Wanderers by Knut Hamsun
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XI
The Captain spoke to Nils about the timber; he thought of disposing of the
whole lot, or selling it standing. Nils took this to mean that he didn't
like the idea of having more new folk about the place. "It looks like
things are as bad as ever with him and Fruen," said Nils.
We are getting in the potatoes now, and since we are thus far there is
less hurry and anxiety about the work. But there is still much to be done.
The ploughing is behindhand, and Lars Falkenberg and I are both at it,
field and meadow land.
Nils, queer creature that he was, began to find things intolerable at
Ovrebo again, and talked of throwing up his place and going off
altogether. But he couldn't bear the disgrace of leaving his service like
that. Nils had his own clear notions of honour, handed down through many
generations. A young man from a big farm could not behave like a lad from
a cottar's holding. And then he hadn't been here long enough yet; Ovrebo
had been sadly ill-managed before he came: it would take some years to
bring it round again. It was only this year, when he'd had more help with
the work, that he'd been able to do anything properly. But from now onward
he might begin to look for some result of his work; look at this year's
harvest, the fine heavy grain! The Captain, too, had looked at the crops
with wonder and thankfulness--the first time for many years. There would
be plenty to sell.
All things considered, then, it was senseless for Nils to think of leaving
Ovrebo. But he must go home for a couple of days to his people--they lived
a little way north of us. So he gave himself two days' leave as soon as
the potatoes were all out of the ground. No doubt he'd good reason for
going--perhaps to see his sweetheart, we thought--and when he came back he
was bright and full of energy as ever, and took up work again at once.
We were sitting at dinner in the kitchen one day when out comes Fruen from
the front door of the house, and goes tearing down the road, all wild and
excited. Then the Captain came out, calling after her: "Lovise, what is
it, Lovise? Where are you going?" But Fruen only called back: "Leave me
alone!"
We looked at one another. Ragnhild rose from the table; she must go after
her mistress, she said.
"That's right," said Nils, calm as ever. "But go indoors first and see if
she's moved those photographs."
"They're still there," said Ragnhild as she went out.
Outside, we heard the Captain telling her to go and look after her
mistress.
There was no one but took thought for Fruen in her distress.
We went out to the fields again. Said Nils to me:
"She ought to take away those photos; it's not right of her to leave them
there. I don't know what she can be thinking of to do it."
What do you know about it? I thought to myself. Oh, I was so clever with
my knowledge of the world, and all I'd learned on my wanderings, I thought
I would try him now; perhaps he was only showing off.
"I can't understand why the Captain hasn't taken and burnt them long ago,"
said I.
"No, that's all wrong," said Nils. "I wouldn't have done that either."
"Oh, indeed!"
"It wouldn't be for me to do it, but for her."
We walked on a little. And then Nils said a thing that showed his sound
and right instinct.
"Poor lady!" he said. "She's not got over that slip of hers this summer;
it's troubling her still. From all I can see, there's some people pick up
again all right after a fall, and go on through life with no more than the
mark of a bruise. But there's some that never get over it."
"Fruen seems to be taking it easy enough," said I, still trying him.
"How can we tell? She's been unlike herself, to my mind, ever since she's
been back," he answered. "She's got to live, of course, but she's lost all
harmony, perhaps. I don't know much about it, but harmony, that's what I
mean. Oh yes, she can eat and laugh and sleep, no doubt, but ... I
followed one such to the grave, but now...."
And at that I was no longer cold and wise, but foolish and ashamed, and
only said:
"So it was that? She died, then?"
"Yes. She wished it so," said Nils. And then suddenly: "Well, you and Lars
get on with the ploughing. We ought soon to be through with things now."
And we went each our separate way.
I thought to myself: a sister of his, perhaps, that had gone wrong, and
he'd been home and followed her to the grave. _Herregud!_ there are
some that never get over it; it shakes them to their foundations; a
revolution. All depends on whether they're coarse enough. Only the mark of
a bruise, said Nils. A sudden thought came to me, and I stopped: perhaps
it was not his sister, but his sweetheart.
Some association of ideas led me to think of my washing. I decided to send
the lad up for it.
* * * * *
It was evening.
Ragnhild came to me and begged me to keep awake again; there was dreadful
trouble up at the house. Ragnhild herself was greatly upset, and dared not
sit anywhere now in the half-dark but upon my knees. It was always so with
her; emotion made her frightened and tender--frightened and tender, yes.
"But can you be away like this? Is there any one in your place in the
kitchen?" I asked.
"Yes. Cook's going to listen for the bell. You know, I side with the
Captain," she declared. "I've sided with him all along."
"Oh, that's only because he's a man."
"No, it's not."
"You'd much better side with Fruen."
"You only say that because she's a woman," answered Ragnhild in her turn.
"But you don't know all I do. Fruen's so unreasonable. We didn't care a
bit about her, she said, and left her all to herself, whatever might
happen. Did you ever hear such a thing, when I'd just gone after her. And
then there's another dreadful thing...."
"I don't want to hear any more," I said.
"But I haven't been listening outside--what are you thinking of? I was
there in the same room, and heard them."
"Did you? Well, well, stay here till you've calmed down a little; then
we'll go and find Nils."
And so frightened and tender was Ragnhild that she threw her arms round me
because I was kind to her. A strange girl!
Then we went down to Nils.
"Ragnhild thinks that somebody ought to keep awake for a bit," I said.
"Yes," said Ragnhild. "Oh, it's so dreadful--worse than ever it's been!
Heaven knows what the Captain'll do! Perhaps he won't go to bed at all.
Oh, she's fond of him and he's fond of her, too; only, everything's all
wrong! When she went running off like that today, the Captain was standing
outside the house, and said to me: 'Go and look after your mistress,
Ragnhild,' and I went after her, and there she was, standing behind a tree
down the road, and she just stood there, crying, and smiled at me. I tried
to get her to come in again, but she said we didn't care about her; it
didn't matter where she went. 'The Captain sent me after you,' said I.
'Did he, though?' she asked. 'Now? Was it just now?' 'Yes,' said I.
'Wait, then,' she said, and stood quite a while. 'Take those hateful books
that are lying in my room and burn them,' she said; and then: 'Oh no, I'll
do it myself, but I'll ring for you after supper, and then you must come
up at once.' 'I will,' said I, and then I got her to come in."
"And you know," said Ragnhild suddenly, "she's going to have a child."
We looked at one another. Nils' face grew, as it were, veiled beneath a
film of something indistinct. All expression faded, the eyes asleep. But
why should it affect him so? For the sake of saying something, I turned to
Ragnhild and asked:
"Fruen was going to ring for you, you said?"
"Yes, and so she did. There was something she wanted to tell the Captain,
but she was afraid, and wanted to have me there. 'Light a candle and pick
up all this host of buttons I've upset,' she said. And then she called out
to the Captain in his room. I lit the candle and began picking up buttons;
dozens of them there were, all sorts. The Captain came in. 'I only wanted
to tell you,' says Fruen at once, 'that it was kind of you to send
Ragnhild after me to-day. Heaven bless you for that!' 'Never mind about
that, my dear,' says he. 'You were nervous, you know.' 'Yes, I'm all
nerves just now,' she answered, 'but I hope it'll get better in time. No,
the trouble is that I haven't a daughter I could bring up to be really
good. There's nothing I can do!' The Captain sat down on a chair. 'Oh yes,
there is,' he said. 'Yes, you say? Oh, I know it says in that book
there.... Oh, those hateful books!--Ragnhild take them away and burn
them,' she says. 'No, wait, I'll tear them to bits now myself and put them
in the stove here.' And then she started pulling them to pieces, taking
ever so many pages at a time and throwing them in the stove. 'Don't be so
excited, Lovise,' said the Captain. _'The Nunnery,'_ she said--that
was one of the books. 'But I can't go into a nunnery. There's nothing I
can do. When I laugh, you think I'm laughing,' she said to the Captain,
'but I'm miserable all the time and not laughing a bit.' 'Is your
toothache any better?' he asked. 'Oh, that toothache won't be better for a
long time to come!' she said; 'you know that well enough.' 'No, indeed, I
don't.' 'You don't know?' 'No.' 'But, heavens! can't you see what's the
matter with me?' said Fruen. The Captain only looked at her and did not
answer. 'I'm--oh, you said today I might have a daughter after all, don't
you remember?' I happened to look up at the Captain just then...."
Ragnhild smiled and shook her head; then she went on:
"Heaven forgive me for smiling, but the Captain's face was so queer; he
stood there like a sheep. 'Didn't you guess as much before?' asked Fruen.
The Captain looked over at me and said: 'What's that you're doing there
all this time?' 'I asked her to pick up those buttons for me,' said Fruen.
'I've finished now,' said I. 'Have you?' said Fruen, getting up. 'Let me
see.' And she took the box and dropped them again all over the floor. Oh,
they went rolling all over the place, under the table, under the bed and
the stove! 'There, now, did you ever see such a mess?' said Fruen. But
then she went off again at once talking about herself, and said again:
'But I can't understand you didn't you see I was--didn't see what was the
matter with me.' Can't those buttons wait till tomorrow?' said the
Captain. 'Why, yes, perhaps they can,' said Fruen. 'But then I'll be
treading on them everywhere. I can't ... I'm rather afraid of stooping
just now.... But, never mind, we'll leave them for now,' she said, and
stroked his hand. 'Oh, my dear, my dear!' she says. But he drew his hand
away. 'Oh, so you're angry with me!' she said. 'But then, why did you
write and ask me to come back?' 'My dear Lovise, we're not alone here,' he
says. 'But surely you must know what made you write?' 'I suppose it was
because I hoped things would come right again.' 'And they didn't?' 'Well,
no!' 'But what was in your mind when you wrote? Were you thinking of me?
Did you want me again? I can't make out what was in your mind.'
'Ragnhild's finished, I see,' said the Captain. 'Good-night, Ragnhild!'"
"And then you came away?"
"Yes, but I dare not go far because of Fruen. You may be sure it wasn't
nice for her when I was out of the room, so I had to be somewhere at hand.
And if the Captain had come and found me and said anything, I'd have told
him straight out I wasn't going farther away with Fruen in the state she
was. As it happened, he didn't come at all, but they began again in there.
'I know what you're thinking of,' said Fruen--'that perhaps it's not ...
it wouldn't be your child. Oh yes, indeed it might be so! But, God knows,
I can't find words this moment to make you forgive me!' she said, all
crying. 'Oh, my dear, forgive me, forgive me!' said Fruen, and went down
on her knees on the floor. 'You've seen what I did with the books, and
that handkerchief with the initials on--I burnt that before, and the
books, you know....' 'Yes, and--here's another handkerchief with the same
initials on--' says the Captain. 'Oh, heavens! yes, you're ever so
considerate, Lovise.' Fruen was all upset at that. 'I'm sorry you should
have seen it,' she said. 'It must be one I brought back with me when I
came home. I haven't looked through my things properly since. But does it
really matter so very much? Surely--' 'Oh no,' said he. 'And if you'd
only listen to me,' she went on, I'm almost certain it's you that ... I
mean, that the child is yours. Why should it not be? Oh, I don't know how
to say it!' 'Sit down again,' said the Captain. But Fruen must have
misunderstood; she got up and said: 'There you are! You won't listen to
me. Really, I can't make out why you ever wrote to me at all. You might
just as well have left me alone.' Then the Captain said something about
being in prison; if a man grew up in a prison yard, he said, and you take
him out, he'll long to be back in his prison yard again, he said. It was
something like that, anyway. 'Yes, but I was with Papa and Mama, and they
weren't hard like you; they said I had been married to him, and weren't
unkind to me at all. It isn't every one that looks at things like you do,'
'You don't want that candle alight now Ragnhild's gone, do you?' said the
Captain. 'It looks so out of place to have it burning there beside the
lamp--as if it were ashamed.' 'Ashamed of me,' she says quickly. 'Oh yes,
that was what you meant. But you've been to blame as well.' 'Don't
misunderstand me,' he says. 'I know I've been to blame. But that doesn't
make your part any better.' 'Oh, you think not? Well, of all the.... So
yours doesn't count, then?' 'Yes, I say I've been to blame, not in the way
you mean, but in other ways--in old things and new.' 'Oh, indeed!' 'Yes,
but I don't come home bringing the fruits of it under my heart to you.'
'No,' says Fruen, 'but you know it was you all along that wouldn't ...
that didn't want us to have children. And I didn't want it, either, but
you ought to have known better. And they said the same thing at home. If
only I'd had a daughter....' 'Oh, don't let's go over all that again,'
says the Captain--he called it something or other--a romance, I think it
was. 'But it's true,' says Fruen, 'and I can't think how you can deny it.'
'I'm not denying anything. Do sit down, now, Lovise, and listen to me. All
this about having children, and a daughter to bring up and so on, it's
something you've picked up lately. And, you snatched at the idea at once,
to save yourself. But you never said a word about wanting children
before--not that I ever heard.' 'Yes, but you ought to have known better.'
'There again, that's something you've heard, something new. But it doesn't
matter: quite possibly things might have been different if we'd had
children. I can see that myself now, but now it's too late, more's the
pity. And here you are now--like that....' 'Oh, heavens, yes! But I tell
you it may be yours after all--I don't know.... Oh!...' 'Mine? said the
Captain, shaking his head. 'Well, the mother should be the one to know.
But in this case, it seems, she doesn't. The woman I'm married to doesn't
know--or do you?' But Fruen did not answer. _'Do_ you know? I ask
you!' Oh, but again she could not answer, only slipped down to the floor
again and cried. Really, I don't know--but perhaps I'm on her side after
all; it was dreadful for her, poor thing. And then I was just going to
knock at the door and go in, but then the Captain went on again. 'You
can't say it,' he said. 'But that's an answer in itself, and plain
enough.' 'I can't say more,' said Fruen. She was still crying. 'I'm fond
of you for lots of things, Lovise,' says the Captain, 'and one of them's
because you're truthful.' 'Thank you,' she says. 'They haven't taught you
to lie as yet. Get up, now.' And he helped her up himself, and set her in
the chair. But it was pitiful to see her crying so. 'Don't cry, now,' he
says. 'I want to ask you something. Shall we wait and see what it's like
when it comes--what sort of eyes it has, and so on?' 'Oh, heaven bless
you, yes, if you would! Oh, my dear, God bless you, God bless you.' 'And
I'll try to bear with things as they are. It's an aching misery all the
time, but I'll try. And I've been to blame as well.' 'God bless you, God
bless you!' she said again. 'And you,' he said. 'And now good-night until
tomorrow.' Then Fruen leaned down over the table and cried and cried so
dreadfully. 'What are you crying for now?' he asked. 'You're going,' she
said. 'Oh, I was afraid of you before, but now I can't bear to be without
you. Couldn't you stay a little?' 'Stay here, with you, now?' he asked.
'Oh no, I didn't mean ... it wasn't that ... only, it's so lonely. I
didn't mean....' 'No,' said the Captain. 'You can understand I don't feel
like staying any longer now. Ring for the maid!'"
"And then I had to run," Ragnhild concluded.
Said Nils, after a while: "Have they gone to bed now?"
Ragnhild could not say. Yes. Perhaps. Anyhow, Cook was there in case.
"But, only think of it, how dreadful! I don't suppose Fruen can sleep."
"You'd better go and see if there's anything you can do."
"Yes," said Ragnhild, getting up. "But I side with the Captain after all,
and no mistake, whatever you say. Yes, that I do."
"It's none so easy to know what's right."
"Only think of letting that engineer creature.... How she ever could, I
don't know! And then to go down and stay with him there, after, as she
did; what a thing to do! And she's all those handkerchiefs of his, ever so
many, and a lot of her own are gone; I suppose they used each other's
anyhow. Lived with him, she said! And she with a husband of her own!"
XII
The Captain has done as he said about the timber; there's a cracking and
crashing in the woods already. And a mild autumn, too, with no frost in
the ground as yet to stop the ploughing; Nils grasps at the time like a
miser, to save as much as possible next spring.
Now comes the question whether Grindhusen and I are to work on the timber.
It crosses my mind that I had intended really to go off for a tramp up in
the hills and over the moors while the berries were there; what about that
journey now? And another thing, Grindhusen was no longer worth his keep as
a wood-cutter; he could hold one end of a saw, but that was about all he
was good for now.
No, for Grindhusen was changed somehow; devil knows how it had come about.
He had not grown bald at all; his hair was there, and thick and red as
ever. But he had picked up a deal at Ovrebo, and went about bursting with
health and good feeding; well off here? He had sent good sums of money
home to his family all that summer and autumn, and was full of praise for
Captain and Freun, who paid such good wages and treated their folk so
well. Not like the Inspector, that weighed and counted every miserable
Skilling, and then, as true as God's in heaven, go and take off two Kroner
that he'd given as clear as could be ... ugh! He, Grindhusen, was not the
man to make a fuss about a wretched two Kroner, as long as it was a matter
of any sense or reason, but to go and take it off like that--_fy
Fan!_ Would you ever find the Captain doing such a thing?
But Grindhusen was grown so cautious now, and wouldn't even get properly
angry with any one. Even yet, perhaps, he might go back and work for the
Inspector on the river at two Kroner a day, and humbly agree with all his
master said. Age, time, had overtaken him.
It overtakes us all.
Said the Captain:
"That water-supply you spoke about--is it too late to do anything with it
this year?"
"Yes," I answered.
The Captain nodded and walked away.
I ploughed one day more, then the Captain came to me again. He was out and
about everywhere these days, working hard, keeping an eye on everything.
He gave himself barely time for a proper meal, but was out again at once,
in the fields, the barn, the cattle-sheds, or up in the woods where the
men were at work.
"You'd better get to work on that water-supply," he said. "The ground's
workable still, and may stay so for a long time yet. What help will you
want?"
"Grindhusen can help," I said. "But...."
"Yes, and Lars. What were you going to say?"
"The frost may set in any day now."
"Well, and then it may snow and soften the ground again. We're not
frost-bound here every year," said the Captain. "You'd better take a few
extra hands, and set some of them to digging, the rest to the masonry
work. You've done all this before, I think you said?"
"Yes."
"And I've spoken to Nils myself," he said, with a smile. "So you'll have
no trouble in that way. You can put the horses in now."
So bravely cheerful he was, I could not help feeling the same, and wanted
to begin at once; I hurried back with the horses, almost at a run. The
Captain seemed quite eager about this water-supply, now that the place
looked so nice with its new paint, and after the fine harvest we'd had.
And now he was cutting a thousand dozen battens in the woods, to pay off
his debts and leave something over!
So I went off up the rising ground, and found the old place I had marked
down long before for the reservoir, took the depth down to the house,
pacing and measuring this way and that. There was a streamlet came down
from the hillside far above, with such a depth and fall that it never
froze in winter; the thing would be to build a small stone reservoir here,
with openings at the sides for the overflow in autumn and spring. Oh, but
they should have their water-supply at Ovrebo! As for the masonry work, we
could break out our stone on the site itself; there was layer on layer of
granite there.
By noon next day we were hard at work, Lars Falkenberg digging the trench
for the pipe-line, Grindhusen and I getting stone. We were both well used
to this work from the days when we had been road-making together at
Skreia.
Well and good.
We worked four days; then it was Sunday. I remember that Sunday, the sky
clear and far, the leaves all fallen in the woods, and the hillside
showing only its calm winter green; smoke rose from the chimney up in the
clearing. Lars had borrowed a horse and cart that afternoon to drive in to
the station; he had killed a pig and was sending it in to town. He was to
fetch letters for the Captain on the way back.
It occurred to me that this evening would be a good time to send the lad
up to the clearing for my washing: Lars was away, and no one could take
offence at that washing business now.
Oh yes, I said to myself, you're very careful to do what's right and
proper, sending the lad up to fetch that washing. But you'll find it isn't
that at all. Right and proper, indeed; you're getting old, that's what it
is.
I bore with this reproach for an hour. Then--well, it was all nonsense,
like as not, and here was a lovely evening, and Sunday into the bargain,
nothing to do, no one to talk to down here.... Getting old, was I? Afraid
of the walk uphill?
And I went up myself.
Early next morning Lars Falkenberg came over again. He drew me aside, as
he had done once before, and with the same intent: I had been up to the
clearing yesterday, it seemed; it was to be the last time, and would I
please to make no mistake about that!
"It was the last of my washing, anyhow," I said.
"Oh, you and your washing! As if I couldn't have brought along your
miserable shirt a hundred times since you've been here!"
Now, by what sort of magic had he got to know of my little walk up there
already? Ragnhild, of course, at her old tricks again--it could be no one
else. There was no doing anything with that girl.
But now, as it happened, Nils was at hand this time, as he had been the
time before. He came strolling over innocently from the kitchen, and in a
moment Lars's anger was turned upon him instead.
"Here's the other scarecrow coming up, too," says Lars, "and he's a long
sight worse than you."
"What's that you say?" said Nils.
"What's that you say!" retorted Lars. "You go home and rinse your mouth
with a mixture or something, and see if you can talk plain," said he.
Nils stopped short at this, and came up to see what it was all about.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said he.
"No, of course not. You don't know anything that's any sense. But you know
all about ploughing in standing crops, don't you? There's not many can
beat you at that."
But here Nils grew angry for once, and his cheeks paled.
"What an utter fool you are, Lars! Can't you keep your mouth shut with
that nonsense?"
"Fool, eh? Hark at the silly goat!" said Lars, turning to me. "Thinks
himself mighty fine, doesn't he? 'Utter'" he says--and goes white about
it. "I've been more years than you at Ovrebo, and asked in to sing up at
the house of an evening more than once, let me tell you. But things have
changed since then, and what have we got instead? You remember," he said,
turning to me, "what it was like in the old days. It was Lars here and
Lars there, and I never heard but the work got done all right. And after
me it was Albert, that was here for eighteen months. But then you, Nils,
came along, and now it's toil and moil and ploughing and carting manure
day and night, till a man's worn to a thread with it all."
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