Knut Hamsun
Norwegian Writer
1859-1852 A selection from GROWTH OF THE SOIL
Narrated by Mel Foster
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The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest—who trod it
into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here.
There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other,
following the faint tracks over marsh and moorland, wearing them
deeper; after these again some Lapp gained scent of the path, and took
that way from field to field, looking to his reindeer. Thus was made
the road through the great Almenning—the common tracts without an
owner; no-man's-land.
The man comes, walking toward the north. He bears a sack, the first
sack, carrying food and some few implements. A strong, coarse fellow,
with a red iron beard, and little scars on face and hands; sites of
old wounds—were they gained in toil or fight? Maybe the man has been
in prison, and is looking for a place to hide; or a philosopher,
maybe, in search of peace. This or that, he comes; the figure of a man
in this great solitude. He trudges on; bird and beast are silent all
about him; now and again he utters a word or two; speaking to himself.
"Eyah—well, well...."—so he speaks to himself. Here and there, where
the moors give place to a kindlier spot, an open space in the midst of
the forest, he lays down the sack and goes exploring; after a while
he returns, heaves the sack to his shoulder again, and trudges on. So
through the day, noting time by the sun; night falls, and he throws
himself down on the heather, resting on one arm.
A few hours' rest, and he is on the move again: "Eyah,
well...."—moving northward again, noting time by the sun; a meal of
barley cakes and goats' milk cheese, a drink of water from the stream,
and on again. This day too he journeys, for there are many kindly
spots in the woods to be explored. What is he seeking? A place, a
patch of ground? An emigrant, maybe, from the homestead tracts; he
keeps his eyes alert, looking out; now and again he climbs to the top
of a hill, looking out. The sun goes down once more.
He moves along the western side of a valley; wooded ground, with leafy
trees among the spruce and pine, and grass beneath. Hours of this, and
twilight is falling, but his ear catches the faint purl of running
water, and it heartens him like the voice of a living thing. He climbs
the slope, and sees the valley half in darkness below; beyond, the sky
to the south. He lies down to rest.
The morning shows him a range of pasture and woodland. He moves down,
and there is a green hillside; far below, a glimpse of the stream,
and a hare bounding across. The man nods his head, as it were
approvingly—the stream is not so broad but that a hare may cross it
at a bound. A white grouse sitting close upon its nest starts up at
his feet with an angry hiss, and he nods again: feathered game and
fur—a good spot this. Heather, bilberry, and cloudberry cover the
ground; there are tiny ferns, and the seven-pointed star flowers of
the winter-green. Here and there he stops to dig with an iron tool,
and finds good mould, or peaty soil, manured with the rotted wood and
fallen leaves of a thousand years. He nods, to say that he has found
himself a place to stay and live: ay, he will stay here and live. Two
days he goes exploring the country round, returning each evening to
the hillside. He sleeps at night on a bed of stacked pine; already he
feels at home here, with a bed of pine beneath an overhanging rock.
The worst of his task had been to find the place; this no-man's place,
but his. Now, there was work to fill his days. He started at once,
stripping birch bark in the woods farther off, while the sap was still
in the trees. The bark he pressed and dried, and when he had gathered
a heavy load, carried it all the miles back to the village, to be sold
for building. Then back to the hillside, with new sacks of food and
implements; flour and pork, a cooking-pot, a spade—out and back along
the way he had come, carrying loads all the time. A born carrier of
loads, a lumbering barge of a man in the forest—oh, as if he loved
his calling, tramping long roads and carrying heavy burdens; as if
life without a load upon one's shoulders were a miserable thing, no
life for him.
One day he came up with more than the load he bore; came leading three
goats in a leash. He was proud of his goats as if they had been horned
cattle, and tended them kindly. Then came the first stranger passing,
a nomad Lapp; at sight of the goats, he knew that this was a man who
had come to stay, and spoke to him.
"You going to live here for good?"
"Ay," said the man.
"What's your name?"
"Isak. You don't know of a woman body anywhere'd come and help?"
"No. But I'll say a word of it to all I meet."
"Ay, do that. Say I've creatures here, and none to look to them."
The Lapp went on his way. Isak—ay, he would say a word of that. The
man on the hillside was no runaway; he had told his name. A runaway?
He would have been found. Only a worker, and a hardy one. He set about
cutting winter fodder for his goats, clearing the ground, digging a
field, shifting stones, making a wall of stones. By the autumn he had
built a house for himself, a hut of turf, sound and strong and warm;
storms could not shake it, and nothing could burn it down. Here was
a home; he could go inside and shut the door, and stay there; could
stand outside on the door-slab, the owner of that house, if any should
pass by. There were two rooms in the hut; for himself at the one end,
and for his beasts at the other. Farthest in, against the wall of
rock, was the hayloft. Everything was there.
Two more Lapps come by, father and son. They stand resting with both
hands on their long staves, taking stock of the hut and the clearing,
noting the sound of the goat-bells up on the hillside.
"_Goddag_" say the Lapps. "And here's fine folk come to live." Lapps
talk that way, with flattering words.
"You don't know of any woman hereabouts to help?" says Isak, thinking
always of but one thing.
"Woman to help? No. But we'll say a word of it."
"Ay, if you'd be so good. That I've a house and a bit of ground here,
and goats, but no woman to help. Say that."
Oh, he had sought about for a woman to help each time he had been down
to the village with his loads of bark, but there was none to be found.
They would look at him, a widow or an old unmarried one or so, but all
afraid to offer, whatever might be in their minds. Isak couldn't tell
why. Couldn't tell why? Who would go as help to live with a man in the
wilds, ever so many miles away—a whole day's journey to the nearest
neighbour? And the man himself was no way charming or pleasant by his
looks, far from it; and when he spoke it was no tenor with eyes to
heaven, but a coarse voice, something like a beast's.
Well, he would have to manage alone.
In winter, he made great wooden troughs, and sold them in the village,
carrying sacks of food and tools back through the snow; hard days when
he was tied to a load. There were the goats, and none to look to them;
he could not be away for long. And what did he do? Need made him wise;
his brain was strong and little used; he trained it up to ever more
and more. His first way was to let the goats loose before starting off
himself, so that they could get a full feed among the undergrowth
in the woods. But he found another plan. He took a bucket, a great
vessel, and hung it up by the river so that a single drop fell in at a
time, taking fourteen hours to fill it. When it was full to the brim,
the weight was right; the bucket sank, and in doing so, pulled a line
connected with the hayloft; a trap-door opened, and three bundles of
fodder came through—the goats were fed.
That was his way.
A bright idea; an inspiration, maybe, sent from God. The man had none
to help him but himself. It served his need until late in the autumn;
then came the first snow, then rain, then snow again, snowing all the
time. And his machine went wrong; the bucket was filled from above,
opening the trap too soon. He fixed a cover over, and all went well
again for a time; then came winter, the drop of water froze to an
icicle, and stopped the machine for good.
The goats must do as their master—learn to do without.
Hard times—the man had need of help, and there was none, yet still he
found a way. He worked and worked at his home; he made a window in the
hut with two panes of real glass, and that was a bright and wonderful
day in his life. No need of lighting fires to see; he could sit
indoors and work at his wooden troughs by daylight. Better days,
brighter days ... eyah!
He read no books, but his thoughts were often with God; it was
natural, coming of simplicity and awe. The stars in the sky, the wind
in the trees, the solitude and the wide-spreading snow, the might
of earth and over earth filled him many times a day with a deep
earnestness. He was a sinner and feared God; on Sundays he washed
himself out of reverence for the holy day, but worked none the less as
through the week.
Spring came; he worked on his patch of ground, and planted potatoes.
His livestock multiplied; the two she-goats had each had twins, making
seven in all about the place. He made a bigger shed for them, ready
for further increase, and put a couple of glass panes in there too.
Ay, 'twas lighter and brighter now in every way.
And then at last came help; the woman he needed. She tacked about for
a long time, this way and that across the hillside, before venturing
near; it was evening before she could bring herself to come down. And
then she came—a big, brown-eyed girl, full-built and coarse, with
good, heavy hands, and rough hide brogues on her feet as if she
had been a Lapp, and a calfskin bag slung from her shoulders. Not
altogether young; speaking politely; somewhere nearing thirty.
There was nothing to fear; but she gave him greeting and said hastily:
"I was going cross the hills, and took this way, that was all."
"Ho," said the man. He could barely take her meaning, for she spoke in
a slovenly way, also, she kept her face turned aside.
"Ay," said she, "'tis a long way to come."
"Ay, it's that," says the man. "Cross the hills, you said?"
"Yes."
"And what for?"
"I've my people there."
"Eh, so you've your people there? And what's your name?"
"Inger. And what's yours?"
"Isak."
"Isak? H'm. D'you live here yourself, maybe?"
"Ay, here, such as it is."
"Why, 'tis none so bad," said she to please him.
Now he had grown something clever to think out the way of things, and
it struck him then she'd come for that very business and no other; had
started out two days back just to come here. Maybe she had heard of
his wanting a woman to help.
"Go inside a bit and rest your feet," said he.
They went into the hut and took a bit of the food she had brought, and
some of his goats' milk to drink; then they made coffee, that she had
brought with her in a bladder. Settled down comfortably over their
coffee until bedtime. And in the night, he lay wanting her, and she
was willing.
She did not go away next morning; all that day she did not go, but
helped about the place; milked the goats, and scoured pots and things
with fine sand, and got them clean. She did not go away at all. Inger
was her name. And Isak was his name.
And now it was another life for the solitary man. True, this wife of
his had a curious slovenly way of speech, and always turning her face
aside, by reason of a hare-lip that she had, but that was no matter.
Save that her mouth was disfigured, she would hardly have come to
him at all; he might well be grateful for that she was marked with a
hare-lip. And as to that, he himself was no beauty. Isak with the iron
beard and rugged body, a grim and surly figure of a man; ay, as a man
seen through a flaw in the window-pane. His look was not a gentle one;
as if Barabbas might break loose at any minute. It was a wonder Inger
herself did not run away.
She did not run away. When he had been out, and came home again, there
was Inger at the hut; the two were one, the woman and the hut.
It was another mouth for him to feed, but no loss in that; he had
more freedom now, and could go and stay as he needed. And there were
matters to be looked to away from home. There was the river; pleasant
to look at, and deep and swift besides; a river not to be despised;
it must come from some big water up in the hills. He got himself some
fishing gear and went exploring; in the evening he came back with
a basket of trout and char. This was a great thing to Inger, and a
marvel; she was overwhelmed, being no way used to fine dishes. She
clapped her hands and cried out: "Why! Wherever...." And she was not
slow to see how he was pleased at her surprise, and proud of it, for
she said more in the same strain—oh, she had never seen the like, and
how had he ever managed to find such things!
Inger was a blessing, too, in other ways. No clever head nor great in
wit, maybe—but she had two lambing ewes with some of her kinsfolk,
and brought them down. It was the best they could have wished for at
the hut; sheep with wool and lambs four new head to their stock about
the place; it was growing, getting bigger; a wonder and a marvel how
their stock was grown. And Inger brought more; clothes, and little
trifles of her own, a looking-glass and a string of pretty glass
beads, a spinning-wheel, and carding-combs. Why, if she went on that
gait the hut would soon be filled from floor to roof and no room for
more! Isak was astonished in his turn at all this wealth of goods, but
being a silent man and slow to speak, he said nothing, only shambled
out to the door-slab and looked at the weather, and shambled in again.
Ay, he had been lucky indeed; he felt himself more and more in love,
or drawn towards her, or whatever it might be.
"You've no call to fetch along all such stuff," said he. "Tis more
than's needed."
"I've more if I like to fetch it. And there's uncle Sivert
besides—you've heard of him?" "No."
"Why, he's a rich man, and district treasurer besides."
Love makes a fool of the wise. Isak felt he must do something grand
himself, and overdid it. "What I was going to say; you've no need to
bother with hoeing potatoes. I'll do it myself the evening, when I
come home."
And he took his ax and went off to the woods.
She heard him felling in the woods, not so far off; she could hear
from the crash that he was felling big timber. She listened for a
while, and then went out to the potato field and set to work hoeing.
Love makes fools wise.
Isak came home in the evening, hauling a huge trunk by a rope. Oh,
that simple and innocent Isak, he made all the noise he could with his
tree-trunk, and coughed and hemmed, all for her to come out and wonder
at him. And sure enough:
"Why, you're out of your senses," said Inger when she came out. "Is
that work for a man single-handed?" He made no answer; wouldn't have
said a word for anything. To do a little more than was work for a man
single-handed was nothing to speak of—nothing at all. A stick of
timber—huh! "And what are you going to do with it?" she asked.
"Oh, we'll see," he answered carelessly, as if scarcely heeding she
was there.
But when he saw that she had hoed the potatoes after all he was not
pleased. It was as if she had done almost as much as he; and that was
not to his liking. He slipped the rope from the tree-trunk and went
off with it once more.
"What, haven't you done yet?"
"No," said he gruffly.
And he came back with another stick like the last, only with no noise
nor sign of being out of breath; hauled it up to the hut like an ox,
and left it there.
That summer he felled a mass of timber, and brought it to the hut. More information about Knut Hamsun from Wikipedia
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