Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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"Well, well," he said. "But if you should happen to be in these parts any
time, you know where to find me. We've all but finished now for this
year--there's been too much drought just lately."

Fruen was still holding the letter. Then I saw she had finished reading,
for her eyes never moved; but she stood there, staring at the letter,
thinking. What was in her mind, I wondered?

The engineer glanced at her impatiently.

"Are you learning it by heart?" he said, with a half-smile. "Come, dear,
he's waiting."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Fruen quickly. "I forgot." And she handed me
the letter.

"So it seems," observed the engineer.

I bowed, and went out.

* * * * *

On a summer evening the bridge is crowded with people out walking--school
teachers and tradespeople, young girls and children. I watch my time when
it is getting late, and the bridge is deserted; then I can lounge over
that way myself, and stay for an hour or so in the midst of the roar. No
need to do anything really but listen; only my brain is so over-rested
with idleness and good sound sleep, it finds no end of things to busy
itself about. Last evening I determined in all seriousness to go to Fru
Falkenberg and say:

"Go away from here, Frue; leave by the first train that goes." Today I
have been calling myself a fool for entertaining such a ridiculous
thought, and set in its place another: "Get out of this yourself, my good
man, by the first train that goes. Are you her equal, her adviser? Very
well, then; see that what you do is not too utterly at variance with what
you are!"

And this evening I am still treating myself as I deserve. I fall to
humming a little tune, but can scarcely hear it myself! the sound is
crushed to death in the roar of the water. "That's right," I say to myself
scornfully. "You ought always to stand by a deafening foss when you feel
like humming a tune." And I laugh at myself again. With suchlike childish
fancies do I pass the time.

The noise of the rapids anywhere inland is as useful to the ear as the
noise of breakers on the shore. But the voice of the breakers is louder
and fainter by turns. The roar of waters in a river-bed is like an audible
fog, a monotony of sound beyond reason, contrary to all sense, a miracle
of idiocy. "What is the time, do you know?" "Yes, isn't it?" "Day or
night?" "Yes!" As if some one had laid a stone on six keys of an organ,
and walked off and left it there.

With such childish fancies do I while away the time.

"_Godaften_!" says Fru Falkenberg, and there she is beside me.

I hardly felt surprised; it was almost as if I had expected her. After her
behaviour with her husband's letter, she might well go a little farther.

Now I could think two ways about her coming: either she had turned
thoroughly sentimental at being reminded so directly of her home once
more, or she wanted to make her engineer jealous; he might perhaps be
watching us from his window that very moment, and I had been sent for to
go back to Ovrebo. Possibly she was thoroughly calculating, and had been
trying to work on his jealousy even yesterday, when she studied the letter
so attentively.

It seemed, however, that none of my clever theories was to be confirmed.
It was me she wanted to see, and that only to make a sort of apology for
getting me dismissed. That she should ever care about such a trifle! Was
she so incapable of thinking seriously that she could not see what a
miserable position she herself was in? What in the devil's name had she to
do with my affairs?

I had thought to say a brief word or so and point to the train, but
something made me gentle, as if I were dealing with an irresponsible, a
child.

"You'll be going back to Ovrebo now, I suppose?" she said. "And I thought
I'd like.... H'm!... You're sorry to be leaving here, perhaps? No? No, no,
of course not. But I must tell you something: It was I that got you
dismissed."

"It doesn't matter."

"No, no. Only, I wanted to tell you. Now that you're going back to Ovrebo.
You can understand it was a little unpleasant for me at times to...."

She checked herself.

"To have me about the place. Yes, it would be unpleasant."

"To see you here. A _little_ unpleasant; I mean, because you knew
about me before. So I asked the engineer if he couldn't send you away. Not
that he wanted to himself, you understand. Quite the reverse, in fact, but
he did at last. I'm glad you're going back to Ovrebo."

"So?" said I. "But when Fruen comes home again surely it will be just as
unpleasant to see me then?"

"Home?" she repeated. "I'm not going home."

Pause. She had frowned as she spoke. But now she nodded, and even smiled a
little, and turned to go.

"Well, well, you'll pardon me, then, I know," she said.

"Have you any objection to my going back to Captain Falkenberg?" I asked.

She stopped, and looked me full in the face. Now, what was the right thing
here? Three times she had spoken of Ovrebo. Was it with the idea that I
might put in a word for her if opportunity offered, when I got back there?
Or was she unwilling to ask of me as a favour not to go?

"No, no, indeed I've not!" she answered. "Go there, by all means."

And she turned and left me.

Neither sentimental nor calculating, as far as I could see. But she might
well have been both. And what had I gained by my attempt at a confidential
tone? I should have known better than to try, whether she stayed here or
went elsewhere. What business was it of mine? 'Twas her affair.

You're playing and pretending, I said to myself. All very well to say
she's literature and no more, but that withered soul of yours showed good
signs of life when she was kind to you and began looking at you with those
two eyes of hers. I'm disappointed; I'm ashamed of you, and to-morrow you
go!

But I did not go.

And true it is that I went about spying and listening everywhere for
anything I could learn of Fru Falkenberg; and then at times, ay, many a
night, I would call myself to account for that same thing, and torture
myself with self-contempt. From early morning I thought of her: is she
awake yet? Has she slept well? Will she be going back home to-day? And at
the same time all sorts of ideas came into my head. I might perhaps get
work at the hotel where she was staying. Or I might write home for some
clothes, turn gentleman myself, and go and stay at that same hotel. This
last, of course, would at once have cut the ground from under my feet and
left me farther removed from her than ever, but it was the one that
appealed to me most of all, fool that I was. I had begun to make friends
with the hotel porter, already, merely because he lived nearer to her than
I. He was a big, strong fellow, who went up to the station every day to
meet the trains and pick up a commercial traveller once a fortnight. He
could give me no news; I did not ply him with questions, nor even lead him
on to tell me things of his own accord; and, besides, he was far from
intelligent. But he lived under the same roof with Fruen--ah yes, that he
did. And one day it came about that this acquaintance of mine with the
hotel porter brought me a piece of valuable information about Fru
Falkenberg, and that from her own lips.

So they were not all equally fruitless, those days in the little town.

One morning I came back with the porter from the station; he had picked up
a traveller with a heap of luggage, and had to take horse and cart to
fetch the heavy grey trunks.

I had helped him to get them loaded up at the station, and now, as we
pulled up at the hotel, he said: "You might lend a hand getting these
things in; I'll stand you a bottle of beer this evening."

So we carried in the trunks together. They were to be taken up at once to
the big luggage-room upstairs; the owner was waiting for them. It was an
easy job for the two of us big, strong fellows both.

We had got them up all but one--that was still in the cart--when the
porter was called back upstairs; the traveller was giving him instructions
about something or other. Meantime, I went out, and waited in the passage;
I did not belong to the place, and did not want to be seen hanging about
on the stairs by myself.

Just then the door of Engineer Lassen's office opened, and he and Fru
Falkenberg came out. They looked as if they had just got up; they had no
hats on; just going down to breakfast, no doubt. Now, whether they did not
notice me, or took me for the porter standing there, they went on with
what they had been saying.

"Quite so," says the engineer. "And it won't be any different. I can't see
what you've got to feel lonely about."

"Oh, you know well enough!" she answered.

"No, I don't, and I do think you might be a little more cheerful."

"You wouldn't like it if I were. You'd rather have me stay as I am,
miserable and wretched, because you don't care for me any more."

He stopped on the stairs abruptly. "Really, I think you must be mad," he
said.

"I dare say I am," she answered.

How poorly she held her own in a quarrel! It was always so with her. Why
could she not be careful of her words, and answer so as to wound him,
crush him altogether?

He stood with one hand on the stair-rail and said:

"So you think it pleases me to have things going on like this? I tell you
it hurts me desperately--has done for a long time past."

"And me," she answered. "But now I'll have no more of it."

"Oh, indeed! You've said that before. You said it only a week ago."

"Well, I am going now."

He looked up at her.

"Going away?"

"Yes. Very soon."

But he saw that he had betrayed himself in grasping so eagerly,
delightedly, at the suggestion, and tried now to smooth it over.

"There, there!" he said. "Be a nice sensible cousin now, and don't talk
about going away."

"I am going," she said, and, slipping past him, went down the stairs by
herself. He followed after.

Then the porter came out and we went down together. The last box was
smaller than the others. I asked him to carry it up himself, pretending I
had hurt my hand. I helped him to get it on his back, and went off home.
Now I could go away the following day.

That afternoon Grindhusen, too, was dismissed. The engineer had sent for
him, given him a severe talking to for doing no work and staying in town
and getting drunk; in a word, his services were no longer needed.

I thought to myself: It was strangely sudden, this new burst of courage on
the part of the engineer. He was so young, he had needed some one to back
him up and agree to everything he said; now, however, seeing that a
certain troublesome cousin was going away, he had no further need of
comfort there. Or was my withered soul doing him an injustice?

Grindhusen was greatly distressed. He had reckoned on staying in town all
the summer, as general handyman to the Inspector himself; but all hope of
that was gone now. The Inspector was no longer as good as a father to him.
And Grindhusen bore the disappointment badly. When they came to settle up,
the Inspector had been going to deduct the two-Kroner pieces he had given
him, saying they had only been meant as payment in advance. Grindhusen sat
in the general room at the lodging-house and told us all about it, adding
that the Inspector was pretty mean in the matter of wages after all. At
this, one of the men burst out laughing, and said:

"No; did he, though? He didn't take them back, really?"

"Nay," said Grindhusen. "He didn't dare take off more than the one."

There was more laughter at this, and some one else asked:

"No, really? Which one was it? Did he knock off the first two-Kroner or
the second? Ha, ha, ha! That's the best I've heard for a long time."

But Grindhusen did not laugh; he grew more and more sullen and despairing.
What was he to do now? Farm labourers for the season's work would have
been taken on everywhere by now, and here he was. He asked me where I was
going, and when I told him, he begged me to put in a word for him with the
Captain, and see if I couldn't get him taken on there for the summer.
Meantime, he would stay on in the town, and wait till he heard from me.

But I knew there would soon be an end of Grindhusen's money if he stayed
on in the town. The end of it was, I took him along with me, as the best
thing to be done. He had been a smart hand at paint-work once, had
Grindhusen; I remembered how he had done up old Gunhild's cottage on the
island. He could come and help me now, for the time being; later on, we
would surely find something else for him to do; there would be plenty of
field-work in the course of the summer where he might be useful.

* * * * *

The 16th July found me back at Ovrebo. I remember dates more and more
distinctly now, partly by reason of my getting old and acquiring the
intensified interest of senility in such things, partly because of being a
labourer, and obliged to keep account of my working days. But an old man
may keep his dates in mind and forget all about far more important things.
Up to now, for instance, I have forgotten to mention that the letter I had
from Captain Falkenberg was addressed to me care of Engineer Lassen. Well
and good. But the point appeared significant: the Captain, then, had
ascertained whom I was working for. And it came into my mind that possibly
the Captain was also aware of who else had been in the care of Engineer
Lassen that summer!

The Captain was still away on duty when I arrived; he would be back in a
week. As it was, Grindhusen was very well received; Nils was quite pleased
to find I had brought my mate along, and refused to let me keep him to
help with the painting, but sent him off on his own responsibility to work
in the turnip and potato fields. There was no end of work--weeding and
thinning out--and Nils was already in the thick of the hay-making.

He was the same splendid, earnest farmer as ever. At the first rest, while
the horses were feeding, he took me out over the ground to look at the
crops. Everything was doing well; but it had been a late spring that year,
and the cat's-tail was barely forming as yet, while the clover had just
begun to show bloom. The last rain had beaten down a lot of the first-year
grass, and it could not pick up again, so Nils had put on the
mowing-machine.

We walked back home through waving grass and corn; there was a whispering
in the winter rye and the stout six-rowed barley. Nils, who had not
forgotten his schooling, called to mind that beautiful line of Bjornson's:

"_Beginning like a whisper in the corn one summer day_."

"Time to get the horses out again," said Nils, stepping out a little. And
waving his hand once more out over the fields, he said: "What a harvest
we'll have this year if we can only get it safely in!"

So Grindhusen went off to work in the fields, and I fell to on the
painting. I started with the barn, and all that was to be red; then I did
over the flagstaff and the summer-house down among the lilacs with the
first coat of oil. The house itself I meant to leave till the last. It was
built in good old-fashioned country style, with rich, heavy woodwork and a
carved border, _a la grecque_, above the doorway. It was yellow as it
was, and a new lot of yellow paint had come in to do with this time. I
took upon myself, however, to send the yellow back, and get another colour
in exchange. In my judgment the house ought to be stone-grey, with doors
and window-frames and verge-boards white. But that would be for the
Captain to decide.

But though every one on the place was as nice as could be, and the cook in
authority lenient, and Ragnhild as bright-eyed as ever, we all felt it
dull with the master and mistress away. All save Grindhusen, honest
fellow, who was quite content. Decent work and good food soon set him up
again, and in a few days he was happy and waxing fat. His one anxiety was
lest the Captain should turn him off when he came home. But no such
thing--Grindhusen was allowed to stay.

IX

The Captain arrived.

I was giving the barn its second coat; at the sound of his voice I came
down from the ladder. He bade me welcome.

"Running away from your money like that!" he said. And I fancied he looked
at me with some suspicion as he asked: "What did you do that for?"

I answered simply that I had no idea of presuming to make him a present of
my work; the money could stand over, that was all.

He brightened up at that.

"Yes, yes, of course. Well, I'm very glad you came. We must have the
flagstaff white, I suppose?"

I did not dare tell him at once all I wanted done in white, but simply
said:

"Yes. I've got hold of some white paint."

"Have you, though? That's good. You've brought another man up with you, I
hear?"

"Yes. I don't know what Captain thinks...."

"He can stay. Nils has got him to work out in the fields already. And
anyhow, you all seem to do as you like with me," he added jestingly. "And
you've been working with the lumbermen, have you?"

"Yes."

"Hardly the sort of thing for you, was it?" Then, as if anxious not to
seem curious about my work with Engineer Lassen, he broke off abruptly and
said: "When are you going to start painting the house?"

"I thought of beginning this afternoon. It'll need scraping a bit here and
there."

"Good. And if you find the woodwork loose anywhere, you can put in a nail
or so at the same time. Have you had a look at the fields?"

"Yes."

"Everything's looking very nice. You men did good work last spring. Do no
harm now if we had a little rain for the upper lands."

"Grindhusen and I passed lots of places on the way up that needed rain
more than here. It's clay bottom here, and far up in the hills."

"That's true. How did you know that, by the way?"

"I looked about when I was here in the spring," I answered, "and I did a
little digging here and there. I'd an idea you'd be wanting to have water
laid on to the house some time or other, so I went prospecting a bit."

"Water laid on? Well, yes, I did think of it at one time, but.... Yes, I
was going to have it done some years back; but I couldn't get everything
done at once, and then it was held up. And just now I shall want the money
for other things."

A wrinkle showed between his eyes for a moment; he stood looking down--in
thought.

"Well, well, that thousand dozen battens ought to do it, and leave
something over," he said suddenly. "Water? It would have to be laid on to
the outbuildings as well. A whole system of pipes."

"There'd be no rock-work though, no blasting."

"Eh? Oh, well, we'll see. What was I going to say? Did you have a good
time down there in the town? Not a big place, but you do see more people
there. And the railway brings visitors now and again, no doubt."

"Aha," I thought to myself, "he knows well enough what visitor came to
stay with Engineer Lassen this summer!" I answered that I did not care
much for the place--which was perfectly true.

"No, really?"

He seemed to find something to ponder over in that; he stared straight in
front of him, whistling softly to himself. Then he walked away.

The Captain was in good spirits; he had been more communicative than ever
before; he nodded to me as he went off. Just as of old he was now--quick
and determined, taking an interest in his affairs once more, and sober as
water. I felt cheered myself to see him so. He was no wastrel; he had had
a spell of foolishness and dissipation, but it needed only his own
resolution to put an end to that. An oar in the water looks broken to the
eye, but it is whole.

* * * * *

It set in to rain, and I had to stop work on the painting. Nils had been
lucky enough to get in all the hay that was cut; we got to work now on the
potatoes, all hands out in the fields at once, with the women folk from
the house as well.

Meanwhile the Captain stayed indoors all alone; it was dull enough; now
and again he would touch the keys of Fruen's piano. He came out once or
twice to where we were at work, and he carried no umbrella, but let
himself get drenched to the skin.

"Grand weather for the crops!" he would say; or again, "Looks like being
an extra special harvest this year!" But when he went back to the house
there was only himself and loneliness to meet him. "We're better off
ourselves than he is now," said Nils.

So we worked away at the potatoes, and when they were done there were the
turnips. And by the time we were through with them the weather began to
clear. Ideal weather, all that one could wish for. Nils and I were as
proud of it all as if we owned the place.

And now the haymaking began in earnest: the maids were out, spreading in
the wake of the machine, and Grindhusen was set to work with a scythe in
the corners and awkward parts where the machine could not go. And I got
out my stone-grey paint and set about the house.

The Captain came up. "What colour's that you've got here?" he asked.

What could I say to that? I was nervous, I know, but my greatest fear was
lest I should not be allowed to paint it grey after all. As it was, I
said:

"Oh, it's only some ... I don't know ... it doesn't matter what we put on
for the first coat...."

That saved me for the time being, at any rate. The Captain said no more
about it then.

When I had done the house all grey, and doors and windows white, I went
down to the summer-house and did that the same. But it turned out horrible
to look at; the yellow underneath showed through and made it a ghastly
colour. The flagstaff I took down and painted a clean white. Then I put in
a spell of field-work with Nils and was haymaking for some days. Early in
August it was.

Now, when I went back to my painting again I had settled in my mind to
start on the house as early as possible, so as to be well on the way with
it before the Captain was up--too far, if I could manage it, to go back! I
started at three in the morning; there was a heavy dew, and I had to rub
the woodwork over with a bit of sack. I worked away for an hour, and then
had coffee, then on again till eight. I knew the Captain would be getting
up then, so I went off to help Nils for an hour and be out of the way. I
had done as much as I wanted, and my idea now was to give the Captain time
to get over the shock of my grey, in case he should have got up in an
irritable mood.

After breakfast I went back to work, and stood there on my ladder painting
away, as innocently as could be, when the Captain came up.

"Are you doing it over with grey again?" he called up.

"_Godmorgen_! Yes. I don't know if...."

"Now what's the meaning of all this? Come down off that ladder at once!"

I clambered down. But I was not anxious now. I had thought out something
to say that I fancied would prove effective at the right moment--unless my
judgment was altogether at fault.

I tried first of all to make out it didn't matter really what colour we
used for the second time either, but the Captain cut me short here and
said:

"Nonsense! Yellow on top of that grey will look like mud; you can see that
for yourself, surely."

"Well, then, we might give it two coats of yellow," I suggested.

"Four coats of paint? No, thank you! And all that white you've been
wasting! It's ever so much dearer than the yellow."

This was perfectly true, and the very argument I had been fearing all
along. I answered now straight-forwardly:

"Let me paint it grey."

"What?"

"It would look better. There's something about the house ... and with the
green of the woods behind ... the style of the place is...."

"Is grey, you mean?" He swung off impatiently a few steps and came back
again.

And then I faced him, more innocently than ever, with an inspiration
surely sent from above:

"Now I remember! Yes.... I've always seen it grey in my mind, ever since
one day--it was Fruen that said so...."

I was watching him closely; he gave a great start and stared at me
wide-eyed for a moment; then he took out his handkerchief and began
fidgeting with it at one eye as if to get out a speck or something.

"Indeed!" he said. "Did she say so?"

"Yes, I'm almost sure it was that. It's a long time back now, but...."

"Oh, nonsense!" he broke out abruptly, and strode away. I heard him
clearing his throat--hard--as he crossed the courtyard behind.

I stood there limply for a while, feeling anything but comfortable myself.
I dared not go on with the painting now, and risk making him angry again.
I went round to the back and put in an hour cutting firewood. When I came
round again, the Captain looked out from an open window upstairs and
called down:

"You may as well go on with it now you've got so far. I don't know what
possessed you, I'm sure. But get on with it now."

The window had been open before, but he slammed it to and I went on with
the work.

A week passed. I spent my time between painting and haymaking. Grindhusen
was good enough at hoeing potatoes and using a rake here and there, but
not of much account when it came to loading hay. Nils himself was a
first-rate hand, and a glutton for work.

I gave the house a third coat, and the delicate grey, picked out with
white, made the place look nobler altogether. One afternoon I was at work,
the Captain came walking up from the road. He watched me for a bit, then
took out his handkerchief as if the heat troubled him, and said:

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