Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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Sivert, all astonishment, said "Yes."
"Dig down obliquely from here, see?--on a slope. The ground's level;
have to make some sort of a channel. You've a sawmill there--I suppose
you can find some long planks from somewhere? Good! Run and fetch a
pick and spade, and start here; I'll go back and mark out a proper
line."
He ran up to the house again, his boots squelching, for they were wet
through. He set Isak to work making pipes, a whole lot of them, to be
laid down where the ground could not well be cut with ditches. Isak
tried to object that the water might not get so far; the dry ground
would soak it up before it reached the parched fields. Geissler
explained that it would take some time; the earth must drink a little
first, but then gradually the water would go on--"field and meadow
green by this time tomorrow."
"Ho!" said Isak, and fell to boxing up long planks as hard as he
could.
Off hurries Geissler to Sivert once more: "That's right--keep at
it--didn't I say he was a sturdy sort? Follow these stakes, you
understand, where I've marked out. If you come up against heavy
boulders, or rock, then turn aside and go round, but keep the
level--the same depth; you see what I mean?"
Then back to Isak again: "That's one finished--good! But we shall want
more--half a dozen, perhaps. Keep at it, Isak; you see, we'll have it
all green by tomorrow--we've saved your crops!" And Geissler sat down
on the ground, slapped his knees with both hands and was delighted,
chattered away, thought in flashes of lightning. "Any pitch, any
oakum, or anything about the place? That's splendid--got everything.
These things'll leak at the edges you see, to begin with, but the
wood'll swell after a while, and they'll be as taut as a bottle. Oakum
and pitch--fancy you having it too!--What? Built a boat, you say?
Where is the boat? Up in the lake? Good! I must have a look at that
too."
Oh, Geissler was all promises. Light come, light go--and he seemed
more giving to fussing about than before. He worked at things by
fits and starts, but at a furious rate when he did work. There was
a certain superiority about him after all. True, he exaggerated a
bit--it was impossible, of course, to get all green by this time
tomorrow, as he had said, but for all that, Geissler was a sharp
fellow, quick to see and take a decision; ay, a strange man was
Geissler. And it was he and no other that saved the crops that year at
Sellanraa.
"How many have you got done? Not enough. The more wood you can lay,
the quicker it'll flow. Make them twenty feet long or twenty-five,
if you can. Any planks that length on the place? Good; fetch them
along--you'll find it'll pay you at harvest-time!"
Restless again--up and off to Sivert once more. "That's the way,
Sivert man; getting on finely. Your father's turning out culverts like
a poet, there'll be more than I ever thought. Run across and get some
now, and we'll make a start."
All that afternoon was one hurrying spell; Sivert had never seen such
a furious piece of work; he was not accustomed to see things done at
that pace. They hardly gave themselves time to eat. But the water was
flowing already! Here and there they had to dig deeper, a culvert had
to be raised or lowered, but it flowed. The three men were at it till
late that night, touching up their work, and keenly on the look out
for any fault. But when the water began to trickle out over the driest
spots, there was joy and delight at Sellanraa. "I forgot to bring my
watch," said Geissler. "What's the time, I wonder? Ay, she'll be green
by this time tomorrow!" said he.
Sivert got up in the middle of the night to see how things were going,
and found his father out already on the same errand. Oh, but it was a
thrilling time--a day of great events!
But next day, Geissler stayed in bed till nearly noon, worn out now
that the fit had passed. He did not trouble to go up and look at the
boat on the lake; and but for what he had said the day before, he
would never have bothered to look at the sawmill. Even the irrigation
works interested him less than at first--and when he saw that neither
field nor meadow had turned green in the course of the night, he lost
heart, never thinking of how the water flowed, and flowed all the
time, and spread out farther and farther over the ground. He backed
down a little, and said now: "It may take time--you won't see any
change perhaps before tomorrow again. But it'll be all right, never
fear."
Later in the day Brede Olsen came lounging in; he had brought some
samples of rock he wanted Geissler to see. "And something out of the
common, this time, to my mind," said Brede.
Geissler would not look at the things. "That the way you manage a
farm," he asked scornfully, "pottering about up in the hills looking
for a fortune?"
Brede apparently did not fancy being taken to task now by his former
chief; he answered sharply, without any form of respect, treating the
ex-Lensmand as an equal: "If you think I care what you say ..."
"You've no more sense than you had before," said Geissler. "Fooling
away your time."
"What about yourself?" said Brede. "What about you, I'd like to know?
You've got a mine of your own up here, and what have you done with it?
Huh! Lies there doing nothing. Ay, you're the sort to have a mine,
aren't you? He he!"
"Get out of this," said Geissler. And Brede did not stay long, but
shouldered his load of samples and went down to his own _menage_,
without saying good-bye.
Geissler sat down and began to look over some papers with a thoughtful
air. He seemed to have caught a touch of the fever himself, and wanted
now to look over that business of the copper mine, the contract, the
analyses. It was fine ore, almost pure copper; he must do something
with it, and not let everything slide.
"What I really came up for was to get the whole thing settled," he
said to Isak. "I've been thinking of making a start here, and that
very soon. Get a lot of men to work, and run the thing properly. What
do you think?"
Isak felt sorry for the man, and would not say anything against it.
"It's a matter that concerns you as well, you know. There'll be a lot
of bother, of course; a lot of men about the place, and a bit rowdy at
times, perhaps. And blasting up in the hills--I don't know how you'll
like that. On the other hand, there'll be more life in the district
where we begin, and you'll have a good market close at hand for farm
produce and that sort of thing. Fix your own price, too."
"Ay," said Isak.
"Besides your share in the mine--you'll get a high percentage of
earnings, you know. Big money, Isak."
Said Isak: "You've paid me fairly already, and more than enough...."
Next morning Geissler left, hurrying off eastward, over toward Sweden.
"No, thanks," he said shortly, when Isak offered to go with him. It
was almost painful to see him start off in that poor fashion, on foot
and all alone. Inger had put up a fine parcel of food for him to take,
all as nice as she could make it, and made some wafers specially to
put in. Even that was not enough; she would have given him a can of
cream and a whole lot of eggs, but he wouldn't carry them, and Inger
was disappointed.
Geissler himself must have found it hard to leave Sellanraa without
paying as he generally did for his keep; so he pretended that he had
paid; made as if he had laid down a big note in payment, and said to
little Leopoldine: "Here, child, here's something for you as well."
And with that he gave her the silver box, his tobacco box. "You can
rinse it out and use it to keep pins and things in," he said. "It's
not the sort of thing for a present really. If I were at home I could
have found her something else; I've a heap of things...."
But Geissler's waterwork remained after Geissler had gone; there it
was, working wonders day and night, week after week; the fields turned
green, the potatoes ceased to flower, the corn shot up....
The settlers from the holdings farther down began to come up, all
anxious to see the marvel for themselves. Axel Stroem,--the neighbour
from Maaneland, the man who had no wife, and no woman to help him, but
managed for himself,--he came too. He was in a good humour that day;
he told them how he had just got a promise of a girl to help through
the summer--and that was a weight off his mind. He did not say who the
girl was, and Isak did not ask, but it was Brede's girl Barbro who was
to come. It would cost the price of a telegram to Bergen to fetch her;
but Axel paid the money, though he was not one of your extravagant
sort, but rather something of a miser.
It was the waterwork business that had enticed him up today; he had
looked it over from one end to the other, and was highly interested.
There was no big river on his land, but he had a bit of a stream; he
had no planks, either, to make culverts with, but he would dig his
channels in the earth; it could be done. Up to now, things were not
absolutely at their worst on his land, which lay lower down the
slopes; but if the drought continued, he, too, would have to irrigate.
When he had seen what he wanted, he took his leave and went back at
once. No, he would not come in, hadn't the time; he was going to start
ditching that same evening. And off he went.
This was something different from Brede's way.
Oh, Brede, he could run about the moorland farms now telling news:
miraculous waterworks at Sellanraa! "It doesn't pay to work your soil
overmuch," he had said. "Look at Isak up there; he's dug and dug about
so long that at last he's had to water the whole ground."
Isak was patient, but he wished many a time that he could get rid of
the fellow, hanging about Sellanraa with his boastful ways. Brede put
it all down to the telegraph; as long as he was a public official, it
was his duty to keep the line in order. But the telegraph company had
already had occasion several times to reprimand him for neglect, and
had again offered the post to Isak. No, it was not the telegraph that
was in Brede's mind all the time, but the ore up in the hills; it was
his one idea now, a mania.
He took to dropping in often now at Sellanraa, confident that he had
found the treasure; he would nod his head and say: "I can't tell
you all about it yet, but I don't mind saying I've struck something
remarkable this time." Wasting hours and energy all for nothing. And
when he came back in the evening to his little house, he would fling
down a little sack of samples on the floor, and puff and blow after
his day's work, as if no man could have toiled harder for his daily
bread. He grew a few potatoes on sour, peaty soil, and cut the tufts
of grass that grew by themselves on the ground about the house--that
was Brede's farming. He was never made for a farmer, and there could
be but one end to it all. His turf roof was falling to pieces already,
and the steps to the kitchen were rotten with damp; a grindstone lay
on the ground, and the cart was still left uncovered in the open.
Brede was fortunate perhaps in that such little matters never troubled
him. When the children rolled his grindstone about for play, he was
kind and indulgent, and would even help them to roll it himself. An
easy-going, idle nature, never serious, but also never down-hearted, a
weak, irresponsible character; but he managed to find food, such as it
was, and kept himself and his alive from day to day; managed to keep
them somehow. But it was not to be expected that the storekeeper could
go on feeding Brede and his family for ever; he had said so more than
once to Brede himself, and he said it now in earnest. Brede admitted
he was right, and promised to turn over a new leaf--he would sell his
place, and very likely make a good thing out of it--and pay what he
owed at the store!
Oh, but Brede would sell out anyhow, even at a loss; what was the good
of a farm for him? He was home-sick for the village again, the easy
gossiping life there, and the little shop--it suited him better than
settling down here to work, and trying to forget the world outside.
Could he ever forget the Christmas trees and parties, or the
national feastings on Constitution Day, or the bazaars held in the
meeting-rooms? He loved to talk with his kind, to exchange news and
views, but who was there to talk with here? Inger up at Sellanraa
had seemed to be one of his sort for a while, but then she had
changed--there was no getting a word out of her now. And besides, she
had been in prison; and for a man in his position--no, it would never
do.
No, he had made a mistake in ever leaving the village; it was throwing
himself away. He noted with envy that the Lensmand had got another
assistant, and the doctor another man to drive for him; he had run
away from the people who needed him, and now that he was no longer
there, they managed without him. But the men who had taken his
place--they were no earthly good, of course. Properly speaking, he,
Brede, ought to be fetched back to the village in triumph!
Then there was Barbro--why had he backed up the idea of getting her to
go as help to Sellanraa? Well, that was after talking over things with
his wife. If all went well, it might mean a good future for the girl,
perhaps a future of a sort for all of them. All very well to be
housekeeper for two young clerks in Bergen, but who could say what she
would get out of that in the long run? Barbro was a pretty girl, and
liked to look well; there might be a better chance for her here, after
all. For there were two sons at Sellanraa.
But when Brede saw that this plan would never come to anything, he
hit on another. After all, there was no great catch in marrying into
Inger's lot--Inger who had been in prison. And there were other lads
to be thought of besides those two Sellanraa boys--there was Axel
Stroem, for instance. He had a farm and a hut of his own, he was a man
who scraped and saved and little by little managed to get hold of a
bit of live stock and such-like, but with no wife, and no woman to
help him. "Well, I don't mind telling you, if you take Barbro, she'll
be all the help you'll need," said Brede to him. "Look, here's her
picture; you can see."
And after a week or so, came Barbro. Axel was in the midst of his
haymaking, and had to do his mowing by day and haymaking by night, and
all by himself--and then came Barbro! It was a godsend. Barbro soon
showed she was not afraid of work; she washed clothes and cleaned
things, cooked and milked and helped in the hayfield--helped to carry
in the hay, she did. Axel determined to give her good wages, and not
lose by it.
She was not merely a photograph of a fine lady here. Barbro was
straight and thin, spoke somewhat hoarsely, showed sense and
experience in various ways--she was not a child. Axel wondered what
made her so thin and haggard in the face. "I'd know you by your
looks," he said; "but you're not like the photograph."
"That's only the journey," she said, "and living in town air all that
time."
And indeed, she very soon grew plump and well-looking again. "Take my
word for it," said Barbro, "it pulls you down a bit, a journey
like that, and living in town like that." She hinted also at the
temptations of life in Bergen--one had to be careful there. But
while they sat talking, she begged him to take in a paper--a Bergen
newspaper--so that she could read a bit and see the news of the world.
She had got accustomed to reading, and theatres and music, and it was
so dull in a place like this.
Axel was pleased with the results of his summer help, and took in a
paper. He also bore with the frequent visits of the Brede family, who
were constantly dropping in at his place and eating and drinking. He
was anxious to show that he appreciated this servant-girl of his.
And what could be nicer and homelier than when Barbro sat there of a
Sunday evening twanging the strings of a guitar and singing a little
with her hoarse voice? Axel, was touched by it all, by the pretty,
strange songs, by the mere fact that some one really sat there singing
on his poor half-baked farm.
True, in the course of the summer he learned to know other sides of
Barbro's character, but on the whole, he was content. She had her
fancies, and could answer hastily at times; was somewhat over-quick to
answer back. That Saturday evening, for instance, when Axel himself
had to go down to the village to get some things, it was wrong of
Barbro to run away from the hut and the animals and leave the place to
itself. They had a few words over that. And where had she been? Only
to her home, to Breidablik, but still ... When Axel came back to the
hut that night, Barbro was not there; he looked to the animals, got
himself something to eat, and turned in. Towards morning Barbro came.
"I only wanted to see what it was like to step on a wooden floor
again," she said, somewhat scornfully. And Axel could find nothing
much to say to that, seeing that he had as yet but a turf hut with a
floor of beaten earth. He did say, however, that if it came to that,
he could get a few planks himself, and no doubt but he'd have a house
with a wooden floor himself in time! Barbro seemed penitent at that;
she was not altogether unkindly. And for all it was Sunday, she went
off at once to the woods and gathered fresh juniper twigs to spread on
the earthen floor.
And then, seeing she was so fine-hearted and behaved so splendidly,
what could Axel do but bring out the kerchief he had bought for her
the evening before, though he had really thought of keeping it by a
while, and getting something respectable out of her in return. And
there! she was pleased with it, and tried it on at once--ay, she
turned to him and asked if she didn't look nice in it. And yes, indeed
she did; and she might put on his old fur cap if she liked, and she'd
look nice in that! Barbro laughed at this and tried to say something
really nice in return; she said: "I'd far rather go to church and
communion in this kerchief than wear a hat. In Bergen, of course, we
always wore hats--all except common servant-girls from the country."
Friends again, as nice as could be.
And when Axel brought out the newspaper he had fetched from the post
office, Barbro sat down to read news of the world: of a burglary at
a jeweller's shop in one Bergen street, and a quarrel between two
gipsies in another; of a horrible find in the harbour--the dead body
of a newborn child sewed up in an old shirt with the sleeves cut off.
"I wonder who can have done it?" said Barbro. And she read the list of
marketing prices too, as she always did.
So the summer passed.
Chapter XVI
Great changes at Sellanraa.
There was no knowing the place again, after what it had been at first:
sawmill, cornmill, buildings of all sorts and kinds--the wilderness
was peopled country now. And there was more to come. But Inger was
perhaps the strangest of all; so altered she was, and good and clever
again.
The great event of last year, when things had come to a head, was
hardly enough in itself, perhaps, to change her careless ways; there
was backsliding now and then, as when she found herself beginning to
talk of the "Institute" again, and the cathedral at Trondhjem. Oh,
innocent things enough; and she took off her ring, and let down that
bold skirt of hers some inches. She was grown thoughtful, there was
more quiet about the place, and visits were less frequent; the girls
and women from the village came but rarely now, for Inger no longer
cared to see them. No one can live in the depth of the wilds and have
time for such foolishness. Happiness and nonsense are two different
things.
In the wilds, each season has its wonders, but always, unchangingly,
there is that immense heavy sound of heaven and earth, the sense
of being surrounded on all sides, the darkness of the forest, the
kindliness of the trees. All is heavy and soft, no thought is
impossible there. North of Sellanraa there was a little tarn, a mere
puddle, no bigger than an aquarium. There lived some tiny baby fish
that never grew bigger, lived and died there and were no use at
all--_Herregud_! no use on earth. One evening Inger stood there
listening for the cowbells; all was dead about her, she heard nothing,
and then came a song from the tarn. A little, little song, hardly
there at all, almost lost. It was the tiny fishes' song.
* * * * *
They had this good fortune at Sellanraa, that every spring and autumn
they could see the grey geese sailing in fleets above that wilderness,
and hear their chatter up in the air--delirious talk it was. And as if
the world stood still for a moment, till the train of them had passed.
And the human souls beneath, did they not feel a weakness gliding
through them now? They went to their work again, but drawing breath
first; something had spoken to them, something from beyond.
Great marvels were about them at all times; in the winter were the
stars; in winter often, too, the northern lights, a firmament of
wings, a conflagration in the mansions of God. Now and then, not
often; not commonly, but now and then, they heard the thunder. It came
mostly in the autumn, and a dark and solemn thing it was for man and
beast; the animals grazing near home would bunch together and stand
waiting. Bowing their heads--what for? Waiting for the end? And man,
what of man standing in the wilds with bowed head, waiting, when the
thunder came? Waiting for what?
The spring--ay, with its haste and joy and madcap delight; but the
autumn! It called up a fear of darkness, drove one to an evening
prayer; there were visions about, and warnings on the air. Folks might
go out one day in autumn seeking for something--the man for a piece
of timber to his work, the woman after cattle that ran wild now after
mushroom growths: they would come home with many secrets in their
mind. Did they tread unexpectedly upon an ant, crushing its hind part
fast to the path, so the fore part could not free itself again? Or
step too near a white grouse nest, putting up a fluttering hissing
mother to dash against them? Even the big cow-mushrooms are not
altogether meaningless; not a mere white emptiness in the eye. The big
mushroom does not flower, it does not move, but there is something
overturning in the look of it; it is a monster, a thing like a lung
standing there alive and naked--a lung without a body.
Inger grew despondent at last, the wilds oppressed her, she turned
religious. How could she help it? No one can help it in the wilds;
life there is not all earthly toil and worldliness; there is piety and
the fear of death and rich superstition. Inger, maybe, felt that she
had more reason than others to fear the judgment of Heaven, and it
would not pass her by; she knew how God walked about in the evening
time looking out over all His wilderness with fabulous eyes; ay, He
would find her. There was not so much in her daily life wherein she
could improve; true, she might bury her gold ring deep in the bottom
of a clothes chest, and she could write to Eleseus and tell him to
be converted too; after that, there was nothing more she could find
beyond doing her work well and not sparing herself. Ay, one thing
more; she could dress in humble things, only fastening a blue ribbon
at her neck of Sundays. False, unnecessary poverty--but it was the
expression of a kind of philosophy, self-humiliation, stoicism. The
blue ribbon was not new; it had been cut from a cap little Leopoldine
had grown out of; it was faded here and there, and, to tell the truth,
a little dirty--Inger wore it now as a piece of modest finery on holy
days. Ay, it may be that she went beyond reason, feigning to be poor,
striving falsely to imitate the wretched who live in hovels; but even
so--would her desert have been greater if that sorry finery had been
her best? Leave her in peace; she has a right to peace!
She overdid things finely, and worked harder than she ought. There
were two men on the place, but Inger took the chance when both were
away at once, and set to work herself sawing wood; and where was
the good of torturing and mortifying the flesh that way? She was so
insignificant a creature, so little worth, her powers of so common
a sort; her death or life would not be noticed in the land, in the
State, only here in the wilds. Here, she was almost great--at any
rate, the greatest; and she may well have thought herself worth all
the chastening she ordered and endured. Her husband said:
"Sivert and I, we've been talking about this; we're not going to have
you sawing wood, and wearing yourself out."
"I do it for conscience' sake," she answered.
Conscience! The word made Isak thoughtful once more. He was getting
on in years, slow to think, but weighty when he did come to anything.
Conscience must be something pretty strong if it could turn Inger all
upside down like that. And however it might be, Inger's conversion
made a change in him also; he caught it from her, grew tame, and given
to pondering. Life was all heavy-like and stern that winter; he sought
for loneliness, for a hiding-place. To save his own trees he had
bought up a piece of the State forest near by, with some good timber,
over toward the Swedish side, and he did the felling now alone,
refusing all help. Sivert was ordered to stay at home and see that his
mother did not work too much.