Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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"A ring?" said the man.
"A finger ring. Ay, I've grown that high and mighty now I must give my
wife a ring."
"Do you want a silver one, or gold, or just a brass ring dipped to
look like gold?"
"Let's say a silver ring."
The storekeeper thought for a while.
"Look you, Isak," he said. "If you want to do the proper thing, and
give your wife a ring she needn't be ashamed to wear, you'd better
make it a gold ring."
"What!" said Isak aloud. Though maybe in his inmost heart he had been
thinking of a gold ring all the time.
They talked the matter over seriously, and agreed about getting a
measurement of some sort for the ring. Isak was thoughtful, and shook
his head and reckoned it was a big thing to do, but the storekeeper
refused to order anything but a gold ring. Isak went home again,
secretly pleased with his decision, but somewhat anxious, for all
that, at the extravagant lengths he had gone to, all for being in love
with his wife.
There was a good average snowfall that winter, and early in the year,
when the roads were passable, folk from the village began carting
up telegraph poles over the moors, dropping their loads at regular
intervals. They drove big teams, and came up past Breidablik, past
Sellanraa farm, and met new teams beyond, coming down with poles from
the other side of the hills--the line was complete.
So life went on day by day, without any great event. What was there
to happen, anyway? Spring came, and the work of setting up the poles
began. Brede Olsen was there again, with the gangs, though he should
have been working on his own land at that season. "'Tis a wonder he's
the time," thought Isak.
Isak himself had barely time to eat and sleep; it was a close thing to
get through the season's work now, with all the land he had brought
under tillage.
Then, between seasons, he got his sawmill roofed in, and could set to
work putting up the machine parts. And look you, 'twas no marvel of
fine woodwork he had set up, but strong it was, as a giant of the
hills, and stood there to good use. The saw could work, and cut as a
sawmill should; Isak had kept his eyes about him down in the village,
and used them well. It was hearty and small, this sawmill he had
built, but he was pleased with it; he carved the date above the
doorway, and put his mark.
And that summer, something more than usual did come about after all at
Sellanraa.
The telegraph workers had now reached so far up over the moors that
the foremost gang came to the farm one evening and asked to be lodged
for the night. They were given shelter in the big barn. As the days
went on, the other gangs came along, and all were housed at Sellanraa.
The work went on ahead, passing the farm, but the men still came
back to sleep in the barn. One Saturday evening came the engineer in
charge, to pay the men.
At sight of the engineer, Eleseus felt his heart jump, and stole out
of the house lest he should be asked about that coloured pencil. Oh,
there would be trouble now--and Sivert nowhere to be seen; he would
have to face it alone. Eleseus slipped round the corner of the house,
like a pale ghost, found his mother, and begged her to tell Sivert to
come. There was no help for it now.
Sivert took the matter less to heart--but then, he was not the chief
culprit. The two brothers went a little way off and sat down, and
Eleseus said: "If you'd say it was you, now!"
"Me?" said Sivert.
"You're younger, he wouldn't do anything to you."
Sivert thought over it, and saw that his brother was in distress; also
it flattered him to feel that the other needed his help.
"Why, I might help you out of it, perhaps," said he in a grown-up
voice.
"Ay, if you would!" said Eleseus, and quite simply gave his brother
the bit of pencil that was left. "You can have it for keeps," he said.
They were going in again together, but Eleseus recollected he had
something he must do over at the sawmill, or rather, at the cornmill;
something he must look to, and it would take some time--he wouldn't be
finished just yet. Sivert went in alone.
There sat the engineer, paying out notes and silver, and when he had
finished, Inger gave him milk to drink, a jug and a glass, and he
thanked her. Then he talked to little Leopoldine, and then, noticing
the drawings on the walls, asked straight out who had done that. "Was
it you?" he asked, turning to Sivert. The man felt, perhaps, he owed
something for Inger's hospitality, and praised the drawings just to
please her. Inger, on her part, explained the matter as it was: it was
her boys had made the drawings--both of them. They had no paper till
she came home and looked to things, so they had marked all about the
walls. But she hadn't the heart to wash it off again.
"Why, leave it as it is," said the engineer. "Paper, did you say?" And
he took out a heap of big sheets. "There, draw away on that till I
come round again. And how are you off for pencils?"
Sivert stepped forward simply with the stump he had, and showed how
small it was. And behold, the man gave him a new coloured pencil, not
even sharpened. "There, now you can start afresh. But I'd make the
horses red if I were you, and do the goats with blue. Never seen a
blue horse, have you?"
And the engineer went on his way.
That same evening, a man came up from the village with a basket--he
handed out some bottles to the workmen, and went off again. But after
he had gone, it was no longer so quiet about the place; some one
played an accordion, the men talked loudly, and there was singing, and
even dancing, at Sellanraa. One of the men asked Inger out to dance,
and Inger--who would have thought it of her?--she laughed a little
laugh and actually danced a few turns round. After that, some of the
others asked her, and she danced not a little in the end.
Inger--who could say what was in her mind? Here she was dancing gaily,
maybe for the first time in her life; sought after, riotously pursued
by thirty men, and she alone, the only one to choose from, no one to
cut her out. And those burly telegraph men--how they lifted her! Why
not dance? Eleseus and Sivert were fast asleep in the little chamber,
undisturbed by all the noise outside; little Leopoldine was up,
looking on wonderingly at her mother as she danced.
Isak was out in the fields all the time; he had gone off directly
after supper, and when he came home to go to bed, some one offered
him a bottle. He drank a little, and sat watching the dancing, with
Leopoldine on his lap.
"'Tis a gay time you're having," said he kindly to Inger--"footing it
properly tonight!"
After a while, the music stopped, and the dance was over. The workmen
got ready to leave--they were going down to the village for the rest
of the evening, and would be there all next day, coming back on Monday
morning. Soon all was quiet again at Sellanraa; a couple of the older
men stayed behind, and turned in to sleep in the barn.
Isak woke up in the night--Inger was not there. Could she be gone to
see to the cows? He got up and went across to the cowshed. "Inger!" he
called. No answer. The cows turned their heads and looked at him; all
was still. Unthinkingly, from ancient habit, he counted heads, counted
the sheep also; there was one of the ewes had a bad habit of staying
out at night--and out it was now, "Inger!" he called again. Still no
answer. Surely she couldn't have gone with them down to the village?
The summer night was light and warm. Isak stayed a while sitting on
the door-slab, then he went out into the woods to look for the ewe.
And he found Inger. Inger and one other. They sat in the heather, she
twirling his peaked cap on one finger, both talking together--they
were after her again, it seemed.
Isak trundled slowly over towards them. Inger turned and saw him, and
bowed forward where she sat; all the life went out of her, she hung
like a rag.
"H'm. Did you know that ewe's out again?" asked Isak. "But no, you
wouldn't know," said he.
The young telegraph hand picked up his cap and began sidling away.
"I'll be getting along after the others," he said. "Good-night to ye."
No one answered.
"So you're sitting here," said Isak. "Going to stay out a bit, maybe?"
And he turned towards home. Inger rose to her knees, got on her feet
and followed after, and so they went, man in front and wife behind,
tandem-wise. They went home.
Inger must have found time to think. Oh, she found a way. "'Twas the
ewe I was after," said she. "I saw it was out again. Then one of the
men came up and helped me look. We'd not been sitting a moment when
you came. Where are you going now?"
"I? Seems I'd better look for the creature myself."
"No, no, go and lie down. If any one's to go, let me. Go and lie down,
you'll be needing rest. And as for that, the ewe can stay out where
she is--'twon't be the first time."
"And be eaten up by some beast or other," said Isak, and went off.
Inger ran after him. "Don't, don't, it's not worth it," she said. "You
need rest. Let me go."
Isak gave in. But he would not hear of Inger going out to search by
herself. And they went indoors together.
Inger turned at once to look for the children; went into the little
chamber to see to the boys, as if she had been out on some perfectly
natural errand; it almost seemed, indeed, as if she were trying to
make up to Isak--as if she expected him to be more in love with her
than ever that evening--after she had explained it all so neatly.
But no, Isak was not so easy to turn; he would rather have seen her
thoroughly distressed and beside herself with contrition. Ay, that
would have been better. What matter that she had collapsed for
a moment when he came on her in the woods; the little moment of
shame--what was the good of that when it all passed off so soon?
He was far from gentle, too, the next day, and that a Sunday; went off
and looked to the sawmill, looked to the cornmill, looked over the
fields, with the children or by himself. Inger tried once to join him,
but Isak turned away: "I'm going up to the river," he said. "Something
up there...."
There was trouble in his mind, like enough, but he bore it silently,
and made no scene. Oh, there was something great about Isak; as it
might be Israel, promised and ever deceived, but still believing.
By Monday the tension was less marked, and as the days went on, the
impression of that unhappy Saturday evening grew fainter. Time can
mend a deal of things; a spit and a shake, a meal and a good night's
rest, and it will heal the sorriest of wounds. Isak's trouble was not
so bad as it might have been; after all, he was not certain that he
had been wronged, and apart from that, he had other things to think
of; the harvesting was at hand. And last, not least, the telegraph
line was all but finished now; in a little while they would be left in
peace. A broad light road, a king's highway, had been cut through the
dark of the forest; there were poles and wires running right up over
the hills.
Next Saturday paytime, the last there was to be, Isak managed to be
away from home--he wished it so. He went down into the village with
cheese and butter, and came back on Sunday night. The men were all
gone from the barn; nearly all, that is; the last man stumbled out of
the yard with his pack on his shoulder--all but the last, that is.
That it was not altogether safe as yet Isak could see, for there was a
bundle left on the floor of the barn. Where the owner was he could not
say, and did not care to know, but there was a peaked cap on top of
the bundle--an offence to the eye.
Isak heaved the bundle out into the yard, flung the cap out after
it, and closed the door. Then he went into the stable and looked out
through the window. And thought, belike: "Let the bundle stay there,
and let the cap lie there, 'tis all one whose they may be. A bit of
dirt he is, and not worth my while"--so he might have thought. But
when the fellow comes for his bundle, never doubt but that Isak will
be there to take him by the arm and make that arm a trifle blue. And
as for kicking him off the place in a way he'd remember--why, Isak
would give him that too!
Whereupon Isak left his window in the stable and went back to the
cowshed and looked out from there, and could not rest. The bundle was
tied up with string; the poor fellow had no lock to his bag, and the
string had come undone--Isak could not feel sure he had not dealt over
hardly with that bundle. Whatever it might be--he was not sure he had
acted rightly. Only just now he had been in the village, and seen
his new harrow, a brand-new harrow he had ordered--oh, a wonderful
machine, an idol to worship, and it had just come. A thing like that
must carry a blessing with it. And the powers above, that guide the
footsteps of men, might be watching him now at this moment, to see if
he deserved a blessing or not. Isak gave much thought to the
powers above; ay, he had seen God with his own eyes, one night in
harvest-time, in the woods; it was rather a curious sight.
Isak went out into the yard and stood over the bundle. He was still in
doubt; he thrust his hat back and scratched his head, which gave him
a devil-may-care appearance for the moment; something lordly and
careless, as it might have been a Spaniard. But then he must have
thought something like this: "Nay, here am I, and far from being in
any way splendid or excellent; a very dog." And then he tied up the
bundle neatly once more, picked up the cap, and carried all back into
the barn again. And that was done.
As he went out from the barn and over to the mill, away from the yard,
away from everything, there was no Inger to be seen in the window of
the house. Nay, then, let her be where she pleased--no doubt she was
in bed--where else should she be? But in the old days, in those first
innocent years, Inger could never rest, but sat up at nights waiting
for him when he had been down to the village. It was different now,
different in every way. As, for instance, when he had given her that
ring. Could anything have been more utterly a failure? Isak had been
gloriously modest, and far from venturing to call it a gold ring.
"'Tis nothing grand, but you might put it on your finger just to try."
"Is it gold?" she asked.
"Ay, but 'tis none so thick," said he.
And here she was to have answered: "Ay, but indeed it is." But instead
she had said: "No, 'tis not very thick, but still...."
"Nay, 'tis worth no more than a bit of grass, belike," said he at
last, and gave up hope.
But Inger had indeed been glad of the ring, and wore it on her right
hand, looking fine there when she was sewing; now and again she would
let the village girls try it on, and sit with it on their finger for
a bit when they came up to ask of this or that. Foolish Isak--not to
understand that she was proud of it beyond measure!...
It was a profitless business sitting there alone in the mill,
listening to the fall the whole night through. Isak had done no wrong;
he had no cause to hide himself away. He left the mill, went up over
the fields, and home--into the house.
And then in truth it was a shamefaced Isak, shamefaced and glad.
Brede Olsen sat there, his neighbour and no other; sat there drinking
coffee. Ay, Inger was up, the two of them sat there simply and
quietly, talking and drinking coffee.
"Here's Isak," said Inger pleasantly as could be, and got up and
poured out a cup for him. "Evening," said Brede, and was just as
pleasant too.
Isak could see that Brede had been spending the evening with the
telegraph gangs, the last night before they went; he was somewhat the
worse for it, maybe, but friendly and good-humoured enough. He boasted
a little, as was his way: hadn't the time really to bother with this
telegraphic work, the farm took all of a man's day--but he couldn't
very well say no when the engineer was so anxious to have him. And so
it had come about, too, that Brede had had to take over the job of
line inspector. Not for the sake of the money, of course, he could
earn many times that down in the village, but he hadn't liked to
refuse. And they'd given him a neat little machine set up on the wall,
a curious little thing, a sort of telegraph in itself.
Ay, Brede was a wastrel and a boaster, but for all that Isak could
bear him no grudge; he himself was too relieved at finding his
neighbour in the house that evening instead of a stranger. Isak
had the peasant's coolness of mind, his few feelings, stability,
stubbornness; he chatted with Brede and nodded at his shallowness.
"Another cup for Brede," said he. And Inger poured it out.
Inger talked of the engineer; a kindly man he was beyond measure; had
looked at the boys' drawings and writings, and even said something
about taking Eleseus to work under him.
"To work with him?" said Isak.
"Ay, to the town. To do writing and things, be a clerk in the
office--all for he was so pleased with the boy's writing and drawing."
"Ho!" said Isak.
"Well, and what do you say? He was going to have him confirmed too.
That was a great thing, to my mind."
"Ay, a great thing indeed," said Brede. "And when the engineer says
he'll do a thing, he'll do it. I know him, and you can take my word
for that."
"We've no Eleseus to spare on this farm as I know of," said Isak.
There was something like a painful silence after that. Isak was not an
easy man to talk to.
"But when the boy himself wants to get on," said Inger at last, "and
has it in him, too." Silence again.
Then said Brede with a laugh: "I wish he'd ask for one of mine,
anyway. I've enough of them and to spare. But Barbro's the eldest, and
she's a girl."
"And a good girl enough," said Inger, for politeness' sake.
"Ay, I'll not say no," said Brede. "Barbro's well enough, and clever
at this and that--she's going to help at the Lensmand's now."
"Going to the Lensmand's?"
"Well, I had to let her go--his wife was so set on it, I couldn't say
no."
It was well on towards morning now, and Brede rose to go.
"I've a bundle and a cap I left in your barn," he said. "That is if
the men haven't run off with it," he added jestingly.
Chapter XIV
And time went on.
Yes, Eleseus was sent to town after all; Inger managed that. He was
there for a year, then he was confirmed, and after that had a regular
place in the engineer's office, and grew more and more clever at
writing and things. To see the letters he sent home--sometimes with
red and black ink, like pictures almost. And the talk of them, the
words he used. Now and again he asked for money, something towards his
expenses. A watch and chain, for instance, he must have, so as not to
oversleep himself in the morning and be late at the office; money for
a pipe and tobacco also, such as the other young clerks in the town
always had. And for something he called pocket-money, and something he
called evening classes, where he learned drawing and gymnastics and
other matters proper to his rank and position. Altogether, it was no
light matter to keep Eleseus going in a berth in town.
"Pocket-money?" said Isak. "Is that money to keep in your pocket,
maybe?"
"That must be it, no doubt," said Inger. "So as not to be altogether
without. And it's not much; only a _Daler_ now and then."
"Ay, that's just it," said Isak harshly. "A _Daler_ now and a _Daler_
then...." But his harshness was all because he missed Eleseus himself,
and wanted him home. "It makes too many _Dalers_ in the long run,"
said he. "I can't keep, on like this; you must write and tell him he
can have no more."
"Ho, very well then!" said Inger in an offended tone.
"There's Sivert--what does he get by way of pocket-money?"
Inger answered: "You've never been in a town, and so you don't know
these things. Sivert's no need of pocket-money. And talking of money,
Sivert ought to be none so badly off when his Uncle Sivert dies."
"You don't know."
"Ay, but I do know."
And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something
about making little Sivert his heir. Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus
and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he
nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his
namesake--named after Uncle Sivert--should not come to want. But what
was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess? Had he really,
besides his neglected farm and his fishery, the heap of money and
means folk generally thought? No one could say for certain. And apart
from that, Uncle Sivert himself was an obstinate man; he insisted that
little Sivert should come to stay with him. It was a point of honour
with him, this last; he should take little Sivert and look after him,
as the engineer had done with Eleseus.
But how could it be done? Send little Sivert away from home?--it was
out of the question. He was all the help left to Isak now. Moreover,
the lad himself had no great wish to go and stay with his famous
uncle; he had tried it once, but had come home again. He was
confirmed, shot up in stature, and grew; the down showed on his cheek,
his hands were big, a pair of willing slaves. And he worked like a
man.
Isak could hardly have managed to get the new barn built at all
without Sivert's help--but there it stood now, with bridge-way and
air-holes and all, as big as they had at the parsonage itself. True,
it was only a half-timbered building covered with boarding, but extra
stout built, with iron clinches at the corners, and covered with
one-inch plank from Isak's own sawmill. And Sivert had hammered in
more than one nail at the work, and lifted the heavy beams for the
framework till he was near fainting. Sivert got on well with his
father, and worked steadily at his side; he was made of the same
stuff. And yet he was not above such simple ways as going up the
hillside for tansy to rub with so as to smell nice in church. 'Twas
Leopoldine was the one for getting fancies in her head, which was
natural enough, she being a girl, and the only daughter. That summer,
if you please, she had discovered that she could not eat her porridge
at supper without treacle--simply couldn't. And she was no great use
at any kind of work either.
Inger had not yet given up her idea of keeping a servant; she
brought up the question every spring, and every time Isak opposed it
stubbornly. All the cutting out and sewing and fine weaving she could
do, not to speak of making embroidered slippers, if she had but the
time to herself! And of late, Isak had been something less firm in his
refusal, though he grumbled still. Ho, the first time! He had made a
whole long speech about it; not as a matter of right and reason, nor
yet from pride, but, alas! from weakness, from anger at the idea. But
now, he seemed to be giving way, as if ashamed.
"If ever I'm to have help in the house, now's the time," said Inger.
"A few years more, and Leopoldine'll be big enough to do this and
that."
"Help?" said Isak. "What do you want help with, anyway?"
"Want with it, indeed? Haven't you help yourself? Haven't you Sivert
all the time?"
What could Isak say to a meaningless argument like that? He answered:
"Ay, well; when you get a girl up here, I doubt you'll be able to
plough and sow and reap and manage all by yourselves. And then Sivert
and I can go our ways."
"That's as may be," said Inger. "But I'll just say this: that I could
get Barbro to come now; she's written home about it."
"What Barbro?" said Isak. "Is it that Brede's girl you mean?"
"Yes. She's in Bergen now."
"I'll not have that Brede's girl Barbro up here," said he. "Whoever
you get, I'll have none of her."
That was better than nothing; Isak refused to have Barbro; he no
longer said they would have no servant at all.
Barbro from Breidablik was not the sort of girl Isak approved of;
she was shallow and unsettled like her father--maybe like her mother
too--a careless creature, no steady character at all. She had not
stayed long at the Lensmand's; only a year. After her confirmation,
she went to help at the storekeeper's, and was there another year.
Here she turned pious and got religion, and when the Salvation Army
came to the village she joined it, and went about with a red band on
her sleeve and carried a guitar. She went to Bergen in that costume,
on the storekeeper's boat--that was last year. And she had just sent
home a photograph of herself to her people at Breidablik. Isak had
seen it; a strange young lady with her hair curled up and a long
watch-chain hanging down over her breast. Her parents were proud of
little Barbro, and showed the photograph about to all who came; 'twas
grand to see how she had learned town ways and got on in the world. As
for the red band and the guitar, she had given them up, it seemed.
"I took the picture along and showed it to the Lensmand's lady," said
Brede. "She didn't know her again."
"Is she going to stay in Bergen?" said Isak suspiciously.
"Why, unless she goes on to Christiania, perhaps," said Brede. "What's
there for her to do here? She's got a new place now, as housekeeper,
for two young clerks. They've no wives nor womenfolk of their own, and
they pay her well."