Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
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Isak thought it over. "I could do it all right in winter," he said.
"That's no good. It would have to be for the whole year, summer and
winter alike."
"Can't be done," said Isak. "Spring and summer and autumn I've my work
on the land, and no time for other things."
The engineer looked at him for quite a while, and then put an
astonishing question, as follows: "Can you make more money that way?"
"Make more money?" said Isak.
"Can you earn more money in a day by working on the land than you
could by working for us?"
"Why, as to that, I can't say," answered Isak. "It's just this way,
you see--'tis the land I'm here for. I've many souls and more beasts
to keep alive--and 'tis the land that keeps us. 'Tis our living."
"If you won't, I can find some one else," said the engineer.
But Isak only seemed rather relieved at the threat. He did not like
to disoblige the great man, and tried to explain. "'Tis this way," he
said, "I've a horse and five cows, besides the bull. I've twenty sheep
and sixteen goats. The beasts, they give us food and wool and hide; we
must give them food."
"Yes, yes, of course," said the other shortly.
"Well, and so I say, how am I to feed them when I've to run away all
times in the busy season, to work on the telegraph line?"
"Say no more about it," said the engineer. "I'll get the man down
below you, Brede Olsen; he'll be glad to take it." He turned to his
men with a brief word: "Now, lads, we'll be getting on,"
Now Oline had heard from the way Isak spoke that he was stiff-necked
and unreasonable in his mind, and she would make the most of it.
"What was that you said, Isak? Sixteen goats? There's no more than
fifteen," said she.
Isak looked at her, and Oline looked at him again, straight in the
face.
"Not sixteen goats?" said he.
"No," said she, looking helplessly towards the strangers, as if to say
how unreasonable he was.
"Ho!" said Isak softly. He drew a tuft of his beard between his teeth
and stood chewing it.
The engineer and his men went on their way.
Now, if Isak had wanted to show his displeasure with Oline and maybe
thrash her for her doings, here was his chance--a Heaven-sent chance
to do that thing. They were alone in the house; the children had gone
after the men when they went. Isak stood there in the middle of the
room, and Oline was sitting by the stove. Isak cleared his throat
once or twice, just to show that he was ready to say something if he
pleased. But he said nothing. That was his strength of soul. What,
did he not know the number of his goats as he knew the fingers on his
hands--was the woman mad? Could one of the beasts be missing, when he
knew every one of them personally and talked to them every day--his
goats that were sixteen in number? Oline must have traded away one of
them the day before, when the woman from Breidablik had come up to
look at the place. "H'm," said Isak, and this time words were on
the very tip of his tongue. What was it Oline had done? Not exactly
murder, perhaps, but something not far from it. He could speak in
deadly earnest of that sixteenth goat.
But he could not stand there for ever, in the middle of the room,
saying nothing. "H'm," he said. "Ho! So there's but fifteen goats
there now, you say?"
"That's all I make it," answered Oline gently. "But you'd better count
for yourself and see."
Now was his time--he could do it now: reach out with his hands and
alter the shape of Oline considerably, with but one good grip. He
could do it. He did not do it, but said boldly, making for the door:
"I'll say no more just now." And he went out, as if plainly showing
that, next time, he would have proper words to say, never fear.
"Eleseus!" he called out.
Where was Eleseus, where were the children? Their father had something
to ask them; they were big fellows now, with their eyes about them. He
found them under the floor of the barn; they had crept in as far as
they could, hiding away invisibly, but betraying themselves by an
anxious whispering. Out they crept now like two sinners.
The fact of the matter was that Eleseus had found a stump of coloured
pencil the engineer had left behind, and started to run after him and
give it back, but the big men with their long strides were already far
up in the forest. Eleseus stopped. The idea occurred to him that he
might keep the pencil--if only he could! He hunted out little Sivert,
so that they might at least be two to share the guilt, and the pair of
them had crept in under the floor with their find. Oh, that stump of
pencil--it was an event in their lives, a wonder! They found shavings
and covered them all over with signs; the pencil, they discovered,
made blue marks with one end and red with the other, and they took
it in turns to use. When their father called out so loudly and
insistently, Eleseus whispered: "They've come back for the pencil!"
All their joy was dashed in a moment, swept out of their minds at a
touch, and their little hearts began beating and thumping terribly.
The brothers crept forth. Eleseus held out the pencil at arm's length;
here it was, they had not broken it; only wished they had never seen
the thing.
No engineer was to be seen. Their hearts settled to a quieter beat; it
was heavenly to be rid of that dreadful tension.
"There was a woman here yesterday," said their father.
"Yes."
"The woman from the place down below. Did you see her go?"
"Yes."
"Had she a goat with her?"
"No," said the boys. "A goat?"
"Didn't she have a goat with her when she left?"
"No. What goat?"
Isak wondered and wondered. In the evening when the animals came home,
he counted the goats once over--there were sixteen. He counted them
once more, counted them five times. There were sixteen. None missing.
Isak breathed again. But what did it all mean? Oline, miserable
creature, couldn't she count as far as sixteen? He asked her angrily:
"What's all this nonsense? there _are_ sixteen goats."
"Are there sixteen?" she asked innocently.
"Ay."
"Ay, well, then."
"A nice one to count, you are."
Oline answered quietly, in an injured tone, "Since all the goats are
there, why, then, thank Heaven, you can't say Oline's been eating them
up. And well for her, poor thing."
Oline had taken him in completely with her trickery; he was content,
imagining all was well. It did not occur to him, for instance, to
count the sheep. He did not trouble about further counting of the
stock at all. After all, Oline was not as bad as she might have been;
she kept house for him after a fashion, and looked to his cattle; she
was merely a fool, and that was worst for herself. Let her stay, let
her live--she was not worth troubling about. But it was a grey and
joyless thing to be Isak, as life was now.
Years had passed. Grass had grown on the roof of the house, even the
roof of the barn, which was some years younger, was green. The
wild mouse, native of the woods, had long since found way into the
storehouse. Tits and all manner of little birds swarmed about the
place; there were more birds up on the hillside; even the crows had
come. And most wonderful of all, the summer before, seagulls had
appeared, seagulls coming all the way up from the coast to settle on
the fields there in the wilderness. Isak's farm was known far and wide
to all wild creatures. And what of Eleseus and little Sivert when they
saw the gulls? Oh, 'twas some strange birds from ever so far away; not
so many of them, just six white birds, all exactly alike, waddling
this way and that about the fields, and pecking at the grass now and
then.
"Father, what have they come for?" asked the boys.
"There's foul weather coming out at sea," said their father. Oh, a
grand and mysterious thing to see those gulls!
And Isak taught his sons many other things good and useful to know.
They were of an age to go to school, but the school was many miles
away down in the village, out of reach. Isak had himself taught the
boys their A B C on Sundays, but 'twas not for him, not for this born
tiller of the soil, to give them any manner of higher education; the
Catechism and Bible history lay quietly on the shelf with the
cheeses. Isak apparently thought it better for men to grow up without
book-knowledge, from the way he dealt with his boys. They were a joy
and a blessing to him, the two; many a time he thought of the days
when they had been tiny things, and their mother would not let him
touch them because his hands were sticky with resin. Ho, resin, the
cleanest thing in the world! Tar and goats' milk and marrow, for
instance, all excellent things, but resin, clean gum from the fir--not
a word!
So the lads grew up in a paradise of dirt and ignorance, but they were
nice lads for all that when they were washed, which happened now and
again; little Sivert he was a splendid fellow, though Eleseus was
something finer and deeper.
"How do the gulls know about the weather?" he asked.
"They're weather-sick," said his father. "But as for that they're no
more so than the flies. How it may be with flies, I can't say, if they
get the gout, or feel giddy, or what. But never hit out at a fly, for
'twill only make him worse--remember that, boys! The horsefly he's
a different sort, he dies of himself. Turns up suddenly one day in
summer, and there he is; then one day suddenly he's gone, and that's
the end of him."
"But how does he die?" asked Eleseus.
"The fat inside him stiffens, and he lies there dead."
Every day they learned something new. Jumping down from high rocks,
for instance, to keep your tongue in your mouth, and not get it
between your teeth. When they grew bigger, and wanted to smell nice
for going to church, the thing was to rub oneself with a little tansy
that grew on the hillside. Father was full of wisdom. He taught the
boys about stones, about flint, how that the white stone was harder
than the grey; but when he had found a flint, he must also make
tinder. Then he could strike fire with it. He taught them about the
moon, how when you can grip in the hollow side with your left hand
it is waxing, and grip in with the right, it's on the wane; remember
that, boys! Now and again, Isak would go too far, and grow mysterious;
one Friday he declared that it was harder for a camel to enter the
kingdom of heaven than for a human being to thread the eye of a
needle. Another time, telling them of the glory of the angels,
he explained that angels had stars set in their heels instead of
hob-nails. Good and simple teaching, well fitted for settlers in the
wilds; the schoolmaster in the village would have laughed at it all,
but Isak's boys found good use for it in their inner life. They were
trained and taught for their own little world, and what could be
better? In the autumn, when animals were to be killed, the lads were
greatly curious, and fearful, and heavy at heart for the ones that
were to die. There was Isak holding with one hand, and the other ready
to strike; Oline stirred the blood. The old goat was led out, bearded
and wise; the boys stood peeping round the corner. "Filthy cold wind
this time," said Eleseus, and turned away to wipe his eyes. Little
Sivert cried more openly, could not help calling out: "Oh, poor old
goat!" When the goat was killed, Isak came up to them and gave them
this lesson: "Never stand around saying 'Poor thing' and being pitiful
when things are being killed. It makes them tough and harder to kill.
Remember that!"
So the years passed, and now it was nearing spring again.
Inger had written home to say she was well, and was learning a lot
of things where she was. Her little girl was big, and was called
Leopoldine, after the day she was born, the 15th November. She knew
all sorts of things, and was a genius at hemstitch and crochet,
wonderful fine work she could do on linen or canvas.
The curious thing about this letter was that Inger had written and
spelt it all herself. Isak was not so learned but that he had to get
it read for him down in the village, by the man at the store; but once
he had got it into his head it stayed there; he knew it off by heart
when he got home.
And now he sat down with great solemnity at the head of the table,
spread out the letter, and read it aloud to the boys. He was willing
enough that Oline also should see how easily he could read writing,
but he did not speak so much as a word to her directly. When he had
finished, he said: "There now, Eleseus, and you, Sivert, 'tis your
mother herself has written that letter and learned all these things.
Even that little tiny sister of yours, she knows more than all the
rest of us here. Remember that!" The boys sat still, wondering in
silence.
"Ay, 'tis a grand thing," said Oline.
And what did she mean by that? Was she doubting that Inger told the
truth? Or had she her suspicions as to Isak's reading? It was no easy
matter to get at what Oline really thought, when she sat there with
her simple face, saying dark things. Isak determined to take no
notice.
"And when your mother comes home, boys, you shall learn to write too,"
said he to the lads.
Oline shifted some clothes that were hanging near the stove to
dry; shifted a pot, shifted the clothes again, and busied herself
generally. She was thinking all the time.
"So fine and grand as everything's getting here," she said at last. "I
do think you might have bought a paper of coffee for the house."
"_Coffee_?" said Isak. It slipped out.
Oline answered quietly: "Up to now I've bought a little now and again
out of my own money, but...."
Coffee was a thing of dreams and fairy tales for Isak, a rainbow.
Oline was talking nonsense, of course. He was not angry with her,
no; but, slow of thought as he was, he called to mind at last her
bartering with the Lapps, and he said bitterly:
"Ay, I'll buy you coffee, that I will. A paper of coffee, was it? Why
not a pound? A pound of coffee, while you're about it."
"No need to talk that way, Isak. My brother Nils, he gets coffee; down
at Breidablik, too, they've coffee."
"Ay, for they've no milk. Not a drop of milk on the place, they've
not."
"That's as it may be. But you that know such a lot, and read writing
as pat as a cockroach running, you ought to know that coffee's a thing
should be in everybody's house."
"You creature!" said Isak.
At that Oline sat down and was not to be silenced. "As for that
Inger," said she, "if so be I may dare to say such a word...."
"Say what you will, 'tis all one to me."
"She'll be coming home, and learned everything of sorts. And beads and
feathers in her hat, maybe?"
"Ay, that may be."
"Ay," said Oline; "and she can thank me a little for all the way she's
grown so fine and grand."
"You?" asked Isak. It slipped out.
Oline answered humbly: "Ay, since 'twas my modest doing that she ever
went away."
Isak was speechless at that; all his words were checked, he sat there
staring. Had he heard aright? Oline sat there looking as if she had
said nothing. No, in a battle of words Isak was altogether lost.
He swung out of the house, full of dark thoughts. Oline, that beast
that throve in wickedness and grew fat on it--why had he not wrung her
neck the first year? So he thought, trying to pull himself together.
He could have done it--he? Couldn't he, though! No one better.
And then a ridiculous thing happened. Isak went into the shed and
counted the goats. There they are with their kids, the full number.
He counts the cows, the pig, fourteen hens, two calves. "I'd all but
forgotten the sheep," he says to himself; he counts the sheep, and
pretends to be all anxiety lest there should be any missing there.
Isak knows very well that there is a sheep missing; he has known that
a long time; why should he let it appear otherwise? It was this way.
Oline had tricked him nicely once before, saying one of the goats was
gone, though all the goats were there as they should be; he had made a
great fuss about it at the time, but to no purpose. It was always the
same when he came into conflict with Oline. Then, in the autumn, at
slaughtering time, he had seen at once that there was one ewe short,
but he had not found courage to call her to account for it at the
time. And he had not found that courage since.
But today he is stern; Isak is stern. Oline has made him thoroughly
angry this time. He counts the sheep over again, putting his
forefinger on each and counting aloud--Oline may hear it if she likes,
if she should happen to be outside. And he says many hard things about
Oline--says them out loud; how that she uses a new method of her own
in feeding sheep, a method that simply makes them vanish--here's a ewe
simply vanished. She is a thieving baggage, nothing less, and she may
know it! Oh, he would just have liked Oline to be standing outside and
hear it, and be thoroughly frightened for once.
He strides out from the shed, goes to the stable and counts the horse;
from there he will go in--will go into the house and speak his mind.
He walks so fast that his shirt stands out like a very angry shirt
behind him. But Oline as like as not has noticed something, looking
out through the glass window; she appears in the doorway, quietly and
steadily, with buckets in her hands, on her way to the cowshed.
"What have you done with that ewe with the flat ears?" he asks.
"Ewe?" she asks.
"Ay. If she'd been here she'd have had two lambs by now. What have
you done with them? She always had two. You've done me out of three
together, do you understand?"
Oline is altogether overwhelmed, altogether annihilated by the
accusation; she wags her head, and her legs seem to melt away under
her--she might fall and hurt herself. Her head is busy all the time;
her ready wit had always helped her, always served her well; it must
not fail her now.
"I steal goats and I steal the sheep," she says quietly. "And what
do I do with them, I should like to know? I don't eat them up all by
myself, I suppose?"
"You know best what you do with them."
"Ho! As if I didn't have enough and to spare of meat and food and all,
with what you give me, Isak, that I should have to steal more? But
I'll say that, anyway, I've never needed so much, all these years."
"Well, what have, you done with the sheep? Has Os-Anders had it?"
"Os-Anders?" Oline has to set down the buckets and fold her hands."
May I never have more guilt to answer for! What's all this about a ewe
and lambs you're talking of? Is it the goat you mean, with the flat
ears?"
"You creature!" said Isak, turning away.
"Well, if you're not a miracle, Isak, I will say.... Here you've all
you could wish for every sort, and a heavenly host of sheep and goats
and all in your own shed, and you've not enough. How should I know
what sheep, and what two lambs, you're trying to get out of me now?
You should be thanking the Lord for His mercies from generation to
generation, that you should. 'Tis but this summer and a bit of a way
to next winter, and you've the lambing season once more, and three
times as many again."
Oh, that woman Oline!
Isak went off grumbling like a bear. "Fool I was not to murder her the
first day!" he thought, calling himself all manner of names. "Idiot,
lump of rubbish that I was! But it's not too late yet; just wait, let
her go to the cowshed if she likes. It wouldn't be wise to do anything
tonight, but tomorrow ... ay, tomorrow morning's the time. Three sheep
lost and gone! And coffee, did she say!"
Chapter X
Next day was fated to bring a great event. There came a visitor to the
farm--Geissler came. It was not yet summer on the moors, but Geissler
paid no heed to the state of the ground; he came on foot, in rich high
boots with broad, shiny tops; yellow gloves, too, he wore, and was
elegant to see; a man from the village carried his things.
He had come, as a matter of fact, to buy a piece of Isak's land, up in
the hills--a copper mine. And what about the price? Also, by the way,
he had a message from Inger--good girl, every one liked her; he had
been in Trondhjem, and seen her. "Isak, you've put in some work here."
"Ay, I dare say And you've seen Inger?"
"What's that you've got over there? Built a mill of your own, have
you? grind your own corn? Excellent. And you've turned up a good bit
of ground since I was here last."
"Is she well?"
"Eh? Oh, your wife!--yes, she's well and fit. Let's go in the next
room. I'll tell you all about it."
"'Tis not in order," put in Oline. Oline had her own reasons for not
wishing them to go in. They went into the little room nevertheless,
and closed the door. Oline stood in the kitchen and could hear
nothing.
Geissler sat down, slapped his knee with a powerful hand, and there he
was--master of Isak's fate.
"You haven't sold that copper tract yet?" he asked.
"No."
"Good. I'll buy it myself. Yes, I've seen Inger and some other people
too. She'll be out before long, if I'm not greatly mistaken--the case
has been submitted to the King."
"The King?"
"The King, yes. I went in to have a talk with your wife--they managed
it for me, of course, no difficulty about that--and we had a long
talk. 'Well, Inger, how are you getting on? Nicely, what?' 'Why, I've
no cause to complain.'' Like to be home again?' 'Ay, I'll not say no.'
'And so you shall before very long,' said I. And I'll tell you this
much, Isak, she's a good girl, is Inger. No blubbering, not so much
as a tear, but smiling and laughing ... they've fixed up that trouble
with her mouth, by the way--operation--sewed it up again. 'Good-bye,
then,' said I. 'You won't be here very long, I'll promise you that.'
"Then I went to the Governor--he saw me, of course, no difficulty
about that. 'You've a woman here,' said I,' that ought to be out of
the place, and back in her home--Inger Sellanraa.' 'Inger?' said he;
'why, yes. She's a good sort--I wish we could keep her for twenty
years,' said he. 'Well, you won't,' said I. 'She's been here too long
already.' 'Too long?' says he. 'Do you know what she's in for?' 'I
know all about it,' says I, 'being Lensmand in the district.' 'Oh,'
says he, 'won't you sit down?' Quite the proper thing to say, of
course. 'Why,' says the Governor then, 'we do what we can for her
here, and her little girl too. So she's from your part of the country,
is she? We've helped her to get a sewing-machine of her own; she's
gone through the workshops right to the top, and we've taught her a
deal--weaving, household work, dyeing, cutting out. Been here too
long, you say?' Well, I'd got my answer ready for that all right, but
it could wait, so I only said her case had been badly muddled, and had
to be taken up again; now, after the revision of the criminal code,
she'd probably have been acquitted altogether. And I told him about
the hare. 'A hare?' says the Governor. 'A hare,' says I. 'And the
child was born with a hare-lip.' 'Oh,' says he, smiling, 'I see. And
you think they ought to have made more allowance for that?' 'They
didn't make any at all,' said I, 'for it wasn't mentioned.' 'Well, I
dare say it's not so bad, after all.' 'Bad enough for her, anyway.'
'Do you believe a hare can work miracles, then?' says he. 'As to
that,' said I, 'whether a hare can work miracles or not's a matter I
won't discuss just now. The question is, what effect the _sight_ of a
hare might have on a woman with her disfigurement, in her condition.'
Well, he thought over that for a bit. 'H'm,' says he at last. 'Maybe,
maybe. Anyhow, we're not concerned with that here. All we have to
do is to take over the people they send us; not to revise their
sentences. And according to her sentence, Inger's not yet finished her
time.'
"Well, then, I started on what I wanted to say all along. 'There was
a serious oversight made in bringing her here to begin with,' said I.
'An oversight?' 'Yes. In the first place, she ought never to have been
sent across the country at all in the state she was in.' He looks at
me stiffly. 'No, that's perfectly true,' says he. 'But it's nothing to
do with us here, you know.' 'And in the second place,' said I, 'she
ought certainly not to have been in the prison for full two months
without any notice taken of her condition by the authorities here.'
That put him out, I could see; he said nothing for quite a while. 'Are
you instructed to act on her behalf?' says he at last. 'Yes, I am,'
said I. Well, then, he started on about how pleased they had been with
her, and telling me over again all they'd taught her and done for her
there--taught her to write too, he said. And the little girl had been
put out to nurse with decent people, and so on. Then I told him how
things were at home, with Inger away. Two youngsters left behind,
and only a hired woman to look after them, and all the rest. 'I've a
statement from her husband,' said I, 'that I can submit whether the
case be taken up for thorough revision, or an application be made
for a pardon.' 'I'd like to see that statement,' says the Governor.
'Right,' said I. 'I'll bring it along tomorrow in visiting hours.'"
Isak sat listening--it was thrilling to hear, a wonderful tale from
foreign parts. He followed Geissler's mouth with slavish eyes.