Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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"Oh, you've not an atom of truth nor decency in your body!" said
Barbro.
And there was the mistress in the doorway.
She had come out, perhaps, with no more thought than that the girls
were making too much noise, but now she stood looking, very closely
at Barbro, at Barbro's apron over her breast; ay, leaning forward and
looking very closely indeed. It was a painful moment. And suddenly Fru
Heyerdahl screams and draws back to the door. What on earth can it be?
thinks Barbro, and looks down at herself. _Herregud_! a flea, nothing
more. Barbro cannot help smiling, and being not unused to acting under
critical circumstances, she flicks off the flea at once.
"On the floor!" cried Fru Heyerdahl. "Are you mad, girl? Pick it up
at once!" Barbro begins looking about for it, and once more acts with
presence of mind: she makes as if she had caught the creature, and
drops it realistically into the fire.
"Where did you get it?" asks her mistress angrily.
"Where I got it?"
"Yes, that's what I want to know."
But here Barbro makes a bad mistake. "At the store," she ought to have
said, of course--that would have been quite enough. As it was--she did
not know where she had got the creature, but had an idea it must have
been from Cook.
Cook at the height of passion at once: "From me! You'll please to keep
your fleas to yourself, so there!"
"Anyway, 'twas you was out last night."
Another mistake--she should have said nothing about it. Cook has no
longer any reason for keeping silence, and now she let out the
whole thing, and told all about the nights Barbro had been out. Fru
Heyerdahl mightily indignant; she cares nothing about Cook, 'tis
Barbro she is after, the girl whose character she has answered for.
And even then all might have been well if Barbro had bowed her head
like a reed, and been cast down with shame, and promised all manner of
things for the future--but no. Her mistress is forced to remind her of
all she has done for her, and at that, if you please, Barbro falls to
answering back, ay, so foolish was she, saying impertinent things. Or
perhaps she was cleverer than might seem; trying on purpose, maybe, to
bring the matter to a head, and get out of the place altogether? Says
her mistress:
"After I've saved you from the clutches of the Law."
"As for that," answers Barbro, "I'd have just as pleased if you
hadn't."
"And that's all the thanks I get," says her mistress.
"Least said the better, perhaps," says Barbro. "I wouldn't have got
more than a month or two, anyway, and done with it."
Fru Heyerdahl is speechless for a moment; ay, for a little while she
stands saying nothing, only opening and closing her mouth. The first
thing she says is to tell the girl to go; she will have no more of
her.
"Just as you please," says Barbro.
For some days after that Barbro had been at home with her parents. But
she could not go on staying there. True, her mother sold coffee, and
there came a deal of folk to the house, but Barbro could not live on
that--and maybe she had other reasons of her own for wanting to get
into a settled position again. And so today she had taken a sack of
clothes on her back, and started up along the road over the moors.
Question now, whether Axel Stroem would take her? But she had had the
banns put up, anyway, the Sunday before.
Raining, and dirty underfoot, but Barbro tramps on. Evening is drawing
on, but not dark yet at that season of the year. Poor Barbro--she does
not spare herself, but goes on her errand like another; she is bound
for a place, to commence another struggle there. She has never spared
herself, to tell the truth, never been of a lazy sort, and that is why
she has her neat figure now and pretty shape. Barbro is quick to learn
things, and often to her own undoing; what else could one expect? She
had learned to save herself at a pinch, to slip from one scrape to
another, but keeping all along some better qualities; a child's death
is nothing to her, but she can still give sweets to a child alive.
Then she has a fine musical ear, can strum softly and correctly on a
guitar, singing hoarsely the while; pleasant and slightly mournful
to hear. Spared herself? no; so little, indeed, that she has thrown
herself away altogether, and felt no loss. Now and again she cries,
and breaks her heart over this or that in her life--but that is
only natural, it goes with the songs she sings, 'tis the poetry and
friendly sweetness in her; she had fooled herself and many another
with the same. Had she been able to bring the guitar with her this
evening she could have strummed a little for Axel when she came.
She manages so as to arrive late in the, evening; all is quiet
at Maaneland when she reaches there. See, Axel has already begun
haymaking, the grass is cut near the house, and some of the hay
already in. And then she reckons out that Oline, being old, will be
sleeping in the little room, and Axel lying out in the hayshed, just
as she herself had done. She goes to the door she knows so well,
breathless as a thief, and calls softly: "Axel!"
"What's that?" asks Axel all at once.
"Nay, 'tis only me," says Barbro, and steps in. "You couldn't house me
for the night?" she says.
Axel looks at her and is slow to think, and sits there in his
underclothes, looking at her. "So 'tis you," says he. "And where'll
you be going?"
"Why, depends first of all if you've need of help to the summer work,"
says she.
Axel thinks over that, and says: "Aren't you going to stay where you
were, then?"
"Nay; I've finished at the Lensmand's."
"I might be needing help, true enough, for the summer," said Axel.
"But what's it mean, anyway, you wanting to come back?"
"Nay, never mind me," says Barbro, putting it off. "I'll go on again
tomorrow. Go to Sellanraa and cross the hills. I've a place there."
"You've fixed up with some one there?"
"Ay."
"I might be needing summer help myself," says Axel again.
Barbro is wet through; she has other clothes in her sack, and must
change. "Don't mind about me," says Axel, and moves a bit toward the
door, no more.
Barbro takes off her wet clothes, they talking the while, and Axel
turning his head pretty often towards her. "Now you'd better go out
just a bit," says she.
"Out?" says he. And indeed 'twas no weather to go out in. He stands
there, seeing her more and more stripped; 'tis hard to keep his eyes
away; and Barbro is so thoughtless, she might well have put on dry
things bit by bit as she took oft the wet, but no. Her shift is thin
and clings to her; she unfastens a button at one shoulder, and turns
aside, 'tis nothing new for her. Axel dead silent then, and he sees
how she makes but a touch or two with her hands and washes the last of
her clothes from her. 'Twas splendidly done, to his mind. And there
she stands, so utterly thoughtless of her....
A while after, they lay talking together. Ay, he had need of help for
the summer, no doubt about that.
"They said something that way," says Barbro.
He had begun his mowing and haymaking all alone again; Barbro could
judge for herself how awkward it was for him now.--Ay, Barbro
understood.--On the other hand, it was Barbro herself that had run
away and left him before, without a soul to help him, he can't forget
that. And taken her rings with her into the bargain. And on top of all
that, shameful as it was, the paper that kept on coming, that Bergen
newspaper it seemed he would never get rid of; he had had to go on
paying for it a whole year after.
"'Twas shameful mean of them," says Barbro, taking his part all the
time.
But seeing her all submissive and gentle, Axel himself could not be
altogether heartless towards her; he agreed that Barbro might have
some reason to be angry with him in return for the way he had taken
the telegraph business from her father. "But as for that," said he,
"your father can have the telegraph business again for me; I'll have
no more of it, 'tis but a waste of time."
"Ay," says Barbro.
Axel thought for a while, then asked straight out: "Well, what about
it now, would you want to come for the summer and no more?"
"Nay," says Barbro, "let it be as you please."
"You mean that, and truly?"
"Ay, just as you please, and I'll be pleased with the same. You've no
call to doubt about me any more."
"H'm."
"No, 'tis true. And I've ordered about the banns."
H'm. This was not so bad. Axel lay thinking it over a long time. If
she meant it in earnest this time, and not shameful deceit again, then
he'd a woman of his own and help for as long as might be.
"I could get a woman to come from our parts," said he, "and she's
written saying she'd come. But then I'd have to pay her fare from
America."
Says Barbro: "Ho, she's in America, then?"
"Ay. Went over last year she did, but doesn't care to stay."
"Never mind about her," says Barbro. "And what'd become of me then?"
says she, and begins to be soft and mournful.
"No. That's why I've not fixed up all certain with her."
And after that, Barbro must have something to show in return; she
confessed about how she could have taken a lad in Bergen, and he was
a carter in a big brewery, a mighty big concern, and a good position.
"And he'll be sorrowing for me now, I doubt," says Barbro, and makes
a little sob. "But you know how 'tis, Axel; when there's two been so
much together as you and I, 'tis more than I could ever forget. And
you can forget me as much as you please."
"What! me?" says Axel. "Nay, no need to lie there crying for that, my
girl, for I've never forgot you."
"Well...."
Barbro feels a deal better after that confession, and says: "Anyway,
paying her fare all the way from America when there's no need...." She
advises him to have nothing to do with that business; 'twould be over
costly, and there was no need. Barbro seemed resolved to build up his
happiness herself.
They came to agreement all round in the course of the night. 'Twas not
as if they were strangers; they had talked over everything before.
Even the necessary marriage ceremony was to take place before St.
Olaf's Day and harvest; they had no need to hide things, and Barbro
was now herself most eager to get it done at once. Axel was not any
put out at her eagerness, and it did not make him any way suspicious;
far from it, he was flattered and encouraged to find her so. Ay, he
was a worker in the fields, no doubt, a thick-skinned fellow, not used
to looking over fine at things, nothing delicate beyond measure; there
were things he was obliged to do, and he looked to what was useful
first of all. Moreover, here was Barbro all new and pretty again, and
nice to him, almost sweeter than before. Like an apple she was, and he
bit at it. The banns were already put up.
As to the dead child and the trial, neither said a word of that.
But they did speak of Oline, of how they were to get rid of her. "Ay,
she must go," said Barbro. "We've nothing to thank her for, anyway.
She's naught but tale-bearing and malice."
But it proved no easy matter to get Oline to go.
The very first morning, when Barbro appeared, Oline was clear, no
doubt, as to her fate. She was troubled at once, but tried not to show
it, and brought out a chair. They had managed up to then at Maaneland.
Axel had carried water and wood and done the heaviest work, and Oline
doing the rest. And gradually she had come to reckon on staying the
rest of her life on the place. Now came Barbro and upset it all.
"If we'd only a grain of coffee in the house you should have it," said
she to Barbro. "Going farther up, maybe?"
"No," said Barbro.
"Ho! Not going farther?"
"No."
"Why, 'tis no business of mine, no," says Oline. "Going down again,
maybe?"
"No. Nor going down again. I'm staying here for now."
"Staying here, are you?"
"Ay, staying here, I doubt."
Oline waits for a moment, using her old head, full of policy. "Ay,
well," says she. "'Twill save me, then, no doubt. And glad I'll be for
the same."
"Oho," says Barbro in jest, "has Axel here been so hard on you this
while?"
"Hard on me? Axel! Oh, there's no call to turn an old body's words,
there's naught but living on and waiting for the blessed end. Axel
that's been as a father and a messenger from the Highest to me day and
hour together, and gospel truth the same. But seeing I've none of my
own folks here, and living alone and rejected under a stranger's roof,
with all my kin over across the hills...."
But for all that, Oline stayed on. They could not get rid of her till
after they were wed, and Oline made a deal of reluctance, but said
"Yes" at last, and would stay so long to please them, and look to
house and cattle while they went down to the church. It took two days.
But when they came back wedded and all, Oline stayed on as before. She
put off going; one day she was feeling poorly, she said; the next it
looked like rain. She made up to Barbro with smooth words about the
food. Oh, there was a mighty difference in the food now at Maaneland;
'twas different living now, and a mighty difference in the coffee
now. Oh, she stopped at nothing, that Oline; asked Barbro's advice on
things she knew better herself. "What you think now, should I milk
cows as they stand in their place and order, or should I take cow
Bordelin first?"
"You can do as you please."
"Ay, 'tis as I always said," exclaims Oline. "You've been out in the
world and lived among great folks and fine folks, and learned all and
everything. 'Tis different with the likes of me."
Ay, Oline stopped at nothing, she was intriguing all day long. Sitting
there telling Barbro how she herself was friends and on the best of
terms with Barbro's father, with Brede Olsen! Ho, many a pleasant hour
they'd had together, and a kindly man and rich and grand to boot was
Brede, and never a hard word in his mouth.
But this could not go on for ever; neither Axel nor Barbro cared to
have Oline there any longer, and Barbro had taken over all her work.
Oline made no complaint, but she flashed dangerous glances at her
young mistress and changed her tone ever so little.
"Ay, great folk, 'tis true. Axel, he was in town a while last
harvest-time--you didn't meet him there, maybe? Nay, that's true, you
were in Bergen that time. But he went into town, he did; 'twas all
to buy a mowing-machine and a harrow-machine. And what's folk at
Sellanraa now beside you here? Nothing to compare!"
She was beginning to shoot out little pinpricks, but even that did not
help her now; neither of them feared her. Axel told her straight out
one day that she must go.
"Go?" says Oline. "And how? Crawling, belike?" No, she would not go,
saying by way of excuse that she was poorly, and could not move her
legs. And to make things bad as could be, when once they had taken the
work off her hands, and she had nothing to do at all, she collapsed,
and was thoroughly ill. She kept about for a week in spite of it, Axel
looking furiously at her; but she stayed on from sheer malice, and at
last she had to take to her bed.
And now she lay there, not in the least awaiting her blessed end, but
counting the hours till she should be up and about again. She asked
for a doctor, a piece of extravagance unheard of in the wilds.
"Doctor?" said Axel. "Are you out of your senses?"
"How d'you mean, then?" said Oline quite gently, as to something she
could not understand. Ay, so gentle and smooth-tongued was she, so
glad to think she need not be a burden to others; she could pay for
the doctor herself.
"Ho, can you?" said Axel.
"Why, and couldn't I, then?" says Oline. "And, anyway, you'd not have
me lie here and die like a dumb beast in the face of the Lord?"
Here Barbro put in a word, and was unwise enough to say:
"Well, what you've got to complain of, I'd like to know, when I bring
you in your meals and all myself? As for coffee, I've said you're
better without it, and meaning well."
"Is that Barbro?" says Oline, turning just her eyes and no more to
look for her; ay, she is poorly is Oline, and a pitiful sight with her
eyes screwed round cornerways. "Ay, maybe 'tis as you say, Barbro, if
a tiny drop of coffee'd do me any harm, a spoonful and no more."
"If 'twas me in your stead, I'd be thinking of other things than
coffee at this hour," says Barbro.
"Ay, 'tis as I say," answers Oline. "'Twas never your way to wish and
desire a fellow-creature's end, but rather they should be converted
and live. What ... ay, I'm lying here and seeing things.... Is it with
child you are now, Barbro?"
"What's that you say?" cries Barbro furiously; and goes on again: "Oh,
'twould serve you right if I took and heaved you out on the muck-heap
for your wicked tongue."
And at that the invalid was silent for one thoughtful moment, her
mouth trembling as if trying so hard to smile, but dare not.
"I heard a some one calling last night," says she.
"She's out of her senses," says Axel, whispering.
"Nay, out of my senses that I'm not. Like some one calling it was.
From the woods, or maybe from the stream up yonder. Strange to
hear--as it might be a bit of a child crying out. Was that Barbro went
out?"
"Ay," says Axel. "Sick of your nonsense, and no wonder."
"Nonsense, you call it, and out of my senses, and all? Ah, but not so
far as you'd like to think," says Oline. "Nay, 'tis not the Almighty's
will and decree I should come before the Throne and before the Lamb as
yet, with all I know of goings-on here at Maaneland. I'll be up and
about again, never fear; but you'd better be fetching a doctor, Axel,
'tis quicker that way. What about that cow you were going to give me?"
"Cow? What cow?"
"That cow you promised me. Was it Bordelin, maybe?"
"You're talking wild," says Axel.
"You know how you promised me a cow the day I saved your life."
"Nay, that I never knew."
At that Oline lifts up her head and looks at him. Grey and bald she
is, a head standing up on a long, scraggy neck--ugly as a witch, as an
ogress out of a story. And Axel starts at the sight, and fumbles with
a hand behind his back for the latch of the door.
"Ho," says Oline, "so you're that sort! Ay, well--say no more of it
now. I can live without the cow from this day forth, and never a word
I'll say nor breathe of it again. But well that you've shown what sort
and manner of man you are this day; I know it now. Ay, and I'll know
it another time."
But Oline, she died that night--some time in the night; anyway, she
was cold next morning when they came in.
Oline--an aged creature. Born and died....
'Twas no sorrow to Axel nor Barbro to bury her, and be quit of her for
ever; there was less to be on their guard against now, they could be
at rest. Barbro is having trouble with her teeth again; save for that,
all is well. But that everlasting woollen muffler over her face, and
shifting it aside every time there's a word to say--'twas plaguy and
troublesome enough, and all this toothache is something of a mystery
to Axel. He has noticed, certainly, that she chews her food in a
careful sort of way, but there's not a tooth missing in her head.
"Didn't you get new teeth?" he asks.
"Ay, so I did."
"And are they aching, too?"
"Ah, you with your nonsense!" says Barbro irritably, for all that Axel
has asked innocently enough. And in her bitterness she lets out what
is the matter. "You can see how 'tis with me, surely?"
How 'twas with her? Axel looks closer, and fancies she is stouter than
need be.
"Why, you can't be--'tis surely not another child again?" says he.
"Why, you know it is," says she.
Axel stares foolishly at her. Slow of thought as he is, he sits there
counting for a bit: one week, two weeks, getting on the third week....
"Nay, how I should know...." says he.
But Barbro is losing all patience with this debate, and bursts out,
crying aloud, crying like a deeply injured creature: "Nay, you can
take and bury me, too, in the ground, and then you'll be rid of me."
Strange, what odd things a woman can find to cry for!
Axel had never a thought of, burying her in the ground; he is a
thick-skinned fellow, looking mainly to what is useful; a pathway
carpeted with flowers is beyond his needs.
"Then you'll not be fit to work in the fields this summer?" says he.
"Not work?" says Barbro, all terrified again. And then--strange what
odd things a woman can find to smile for! Axel, taking it that way,
sent a flow of hysterical joy through Barbro, and she burst out: "I'll
work for two! Oh, you wait and see, Axel; I'll do all you set me to,
and more beyond. Wear myself to the bone, I will, and be thankful, if
only you'll put up with me so!"
More tears and smiles and tenderness after that. Only the two of them
in the wilds, none to disturb them; open doors and a humming of flies
in the summer heat. All so tender and willing was Barbro; ay, he might
do as he pleased with her, and she was willing.
After sunset he stands harnessing up to the mowing-machine; there's a
bit he can still get done ready for tomorrow. Barbro comes hurrying
out, as if she's something important, and says:
"Axel, how ever could you think of getting one home from America? She
couldn't get here before winter, and what use of her then?" And that
was something had just come into her head, and she must come running
out with it as if 'twas something needful.
But 'twas no way needful; Axel had seen from the first that taking
Barbro would mean getting help for all the year. No swaying and
swinging with Axel, no thinking with his head among the stars. Now
he's a woman of his own to look after the place, he can keep on the
telegraph business for a bit. 'Tis a deal of money in the year, and
good to reckon with as long as he's barely enough for his needs from
the land, and little to sell. All sound and working well; all good
reality. And little to fear from Brede about the telegraph line,
seeing he's son-in-law to Brede now.
Ay, things are looking well, looking grand with Axel now.
Chapter XI
And time goes on; winter is passed; spring comes again.
Isak has to go down to the village one day--and why not? What for?
"Nay, I don't know," says he. But he gets the cart cleaned up all
fine, puts in the seat, and drives off, and a deal of victuals and
such put in, too--and why not? 'Twas for Eleseus at Storborg. Never a
horse went out from Sellanraa but there was something taken down to
Eleseus.
When Isak came driving down over the moors, 'twas no little event, for
he came but rarely, Sivert going most ways in his stead. At the two
farms nearest down, folk stand at the door of the huts and tell one
another: "'Tis Isak himself; and what'll he be going down after
today?" And, coming down as far as to Maaneland, there's Barbro at the
glass window with a child in her arms, and sees him, and says: "'Tis
Isak himself!"
He comes to Storborg and pulls up. "_Ptro_! Is Eleseus at home?"
Eleseus comes out. Ay, he's at home; not gone yet, but just going--off
on his spring tour of the towns down south.
"Here's some things your mother sent down," says his father. "Don't
know what it is, but nothing much, I doubt."
Eleseus takes the things, and thanks him, and asks:
"There wasn't a letter, I suppose, or anything that sort?"
"Ay," says his father, feeling in pockets, "there was. 'Tis from
little Rebecca I think they said."
Eleseus takes the letter, 'tis that he has been waiting for. Feels it
all nice and thick, and says to his father:
"Well, 'twas lucky you came in time--though 'tis two days before I'm
off yet. If you'd like to stay a bit, you might take my trunk down."
Isak gets down and ties up his horse, and goes for a stroll over the
ground. Little Andresen is no bad worker on the land in Eleseus'
service; true, he has had Sivert from Sellanraa with horses, but he
has done a deal of work on his own account, draining bogs, and hiring
a man himself to set the ditches with stone. No need of buying fodder
at Storborg that year, and next, like as not, Eleseus would be keeping
a horse of his own. Thanks to Andresen and the way he worked on the
land.
After a bit of a while, Eleseus calls down that he's ready with his
trunk. Ready to go himself, too, by the look of it; in a fine blue
suit, white collar, galoshes, and a walking-stick. True, he will have
two days to wait for the boat, but no matter; he may just as well stay
down in the village; 'tis all the same if he's here or there.
And father and son drive off. Andresen watches them from the door of
the shop and wishes a pleasant journey.
Isak is all thought for his boy, and would give him the seat to
himself; but Eleseus will have none of that, and 'sits up by his side.
They come to Breidablik, and suddenly Eleseus has forgotten something.
"_Ptro_!--What is it?" asks his father.
Oh, his umbrella! Eleseus has forgotten his umbrella; but he can't
explain all about it, and only says: "Never mind, drive on."
"Don't you want to turn back?"
"No; drive on."
But a nuisance it was; how on earth had he come to leave it? 'Twas all
in a hurry, through his father being there waiting. Well, now he had
better buy a new umbrella at Trondhjem when he got there. 'Twas no
importance either way if he had one umbrella or two. But for all that,
Eleseus is out of humour with himself; so much so that he jumps down
and walks behind.