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

question about that. Was he to throw himself away? He wanted to get on in the world. And he said nothing to those at home as to the altered state of affairs; it would be no use, and, to tell the truth, he felt a little out of humour with the whole thing.

Anyhow, he said nothing. The life at Sellanraa was having its effect on him again; it was an inglorious, commonplace life, but quiet and dulling to the sense, a dreamy life; there was nothing for him to show off about, a looking-glass was a thing he had no use for. His town life had wrought a schism in himself, and made him finer than the others, made him weaker; he began indeed to feel that he must be homeless anywhere. He had come to like the smell of tansy again⁠—let that pass. But there was no sense at all in a peasant lad’s standing listening in the morning to the girls milking the cows and thinking thus: they’re milking, listen now; ’tis almost by way of something wonderful to hear, a kind of song in nothing but little streams, different from the brass bands in the town and the Salvation Army and the steamer sirens. Music streaming into a pail.⁠ ⁠…

It was not the way at Sellanraa to show one’s feelings overmuch, and Eleseus dreaded the moment when he would have to say goodbye. He was well equipped now; again his mother had given him a stock of woven stuff for underclothes, and his father had commissioned someone to hand him money as he went out of the door. Money⁠—could Isak really spare such a thing as money? But it was so, and no otherwise. Inger hinted that it would doubtless be the last time; for was not Eleseus going to get on and rise in the world by himself?

“H’m,” said Isak.

There was an atmosphere of solemnity, of stillness in the home; they had each had a boiled egg at the last meal, and Sivert stood outside all ready to go down with his brother and carry his things. It was for Eleseus to begin.

He began with Leopoldine. Well and good, she said goodbye in return, and managed it very well. Likewise Jensine the servant-maid, she sat carding wool and answered goodbye⁠—but both girls stared at him, confound them! and all because he might perhaps be the least bit red about the eyes. He shook hands with his mother, and she cried of course quite openly, never caring to remember how he hated crying. “Goo⁠—ood-bye and bl⁠—bless you!” she sobbed out. It was worst with his father; worst of all with him. Oh, in every way; he was so toil-worn and so utterly faithful; he had carried the children in his arms, had told them of the seagulls and other birds and beasts, and the wonders of the field; it was not so long ago, a few years.⁠ ⁠… Father stands by the glass window, then suddenly he turns round, grasps his son’s hand, and says quickly and peevishly: “Well, goodbye. There’s the new horse getting loose,” and he swings out of the door and hurries away. Oh, but he had himself taken care to let the new horse loose a while ago, and Sivert, the rascal, knew it too, as he stood outside watching his father, and smiling to himself. And, anyway, the horse was only in the rowens.

Eleseus had got it over at last.

And then his mother must needs come out on the door-slab and hiccup again and say, “God bless you!” and give him something. “Take this⁠—and you’re not to thank him, he says you’re not to. And don’t forget to write; write often.”

Two hundred Kroner.

Eleseus looked down the field: his father was furiously at work driving a tethering-peg into the ground; he seemed to find it a difficult matter, for all that the ground was soft enough.

The brothers set off down the road; they came to Maaneland, and there stood Barbro in the doorway and called to them to come up.

“You going away again, Eleseus? Nay, then, you must come in and take a cup of coffee at least.”

They go into the hut, and Eleseus is no longer a prey to the pangs of love, nor wishful to jump out of windows and take poison; nay, he spreads his light spring overcoat across his knees, taking care to lay it so the silver plate is to be seen; then he wipes his hair with his handkerchief, and observes delicately: “Beautiful day, isn’t it⁠—simply classic!”

Barbro too is self-possessed enough; she plays with a silver ring on one hand and a gold ring on the other⁠—ay, true enough, if she hasn’t got a gold ring too⁠—and she wears an apron reaching from neck to feet, as if to say she is not spoiled as to her figure, whoever else may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty as he pleases.

“What have you done with Axel?” asks Sivert.

“Oh, he’s about the place somewhere,” she answers, pulling herself up. “And so we’ll not be seeing you this way any more, I doubt?” she asks Eleseus.

“It’s hardly probable,” says he.

“Ay, ’tis no place for one as is used to the town. I only wish I could go along with you.”

“You don’t mean that, I know.”

“Don’t mean it? Oh, I’ve known what it is to live in town, and what it’s like here; and I’ve been in a bigger town than you, for that matter⁠—and shouldn’t I miss it?”

“I didn’t mean that way,” says Eleseus hastily. “After you being in Bergen itself and all.” Strange, how