Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun [best self help books to read txt] 📗

a bit. As for those fellows⁠—children! Thought they would teach me, did they? Did you hear what they offered me? Twenty-five thousand!”

“Ay,” said Isak.

“Well,” said Geissler, and waved his hand as if dismissing all impertinent offers of insignificant sums from his mind, “well, it won’t do any harm to the district if I do stop the working there a bit⁠—on the contrary, it’ll teach folk to stick to their land. But they’ll feel it in the village. They made a pile of money there last summer; fine clothes and fine living for all⁠—but there’s an end of that now. Ay, it might have been worth their while, the good folks down there, to have kept in with me; things might have been different then. Now, it’ll be as I please.”

But for all that, he did not look much of a man to control the fate of villages, as he went away. He carried a parcel of food in his hand, and his white waistcoat was no longer altogether clean. His good wife might have equipped him for the journey up this time out of the rest of the forty thousand she had once got⁠—who could say, perhaps she had. Anyhow, he was going back poor enough.

He did not forget to look in at Axel Ström on the way down, and give the results of his thinking over. “I’ve been looking at it every way,” said he. “The matter’s in abeyance for the present, so there’s nothing to be done just yet. You’ll be called up for a further examination, and you’ll have to say how things are.⁠ ⁠…”

Words, nothing more. Geissler had probably never given the matter a thought at all. And Axel agreed dejectedly to all he said. But at last Geissler flickered up into a mighty man again, puckered his brows, and said thoughtfully: “Unless, perhaps, I could manage to come to town myself and watch the proceedings.”

“Ay, if you’d be so good,” said Axel.

Geissler decided in a moment. “I’ll see if I can manage it, if I can get the time. But I’ve a heap of things to look after down south. I’ll come if I can. Goodbye for now. I’ll send you those machines all right.”

And Geissler went.

Would he ever come again?

VI

The rest of the workmen came down from the mine. Work is stopped. The fjeld lies dead again.

The building at Sellanraa, too, is finished now. There is a makeshift roof of turf put on for the winter; the great space beneath is divided into rooms, bright apartments, a great salon in the middle and large rooms at either end, as if it were for human beings. Here Isak once lived in a turf hut together with a few goats⁠—there is no turf hut to be seen now at Sellanraa.

Loose boxes, mangers, and bins are fitted up. The two stoneworkers are still busy, kept on to get the whole thing finished as soon as possible, but Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says, and he is leaving. Gustaf has been a splendid lad at the stonework, heaving and lifting like a bear; and in the evenings, a joy and delight to all, playing his mouth-organ, not to speak of helping the womenfolk, carrying heavy pails to and from the river. But he is going now. No, Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says. It looks almost as if he were in a hurry to get away.

“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” says Inger.

No, it can’t wait, he’s no more work to do here, and besides, going now, he will have company across the hills, going over with the last; gang from the mines.

“And who’s to help me with my buckets now?” says Inger, smiling sadly.

But Gustaf is never at a loss, he has his answer ready, and says “Hjalmar.” Now Hjalmar was the younger of the two stoneworkers, but neither of them was young as Gustaf himself, none like him in any way.

“Hjalmar⁠—huh!” says Inger contemptuously. Then suddenly she changes her tone, and turns to Gustaf, thinking to make him jealous. “Though, after all, he’s nice to have on the place, is Hjalmar,” says she, “and so prettily he sings and all.”

“Don’t think much of him, anyway,” says Gustaf. He does not seem jealous in the least.

“But you might stay one more night at least?”

No, Gustaf couldn’t stay one more night⁠—he was going across with the others.

Ay, maybe Gustaf was getting tired of the game by now. ’Twas a fine thing to snap her up in front of all the rest, and have her for his own the few weeks he was there⁠—but he was going elsewhere now, like as not to a sweetheart at home⁠—he had other things in view. Was he to stay on loafing about here for the sake of her? He had reason enough for bringing the thing to an end, as she herself must know; but she was grown so bold, so thoughtless of any consequence, she seemed to care for nothing. No, things had not held for so very long between them⁠—but long enough to last out the spell of his work there.

Inger is sad and downhearted enough; ay, so erringly faithful that she mourns for him. ’Tis hard for her; she is honestly in love, without any thought of vanity or conquest. And not ashamed, no; she is a strong woman full of weakness; she is but following the law of nature all about her; it is the glow of autumn in her as in all things else. Her breast heaves with feeling as she packs up food for Gustaf to take with him. No thought of whether she has the right, of whether she dare risk this or that; she gives herself up to it entirely, hungry to taste, to enjoy. Isak might lift her up to the roof and thrust her to the floor again⁠—ay, what of that! It would not make her feel the less.

She goes out with the parcel