Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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"No, no, Ragnhild! No!"

She told us, also, that she had been through Fruen's wardrobe and sorted
out all handkerchiefs that were not hers. Oh, she had found lots of things
up in her room--a bag with Engineer Lassen's initials worked on, a book
with his full name in, some sweets in an envelope with his writing--and
she had burnt it all.

A strange girl, Ragnhild--yes! Was there ever such an instinct as hers? It
was like the devil turned monk. Ragnhild, who made such use herself of the
thick red stair-carpet and the keyholes everywhere!

It suited me and my work well enough that the Captain had not ordered the
carriage before; we had got the trench finished now all the way up, and I
could manage without Nils for laying the pipes. I should want all hands,
though, when it came to filling in again. It was rain again now, by the
way; mild weather, many degrees of warmth.

It was well for me, no doubt, these days that I had this work of mine to
occupy my thoughts as keenly as it did; it kept away many a fancy that
would surely otherwise have plagued me. Now and again I would clench my
fists as a spasm of pain came over me; and when I was all alone up at the
reservoir I could sometimes cry aloud up at the woods. But there was no
possibility of my getting away. And where should I go if I did?

* * * * *

The Captain arrived.

He went all through the house at once--into the parlour, out into the
kitchen, then to the rooms upstairs--in his fur coat and overboots.

"Where's Fruen?" he asked.

"Fruen went to meet Captain," answered Ragnhild. "We thought she'd be
coming back now as well."

The Captain's head bowed forward a little. Then cautiously he began
questioning.

"You mean she drove with Nils to the station? Stupid of me not to have
looked about while I was there!"

"No," said Ragnhild; "it was Sunday Fruen went."

At this the Captain pulled himself together. "Sunday?" he said. "Then she
must have been going to meet me in Kristiania. H'm! We've managed to miss
each other somehow. I had to make another little journey yesterday, out to
Drammen--no, Frederikstad, I mean. Get me something to eat, will you?"

_"Varsaagod,_ it's already laid."

"It was the day before yesterday, by the way, I went out there. Well,
well, she'll have had a little outing, anyhow. And how's everything going
on? Are the men at work on the trench?"

"They've finished it, I think."

The Captain went in, and Ragnhild came running at once to tell us what he
had said, that we might know what to go by now, and not make things worse.

Later in the day he came out to where we were at work, greeted us
cheerily, in military fashion, and was surprised to find the pipes already
laid; we had begun filling in now.

"Splendid!" he said. "You fellows are quicker at your work than I am."

He went off by himself up to the reservoir. When he came back his eyes
were not so keen; he looked a little weary. Maybe he had been sitting
there alone and thinking of many things. He stood watching us now with one
hand to his chin. After a little he said to Nils:

"I've sold the timber now."

"Captain's got a good price for it, maybe?"

"Yes, a good price. But I've been all this time about it. You've been
quicker here."

"There are more of us here," I said. "Four of us some times."

And at that he tried to jest. "Yes," he said; "I know you're an expensive
man to have about the place!"

But there was no jest in his face; his smile was hardly a smile at all.
The weakness had gripped him now in earnest. After a little, he sat down
on a stone we had just got out, all over fresh clay as it was, and watched
us.

I took up my spade and went up, thinking of his clothes.

"Hadn't I better scrape the stone a bit clean?"

"No, it doesn't matter," he said.

But he got up all the same, and let me clean it a little.

It was then that Ragnhild came running up to us, following the line of the
trench. She had something in her hand--a paper. And she was running,
running. The Captain sat watching her.

"It's only a telegram!" she said breathlessly. "It came on by messenger."

The Captain got up and strode quickly a few paces forward toward this
telegram that had come. Then he tore it open and read.

We could see at once it must be something important. The Captain gave a
great gasp. Then he began walking down, running down, towards the house. A
little way off he turned round and called to Nils:

"The carriage at once! I must go to the station!"

Then he ran on again.

* * * * *

So the Captain went away again. He had only been home a few hours.

Ragnhild told us of his terrible haste and worry, poor man; he was getting
into the carriage without his fur coat, and would have left the food
behind him that was packed all ready. And the telegram that had come was
lying all open on the stairs.

"Accident," it said. "Your wife.--Chief of Police." What was all this?

"I thought as much," said Ragnhild, "when they sent it on by messenger."
Her voice was strange, and she turned away. "Something serious, I dare
say," she said.

"No, no!" said I, reading and reading again. "Look, it's not so very bad!
Hear what it says. 'Request you come at once--accident to your wife.'"

It was an express telegram from the little town, the little dead town.
Yes, that was it--a town with a roar of sound through it, and a long
bridge, and foaming waters; all cries there died as they were uttered--
none could hear. And there were no birds.

But all the maids spoke now in changed voices; 'twas nothing but misery
amongst us now; I had to appear steady and confident myself, to reassure
them. Fruen might have had a fall, perhaps, she was not as active of late.
But she could, perhaps, have got up again and walked on almost as well as
ever--just a little bleeding.... Oh, they were so quick with their
telegrams, these police folk!

"No, no!" said Ragnhild. "You know well enough that when the Chief of
Police sends a telegram it's pretty sure to mean Fruen's been found dead
somewhere! Oh, I can't--I can't--can't bear it!"

Miserable days! I worked away, harder than ever, but as a man in his
sleep, without interest or pleasure. Would the Captain never come?

Three days later he came--quietly and alone. The body had been sent to
Kristianssand; he had only come back to fetch some clothes, then he was
going on there himself, to the funeral.

He was home this time for an hour at most, then off again to catch the
early train. I did not even see him myself, being out at work.

Ragnhild asked if he had seen Fruen alive.

He looked at her and frowned.

But the girl would not give up; she begged him, for Heaven's sake, to say.
And the two other maids stood just behind, as desperate as she.

Then the Captain answered, but in a low voice as if to himself:

"She had been dead some days when I got there. It was an accident; she had
tried to cross the river and the ice would not bear. No, no, there was no
ice, but the stones were slippery. There was ice as well, though."

Then the maids began moaning and crying; but this was more than he could
stand. He got up from the chair where he was sitting, cleared his throat
hard, and said:

"There, there, it's all right, girls, go along now. Ragnhild, a minute."
And then to Ragnhild, when the others had gone: "What was I going to say,
now? You haven't moved some photos, have you, that were on the piano here?
I can't make out what's happened to them."

Then Ragnhild spoke up well and with spirit--and may Heaven bless her for
the lie!

"I? No, indeed, 'twas Fruen herself one day."

"Oh? Well, well. I only wondered how it was they had gone."

Relieved--relieved the Captain was to hear it.

As he was leaving he told Ragnhild to say I was not to go away from Ovrebo
till he returned.

XIV

No, I didn't go away.

I worked on, tramped through the weariest days of my life to their end,
and finished laying the pipes. It was a bit of a change for us all on the
place the first time we could draw water from a tap, and we were none the
worse for something new to talk about for a while.

Lars Falkenberg had left us. He and I had got rid of all disagreement
between us at the last, and were as we had been in the old days when we
were mates and tramped the roads together.

He was better off than many another, was Lars; light of heart and empty of
head; and thereto unconscionably sound and strong. True, there would be no
more singing up at the house for him now or ever after, but he seemed to
have grown a trifle doubtful of his voice himself the last few years, and
contented himself now for the most part with the things he had sung--once
upon a time--at dances and gentlefolk's parties. No, Lars Falkenberg was
none so badly off. He'd his own little holding, with keep for two cows and
a pig; and a wife and children he had as well.

But what were Grindhusen and I to turn our hands to now? I could go off
wandering anywhere, but Grindhusen, good soul, was no wanderer. All he
could do was to stay on at one place and work till he was dismissed. And
when the stern decision came, he was so upset that he could not take it
easily, but felt he was being specially hardly used. Then after a while he
grew confident again, and full of a childlike trust--not in himself, but
in Fate, in Providence--sat down resignedly, and said: "Ay, well, 'twill
be all right, let's hope, with God's help."

But he was happy enough. He settled down with marvellous ease at whatever
place he came to, and could stay there till he died if it rested with
himself. Home he need not go; the children were grown up now, and his wife
never troubled him. No, this red-haired old sinner of former days--all he
needed now was a place, and work.

"Where are you going after this?" he asked me.

"A long way, up in the hills, to Trovatn, to a forest."

He did not believe me in the least, but he answered quickly and evasively:

"Ay, I dare say, yes."

After we had finished the pipes, Nils sent Grindhusen and myself up
cutting wood till the Captain returned. We cut up and stacked the top-ends
the woodmen had left; neat and steady work it was.

"We'll be turned off, both of us," said Grindhusen. "When Captain comes,
eh?"

"You might get work here for the winter," I said. "A thousand dozen
battens means a lot of small stuff left over that you could saw up for a
reasonable wage."

"Well, talk to the Captain about it," he said.

And the hope of regular work for the winter made this man a contented
soul. He could manage well enough. No, Grindhusen had nothing much to
trouble about.

But then there was myself. And I felt but little worth or use to myself
now, Heaven help me!

* * * * *

That Sunday I wandered restlessly about. I was waiting for the Captain; he
was to be back today. To make sure of things as far as I could, I went for
a long walk up along the stream that fed our reservoir. I wanted to have
another look at the two little waters up the hillside--"the sources of the
Nile."

Coming down on the way back, I met Lars Falkenberg; he was going home. The
full moon was just coming up, red and huge, and turned things light all
round. A touch of snow and frost there was, too; it was easy breathing.
Lars was in a friendly mood: he had been drinking _Brandevin_
somewhere, and talked a great deal. But I was not altogether pleased at
meeting him.

I had stood there long up on the wooded hillside, listening to the
soughing of earth and sky, and there was nothing else to hear. Then there
might come a faint little rustling, a curled and shrunken leaf rolling and
rustling down over the frozen branches. It was like the sound of a little
spring. Then the soughing of earth and sky again. A gentleness came over
me; a mute was set on all my strings.

Lars Falkenberg wanted to know where I had been and where I was going.
Reservoir? A senseless business that reservoir thing. As if people
couldn't carry water for themselves. The Captain went in too much for
these new-fangled inventions and ploughing over standing crops and
such-like; he'd find himself landed one day. A rich harvest, they said.
Ho, yes, but they never troubled to think what it must cost, with machines
for this and that, and a pack of men to every machine again. What mustn't
it have cost, now, for Grindhusen and me that summer! And then himself
this autumn. In the old days it had been music and plenty at Ovrebo, and
some of us had been asked into the parlour to sing. "I'll say no more,"
said Lars. "And now there's hardly a sizeable stick of timber left in the
woods."

"A few years' time and it'll be as thick as ever."

"A few years! A many years, you mean. No, it's not enough to go about
being Captain and commanding--brrrr! and there it is! And he's not even
spokesman for the neighbours now, and you never see folk coming up now to
ask him what he'd say was best to do in this or that...."

"Did you see the Captain down below? Had he come back yet?" I broke in.

"He's just come back. Looked like a skeleton, he did. What was I going to
say?... When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow," I said.

"So soon?" Lars was all friendliness, and wishing me good luck now; he had
not thought I should be going off at once.

"It's all a chance if I see you again this time," he said. "But I'll tell
you this much, now: you'd do well to stop frittering your life away any
more, and never staying on a place for good. And I say as much here and
now, so mark my words. I dare say I haven't got on so grandly myself, but
I don't know many of our likes have done better, and anyway not you. I've
a roof over my head at the least, and a wife and children, and two cows--
one bears autumn and one spring--and then a pig, and that's all I can say
I own. So better not boast about that. But if you reckon it up, it amounts
to a bit of a holding after all."

"It's all very well for you, the way you've got on," said I.

Lars is friendlier than ever after this appreciation; he wishes me no end
of good, and goes on:

"There's none could get on better than yourself, for that matter. With the
knack you've got for all kinds of work, and writing and figuring into the
bargain. But it's your own fault. You might have done as I told you these
six, seven years ago, and taken one of the other girls on the place, like
I did with Emma, and settled down here for good. Then you wouldn't be
going about now from place to place. But I say the same again now."

"It's too late," I answered.

"Ay, you're terribly grey. I don't know who you could reckon to get now
about here. How old are you now?"

"Don't ask me!"

"Not exactly a young one, perhaps, but still--What was I going to say?
Come up with me a little, and maybe I'll remember."

I walked up, and Lars went on talking all the way. He offered to put in a
word for me with the Captain, so I could get a clearing like he had.

"Funny to go and forget a thing like that," he said. "It's gone clean out
of my head. But come up home now. I'll be sure to hit on it again."

All friendliness he was now. But I had one or two things to do myself, and
would not go farther.

"You won't see the Captain tonight, anyway."

No, but it was late. Emma would be in bed, and would only be a trouble.

"Not a bit of it," said Lars. "And if she has gone to bed, what of it? I
shouldn't wonder, now, if there was a shirt of yours up there, too. Better
come up and take it with you, and save Emma going all the way down
herself."

But I would not go up. I ventured, however, to send a greeting to Emma
this time.

"Ay, surely," said Lars. "And if so be as you haven't time to come up to
my bit of a place now, why, there it is. You'll be going off first thing
tomorrow, I suppose?"

It slipped my mind for the moment that I should not be able to see the
Captain that evening, and I answered now that I should be leaving as early
as could be.

"Well, then, I'll send Emma down with that shirt of yours at once," said
Lars. "And good luck to you. And don't forget what I said."

And that was farewell to Lars.

A little farther down I slackened my pace. After all, there was no real
hurry about the few things I had to pack and finish off. I turned back and
walked up again a little, whistling in the moonlight. It was a fine
evening, not cold at all, only a soft, obedient calm all over the woods.
Half an hour passed, and then to my surprise came Emma, bringing my shirt.

* * * * *

Next morning neither Grindhusen nor I went to the woods. Grindhusen was
uneasy.

"Did you speak to the Captain about me?" he asked.

"I haven't spoken to him."

"Oh, I know he'll turn me off now, you see! If he had any sense, he'd let
me stay on to cut up all that cord-wood. But what's he know about things?
It's as much as he can manage to keep a man at all."

"Why, what's this, Grindhusen? You seemed to like the Captain well enough
before."

"Oh yes, you know! Yes, of course. He's good enough, I dare say. H'm! I
wonder, now, if the Inspector down on the river mightn't have some little
scrap of a job in my line. He's a man with plenty of money, is the
Inspector."

I saw the Captain at eight o'clock, and talked with him a while; then a
couple of neighbours came to call--offering sympathy in his bereavement,
no doubt. The Captain looked fatigued, but he was not a broken man by any
means; his manner was firm and steady enough. He spoke to me a little
about a plan he had in mind for a big drying-house for hay and corn.

No more of things awry now, Ovrebo, no more emotion, no soul gone off the
rails. I thought of it almost with sadness. No one to stick up impertinent
photographs on the piano, but no one to play on that piano, either; dumb
now, it stands, since the last note sounded. No, for Fru Falkenberg is not
here now; she can do no more hurt to herself or any other. Nothing of all
that used to be here now. Remains, then, to be seen if all will be flowers
and joy at Ovrebo hereafter.

"If only he doesn't take to drinking again," I said to Nils.

"No, surely," he said. "And I don't believe he ever did. It was just a bit
of foolery, if you ask me, his going on like that just for the time. But
talking of something else--will you be coming back here in the spring?"

"No," I answered. "I shall not come again now."

Then Nils and I took leave of each other. Well I remember that man's calm
and fairness of mind; I stood looking after him as he walked away across
the yard. Then he turned round and said:

"Were you up in the woods yesterday? Is there snow enough for me to take a
sledge up for wood?"

"Yes," I answered.

And he went off, relieved, to the stables, to harness up.

Grindhusen, too, comes along, on the way to the stable. He stops for a
moment to tell me that the Captain has himself offered him work cutting
wood. "'Saw up all the small stuff you can,' he said; 'keep at it for a
while. I dare say we can agree all right about wages.' 'Honoured and thank
you, Captain,' says I. 'Right! Go and tell Nils,' he says. Oh, but he's a
grand open-handed sort, is the Captain! There's not many of his like
about."

A little while after, I was sent for up to the Captain's room. He thanked
me for the work I had done both indoors, and out, and went on to settle
up. And that was all, really. But he kept me there a little, asking one or
two things about the drying-shed, and we talked over that for a bit.
Anyhow it would have to wait till after Christmas, he said. But when the
time came, he'd be glad to see me back. He looked me in the face then, and
went on:

"But you won't come back here again now, I suppose?"

I was taken by surprise. But I faced him squarely in return, and answered:

"No."

As I went down, I thought over what he had said. Had he seen through me,
then? If so, he had shown a degree of trust in me that I was glad to think
of. At least, he was a man of good feeling.

Trust me? And why should he not? Played out and done with as I was.
Suffered to go about and do and be as I pleased, by virtue of my eminent
incapacity for harm. Yes, that was it. And, anyhow, there was nothing to
see through after all.

I went round, upstairs and down, saying good-bye to them all, to Ragnhild
and the maids. Then, as I was coming in front of the house with my pack on
my shoulder, the Captain called to me from the steps:

"Wait! I just thought--if you're going to the station, the lad could drive
you in."

Thoughtful and considerate again! But I thanked him and declined. I was
not so played out but that I could surely walk that way.

* * * * *

Back in my little town again. And if I have come here now, it is because
the place lies on my way to Trovatn, up in the hills.

All is as it was before here now, save for thin ice on the river above and
below the rapids, and snow on the ice again.

I take care to buy clothes and equipment here in the town, and, having got
a good new pair of shoes, I take my old ones to the cobbler to be
half-soled. The cobbler is inclined to talk, and begs me to sit down. "And
where's this man from, now?" he asks. In a moment I am enveloped by the
spirit of the town.

I walk up to the churchyard. Here, too, care has been taken to provide
equipment for the winter. Bundles of straw have been fastened round plants
and bushes; many a delicate monument is protected by a tall wooden hood.
And the hoods again armoured with a coat of paint. As if some provident
soul had thought: Well, now, I have this funeral monument here; with
proper care it may be made to last for generations!

There is a Christmas Fair on, too, and I stroll along to see. Here are
skis and toboggans, butter scoops and log chairs from the underworld,
rose-coloured mittens, clothes' rollers, foxes' skins. And here are
horse-dealers and drovers mingling with drunken folk from up the valley.
Jews there are, too, anxious to palm off a gaudy watch or so, for all
there is no money in the town. And the watches come from that country up
in the Alps, where Bocklin--did not come from; where nothing and nobody
ever came from.

But in the evening there is brave entertainment for all. Two dancing-halls
there are, and the music is supplied by masters on the _hardingfele,_
and wonderful music it is, to be sure. There are iron strings to it, and
it utters no empty phrases, but music with a sting in its tail. It acts
differently upon different people: some find it rich in national
sweetness; some of us are rather constrained to grit our teeth and howl in
melancholy wise. Never was stinging music delivered with more effect.

The dance goes on.

In one of the intervals the schoolmaster sings touching verses about an

"aged mother, worn with toil
And sweating as 'twere blood...."

But some of the wild youths insist on dancing and nothing else. What's
this! Start singing, when they're standing here with the girls all ready
to dance--it's not proper! The singer stops, and meets the protest in
broadest dialect: What? Not proper? Why, it's by Vinje himself! Heated
discussion, _pro_ and _contra,_ arguing and shouting. Never were
verses sung with more effect.

The dance goes on.

The girls from the valley are armoured five layers thick, but who cares
for that! All are used to hard work. And the dance goes on--ay, the
thunder goes on. _Brandevin_ helps things bravely along. The witches'
cauldron is fairly steaming now. At three in the morning the local police
force appears, and knocks on the floor with his stick. _Finis._ The
dancers go off in the moonlight, and spread out near and far. And nine
months later, the girls from the valley show proof that after all they
were one layer of armour short. Never was such an effect of being one
layer short.

The river is quieter now--not much of a river to look at: the winter is
come upon it now. It drives the mills and works that stand on its banks,
for, in spite of all, it is and will be a great river still, but it shows
no life. It has shut down the lid on itself.

And the rapids have suffered, too. And I who stood watching them once and
listening, and thought to myself if one lived down there in the roar of it
for ever, what would one's brain be like at last? But now the rapids are
dwindled, and murmur faintly. It would be shame to call it a roar.
_Herregud!_ 'tis no more than a ruin of what it was. Sunk into
poverty, great rocks thrust up all down the channel, with here and there a
stick of timber hung up thwart and slantwise; one could cross dry-shod by
way of stick and stone.

* * * * *

I have done all I have to do in the town, and my pack is on my shoulders.
It is Sunday, and a fine clear day.

I look in at the hotel, to see the porter; he is going with me a bit of
the way up the river. The great good-hearted fellow offers to carry my
things--as if I could not carry them myself.

We go up along the right bank; but the road itself lies on the left; the
way we are taking is only a summer path, trodden only by the lumbermen,
and with some few fresh tracks in the snow. My companion cannot make out
why we do not follow the road: he was always dull of wit; but I have been
up this path twice before these last few days, and I am going up it once
again. It is my own tracks we can see all the time.

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