Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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He passed the two new clearings that had been started below Sellanraa,
and talked to the men there; went right down to Maaneland to see what
Axel Stroem had got done that year. Nothing very great, it seemed; not
as much as he might have wished, but he had put in some good work on
the land. Geissler took an interest in this place, too, and asked him:
"Got a horse?"
"Ay."
"Well, I've a mowing-machine and a harrow down south, both new; I'll
send them up, if you like."
"How?" asked Axel, unable to conceive such magnificence, and thinking
vaguely of payment by instalments.
"I mean I'll make you a present of them," said Geissler.
"'Tis hard to believe," said Axel.
"But you'll have to help those two neighbours of yours up above,
breaking new land."
"Ay, never fear for that," said Axel; he could still hardly make out
what Geissler meant by it all. "So you've machines and things down
south?"
"I've a deal of things to look after," said Geissler. Now, as a matter
of fact, Geissler had no great deal of things to look after, but he
liked to make it appear so. As for a mowing-machine and a harrow, he
could buy them in any of the towns, and send up from there.
He stayed talking a long while with Axel Stroem about the other
settlers near; of Storborg, the trading station; of Axel's brother,
newly married, who had come to Breidablik, and had started draining
the moors and getting the water out. Axel complained that it was
impossible to get a woman anywhere to help; he had none but an old
creature, by name Oline; not much good at the best of times, but he
might be thankful to have her as long as she stayed. Axel had been
working day and night part of that summer. He might, perhaps, have got
a woman from his own parts, from Helgeland, but that would have meant
paying for her journey, besides wages. A costly business all round.
Axel further told how he had taken over the inspection of the
telegraph line, but rather wished he had left it alone.
"That sort of thing's only fit for Brede and his like," said Geissler.
"Ay, that's a true word," Axel admitted. "But there was the money to
think of."
"How many cows have you got?"
"Four. And a young bull. 'Twas too far to go up to Sellanraa to
theirs."
But there was a far weightier matter Axel badly wanted to talk over
with Geissler; Barbro's affair had come to light, somehow, and an
investigation was in progress. Come to light? Of course it had. Barbro
had been going about, evidently with child and plain to see, and she
had left the place by herself all unencumbered and no child at all.
How had it come about?
When Geissler understood what the matter was, he said quite shortly:
"Come along with me." And he led Axel with him away from the house.
Geissler put on an important air, as one in authority. They sat down
at the edge of the wood, and Geissler said: "Now, then, tell me all
about it."
Come to light? Of course it had; how could it be helped? The place was
no longer a desert, with never a soul for miles; and, moreover, Oline
was there. What had Oline to do with it? Ho! and, to make things
worse, Brede Olsen had made an enemy of her himself. No means of
getting round Oline now; here she was on the spot, and could worm
things out of Axel a bit at a time. 'Twas just such underhand work she
lived for; ay, lived by, in some degree. And here was the very thing
for her--trust Oline for scenting it out! Truth to tell, Oline was
grown too old now to keep house and tend cattle at Maaneland; she
ought to have given it up. But how could she? How could she leave a
place where a fine, deep mystery lay simply waiting to be brought to
light? She managed the winter's work; ay, she got through the summer,
too, and it was a marvel of strength she gained from the mere thought
of being able one day to show up a daughter of Brede himself. The snow
was not gone from the fields that spring before Oline began poking
about. She found the little green mound by the stream, and saw at once
that the turf had been laid down in squares. She had even had the luck
to come upon Axel one day standing by the little grave, and treading
it down. So Axel knew all about it! And Oline nodded her grey
head--ay, it was her turn now!
Not but Axel was a kindly man enough to live with, but miserly;
counted his cheeses, and kept good note of every tuft of wool; Oline
could not do as she liked with things, not by a long way. And then
that matter of the accident last year, when she had saved him--if Axel
had been the right sort, he would have given her the credit for it
all, and acknowledged his debt to her alone. But not a bit of it--Axel
still held to the division he had made on the spot. Ay, he would say,
if Oline hadn't happened to come along, he would have had to lie out
there in the cold all night; but Brede, he'd been a good help too, on
the way home. And that was all the thanks she got! Oline was full of
indignation--surely the Lord Almighty must turn away His face from His
creatures! How easy it would have been for Axel to lead out a cow from
its stall, and bring it to her and say: "Here's a cow for you, Oline."
But no. Not a word of it.
Well, let him wait--wait and see if it might not come to cost him more
than the worth of a cow in the end!
All through that summer, Oline kept a look-out for every passer-by,
and whispered to them and nodded and confided things to them in
secret. "But never a word I've said," so she charged them every time.
Oline went down to the village, too, more than once. And now there
were rumours and talk of things about the place, ay, drifting like a
fog, settling on faces and getting into ears; even the children going
to school at Breidablik began nodding secrets among themselves. And at
last the Lensmand had to take it up; had to bestir himself and report
it, and ask for instructions. Then he came up with a book to write
in and an assistant to help him; came up to Maaneland one day and
investigated things and wrote things down, and went back again. But
three weeks after, he came up once more, investigating and writing
down again, and this time, he opened a little green mound by the
stream, and took out the body of a child. Oline was an invaluable help
to him; and in return he had to answer a host of questions she put.
Among other things, he said yes, it might perhaps come to having Axel
arrested too. At that, Oline clasped her hands in dismay at all the
wickedness she had got mixed up with here, and only wished she were
out of the place, far away from it all. "But the girl," she whispered,
"what about Barbro herself?"
"The girl Barbro," said the Lensmand, "she's under arrest now in
Bergen. The law must take its course," said he. And he took the little
body and went back again to the village....
Little wonder, then, that Axel Stroem was anxious. He had spoken out to
the Lensmand and denied nothing; he was in part responsible for the
coming of the child at all, and in addition, he had dug a grave for
it. And now he was asking Geissler what he had better do next. Would
he have to go in to the town, to a new and worse examination, and be
tortured there?
Geissler was not the man he had been--no; and the long story had
wearied him, he seemed duller now, whatever might be the cause. He was
not the bright and confident soul he had been that morning. He looked
at his watch, got up, and said:
"This'll want thinking over. I'll go into it thoroughly and let you
know before I leave."
And Geissler went off.
He came back to Sellanraa that evening, had a little supper, and went
to bed. Slept till late next morning, slept, rested thoroughly; he was
tired, no doubt, after his meeting with the Swedish mine-owners. Not
till two days after did he make ready to leave. He was his lordly self
again by then, paid liberally for his keep, and gave little Rebecca a
shining _Krone_.
He made a speech to Isak, and said: "It doesn't matter in the least if
nothing came of the deal this time, it'll come all right later on. For
the present, I'm going to stop the working up there and leave it a
bit. As for those fellows--children! Thought they would teach me, did
they? Did you hear what they offered me? Twenty-five thousand!"
"Ay," said Isak.
"Well," said Geissler, and waved his hand as if dismissing all
impertinent offers of insignificant sums from his mind, "well, it
won't do any harm to the district if I do stop the working there a
bit--on the contrary, it'll teach folk to stick to their land. But
they'll feel it in the village. They made a pile of money there last
summer; fine clothes and fine living for all--but there's an end of
that now. Ay, it might have been worth their while, the good folks
down there, to have kept in with me; things might have been different
then. Now, it'll be as I please."
But for all that, he did not look much of a man to control the fate of
villages, as he went away. He carried a parcel of food in his hand,
and his white waistcoat was no longer altogether clean. His good wife
might have equipped him for the journey up this time out of the rest
of the forty thousand she had once got--who could say, perhaps she
had. Anyhow, he was going back poor enough.
He did not forget to look in at Axel Stroem on the way down, and give
the results of his thinking over. "I've been looking at it every way,"
said he. "The matter's in abeyance for the present, so there's nothing
to be done just yet. You'll be called up for a further examination,
and you'll have to say how things are...."
Words, nothing more. Geissler had probably never given the matter a
thought at all. And Axel agreed dejectedly to all he said. But at last
Geissler flickered up into a mighty man again, puckered his brows, and
said thoughtfully: "Unless, perhaps, I could manage to come to town
myself and watch the proceedings."
"Ay, if you'd be so good," said Axel.
Geissler decided in a moment. "I'll see if I can manage it, if I can
get the time. But I've a heap of things to look after down south. I'll
come if I can. Good-bye for now. I'll send you those machines all
right."
And Geissler went.
Would he ever come again?
Chapter VI
The rest of the workmen came down from the mine. Work is stopped. The
fjeld lies dead again.
The building at Sellanraa, too, is finished now. There is a makeshift
roof of turf put on for the winter; the great space beneath is divided
into rooms, bright apartments, a great salon in the middle and large
rooms at either end, as if it were for human beings. Here Isak once
lived in a turf hut together with a few goats--there is no turf hut to
be seen now at Sellanraa.
Loose boxes, mangers, and bins are fitted up. The two stoneworkers
are still busy, kept on to get the whole thing finished as soon as
possible, but Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says, and he is
leaving. Gustaf has been a splendid lad at the stonework, heaving and
lifting like a bear; and in the evenings, a joy and delight to all,
playing his mouth-organ, not to speak of helping the womenfolk,
carrying heavy pails to and from the river. But he is going now. No,
Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says. It looks almost as if he
were in a hurry to get away.
"Can't it wait till tomorrow?" says Inger.
No, it can't wait, he's no more work to do here, and besides, going
now, he will have company across the hills, going over with the last;
gang from the mines.
"And who's to help me with my buckets now?" says Inger, smiling sadly.
But Gustaf is never at a loss, he has his answer ready, and says
"Hjalmar." Now Hjalmar was the younger of the two stoneworkers, but
neither of them was young as Gustaf himself, none like him in any way.
"Hjalmar--huh!" says Inger contemptuously. Then suddenly she changes
her tone, and turns to Gustaf, thinking to make him jealous. "Though,
after all, he's nice to have on the place, is Hjalmar," says she, "and
so prettily he sings and all."
"Don't think much of him, anyway," says Gustaf. He does not seem
jealous in the least.
"But you might stay one more night at least?"
No, Gustaf couldn't stay one more night--he was going across with the
others.
Ay, maybe Gustaf was getting tired of the game by now. 'Twas a fine
thing to snap her up in front of all the rest, and have her for his
own the few weeks he was there--but he was going elsewhere now, like
as not to a sweetheart at home--he had other things in view. Was he to
stay on loafing about here for the sake of her? He had reason enough
for bringing the thing to an end, as she herself must know; but she
was grown so bold, so thoughtless of any consequence, she seemed to
care for nothing. No, things had not held for so very long between
them--but long enough to last out the spell of his work there.
Inger is sad and down-hearted enough; ay, so erringly faithful that
she mourns for him. 'Tis hard for her; she is honestly in love,
without any thought of vanity or conquest. And not ashamed, no; she
is a strong woman full of weakness; she is but following the law of
nature all about her; it is the glow of autumn in her as in all things
else. Her breast heaves with feeling as she packs up food for Gustaf
to take with him. No thought of whether she has the right, of whether
she dare risk this or that; she gives herself up to it entirely,
hungry to taste, to enjoy. Isak might lift her up to the roof and
thrust her to the floor again--ay, what of that! It would not make her
feel the less.
She goes out with the parcel to Gustaf.
Now she had set the bucket by the steps on purpose, in case he should
care to go with her to the river just once more. Maybe she would like
to say something, to give him some little thing--her gold ring; Heaven
knows, she was in a state to do anything. But there must be an end of
it some time; Gustaf thanks her, says good-bye, and goes.
And there she stands.
"Hjalmar!" she calls out aloud--oh, so much louder than she need. As
if she were determined to be gay in spite of all--or crying out in
distress.
Gustaf goes on his way....
* * * * *
All through that autumn there was the usual work in the fields all
round, right away down to the village: potatoes to be taken up, corn
to be got in, the horned cattle let loose over the ground. Eight
farms there are now and all are busy; but at the trading station, at
Storborg, there are no cattle, and no green lands, only a garden. And
there is no trade there now, and nothing for any to be busy about
there.
They have a new root crop at Sellanraa called turnips, sending up a
colossal growth of green waving leaves out of the earth, and nothing
can keep the cows away from them--the beasts break down all hedgework,
and storm in, bellowing. Nothing for it but to set Leopoldine and
little Rebecca to keep guard over the turnip fields, and little
Rebecca walks about with a big stick in her hand and is a wonder at
driving cows away. Her father is at work close by; now and again
he comes up to feel her hands and feet, and ask if she is cold.
Leopoldine is big and grown up now; she can knit stockings and mittens
for the winter while she is watching the herds. Born in Trondhjem, was
Leopoldine, and came to Sellanraa five years old. But the memory of
a great town with many people and of a long voyage on a steamer is
slipping away from her now, growing more and more distant; she is a
child of the wilds and knows nothing now of the great world beyond the
village down below where she has been to church once or twice, and
where she was confirmed the year before....
And the little casual work of every day goes on, with this thing and
that to be done beside; as, for instance, the road down below, that is
getting bad one or two places. The ground is still workable, and Isak
goes down one day with Sivert, ditching and draining the road. There
are two patches of bog to be drained.
Axel Stroem has promised to take part in the work, seeing that he has a
horse and uses the road himself--but Axel had pressing business in the
town just then. Heaven knows what it could be, but very pressing, he
said it was. But he had asked his brother from Breidablik to work with
them in his stead.
Fredrik was this brother's name. A young man, newly married, a
light-hearted fellow who could make a jest, but none the worse for
that; Sivert and he are something alike. Now Fredrik had looked in at
Storborg on his way up that morning, Aronsen of Storborg being his
nearest neighbour, and he is full of all the trader has been telling
him. It began this way; Fredrik wanted a roll of tobacco. "I'll give
you a roll of tobacco when I have one," said Aronsen.
"What, you've no tobacco in the place?"
"No, nor won't order any. There's nobody to buy it. What d'you think I
make out of one roll of tobacco?"
Ay, Aronsen had been in a nasty humour that morning, sure enough; felt
he had been cheated somehow by that Swedish mining concern. Here had
he set up a store out in the wilds, and then they go and shut down the
work altogether!
Fredrik smiles slyly at Aronsen, and makes fun of him now. "He's not
so much as touched that land of his," says he, "and hasn't even feed
for his beasts, but must go and buy it. Asked me if I'd any hay to
sell. No, I'd no hay to sell. 'Ho, d'you mean you don't want to make
money?' said Aronsen. Thinks money's everything in the world, seems
like. Puts down a hundred-_Krone_ note on the counter, and says
'Money!' 'Ay, money's well enough,' says I. 'Cash down,' says he. Ay,
he's just a little bit touched that way, so to speak, and his wife she
goes about with a watch and chain and all on weekdays--Lord He knows
what can be she's so set on remembering to the minute."
Says Sivert: "Did Aronsen say anything about a man named Geissler?"
"Ay. Said something about he'd be wanting to sell some land he'd
got. And Aronsen was wild about it, he was--'fellow that used to be
Lensmand and got turned out,' he said, and 'like as not without so
much as a five _Krone_ in his books, and ought to be shot!' 'Ay, but
wait a bit,' says I, 'and maybe he'll sell after all.' 'Nay,' says
Aronsen, 'don't you believe it. I'm a business man,' says he, 'and
I know--when one party puts up a price of two hundred and fifty
thousand, and the other offers twenty-five thousand, there's too big a
difference; there'll be no deal ever come out of that. Well, let 'em
go their own way, and see what comes of it,' says he. 'I only wish I'd
never set my foot in this hole, and a poor thing it's been for me and
mine.' Then I asked him if he didn't think of selling out himself.
'Ay,' says he, 'that's just what I'm thinking of. This bit of
bogland,' says he, 'a hole and a desert--I'm not making a single
_Krone_ the whole day now,' says he."
They laughed at Aronsen, and had no pity for him at all.
"Think he'll sell out?" asks Isak.
"Well, he did speak of it. And he's got rid of the lad he had already.
Ay, a curious man, a queer sort of man, that Aronsen, 'tis sure. Sends
away his lad could be working on the place getting in winter fuel and
carting hay with that horse of his, but keeps on his storeman--chief
clerk, he calls him. 'Tis true enough, as he says, not selling so much
as a _Krone_ all day, for he's no stock in the place at all. And what
does he want with a chief clerk, then? I doubt it'll be just by way of
looking grand and making a show, must have a man there to stand at a
desk and write up things in books. Ha ha ha! ay, looks like he's just
a little bit touched that way, is Aronsen."
The three men worked till noon, ate food from their baskets, and
talked a while. They had matters of their own to talk over, matters of
good and ill to folk on the land; no trifles, to them, but things to
be discussed warily; they are clear-minded folk, their nerves unworn,
and not flying out where they should not. It is the autumn season now,
a silence in the woods all round; the hills are there, the sun is
there, and at evening the moon and the stars will come; all regular
and certain, full of kindliness, an embrace. Men have time to rest
here, to lie in the heather, with an arm for a pillow.
Fredrik talks of Breidablik, how 'tis but little he's got done there
yet awhile.
"Nay," says Isak, "'tis none so little already, I saw when I was down
that way."
This was praise from the oldest among them, the giant himself, and
Fredrik might well be pleased. He asks frankly enough: "Did you think
so, now? Well, it'll be better before long. I've had a deal of things
to hinder this year; the house to do up, being leaky and like to fall
to pieces; hayloft to take down and put up again, and no sort of room
in the turf hut for beasts, seeing I'd cow and heifer more than Brede
he'd ever had in his time," says Fredrik proudly.
"And you're thriving like, up here?" asks Isak.
"Ay, I'll not say no. And wife, she's thriving too, why shouldn't we?
There's good room and outlook all about; we can see up and down the
road both ways. And a neat little copse by the house all pretty to
look at, birch and willow--I'll plant a bit more other side of the
house when I've time. And it's fine to see how the bogland's dried
only since last year's ditching--'tis all a question now what'll grow
on her this year. Ay, thrive? When we've house and home and land and
all--'tis enough for the two of us surely."
"Ho," says Sivert slyly, "and the two of you--is that all there's ever
to be?"
"Why, as to that," says Fredrik bravely, "'tis like enough there'll
be more to come. And as to thriving--well, the wife's not falling off
anyway, by the looks of her."
They work on until evening, drawing up now and again to straighten
their backs, and exchange a word or so.
"And so you didn't get the tobacco?" says Sivert.
"No, that's true. But 'twas no loss, for I've no use for it, anyway,"
says Fredrik.
"No use for tobacco?"
"Nay. 'Twas but for to drop in at Aronsen's like, and hear what he'd
got to say." And the two jesters laughed together at that.
On the way home, father and son talk little, as was their way; but
Isak must have been thinking out something for himself; he says:
"Sivert?"
"Ay?" says Sivert again.
"Nay, 'twas nothing."
They walk on a good ways, and Isak begins again:
"How's he get on, then, with his trading, Aronsen, when he's nothing
to trade with?"
"Nay," says Sivert. "But there's not folk enough here now for him to
buy for."
"Ho, you think so? Why, I suppose 'tis so, ay, well...."
Sivert wondered a little at this. After a while his father went on
again:
"There's but eight places now in all, but there might be more before
long. More ... well, I don't know...."
Sivert wondering more than ever--what can his father be getting at?
The pair of them walk on a long way in silence; they are nearly home
now.
"H'm," says Isak. "What you think Aronsen he'd ask for that place of
his now?"
"Ho, that's it!" says Sivert. "Want to buy it, do you?" he asks
jestingly. But suddenly he understands what it all means: 'tis Eleseus
the old man has in mind. Oh, he's not forgotten him after all, but
kept him faithfully in mind, just as his mother, only in his own way,
nearer earth, and nearer to Sellanraa.
"'Twill be going for a reasonable price, I doubt," says Sivert. And
when Sivert says so much, his father knows the lad has read his
thought. And as if in fear of having spoken out too clearly, he falls
to talking of their road-mending; a good thing they had got it done at
last.
For a couple of days after that, Sivert and his mother were putting
their heads together and holding councils and whispering--ay, they
even wrote a letter. And when Saturday came round Sivert suddenly
wanted to go down to the village.
"What you want to go down village again for now?" said his father in
displeasure. "Wearing boots to rags...." Oh, Isak was more bitter than
need be; he knew well enough that Sivert was going to the post.
"Going to church," says Sivert.
'Twas all he could find by way of excuse, and his father muttered:"
Well, what you want to go for ...?"
But if Sivert was going to church, why, he might harness up and take
little Rebecca with him. Little Rebecca, ay, surely she might have
that bit of a treat for once in her life, after being so clever
guarding turnips and being all ways the pearl and blessing of them
all, ay, that she was. And they harnessed up, and Rebecca had the maid
Jensine to look after her on the way, and Sivert said never a word
against that either.
While they are away, it so happens that Aronsen's man, his chief
clerk, from Storborg, comes up the road. What does this mean? Why,
nothing very much, 'tis only Andresen, the chief clerk from Storborg,
come up for a bit of a walk this way--his master having sent him.
Nothing more. And no great excitement among the folk at Sellanraa over
that--'twas not as in the old days, when a stranger was a rare sight
on their new land, and Inger made a great to-do. No, Inger's grown
quieter now, and keeps to herself these days.
A strange thing that book of devotion, a guide upon the way, an arm
round one's neck, no less. When Inger had lost hold of herself a
little, lost her way a little out plucking berries, she found her way
home again by the thought of her little chamber and the holy book; ay,
she was humble now and a Godfearing soul. She can remember long
years ago when she would say an evil word if she pricked her finger
sewing--so she had learned to do from her fellow-workers round the big
table in the Institute. But now she pricks her finger, and it bleeds,
and she sucks the blood away in silence. 'Tis no little victory gained
to change one's nature so. And Inger did more than that. When all the
workmen were gone, and the stone building was finished, and Sellanraa
was all forsaken and still, then came a critical time for Inger; she
cried a deal, and suffered much. She blamed none but herself for it
all, and she was deeply humbled. If only she could have spoken out to
Isak, and relieved her mind, but that was not their way at Sellanraa;
there was none of them would talk their feelings and confess things.
All she could do was to be extra careful in the way she asked her
husband to come in to meals, going right up to him to say it nicely,
instead of shouting from the door. And in the evenings, she looked
over his clothes, and sewed buttons on. Ay, and even more she did. One
night she lifted up on her elbow and said: