by Knut Hamsun
He took her in his arms and lifted her. She held on to his neck.
“All right, but now you don’t have to stand me anymore.”
He put her down. “But Otto is also strong,” she said. “He has even fought with grownups.”
“With grownups?” Johannes asks doubtfully.
“Yes, he has. In town.”
Pause.
Johannes ponders. “Well,” he says, “that’s that. I know what I’ll do.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll go into service with the giant.”
“Oh no! Say, are you mad?” Victoria screams.
“Oh, yes, that’s what I’ll do. I don’t care.”
Victoria thinks of a way out. “But perhaps he won’t be back anymore now.”
“He’ll be back,” Johannes replies.
“Here?” she asks quickly.
“Yes.”
Victoria gets up and withdraws to the mouth of the cave. “Come, we’d better leave.”
“No need to hurry,” says Johannes, who has himself turned pale. “He won’t be here until tonight. On the stroke of midnight.”
Victoria calms down and is about to go back to her seat. But Johannes finds it difficult to overcome the uneasiness he has himself awakened and, feeling the cave has become too dangerous for him, he says, “If you insist on leaving, I do have a stone with your name on it out there. I’ll be glad to show it to you.”
They crawl out of the cave and find the stone. Victoria is proud and happy. Johannes is touched and says, almost in tears, “You must think of me now and then when you look at it while I’m away. Send me a friendly thought.”
“Certainly,” Victoria answers. “But you’ll come back, won’t you?”
“Oh, God knows. No, I probably won’t.”
They started walking homeward. Johannes is close to tears.
“Good-bye, then,” Victoria says.
“No, I can walk you a little farther.”
However, her callous readiness to say good-bye to him—the sooner the better—makes him feel bitter and kindles anger in his lacerated heart. Stopping abruptly, he says with righteous indignation, “But I can tell you one thing, Victoria: you will never find anybody who would be as kind to you as I. I can tell you that much.”
“But Otto is also kind,” she retorts.
“All right, take him.”
They walk a few steps in silence.
“I’ll do just fine, don’t you worry. You don’t know yet how much I’ll get in wages.”
“No. What will you get?”
“Half the kingdom. For one.”
“Fancy that! You will, really?”
“And I’ll have the princess too.”
Victoria stops. “That’s not true, is it?”
“Oh yes, that’s what he said.”
Pause. Victoria mutters to herself, “I wonder what she looks like.”
“Oh, good Lord, she’s more beautiful than any earthly woman. Well, that we knew already.”
Victoria is crushed. “So you want her, then?” she asks.
“Yes, I guess it will come to that,” he answers. However, seeing that Victoria is really upset, he adds, “But it’s quite possible I’ll be back some day. That I’ll take a trip back to earth again.”
“But then you mustn’t take her with you,” she pleads. “What would you want her with you for?”
“Well, I can come alone.”
“Will you promise me that?”
“All right, I promise. But what do you care anyway! I really can’t expect you to care about that.”
“Don’t say such things, I tell you,” Victoria answers. “I’m positive she doesn’t love you as much as I do.”
His youthful heart trembles with a warm delight. He could have sunk into the ground with joy and bashfulness at her words. Not daring to face her, he looks away. Then he picks up a twig from the ground, gnaws off its bark and smacks his hand with it. Finally, in his embarrassment, he begins to whistle.
“Well, maybe I’d better get home,” he says.
“Good-bye then,” she answers, giving him her hand.
II
The miller’s son went away. He was away for a long time, going to school and learning many things; he grew, became big and strong, and began to have down on his upper lip. The town was so far away, the travel to and fro so expensive, that the frugal miller kept his son in town summer and winter for many years. He was studying the whole time.
But now he had turned into a grown man; he was some eighteen or twenty years old.
And so, one spring afternoon, he stepped ashore from the steamer. At the Castle, the flag had been run up for the son, who came home on vacation by the same ship; a carriage had been sent to the pier to pick him up. Johannes tipped his cap to the lord of the manor, his wife, and Victoria. How big and tall Victoria had grown! She didn’t return his greeting.
He tipped his cap once again, and he heard her ask her brother, “Tell me, Ditlef, who greeted me just now?”
“That was Johannes, the miller’s son,” her brother replied.
She gave him another glance or two, but now he was too embarrassed to bow to her again. The carriage drove off.
Johannes went home.
Goodness, how quaint and small the house was! He couldn’t walk upright through the door. His parents received him with a drink. He was seized by an intense emotion, everything was so dear and touching, his father and mother so good and gray as they received him; they held out their hands to him in turn, welcoming him home.
Already the same evening he took a walk to inspect everything: he visited the mill, the quarry and the fishing hole, listened wistfully to the familiar birds, which were already building their nests in the trees, and took a turn over to the enormous anthill in the woods. The ants were gone, the mound deserted. He poked in it, but there was no sign of life anymore. As he wandered about, he noticed that the manorial woods had been badly thinned out.
“Do you still recognize things around here?” his father asked in jest. “Did you meet those old thrushes of yours?”
“I don’t recognize everything. The forest has been cut.”
“The forest belongs to the Castle,” his father said. “It’s not for us to count the master’s trees. Everyone needs money, the master needs a lot of money.”
The days came and went, sweet, mild days, wonderful days in solitude, with tender recollections of childhood, a summons back to the earth and the sky, to the air and the mountains.
He was walking along the road to the Castle. In the morning he had been stung by a wasp and his upper lip was swollen; if he met someone he would simply bow and walk straight on. He met nobody. In the Castle garden he saw a lady, and when he got closer he made a deep bow and strolled past. It was the mistress herself. He still experienced palpitations as in the old days when he walked by the Castle. Respect for the great house and the many windows, for the stern, aristocratic figure of the proprietor, was still in his blood.
He took the road leading to the pier.
Suddenly he ran across Ditlef and Victoria. Johannes felt ill at ease—they were liable to think he was stalking them. Besides, his lip was swollen. He slowed down, uncertain whether to go on. He did. While still far off he bowed and removed his cap, holding it in his hand as he passed. They both answered his greeting in silence and strode slowly by. Victoria looked straight at him; her face changed slightly.
Johannes continued down to the jetty; he had been seized by restlessness and his walk became nervous. How tall Victoria had become, completely grown up, and lovelier than ever! Her eyebrows nearly came together above her nose, they were like two delicate lines of velvet. Her eyes had turned darker, a very dark blue.
When on his way home, he turned into a path that led through the forest well beyond the Castle garden. Nobody was going to say he was dogging the footsteps of the Castle children. He reached the top of a hill, picked up a stone and sat down. The birds were making a wi
ld, passionate music, giving their mating calls, pairing off, and flying about with twigs in their beaks. A sweetish smell of earth, of sprouting leaves and rotting trees, hung in the air.
He had happened onto Victoria’s path, she was coming straight at him from the opposite direction.
A feeling of helpless irritation came over him, he wished he were far, far away; this time she was bound to think he had been following her. Should he greet her again? Perhaps he could simply look the other way, what with that wasp sting and all.
But when she got close enough, he stood up and tipped his cap. She smiled and nodded. “Good evening. Welcome home,” she said.
Again her lips seemed to tremble slightly, but she quickly regained her composure.
“This may appear a bit strange,” he said, “but I didn’t know you were here, Victoria.”
“No, you didn’t,” she replied. “It was a whim of mine, it just occurred to me to come this way.”
Ouch! He had spoken as though he were on intimate terms with her.
“How long will you be home?” she asked.
“Till vacation is over.”
He had trouble answering her, she had suddenly become so distant. Why had she spoken to him anyway?
“Ditlef tells me you are such a good student, Johannes. You’re doing so well in your exams. And he also tells me you write poetry. Is that true?”
Squirming, he answered curtly, “To be sure. Everyone does.” She would probably soon be on her way, for she said nothing in return.
“Can you believe it, I was stung by a wasp today,” he said, showing her his lip. “That’s why I look like this.”
“Then you have been away for too long, our wasps don’t recognize you anymore.”
She didn’t care whether he had been disfigured by a wasp or not. Very well. She stood there twirling a red parasol on her shoulder, its handle topped with a gold knob, and nothing else concerned her. And yet he had carried the young lady in his arms more than once.
“I don’t recognize the wasps,” he replied. “They used to be my friends.”
But she didn’t grasp his deep meaning; she didn’t answer. It was such a deep meaning, though.
“I don’t recognize anything around here. Even the woods have been cut down.”
A light spasm passed across her face.
“Then you probably can’t write poetry here?” she said. “What if you wrote a poem to me sometime! Oh, what am I saying! That shows you how little I know about it.”
He lowered his eyes, mute and angered. She was making amiable fun of him, speaking snootily and observing what effect it had on him. Begging her pardon, he had not only wasted his time writing, he had also read more than most people. . . .
“Well, I trust we’ll meet again. So long.”
He doffed his cap and left without answering.
If she only knew that it was to her and no one else he had written his poems, every one of them, even the one to Night, even the one to the Spirit of the Bog. She would never know.
On Sunday Ditlef came and wanted Johannes to go to the island with him. I’m to be the oarsman again, he thought. He went along. Down by the pier some people were taking their Sunday stroll, otherwise everything was very quiet and the sun shone warmly in the sky. Suddenly the sound of music was heard in the distance, it was coming from the sea, from the islands out there; the packet boat was turning in a wide arc as it approached the dock, and it had a band on board.
Johannes untied the boat and sat down at the oars. He was in a soft, lightsome mood this sunny day, and the music from the ship was weaving a veil of flowers and golden grain before his eyes.
Why didn’t Ditlef come? He stood on shore watching the people and the ship, as if he weren’t going any farther. I won’t sit here at the oars any longer, Johannes thought, I’ll go ashore. He began turning the boat.
Then he suddenly saw a glimpse of something white and heard a splash in the water; a chorus of desperate, screaming voices rose from the ship and from people on shore, and numerous hands and eyes indicated the spot where the white thing had disappeared. The music was stopped immediately.
Johannes was there in an instant. He acted entirely by instinct, without thinking, without conscious decision. He never heard the mother up on deck screaming, “My little girl, my little girl!” and he no longer saw a single person. He simply jumped from the boat right off and dived in.
For a moment he was gone, for a minute; they could see the water swirling where he had jumped in, and they understood he was working away. On board the ship the wailing continued.
Then he popped up again a bit farther out, several fathoms from the scene of the accident. People shouted to him, gestur ing wildly: “No, it was here, it was here!”
And again he dived.
Another agonizing moment, a ceaseless wailing and wringing of hands from a woman and a man on deck. Another man, the mate, jumped out from the ship, having removed his jacket and shoes. He carefully searched the place where the girl had gone down, and everybody pinned their hopes on him.
Then Johannes’ head reappeared above the surface, still farther out, several more fathoms. He had lost his cap, his head glistened like the head of a seal in the sun. He was evidently struggling with something, was having difficulty swimming, one hand being tied up. A moment later he had managed to heave something into his mouth, between his teeth, a big bundle; it was the child. Astonished cries reached him from the ship and the shore; even the mate must have heard the new shouts, he shot up his head and looked about him.
Finally Johannes reached his boat, which had drifted off; he got the girl on board and then himself. It was all done without hesitation. People saw him bending over the girl and literally tearing her clothes open in the back; then he seized the oars and rowed up to the ship for all he was worth. The moment the child was snatched up and pulled aboard, a succession of triumphant cheers rang out.
“How come it occurred to you to search so far out?” they asked him.
“I know the ground,” he replied. “And then there is a current. I knew that.”
A gentleman pushes his way to the ship’s side, he is deathly pale; he smiles a twisted smile and there are tears on his eyelashes.
“Come on board for a moment!” he calls down. “I want to thank you. We owe you such a debt of gratitude. Just for a moment.”
And the man rushes back from the rail again, deathly pale.
The ports are opened and Johannes steps on board.
He didn’t remain there for long; he gave his name and address, a woman embraced the soaking wet young man, and the pale, distraught gentleman slipped his watch into his hand. Johannes entered a cabin where two men were working on the half-drowned girl. “She’ll pull through, her pulse is beating!” they said. Johannes looked at the patient, a young blond thing in a short dress; the dress was completely torn in the back. Then a man planted a hat on his head and he was led out.
He had no clear idea how he had got ashore and pulled up the boat. He heard another round of cheers and festive music as the ship steamed away. A wave of rapture, cool and sweet, flowed through him from top to toe; he smiled and his lips moved.
“So there won’t be any outing today?” Ditlef said. He looked disgruntled.
Victoria had appeared; she stepped up and said quickly, “Certainly not. Are you crazy! He must get home and change his clothes.”
Ah, what a thing to have happened to him, in his nineteenth year at that!
Johannes took to his heels and ran home. The music and the loud hurrahs were still ringing in his ears, he continued being propelled by a powerful excitement. He passed his home and followed the path through the woods up to the granite quarry. Here he looked for a nice, sun-baked spot. His clothes were steaming. He sat down. A wild, joyous restlessness made him get up again and walk about. He was filled to the brim with happiness! Falling on his knees, he thanked God for this day with hot tears in his eyes. She had been down there, she’d heard the chee
rs. Go home and put on dry clothes, she’d said.
He sat down, laughing over and over again in a transport of joy. Yes, she had seen him perform this labor, this heroic deed, she had followed him with pride as he brought in the half-drowned girl by his teeth. Victoria, Victoria! If she just knew how completely, beyond words, he was hers every minute of his life! He would be her servant and slave, sweeping a path before her with his shoulders. And he would kiss her tiny shoes and pull her carriage and lay the fire for her on cold days. He would lay her fire with gilded wood. Ah, Victoria!
He looked about him. Nobody had heard, he was alone with himself. He was holding the precious watch in his hand; it ticked, it was running.
Thanks, oh, thanks for this great day! He patted the moss on the rocks and the fallen twigs. Victoria hadn’t smiled at him; oh well, that was not her way. She simply stood there on the pier, a tinge of red fluttering across her cheeks. Maybe she would have accepted his watch if he had given it to her?
The sun was sinking and the heat tapering off. He felt that he was wet. Then he ran homeward, light as a feather.
There were summer visitors at the Castle—a party from the city—and dancing and festive sounds. The flag was flying from the round tower night and day for a week.
There was hay to be brought in, but the horses were kept busy by the merry visitors and the hay remained out. And there were great stretches of unmown meadow, but the hired men were being used as drivers and oarsmen, and the hay remained uncut and dried up.
And the music went on playing in the Yellow Room. . . .
During these days the old miller stopped the mill and locked up his house. He had become so wise; formerly it had happened that the fun-loving city people had come in a body and played pranks with his grain sacks. For the nights were so warm and light and their whims so numerous. The wealthy chamberlain had once, in his younger days, carried a trough with an anthill in it into the mill with his own two hands and left it there. The chamberlain was now a man of mature years, but Otto, his son, who was still coming to the Castle, amused himself in curious ways. Many stories were told about him. . . .