Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (chromebook ebook reader txt) 📕

Isak shook his head slowly.

“And then she was dead,” went on Inger, beginning to cry.

Isak was silent for a while. “Well, well, ’tis too late to be crying over it now,” said he.

“She had brown hair,” sobbed Inger, “there at the back of her head.⁠ ⁠…”

And again no more was said.

Time went on as before. Inger was not locked up; the law was merciful. Lensmand Heyerdahl asked her questions just as he might have spoken to anyone, and only said, “It’s a great pity such things should happen at all.” Inger asked who had informed against her, but the Lensmand answered that it was no one in particular; many had spoken of the matter, and he had heard of it from several quarters. Had she not herself said something about it to some Lapps?

Inger⁠—ay, she had told some Lapps about Os-Anders, how he came and brought a hare that summer, and gave her unborn child the harelip. And wasn’t it Oline who had sent the hare?⁠—The Lensmand knew nothing about that. But in any case, he could not think of putting down such ignorant superstition in his report.

“But my mother saw a hare just before I was born,” said Inger.⁠ ⁠…

The barn was finished; a great big place it was, with hay-stalls on both sides and a threshing-floor in the middle. The shed and the other makeshift places were emptied now, and all the hay brought into the barn; the corn was reaped, dried in stacks, and carted in. Inger took up the carrots and turnips. All their crops were in now. And everything might have been well with them⁠—they had all they needed. Isak had started on new ground again, before the frost came, to make a bigger cornfield; Isak was a tiller of the soil. But in November Inger said one day, “She would have been six months old now, and known us all.”

“ ’Tis no good talking of that now,” said Isak.

When the winter came, Isak threshed his corn on the new threshing-floor, and Inger helped him often, with an arm as quick to the work as his own, while the children played in the hay-stalls at the side. It was fine plump grain. Early in the new year the roads were good, and Isak started carting down his loads of wood to the village; he had his regular customers now, and the summer-dried wood fetched a good price. One day he and Inger agreed that they should take the fine bull-calf from Goldenhorns and drive it down to Fru Geissler, with a cheese into the bargain. She was delighted, and asked how much it cost.

“Nothing,” said Isak. “The Lensmand paid for it before.”

“Heaven bless him, and did he?” said Fru Geissler, touched at the thought. She sent things up for Eleseus and Sivert in return⁠—cakes and picture-books and toys. When Isak came back and Inger saw the things, she turned away and cried.

“What is it?” asked Isak.

“Nothing,” answered Inger. “Only⁠—she’d have been just a year now, and able to see it all.”

“Ay, but you know how it was with her,” said Isak, for comfort’s sake. “And after all, it may be we’ll get off easier than we thought. I’ve found out where Geissler is now.”

Inger looked up. “But how’s that going to help us?”

“I don’t know.⁠ ⁠…”

Then Isak carried his corn to the mill and had it ground, and brought back flour. Then he turned woodman again, cutting the wood to be ready for next winter. His life was spent in this work and that, according to the season; from the fields to the woods, and back to the fields again. He had worked on the place for six years now, and Inger five; all might have been well, if it were only allowed to last. But it was not. Inger worked at her loom and tended the animals; also, she was often to be heard singing hymns, but it was a pitiful singing; she was like a bell without a tongue.

As soon as the roads were passable, she was sent for down to the village to be examined. Isak had to stay behind. And being there all alone, it came into his mind to go across to Sweden and find out Geissler; the former Lensmand had been kind to them, and might perhaps still lend a helping hand some way to the folks at Sellanraa. But when Inger returned, she had asked about things herself, and learned something of what her sentence was likely to be. Strictly speaking, it was imprisonment for life, Paragraph I. But⁠ ⁠… After all, she had stood up in the court itself and simply confessed. The two witnesses from the village had looked pityingly at her, and the judge had put his questions kindly; but for all that, she was no match for the bright intellects of the law. Lawyers are great men to simple folk; they can quote paragraph this and section that; they have learned such things by rote, ready to bring out at any moment. Oh, they are great men indeed. And apart from all this knowledge, they are not always devoid of sense; sometimes even not altogether heartless. Inger had no cause to complain of the court; she made no mention of the hare, but when she tearfully explained that she could not be so cruel to her poor deformed child as to let it live, the magistrate nodded, quietly and seriously.

“But,” said he, “think of yourself; you have a harelip, and it has not spoilt your life.”

“No, thanks be to God,” was all she said. She could not tell them of all she had suffered in secret as a child, as a young girl.

But the magistrate must have understood something of what it meant; he himself had a clubfoot, and could not dance. “As to the sentence,” he said, “I hardly know. Really, it should be imprisonment for life, but⁠ ⁠… I can’t say, perhaps we might get it commuted, second or third degree, fifteen to twelve years,