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

nowhere; two eyes, a look, and nothing more? If it had come to him, to fetch away his soul, why, so it would have to be; it would happen one day, after all, and then he would go to heaven and be among the blest.

Isak was eager to see what would come next; he was shivering still; a coldness seemed to radiate from the figure before him⁠—it must be the Evil One! And here Isak was no longer sure of his ground, so to speak. It might be the Evil One⁠—but what did he want here? What had he, Isak, been doing? Nothing but sitting still and tilling the ground, as it were, in his thoughts⁠—there could surely be no harm in that? There was no other guilt he could call to mind just then; he was only coming back from his work in the forest, a tired and hungry woodman, going home to Sellanraa⁠—he means no harm.⁠ ⁠…

He took a step forward again, but it was only a little one, and, to tell the truth, he stepped back again immediately. The vision would not give way. Isak knitted his brows, as if beginning to suspect something. If it were the Evil One, why, let it be; the Evil One was not all-powerful⁠—there was Luther, for instance, who had nearly killed the fiend himself, not to speak of many who had put him to flight by the sign of the cross and Jesu name. Not that Isak meant to defy the peril before him; it was not in his mind to sit down and laugh in its face, but he certainly gave up his first idea of dying and the next world. He took two steps forward straight at the vision, crossed himself, and cried out: “In Jesu name!”

H’m. At the sound of his own voice he came, as it were, to himself again, and saw Sellanraa over on the hillside once more. The two eyes in the air had gone.

He lost no time in getting home, and took no steps to challenge the spectre further. But when he found himself once more safely on his own door-slab, he cleared his throat with a sense of power and security; he walked into the house with lofty mien, like a man⁠—ay, a man of the world.

Inger started at the sight of him, and asked what made him so pale.

And at that he did not deny having met the Evil One himself.

“Where?” she asked.

“Over there. Right up towards our place.”

Inger evinced no jealousy on her part. She did not praise him for it, true, but there was nothing in her manner suggestive of a hard word or a contemptuous kick. Inger herself, you see, had grown somewhat lighter of heart and kindlier of late, whatever the cause; and now she merely asked:

“The Evil One himself?”

Isak nodded: as far as he could see it was himself and no other.

“And how did you get rid of him?”

“I went for him in Jesu name,” said Isak.

Inger wagged her head, altogether overwhelmed, and it was some time before she could get his supper on the table.

“Anyhow,” said she at last, “we’ll have no more of you going out alone in the woods by yourself.”

She was anxious about him⁠—and it did him good to know it. He made out to be as bold as ever, and altogether careless whether he went alone or in company; but this was only to quiet Inger’s mind, not to frighten her more than necessary with the awful thing that had happened to himself. It was his place to protect her and them all; he was the Man, the Leader.

But Inger saw through it also, and said: “Oh, I know you don’t want to frighten me. But you must take Sivert with you all the same.”

Isak only sniffed.

“You might be taken poorly of a sudden, taken ill out in the woods⁠—you’ve not been over well lately.”

Isak sniffed again. Ill? Tired, perhaps, and worn out a bit, but ill? No need for Inger to start worrying and making a fool of him; he was sound and well enough; ate, slept, and worked; his health was simply terrific, it was incurable! Once, felling a tree, the thing had come down on top of him, and broken his ear; but he made light of it. He set the ear in place again, and kept it there by wearing his cap drawn over it night and day, and it grew together again that way. For internal complaints, he dosed himself with treak boiled in milk to make him sweat⁠—liquorice it was, bought at the store, an old and tried remedy, the Teriak of the ancients. If he chanced to cut his hand, he treated the wound with an ever-present fluid containing salts, and it healed up in a few days. No doctor was ever sent for to Sellanraa.

No, Isak was not ill. A meeting with the Evil One might happen even to the healthiest man. And he felt none the worse for his adventure afterwards; on the contrary, it seemed to have strengthened him. And as the winter drew on, and it was not such a dreadful time to wait till the spring, he, the Man and the Leader, began to feel himself almost a hero: he understood these things; only trust to him and all would be well. In case of need, he could exorcise the Evil One himself!

Altogether, the days were longer and lighter now; Easter was past, Isak had hauled up all his timber, everything looked bright, human beings could breathe again after another winter gone.

Inger was again the first to brighten up; she had been more cheerful now for a long time. What could it be? Ho, ’twas for a very simple reason; Inger was heavy again; expecting a child again. Everything worked out easily in her life, no hitch anywhere. But what a mercy, after the way she had sinned! it was more than she had any right