs of breaking loose, they must leap with catlike
swiftness to a safer spot. Their calling is one of daily and hourly peril;
they carry their lives in their hands.

* * * * *

But the little town is a living death.

It is pitiful to see such a dead place, trying to pretend it is alive. It
is the same with Bruges, the great city of the past, and with many cities
in Holland, in South Germany, the north of France, the Orient. Standing in
the marketplace of such a town one cannot but think: "Once, once upon a
time this was a living place; there are still human beings walking in the
streets!"

Strange, this town of ours is hidden away, shut in by the hills--and yet
for all that it has no doubt its local feminine beauty and its local
masculine ambition just as all other towns. Only it is such a queer,
outlandish life that is lived here, with little crooked fingers, with eyes
as of a mouse, and ears filled day and night with the eternal rushing of
the waters. A beetle on its way in the heather, a stub of yellow grass
sticks up here and there--huge trees they seem to the beetle's eye! Two
local merchants walk across the bridge. Going to the post, no doubt. They
have this very day decided to go halves in a whole sheet of stamps, buying
them all at once for the sake of the rebate on a quantity!

Oh, those local tradesmen!

Each day they hang out their stocks of ready-made clothes, and dress their
windows with their stuffs and goods, but rarely do I see a customer go in.
I thought to myself at first: But there must surely be some one now and
then--a peasant from somewhere up the valley, coming into town. And I was
right; I saw that peasant today, and it was strange and pleasant to see
him.

He was dressed like the pictures in our folk-tales--a little short jacket
with silver buttons, and grey breeches with a black leather seat. He was
driving a tiny little haycart with a tiny little horse, and up in the cart
was a little red-flanked cow--on its way to the butcher's, I suppose. All
three--man, horse, and cow--were undersized; palaeolithic figures; dwarf
creatures from the underworld on a visit to the haunts of men. I almost
looked to see them vanish before my eyes. All of a sudden the cow in its
Lilliputian cart utters a throaty roar--and even that unromantic sound was
like a voice from another world.

A couple of hours later I come upon the man again, minus horse and cow: he
is wandering round among the shops on his errands. I follow him to the
saddler's--saddler and harness-maker Vogt is also a glazier, and deals in
leather as well. This merchant of many parts offers to serve me first, but
I explain that I must look at a saddle, and some glass, and a trifle of
leather first, I am in no hurry. So he turns to the elfin countryman.

The two are old acquaintances.

"So here's you come to town?"

"Ay, that's the way of it."

And so on through the whole rigmarole; wind and weather, and the state of
the roads; wife and children getting on as usual; season and crops;
river's fallen so much the last week; butchers' prices; hard times
nowadays, etc. Then they begin trying the leather, pinching and feeling
and bending it about and talking it over. And when at last a strip is cut
off and weighed, the mannikin finds it a marvel, sure, that ever it could
weigh so much! Reckon it at a round figure, those little bits of weights
aren't worth counting! And the two of them argue and split over this for a
good solid while, as is right and proper. When at last it comes to paying
for the goods, a fantastic leather purse is brought to light, a thing out
of a fairy tale. Slowly and cautiously the heavy fist draws forth the
coins, one _skilling_ after another; both parties count the money
over again and again, then the mannikin closes his purse with an anxious
movement; that is all he has!

"Why, you've coin and paper too; I saw a note in there."

"Nay, I'll not break the note."

More reckoning and arguing--a long business this; each gives way a little,
they split the difference--and the deal is over.

"And a terrible heap to pay for a bit of leather," says the purchaser. And
the dealer answers:

"Nay, you've got it at a bargain. But don't forget me next time you're in
town."

Towards evening I meet the mannikin once more, driving home again after
his venture into the world. The cow has been left behind at the butcher's.
There are parcels and sacks in the cart, but the little man himself jogs
along behind, the leather seat of his breeches stretching to a triangle at
every step. And whether for thoughtlessness, or an overweight of thought
after all these doings and dealings, he wears a rolled-up strip of sole
leather like a ring about one arm.

So money has flowed into the town once more; a peasant has come in and
sold his cow, and spent the price of it again in goods. The event is
noticed everywhere at once: the town's three lawyers notice it, the three
little local papers notice it; money is circulating more freely of late.
Unproductive--but it helps the town to live.

Every week the little local papers advertise town properties for sale;
every week a list is issued by the authorities of houses to be sold in
liquidation of the unpaid tax. What then? Ah, but mark how many properties
come on the market that way! The barren, rocky valley with its great river
cannot feed this moribund town; a cow now and again is not enough. And so
it is that the properties are given up, the Swiss-pattern houses, the
dwellings and shelters. Out Vestland way, if ever a house in one of the
little towns should chance to come up for sale, it is a great event; the
inhabitants flock together on the quay to talk it over. Here, in our
little town beyond all hope, it occasions no remark when another wearied
hand leaves hold of what it had. My turn now--'twill be another's before
long. And none finds it worth while sorrowing much for that.

* * * * *

Engineer Lassen came to my lodging and said:

"Put on your cap and come with me to the station to fetch a trunk."

"No," said I. "I'm not going to do that."

"Not going to...."

"No. There's a porter at the hotel for that sort of thing. Let him earn
the money."

It was quite enough. The engineer was very young; he looked at me and said
nothing. But, being obstinate by nature, he would not give up at once; he
changed his tone.

"I'd rather have you," he said. "I've a reason for it, and I wish you
would."

"That's a different matter. Then I will."

I put on my cap, and I am ready; he walks on ahead, and I follow behind.
Ten minutes waiting at the station, and the train comes in. It consists of
three toy carriages, and a few passengers tumble out. In the rear carriage
is a lady trying to alight; the engineer hurries to assist her.

I paid no great heed to what was happening. The lady was veiled and wore
gloves; a light coat she handed to her escort. She seemed embarrassed at
first, and said only a few words in a low voice, but he was quite the
reverse, talking loudly and freely all the time. And, when he begged her
to take off her veil, she grew bolder, and did as he said.

"Do you know me now?" she said. And suddenly I pricked up my ears; it was
Fru Falkenberg's voice. I turned round and looked her in the face.

It is no easy matter to be old and done with and behave as such. The
moment I realized who it was standing there I could think of nothing but
my age-worn self, and how to stand and bow with ease and respect. Now, I
had among my possessions a blouse, and breeches of brown corduroy such as
labourers wear in the south; an excellent, well-looking suit, and new.
But, alas! I had not put it on today. And the lack of it at that moment
irked me. I was down-hearted at the thought. And, while the two stood
there talking, I fell to wondering why the engineer had wanted me so
particularly to come with him to the station. Could it be for the matter
of a few _skilling_ to the porter? Or was it to show off with a
servant at his heels? Or had he thought that Fruen would be pleased to
have some one she knew in attendance? If the last, then he was greatly
mistaken; Fruen started in evident displeasure at finding me here, where
she had thought, perhaps, to be safely concealed. I heard the engineer
say: "I've got a man here, he'll take your luggage down. Have you the
ticket?" But I made no sign of greeting. I turned away.

And afterwards I triumphed over him in my miserable soul, thinking how
annoyed she would be with him for his want of tact. He brought up with him
a man who had been in her employ when she had a home; but that man had
some delicacy of feeling, he turned away, pretending not to know her! Lord
knows what the woman found to run after in this tight-waisted youth with
the heavy contours behind.

There are fewer people on the platform now; the little toy waggons are
rolled away and shunted about to build another train; at last we are left
with the whole place to ourselves. Fruen and the engineer stand talking.
What has she come for? Heaven knows! Young Lovelace, perhaps, has had a
spasm of longing and wants her again. Or is she come of her own accord to
tell him what has happened, and ask his advice? Like as not the end of it
will be they fix things up and get married some day. Mr. Hugo Lassen is,
of course, a chivalrous gentleman, and she his one and only love. And then
comes the time when she should walk on roses and live happily ever after!

"No, really, it would never do!" he exclaims, with a laugh. "If you won't
be my aunt, then you'll have to be my cousin."

"S-sh!" whispers Fruen. "Can't you get rid of that man there?"

Whereupon the engineer comes up to me with the luggage receipt in his
hand, and in his lordliest manner, as an Inspector of Waterways addressing
a gang of lumbermen, he says:

"Bring this along to the hotel."

"Very good," I answered, touching my cap.

I carried down the trunk, thinking as I went. He had actually invited her
to pass as his aunt! Visibly older she might be than he; still, here again
he had shown himself wanting in tact. I would not have said such a thing
myself. I would have declared to all and sundry: "Behold, here is come a
bright angel to visit King Hugo; see how young and beautiful she is; mark
the slow, heavy turn of her grey eyes; ay, a weighty glance! But there is
a shimmer of sea-fire in her hair--I love her! Mark her, too, when she
speaks, a mouth good and fine, and with ever and again a little helpless
look and smile. I am King Hugo this day, and she is my love!"

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