Horatio Alger, Jr. - "Brave and Bold"

Ivan Goncharov - "The Precipice"

Marcel Proust - "Swann's Way"

Williams, Valentine - "The Yellow Streak"

A  /  B  /  C  /  D  /  E  /   F  /  G  /  H  /  I  /  J  /   K  /  L  /  M  /  N  /  O   P  /  R  /  S  /  T  /  U  /  V  /  W  /  X  /  Y  /  Z

Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

K >> Knut Hamsun >> Wanderers




"Yes, better go on with it now you've got so far. I must say she wasn't
far wrong about the colour. All nonsense though, really! H'm!"

I made no answer. The Captain used his handkerchief again and said:

"Hot again today--puh! What was I going to say? ... yes, it doesn't look
so bad after all. No, she was right--that is, I mean, you were right about
the colour. I was looking at it from down there just now, and it makes
quite a handsome place. And anyhow, it's too late to alter it now."

"I thought so too," I said. "It suits the house."

"Yes, yes, it suits the house, as it were. And what was it she said about
the woods behind--my wife, I mean? The background, or something?"

"It's a long time ago now, but I'm almost sure...."

"Yes, yes, never mind. I must say I never thought it would turn out like
that--turn out so well. Will you have enough white, though, to finish?"

"Well ... yes, I sent back the yellow and got some white instead."

The Captain smiled, shook his head, and walked away. So I had been right
after all!

Haymaking took up all my time now till it was done, but Nils lent me a
hand in return, painting at the summer-house in the evening. Even
Grindhusen joined in and took a brush. He wasn't much of a painter, he
said, but he reckoned he could be trusted to paint a bit of a wall.
Grindhusen was picking up fast.

At last the buildings were finished; hardly recognizable, they were, in
their new finery. And when we'd cleaned up a bit in the shrubbery and the
little park--this was our own idea--the whole place looked different
altogether. And the Captain thanked us specially for what we'd done.

We started on the rye then, and at the same time the autumn rain set in;
but we worked away all we knew, and there came a spell of sunshine in
between whiles. There were big fields of thick, heavy rye, and big fields
again of oats and barley, not yet ripe. It was a rich landscape to work
in. The clover was seeding, but the turnips were somewhat behindhand. A
good soaking would put them right, said Nils.

The Captain sent me up to the post from time to time; once he gave me a
letter for his wife. A whole bundle of letters there were, to different
people, and hers in the middle. It was addressed care of her mother in
Kristianssand. When I came back in the evening and took in the incoming
post, the Captain's first words were: "You posted the letters all right?"

"Yes," I said.

Time went on. On wet days, when there was little we could do out of doors,
the Captain wanted me to paint a bit here and there about the house
inside. He showed me some fine enamels he had got in, and said:

"Now here's the staircase to begin with. I want that white, and I've
ordered a dark red stair-carpet to put down. Then there'll be doors and
windows. But I want all this done as soon as possible really; it's been
left too long as it is."

I quite agreed that this was a good idea of the Captain's. He had lived
carelessly enough for years past now, never troubling about the look of
his house; now he had begun to take an interest in it again; it was a sort
of reawakening. He took me over the place, upstairs and down, and showed
me what was to be done. I noticed the pictures and sculpture in the rooms;
there was a big marble lion, and paintings by Askevold and the famous
Dahl. Heirlooms, I supposed they would be. Fruen's room upstairs looked
just as if she were at home, with all sorts of little trifles neatly in
their places, and clothes hanging still on the pegs. It was a fine old
house, with moulded ceilings, and some of the walls done in costly style,
but the paint-work everywhere was faded or flaking off. The staircase was
broad and easy, with seats, and a mahogany handrail.

I was painting indoors one day when the Captain came in.

"It's harvest-time, I know, but this indoor work's important too. My wife
will be back soon. I don't know what we're to do, really! I'd like to have
the place thoroughly cleaned up."

So that letter was asking her to come back! I thought to myself. But then,
again, it was some days since he had written, and I had been to the post
several times myself, after, but no answer had come. I knew Fruen's
writing. I had seen it six years before. But the Captain thought perhaps
that he had only to say "Come," and she would obey. Well, well, he might
be right; she was taking a little time to get ready, that was all.... How
was I to know?

The painting had grown so important now, that the Captain went up himself
to the clearing and got Lars to come down and help with the field-work in
my place. Nils was by no means pleased with the exchange, for Lars was not
over willing under orders on the place where he had been in charge himself
in days gone by.

But there was no such need of hurry about the painting, as it turned out.
The Captain sent the lad up twice to the post, but I watched for him on
the way back both times, and found he had no letter from Fruen. Perhaps
she was not coming after all! Ay, it might be as bad as that. Or she felt
herself in a false position, and was too proud to say yes because her
husband called. It might be that.

But the paint was on and had time to dry; the red stair-carpet came and
was laid down with brass rods; the staircase looked wonderfully fine;
wonderfully fine, too, were the doors and windows in the rooms upstairs.
But Fruen did not come--no.

We got through with the rye, and set to work in good time on the barley;
but Fruen did not come. The Captain went out and gazed down the road,
whistling to himself; he was looking thinner now. Often and often he would
come out to where we were at work, and keep with us, looking on all the
time without a word. But if Nils happened to ask him anything, he did not
start as if his thoughts had been elsewhere, but was quick and ready as
could be. He did not seem dejected, and as for looking thin, that was
perhaps because he had got Nils to cut his hair.

Then I was sent up to the post again, and this time there was a letter.
Fruen's hand, and postmarked Kristianssand. I hurried back, laid the
letter in among the rest of the post, and handed the whole bundle to the
Captain outside the house. He took it with a careless word of thanks,
showing no eagerness to see what there was; he was used to being
disappointed.

"Corn coming in everywhere, I suppose?" he asked casually, glancing at the
letters one after another. "What was the road like? All right?" While I
was telling him, he came upon Fruen's letter, and at once packing up the
whole bundle together, he turned to me with a sudden intensified interest
in other people's crops and the state of the roads. Keeping himself well
in hand; he was not going to show feeling openly. He nodded as he walked
off, and said "Thank you" once more.

Next day the Captain came out and washed and greased the carriage himself.
But it was two days more before he used it. We were sitting at supper one
evening when the Captain came into the kitchen and said he wanted some one
to drive him to the station tomorrow. He could have driven himself, but he
was going to fetch his wife, who was coming home from abroad, and he would
have to take the landau in case it rained. Nils decided, then, that
Grindhusen had better drive, he being the one who could best be spared.

The rest of us went on with our field-work while they were away. There was
plenty to do; besides the rye and barley not yet in, there were still
potatoes to hoe and turnips to see to. But Ragnhild and the dairymaid both
lent a hand; all youth and energy they were.

It might have been pleasant enough to work side by side with my old mate
Lars Falkenberg once more, but he and Nils could not get on together, and
instead of cheerful comradeship, a gloomy silence hung over the fields.
Lars seemed to have got over his late ill-will towards me in some degree,
but he was short and sullen with us all on account of Nils.

At last Nils decided that Lars should take the pair of chestnuts and get
to work on the autumn ploughing. Lars was offended, and said crossly: No.
He'd never heard of doing things that way before, he said, starting to
plough your land before you'd got the harvest off it. "That may be," said
Nils, "but I'll find you land that has been reaped enough to keep you
going."

There were more words over that. Lars found everything all wrong somehow
at Ovrebo. In the old days he used to do his work and sing songs after for
the company at the house; now, it was all a mess and a muddle, and no
sense in any way of doing things. Ploughing, indeed! Not if he knew it.

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Nils. "Nowadays you'll
see folk ploughing between the corn-poles and the hay-frames."

"I've not seen it yet," said Lars. "But it seems you've seen a lot. Of all
the silly goats...."

But the end of it was that Lars gave way, Nils being head man there, and
went on ploughing till the Captain came home.

It crossed my mind that I had left some washing behind with Emma when I
went away, before. But I judged it best not to go up to the clearing after
it now, while Lars was in his present mood.




X


The Captain and his wife came next day. Nils and I had talked over whether
to hoist the flag; I dared not myself, but Nils was less cautious, and
said we must. So there it was, flapping broad and free from its white
staff.

I was close at hand when the carriage drove up and they got out. Fruen
walked out far across the courtyard, looked at the house, and clapped her
hands. I heard her, too, loud in wonder as she entered the hall--at sight
of the stairs, no doubt, and the new red carpet.

Grindhusen had no sooner got the horses in than he came up to me, all
agape with astonishment over something, and drew me aside to talk.

"There must be something wrong," he said. That's not Fru Falkenberg,
surely? Is she married to him--the Captain, I mean?"

"Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married to the Captain. What
makes you ask?"

"But it's that cousin girl! I'll stake my life on it if it's not the very
same one. The Inspector's cousin that was there."

"Not a bit of it, Grindhusen. But it might be her sister."

"But I'll stake my life on it. I saw her with him myself I don't know how
many times."

"Well, well, she may be his cousin as far as that goes, but what's it to
do with us?"

"I saw it the moment she got out of the train. And she looked at me, too,
and gave a start. I could see her breathing quickly after. Don't come
telling me.... But I can't make out.... Is she from here?"

"Was Fruen pleased, or did she look unhappy?" I asked.

"Nay, I don't know. Yes, I think she was." Grindhusen shook his head,
still marvelling how this could be the Captain's wife. "You must have seen
her with the Inspector yourself," he said. "Didn't you recognize her
again?"

"Was she pleased, did you say?"

"Pleased? Why, yes, I suppose so. I don't know. They talked such a lot of
queer stuff the pair of them, driving home--began at the station, the
minute she got out. There was a whole lot I couldn't make out at all. 'I
don't know what to say,' said she, 'but I beg you so earnestly to forgive
me for it all.' 'And so do I,' says he. Now did you ever hear such a
thing? And they were both of them crying, I believe, in the carriage
after. 'I've had the place painted and done up a bit,' said the Captain.
'Have you?' says she. And then he went on talking about all her things,
and how they were still there and never been touched. I don't know what
things he meant, but he thought she'd find everything still in its place,
he said. Did you ever hear the like? 'All your things,' he said. And then
he went on about somebody Elisabet, and said he never gave her a thought,
and never had, I think he said. And she cried like anything at that, and
was all upset. But she didn't say a word about being abroad, as the
Captain said. No, I'll stake my life she'd come from the Inspector."

I began to fear I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to
Ovrebo. It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen
himself as much, and that pretty plainly.

"Fruen here's the mistress of the place, and good and kind as could be to
every one, and the Captain as well, remember that. But you'll find
yourself whipped out of here, and at once, if you go gossiping and telling
tales. Take my advice and be careful. You've got a good job here, with
good pay and decent food. Think of that, and keep quiet while you're
here."

"Yes, yes, you're right," said Grindhusen meekly enough. "I don't say a
word; only, that she's the very image of that cousin down there. And did I
ever say more than that? I don't know what you've got to make such a fuss
about, and as for that, maybe she's a bit fairer than the cousin. I won't
swear it's the same sort of hair. And I never said it was. But if you want
to know what I thought, I'll tell you straight out. I was thinking she was
too good to be that cousin girl. That was my very thought. 'Twould be a
shame for her to be cousin to a fellow like that, and I can't think how
anybody ever could. I'm not thinking about the money now; you know as well
as I do I'm not the man to make a fuss over losing a two-Kroner piece, no
more than you yourself, but it was a mean thing to do, all the same,
giving me the money one day and taking it back the next. Ay, that it was.
I say no more than that. But I don't know what's the matter with you
lately, flying out the least word a man says. And what have I said,
anyway? A mean lot, that he was; paid me two Kroner a day and find my own
food, and always niggling and haggling over every little thing. I've had
enough of your talk anyhow, but I'll tell you what was my very thought, if
you want to know...."

But all his flow of talk did not avail to hide the fact that he had
recognized Fruen at once, and was still convinced that he was right.

* * * * *

All things in order now, the Captain and Fruen at home, bright days and a
rich harvest. What more could any wish for?

Fruen greets me with a kindly glance, and says:

"The place looks different altogether after the way you've painted it so
nicely. The Captain's ever so pleased."

She seemed calmer now than when I had seen her last, on the stairs of the
hotel in the town. She did not start and breathe quickly at sight of me as
she had with Grindhusen, and that could only mean she was not displeased
at seeing me again! So I thought to myself, and was glad to think so. But
why had she not left off that unsteady glance, that flutter of the eyes,
she had fallen into of late? If I were the Captain, now, I would speak to
her about it. And her complexion, too, was not what it had been. There
were some curious little spots about the temples. But what matter? She was
no less pretty for that.

"I'm afraid, though," she went on, "it wasn't my idea at all with the
lovely grey for the house. You must have made a mistake in thinking I said
so."

"Well, then, I can't make it out. But, anyhow, it's no matter; the Captain
himself decided to have it."

"The staircase is simply splendid, and so are the rooms upstairs. It's
twice as bright as before...."

'Twas Fruen herself was trying to be twice as bright and

"Why, yes, Grindhusen, the Captain's wife is married twice as good as
before." I knew that well enough. And she fancied she owed me these little
marks of kindliness, for something or other. Well and good, but now it was
enough. Best let it be.

Autumn drawing on, the scent of the jasmine all importunate down in the
shrubbery, and red and yellow showing up long since on the wooded hills.
Not a soul in the place but is glad to have Fruen at home again; the flag,
too, does its part. 'Tis like a Sunday; the maids have put clean aprons
on, fresh from the ironing.

In the evening I went down by the little stone steps to the shrubbery and
sat there a while. The jasmines were pouring out waves of perfume after
the heat of the day. After awhile Nils came down, looking for me.

"No visitors here now," says Nils. "And no high goings-on at nights. Have
you heard anything of that sort at night now, since the Captain first came
back?"

"No."

"And that's full ten weeks ago now. What d'you say if I tore off this
thing now?" And he pointed to his temperance badge. "Captain's given up
drinking, here's Fruen home again, and no call to be unfriendly anyway to
either of them."

He handed me a knife, and I cut the badge away.

We talked for a bit about the farm-work--Nils thought of nothing else.
"We'll have most of the corn under shelter by tomorrow night," he says.
"And thank goodness for that! Then we'll sow the winter rye. Queer thing,
isn't it? Here's Lars went on year after year sowing by machine, and
thought it good enough. Not if I know it! We'll sow ours by hand."

"But why?"

"On land like ours! Now just take the man over there, for instance; he
sowed by machine three weeks ago and some's come up and some not. No. The
machine goes too deep in the soil."

"H'm! Don't the jasmines smell fine tonight?"

"Yes. There's been a big difference with the barley and oats these last
few days. Getting on time for bed, though, now!"

He got up, but I did not move. "Looks like being fine again tomorrow,"
says Nils, glancing at the sky. And then he went on about the grass in the
garden; worth cutting, he said it was.

"You going to stay down here long?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes, for a bit; why not? Oh, well, perhaps I'd better go up too."

Nils walked off a few paces, then came back again.

"Better not stay here any longer," he said. "Come along up here with me."

"Think so?" I said, and rose at once. Evidently Nils had something in his
mind, and had come down here on purpose to fetch me.

Had he found me out? But what was there to find out?

Did I know myself what I had gone down to the shrubbery for? I remember
now that I lay face downwards, chewing a stalk of grass. There was light
in a certain upstairs window of the house. I was looking at that. And that
was all.

"Not being inquisitive now, but what's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing," said Nils. "The girls said you were down here, so I just came
along. Why, what else?"

So the maids had found me out, I thought to myself, and was ill pleased at
the thought. Ragnhild it must be, a devil of a girl, sharp as a needle;
she must have said a lot more than Nils was willing to confess. And what
if Fruen herself had seen me from the window!

I resolved now to be cold and indifferent as ice henceforward all the days
of my life.

* * * * *

Ragnhild is properly in clover. The thick stair carpet muffles every step;
she can run upstairs whenever she pleases and slip down again in a moment
without a sound.

"I can't make it out about Fruen," says Ragnhild.

"Here she's come back, and ought to be happy and good tempered as could
be, and instead she's all tears and frowning. I heard the Captain telling
her today: 'Now do be a little reasonable, Lovise,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I
won't do it any more,' says Fruen; and then she cried because she'd been
unreasonable. But that about never doing it any more--she's said that now
every day since she came back, but she's done it again, all the same. Poor
dear, she'd a toothache today; she was simply crying out with the
pain...."

"Go and get on with the potatoes, Ragnhild," said Nils quickly. "We've no
time for gossiping now."

We'd all of us our field-work now; there was much to be done. Nils was
afraid the corn would spoil if he left it too long at the poles; better to
get it in as it was. Well and good; but that meant threshing the worst of
it at once, and spreading the grain over the floor of every shed and
outhouse. Even in our own big living-room there was a large layer of corn
drying on the floor. Any more irons in the fire? Ay, indeed, and all the
while hot and waiting. Bad weather has set in, and all the work ought to
be done at once. When we've finished threshing, there's the fresh straw to
be cut up and salted down in bins to keep it from rotting. That all? Not
by a long way: irons enough still glowing hot. Grindhusen and the maids
are pulling potatoes. Nils snatches the precious time after a couple of
dry days to sow a patch of rye and send the lad over it with the harrow.
Lars Falkenberg is still ploughing; he has given way altogether and turned
out a fine ploughman since the Captain and Fruen came back. When the
corn-land's too soft he ploughs the meadows; then, when sun and wind have
dried things a bit, he goes on to the corn-land again.

The work goes on steadily and well; in the afternoon the Captain himself
comes out to lend a hand. The last load of corn in being brought in.

Captain Falkenberg is no child at the work, big and strong he is, and with
the right knack of it. See him loading up oats from the drying-frames: his
second load now.

Just then Fruen comes along down the road, and crosses over to where we
are at work. Her eyes are bright. She seems pleased to watch her husband
loading up corn.

"_Signe Arbejdet!_" [Footnote: "A blessing on the work."] she says.

"Thanks," says the Captain.

"That's what we used to say in Nordland."

"What?"

"That's what we used to say in Nordland."

"Oh yes."

The Captain is busy with his work, and in the rustle of the straw he does
not always hear what she says, but has to look up and ask again, and this
annoys them both.

"Are the oats ripe?" she asks.

"Yes, thank goodness!"

"But not dry, I suppose?"

"Eh? I can't hear what you say."

"Oh, I didn't say anything."

A long, uncomfortable silence after that. The Captain tries once or twice
with a good-humoured word, but gets no answer.

"So you're out on a round of inspection," he says jestingly. "Have you
seen how the potatoes are getting on?"

"No," she answers. "But I'll go over there, by all means, if you can't
bear the sight of me here."

It was too dreadful to hear them going on like this. I must have frowned
unconsciously--shown some such feeling. Then, suddenly remembering that
for certain reasons I was to be cold as ice, I frowned the more.

Freun looked straight at me and said:

"What are you scowling at?"

"Scowling, eh?" says the Captain, joining in, with a forced laugh.

Fruen takes him up on the instant.

"Ah! you managed to hear that time!"

"Really, Lovise...."

Fruen's eyes dimmed suddenly; she stood a moment then ran, stooping
forward, round behind the frames, and sobbed.

The Captain went over to her. "What is it, Lovise, tell me?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! Go away."

She was sick; we could hear it. And moaning and saying: "Heaven help me!"

"My wife's not very well just now," says the Captain to me. "We can't make
out what it is."

"There's sickness in the neighbourhood," I suggested, for something to
say. "Sort of autumn fever. I heard about it up at the post office."

"Is there, though? Why, there you are, Lovise," he calls out. "There's
some sort of fever about, it seems. That's all it is."

Fruen made no answer.

We went on loading up, and Fruen moved farther and farther away as we came
up. At last the frames were cleared, and she stood there guiltily, very
pale after her trouble.

"Shall I see you back to the house?" asked the Captain.

"No, thank you, I'd rather not," she answered, walking away.

The Captain stayed out and worked with us till evening.

* * * * *

So here was everything gone wrong again. Oh, but it was hard for them
both!

And it was not just a little matter that could be got over by a little
give and take on either side, as folk say; no, it was a thing insuperable,
a trouble rooted deep. And now it had come to mutiny, no less: Fruen had
taken to locking her door at night. Ragnhild had heard the Captain, highly
offended, talking to her through the wall.

But that evening the Captain had demanded to speak with her in her room
before she went to bed. Fruen agreed, and there was a further scene. Each
was willing and anxious, no doubt, to set matters right, but it was
hopeless now; it was too late. We sat in the kitchen, Nils and I,
listening to Ragnhild's story. I had never seen Nils look so miserable
before.

"If things go wrong again now, it's all over," he said. "I thought to
myself last summer that perhaps a good, sound thrashing would do her good.
But that was just foolishness, I can see now. Did she talk about running
away again?"

"She said something about it," answered Ragnhild. And then she went on
something like this: "It began with the Captain asking if she didn't think
it was this local sickness she had got. Fruen answered it could hardly be
any local sickness that had turned her against him so. 'Turned you against
me?' 'Yes. Oh, I could scream sometimes. At table, for instance, the way
you eat and eat....' 'Do I?' says the Captain. 'Well, I can't see there's
anything very wrong in that; it's just natural. There's no rule for how
much one ought to eat at a meal.' 'But to have to sit and look at you--it
makes me sick. It's that that makes me ill.' 'Well, anyhow, you can't say
I drink too much now,' said he. 'So it's better than it was.' 'No, indeed,
it's worse!' Then says the Captain: 'Well, really, I do think you might
make allowances for me a little, after I've--I mean, considering what you
did yourself this summer.' 'Yes, you're right,' says Fruen, beginning to
cry. 'If you knew how it hurts and plagues me night and day, thinking of
that.... But I've never said a word.' 'No, I know,' says she, crying all
the more. 'And I asked you myself to come back,' he said. But at that she
seemed to think he was taking too much credit to himself; she stopped
crying, and answered, with a toss of her head: 'Yes, and it would have
been better if you'd never asked me back, if it was only to go on like
this.' 'Like what?' says he. 'You've your own way in everything now. The
same as before, only you don't care for anything at all. You never touch
the piano, even; only go about cross and irritable all the time; there's
no pleasing you with anything. And you shut your door at night and lock me
out. Well and good; lock me out if you like!' 'It's you that are hard to
please, if you ask me,' she said. 'There's never a night and never a
morning but I'm worried out of my life lest you shall be thinking of--this
summer. You've never said a word about it, you say. Oh, don't you, though!
I'm never left long in peace without you throwing it in my teeth. I
happened to say "Hugo" one day, by a slip of the tongue, and what did you
do? You might have been nice and comforted me to help me over it, but you
only scowled and said you were not Hugo. No. I knew well enough, and I was
ever so sorry to have said it.' 'That's just the point,' said the Captain.
'Were you really sorry?' 'Yes, indeed,' said Fruen; 'it hurt me ever so.'
'Well, I shouldn't have thought it; you don't seem very upset about it.'
'Ah, but what about you? Haven't you anything to be sorry for?' 'You've
got photos of Hugo on your piano still; I haven't seen you move them away
yet, though I've shown you not once but fifty times I wished you to--yes,
and begged you to do it.' 'Oh, what a fuss you make about those photos!'
said she. 'Oh, don't make any mistake! I'm not asking you now. If you went
and shifted them now, it would make no difference. I've begged and prayed
of you fifty times before. Only, I think it would have been a little more
decent if you'd burned them the day you came home. But, instead of that,
you've books here lying about in your room with his name in. And there's a
handkerchief with his initials on, I see.' 'Oh, it's all your jealousy,'
answered Fruen. 'I can't see what difference it makes. I can't kill him,
as you'd like me to, and Papa and Mama say the same. After all, I've lived
with him and been married to him.' 'Married to him?' 'Yes, that's what I
say. It isn't every one that looks at Hugo and me the way you do.' The
Captain sat a while, shaking his head. 'And it's all your own fault,
really,' Fruen went on, 'the way you drove off with Elisabet that time,
though I came and asked you not to go. It was then it happened. And we'd
been drinking that evening. I didn't quite know what I was doing.' Still,
the Captain said nothing for a while; then at last he said: 'Yes, I ought
not to have gone off like that.' 'No, but you did,' said Fruen, and
started crying again. 'You wouldn't hear a word. And you're always
throwing it in my teeth about Hugo, but you never think of what you've
done yourself.' 'There's just this difference,' says the Captain, 'that
I've never lived with the lady you mention, never been married to her, as
you call it.' Fruen gave a little scornful laugh. 'Never!' said the
Captain, striking the table with his hand. Fruen gave a start, and sat
staring at him. 'Then--I don't understand why you were always running
after her and sitting out in the summer-house and lurking in corners,'
said she. 'It was you that sat out in the summer-house,' he answered. 'Oh
yes, it's always me,' said she. 'Never you by any chance!' 'As for my
running after Elisabet,' said the Captain, 'it was solely and simply in
the hopes of getting you back. You'd drifted away from me, and I wanted
you.' Fruen sat thinking over that for a minute, then she sprang up and
threw her arms around him and said: 'Oh, then you cared for me all the
time! And I thought it was all over. You'd drifted away from me, too; it
was years since. And it all seemed so hopeless. I never thought--I never
knew.... And then it was me you cared for all the time! Oh, my dear, then
it's all come right again.' 'Sit down,' said he. 'You seem to forget that
something else has happened since.' 'Something else?' 'There you are,
you've forgotten all about it. May I ask you, are you sorry enough for
what's happened since?' At that Fruen turned hard again and said: 'Oh, you
mean about Hugo? That's done and can't be altered.' 'That doesn't answer
the question.' 'If I'm sorry enough? What about you; are you so innocent
yourself?' At this the Captain got up and began walking up and down. 'The
trouble is that we've no children,' said Fruen. 'I haven't a daughter that
I could teach and bring up to be better than I am,' 'I've thought of
that,' said the Captain, 'perhaps you're right.' Then he turned straight
towards her and said: 'It's a nasty crash that's come over us, Lovise--
like a landslide. But don't you think now we might set to work and shift
away all the wreckage that's been burying us for years, and get clear and
breathe again? You might have a daughter yet!' At that Fruen got up and
made as if to say something, but couldn't. 'Yes,' was all she said, and
'Yes,' she said again. 'You're tired and nervous, I know,' he said. 'But
think a little over what I've said. Another time.' 'Good-night,' said
she."

Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Three Women was first heard as a radio drama and then published as a poem. Robert Shaw explains his desire to stage the piece as it was intended

Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet regains citizenship
Nonagenarian Diana Athill, Irish writer Sebastian Barry and first book winner Sadie Jones talk about their books and their writing after the awards were announced last night

Book borrowing boosts author's self-esteem

Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds