The Boat in the Evening

by Tarjei Vesaas

  You really wanted to say in wild defiance: Just you come!

  You will not say it. One weaves such fantasies, knowing one will never dare, never bring oneself to do it.

  *

  Nobody called and nobody came.

  My heart is in its chamber, lying beside the road and lying in the house beside the road at the same time. The one does not preclude the other. My heart is thudding against the walls. Is it certain that nothing will happen tonight?

  I don’t know.

  In any case this is one night more at the roadside.

  And what was that?

  A thudding against the wall.

  My heart pauses slightly, in its great tension. It was the soft thudding of wood against wood outside. The gentle thud of a boat butting the wall in a wind. Can this be true?

  Is there suddenly a sea out there? And a moored boat butting the wall of the house?

  Butting the wall of the house in a storm. What storm? Moored to the wall and running into the wall, in a storm.

  There’s no boat outside. Not even water enough for a boat, it’s a garden out there.

  Garden?

  How does one know what may be outside on a night like this? There may be an endless ocean. There may be a quay for the boat In that case a shallow little boat could be lying waiting.

  The nightlight is burning, one sees everything on the other side of the wall: the boat running into the posts in the wind; the boat that is tied to the ring and sometimes does not reach the post at all, but the wall. One has heard a good deal of that kind of thudding, and hears at once that this sound is a thousand miles removed from it.

  Tied to the ring in the wall of my house. Where there has never been water and never any boat or ring. Now the boat is thudding against the wall in a storm.

  Very well. One does not ask questions, one simply notes the fact. That’s how it is beside the highway.

  But the heart suddenly feels that it is getting more cramped. This is happening beside the unknown highway—so, land or sea, does it matter? Not in the least. The sea goes up on land at night so that the boat can be tied to the ring. The worn heart senses clearly that the boat is tied close by.

  *

  Come to that, there may be moorings all round the house. Mooring is a pleasant word. Who dares draw himself to his full height and deny that the sea goes up on land and moors the boat to the ring during the dark nights? Who dares deny that such a storm exists? Who dares sneer and say that it is a good friend knocking?

  One is out beside the great thoroughfare, where everything is possible. The assertions line up. One cannot bring oneself to utter them, but lets them live.

  *

  Cannot bring oneself to utter it aloud. My heart has already begun beating again. What is not true is true—so the heart must hastily start doing something, must start expanding as fast as possible.

  Expanding inside where it is too cramped already. It is thudding heavily.

  But it is still mine.

  Spoken somewhat by chance, with a somewhat indefinite purpose. Spoken in defiance.

  It is different tonight.

  That’s what it is. Of course there are other things outside, but it is mine all the same.

  It is larger, but it is mine all the same and will remain mine in the future.

  This is rank defiance, and it becomes more cramped around my heart that must go on beating. My heart, that has always wanted to expand, is forced instead to feel more cramped than ever when it beats. At the same time wood is thudding against wood outside, and the ring is rattling in the wall.

  There are no limits out there. One can imagine distant shores. Great thoroughfares, and harbours in the unknown. Chillingly unknown.

  Indoors it thuds against its narrow walls. My heart is too large for its chamber. It is getting feverish in there.

  Is this a hand of iron gripping it?

  Don’t let’s talk about that.

  The space has suddenly grown larger, not from generosity, but from surprise, and from strenuous expansion in order to find room for all the half forgotten things suddenly remembered and scraped together, in the desire to include them. Suddenly it all comes alive and streams to the heart. Life streams to the heart bearing things that scarcely have names, that have now become important.

  For unknown reasons?

  No.

  The heart is at the roadside; there is no other place to be. It is late, and one must go out naked.

  This is not unexpected; preparations were made long ago. Yet it has come too quickly and too soon.

  The prow of the boat is butting into the wall, butting into the house, and time is no more than a narrow line at what seems to be the point of exit. Outside the rainstorm has begun. The lonely boat, the rain and the storm; it is hurled against the wall and he who must go out naked discards garment after garment and hears it all as a stern, many-coloured song about the brief time and the brief time. The boat is slung about in the rushing and roaring in the brief time. The boat that did not exist, on the ocean that did not exist, and the rushing and roaring around the brief time. This song cannot last, but is lasting now, since the post is tied to the house, and the house is tied to the post, and the ring is inexorably tied to the heart in wind and rain and storm.

  The heart is tied in the space which is steadily becoming more cramped because everything is trying to enter it in desperation. From the thoroughfares back in the twilight, from all its ages, from all its defeats and joys, and its shame. Continually in from the thoroughfares, which were always so many, and the wind and the rain over and over again, all of it rushing and roaring through my heart like a song.

  Who will shake off what tries to force its way in, and deny it, saying: Here is no flood and no sea-storm, here is no ocean with unknown fairways, here no boat is being made ready for a journey, for night is night and it will be day tomorrow? No, it is too late to sing thus. It is all resolved; the ring is fastened to the wall, the boat is tugging at the ring, late to sing thus.

  *

  The first iron grip is imminent. The iron hand is exerting its grip. Iron is iron, but it is too late to sing thus, when the hand is raised to grip, when the heart is lying at the roadside and is too large and too cramped. Too late the heart understands that it is now, and the dark river is flowing, and the iron hand is exerting its grip.

  *

  The wind and the boat are tugging at each other. The wide way of the wind is free; it comes from the unknown, goes to the unknown. Free.

  The boat jerks at the rope. The shocked house is a part of the shocked heart, and the thoroughfare to it lay open; the boat is butting impatiently into the door-frame. The house is only a resting-place beside the highway. What can the heart do? It is innocent.

  Desperate excuses.

  The heart is not innocent. How can it be? It is feverish, not innocent. It has shared a man’s life. Anything but innocent.

  But it is all that streams back, demanding room. The heart cannot deny it room; it must receive it, must expand. It cannot shut it out, nothing is closed tonight, it is fantasy that such and such can be shut out. On the contrary, it must remain open to everything that wishes to come in. No one will ask for permission, never has anything so wretched been done that it cannot come and demand room. Receive, expand. Incredible how much one thought had been buried.

  Is that coming too?

  Yes.

  And that too?

  Yes.

  Like that all the time.

  Room must be found, but the walls cannot expand more than they have already. The heart writhes in weariness. No more must come.

  It speaks like an innocent heart.

  It speaks to the storm and the darkness and to that which is nameless and that which cannot be named. Speaks unavailingly of its futile excuses. The iron hands are about to seize it.

  The wind has brought heavier rain. Outside a wild rushing and roaring mounts up, inside there is an equally wild rushing and roaring from all these things. M
eanwhile the boat thuds, reminding one that it is there, but the rhythm is slower now than it was at first—for the sake of understanding.

  And a breathing space between the iron hands, merely for the sake of understanding.

  *

  The wind blows the downpour forward, as is right and proper on earth. At first it has a calming effect. One can imagine the rain pounding into the empty boat, soaking and blackening the thwarts. Blackening them in the darkness, as if it must be doubly dark. But the wind has blown forward twisted memories too—while it tosses the boat, while the thwarts blacken. Memories fly in frightened flocks.

  The pelting rain is streaming down, striking the floorboards. The rope hardens at its mooring.

  Familiar and homely. A little breathing space.

  If only the heart could shut itself off. It may not do so, and becomes crammed with memories, heavy with images, saving itself by clinging to straws, like the mooring rope and the slight, familiar smell of the mooring rope in rain. The reassuring smell of the commonplace.

  A breathing space between iron hands. Soon they will be here. One must cling to the most ordinary things. Nothing is going to happen, do you notice the smell of the mooring rope soaked with rain? Blessedly ordinary.

  As calm and normal,

  as when ropes are smelling in rain.

  *

  No use any longer. The strain on the heart becomes greater. The wind has blown forward something nobody wanted. The dull rhythm out there becomes more insistent, turning to heavier thuds against the wall. One thing is clear: the boat is to stay beside the house. Blackening thwarts or no, it is to wait here.

  What then?

  It’s simply to wait here.

  No one shall sing about it.

  But no one has any reason to weep either. Is the one perhaps just as simple as the other? It is only that it does not seem so.

  Think it over.

  I can’t.

  It was dark to start with, the clouds and the downpour came later. It will not become denser than this. More room is needed, but the iron walls cannot permit it. Soon it will be more cramped. The boat gives constant reminders that it is there, if that means anything. The lonely thwarts and the rain and the wind are dancing with one another in the dense night.

  What is happening out there?

  It is no dream, it is now. The moment now.

  The moment one knew about, and which gave warning of its coming, warning of an arduous and wearisome night.

  *

  The rain is slanting low before the storm. The old, unpainted wooden walls out there are already blackened by the driving rain. It does not show, and means nothing at all; it is correct that my house is black.

  Yes, old house walls and driving rain—let that find room. The commonplace, and soaked house walls, that’s how it should be, in a song. Even if it was formerly a torment, now it is blessed to have the memory of it. To have it in the centre of one’s heart like love. Once there was love, once there was a frosty night, and spring. The house stands in the night and is dark. A girl who stood in the driving rain and is dead, what of her? My heart expands, but receives nothing. It is large and shocked by memories.

  The fine things that were lost have their place in eternity, but eternity somehow seems to be for others.

  Large and shocked by memories. Almost forgetting that there is no room, and reminded of it by iron hands. My heart struggles wildly to escape.

  And what is this?

  Straight through what is devastating it and filling it up. The dark current is lifting. One is in the iron hands, and the gift of a new eye enables one to see that the current outside is lifting.

  Walls are of no consequence. In the congestion a new eye springs out. One knows this and sees it at the same moment. Straight through all obstacles one sees the darker part of the darkness lifting against the wind.

  No one could have foretold this. It is lifting against the storm. The boat thuds heavily meanwhile. Something heavy as lead has risen from the bottom in the storm. What does it want? What is it?

  The heart is between iron walls, no more must happen now. What is it?

  One has an idea of what it is, but will not admit that one understands. The rising of the current was the sign. The dark current will well up and rise like the wind, so that its pale underside shines visible. It will shine in the hour of night above the fairways and the rain-drowned boat and in the fairway of the boat once more. The fairway for the boat must disclose itself even though it has never done so before; it will not be a mystery.

  So it is too late to sing now.

  The heart grows larger and larger within the walls which have no room; it must break. The current has lifted, and the boat seems to have split its lip against the house, but the storm does not slacken and the thwarts have danced with the rain. All of them are obvious signs that it is too late to sing now.

  The current sinks again, but it will soon lift even higher. One knew a little about this uplifting, but did not believe in it. Had an uplifting in oneself that one tried to send out. It was lost. The heart is in distress—so full that that is what lifts the current against the storm and the weather, with its naked, white underside.

  *

  A nagging thought: I know something all the same.

  Oh no.

  But I know something all the same.

  No! Too late to sing now.

  *

  The cramped chamber with its many old guests. They are thronging back. It is like that when such things happen.

  What is happening really?

  No answer.

  It is a mystery.

  That the heart must make itself larger, but cannot. It must break shortly.

  The thronging must cease.

  The thronging does not cease.

  The heart desires the throng, desires everything that used to be, every single thing, the bad and the good, as long as it used to be. The signals are going out now, beckoning in this direction. The throng increases because of it, crowding in. The chamber is bound to break apart soon, but sends out signals to everyone. The throng presses on, the crush is beyond bearing, since there is no more room, there is no room, but the throng presses on and the heart sends signals without pause, for a greater throng.

  All that has been forgotten, lost or neglected—it has never really been lost, and now it knows where it came from and where it belongs to. It hears the signal. Does not ask whether there is room. Forces its way in.

  The tension is so great that it lifts the current outside into darker ridges. The heart, unable to beat, sends burning impulses through earth and stone and water. Signals. Desiring to be open to everything, it must clench itself and shrink and wither instead.

  But come, come.

  Come all that used to be, that belonged here, that went out from here.

  The downpour outside seems even heavier. The loose thwarts in the boat may have floated away. Maybe the prow of the boat is completely staved in.

  *

  No consideration is shown by those who have been called back. The signal has gone out telling of extreme distress, and here they throng to come in. It is irrelevant that the space is becoming more cramped, it is of no concern that the heart’s distress is increasing because of it—when its resting-place wishes it to be so.

  The beleaguered heart clenches itself and accepts them all.

  Choked up, it clenches itself inside the iron ready to break apart.

  The signal goes out constantly: Come.

  Is there anyone left outside who has not come in? All must come in.

  It is night.

  This is a struggle.

  The signal is sounding in blasts in all the thoroughfares, picking up and bringing back thousands of forgotten details. In spite of torment the ravaged heart cannot cease calling. It will at least send its message. In blinding clarity they will be remembered, sought out and forced back. The heart will never give in; it labours on in a worn-out chamber. Life has been many-faceted and colour
ful.

  Come, come.

  This is what life has been like.

  Now it is a lonely struggle among memories. The message goes out for more memories. They serve as a weapon. But they make the space increasingly more cramped.

  A blind struggle, in diminishing room.

  Not blind. The signals deny that.

  Processions of them back again. Greater difficulties. Clenching itself to make room.

  There must be a breaking point—and now it is almost here. The current from the bottom rises in earnest and the pale underside glimmers through the darkness. It rises higher. The muted glimmer remains. The dark river flows on. On into darkness.

  *

  It broke.

  Did it break?

  No. Not this time.

  It only seemed so.

  It only felt so in an unbearable moment. On the contrary it broke out into relief. It emerged freed of all burdens. All those who were summoned have left.

  Ought one to go out as the victor?

  No. One cannot do that.

  Never as the victor.

  But we shall win and we shall not win.

  For the time being.

  There is a great reserve that stands ready.

  One understands this now, knowing they will come as soon as the signals go out. Then one is not lonely, and the hurt takes second place. There are more than many who will volunteer.

  *

  For the time being, as if invincible, the heart lies beside the road to the dark river. Naked, and awaiting the next event, be that what it may.

  12

  The Tranquil River Glides Out of the Landscape

  What is stillness like when it is so great that it cannot be grasped? When it has come gliding out of its own place and feels more oppressive than thunder?

  It is only someone sailing out of the woods. Not so important, perhaps. Putting himself in order calmly and with strength.

  The shining, tranquil river glides out with all its burdens. It comes as if from far away in the interior, and delivers its innermost secrets. On its way towards a distant ocean.

  What accompanies it on the journey? Intense desires that have subsided. Nothing more.

  The water goes on gliding and gliding.

  It does not draw attention to itself. But the land that lies beside it cannot escape being marked by the journey.