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

it being nothing so terrible if she had. She was plainly accustomed to think of the thing as natural and easy; it did not affect her now. The first time, perhaps, it might have been a little uncomfortable, something of an awkward feeling about it, to kill the child; but the second? She could think of it now with a sort of historic sense: as a thing that had been done, and could be done.

Axel went out of the house heavy in mind. He was not so much concerned over the fact that Barbro had killed her first child⁠—that was nothing to do with himself. That she had had a child at all before she came to him was nothing much either; she was no innocent, and had never pretended to be so, far from it. She had made no secret of her knowledge, and had taught him many things in the dark. Well and good. But this last child⁠—he would not willingly have lost it; a tiny boy, a little white creature wrapped up in a rag. If she were guilty of that child’s death, then she had injured him, Axel⁠—broken a tie that he prized, and that could not be replaced. But it might be that he wronged her, after all: that she had slipped in the water by accident. But then the wrapping⁠—the bit of shirt she had taken with her.⁠ ⁠…

Meantime, the hours passed; dinnertime came, and evening. And when Axel had gone to bed, and had lain staring into the dark long enough, he fell asleep at last, and slept till morning. And then came a new day, and after that day other days.⁠ ⁠…

Barbro was the same as ever. She knew so much of the world, and could take lightly many little trifles that were terrible and serious things for folk in the wilds. It was well in a way; she was clever enough for both of them, careless enough for both. And she did not go about like a terrible creature herself. Barbro a monster? Not in the least. She was a pretty girl, with blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, and quick-handed at her work. She was utterly sick and tired of the farm and the wooden vessels, that took such a lot of cleaning; sick and tired, perhaps, of Axel and all, of the out-of-the-way life she led. But she never killed any of the cattle, and Axel never found her standing over him with uplifted knife in the middle of the night.

Only once it happened that they came to talk again of the body in the wood. Axel still insisted that it ought to have been buried in the churchyard, in consecrated ground; but she maintained as before that her way was good enough. And then she said something which showed that she was reasoned after her fashion⁠—ho, was sharp enough, could see beyond the tip of her nose; could think, with the pitiful little brain of a savage.

“If it gets found out I’ll go and talk to the Lensmand; I’ve been in service with him. And Fru Heyerdahl, she’ll put in a word for me, I know. It’s not everyone that can get folk to help them like that, and they get off all the same. And then, besides, there’s father, that knows all the great folks, and been assistant himself, and all the rest.”

But Axel only shook his head.

“Well, what’s wrong with that?”

“D’you think your father’d ever be able to do anything?”

“A lot you know about it!” she cried angrily. “After you’ve ruined him and all, taking his farm and the bread out of his mouth.”

She seemed to have a sort of idea herself that her father’s reputation had suffered of late, and that she might lose by it. And what could Axel say to that? Nothing. He was a man of peace, a worker.

III

That winter, Axel was left to himself again at Maaneland. Barbro was gone. Ay, that was the end of it.

Her journey to town would not take long, she said; ’twas not like going to Bergen; but she wasn’t going to stay on here losing one tooth after another, till she’d a mouth like a calf. “What’ll it cost?” said Axel.

“How do I know?” said she. “But, anyway, it won’t cost you anything. I’ll earn the money myself.”

She had explained, too, why it was best for her to go just then; there were but two cows to milk, and in the spring there would be two more, besides all the goats with kids, and the busy season, and work enough right on till June.

“Do as you please,” said Axel.

It was not going to cost him anything, not at all. But she must have some money to start with, just a little; there was the journey, and the dentist to pay, and besides, she must have one of the new cloaks and some other little things. But, of course, if he didn’t care to.⁠ ⁠…

“You’ve had money enough up to now,” said he.

“H’m,” said she. “Anyway, it’s all gone.”

“Haven’t you put by anything?”

“Put by anything? You can look in my box it you like. I never put by anything in Bergen, and I got more wages then.”

“I’ve no money to give you,” said he.

He had but little faith in her ever coming back at all, and she had plagued him so much with her humours this way and that; he had grown indifferent at last. And though he gave her money in the end, it was nothing to speak of; but he took no notice when she packed away an enormous hoard of food to take with her, and he drove her down himself, with her box, to the village to meet the steamer.

And that was done.

He could have managed alone on the place, he had learned to do so before, but it was awkward with the cattle; if ever he had to leave home, there was none to look to them. The storekeeper in