Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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And so, in those short winter days, Isak went out to his work in the
dark, and came home in the dark; it was not always there was a moon,
or any stars, and at times his own track of the morning would be
covered with snow by nightfall, so he was hard put to it to find his
way. And one evening something happened.
He was nearing home; in the fine moonlight he could see Sellanraa
there on the hillside, neat and clear of the forest, but small,
undergroundish to look at, by reason of the snow banked high against
the walls. He had more timber now, and it was to be a grand surprise
for Inger and the children when they heard what use he would make of
it--the wonderful building he had in mind. He sat down in the snow to
rest a bit, not to seem worn out when he came home.
All is quiet around him, and God's blessing on this quiet and
thoughtfulness, for it is nothing but good! Isak is a man at work on
a clearing in the forest, and he looks out over the ground, reckoning
what is to be cleared next turn; heaving aside great stones in his
mind--Isak had a real talent for that work. There, he knows now, is a
deep, bare patch on his ground; it is full of ore; there is always a
metallic film over every puddle of water there--and now he will dig
it out. He marks out squares with his eye, making his plans for all,
speculating over all; they are to be made green and fruitful. Oh, but
a piece of tilled soil was a great and good thing; it was like right
and order to his mind, and a delight beyond....
He got up, and felt suddenly confused. H'm. What had happened now?
Nothing, only that he had been sitting down a bit. Now there is
something standing there before him, a Being, a spirit; grey silk--no,
it was nothing. He felt strange--took one short, uncertain step
forward, and walked straight into a look, a great look, a pair of
eyes. At the same moment the aspens close by began rustling. Now any
one knows that an aspen can have a horrible eerie way of rustling at
times; anyhow, Isak had never before heard such an utterly horrible
rustling as this, and he shuddered. Also he put out one hand in front
of him, and it was perhaps the most helpless movement that hand had
ever made.
But what was this thing before him? Was it ghost-work or reality? Isak
would all his days have been ready to swear that this was a higher
power, and once indeed he had seen it, but the thing he saw now
did not look like God. Possibly the Holy Ghost? If so, what was it
standing there for anyway, in the midst of nowhere; two eyes, a look,
and nothing more? If it had come to him, to fetch away his soul, why,
so it would have to be; it would happen one day, after all, and then
he would go to heaven and be among the blest.
Isak was eager to see what would come next; he was shivering still; a
coldness seemed to radiate from the figure before him--it must be the
Evil One! And here Isak was no longer sure of his ground, so to speak.
It might be the Evil One--but what did he want here? What had he,
Isak, been doing? Nothing but sitting still and tilling the ground, as
it were, in his thoughts--there could surely be no harm in that? There
was no other guilt he could call to mind just then; he was only coming
back from his work in the forest, a tired and hungry woodman, going
home to Sellanraa--he means no harm....
He took a step forward again, but it was only a little one, and, to
tell the truth, he stepped back again immediately. The vision would
not give way. Isak knitted his brows, as if beginning to suspect
something. If it were the Evil One, why, let it be; the Evil One was
not all-powerful--there was Luther, for instance, who had nearly
killed the fiend himself, not to speak of many who had put him to
flight by the sign of the cross and Jesu name. Not that Isak meant
to defy the peril before him; it was not in his mind to sit down and
laugh in its face, but he certainly gave up his first idea of dying
and the next world. He took two steps forward straight at the vision,
crossed himself, and cried out: "In Jesu name!"
H'm. At the sound of his own voice he came, as it were, to himself
again, and saw Sellanraa over on the hillside once more. The two eyes
in the air had gone.
He lost no time in getting home, and took no steps to challenge the
spectre further. But when he found himself once more safely on his own
door-slab, he cleared his throat with a sense of power and security;
he walked into the house with lofty mien, like a man--ay, a man of the
world.
Inger started at the sight of him, and asked what made him so pale.
And at that he did not deny having met the Evil One himself.
"Where?" she asked.
"Over there. Right up towards our place."
Inger evinced no jealousy on her part. She did not praise him for it,
true, but there was nothing in her manner suggestive of a hard word
or a contemptuous kick. Inger herself, you see, had grown somewhat
lighter of heart and kindlier of late, whatever the cause; and now she
merely asked:
"The Evil One himself?"
Isak nodded: as far as he could see it was himself and no other.
"And how did you get rid of him?"
"I went for him in Jesu name," said Isak.
Inger wagged her head, altogether overwhelmed, and it was some time
before she could get his supper on the table.
"Anyhow," said she at last, "we'll have no more of you going out alone
in the woods by yourself."
She was anxious about him--and it did him good to know it. He made out
to be as bold as ever, and altogether careless whether he went alone
or in company; but this was only to quiet Inger's mind, not to
frighten her more than necessary with the awful thing that had
happened to himself. It was his place to protect her and them all; he
was the Man, the Leader.
But Inger saw through it also, and said: "Oh, I know you don't want to
frighten me. But you must take Sivert with you all the same."
Isak only sniffed.
"You might be taken poorly of a sudden, taken ill out in the
woods--you've not been over well lately."
Isak sniffed again. Ill? Tired, perhaps, and worn out a bit, but ill?
No need for Inger to start worrying and making a fool of him; he was
sound and well enough; ate, slept, and worked; his health was simply
terrific, it was incurable! Once, felling a tree, the thing had come
down on top of him, and broken his ear; but he made light of it. He
set the ear in place again, and kept it there by wearing his cap
drawn over it night and day, and it grew together again that way. For
internal complaints, he dosed himself with _treak_ boiled in milk to
make him sweat--liquorice it was, bought at the store, an old and
tried remedy, the _Teriak_ of the ancients. If he chanced to cut his
hand, he treated the wound with an ever-present fluid containing
salts, and it healed up in a few days. No doctor was ever Sent for to
Sellanraa.
No, Isak was not ill. A meeting with the Evil One might happen even
to the healthiest man. And he felt none the worse for his adventure
afterwards; on the contrary, it seemed to have strengthened him. And
as the winter drew on, and it was not such a dreadful time to wait
till the spring, he, the Man and the Leader, began to feel himself
almost a hero: he understood these things; only trust to him and
all would be well. In case of need, he could exorcise the Evil One
himself!
Altogether, the days were longer and lighter now; Easter was past,
Isak had hauled up all his timber, everything looked bright, human
beings could breathe again after another winter gone.
Inger was again the first to brighten up; she had been more cheerful
now for a long time. What could it be? Ho, 'twas for a very simple
reason; Inger was heavy again; expecting a child again. Everything
worked out easily in her life, no hitch anywhere. But what a mercy,
after the way she had sinned! it was more than she had any right
to expect. Ay, she was fortunate, fortunate. Isak himself actually
noticed something one day, and asked her straight out: "Looks to me as
if you're on the way again; what do you say yourself?"
"Ay, Lord be thanked, 'tis surely so," she answered.
They were both equally astonished. Not that Inger was past the age,
of course; to Isak's mind, she was not too old in any way. But still,
another child ... well, well.... And little Leopoldine going to school
several times a year down at Breidablik--that left them with no little
ones about the place now--besides which, Leopoldine herself was grown
up now.
Some days passed, and Isak resolutely threw away a whole
week-end--from Saturday evening till Monday morning--on a trip down to
the village. He would not say what he was going for when he set out,
but on his return, he brought with him a girl. "This is Jensine," he
said. "Come to help."
"'Tis all your nonsense," said Inger, "I've no need of help at all."
Isak answered that she did need a help--just now.
Need or not--it was a kind and generous thought of his; Inger was
abashed and grateful. The new girl was a daughter of the blacksmith,
and she was to stay with them for the present; through the summer,
anyhow, and then they would see.
"And I've sent a telegram," said Isak, "after him Eleseus."
This fairly startled Inger; startled the mother. A telegram? Did he
mean to upset her completely with his thoughtfulness? It had been
her great sorrow of late that boy Eleseus was away in town--in the
evil-minded town; she had written to him about God, and likewise
explained to him how his father here was beginning to sink under
the work, and the place getting bigger all the time; little Sivert
couldn't manage it all by himself, and besides, he was to have money
after his uncle one day--all this she had written, and sent him the
money for his journey once for all. But Eleseus was a man-about-town
now, and had no sort of longing for a peasant's life; he answered
something about what was he to do anyway if he did come home? Work on
a farm and throw away all the knowledge and learning he had gained?
"In point of fact,"--that was how he put it,--"I've no desire to come
back now. And if you could send me some stuff for underclothes, it
would save me getting the things on credit." So he wrote. And yes, his
mother sent him stuff--sent him remarkable quantities of stuff from
time to time for underclothes. But when she was converted, and got
religion, the scales fell from her eyes, and she understood that
Eleseus was selling the stuff and spending the money on other things.
His father saw it too. He never spoke of it; he knew that Eleseus was
his mother's darling, and how she cried over him and shook her head;
but one piece of finely woven stuff went after another the same
way, and he knew it was more than any living man could use for
underclothes. Altogether, it came to this: Isak must be Man and Leader
again--head of the house, and step in and interfere. It had cost a
terrible lot of money, to be sure, getting the storekeeper to send a
telegram; but in the first place, a telegram could not fail to make an
impression on the boy, and also--it was something unusually fine
for Isak himself to come home and tell Inger. He carried the
servant-girl's box on his back as he strode home; but for all that, he
was proud and full of weighty secrets as he had been the day he came
home with that gold ring....
It was a grand time after that. For a long while, Inger could not do
enough in the way of showing her husband how good and useful she could
be. She would say to him now, as in the old days: "You're working
yourself to death!" Or again: "'Tis more than any man can stand."
Or again: "Now, you're not to work any more; come in and have
dinner--I've made some wafers for you!" And to please him, she said:
"I should just like to know, now, what you've got in your mind with
all that wood, and what you're going to build, now, next?"
"Why, I can't say as yet," said Isak, making a mystery of it.
Ay, just as in the old days. And after the child was born--and it
was a little girl--a great big girl, fine-looking and sturdy and
sound--after that, Isak must have been a stone and a miserable
creature if he had not thanked God. But what was he going to build? It
would be more news for Oline to go gadding about with--a new building
again at Sellanraa. A new wing of the house--a new house it was to be.
And there were so many now at Sellanraa--they had a servant-girl; and
Eleseus, he was coming home; and a brand-new little girl-child of
their own, just come--the old house would be just an extra room now,
nothing more.
And, of course, he had to tell Inger about it one day; she was so
curious to know, and though maybe Inger knew it all beforehand,
from Sivert,--they two were often whispering together,--she was all
surprised as any one could be, and let her arms fall, and said: "'Tis
all your nonsense--you don't mean it?"
And Isak, brimming over with greatness inside, he answered her: "Why,
with you bringing I don't know how many more children on the place,
'tis the least I can do, it seems."
The two menfolk were out now every day getting stone for the walls of
the new house. They worked their utmost together each in his own way:
the one young, and with his young body firmly set, quick to see his
way, to mark out the stones that would suit; the other ageing--tough,
with long arms, and a mighty weight to bear down on a crowbar. When
they had managed some specially difficult feat, they would hold a
breathing-space, and talk together in a curious, reserved fashion of
their own.
"Brede, he talks of selling out," said the father.
"Ay," said the son. "Wonder what he'll be asking for the place?"
"Ay, I wonder."
"You've not heard anything?"
"No."
"I've heard two hundred."
The father thought for a while, and said: "What d'you think, 'll this
be a good stone?"
"All depends if we can get this shell off him," said Sivert, and was
on his feet in a moment, giving the setting-hammer to his father, and
taking the sledge himself. He grew red and hot, stood up to his full
height and let the sledge-hammer fall; rose again and let it fall;
twenty strokes alike--twenty thunder-strokes. He spared neither tool
nor strength; it was heavy work; his shirt rucked up from his trousers
at the waist, leaving him bare in front; he lifted on his toes each
time to give the sledge a better swing. Twenty strokes.
"Now! Let's look!" cried his father.
The son stops, and asks: "Marked him any?"
And they lay down together to look at the stone; look at the beast,
the devil of a thing; no, not marked any as yet.
"I've a mind to try with the sledge alone," said the father, and stood
up. Still harder work this, sheer force alone, the hammer grew hot,
the steel crushed, the pen grew blunt.
"She'll be slipping the head," he said, and stopped. "And I'm no hand
at this any more," he said.
Oh, but he never meant it; it was not his thought, that he was no hand
at the work any more!
This father, this barge of a man, simple, full of patience and
goodness, he would let his son strike the last few blows and cleave
the stone. And there it lay, split in two.
"Ay, you've the trick of it," said the father. "H'm, yes ...
Breidablik ... might make something but of that place."
"Ay, should think so," said the son.
"Only the land was fairly ditched and turned."
"The house'd have to be done up."
"Ay, that of course. Place all done up--'twould mean a lot of work at
first, but ... What I was going to say, d'you know if your mother was
going to church come Sunday?"
"Ay, she said something like it."
"Ho!... H'm. Keep your eyes open now and look out for a good big
door-slab for the new house. You haven't seen a bit would do?"
"No," said Sivert.
And they fell to work again.
A couple of days later both agreed they had enough stone now for the
walls. It was Friday evening; they sat taking a breathing-space, and
talking together the while.
"H'm--what d'you say?" said the father. "Should we think it over,
maybe, about Breidablik?"
"How d'you mean?" asked the son. "What to do with it?"
"Why, I don't know. There's the school there, and it's midway down
this tract now."
"And what then?" asked the son. "I don't know what we'd do with it,
though; it's not worth much as it is."
"That's what you've been thinking of?"
"No, not that way.... Unless Eleseus he'd like to have the place to
work on."
"Eleseus? Well, no, I don't know--"
Long pause, the two men thinking hard. The father begins gathering
tools together, packing up to go home.
"Ay, unless ..." said Sivert. "You might ask him what he says."
The father made an end of the matter thus: "Well, there's another day,
and we haven't found that door-slab yet, either."
Next day was Saturday, and they had to be off early to get across the
hills with the child. Jensine, the servant-girl, was to go with them;
that was one godmother, the rest they would have to find from among
Inger's folk on the other side.
Inger looked nice; she had made herself a dainty cotton dress, with
white at the neck and wrists. The child was all in white, with a new
blue silk ribbon drawn through the lower edge of its dress; but then
she was a wonder of a child, to be sure, that could smile and chatter
already, and lay and listened when the clock struck on the wall. Her
father had chosen her name. It was his right; he was determined to
have his say--only trust to him! He had hesitated between Jacobine and
Rebecca, as being both sort of related to Isak; and at last he went to
Inger and asked timidly: "What d'you think, now, of Rebecca?"
"Why, yes," said Inger.
And when Isak heard that, he grew suddenly independent and master in
his own house. "If she's to have a name at all," he said sharply, "it
shall be Rebecca! I'll see to that."
And of course he was going with the party to church, partly to carry,
and partly for propriety's sake. It would never do to let Rebecca go
to be christened without a decent following! Isak trimmed his beard
and put on a red shirt, as in his younger days; it was in the worst of
the hot weather, but he had a nice new winter suit, that looked well
on him, and he wore it. But for all that, Isak was not the man to make
a duty of finery and show; as now, for instance, he put on a pair of
fabulously heavy boots for the march.
Sivert and Leopoldine stayed behind to look after the place.
Then they rowed in a boat across the lake, and that was a deal easier
than before, when they had had to walk round all the way. But half-way
across, as Inger unfastened her dress to nurse the child, Isak noticed
something bright hung in a string round her neck; whatever it might
be. And in the church he noticed that she wore that gold ring on her
finger. Oh, Inger--it had been too much for her after all!
Chapter XVII
Eleseus came home.
He had been away now for some years, and had grown taller than his
father, with long white hands and a little dark growth on his upper
lip. He did not give himself airs, but seemed anxious to appear
natural and kindly; his mother, was surprised and pleased. He shared
the small bedroom with Sivert; the two brothers got on well together,
and were constantly playing tricks on each other by way of amusement.
But, naturally, Eleseus had to take his share of the work in building
the house; and tired and miserable it made him, all unused as he was
to bodily fatigue of any kind. It was worse still when Sivert had to
go off and leave it all to the other two; Eleseus then was almost more
of a hindrance than a help.
And where had Sivert gone off to? Why, 'twas Oline had come over the
hills one day with word from Uncle Sivert that he was dying; and, of
course, young Sivert had to go. A nice state of things all at once--it
couldn't have happened worse than to have Sivert running off just now.
But there was no help for it.
Said Oline: "I'd no time to go running errands, and that's the truth;
but for all that ... I've taken a fancy to the children here, all of
them, and little Sivert, and if as I could help him to his legacy...."
"But was Uncle Sivert very bad, then?"
"Bad? Heaven bless us, he's falling away day by day."
"Was he in bed, then?"
"In bed? How can you talk so light and flighty of death before God's
Judgment-seat? Nay, he'll neither hop nor run again in this world,
will your Uncle Sivert."
All this seemed to mean that Uncle Sivert had not long to live, and
Inger insisted that little Sivert should set off at once.
But Uncle Sivert, incorrigible old knave, was not on his death-bed;
was not even confined to bed at all. When young Sivert came, he
found the little place in terrible muddle and disorder; they had not
finished the spring season's work properly yet--had not even carted
out all the winter manure; but as for approaching death, there was no
sign of it that he could see. Uncle Sivert was an old man now,
over seventy; he was something of an invalid, and pottered about
half-dressed in the house, and often kept his bed for a time. He
needed help on the place in many ways, as, for instance, with the
herring nets that hung rotting in the sheds. Oh, but for all that he
was by no means at his last gasp; he could still eat sour fish and
smoke his pipe.
When Sivert had been there half an hour and seen how things were, he
was for going back home again.
"Home?" said the old man.
"We're building a house, and father's none to help him properly."
"Ho!" said his uncle. "Isn't Eleseus come home, then?"
"Ay, but he's not used to the work."
"Then why did you come at all?"
Sivert told him about Oline and her message, how she had said that
Uncle Sivert was on the point of death.
"Point of death?" cried the old man. "Said I was on the point of
death, did she? A cursed old fool!"
"Ha ha ha!" said Sivert.
The old man looked sternly at him. "Eh? Laugh at a dying man, do you,
and you called after me and all!"
But Sivert was too young to put on a graveyard face for that; he had
never cared much for his uncle. And now he wanted to get back home
again.
"Ho, so you thought so, too?" said the old man again. "Thought I was
at my last gasp, and that fetched you, did it?"
"'Twas Oline said so," answered Sivert.
His uncle was silent for a while, then spoke again: "Look you here.
If you'll mend that net of mine and put it right, I'll show you
something."
"H'm," said Sivert. "What is it?"
"Well, never you mind," said the old man sullenly, and went to bed
again.
It was going to be a long business, evidently. Sivert writhed
uncomfortably. He went out and took a look round the place; everything
was shamefully neglected and uncared for; it was hopeless to begin
work here. When he came in after a while, his uncle was sitting up,
warming himself at the stove.
"See that?" He pointed to an oak chest on the floor at his feet. It
was his money chest. As a matter of fact, it was a lined case made to
hold bottles, such as visiting justices and other great folk used to
carry with them when travelling about the country in the old days,
but there were no bottles in it now; the old man had used it for his
documents and papers as district treasurer; he kept his accounts and
his money in it now. The story ran that it was full of uncounted
riches; the village folk would shake their heads and say: "Ah! if I'd
only as much as lies in old Sivert his chest!"
Uncle Sivert took out a paper from the box and said solemnly: "You can
read writing, I suppose?"
Little Sivert was not by any means a great hand at that, it is true,
but he made out so much as told him he was to inherit all that his
uncle might leave at his death.
"There," said the old man. "And now you can do as you please." And he
laid the paper back in the chest.
Sivert was not greatly impressed; after all, the paper told him no
more than he had known before; ever since he was a child he had heard
say that he was to have what Uncle Sivert left one day. A sight of the
treasure would be another matter.
"There's some fine things in that chest, I doubt," said he.
"There's more than you think," said the old man shortly.
He was angry and disappointed with his nephew; he locked up the box
and went to bed again. There he lay, delivering jets of information.
"I've been district treasurer and warden of the public moneys in this
village over thirty year; _I've_ no need to beg and pray for a helping
hand from any man! Who told Oline, I'd like to know, that I was on my
deathbed? I can send three men, carriage and cart to fetch a doctor if
I want one. Don't try your games with me, young man! Can't even wait
till I'm gone, it seems. I've shown you the document and you've seen
it, and it's there in the chest--that's all I've got to say. But
if you go running off and leave me now, you can just carry word to
Eleseus and tell _him_ to come. He's not named after me and called by
my earthly name--let _him_ come."
But for all the threatening tone, Sivert only thought a moment, and
said: "Ay, I'll tell Eleseus to come."
Oline was still at Sellanraa when Sivert got back. She had found time
to pay a visit lower down, to Axel Stroem and Barbro on their place,
and came back full of mysteries and whisperings. "That girl Barbro's
filling out a deal of late--Lord knows what it may mean. But not a
word that I've said so! And here's Sivert back again? No need to ask
what news, I suppose? Your Uncle Sivert's passed away? Ay, well, an
old man he was and an aged one, on the brink of the grave. What--not
dead? Well, well, we've much to be thankful for, and that's a solemn
word! Me talking nonsense, you say? Oh, if I'd never more to answer
for! How was I to know your uncle he was lying there a sham and a
false pretender before the Lord? Not long to live, that's what I said.
And I'll hold by it, when the time comes, before the Throne. What's
that you say? Well, and wasn't he lying there his very self in his
bed, and folding his hands on his breast and saying 'twould soon be
over?"