by Jon Fosse
Poor dog, Bragi, I say
Poor doggy, you had to be alone for so long, Bragi, I say
and I realize it’s a little cold in the room, so I need to start a fire in the stove, I think, and then I’ll lie down on the bench and rest a little, I think, but first Bragi needs to get some fresh air, I think and I go out into the hall and I open the front door and Bragi runs outside and over to the grass as quick as he can and as soon as he gets to the grass he lifts his leg and he stays there pissing for a long time and then he walks around sniffing a little and I call Bragi but he keeps on sniffing and I call Bragi lots of times but he doesn’t listen and then I see that the dog is hunching up, with his rear end out, and his tail in the air, and he takes a good long shit and when he’s done he comes running up towards me
Good doggy, I say
What a clever dog you are, Bragi, I say
and then I pet him on his back and we go in to the kitchen and I hear a clattering noise and I see Bragi bumping his empty water dish
No, you don’t have any water, I say
and I pick up the bowl and I fill it with water and put it down for Bragi and he slurps and gulps his water
Oh you were really thirtsy weren’t you, I say
and Bragi gulps his water down until the bowl is totally empty and I refill it and put it down for him and he slurps just a little water and I see that the food bowl is empty too and I crumble a slice of bread into pieces and I put them in the bowl and Bragi goes over and eats some of the pieces of bread and then he looks up at me and I think that he must want something else to eat, and that’s understandable, I think, and later, later I’ll find something else for him, I think and with Bragi at my heels I go into the main room and I go hang my shoulder bag up on the hook and I go over to the stove and I put some kindling and a few wood chips in and put two good logs on top, good dry birchwood, and I light the kindling and the fire starts right away and I think that it’s good Åsleik gave me all the wood I need for a fire, the chips, the kindling, the logs, I think and I stay standing there and I look at the logs and I don’t think anything, I just feel empty and tired, and I feel a lightness, and I don’t exactly know why, and then I think that it must be because I thought that there was no need for me to paint anymore, I think, because I don’t feel the slightest desire to paint, I feel almost an aversion to it, and I can’t ever remember feeling like that before, I think and then I shut the stove hatch and I go out into the hall and take off my coat and hang it in its place and I hang the scarf on its hook and then I go into the main room and put my velvet jacket on my chair next to the round table and I sit down in the chair and Bragi comes over and hops up and lies down in my lap and I stroke his back and I think that it’s nice to have a dog, yes, I need to get myself a dog, that’s what I actually want to do, and then I need to get a boat, a sailboat, I really want to do that too, I think, and I’ve been thinking about getting a dog and a boat for years and years but it never happened, I’ve been too busy painting, I think and I look at my fixed spot in the water, at my landmark, the tops of the pines in front of the house need to be in the middle of the middle right pane, because the window is divided in half, and can be opened from both sides, and each side of the window is divided into three panes, and the middle one on the right side is where the tops of the pines need to be, I think and then I look at my landmark, and at the waves out there in the Sygne Sea and I cross myself and then I take out the rosary I have around my neck under my pullover, the brown rosary with the wooden beads and a wooden cross, and I hold the cross tight and then I pray a silent prayer for Asle, that he’ll get better, or if God wants to then he should take Asle back to himself and let him find rest in God’s peace and I stay sitting there holding the cross at the bottom of the rosary with the brown wooden beads that I always have hanging around my neck and that I got from Ales once, I got lots of rosaries from her, and I’ve taken good care of all of them, and I got lots of scarves too, and I’ve also taken good care of those, because when Ales asked me what I wanted for Christmas or as a birthday present I always said I wanted either a rosary or a scarf and then she said didn’t I have enough rosaries and scarves too and then I would answer yes, well, I did have a lot of rosaries and a lot of scarves but there’s nothing wrong with that and then Ales would say that still I always used the same rosary, the brown one, yes, the one I still have on, and I said I have a collection of them and she said yes, yes, she knows, she can see that, because on the wall behind the head end of the bench in the main room I had put up a hook and I hung all the rosaries I had on it, and all of them were from Ales, I think and I look at the rosaries hanging there on the wall and I think that every so often I take them down and sit and look at one or more of them, especially at the ones Ales had, and she had only three, and I hung them up together with mine after she died, and when I sit with one of Ales’s rosaries in my hands we kind of talk to each other for a long time, about anything and everything, before we say goodbye to each other and say that it won’t be long before we meet again and then I hang the rosary back up on the hook, and I miss Ales so much, and why did she have to die and leave me, so young, so suddenly? I think and I hear Ales say that even though I always wear the same rosary I do change the scarf I wear, and I say that I’m absolutely sure I’ve worn all the scarves she’s given me, and she says that I certainly have and then I hear Ales ask if I’m doing all right and then I see her sitting in her chair, there to my right, there next to the round table in front of the window, and I say I am, but I miss her so much, and also I’m so scared about Asle, I say and Ales says I shouldn’t be, either he’ll get better or God will take him back, so I shouldn’t be scared for him, Ales says, and even though it’s impossible to say anything about how she is, now that she’s dead, because in a way she’s not like anything, well yes she’d have to say that she’s doing well, because there’s kind of no other way to say how she’s doing, and when we talk together we do have to use words, but words can say so little, almost nothing, and the less they say the more they say, in a way, Ales says and she says she’s always near me and then I say that I can’t always tell if it’s God or her who’s near me and Ales says that I don’t need to think about that, and I sit there holding tight to the cross at the bottom of the rosary and I pray that things are good for Ales where she is now, that God is good to her and Ales says don’t I understand that things are good for her and I say yes, yes, I can feel it inside, I say and then I say that I have the feeling that I don’t want to paint anymore, and Ales says she can understand that, I’ve painted so many pictures, I’ve done my part, maybe I’ve painted my paintings, what I needed to paint, she says and even if I don’t paint anymore I’ll get by, I’ll have enough to live on, Ales says and I say yes and then she says that maybe it won’t be long now before I too come back to God, come back to where I come from, to where she is now, Ales says and I think that that’s how it is, a person comes from God and goes back to God, I think, for the body is conceived and born, it grows and declines, it dies and vanishes, but the spirit is a unity of body and soul, the way form and content are an invisible unity in a good picture, yes, there’s a spirit in the picture so to speak, yes, the same as in any work of art, in a good poem too, in a good piece of music, yes, there is a unity that’s the spirit in the work and it’s the spirit, the unity of body and soul, that rises up from the dead, yes, it’s the resurrection of the flesh, and it happens all the time and it always happens when a person dies because then the person is washed clean of sin, what separates the person from God is gone, because then the person is back with God, yes, the innermost picture inside me that all the pictures I’ve tried to paint are attempting to look like, this innermost picture, that’s a kind of soul and a kind of body in one, yes, that’s my spirit, what I call spirit, it goes back to God and becomes part of God at the same time as it stays itself, I think and Ales says that it is like that, insofar as it can be thought and said in words that’s what it’s like, but it can’t be said in words, she
says and I say no of course not and I say that all religions and faith say, or try to say, something about that, and they all do say it but in different ways, they’re like languages, I say, and actually they all say only the tiniest little bit about realities, yes, as I’ve so often said myself, just think if all the colours had names, yes, how infinitely many names that would be, I say and Ales says it wouldn’t have been any better without language and it’s because we have the same belief, the same language, yes, that we can talk together now, and it’s our angels who let us do that, Ales says, because actually it’s her angel and my angel that are talking to each other now, and for an angel to exist you have to believe it does, and you have to have a word for it, the word angel, and if you don’t believe that God exists, well then God doesn’t exist, neither in life nor when you’re dead, so we need the word God, but deep down inside all people believe in God, they just don’t know it, because God is so close that they don’t notice him, and he’s so far away that they don’t notice him for that reason either, and it’s just the same with the angel, with angels, but the dead are all still with God too, they’ve gone back to God, but they just don’t know it, Ales says and I don’t exactly know if I understand what she’s saying and I don’t exactly know what to say and then I say that I miss her and Ales says she misses me too, but even if we aren’t together visibly on earth anymore we are still invisibly together and of course I can feel that, she says and I say I can, and she and I can talk sometimes together, I say and Ales says that we can but only because our angels are there and because I say or think her words, it’s not she who’s saying them, because now she is everything that exists in language, because God is the pure, the whole language, the language without division and separation, yes, something like that can be said too, Ales says and then she says that it won’t be long before we’re indivisibly together in God, the two of us together, like we were on earth, but in God, Ales says and she can’t tell me what that’s like, because people can’t picture it, Ales says and I say that I’m tired and Ales says I can go lie down, yes, I need to, she says and I sit in my chair and I look at my landmark in the water, near the middle of the Sygne Sea, look out at the waves, and Ales’s voice goes away and I hold the cross on the rosary tight and I see words before me and I say inside myself Pater noster Qui es in cælis Sanctificetur nomen tuum Adveniat regnum tuum Fiat voluntas tua sicut in cælo et in terra Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris Et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo and I slide my thumb and finger up to the first bead between the cross and the group of three beads on the rosary and I say inside myself Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil and I slide my thumb and finger down to the brown wooden cross and I hold it and then I say, over and over again inside myself while I breathe in deeply Lord and while I breathe out slowly Jesus and while I breathe in deeply Christ and while I breathe out slowly Have mercy and while I breathe in deeply On me
V
And I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross near the middle and it’s morning and today’s Thursday and I’ve lit the stove and the room is starting to get warm, and yesterday I drove to Bjørgvin and delivered my paintings to Beyer, I think, and I feel exhausted and I stand in front of the easel and I look at those two lines that cross near the middle, one brown and one purple and I think that I don’t like this picture, because I can’t stand pictures that directly paint feelings even if I’m the only one who knows it, that isn’t the kind of thing I paint, it’s not the kind of thing I want to paint, because a painting can certainly be filled with feelings but you shouldn’t paint feelings themselves, like screaming and weeping and wailing, I think, and I think that this is a truly bad painting, that’s what it is, but at the same time it is what it needs to be, what it’s going to be, it’s done and there’s no more to do on it and I hear Åsleik say St Andrew’s Cross, emphasizing the words, he says the words with pride, emphasizing them, it’s revolting, and it is a St Andrew’s Cross, I think and I think that I need to put the picture away, or maybe I should just paint over it with white? I could do that, and once I’ve done it and the paint dries I can start painting a new picture on top of the St Andrew’s Cross, but I don’t want to do that, I don’t have any desire to paint over this picture, in fact I have no desire whatsoever to paint anymore at all, I think, and the only thing I considered painting was painting over this picture in white, the same as I’ve done with so many other pictures, but I didn’t do it, and maybe that’s because there’s something in this picture after all? maybe it’s a good picture even though I don’t like it? I think, because that often happens, that the pictures I dislike most are the best ones, and the ones I like best are the worst ones, strangely enough, that’s the way it often is, how good or bad something is doesn’t have anything to do with how much I like it or don’t like it, only with how good or bad it is, whether it’s good art or bad art, because art is about quality, not about liking or not liking it, not at all, and it’s not about taste either, quality is something that just exists in the picture whether it’s beautiful or ugly, and anyway for something to be beautiful it has to also be ugly, that’s how it is, and of course good and evil exist in the same way, and right and wrong, and true and false, of course it can be hard to say whether something is good or evil, or right or wrong, or true or false, but most of the time it’s clear enough, so it’s usually easy to see if a painting is good or bad, if it’s bad it’s bad, and in that case it’s just bad and there’s nothing more to say about it, but if it’s good it can be hard to say how good it is, and it’s often the pictures I paint that I don’t like, or don’t entirely like, that are the best, that are my experience, they’re a bit embarrassing for me in a way, it makes me feel a little queasy to look at them, I think and I don’t want to look at this painting with the two lines crossing anymore and since I don’t want to look at it I might as well put it aside with the other pictures leaning against the wall with the stretchers facing out, in the stack of pictures I’m not done with yet, there between the door to the side room and the hall door, I think, and my brown leather shoulder bag is hanging on the hook above them, because yesterday I drove all the paintings I was done with down to Beyer and dropped them off there, yes, after Åsleik had chosen the picture he wanted to give Sister for Christmas I drove the finished paintings down to Bjørgvin yesterday, so the place where the finished paintings usually go is empty now, I think, but I can’t stand this picture with the two lines that cross, it makes me feel sick to look at it, I have to get rid of it, and maybe it’s not even a picture at all? but at the same time I don’t want to paint over it with white paint, and I don’t want to set it aside in the stack of pictures I’m not totally satisfied with, and there are a lot of pictures there, and all of them are big paintings, or bigger, none are that big, and it’s good they’re big, I think, because I’ve realized I don’t want to paint anymore at all, maybe I’ve painted enough, painted myself out, maybe I’m done, I’ll give up painting, and the unfinished pictures actually are finished in their way, they’re surely not that bad the way they are, I think and in that case I have, as I thought, enough pictures for three more shows aside from the ones I delivered yesterday, I think, so that’s one exhibition at The Beyer Gallery, and then one in Oslo, which Beyer already has enough pictures for, and then finally the one in Nidaros, the exhibition at The Huysmann Gallery that’s been planned for years, and that Beyer now thinks he has enough pictures for, out of the pictures that didn’t sell either in Bjørgvin or in Oslo, so I can just bring all the pictures I have in my house to Dylgja, the unfinished ones over there plus the ones I have stored in crates, take them to Beyer and then he’ll probably start in again talking about how I just nev
er stop, I keep going like a roman-fleuve, he’s said that over and over again, yes, it’s just like with Åsleik, Åsleik feels proud of himself when he can use an unusual word and Beyer feels proud in the same way when he can use a French word or expression, roman-fleuve, Beyer says and he glows with pride and he says that every exhibition has a unity of its own, its own totality, or entirety, as if it’s not completely ended or finished, as if there’s something still fragmentary about it that as it were looks forward to the next one, that’s also true, and so that’s how one exhibition follows the other, like a river, yes, a picture-river, Beyer says and I think that with three exhibitions I’ll probably make a decent amount of money, plus I have a little in the bank, and soon I’ll be able to collect a pension and then I’ll be set, I’ll get money every month whether I do anything or not, I think, and it’ll be good to get a fixed amount of money every month because to tell the truth that’s never happened in my whole life, I’ve painted pictures to sell them and that’s how I’ve made the money I need, I think, and if I stop painting and don’t have to buy what I need for painting anymore then I’ll hardly have any expenses, because I already have what I need, yes, my car is fine, I bought it just about five years ago, so I’ll have that car for as long as I live, or as long as I’m able to drive, I think, but this painting here, the one with the two lines that cross, yes now what should I do with that? it was so wrong not to let Åsleik take it, he wanted it to give to Sister, but maybe I can put it up in the attic with the pictures I want to keep and not sell, and that I’m now kind of tempted to just get rid of, yes, that’s probably what I’ll do, but not right now, I think and I feel sure in my whole body that I have no desire to paint anymore, none at all, and I don’t understand why this feeling has come over me so suddenly, I’ve always liked painting, ever since I was a boy, and I don’t understand it, I think and I think that even if I don’t like the picture of the two lines that cross each other it might still be a good picture, that may be, but I don’t know if it’s bad or good, I only know that I don’t like it and that I don’t want to paint over it with white paint and that anyway I probably need to put it away, I think and I think again that it was stupid not to let Åsleik have the painting to give to Sister for Christmas, but I didn’t want to give it to him, still, that was the picture he wanted as a gift for Sister, and then he picked another one and took it instead, probably the best of the big paintings I’d finished for the show at The Beyer Gallery, the one called Silent Boat, yes, Åsleik knows whether a picture’s good or bad, so now probably the best picture I’ve managed to paint since my last show at The Beyer Gallery hasn’t gone to Bjørgvin, and there’s a kind of floating boat in the picture Åsleik chose, and the picture is brown and purple, but what really makes the picture good and makes it shine is the thin layer of white paint white brushstrokes I added when I looked at the picture in the darkness, when I glazed it, as they say, and of course that’s just the picture Åsleik wanted, the best picture I’d painted in a long time, and I couldn’t say no, because he’s always gotten his choice of paintings, he could choose freely, but only a small painting, this year was the first time I let him pick a big one and then of course he had to pick the best one, I think and I look at Bragi who’s standing on the floor looking up at me and I say Bragi and he comes over to me and I rub his fur and I think I need to go get him a little food and see if he still has water, I think, and then do I need to walk him? since he is standing there looking at me? yes he’s both hungry and thirsty and he needs to go, I think, but it’s probably better if I let him outside first so that he can go, I think and I go out into the hall and I open the front door and I think that outside it’s about as light as it’s going to get this time of year, and I see Bragi run around in circles in the snow, because it snowed a lot again last night, snow one day and rain the next and then snow again the day after, I think and it’s like Bragi is washing himself in the snow before he stops and raises one leg and his piss leaves a yellow hole in the snow, and he pisses for a long time, yes he sure needed to go, I think and then Bragi jumps around in the snow some more and spins and rolls around in the loose white snow and then I call him