Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

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Falkenberg comes across the yard to meet me, and whispers hurriedly:

"She's got an answer from the Captain; he says we can set to work felling
timber in the woods. Are you any good at that?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, go inside, into the kitchen. She's been asking for you."

I went in and Fruen said:

"I wondered where you'd got to. Sit down and have something to eat.
_Had_ your supper? Where?"

"We've food with us in the sack."

"Well, there was no need to do that. Won't you have a cup of tea, then?
Nothing?... I've had an answer from my husband. Can you fell trees? Well,
that's all right. Look, here it is: 'Want couple of men felling timber,
Petter will show trees marked.'...."

Heaven--she stood there beside me, pointing to the message. And the scent
of a young girl in her breath....

XVI

In the woods. Petter is one of the farm-hands; he showed us the way here.

When we talked together, Falkenberg was not by any means so grateful to
Fruen for giving us work. "Nothing to bow and scrape for in that," he
said. "It's none so easy to get workmen these days." Falkenberg, by the
way, was nothing out of the ordinary in the woodcutting line, while I'd
had some experience of the work in another part of the world, and so could
take a lead in this at a finish. And he agreed I was to be leader.

Just now I began working in my mind on an invention.

With the ordinary sort of saw now in use, the men have to lie down
crookedwise on the ground and pull _sideways_. And that's why there's
not so much gets done in a day, and a deal of ugly stumps left after in
the woods. Now, with a conical transmission apparatus that could be
screwed on to the root, it should be possible to work the saw with a
straight back-and-forward movement, but the blade cutting horizontally all
the time. I set to work designing parts of a machine of this sort. The
thing that puzzled me most was how to get the little touch of pressure on
the blade that's needed. It might be done by means of a spring that could
be wound up by clockwork, or perhaps a weight would do it. The weight
would be easier, but uniform, and, as the saw went deeper, it would be
getting harder all the time, and the same pressure would not do. A steel
spring, on the other hand, would slacken down as the cut grew deeper, and
always give the right amount of pressure. I decided on the spring system.
"You can manage it," I told myself. And the credit for it would be the
greatest thing in my life.

The days passed, one like another; we felled our nine-inch timber, and cut
off twigs and tops. We lived in plenty, taking food and coffee with us
when we started for the woods, and getting a hot meal in the evening when
we came home. Then we washed and tidied ourselves--to be nicer-mannered
than the farm-hands--and sat in the kitchen, with a big lamp alight, and
three girls. Falkenberg had become Emma's sweetheart.

And every now and then there would come a wave of music from the piano in
the parlour; sometimes Fruen herself would come out to us with her girlish
youth and her blessed kindly ways. "And how did you get on today?" she
would ask. "Did you meet a bear in the woods?" But one evening she thanked
Falkenberg for doing her piano so nicely. What? did she mean it?
Falkenberg's weather-beaten face grew quite handsome with pleasure; I felt
proud of him when he answered modestly that he thought himself it was a
little better now.

Either he had gained by his experience in tuning already, or Fruen was
grateful to him for not having spoiled the grand piano.

Falkenberg dressed up in my town clothes every evening. It wouldn't do for
me to take them back now and wear them myself; every one would believe I'd
borrowed them from him.

"Let me have Emma, and you can keep the clothes," I said in jest.

"All right, you can take her," he answered.

I began to see then that Falkenberg was growing cooler towards his girl.
Oh, but Falkenberg had fallen in love too, the same as I. What simple boys
we were!

"Wonder if she will give us a look in this evening again?" Falkenberg
would say while we were out at work.

And I would answer that I didn't care how long the Captain stayed away.

"No, you're right," said Falkenberg. "And I say, if I find he isn't decent
to her, there'll be trouble."

Then one evening Falkenberg gave us a song. And I was proud of him as
ever. Fruen came out, and he had to sing it over again, and another one
after; his fine voice filled the room, and Fruen was delighted, and said
she had never heard anything like it.

And then it was I began to be envious.

"Have you learnt singing?" asked Fruen. "Can you read music at all?"

"Yes, indeed," said Falkenberg. "I used to sing in a club."

Now that was where he should have said: no, worse luck, he'd never
learned, so I thought to myself.

"Have you ever sung to any one? Has any one ever heard you?"

"I've sung at dances and parties now and again. And once at a wedding."

"But I mean for any one that knew: has any one tried your voice?"

"No, not that I know of--or yes, I think so, yes."

"Well, won't you sing some more now? Do."

And Falkenberg sang.

The end of it'll be he'll be asked right into the parlour one evening, I
thought to myself, with Fruen--to play for him. I said:

"Beg pardon, but won't the Captain be coming home soon?"

"Yes, soon," answered Fruen. "Why do you ask?'

"I was only thinking about the work."

"Have you felled all the trees that were marked?"

"No, not yet--no, not by a long way. But...."

"Oh...." said Fruen suddenly, as if she had just thought of something.
"You must have some money. Yes, of course...."

I grasped at that to save myself, and answered:

"Thank you very much."

Falkenberg said nothing.

"Well, you've only to ask, you know. _Varsaagod_" and she handed me
the money I had asked for. "And what about you?"

"Nothing, thank you all the same," answered Falkenberg.

Heavens, how I had lost again--fallen to earth again! And Falkenberg, that
shameless imposter, who sat there playing the man of property who didn't
need anything in advance. I would tear my clothes off him that very night,
and leave him naked.

Only, of course, I did nothing of the sort.

XVII

And two days went by.

"If she comes out again this evening," Falkenberg would say up in the
woods, "I'll sing that one about the poppy. I'd forgotten that."

"You've forgotten Emma, too, haven't you?" I ask.

"Emma? Look here, I'll tell you what it is: you're just the same as ever,
that's what you are."

"Ho, am I?"

"Yes; inside, I mean. You wouldn't mind taking Emma right there, with
Fruen looking on. But I couldn't do that."

"That's a lie!" I answered angrily. "You won't see me tangled up in any
foolery with the girls as long as I am here."

"Ah, and I shan't be out at nights with any one after. Think she'll come
this evening? I'd forgotten that one about the poppy till now. Just
listen."

Falkenberg sang the Poppy Song.

"You're lucky, being able to sing like that," I said. "But there's neither
of us'll get her, for all that."

"Get her! Why, whoever thought.... What a fool you are!"

"Ah, if I were young and rich and handsome, I'd win her all the same," I
said.

"If--and if.... So could I, for the matter of that. But there's the
Captain."

"Yes, and then there's you. And then there's me. And then there's herself
and everybody else in the world. And we're a couple of brutes to be
talking about her like this at all," said I, furious now with myself for
my own part. "A nice thing, indeed, for two old woodcutters to speak of
their mistress so."

We grew pale and thin the pair of us, and the wrinkles showed up in
Falkenberg's drawn face; neither of us could eat as we used. And by way of
trying to hide our troubles from each other, I went about talking all
sorts of cheerful nonsense, while Falkenberg bragged loudly at every meal
of how he'd got to eating too much of late, and was getting slack and out
of form.

"Why, you don't seem to eat anything at all," Fruen would say when we came
home with too much left of the food we had taken with us. "Nice
woodcutters, indeed."

"It's Falkenberg that won't eat," said I.

"Ho, indeed!" said Falkenberg; "I like that. _He's_ given up eating
altogether."

Now and again when she asked us to do her a favour, some little service or
other, we would both hurry to do it; at last we got to bringing in water
and firewood of our own accord. But one day Falkenberg played me a mean
trick: he came home with a bunch of hazel twigs for a carpet-beater, that
Fruen had asked me expressly to cut for her.

And he sang every evening now.

Then it was I resolved to make Fruen jealous--ey, ey, my good man, are you
mad now, or merely foolish? As if Fruen would ever give it as much as a
thought, whatever you did.

But so it was. I would try to make her jealous.

Of the three girls on the place, there was only one that could possibly be
used for the experiment, and that was Emma. So I started talking nonsense
to Emma.

"Emma, I know of some one that is sighing for you."

"And where did you get to know of that, pray?"

"From the stars above."

"I'd rather hear of it from some one here on earth."

"I can tell you that, too. At first hand."

"It's himself he means," put in Falkenberg, anxious to keep well out of
it.

"Well, and I don't mind saying it is. _Paratum cor meum_."

But Emma was ungracious, and didn't care to talk to me, for all I was
better at languages than Falkenberg. What--could I not even master Emma?
Well ... I turned proud and silent after that, and went my own ways,
making drawings for that machine of mine and little models. And when
Falkenberg was singing of an evening, and Fruen listening, I went across
to the men's quarters and stayed there with them. Which, of course, was
much more dignified. The only trouble about it was that Petter was ill in
bed, and couldn't stand the noise of ax and hammer, so I had to go outside
every time I'd any heavy piece of work to do.

Still, now and again I fancied Fruen might perhaps be sorry, after all, at
missing my company in the kitchen. It looked so, to me. One evening, when
we were at supper, she turned to me and said:

"What's that the men were saying about a new machine you're making?"

"It's a new kind of saw he's messing about with," said Falkenberg. "But
it's too heavy to be any good."

I made no answer to that, but craftily preferred to be wronged. Was it not
the fate of all inventors to be so misjudged? Only wait: my time was not
yet come. There were moments when I could hardly keep from bursting out
with a revelation to the girls, of how I was really a man of good family,
led astray by desperation over an unhappy love affair, and now taking to
drink. Alas, yes, man proposes, God disposes.... And then, perhaps, Fruen
herself might come to hear of it....

"I think I'll take to going over with the men in the evenings," said
Falkenberg, "the same as you."

And I knew well enough why Falkenberg had suddenly taken it into his head
to spend his evenings there; he was not asked to sing now as often as
before; some way or other, he was less in demand of late.

XVIII

The Captain had returned.

A big man, with a full beard, came out to us one day while we were at
work, and said:

"I'm Captain Falkenberg. Well, lads, how goes it?"

We greeted him respectfully, and answered: "Well enough."

Then there was some talk of what we had done and what remained to do. The
Captain was pleased with our work--all clean cut and close to the root.
Then he reckoned out how much we had got through per day, and said it came
to a good average.

"Captain's forgetting Sundays." said I.

"That's true," said he. "Well, that makes it over the average. Had any
trouble at all with the tools? Is the saw all right?"

"Quite all right."

"And nobody hurt?"

"No."

Pause.

"You ought by rights to provide your own food," he said, "but if you would
rather have it the other way, we can square it when we come to settle up."

"We'll be glad to have it as Captain thinks best."

"Yes," agreed Falkenberg as well.

The Captain took a turn up through the wood and came back again.

"Couldn't have better weather," he said. "No snow to shovel away."

"No, there's no snow--that's true; but a little more frost'd do no harm."

"Why? Cooler to work in d'you mean?"

"That, too, perhaps; yes. But the saw cuts easier when timber's frozen."

"You're an old hand at this work, then?"

"Yes."

"And are you the one that sings?"

"No, more's the pity. He is the one that sings."

"Oh, so you are the singer, are you? We're namesakes, I believe?"

"Why, yes, in a way," said Falkenberg, a little awkwardly, "My name is
Lars Falkenberg, and I've my certificate to show for that."

"What part d'you come from?"

"From Trondelagen."

The Captain went home. He was friendly enough, but spoke in a short,
decisive way, with never a smile or a jesting word. A good face, something
ordinary.

From that day onwards Falkenberg never sang but in the men's quarters, or
out in the open; no more singing in the kitchen now the Captain had come
home. Falkenberg was irritable and gloomy; he would swear at times and say
life wasn't worth living these days; a man might as well go and hang
himself and have done with it. But his fit of despair soon came to an end.
One Sunday he went back to the two farms where he had tuned the pianos,
and asked for a recommendation from each. When he came back he showed me
the papers, and said:

"They'll do to keep going with for a bit."

"Then you're not going to hang yourself, after all?"

"You've better cause to go that way, if you ask me," said Falkenberg.

But I, too, was less despairing now. When the Captain heard about my
machine idea, he wanted to know more about it at once. He saw at the first
glance that my drawings were far from perfect, being made on small pieces
of paper, and without so much as a pair of dividers to work with. He lent
me a set of drawing instruments, and gave me some useful hints about how
such things were done. He, too, was afraid my saw would prove too
cumbersome. "But keep on with it, anyway," he said. "Get the whole thing
drawn to a definite scale, then we can see."

I realized, however, that a decently constructed model of the thing would
give a better idea of it, and as soon as I was through with the drawings I
set to work carving a model in wood. I had no lathe, and had to whittle
out the two rollers and several wheels and screws by hand. I was working
at this on the Sunday, and so taken up with it I never heard the
dinner-bell. The Captain came out and called, "Dinner!" Then, when he saw
what I was doing, he offered to drive over himself to the smithy the very
next day, and get the parts I needed cut on the lathe. "All you need do is
to give me the measurements," he said. "And you must want some tools,
surely? Saw and drills; right! Screws, yes, and a fine chisel ... is that
all?"

He made a note of the things on the spot. A first-rate man to work under.

But in the evening, when I had finished supper and was crossing the
courtyard to the men's room, Fruen called me. She was standing between the
kitchen windows, in the shadow, but slipped forward now.

"My husband said ... he ... said ... you can't be warm enough in these
thin clothes," she said. "And would you ... here, take these."

She bundled a whole suit into my arms.

I thanked her, stammering foolishly. I was going to get myself some new
things soon. There was no hurry; I didn't need....

"Of course, I know you can get things yourself. But when your friend is
so ... so ... oh, take these."

And she ran away indoors again, the very fashion of a young girl fearing
to be caught doing something over-kind. I had to call my last thanks after
her.

When the Captain came out next evening with my wheels and rollers, I took
the opportunity of thanking him for the clothes.

"Oh--er--yes," he answered. "It was my wife that.... Do they fit you all
right?"

"Yes; many thanks."

"That's all right, then. Yes; it was my wife that ... well, here are the
things for your machine, and the tools. Good-night."

It seemed, then, as if the two of them were equally ready to do an act of
kindness. And when it was done, each would lay the blame on the other.
Surely this must be the perfect wedded life, that dreamers dreamed of here
on earth....

XIX

The woods are stripped of leaf now, and the bird sounds are gone; only the
crows rasp out their screeching note at five in the morning, when they
spread out over the fields. We see them, Falkenberg and I, as we go to our
work; the yearling birds, that have not yet learned fear of the world, hop
along the path before our feet.

Then we meet the finch, the sparrow of the timbered lands. He has been out
in the woods already, and is coming back now to humankind, that he likes
to live with and study from all sides. Queer little finch. A bird of
passage, really, but his parents have taught him that one _can_ spend
a winter in the north; and now he will teach his children that the north's
the only place to spend the winter in at all. But there is still a touch
of emigrant blood in him, and he remains a wanderer. One day he and his
will gather together and set off for somewhere else, many parishes away,
to study a new collection of humans there--and in the aspen grove never a
finch to be seen. And it may be a whole week before a new flock of this
winged life appears and settles in the same place.... _Herregud!_ how
many a time have I watched the finches in their doings, and found pleasure
in all.

One day Falkenberg declares he is all right again now. Going to save up
and put aside a hundred Kroner this winter, out of tuning pianos and
felling trees, and then make up again with Emma. I, too, he suggests,
would be better advised to give over sighing for ladies of high degree,
and go back to my own rank and station.

Falkenberg was right.

On Saturday evening we stopped work a trifle earlier than usual to go up
and get some things from the store. We wanted shirts, tobacco and wine.

While we were in the store I caught sight of a little work-box, ornamented
with shells, of the kind seafaring men used to buy in the old days at
Amsterdam, and bring home to their girls; now the Germans make them by the
thousand. I bought the workbox, with the idea of taking out one of the
shells to serve as a thumbnail for my pipe.

"What d'you want with a workbox?" asked Falkenberg. "Is it for Emma,
what?" He grew jealous at the thought, and not to be outdone, he bought a
silk handkerchief to give her himself.

On the way back we sampled the wine, and got talking. Falkenberg was still
jealous, so I took out the workbox, chose the shell I wanted, and picked
it off and gave him the box. After that we were friends again.

It was getting dark now, and there was no moon. Suddenly we heard the
sound of a concertina from a house up on a hillside; we could see there
was dancing within, from the way the light came and went like a lighthouse
beam.

"Let's go up and look," said Falkenberg.

Coming up to the house, we found a little group of lads and girls outside
taking the air. Emma was there as well.

"Why, there's Emma!" cried Falkenberg cheerily, not in the least put out
to find she had gone without him. "Emma, here, I've got something for
you!"

He reckoned to make all good with a word, but Emma turned away from him
and went indoors. Then, when he moved to go after her, others barred his
way, hinting pretty plainly that he wasn't wanted there.

"But Emma is there. Ask her to come out."

"Emma's not coming out. She's here with Markus Shoemaker."

Falkenberg stood there helpless. He had been cold to Emma now for so long
that she had given him up. And, seeing him stand there stupidly agape,
some of the girls began to make game of him: had she left him all alone,
then, and what would he ever do now, poor fellow?

Falkenberg set his bottle to his lips and drank before the eyes of all,
then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed to the nearest
man. There was a better feeling now towards us; we were good fellows, with
bottles in our pockets, and willing to pass them round; moreover, we were
strangers in the place, and that was always something new. Also,
Falkenberg said many humorous things of Markus Shoemaker, whom he
persisted in calling Lukas.

The dance was still going on inside, but none of the girls left us to go
in and join.

"I'll bet you now," said Falkenberg, with a swagger, "that Emma'd be only
too glad to be out here with us."

Helene and Ronnaug and Sara were there; every time they drank, they gave
their hands prettily by way of thanks, as the custom is, but some of the
others that had learned a trifle of town manners said only, "_Tak for
Skjanken_," and no more. Helene was to be Falkenberg's girl, it seemed;
he put his arm round her waist and said she was his for tonight. And when
they moved off farther and farther away from the rest of us, none called
to them to come back; we paired off, all of us, after a while, and went
our separate ways into the woods. I went with Sara.

When we came out from the wood again, there stood Ronnaug still taking the
air. Strange girl, had she been standing there alone all the time? I took
her hand and talked to her a little, but she only smiled to all I said and
made no answer. We went off towards the wood, and Sara called after us in
the darkness: "Ronnaug, come now and let's go home." But Ronnaug made no
answer; it was little she said at all. Soft, white as milk, and tall, and
still.

XX

The first snow is come; it thaws again at once, but winter is not far off,
and we are nearing the end of our woodcutting now at Ovrebo--another week
or so, perhaps, no more. What then? There was work on the railway line up
on the, hills, or perhaps more woodcutting at some other place we might
come to. Falkenberg was for trying the railway.

But I couldn't get done with my machine in so short a time. We'd each our
own affairs to take our time; apart from the machine, there was that
thumbnail for the pipe I wanted to finish, and the evenings came out all
too short. As for Falkenberg, he had made it up with Emma again. And that
was a difficult matter and took time. She had been going about with Markus
Shoemaker, 'twas true, but Falkenberg for his part could not deny having
given Helene presents--a silk handkerchief and a work box set with shells.

Falkenberg was troubled, and said:

"Everything is wrong, somehow. Nothing but bother and worry and foolery."

"Why, as to that..."

"That's what I call it, anyway, if you want to know. She won't come up in
the hills as we said."

"It'll be Markus Shoemaker, then, that's keeping her back?"

Falkenberg was gloomily silent. Then, after a pause:

"They wouldn't even have me go on singing."

We got to talking of the Captain and his wife. Falkenberg had an
ill-forboding all was not as it might be between them.

Gossiping fool! I put in a word:

"You'll excuse me, but you don't know what you are talking about."

"Ho!" said he angrily. And, growing more and more excited, he went on:
"Have you ever seen them, now, hanging about after each other? I've never
heard them say so much as a word."

The fool!--the churl!

"Don't know what is the matter with you to-day the way you're sawing.
Look--what do you think of that for a cut?"

"Me? We're two of us in it, anyway, so there."

"Good! Then we'll say it's the thaw. Let's get back to the ax again."

We went on working each by himself for a while, angered and out of humour
both. What was the lie he had dared to say of them, that they never so
much as spoke to each other? But, Heaven, he was right! Falkenberg had a
keen scent for such things. He knew something of men and women.

"At any rate, they speak nicely of each other to us," I said.

Falkenberg went on with his work.

I thought over the whole thing again.

"Well, perhaps you may be right as far as that goes, that it's not the
wedded life dreamers have dreamed of, still...."

But it was no good talking to Falkenberg in that style; he understood
never a word.

When we stopped work at noon, I took up the talk again.

"Didn't you say once if he wasn't decent to her there'd be trouble?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, there hasn't been trouble."

"Did I ever say he wasn't decent to her?" said Falkenberg irritably. "No,
but they're sick and wearied of each other--that's what it is. When one
comes in, the other goes out. Whenever he starts talking of anything out
in the kitchen, her eyes go all dead and dull, and she doesn't listen."

We got to work again with the ax, each thinking his own ways.

"I doubt but I'll need to give him a thrashing," said Falkenberg.

"Who?"

"Lukas...."

I got my pipe done, and sent Emma in with it to the Captain. The nail had
turned out fine and natural this time, and with the fine tools I had now,
I was able to cut well down into the thumb and fasten it on the underside,
so that the two little copper pins would not show. I was pleased enough
with the work.

The Captain came out while we were at supper that evening, to thank me for
the pipe. At the same time, I noticed that Falkenberg was right; no sooner
had the Captain come out than Fruen went in.

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