Chapter 5

The days have been oppressively warm for some time now, with the heat coming down in waves from the mountain and robbing us of all our strength. But in the evenings we recovered somewhat, and busied ourselves in various ways: some of us wrote letters or played forfeit games in the garden, while others were so far restored that they went for a walk "to look at nature."

Last Sunday evening I stood talking to Solem outside his room. He had on his Sunday clothes, and seemed to have no intention of going to bed.

Miss Torsen came by, stopped, and said:

"I hear you're going for a walk with Mrs. Brede?"

Solem removed his cap, which left a red ring round his forehead.

"Who, me?" he said. "Well, maybe she said something about it. There was a path through the woods she wanted me to show her, she said."

Miss Torsen was filled with madness now; handsome and desperate, she paced back and forth; you could almost see the sparks flying. Her red felt hat was held on the back of her head by a pin, the brim turned up high in front. Her throat was bare, her frock thin, her shoes light.

It was extraordinary to watch her behavior; she had opened a window onto her secret desires. What cared she for Tradesman Batt! Had she not toiled through her youth and gained school knowledge? But no reality! Poor Miss Torsen. Solem must not show a path to any other lady tonight.

As nothing more was said, and Solem was preparing to depart, Miss Torsen cleared her throat.

"Come with me instead!" she said.

Solem looked round quickly and said, "All right."

So I left them; I whistled as I walked away with exaggerated indifference, as though nothing on earth were any concern of mine.

"Come with me instead," she said. And he went. They were already behind the outhouses, then behind the two great rowan trees; they hurried lest Mrs. Brede should see them. Then they were gone.

A door wide open, but where did it lead? I saw no sweetness in her, nothing but excitement. She had learned grammar, but no language; her soul was undernourished. A true woman would have married; she would have been a man's wife, she would have been a mother, she would have been a benediction to herself. Why pounce on a pleasure merely to prevent others from having it? And she so tall and handsome!

The dog stands growling over a bone. He waits till another dog approaches. Then suddenly he is overcome with gluttony, pounces on the bone and crushes it between his teeth. Because the other dog is approaching.

It seemed as though this small event had to happen before my mind was ready for the night. I awoke in the dark and felt within me the nursery rhyme I had dawdled over so long: four rollicking verses about the juniper tree.

To the top of the steepest mountains, where the little juniper stands, no other tree can follow from all the forest lands. Halfway to the hilltop the shivering pine catches hold; the birch has actually passed him, though sneezing with a cold. But a little shrub outstrips them, a sturdy fellow he, and stands quite close to the summit, though he measures barely a yard. They look like a train from the valley below with the shortest one for the guard. Or else perhaps he's a coachman now-- why, it's only a juniper tree.

Down dale there's summer lightning, green leaves and St. John's feast, with songs and games of children, and a dozen dances at least. But high on the empty mountain stands a shrub in lonely glory, with only the trolls that prowl about, just like in a story. The wind with the juniper's forelock is making very free; it sweeps across the world beneath that lies there helpless and bare, but the air on the heights is fresher than you'll ever find it elsewhere. None can see so far around as such a juniper tree.

There hovers over the mountain for a moment summer's breath; at once eternal winter brings back his companion, death. Yet sturdy stands the juniper with needles ever green. I wonder how the little chap can bear a life so lean. He's hard as bone and gristle, as anyone can see; when every other tree is stripped, his berries are scarlet and sleek, and every berry's plainly marked with a cross upon its cheek. So now we know what he looks like too, this jolly juniper tree.

At times I think he sings to himself a cheerful little song: "I've got a bright blue heaven to look at all day long!" Sometimes to his juniper brothers he calls that they need not fear the trolls that are prowling and peering about them far and near. Gently the winter evening falls over the copse on the height, and a thousand stars and candles are lit in the plains of the sky. The juniper trees grow weary and nod their heads on the sly; before we know it they're fast asleep, so we say: "Good night, good night!"

I got up and wrote out these rhymes on a sheet of paper, which I sent to a little girl, a child with whom I had walked much in the country, and she learned them at once. Then I read them to Mrs. Brede's little girls, who stood still like two bluebells, listening. Then they tore the paper out of my hand and ran to their mother with it. They loved their mother very much. And she loved them too; they had the most delightful fun together at bedtime.

Brave Mrs. Brede with her children! She might have committed a madness, but could not find it in her heart to do so. Yet did anyone prize her for that? Who? Her husband?

A man should take his wife to Iceland with him. Or risk the consequences of her being left behind for endless days.

XVI

Miss Torsen no longer talks about leaving. Not that she looks very happy about staying, either; but Miss Torsen is altogether too restless and strange to be contented with anything.

Naturally she caught cold after that evening in the woods with Solem, and stayed in bed with a headache next day; when she got up again, she was quite all right.

Was she? Why was her throat so blue under the chin, as though someone had seized her by it?

She never went near Solem any more, and behaved as though he were nonexistent. Apparently there had been a struggle in the woods that had made her blue under the chin, and they were friends no longer! It was like her to want nothing real, nothing but the sensation, nothing but the triumph. Solem had not understood that, and had flown into a passion. Had it been thus?

Yes, there was no doubt that Solem had been cheated. He was more direct and lacked subtlety; he made allusions, and said things like "Oh, yes, that Miss Torsen, she's a fine one; I'll bet she's as strong as a man!"

And then he laughed, but with repressed fury. He followed her with gross eyes wherever she went, and in order to assert himself and seem indifferent, he would sing a song of the linesman's life whenever she was about. But he might have saved himself the trouble. Miss Torsen was stone-deaf to his songs.

And now it seemed she was going to stay at the resort out of sheer defiance. We enjoyed her company no more than we had done before, but she began to make herself agreeable to the lawyer, sitting by his work table in the living room as he drew plans of houses. Such is the perverse idleness of summer resorts.

* * * * *

So the days pass; they hold no further novelty for me, and I begin to weary of them. Now and then comes a stranger who is going across the fjeld, but things are no longer, I am told, as they were in other years, when visitors came in droves. And things will not improve until we, too, get roads and cars.

I have not troubled to mention it before this, but the neighboring valley is called Stordalen (Great Valley), while ours is only called Reisa after the river: the whole of the Reisa district is no more than an appendage. Stordalen has all the advantages, even the name. But Paul, our host, calls the neighboring valley Little Valley, because, says Paul, the people there are so petty and avaricious.

Poor Paul! He has returned from his tour to the village as hopeless as he went, and hopelessly drunk besides. For more than a day, he stayed in his room without once emerging. When he reappeared at last, he was aloof and reserved, pretending he had been very successful during his absence; he should manage about the cars, never fear! In the evening, after he had had a few more drinks, he became self-important in a different way: oh, those fools in the village had no sense of any kind, and had refused to give their consent to a road to his place. He was the only one with any sense. Would not such a bit of a road be a blessing to the whole appendage? Because then the caravans would come, scattering money over the valley. They understood nothing, those fools!

"But sooner or later there will have to be a road here," said the lawyer.

"Of course," replied Paul with finality.

Then he went to his room and lay down again.

On another day, a small flock of strangers came again; they had toiled up themselves, carrying their luggage in the hot sun, and now they wanted some help. Solem was ready at once, but he could not possibly carry all the bags and knapsacks; Paul was lying down in his room. I had seen Paul again during the night go out to the woods, talking loudly and flinging his arms about as though he had company.

And here were all the strangers.

Paul's wife and Josephine came out of the house and sent Solem across to Einar, the first cotter, to ask if he would come and help them carry. In the meantime the travelers grew impatient and kept looking at their watches, for if they could not cross the Tore fjeld before nightfall, they would have to spend the night outdoors. One of them suggested to the others that perhaps this delay was intentional. The owner of the place probably wanted them to spend the night there; they began to grumble among themselves, and at last they asked:

"Where is the master, the host?"

"He's ill," said Josephine.

Solem returned and said:

"Einar hasn't time to come; he's lifting his potatoes."

A pause.

Then Josephine said:

"I've got to go across the fjeld anyhow--wait a minute!"

She was gone for a moment, then returned, loaded the bags and knapsacks on her little back, and trotted off. The others followed.

I caught up with Josephine and took her burden from her. But I would not allow her to turn back, for this little tour away from the house would do her good. We walked together and talked on the way: she had really no complaints, she said, for she had a tidy sum of money saved up.

When we reached the top of the fjeld, Josephine wanted to turn back. She thought it a waste of time to walk by my side, with nothing to do but walk.

"I thought you had to cross the fjeld anyhow?" I said.

She was too shrewd to deny it outright, for in that case she, the daughter of the old man at the Tore Peak farm, would have been going with the tourists solely to carry their luggage.

"Yes, but there's no hurry. I was to have visited someone, but that can wait till the winter."

We stood arguing about this, and I was so stubborn that I threatened to throw all the luggage down the mountainside, and then she would see!

"Then I'll just take them and carry them myself," replied Josephine, "and then _you'll_ see!"

By this time the others had caught up with us, and before I knew what had happened, one of the strangers had come forward and lifted the burden from my back, taken off his cap with a great deal of ceremony, and told me his own and his companions' names. I must excuse them, I really must forgive them; this was too bad, he had been so unobserving....

I told him I could easily have carried him as well as the bags. It is not strength I lack; but day and night I carry about with me the ape of all the diseases, who is heavy as lead. Ah, well, many another groans under a burden of stupidity, which is little better. We all have our cross to bear....

Then Josephine and I turned homeward again.

* * * * *

Yes, indeed, people treat me with uncontrollable politeness; this is because of my age. People are indulgent toward me when I am troublesome to others, when I am eccentric, when I have a screw loose; people forgive me because my hair is gray. You who live by your compass will say that I am respected for the writing I have been doing all these years. But if that were so, I should have had respect in my young days when I deserved it, not now when I no longer deserve it so well. No one--no one in the world--can be expected to write after fifty nearly so well as before, and only the fools or the self-interested pretend to improve after that age.

Now it is a fact that I have been practicing a most distinctive authorship, better than most; I know that very well. But this is due, not so much to my endeavors, as to the fact that I was born with this ability.

I have made a test of this, and I know it is true. I have thought to myself: "Suppose someone else had said this!" Well, no doubt others have said it sometimes, but that has not hurt me. I have gone even further than this: I have intentionally exposed myself to direct contempt from other literary men, and this has not hurt me either. So I am sure of my ground. On the other hand, my way of life has lent me an inner distinction for which I have a right to demand respect, because it is the fruit of my own endeavors. You cannot make me out a small man without lying. Yet one can endure even such a lie if one has character.

You may quote Carlyle against me--how authors are misjudged!--"_Considering what book-writers do in the world, and what the world does with book-writers, I should say it is the most anomalous thing the world at present has to show_." You may quote many others as well; they will assert that a great to-do is made over me for my authorship as well as my native ability, and my struggle to hammer this ability into a useful shape. And I say only what is the truth, that most of the fuss is made because I have reached an age in which my years are revered.

And that is what seems to me so wrong; it is a custom which makes it easy to hold down the gifted young in a most hostile and arrogant fashion. Old age should not be honored for its own sake; it does nothing but halt and delay the march of man. The primitive races, indeed, have no respect for old age, and rid themselves unhesitatingly of it and of its defects. A long time ago I deserved honor much more, and valued it; now, in more than one sense, I am a richer man and can afford to do without.

Yet now I have it. If I enter a room, respectful silence falls. "How old he's grown!" everyone present thinks. And they all remain silent so that I may speak memorable words in that room. Amazing nonsense!

The noise should raise the roof when I enter: "Welcome, old fellow and old companion; for pity's sake don't say anything memorable to us--you should have done that when you were better able to. Sit down, old chap, and keep us company. But don't let your old age cast a shadow on us, and don't restrain us; you have had your day--now it's our turn..."

This is honest speech.

In peasant homes they still have the right instinct: the mothers preserve their daughters, the fathers their sons, from the rough, unpleasant labors. A proper mother lets her daughter sew while she herself works among the cattle. And the daughter will do the same with her own daughter. It is her instinct.

XVII

Dear me, these human beings grow duller every day, and I see nothing in them that I have not known before. So I sink to the level of watching Solem's increasing passion for Miss Torsen. But that too is familiar and dull.

Solem, after all the attention the ladies have paid him, has a delusion of greatness; he buys clothes and gilt watch chains for the money he earns, and on Sundays wears a white woolen pullover, though it is very warm; round his neck and over his chest lies a costly silk tie tied in a sailor's knot. No one else is so smart as he, as he well knows; he sings as he crosses the farmyard, and considers no one too good for him now. Josephine objects to his loud singing, but Solem lad has grown so indispensable at the resort that he no longer obeys all orders. He has his own will in many things, and sometimes Paul himself takes a glass in his company.

Miss Torsen appears to have settled down. She is very busy with the lawyer, and makes him explain each and every angle he draws in his plans. Quite right of her, too, for undeniably the lawyer is the right man for her, a wit and a sportsman, well-to-do, rather simple-minded, strong-necked. At first Mrs. Molie seemed unable to reconcile herself to the constant companionship of these two in the living room, and she frequently had some errand that took her there; what was she after, Mrs. Molie, of the ice-blue teeth?

At last the lawyer finished his plans and was able to deliver them. He began to speak again about a certain peak of the Tore range which no one had yet climbed, and was therefore waiting to be conquered by him. Miss Torsen objected to this plan, and as she grew to know him better, begged him most earnestly not to undertake such a mad climb. So he promised with a smile to obey her wishes. They were in such tender agreement, these two!

But the blue peak still haunted the lawyer's mind; he pointed it out to his lady, and smacked his lips, his eyes watering again.

"Gracious, it makes me dizzy just to look at it!" she said.

So the lawyer put his arm round her to steady her.

The sight was painful to Solem, whose eyes were continually on the pair. One day as we left the luncheon table, he approached Miss Torsen and said:

"I know another path; would you like to see it tonight?"

The lady was confused and a little embarrassed, and said at length:

"A path? No, thank you."

She turned to the lawyer, and as they walked away together, she said:

"I never heard of such brazenness!"

"What got into him?" said the lawyer.

Solem went away, his teeth gleaming in a sneer.

That evening, Solem repeated the performance. He went up to Miss Torsen again and said:

"What about that path? Shall we go now?"

As soon as she saw him coming, she turned quickly and tried to elude him. But Solem did not hesitate to follow her.

"Now I've just got one thing to say," she said, stopping. "If you're insolent to me again, I'll see that you're driven off the farm...."

But it was not easy to drive Solem off the farm. After all, he was guide and porter to the tourists, and the only permanent laborer on the farm as well. And soon the hay would have to be brought in, and casual laborers would be engaged to work under him. No, Solem could not be driven off. Besides, the other ladies were on his side; the mighty Mrs. Brede alone could save him by a word. She held the Tore Peak resort in the palm of her hand.

Solem was not discharged; but he held himself in check and became a little more civil. He seemed to suffer as much as ever. Once at midday, as he was standing in the woodshed, I saw him make a scratch with the ax across the nail of his thumb.

"What on earth are you doing?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm just marking myself," he replied, laughing gloomily. "When this scratch grows out--"

He stopped.

"What then?"

"Oh, I'll be away from here then," he said.

But I had the impression that he meant to say something different, so I probed further.

"Let me look. Well, it's not a deep scratch; you won't be here long then, will you?"

"Nails grow slowly," he muttered.

Then he strolled away whistling, and I set about chopping wood.

A little later Solem returned across the farmyard with a cackling hen under his arm. He went to the kitchen window and called:

"This the kind of hen you want me to kill?"

"Yes," was the reply.

Solem came back to the woodshed and asked me for the ax, as he wanted to behead a few hens. It was easy to see that he did everything on the farm; he was, hand and brain, indispensable.

He laid the hen on a block and took aim, but it was not easy, for she twisted her head like a snake and would not lie still. She had stopped cackling now.

"I can feel her heart jumping inside her," said Solem.

Suddenly he saw his chance and struck. There lay the head; Solem still held the body, which jerked under his hand. The thing was done so quickly that the two sections of the bird were still one in my eyes; I could not grasp a separation so sudden and unbelievable, and it took my sight a second or two to overtake the event. Bewilderment was in the expression of this detached head, which looked as though it could not believe what had happened, and raised itself a little as if to show there was nothing the least bit wrong. Solem let the body go. It lay still for a moment, then kicked its legs, leaped to the ground and began to hop, the headless body reeling on one wing till it struck the wall and spattered blood in wide arcs before it fell at last.

"I let her go too soon after all," said Solem.

Then he went off to fetch another hen.

XVIII

I return to the mad idea of Solem's being discharged. This would, to be sure, have averted a certain disaster here at the farm: but who would fetch and carry then? Paul? But I've told you he just lounges all day in his room, and has been doing so lately more than ever; the guests never see him except through an unsuccessful maneuver on his part.

One evening he came walking across the lawn. He must, in his disregard of time, have thought the guests had already retired, but we all sat outside in the mild darkness. When Paul saw us, he drew himself up and saluted as he passed; then, calling Solem to him, he said:

"You mustn't cross the field again without letting me know. I was right there in my room, writing. The idea of Josephine carrying luggage!"

Paul strode on. But even yet he felt he had not appeared important enough, so he turned round and asked:

"Why didn't you take one of my cotters with you to act as porter?"

"They wouldn't go," Solem replied. "They were busy lifting potatoes."

"Wouldn't go?"

"That's what Einar said."

Paul thought this over.

"What insolence! They'd better not go too far or I'll drive them off the place."

Then the law awoke in the lawyer's bosom, and he asked:

"Haven't they bought their land?"

"Yes," said Paul. "But I'm the master of this farm. I have a say in things too. I'm not without power up here in Reisa, believe me...."

Then he said sternly to Solem:

"You come to me next time."

Whereupon he stalked off to the woods again.

"He's a bit tight again, our good Paul," said the lawyer.

Nobody replied.

"Can you imagine an innkeeper in Switzerland behaving like that?" the lawyer remarked.

Mrs. Brede said gently:

"What a pity! He never drank before."

And at once the lawyer was charitable again:

"I'll have a good talk with him," he said.

* * * * *

There followed a period in which Paul was sober from morning till night, when Manufacturer Brede paid us a visit. The flag was hoisted, and there was great commotion at the farm; Josephine's feet said _whrr_ under her skirt. The manufacturer arrived with a porter; his wife and children went far down the road to meet him, and the visitors at the resort sallied forth too.

"Good morning!" he greeted us with a great flourish of his hat. He won us all over. He was big and friendly, fat and cheerful, with the broad good cheer that plenty of money gives. He became good friends with us at once.

"How long are you staying, Daddy?" his little girls asked, as they clung to him.

"Three days."

"Is that all!" said his wife.

"Is that all?" he replied, laughing. "That's not such a short time, my dear; three days is a lot for me."

"But not for me and the children," she said.

"Three whole days," he repeated. "I can tell you I've had to do some moving to be able to stay as quiet as this, ha, ha!"

They all went in. The manufacturer had been here before and knew the way to his wife's cottage. He ordered soda water at once.