Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
He could not leave it there in the light of day, and in his heart,
perhaps, he feared some ill to himself or to the place. He ran home
for a spade and dug the grave deeper; but, being so near the stream,
the water came in, and he had to shift it farther up the bank. As he
worked, his fear lest Barbro should come and find him disappeared; he
grew defiant and thoroughly bitter. Let her come, and he would make
her wrap up the body neatly and decently after her, stillborn or no!
He saw well enough all he had lost by the death of the child; how he
was faced now with the prospect of being left without help again on
the place--and that, moreover, with three times the stock to care for
he had had at first. Let her come--he did not care! But Barbro--it
might be she had some inkling of what he was at; anyway, she did not
come, and Axel had to wrap up the body himself as best he could and
move it to the new grave. He laid down the turf again on top, just as
before, hiding it all. When he had done, there was nothing to be seen
but a little green mound among the bushes.
He found Barbro outside the house as he came home.
"Where you been?" she asked.
The bitterness must have left him, for he only said: "Nowhere.
Where've you been?"
Oh, but the look on his face must have warned her; she said no more,
but went into the house.
He followed her.
"Look here," he said, and asked her straight out, "What d'you mean by
taking off those rings?"
Barbro, maybe, found it best to give way a little; she laughed, and
answered: "Well, you are serious today--I can't help laughing! But if
you want me to put on the rings and wear them out weekdays, why, I
will!" And she got out the rings and put them on.
But seeing him look all foolish and content at that, she grew bolder.
"Is there anything else I've done, I'd like to know?"
"I'm not complaining," answered he. "And you've only to be as you were
before, all the time before, when you first came. That's all I mean."
'Tis not so easy to be always together and always agree.
Axel went on: "When I bought that place after your father, 'twas
thinking maybe you'd like better to be there, and so we could shift.
What d'you think?"
Ho, there he gave himself away; he was afraid of losing her and being
left without help, with none to look to the place and the animals
again--she knew! "Ay, you've said that before," she answered coldly.
"Ay, so I have; but I've got no answer."
"Answer?" said she. "Oh, I'm sick of hearing it."
Axel might fairly consider he had been lenient; he had let Brede and
his family stay on at Breidablik, and for all that he had bought the
good crop with the place, he had carted home no more than a few loads
of hay, and left the potatoes to them. It was all unreasonable of
Barbro to be contrary now; but she paid no heed to that, and asked
indignantly: "So you'd have us move down to Breidablik now, and turn
out a whole family to be homeless?"
Had he heard aright? He sat for a moment staring and gaping, cleared
his throat as if to answer thoroughly, but it came to nothing; he only
asked: "Aren't they going to the village, then?"
"Don't ask me," said Barbro. "Or perhaps you've got a place for them
to be there?"
Axel was still loth to quarrel with her, but he could not help letting
her see he was surprised at her, just a little surprised. "You're
getting more and more cross and hard," said he, "though you don't mean
any harm, belike."
"I mean every word I say," she answered. "And why couldn't you have
let my folks come up here?--answer me that! Then I'd have had mother
to help me a bit. But you think, perhaps, I've so little to do, I've
no need of help?"
There was some sense in this, of course, but also much that was
unreasonable altogether. If Bredes had come, they would have had to
live in the hut, and Axel would have had no place for his beasts--as
badly off as before. What was the woman getting at?--had she neither
sense nor wit in her head?
"Look here," said he, "you'd better have a servant-girl to help."
"Now--with the winter coming on and less to do than ever? No, you
should have thought of that when I needed it."
Here, again, she was right in a way; when she had been heavy and
ailing--that was the time to talk of help. But then Barbro herself had
done her work all the time as if nothing were the matter; she had been
quick and clever as usual, did all that had to be done, and had never
spoken a word about getting help.
"Well, I can't make it out, anyway," said he hopelessly.
Silence.
Barbro asked: "What's this about you taking over the telegraph after
father?"
"What? Who said a word about that?"
"Well, they say it's to be."
"Why," said Axel, "it may come to something; I'll not say no."
"Ho!"
But why d'you ask?"
"Nothing," said Barbro; "only that you've turned my father out of
house and home, and now you're taking the bread out of his mouth."
Silence.
Oh, but that was the end of Axel's patience. "I'll tell you this," he
cried, "you're not worth all I've done for you and yours!"
"Ho!" said Barbro.
"No!" said he, striking his fist on the table. And then he got up.
"You can't frighten me, so don't think," whimpered Barbro, and moved
over nearer the wall.
"Frighten you?" he said again, and sniffed scornfully. "I'm going to
speak out now in earnest. What about that child? Did you drown it?"
"Drown it?"
"Ay. It's been in the water."
"Ho, so you've seen it? You've been--" "sniffing at it," she was going
to say, but dared not; Axel was not to be played with just then, by
his looks. "You've been and found it?"
"I saw it had been in the water."
"Ay," said she, "and well it might. 'Twas born in the water; I slipped
in and couldn't get up again."
"Slipped, did you?"
"Yes, and the child came before I could get out."
"H'm," said he. "But you took the bit of wrapping with you before you
went out--was that in case you should happen to fall in?"
"Wrapping?" said she again.
"A bit of white rag--one of my shirts you'd cut half across."
"Ay," said Barbro, "'twas a bit of rag I took with me to carry back
juniper twigs in."
"Juniper twigs?"
"Yes. Didn't I tell you that was what I'd been for?"
"Ay, so you said. Or else it was twigs for a broom."
"Well, no matter what it was...."
It was an open quarrel between them this time. But even that died
away after a time, and all was well again. That is to say, not well
exactly--no, but passable. Barbro was careful and more submissive; she
knew there was danger. But that way, life at Maaneland grew even more
forced and intolerable--no frankness, no joy between them, always on
guard. It could not last long, but as long as it lasted at all, Axel
was forced to be content. He had got this girl on the place, and had
wanted her for himself and had her, tied his life to her; it was not
an easy matter to alter all that. Barbro knew everything about the
place: where pots and vessels stood, when cows and goats were to bear,
if the winter feed would be short or plenty, how much milk was for
cheese and how much for food--a stranger would know nothing of it all,
and even so, a stranger was perhaps not to be had.
Oh, but Axel had thought many a time of getting rid of Barbro and
taking another girl to help; she was a wicked thing at times, and he
was almost afraid of her. Even when he had the misfortune to get on
well with her he drew back at times in fear of her strange cruelty
and brutal ways; but she was pretty to look at, and could be sweet at
times, and bury him deep in her arms. So it had been--but that was
over now. No, thank you--Barbro was not going to have all that
miserable business over again. But it was not so easy to change....
"Let's get married at once, then," said Axel, urging her.
"At once?" said she. "Nay; I must go into town first about my teeth,
they're all but gone as it is."
So there was nothing to do but go on as before. And Barbro had no real
wages now, but far beyond what her wages would have been; and every
time she asked for money and he gave it, she thanked him as for
a gift. But for all that Axel could not make out where the money
went--what could she want money for out in the wilds? Was she hoarding
for herself? But what on earth was there to save and save for, all the
year round?
There was much that Axel could not make out. Hadn't he given her a
ring--ay, a real gold ring? And they had got on well together, too,
after that last gift; but it could not last for ever, far from it; and
he could not go on buying rings to give her. In a word--did she mean
to throw him over? Women were strange creatures! Was there a man
with a good farm and a well-stocked place of his own waiting for her
somewhere else? Axel could at times go so far as to strike his fist on
the table in his impatience with women and their foolish humours.
A strange thing, Barbro seemed to have nothing really in her head but
the thought of Bergen and town life. Well and good. But if so, why had
she come back at all, confound her! A telegram from her father would
never have moved her a step in itself; she must have had some other
reason. And now here she was, eternally discontented from morning to
night, year after year. All these wooden buckets, instead of proper
iron pails; cooking-pots instead of saucepans; the everlasting milking
instead of a little walk round to the dairy; heavy boots, yellow soap,
a pillow stuffed with hay; no military bands, no people. Living like
this....
They had many little bouts after the one big quarrel. Ho, time and
again they were at it! "You say no more about it, if you're wise,"
said Barbro. "And not to speak of what you've done about father and
all."
Said Axel: "Well, what have I done?"
"Oh, you know well enough," said she. "But for all that you'll not be
Inspector, anyway."
"Ho!"
"No, that you won't. I'll believe it when I see it."
"Meaning I'm not good enough, perhaps?"
"Oh, good enough and good enough.... Anyway, you can't read nor write,
and never so much as take a newspaper to look at."
"As to that," said he, "I can read and write all I've any need for.
But as for you, with all your gabble and talk ... I'm sick of it."
"Well, then, here's that to begin with," said she, and threw down the
silver ring on the table.
"Ho!" said he, after a while. "And what about the other?"
"Oh, if you want your rings back that you gave me, you can have them,"
said she, trying to pull off the gold one.
"You can be as nasty as you please," said he. "If you think I
care...." And he went out.
And naturally enough, soon after, Barbro was wearing both her rings
again.
In time, too, she ceased to care at all for what he said about the
death of the child. She simply sniffed and tossed her head. Not that
she ever confessed anything, but only said: "Well, and suppose I had
drowned it? You live here in the wilds and what do you know of things
elsewhere?" Once when they were talking of this, she seemed to be
trying to get him to see he was taking it all too seriously; she
herself thought no more of getting rid of a child than the matter was
worth. She knew two girls in Bergen who had done it; but one of them
had got two months' imprisonment because she had been a fool and
hadn't killed it, but only left it out to freeze to death; and the
other had been acquitted. "No," said Barbro, "the law's not so cruel
hard now as it used to be. And besides, it's not always it gets found
out." There was a girl in Bergen at the hotel who had killed two
children; she was from Christiania, and wore a hat--a hat with
feathers in. They had given her three months for the second one, but
the first was never discovered, said Barbro.
Axel listened to all this and grew more than ever afraid of her. He
tried to understand, to make out things a little in the darkness, but
she was right after all; he took these things too seriously in his
way. With all her vulgar depravity, Barbro was not worth a single
earnest thought. Infanticide meant nothing to her, there was nothing
extraordinary in the killing of a child; she thought of it only
with the looseness and moral nastiness that was to be expected of a
servant-girl. It was plain, too, in the days that followed; never an
hour did she give herself up to thought; she was easy and natural as
ever, unalterably shallow and foolish, unalterably a servant-girl. "I
must go and have my teeth seen to," she said. "And I want one of those
new cloaks." There was a new kind of half-length coat that had been
fashionable for some years past, and Barbro must have one.
And when she took it all so naturally, what could Axel do but give
way? And it was not always that he had any real suspicion of her; she
herself had never confessed, had indeed denied time and again,
but without indignation, without insistence, as a trifle, as a
servant-girl would have denied having broken a dish, whether she had
done so or not. But after a couple of weeks, Axel could stand it no
longer; he stopped dead one day in the middle of the room and saw it
all as by a revelation. Great Heaven! every one must have seen how
it was with her, heavy with child and plain to see--and now with her
figure as before--but where was the child? Suppose others came to look
for it? They would be asking about it sooner or later. And if there
had been nothing wrong, it would have been far better to have had the
child buried decently in the churchyard. Not there in the bushes,
there on his land....
"No. 'Twould only have made a fuss," said Barbro. "They'd have cut it
open and had an inquest, and all that. I didn't want to be bothered."
"If only it mayn't come to worse later on," said he.
Barbro asked easily: "What's there to worry about? Let it lie where it
is." Ay, she smiled, and asked: "Are you afraid it'll come after you?
Leave all that nonsense, and say no more about it."
"Ay, well...."
"Did I drown the child? I've told you it drowned itself in the water
when I slipped in. I never heard such things as you get in your head.
And, anyway, it would never be found out," said she.
"'Twas found out all the same with Inger at Sellanraa," said Axel.
Barbro thought for a moment. "Well, I don't care," said she. "The
law's all different now, and if you read the papers you'd know.
There's heaps that have done it, and don't get anything to speak of."
Barbro sets out to explain it, to teach him, as it were--getting him
to take a broad view of things. It was not for nothing she herself had
been out in the world and seen and heard and learned so much; now she
could sit here and be more than a match for him. She had three main
arguments which she was continually advancing: In the first place,
she had not done it. In the second, it was not such a terrible thing,
after all, if she had done it. But in the third place, it would never
be found out.
"Everything gets found out, seems to me," he objected.
"Not by a long way," she answered. And whether to astonish him or to
encourage him, or perhaps from sheer vanity and as something to boast
of, all of a sudden she threw a bombshell. Thus: "I've done something
myself that never got found out."
"You?" said he, all unbelieving. "What have you done?"
"What have I done? Killed something."
She had not meant, perhaps, to go so far, but she had to go on now;
there he was, staring at her. Oh, and it was not grand, indomitable
boldness even; it was mere bravado, vulgar showing off; she wanted to
look big herself, and silence him. "You don't believe me?" she cried.
"D'you remember that in the paper about the body of a child found in
the harbour? 'Twas me that did it."
"What?" said he.
"Body of a child. You never remember anything. We read about it in the
paper you brought up."
After a moment he burst out: "You must be out of your senses!"
But his confusion seemed to incite her more, to give her a sort of
artificial strength; she could even give the details. "I had it in my
box--it was dead then, of course--I did that as soon as it was born.
And when we got out into the harbour, I threw it overboard."
Axel sat dark and silent, but she went on. It was a long time back
now, many years, the time she had first come to Maaneland. So, there,
he could see 'twas not everything was found out, not by a long way!
What would things be like if everything folk did got out? What about
all the married people in the towns and the things they did? They
killed their children before they were born--there were doctors who
managed that. They didn't want more than one, or at most two children,
and so they'd get in a doctor to get rid of it before it come. Ho,
Axel need not think that was such a great affair out in the world!
"Ho!" said Axel. "Then I suppose you did get rid of the last one too,
that way?"
"No, I didn't," she answered carelessly as could be, "for I dropped
it," she said. But even then she must go on again about it being
nothing so terrible if she had. She was plainly accustomed to think of
the thing as natural and easy; it did not affect her now. The first
time, perhaps, it might have been a little uncomfortable, something of
an awkward feeling about it, to kill the child; but the second? She
could think of it now with a sort of historic sense: as a thing that
had been done, and could be done.
Axel went out of the house heavy in mind. He was not so much concerned
over the fact that Barbro had killed her first child--that was nothing
to do with himself. That she had had a child at all before she came
to him was nothing much either; she was no innocent, and had never
pretended to be so, far from it. She had made no secret of her
knowledge, and had taught him many things in the dark. Well and good.
But this last child--he would not willingly have lost it; a tiny boy,
a little white creature wrapped up in a rag. If she were guilty of
that child's death, then she had injured him, Axel--broken a tie that
he prized, and that could not be replaced. But it might be that
he wronged her, after all: that she _had_ slipped in the water by
accident. But then the wrapping--the bit of shirt she had taken with
her....
Meantime, the hours passed; dinner-time came, and evening. And when
Axel had gone to bed, and had lain staring into the dark long enough,
he fell asleep at last, and slept till morning. And then came a new
day, and after that day other days....
Barbro was the same as ever. She knew so much of the world, and could
take lightly many little trifles that were terrible and serious things
for folk in the wilds. It was well in a way; she was clever enough for
both of them, careless enough for both. And she did not go about like
a terrible creature herself. Barbro a monster? Not in the least. She
was a pretty girl, with blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, and
quick-handed at her work. She was utterly sick and tired of the farm
and the wooden vessels, that took such a lot of cleaning; sick and
tired, perhaps, of Axel and all, of the out-of-the-way life she led.
But she never killed any of the cattle, and Axel never found her
standing over him with uplifted knife in the middle of the night.
Only once it happened that they came to talk again of the body in the
wood. Axel still insisted that it ought to have been buried in the
churchyard, in consecrated ground; but she maintained as before that
her way was good enough. And then she said something which showed that
she was reasoned after her fashion--ho, was sharp enough, could see
beyond the tip of her nose; could think, with the pitiful little brain
of a savage.
"If it gets found out I'll go and talk to the Lensmand; I've been in
service with him. And Fru Heyerdahl, she'll put in a word for me, I
know. It's not every one that can get folk to help them like that, and
they get off all the same. And then, besides, there's father, that
knows all the great folks, and been assistant himself, and all the
rest."
But Axel only shook his head.
"Well, what's wrong with that?"
"D'you think your father'd ever be able to do anything?"
"A lot you know about it!" she cried angrily. "After you've ruined him
and all, taking his farm and the bread out of his mouth."
She seemed to have a sort of idea herself that her father's reputation
had suffered of late, and that she might lose by it. And what could
Axel say to that? Nothing. He was a man of peace, a worker.
Chapter III
That winter, Axel was left to himself again at Maaneland. Barbro was
gone. Ay, that was the end of it.
Her journey to town would not take long, she said; 'twas not like
going to Bergen; but she wasn't going to stay on here losing one tooth
after another, till she'd a mouth like a calf. "What'll it cost?" said
Axel.
"How do I know?" said she. "But, anyway, it won't cost you anything.
I'll earn the money myself."
She had explained, too, why it was best for her to go just then; there
were but two cows to milk, and in the spring there would be two more,
besides all the goats with kids, and the busy season, and work enough
right on till June.
"Do as you please," said Axel.
It was not going to cost him anything, not at all. But she must have
some money to start with, just a little; there was the journey, and
the dentist to pay, and besides, she must have one of the new cloaks
and some other little things. But, of course, if he didn't care to....
"You've had money enough up to now," said he.
"H'm," said she. "Anyway, it's all gone."
"Haven't you put by anything?"
"Put by anything? You can look in my box it you like. I never put by
anything in Bergen, and. I got more wages then."
"I've no money to give you," said he.
He had but little faith in her ever coming back at all, and she had
plagued him so much with her humours this way and that; he had grown
indifferent at last. And though he gave her money in the end, it was
nothing to speak of; but he took no notice when she packed away
an enormous hoard of food to take with her, and he drove her down
himself, with her box, to the village to meet the steamer.
And that was done.
He could have managed alone on the place, he had learned to do so
before, but it was awkward with the cattle; if ever he had to leave
home, there was none to look to them. The storekeeper in the village
had urged him to get Oline to come for the winter, she had been at
Sellanraa for years before; she was old now, of course, but fit and
able to work. And Axel did send for Oline, but she had not come, and
sent no word.
Meantime, he worked in the forest, threshed out his little crop of
corn, and tended his cattle. It was a quiet and lonely life. Now and
again Sivert from Sellanraa would drive past on his way to and from
the village, taking down loads of wood, or hides, or farm produce, but
rarely bringing anything up home; there was little they needed to buy
now at Sellanraa.
Now and again, too, Brede Olsen would come trudging along, more
frequently of late--whatever he might be after. It looked as if he
were trying to make himself indispensable to the telegraph people in
the little time that remained, so as to keep his job. He never came in
to see Axel now that Barbro was gone, but went straight by--a piece of
high-and-mightiness ill fitted to his state, seeing that he was still
living on at Breidablik and had not moved. One day, when he was
passing without so much as a word of greeting, Axel stopped him, and
asked when he had thought of getting out of the place.
"What about Barbro, and the way she left you?" asked Brede in return.
And one word led to another: "You sent her off with neither help nor
means, 'twas a near thing but she never got to Bergen at all."
"Ho! So she's in Bergen, is she?"
"Ay, got there at last, so she writes, but little thanks to you."
"I'll have you out of Breidablik, and that sharp," said Axel.
"Ay, if you'd be so kind," said the other, with a sneer. "But we'll be
going of ourselves at the new year," he said, and went on his way.
So Barbro was gone to Bergen--ay, 'twas as Axel had thought. He did
not take it to heart. Take it to heart? No, indeed; he was well rid of
her. But for all that, he had hoped a little until then that she might
come back. 'Twas all unreasonable, but somehow he had come to care
overmuch for the girl--ay, for that devil of a girl. She had her sweet
moments, unforgettable moments, and it was on purpose to hinder her
from running off to Bergen that he had given her so little money
for the journey. And now she had gone there after all. A few of her
clothes still hung in the house, and there was a straw hat with birds'
wings on, wrapped up in a paper, in the loft, but she did not come to
fetch them. Eyah, maybe he took it to heart a little, only a little.
And as if to jeer at him, as a mighty jest in his trouble, came the
paper he had ordered for her every week, and it would not stop now
till the new year.
Well, well, there were other things to think about. He must be a man.
Next spring he would have to put up a shed against the north wall of
the house; the timber would have to be felled that winter, and the
planks cut. Axel had no timber to speak of, not growing close, but
there were some heavy firs scattered about here and there on the
outskirts of his land, and he marked out those on the side toward
Sellanraa, to have the shortest way to cart his timber up to the
sawmill.