ON

OVE&
GROWN
PATHS
KNUT HAMSUN

ON
OVE&
GRO
PATHS
Translated and with an introduction by
CARL L. ANDERSON

PAUL S. ERIKSSON, INC.

New York
 Copyright 1967 by Carl L. Anderson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
permission of the Publisher, Paul S. Eriks
son, Inc., 1 I9 West 57 th Street, New York,
N.Y. I ooI9 Published simultaneously in
the Dominion of Canada by Fitzhenry &
Whiteside, Ltd., Ontario. Library of Con
gress Catalog Card Number 6 7 -I7 2 8 1 .
Designed by Arouni. Manufactured in the
United States of America by The Haddon
Craftsmen, Inc., Scranton, Pa.
 INTRODUCTION

.
This is Knut Harnsun's last book, a memoir written
while he was interned from 1945 to 1948 on suspi
cion of treason, first at a hospital in southern Nor
way, then at a horne for the aged, finally at a
psychiatric clinic in Oslo. As he awaits the verdict
of the doctors and the j udgment of the court con
vened to inquire into his actions during the German
occupation of Norway, he records his thoughts of
the present and his reflections on the past-on boy
hood years spent in remote northern Norway in
apprenticeship to his merchant uncle, and on his
years in the 1 8 8o's as an immigrant farm worker in
America.
Before his internment, Harnsun had been living in
semi-retirement at Nszrholm, his country place in the
south of Norway. His reputation as the author of
Hunger ( 1 8 8 8 ) , Pan ( 1 894) , Victoria (189 8 ) , The
Growth of the Soil ( 1 9 1 7 ) , and a score of other books
was international. He had won the Nobel Prize in
1920, and he was venerated at horne as the master of
modern Norwegian prose style. He took pride in
vi 1/J('I'RODUC<J'JO/J(

these achievements, yet he considered himself to be,

above all else, a man of the soil, the progenitor of a
family to surround him in his old age and to follow
after him on the land and in the house he had estab
lished for them. In his eighties and quite deaf, he
gave his time chiefly to the care of the farm and to
the companionship of his wife and children (two of
whom, Tore and Arild, are mentioned by name in
the memoir, as well as a grandchild, Esben) .
Then on April 9, 1940, the Germans attacked and
all hope in Norway of a life uninterrupted by the
European conflict was shattered. Defense preparations
were wholly inadequate even though the possibility of
invasion by either the Germans or the Allies had been
apparent for some time. The control of Norway's
strategic position overlooking the North Sea to the
west and the Skagerak to the south and providing
passage to and from the continent through Sweden
and Finland was of obvious importance to both sides.
Indeed, Hitler's pretext for violating Norwegian
neutrality was to "save" Norway from the English. It
is known now, however, that his plans for subjugating
the country had been laid long before an invasion by
the Allies would have seemed practicable in those days
when everything was going Hitler's way. His ships
sailed up the Oslo fjord with only minor opposition
and caught Norway almost completely off guard.
To avoid being compromised by the Nazis, King
Haakon escaped with the principal members of the
government to England, where they remained an
active government in exile for the duration of the
war. In their absence, Vidkun Quisling, leader of the
 I[}('TRODUC'T10[}( vii

Norwegian Nazi Party which had been formed in

1 933 but had never mustered enough support to send
even a single represenative to parliament, eventually
had himself declared "minister-president" of Norway,
but only by leave of the Germans, who kept their
Reichskommissar, Josef Terboven, in active control
at all times. Terboven's ruthlessness and Quisling's
perfidy helped to arouse the nation from its initial
feelings of despair and defeat. Before long: an under
ground movement came into being and began to con
solidate random resistance to the Germans, who were
eager to nazify the schools, the courts, the labor
unions and professional organizations, and govern
ment at all levels. Although resistance was extremely
dangerous and often led to brutal reprisals, it
mounted steadily and received support from all but
a small minority of the Norwegian people, young
and old alike, during five long years of severe priva
tion and harrowing uncertainty.
But Knut Hamsun thought it sheerest folly to op
pose the overwhelming Germanic forces. A few days
after the invasion of April 9, he declared in the press :
"Germany has taken over our defense. We are neu
tral. And in the most solemn manner, as good as on
oath, the German government has bound itself not
to violate the independence and integrity of the king
dom of Norway." On May 4 the press carried a state
ment prepared by the Norwegian Nazi party and
signed by Hamsun admonishing his countrymen to
disregard the general order to mobilize which had
been given by constitutional Norwegian military
authority. The statement read :
Vlll l{}('IRODUC'TJO{}(

It is to no purpose that you have each of you taken

up arms and froth at the mouth at the Germans. To
morrow or some other day you will be bombed.
England is in no position to come to your aid other
than to send small bands of men here and there to
roam through the valleys begging for food.
NORWEGIANS ! Throw down your arms and go
home. The Germans are fighting for us all and are
now breaking England's hold on us and on all neu
trals.

Nothing else he was to write in behalf of the Ger

mans-in all, about a dozen articles or letters to the
newspapers-was as bitterly remembered by the Nor
wegians as this statement. Hamsun remained loyal to
the end in his commitment to the German cause. He
thus became the only major European writer to side
with the Nazis. Upon hearing of Hitler's death he
wrote: "He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind and
a prophet of the gospel of j ustice for all nations. He was
a reformer of the highest rank, and his historical fate
was that he flourished in a time of unexampled coarse
ness, which felled him at last." Tore Hamsun later
asked his father why he had written in praise of a
man whom he had immediately disliked when he had
gone before him to plead mercy for condemned Nor
wegian resistance workers ; he received the old man's
astonishing reply, "It was a courtesy, nothing more."
Inevitably Hamsun was among the dreary parade
of ninety thousand Norwegians suspected of treason
or of collaboration with the enemy and investigated by
special courts set up after the war. Charges against
nearly half of them were dropped, but about twenty-
 1/J(<J'RODUC<J'/0/J( ix

five thousand were fined and another twenty thousand

given j ail sentences, a number of which were sus
pended. Twenty-five persons, including Quisling,
were sentenced to death and shot.
Hamsun's case was followed in the press with par
ticular interest. He had gone on record in support
of Quisling, of the Reichskommissar, and even of
Hitler, yet on account of venerable age-or was one
to say senility? -he ought perhaps to be forgiven or
held not responsible. On t e other hand, he was
certainly not to be dismissed, as could so many of
those who had j oined the Norwegian Nazi Party,
as a weakling, an opportunist, a social misfit, or a
fanatic. What line would he take in court ? And what
consistency would it have with his long, important
career as an authod Many of Hamsun's readers,
shocked though they were by his wartime utterances,
felt from the past a deep personal obligation to his
fiction. But he also was known to be a stubborn, ir
ritable man not likely to recant, even supposing that
he would admit to any guilt. \Vhat, then, was the
state of his mind and heart ?
An answer came from the least expected quarter,
Hamsun himself. The psychiatrists who had ex
amined him reported to the court that he was not
insane, but a "person with permanently impaired
faculties"-or as our laws would put it with equal
ambiguity, "incurably of unsound mind." He was re
quired to stand trial and on Midsummer Day 1 948 was
found guilty and sentenced to pay ruinous fines. By
the light of a kerosene lamp brought in when the
electricity was turned off in the courtroom in compli-
X I IJ('I'RO DU C<J'/OIJ(

ance with wartime rationing regulations still in effect,

Hamsun had read to the court a statement which, he
insisted, he presented as "information" and not as
a defense of his conduct. In any case it could have had
little or no effect upon the deliberations of the court.
It found its proper setting only in the memoir that
Hamsun published in I 949 and that now follows in
English translation.
The memoir is made up, as he says, .of "trifles." As
such, it is pure Hamsun, for it was in "trifles" he had
always put his trust. It had been his achievement in
fiction to discover in the seemingly unimportant nu
ances of bearing, gesture, and voice truths about men
that were deeper and more mysterious than were ever
suspected in the orthodox generalizations current in
his time. Now, nearly ninety years old and having too
confidently ventured upon what he conceived to be
great political truths, he falls back once more on his
lifelong strategy of using "trifles" to explain himself.
He will wander as he must, on overgrown paths, there
being in life-least of all in his life-none of the
clearly marked trails that his examiners had hoped
to trace on their medical and legal charts to explain
the phenomenon called Knut Hamsun.

Durham, North Carolina -C. L. A.

January, 1967

All explanatory notes have been supplied by the trans

lator.
 ON
OVER
GROWN
PATHS
 THE YEAR IS 1945

On &ay 26 the chief of police in Arendal came to

Nprholm and served notice that my wife and I were
under house arrest for thirty days. I had had no warn
ing. At his request my wife turned my guns over to
him, and I had to write to him afterwards that I also
had two pistols from the last Olympiad in Paris : he
could get them whenever he wished. At the same time
I wrote that presumably the house arrest was not to be
understood literally since I had some distances to go in
order to see to the work on the farm.
After a while a man from the county commis
sioner's office in Eide came and got the two pistols.
*

June I 4 I was taken by car from my home to the hos

pital at Grimstad-a few days before, my wife had

been taken to the women's prison at Arendal. Thus it
was I could no longer see to the work on the farm ;
this was unfortunate since in the meantime there
was only a boy left to look after it all. But there was
no helping it.
4 00( O VERGROWO( 'PeA<J'HS

At the hospital I was asked by a young nurse if

I would like to go to bed right away, for it had been
said in Aftenposten that I had had "a breakdown
and required care." "Bless you, child, Pm not sick,"
I said. "You've had no one healthier than me coming
to the hospital. It's only that Pm deaf! 11 She took it
perhaps for boasting, and did not want to enter into
conversation with me. No, she would rather not talk
to me, and this principle of silence all the nurses
held to during my stay at the hospital. The sole ex
ception was the head nurse, Sister Marie.

I ramble about the hospital : one fairly old building

up on a hill and a newer building below-the hos
pital proper. I live on the hill, alone. On the second
floor live the three young nurses ; no one else in the
building.
I go walking and looking. There are many large
oaks around here, but many others had been felled
in bygone times, and up from the stumps wild
scrub-oak grows that will not amount to anything.
The view is of many small farms to the west.
The policeman who brought me here said that I
was not allowed "outside this building." Again this
is surely not to be understood literally, but I want
to be a model prisoner and have not gone even a
stone's throw away. Queer to think that I, who had
never had anything to do with the police in any
country, as much as I have seen of the world-
 H.AtMSU/1( 5

indeed, having set foot in four of the five regions

of the earth-, should now in my old age be a
prisoner. Well, if it was to happen, it had to hap
pen before I died.

I putter about day after day. The three young nurses

-student nurses actually-take turns coming up the
hill with food for me, turn on their heel and disap
pear. "Thank you ! " I shout after them. It gets a little
lonesome, but I am used to being alone ; even at home
they do not talk to me because I am deaf and tire
some. When I have eaten, I carry the tray with the
empty cups out to the walk where it can be picked up.
What I must do then is either go out again or
play a game of solitaire. I have not brought anything
with me to read, and my newspapers have not ar
rived. After a few days I ask the young girl : "I saw
the postman here ; were there any papers for me? "
To my joy she replies, and she replies loud and
clear, but she says : "You're not to have newspapers ! "
"Ah. Who has said that? "
"The chief o f police in Arendal."
"I see. Thank you."
But the head nurse hits on a way out by letting
me rummage around in a cupboard filled with old
books and back files of newspapers. There are things
which have been sent to the hospital by well-meaning
people : schoolbooks, children's readers, bound news
paper serials, "For Rich and Poor," "Little Talks,"
6 00( O VERGROWO( 'Pdl'THS

"The Evangelist," and in the midst of all this a

j ewel : a book by Topse. *
I propose to myself to read sparingly so as to make
it last ; I am especially looking forward to several
volumes of serials from Morgenbladet. I see they
used to belong to the library of Smith Petersen. This
Smith Petersen once lived in Grimstad and was quite
a personage.
But completely contrary to my good intentions to
ration my reading, I fell voraciously on Topse's
book and devoured it in one gulp ; Topse, whom
Brandes would not write about. Now they are both
dead.

A policeman comes and puts a number of questions

to me and writes down my answers. It is of no inter
est to me. It seems important to the authorities to
know how much I own-in Morgenbladet there has
been talk of my "large fortune." I told them what
I had.
Then it was quiet for some days, except when one
policeman came with a "Statement of Property Hold
ings" and another with a "Notice of Public Suit."
"I wouldn't mind owning that fine bike you've
got," I say.
"Please read the notice," he says.
No, not quite that, but . . .
* Topse, Vilhelm Topsf'le ( 1 8 4 o-I8 8t ) , Danish journalist and
novelist.
 He/l:MSUiJ( 7

June 23 I was taken to the examining magistrate.

He confronted me at once with a half smile : "You
surely have more money than you have declared ? "
I was dumbstruck and looked at the man. "I
haven't put much store in money," I said.
"No doubt, but . . . "
"My wealth is what I have declared : about 25
thousand kroner in cash, 200 shares in Gyldendal, and
the farm Nprholm."
"Yes, of course. But your author's rights? "
"Well, i f Your Honor can give me some idea about
them today, I would be very grateful. My career as an
author doesn't look especially bright now."
But Lord, how I must have disappointed him.
And how I disappointed all the others who had had
hopes of a "large fortune" to pry into. Nonetheless,
my fortune is big enough, all too big. I have no
desire to take it with me to the grave.
The hearing was quick and indecisive. To some of
the magistrate's questions I replied evasively so as
not to irritate that well-intentioned gentleman un
necessarily. Justice Stabel is fanatic in his hatred of
Germany, and he believes to the core in the Allies'
fine and noble right to lay waste the German nation and
obliterate it from the earth. In addition to every
thing that has been made public from the hearing, I
name a few small items.
He asked what I thought of the National Socialistic
group I fell in with here at Grimstad.
I answered that there were better people than I in
the group. But I fell silent after mentioning that it had
8 00( OVERGRO W{}{ 'PA'I'HS

no fewer than four doctors, to name only one cate

gory.
It sounded as though I was generally too fine to
belong to the Nazi conspiracy.
"There were also j udges," I said.
Unfortunately, yes. And what position did I take
with respect to the terroristic tactics of the Germans
which were now being brought to light?
Since the chief of police had forbidden me to read
newspapers, I had no way of knowing about any of
this.
Didn't I know about the murders, the terrorism,
the torture?
No. I had had inklings of it j ust before I was
arrested.
Well then, a scoundrel by the name of Terboven,
who took his orders directly from Hitler, tortured
and slaughtered the Norwegian people for five years.
"But thank God, some of us survived. Do you be
lieve the Germans are a cultured people? "
I did not answer.
He repeated his question.
I looked at him and did not answer.
((Were I the chief of police, you would get to read
all the newspapers. Your case is adjourned until
September 22."

Three months, then.

I read, putter about, and play solitaire.
To give my legs a little exercise on the narrow
 Hdl:ft1SUO( 9

stretch of earth allotted me, I scramble up onto the

moor itself. It is very steep and here and there I have
to steady myself with a sharp stick so as not to fall
down. And still that is not all of it : I have become so
unabashedly faint-headed that I almost throw up and
have to force myself to swallow. I have begun a
little late with my mountain climbing. I repeat the
walk day after day an become more expert, but my
whole body trembles when I have got to the top.
At the top of the moor is a plateau. I sit up here
and see a couple of lighthouses, the port of Grimstad,
and a few miles out to the Skagerak. At first I have
to sit still and dare not get up and be a man, but
my brain churns and labors. I look at my watch
dear me, I have used up only a few miserable
minutes to get to the top, and here I sit on my pin
nacle enjoying myself as though I have done some
thing. In order to make a hike of it, I have to think
out a way of getting down the other side of the moor
and sneaking home unseen to the hospital.
It works ; I get down in good shape. But here I
come upon a road, and I do not dare walk this way
and perhaps meet someone. And when I look at my
watch, I see that I have still not had anything like
a hike-I have simply got to turn around and go back
over the moor once again.
This too was a slight matter for me, though I
stupidly took a header once and fell on my arm.
And I had to get down the steep slope to the hospital
by sitting on a bunch of leafy twigs and sliding.
So, it was not so badly managed at all, if I say so
myself. And I made no changes in these walks later
10 00( OVERGROW[}( 'Pil'l'HS

on. The only thing I had to fear was that a police

man would come looking for me at the hospital dur
ing my absence.
But when I began days and weeks later to think
over the worth of these walks across the moor, I was
not much satisfied. It was not the right sort of exer
cise for my muscles and limbs ; it took too much out
of me, I got sweaty and felt worn out but without
my body's being any more limber. My feet were just
as stumbling as before. Moreover, my shoes had not
stood up under the strain ; they were worn through,
top and bottom. And I had no other shoes.
The head nurse is seldom about. She has too little
help and must do the cooking herself. But once when
she did make an appearance she said right away that
I ought to do more walking. She pointed out a good
long road to Smith Petersen's house, w1- . h is burned
down, and said I might go there.
"I take you at your word, nurse. Many thanks."
It was a great help ; I could walk as fast or slow as
I pleased. And there was a little dog on one of the
farms who watched for me each time and ran up
happily to greet me.
However, I did not want to give up entirely my
walks over the moor. I had discovered them myself,
and there were trees and rocks I recognized, and I
felt there was a friendly breeze blowing all about
me even though I was deaf and could no longer
hear it.

*
 HeA[JvJSUO( II

I sit at a crossroads and hold a postcard in my hand. I

have written home to Nprholm on the postcard to ask
if they will try to find some shoes for me, and now
I am waiting for someone on his way to town who
will take the card with him.
The very first one to come is a young boy, perhaps
sixteen or so. He had a dark, unprepossessing face, but
I get up, hold the card out and say : "Would you
please put this card in a mailbox? "
He is taken aback. His whole face becomes dis
torted, and long before I have finished speaking I hear
a mumbling and see him go on his way.
"Perhaps you are not going to town ? " I shout
apologetically.
He does not answer, merely keeps on walking.
Since I had such poor luck with my first try, I do
not dare ap. l)ach anyone else, but walk back to the
hospital.
There is no doubt the boy knew me. He knew per
fectly well I was being held a prisoner, and now he
was going to show his superiority over such a person
on this earth.
We have acquired political prisoners in Norway.
It used to be that a political captive was only a char
acter in Russian story books ; we never saw one, for
the whole idea was unknown to me. Thranerpra,
Kristian Lofthus, Hans Nielsen Hauge do not count.
But today we have one who does count ; he is legion
in the land of Norway and comes in forty, fifty, some
say sixty thousand copies. And perhaps in many
thousand more.
12 00( OVERGROWIJ( 'PA 'THS

Let that be as it may.

People associate a political prisoner with something
criminal : no daub he goes around carrying a machine
gun, . . . watch out for his sheath-knife ! . . . children
and young people must be especially careful. I have
noticed this these few weeks and months ; it is dis
turbing to see. What would it have mattered to that
young man to be polite and take my post card? Not
that I care, but for me to get a card mailed is so
problematical. The young nurses who are on their
way to town would rather not be troubled, I feel.
And the mailman is not to accept anything from me.
I read, putter about, and play solitaire.

As for sheath-knives, here is one that has found its

way to me, I don't know how : a fine knife with
engraved German-silver ferrules and a leather sheath.
I ask the man who sweeps up outside, but it is not his.
I will have to ask the head nurse.
A gentleman in gray summer attire comes to my
room, nods and says nothing. Perhaps he assumes
that I know him, but I do not. Then I think I hear
him mumbling that he is a doctor and he says his
name. I do not hear anything and must ask him,
"Erichsen ? " But I know only one doctor named
Erichsen and he is supposed to have been arrested,
I hear. The stranger searches for something in his
wallet, perhaps for his card, does not find it and gives
up. There we stand.
 H,;l[ji.JSUO( 13

"Do you want something of mer" I ask.

He shakes his head, and I understand that he
wants only to bring his greetings.
I thank him. It is kind of him. My visitors are
mostly the police these days ; I am held captive, you
know, a traitor . . .
"How are things for you herd" he asks.
"Splendid."
Shortly afterwards he left. He was very friendly,
but he did not speak loud enough to me.

For that matter, I do not lack for people to be

friendly. A short cut goes by here, a path up to my
hill, and many prefer this path to going the long way
past the hospital proper. Here I sit now and then,
for there are good places to sit in peaceful silence,
observing the ant and growing wise. Then people
walk by and some greet me. They know the reason
for my sitting here, but they greet me.
A elderly lady stops one day and looks at me. I
get up and remove my hat. She begins to talk ; I say
that I cannot hear, but she talks. Then she points
to the sky, and I nod. She points time and again to
the sky, as though I would do well to do so too, and
I nod. She stops another lady going by, and both
ladies come into agreement and give me their hand
when they leave. Sheer friendliness.
And !-without thinking, I did not give them my
postcard to take with them !
14 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA'l'HS

I shake my head at myself and walk up the

steepest part of the hill as penance. I will really have
to take serious measures now, for my shoes are worn
even worse. They are some eight years old ; I have
had them since the year I was in Serbia.
I had come to the other side of the hill and kept
on walking till I saw the church steeple. Of course
I was now in forbidden territory, but if I sneaked
forward far enough-and a little bit more-l could
check my watch with the steeple clock. To tell the
truth, I was really here to see if I could find a mail
box.
On my right hand was a street with not a sign of
life. I began to walk down the street, but there is no
denying I was afraid and I tiptoed. At the very bot
tom of the street, I caught sight of Grefstad's hard
ware store ; a mailbox hung outside.
Should I venture it? There are a few steps more
to go. I glance around in all directions : not a soul to
be seen. In a moment I have streaked across the street,
stuck my postcard in the box and streaked back again.
Then I start walking.
I had not gone far up the hill before I felt someone
poke me in the back. Police. Skittish and irritable as
I have become these past weeks, I was badly startled.
"l only wish to say that the steeple clock is twenty
minutes slow," I say. "Do you have a watch on you ? "
H e pulls out his watch, and we compare.
"But this won't get you anywhere," he says. "You
are not allowed to walk on the streets. What makes
you think you can do such things?"
 I explain everything : only a postcard, just a few
words. Look, look at my shoes.
"We're talking about two different things," he says.
"Indeed we are," I agree. "And I beg your pardon.
By the way, wasn't it you who drove me to the hos
pital a while back? "
"No," h e replies curtly. "It's beside the point who
it was."
"To be sure. But all I meant was that it was necessary
for me to get the little postcard mailed that I dropped
into the box."
"Now look here," he says. "You have orders to stay
near the hospital, and I don't want to see you down
here again. Do you understand ? "
"Yes," I say. "As I stand here, I think how un
lucky I was. I could have waited a little and given
you the postcard, and you would have put it in the
box and it all would have been legal."
He looks at me for a moment, then says : "I'll let
you off this time. But you are to leave at once.
Move ! "

Those were some first-rate serials Morgenbladet used

to run in the old days. I do not know how they are
now, but in Smith Petersen's time they were carefully
chosen literature, and I should not wish for better
reading today. It is only that they scarcely take any
time even though they run to hundreds of pages. I
have a whole building full of books back home, and
16 OIJ( O VERGROWIJ( 'PA'THS

I could get a trunk load sent here now and then ex

cept that my money is arrested along with me ! It does
not annoy me, I am only amused and bother no one.
A nice lady in Java has had a box of cigars sent to me
from Holland; she and her husband have read some
of my books, she says : kind regards and thanks. Im
agine that she should want to do that, I think, for a
stranger so far away ! Blessings on her! People
pamper the old. But one day I will be out of cigars.
What then ? Then I will stop smoking, just stop. I
have done that three times before, a year at a time
to the day. I want to be that much master of myself
that I can stop. Good. But then I begin again, and
where is the profit in that ? I want to be that much
master of myself that I can also begin again.
And I will take no pains now to hide this light
under a bushel.

Nothing of much account happens in my daily round.

An old man comes up the hill with a coffin on his
handcart ; his old woman follows after and pushes.
This is the second time since I arrived that the old
couple have come here with a coffin. Someone has died
in the night down at the hospital, and the body has
been placed in an outbuilding here on the hill until
it is to be put into the earth. Quiet and peaceful,
nothing very special. He unties the rope, walks to
the head end and pulls. Then the woman pushes, and
the box slides neatly onto the floor.
 li

"It wasn't you by any chance who lost a sheath

knife ? " I ask.
"A sheath-knife ? " I think he says, for I see that he
feels about him and then shakes his head.
A stream of talk follows ; he wants to know more
about the knife: where was it? what did it look like ?
I go my way as though I have j ust remembered
something to attend to :rt my office.
And so I have. Actually I have no time off ; like
everybody else these days I ave to darn my socks
every day and mend my jacket in the elbow. And then
there are many other small tasks too numerous to
mention : I have to make my bed, smoke my morn
ing cigar, and swat flies. I have to fasten the chair leg
that is always coming loose, and I have to hammer a
nail into the wall for my hat, for which I have found
myself a stone. Finally I must get around to answer
ing a certain letter from last month, but I am no
writer and let it go.
There is everything to be done.
Less may be said of my surroundings. Here are
only croppped hills without a flower bed. The weather
is biting, the wind almost always blows ; but nearby
are trees and woods with songbirds aloft and all sorts
of creeping things on the ground. Oh, the world is
beautiful here too, and we are to be very grateful for
being in it. How rich the colors are here in the very
rocks and the heather, how incomparable the forms in
the bracken ! And the taste of a piece of wall fern
that I found is still good on the tongue.
Then a plane flies over the hill and livens up the
,g 00( O VERGRO WO( 'PA'THS

place. Then there are two cows tethered at the foot of

the hill, but it is a shame they have to stand there. I
see they are bellowing and are restless because they
are not moved and get no water.
When the time comes, I am served my food. One
of the three young nurses shoves my tray onto my
table, turns on her heel and goes out. "Thank you ! "
I call after her. No, the three nurses do not change
their tactics. They probably have a hard time of it
coming up the hill without spilling the coffee or the
soup. Maybe. But the tray is awash. That is the way I
am to have it; it is what I deserve. In the beginning
of my stay here I tried to explain to them that I had
not killed anyone, nor stolen anything nor set fire to a
house, but it made no impression on them, only bored
them. Now I explain nothing more ; it is nothing to
make a fuss over. Soup by itself, coffee by itself
that would not be so bad. But now I fish up off the
tray a letter which has been opened and resealed ; the
police have sent it that way. Or it is a clipping from 3
Swedish newspaper. Or a kindly Danish actress sends
me her regards. When I have fished it up off the tray,
I dry it in the sun. I do not mind. But isn't it too
bad abol!t the three nurses, young and handsome all
three, yet so badly reared?

There is talk hereabouts of Smith Petersen's house

that burned down. Apparently it made quite a sight.
First I come to a wooden bridge without a railing ;
 HeAU'JSUO(

next, to a mere footbridge ; but then I stop by some

immense ashes, centuries old and venerable, only five
or six trees, no more, but the rest have no doubt died
off. I struggle up a stoney, neglected road and come to
the ruins.
The house was of wood ; the walls which remain
suggest a small, ordinary country cottage with addi
tions and expansions b'uilt as they were needed. I
cannot imagine that it ever amounted to much, but
who knows? It may have contained an inner great
ness, a place of ease and comfort, of pomp and luxury
and splendor on earth. And there may have been
festivities and grand occasions and nights of adventure
that live still in legend. Here was a dynasty of Smith
Petersens, some hyphenated, others not. A Smith
Petersen was consular agent in Grimstad ; there is talk
yet of Smith Petersen's wharf. I know nothing about
them, having only received a letter once from a Smith
Petersen in a sadly illegible hand. Wasn't he the
French consul ? No doubt he kept two horses and a
coachman with shining buttons, and that was a great
deal in those days ; now he would have two limousines
and would have had to build a proper road up to his
place.
But it is not that that I try to get to the bottom of,
but this: that so few things last. That even dynasties
vanish. That even what is grandiose falls one day.
There is not meant to be any pessimism in this
thought and afterthought, only an acknowledgment
of how transitory, how dynamic life is. Everything is
20 00( OVERGROWO( 'PA'THS

in motion, energy whirling up and down and to all

sides ; when one thing collapses, another rises in its
place, looms large in the world for a moment and
dies. In the Havamal they believe in the incorruptible
unchanging permanence of fame. But from Madagas
car we read of a saying among the ganders : Tesaka
does not like things which endure !
Oh, the cackling hens of Madagascar ! They will
have it all their way !
People are not as wise ; we would rather not give
up the illusion of permanence. Right in the face of
God and Fate we keep plugging away at glory and
immortality, embracing and praising our follies, sink
ing to the depths with neither grace nor poise.
A cartoon by Engstrom of fifty years ago comes to
mind : An ancient couple sit dozing on a garden bench.
It is autumn. The man has long whiskers. His hands
grip a staff.
Quaveringly comes the following conversation :
"I recall a girl whose name was Emily."
"But darling, that girl was me."
"So ! Was it you?"
Bjrnson knew his fame was unlasting : time takes
everything! Have we others, then, anything we
should have said? For my part, I sit making notes and
scribble about a burned down wooden house and think
my thoughts of that affair. Over at the nearest farm a
little dog runs to and fro, and I see it yelping at me,
but it does not bother me. I am at peace ; my mind is
clear and my conscience free. I receive letters saying I
 Hd:MSU:J( 21

will be read in time immemorial ; even the jssinger*

praise me. Let it be as it will with such kindness.
But indeed there are few things that endure-time
takes them, time takes everything and everybody. I
lose a bit of my name in the world-a portrait, a bust,
but hardly an equestrian statue.
But one thing is still worse, even to talk about. I
had thought that I stood in well with children. They
used to come now and then with their little books
for me to write my name in,. and they bowed and
thanked me and we were all p leased. Now I am used
to frighten children.
Let that be as it will, too. In a hundred years, per
haps less, the children's names will be as much forgot
ten as my own.

I do not understand what sort of person it could have

been who bought Topsl')e's book and took it with him
to the hospital. I have been puzzling over it for a
number of days. And now when I have come to get
the book again, it has disappeared.
Disappeared.
* jpssinger, supporters of the Norwegian government in exile in

England during World War II and opponents of the quislings.

The name is taken from the Jpssing fjord in western ll:orway, the
scene in February 1940 of the "Altmark" affair, when a British
squadron freed Joo British seamen held captive on the "Altmark,"
a German tanker then in Norwegian waters. The English inva
sion of neutral territory was given by Hitler as one of the reasons
for the Nazi occupation of Norway.
22 00( OVERGROW{}( 'PA'THS

Who has taken it? There is no use my asking ; I

will get no answers, or at the most : "Don't know ! " I
wanted to look through the book carefully, page by
page, to see if I could find some mark. I am sorry I
did not do it at once ; now it is too late. It was an
unused copy in good condition, but it might well have
been bought fifty or a hundred years ago--1 can no
longer keep track of the years, and I have nothing
to look them up in.
In my younger days I met the Topspe family in
Paris, but only the wife and three young children.
Topspe himself was dead. They were a handsome and
pleasant family with many interests ; a daughter
played the violin, another studied art, but none of
that was in my line.
But who was the patient who one day came to
Grimstad hospital with one of Topspe's books in his
hand? In my idleness and indolence I play a little
game with myself and pretend that it has fallen to
me to solve this mystery. Actually it does not interest
me in the least. And I told myself so, too, and plainly :
What a lot of nonsense ! It's worse than crossword
puzzles and solitaire, and don't think I don't know it !
Whereupon I walk over and wash some clothes in
order to be useful. There is no hot water, but I have
soap with me and am not at a loss, for I learned what
to do in my young days on the prairie, where we had
no hot water either.
Suddenly there is a knocking at the door. I am not
fully dressed, but I say come in. It is a woman, a
young girl. "What in the world ! " escapes my lips.
 HdMSUtJ( 2J

For not only am I naked to the waist, but I had not

even got my teeth in.
Her mouth moves. She is pale and embarrassed.
"I cannot hear you, miss."
She writes on a paper. "Excuse me for taking this
book from you."
"What book? Topse. It is not my book."
"I picked it up here yesterday on your table."
"Well, I found it in the cupboard out in the hall.
It's a Danish book."
"Yes. Marvelous ! " she wrote. "I didn't know there
was still another Topse left."
In the meantime I have got into my clothes.
The lady writes : "You must excuse me. I knocked
at the door many times yesterday too, I really did.
But then I walked in."
I say in my confusion : "I thought you were
Danish."
She shook her head and wrote her name.
She told me that she lived at a little summer place
on the coast. She and her mother. They went there
every year. It was only a cottage on an island, and
now, unfortunately, they were about to leave.
"Why do you have pen and paper with you? Do
you makes notes as you read ? "
She reddened and wrote : " I knew you were deaf."
"Won't you sit down, miss? "
She writes and writes. She has pretty hands, fine
nails, and on her left hand some rings. Her face has
no sort of paint on it. She is young and natural
that is, innocent.
24 00( OVERGROWO( 'PATHS

I begin to chat a little with her : "I have to laugh

about how I looked when you came in. What must
you think? You see, I have a little washing to do. Of
course, I could sent it home, but it takes so long. It
was only today I received a pair of shoes from home
which I had to work hard to get."
"I'm terribly sorry ! "
"No, no, it only amuses me. It is only for now."
"That's j ust like you! Sometimes we all have a
good laugh at home over something amusing you've
written. But sometimes-"
"Are you many at home? "
"Only my sister, but she is married and has her
own home, so that leaves father and mother and me."
"Isn't your father with you on the island ? "
"No, not this year. H e i s under arrest."
Pause.
"It was nice of you to come to see me."
"No. We knew that you wouldn't want it, but you
see, we are going to leave now and I was sent. By
the whole family. Ha ha," she laughed.
"Yes, it was nice of you. I'd rather not have any
one come, but I mean that only in general. I'm deaf,
you know, and no one has the patience to talk with me.
Besides, I've forgotten myself how to talk to people."
"I wonder if you really are completely deaf. May I
test you ? "
She spoke slowly and softly into m y left ear, said
something trivial, and then looked questioningly at
me.
"Yes," I say and nod.
"Did you really hear? "
 Helf::MSUO(

"Yes, every word, I think. How could you know

that the left ear is best? "
"Because you lean t o the left when you listen. I
noticed that."
We spoke together and no longer wrote. I praised
her keen observation, and she told me she had begun
to study nursing. I thanked her for having come. Yes,
I blessed her. "I'm goi!lg to tell them that at home ! "
she said.
She looks for something in her handbag, finds it
and offers it to me. "From mother," she said ; "it's
wool, something for darning. I saw a sock here yester
day that you had begun with, with the needle m,
lying there on the bed . . ."
"You did?"
"Yes, but you really mustn't be offended," she said.
"Please. I don't usually go around prying this
way . . . "
"Oh dear, no."
"Because I don't. But I saw that you had darned
the wool sock with linen thread."
"I have had no training."
"But of course you don't-mother thought perhaps
you didn't have any wool yarn."
"Oh yes, but I had fogotten it. I've got more than
enough."
"How? You can't buy it now."
That minx of a child, she has me cornered and I
must say : "Please thank your mother for me. But
she is entirely too kind. I've never seen the likes of
it-wool yarn in these days."
Yes, we talk together, and make out somehow. But
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA'l'HS

it takes much effort on her part to keep close to my

ear. She says she is glad to have met me today, since
tomorrow they are leaving. I say that I thank her for
coming and am very sorry she is leaving. "Really? "
she asks. "I'm going t o tell them that at home too ! "
When she had gone, I sat back and thought. A
wonderful visit for me. An audible silence after her
departure. And there is Topse's book lying on the
table j ust as much in question as before, but I do not
care any longer to know who owned it in the last
century. There is nothing like feeling the breath of
real life.

September 2. A policeman comes to my room and

says, without preliminaries : "You are to move."

"And where am I to gor"
"To Landvik."
The head nurse also comes and says Landvik. I
ask what kind of place Landvik is. To this I get no
answer, but the head nurse explains that the hospital
is now going to receive poliomyelitis patients and my
room will be occupied.
I thank her for my stay with her and for the loan
of all the books which I have now read through.
Then I pack my bag and get in with the chauffeur.
I ask no more about the place in Landvik. It does
not matter to me where we drive. We turn in on a
little side road, and going round a curve I read Old
People's Home on a large white building.
 HdltMSU[J(

So that is why the head nurse and the policeman

were so secretive. They did not want to frighten me
with a home for the aged. But it really suits me just
right, and I have to smile at their concern. I do not
let myself be flustered and take my time getting out.
Sheer bravado. In truth I am a little confused at
seeing so many old people in one spot.
I greet the lady in .charge, get a room on the sec
ond floor, and wave goodbye to the police car. It is
Sunday today and sunny; that is why so many are
outside on the steps. I mix with them all ; no one talks
to me, not that it would have done them much good ;
their new companion is quite deaf.
And here in the old people's home I live through
the days as they come. I work neither with nor against
my old ways, but let them take their course. Ad
venture ? Excitement? Far from it. Unless it can be
called an experience to read about the complements
in Goethe's system of colors and not understand a
scrap of it.
But I am grateful to the police that I have come
here, for it is just what I want. Here I take long
walks without hearing about city limits ; I eat, sleep,
and read. I also write a little, but I do not want to
mention it for fear of annoying somebody.
The old people's home is a big place, worthy of a
big county. Here are community halls, offices, and a
public library ; here we have daily postal service, tele
phone, radio and many people coming and going on
their errands, and all around this midpoint, the coun
tryside. The most important office is the cashier's
28 0 0( O VERGROW{}( 'PATHS

office, but in the relief office two young girls sit writ
ing, two beauties in the midst of this incredible world
of eighty- and ninety-year-olds.
Since I have not received permission to read news
papers, I have done it on the sly. It was difficult for
me at the hospital, but when I got laundry from
home, different papers would come along in a special
bundle, and I got to know a little of what was going
on-for the first time, also, of German atrocities in
our country. My information, coming in this fashion
with the laundry, had large gaps, but I was not wholly
illiterate.
It is easier for me here at the old people's home ;
I can read every issue of the Grimstad paper in the
kitchen, and that is a great help. On the whole every
thing is easier here ; the lady in charge is understand
ing and good-natured ; she has had charge of the
home for 23 years, and although she is only half as
old as some of us, she comes regularly around to
her foster-children with chocolate and candy and cake
when the ration comes. The only thing she has not
achieved for me is the good will of the librarian. That
is beyond her. He is a seminarian and a teacher ; he
does not want to lend any of the books in the public
library to me.
Who knows, perhaps I wrote some of them.

When I take my walks I hold on tight, for I do not

want to be the occasion for talk. I do it for the sake
 Helf0\1SUD(

of the nighttime, to get the sleep I depend on. Sleep

is better than food ; it is beyond comparison. Oh,
don't suppose that sleep means I do not sit shoveling
food into my mouth. But sleep is the incomparable
madness of finding in my pocket some money which I
never have missed and which I have long searched
for. Sleep means that I free myself at last from a
brawny sailor whom l,am about to slay, but who, in
return, snips at me with garden shears. So wondrous
with story and life and miracle is sleep.
But for all that, food can also have its uses, to be
sure.
I have no fixed times ; when it suits, I take my stick
and go. It seldom happens I have much need for the
stick ; it is like having some dog or other along and
no more. The others mostly call my stick a cane, my
walking cane : "Shall I not fetch your walking caner"
they used to say to me in the hotels. But I thought
that seemed too elegant, and I always call it a stick.
It has a curved head and a rubber tip, but unfortu
nately it also has an untidy binding of steel wire near
the end where it once broke. However, it is marked
off in metric measure, which makes me self-reliant in
times of need.
I greet the children I meet. Some of the boys ap
parently have heard that I am deaf and have fun
getting up close to me and shrieking something. I
also greet the grown-ups if they seem to invite it,
but if they spurn me and turn their backs, I walk by
indifferently. But I prefer to give my greetings ; I
cannot deny it, I am all too willing to do so. It comes
JO 00( O VERGROWO( PA'J'HS

from childhood, when they said it was polite to greet

people, and it sticks with me still.
One sunny morning in Prague I was out looking
for a tobacco shop. When I found one, a monk was
inside and the lady behind the counter was handing
him a coin; he thanked her and started on his way.
The scene was very strange to my Norwegian heart,
and on the spot I added a coin to the other. Over
come, the monk began to say something ; he lifts
both his hands ; I forgot my errand and did not buy
anything ; I cleared out, out onto the street. Then I
walked about and was pleased with everyone and
everything ; I greeted everyone I met and they smiled
back and greeted me in return ; there was no one who
stopped me, everything was beautiful. What people
thought, what the street thought, I do not know: per
haps that I must have started out very early if I had
already been to a Weinstube. What do I care about
that ! I am what I am, and Prague is a glorious city.
I read long, long ago-! am so old and everything
now has happened so many ages back-! read a story
about Socrates. He was walking with a friend on the
street and Socrates greeted someone they met. "He
didn't reply ! , the friend said indignantly. Socrates
smiled and said: "It is not my loss that I am more
polite than he is.,
So much rushes in on me that I could say in my
defense, but I shall hold my peace. Could I not be
like the Norsemen of old who held out their right
hand in greeting to show that they came unarmedr
Better still, I once stood together with the Japanese
 H.AD'v!SUD( JI

ambassador in an elevator in Oslo and we were

equally polite and neither would step out first. Nor
do I regret the time I got up and gave my seat to a
lady who got on a streetcar in Versailles. To be sure,
all the men got up, but I was first. She was a hand
some old lady in a widow's veil and with a pearl
necklace around her throat, perhaps a duchess of the
true blood ; she could have adopted me. At any rate, I
gave those gentlemen, those Frenchmen, a lesson in
politeness which they will not forget ; I was first.
But that was in my youthful days, which are of no
interest now and therefore will not be mentioned. But
even in Nordland, around Salten, I remember we
tucked our cap modestly under our left arm and said
"Peace!" when we entered, "Prosper ! " to those work
ing at something, and "Live in peace ! " when we left.
That was our greeting.

Today, September 22, was called again before the ex

amining magistrate.
It is early in the morning, a little too early for me
and the old people's horne. I might have been fore
warned, but was not. \Vhat are telephones for? It is
nothing a policeman need concern himself with ; he
can easily climb into a car and be on his way, but the
prisoner, he is to come along just as he is. I would
very much have wanted to be ready and dressed when
I was to appear before the examining magistrate.
J2 00( OVERGROW[}( 'PA'THS

Even in czarist Russia they gave you time for a sigh.

But not here.
I mumbled an apology, and the fine old j udge ex
cused me. However, there was not much he wanted of
me ; my appointed time came to an end today, and
now we were to move the day forward to November
2J. It was explained, written up, and supported with
various questions which the judge presented to me in
writing so as to avoid speaking into my deaf ears. I
replied in kind and maintained my previous state
ment that I stood by what I had done.
Then we were finished and I could be driven back
and get into my clothes.

Two more months-so be it, nothing is changed for

the better or worse. I do not really belong here at
the old people's home ; I am out of place here, but the
old people are friendly and do not let me notice it.
They have voluntarily come here as the most suit
able place to live out their last days ; I have come
here, on the other hand, with the help of the police
and am imprisoned. The others are allowed their
various failings ; some in the back, others are feeble
in their legs, but I am the chief of them all : I have
lost a certain sense almost completely, which makes
me not worth mumbling anything to. That is no small
fault, and I have many more ; there I can stand, for
example, so desperately searching for a word that in
order to speak I must say something else first. I am
not alone in this troublesome ailment ; indeed, it is
 H.A[MSUO( 33

old and honorable and is called aphasia ; the great

Swift in England had aphasia worse than I.
But why grumble ? Everyone has his troubles. Nor
does it make any difference here at the old people's
home; we have our freedom to come and go, to move
about, to look at each other. The place is full, fifteen,
twenty, of both sexes, several bedridden. Now and
then there is also some, one of us who dies ; it cannot
be avoided, but it does not make much impression on
us who remain. We follow the white coffin with our
eyes, but when the hearse has driven away, we turn
back to ourselves again.
As for that, isn't it a fashion of the day and times
that coffins are now white? I do not know what is most
correct, but in my childhood years a coffin was black,
and only infants were buried in white coffins. In other
ways fashion or custom has changed according to
place : around here flags are lowered to half-mast the
whole day for a corpse ; in Nordland the custom was
that as soon as the coffin was lowered into the earth,
the flag was raised from half-mast to the top and re
mained flying.
Both ways probably are good, perhaps equally
good.

While I am out walking and making some jottings for

myself, a man comes up to me. It was a little peculiar
because I had entered on a forest path off to one side,
away from all traffic, and thought myself concealed.
The man barely smiled and began to engage me in
H OIJ\.. O VERGROWIJ\.. 'PA'THS

talk. That hardly suited me ; I tried to back away. It

did not help. "I do not hear," I said. He nodded, and
suddenly he said to me with remarkable clarity : "I
know what sort you are ! "
I drew back a little, smiled at his self-conscious
effort to joke and said: "I prefer to walk by myself."
The man did not leave me ; he chatted about unim
portant things and I caught one word or another.
He did not look like a thief, but he was a nui
sance and I flatly wanted to turn around and go my
way ; I pretended to be reading something I had
written and paid him no mind. All at once I heard
him use a genuine Salten expression : "No offense ! "
A memory flashed through me with these simple
words ; my heart heard them. "Are you from Nord
land r " I asked.
"Sure," he said. "But you do not know me."
Now he addressed me in turn as Dokker, De and
du* ; he tried diligently to speak plainly in short
sentences near my ear. Perhaps it was the very rise
and fall of his voice that made it so that I understood
most of it.
I will not say a word of what he looked like ; he
was ordinary, altogether ordinary : of medium build, a
kindly face, thin and middle-aged. Perhaps by neces
sity, perhaps in modesty, he carried his shoes tied
together over his shoulders and went barefoot.
"I am glad that I saw you," he said.
Such a man! I could almost grit my teeth.
"And that you would listen to me," he said.
* Dokker, De, du : dialect, formal, and familiar forms for "you."
 HeAO.fSUO( 35

"I am deaf, I have told you. What am I to listen

to ? "
"We are both from Hamary."
So. I pretended that that was nothing special, but it
did make me far more sympathetic.
He handed me an almanac of some years back ; it
was bound in worn leather and contained a number of
written pages which he' asked me to read.
It was what I had expected, the story, the course of
his life.
"Isn't it beginning to be cold for walking bare
foot? " I asked to sidetrack him. "It will soon be
October."
"I have put everything down as true as it hap
pened," he said, preoccupied.
Oh, how I recognize this ! Up until ten years ago I
would get packages in the mail with true-to-life do
mestic tales and love and poetry. "I can't read it," I
said. "I simply can't."
"Since we both come from Hamarpy-"
"V.There are you from there ? "
"From Sagfjord, from Klpttran."
"What's your name ? "
"My name r Martin. I take Enevoldsen as my sur
name."
"I'll try to glance at it," I said weariedly and leafed
through the volume. "But I can't read it all, only here
and there."
He had written something about the schoolteacher
and about a man named Berteus ; I saw the name
Alvilde a couple of times, about making peace with
 00( OVERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

God, about traveling to Klingenberg, and about a

pastor, sailing for fish, prospecting in the mountains-
No, this was no way to read, and he stood there
and watched me. I handed him back the volume, but
it was obvious I could not get rid of this man so
easily, and finally, indeed, I had no desire to do so.
He affected me as a beggar would ; I had him on my
hands.
We sat down in the heather and talked together ;
I lit my pipe, but he did not smoke, he talked. I
noticed that he was afraid of tiring me and he pointed
to the almanac and said : "It's better that you read it
yourself."
But I wanted to listen instead.
"Strange that I can hear you so well," I said, using
du to him. "Better than I've heard anyone else."
"I am used to speaking clearly when I give my
talks," he said.
"What kind of talks? "
"To church meetings."
"I see, to meetings." But it wasn't the words I was
thinking of ; it was the sound, the tone. The tone of
the words. His voice was not strong, but born for my
ear and penetrating. He might have read verse with
that voice and fired his listeners.
"Do you recite psalms? " I asked.
"No-oh yes, the psalms of David."
"And do you sing too? "
"No, but I play the organ."
"And there was a girl whose name was Alvilde ? "
I asked suddenly and looked at him.
 HeA:MSUD( 37

He was taken by surprise and replied : "Yes, her

name was Alvilde. How do you know ? "
" I read it here i n your book."
"So you might, and gladly. More than gladly !
There was no wrong in it."
"But tell me, how did you get involved? "
"By God's mercy! " he replied.
"Very well. But you came straight from Klttran
on Sagfjord and began to speak at meetings ? "
"Oh no," h e said, helpless. "It was the pastor who
set me to it. It was at a funeral that I first knew I had
the call."
"And you spoke. What did you say ? "
" I didn't say anything. I prayed to God. It was at
his, Berteus' funeral. It's all written down here."
There was no choice ; I was not to be let off and I
must begin to read. I did not lose by it, far from it ;
the unerring words and descriptions made a good
narrative and carried me along.
I read:

"It began with there being a man named Berteus. He

came from Kv:edfjord and settled among us. He was
married and they had a small child. He and I were
much together although he was older and had been
captain on a boat. A fine man in every way and like a
brother among brothers to me. He got lumber from
Schpning's at Hillingen and I went with him to
build his house ; I got my keep for that and wanted
 00( OVERGROWO( 'PA'l'HS

nothing more. In the fall he went back to Kvdfjord

and shipped for the Lofotens ; he had a seaworthy
boat of eight oars. His wife stayed behind with us in
her new house. I do not wish to say anything against
her, but the little child was left alone in the house
while she went berrying with the others. Along in
the winter they came sailing home with Berteus; he
had typhoid and lay sick for two whole days. He
lay talking to himself constantly, and no one wanted
to be with him because he was so infectious, and
neither did his wife dare be with him lest the little
one should then come close and catch it too, she said.
So it was that I sat with him and gave him sugar
water on a feather to wet his lips with, and he was
out of his head the whole time. It lasted only for two
days ; then he was dead.
"I was completely done in when that happened,
for we had all fully believed he would recover, but
that was not to be. I did not know where in the world
to turn or how to reconcile myself to this sudden
death ; he was so healthy and strong when we built
the house, and then he was bidden away! At night I
lay brooding over it and got no peace. His wife
wanted to have him taken to the churchyard at
Kvdfj ord, but that possibility was much too remote,
for his boat and its crew had gone back to the fishing
in the Lofotens and there could be no thought of any
other conveyance. There were some good people who
rowed to Klingenberg for a coffin and some provi
sions for the funeral, but I did not go along. Suppos
ing that I too, like Berteus, were bidden by death to
 H.AtMSUD( 39

come, where would I be then ? The schoolteacher

came and talked to me saying that I must not take
it so hard, but there was no consoling me. Then I
crawled up in the snow to a crag named Old Baldy,
because it is so much like an eagle, and there I went
down on my knees and in my need cried to God and
Jesus. It did me good ; I prayed for light and under
standing for my sou1 and verily my prayers were
granted as never before. A long time went by, the
sun sank in the sky, I saw many strangers down by
the houses, and they had come back from Klingen
berg with the coffin. But it was then that a great
clarity came upon me and a glorious light shone
within me that was like unto the greatest delight. I
went out of my head and came home talking aloud
the whole way, never ceasing. The pastor had come
and the body lay in the coffin ; they were about to
put the lid on and they hushed to me to be quiet, but
the pastor winked to them, for he had confirmed me
and knew me: 'Let that Martin be in peace ! ' he said.
I put my hands together and raised them up high
and prayed for mercy and forgiveness for the soul of
Berteus and for us all. I hardly knew what I did or
how long I went on, until the pastor took my hand
and thanked me. But when I sat down I fell asleep
in the chair, exhausted. Praise be to God in the high
est ! What I have inscribed here is of His good and
faithful mercy toward me since that day on Old Baldy
and evermore.
"Time went by and nothing more happened. The
widow was to go back to Kv::edfjord and she waited
40 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA THS

for the boat and crew to take her home. It was now
April. What should she do with the house? She tried
to sell it, but could not, so she asked me to have the
county commissioner do it, and I promised I would.
When I came back from the commissioner she said to
me that I might have the house in the meantime. I
asked her what she meant. 'I don't know what I
mean,' she said, 'but it was you who went with Berteus
and built the house, and that is why I said it ! ' I still
did not understand what she meant. 'No, you're think
ing only of someone else,' she said, 'and she's playing
you for a fool, for she has her eye on the school
teacher, you see ! ' 'Yes, I know that,' I said, 'and now
we will talk no more about it and say nothing.' But
the next day the boat came for her and the child and
she went back to her people at Kv:edfjord where she
had come from. Things took their course. The sum
mer came now, and it was the schoolteacher who
bought the house and moved in and kept school. He
got married at midsummer and bought pots and pans
and other necessities for himself in Klingenberg. They
were a happy couple and lay in the hay and were con
tent. The schoolteacher himself went week after
week with a hammer in his hand prospecting in the
mountains nearby, but he did not find any valuable
metals which he could send in, and something went
bad with everything he bought ; even the business of
the house had to be done over because he had found
nothing in the mountains.
"Towards fall the schoolteacher got a better post in
Helgeland and went there. We missed him, for he
 HoJ1:MSUD(

was a clever man and well grounded in every field. He

brought with him from Tromsp college learning and
insight ; he could make out the way a machine worked,
all in his head. Too bad about such a man. He taught
me to play the organ and to others he taught other
skills. His name was Hans N::ess and he was a tall,
handsome man, but he was not very steady perhaps in
what he undertook and forgot his God. In Helgeland
he bought a farm, but this went no better for him and
he had it only a few years when he had to abandon it,
and everything they owned was taken in liens. Finally
he hit on the idea of going to America and believed
he really should have been there the whole time.
Others also thought he was right about that ; for a
man who knew so much as he did and was so clever
with his head and hands, America must be the only
right place to be. He borrowed for his ticket and got
up his courage. I was in Helgeland just when he was
taking leave of his family and sailed away. The only
thing I could do was to pray a silent prayer to God
that all would go well for him in his new life in the
New World ; finally I also bade merciful God to
watch over and protect his wife and the two little ones
who had been left behind here, who were to follow
later as soon as the husband could afford it. And so he
left. The Lord's will be done ! She never saw him
agam.
"No, she never saw him again in this world. She
received a couple of letters from him saying that he
had got safely across and was headed west ; then
there was no sign of life from him. She read in the
.p 0 0( O VERGROWIJ( 'PA 'THS

papers about a tremendous fire in Ohicago where

many were lost, and no doubt he was among those
killed, or so she feared. But she never ceased asking
and inquiring about him and thinking of him year
after year, while at the same time she had to live in
the most miserable poverty. It was a hard time for
her ; she was neither married nor unmarried, and she
had to provide for herself and hers. She could hardly
stand to see me when I got around to those parts of
the country, and she told me it would have been much
better if I had not lent him the money for the ticket
than to plunge them all into misery. I had no reply
for this, and I went away with sorrow in my heart.
In her state of mind I did not dare show myself too
often, but only sent her greetings at Christmas and
other holidays. This she also took offense at, and the
next time I came she was full of bitterness and spoke
much wickedness. 'I cannot understand why you come
sneaking out to these parts,' she said. 'Don't you have
a home on Hamary ? ' 'I come from the south and
go now far to the north,' I said, 'so I only wanted to
look in.' 'No, you come snooping around here,' she
said, 'and what are people back home to think of
that ? You don't suppose you will make me forget the
man you got away from here? Ha hal Dear Martin,
you're not offering yourself in his place ? ' 'No, that
has not been my thought,' I said. 'Just take away what
you have brought with you ; I wouldn't give my eyes
to own it,' she said. 'We need nothing and you
needn't suppose we do.' 'It was only a little some
thing for the children,' I said. 'Well, I don't under-
 H.AtMSUO( 43

stand why you can't stay away,' she said. 'I'll stay
away,' I said.
"I was sorry that I said it, for I only made bad
worse and got her to crying. It was painful to see. I
said to her that I didn't give one thought more to
what she had said, but she called herself the worst
sort of trash and a beast and would not be con
soled. When I left, she came along part way and
wept the whole time. 'I suppose now this is the last
I'll see of you too ? ' she said. 'Don't say such melan
choly things,' I replied ; 'perhaps next time you will
have had some bit of news or other. To God nothing
is impossible ! ' "

I read no more and handed him back the almanac.

He was disappointed. That, too, was familiar to me ;
they cannot understand how anyone can avoid read
ing all the rest, which can be no worse than the other.
"Things certainly went wrong for the school
teacher," I said, to soothe him. "It was, of course,
Alvilde he had married ? "
He blinked. "There's nothing in it about that," he
said.
"No."
"There's nothing mentioned of that anywhere."
"Tell me now, have you spent all your days since
you were young giving talks to meetings ? "
" I don't give much o f a talk ; I haven't the learning
for it. I pray to God."
 00( OVERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

"But for all those years ; they surely add up to

the best part of a man's lifetime."
"So they do. But the time is gone and all the years
are gone, and I am not done with my work among
men on this earth."
"How did you come here, so far south in the
land ? "
"I walk."
"On foot? "
"Yes. I a m a wanderer. I have also been i n Sweden
and Finland."
"Excuse my asking," I said. "Do you get anything
for it ? I mean, does anyone pay you? "
"No. But God is gracious to me, I suffer no need.
Often I do a day's work and get a little for that ; in
fact many times more than enough. So I cannot com
plain."
"Do you stop and ask for food ? "
"No," h e replied and shook his head. "But when
there is occasion I also take a meal together with the
others at the table."
"Yes, but when there isn't occasion ? "
"Then I wait for another place, o r I don't really
need anything. It isn't too important."
I looked at the thin wanderer and said : "Ex
cuse me for asking, but wouldn't it be better to join
a congregation or a religious group or society and
have something steady ? "
"I suppose so," he answered. "But you see, I do
not have the advantage of scholarship or learning;
I have to be on my own and keep to God ; that is the
safest. Oh, it's easy for me to get on ; I pray to God
 HelltM SUO( 45

and am safe. If I enter a cottage or a home I thank

God that I have come under this roof and ask for
heaven's blessings and forgiveness for us all. Usu
ally there are a few who come to listen, and if
there's a little harmonium there, we have a whole
service. That's how it's done."
"Why is it so important to you that I should read
your almanac? "
"Well, there are reasons. I heard now and then
about you as I grew up on Harmarpy, so I knew your
name."
"But how did you know I was here?"
((I happened to hear of it from someone. And I
decided then and there to try to meet you."
"I see."
"I also heard that you had become deaf, but that
didn't worry me. My father was deaf and my mother
was deaf ; it was no use shouting at them, they didn't
hear. There are also many at the meetings who are
hard of hearing and who never hear a word about
God or a prayer to Him."
"And what did you think you wanted to meet me
for? "
"That's easily enough said too, if you won't be
offended? "
"No, no."
"Then I only want to say one thing : that now you
must set your house in order. It is time. You are an
old man."
We both fell silent, and he said nothing more.
No sermon. He had good taste and did not belabor
his words. Perhaps he had planned this final word ;
 00( OVERGRO W[}( 'PA'THS

perhaps it was his custom to say it to old people he

met on his way.
"I thank you for your trouble in speaking to me
today," I said and stuffed a small bill into his pocket.
But this made us both feel awkward, and to put us
at ease I said : "\\7here are you going from here ? "
"To the city," h e said.
"Then put on your shoes," I said.
"I will, but there's no hurry," he said. "I'll save
them until I get to where there are people."

October has come. Naturally my cigars came to an

end a long time ago, but never mind, I have tobacco
in packages, a Norwegian brand, and smoke a pipe.
I see one of the old men come home one day with
a tall tobacco plant, a whole shrub, which he has come
upon some place or other. He carefully plucks
every dried leaf off the stalk, stuffs his pipe and
lights up. That is one way of doing it and works
fine ; we others are amused watching it. Since last
summer when I got better shoes from home, I
have not lacked for anything. I have received a
splendid cultural study from Denmark, a Bible which
I have been allowed to borrow here, and a big book
on New Guinea.
One evening the doctor comes and says he is going
to examine me.
"Why is that ? " I ask.
 Hdl;MSUO( 47

"The police have been wondering whether to send

you home to Nprholm or what to do."
"Shall I take off my clothes? "
"Oh no, nothing like that," he answers. "Just un
button your shirt a little."
He listened to my chest and my back. "Perhaps
a little high blood pressure," he said. "Would you
like to go home r "
" I want what the police want. I have n o likes of
my own now."
Finished. It had taken ten minutes.
I attached little importance to this examination.
The police seem to me to be unnecessarily careful.
I am sound and spry. Blood pressure, what is that r
Have never heard of it before. There was nothing
out of kilter with me ; I was only old and deaf.
Two days later a lawyer came with many large
sheets of paper. He was supposed to list all my
property, he said. I reported what I had told the
examining magistrate : 25 thousand in cash, the farm
Nprholm, and 200 shares of Gyldendal.
"But then, your author's rights," he said and wrote
down 100 thousand for them.
Pure guesswork ! I said : "Perhaps they are worth
100 thousand kroner ; perhaps they are not worth 5
kroner, no one knows. I am a dead man. Ask at Gyl
dendal, that's their business."
He crossed out the 1 oo thousand and put down
50 thousand instead.
"Jewelry? " I thought he said.
Since I do not wear rings I reached m my vest
 00( OVERGROW[]( 'PA 'THS

and was about to give him my watch, but he shook

his head.
Finished.
A week went by. I was at peace and felt in no
danger, had visits from my daughter and daughter-in
law from Nprholm, joked and laughed with them,
talked about little everyday things. My relatives
were able to tell me that I was now to go to Oslo,
to a "nice pension." They had it from the police.
Well, all right with me ! I was to be away some two
weeks, the police had hinted. My relatives handed
over their purses for me to keep for them until I re
turned-this was something they used to do when
they had got hold of a few pennies.
Next evening the police came and drove me to
Arendal. It was Sunday. I got into a crowded railroad
car and still had been told nothing of the purpose
of my journey-until the police with great delicacy
dropped into my hands an issue of Aftenposten, which
said that I was to be taken to the Psychiatric Clinic.
Secrecy with this, too. When the train arrived in
Oslo, I had been sitting the whole night straight up
for twelve hours. And I was no young fellow. The
boat would have taken seven hours, and I could have
lain down.
It was Monday morning October 1 5 between ten
and eleven o'clock when I passed through three
locked doors to the Psychiatric Clinic. And the three
doors were locked after me.
I was met by a swarm of white-clad nurses. I had to
hand over everything I had in my pockets, my keys,
my watch, a notebook, penknife, pencil, glasses, every-
 H.AtMSUO( 49

thing. I had two pins in my lapel which were taken ;

the cover was stripped off my suitcases for fear, no
doubt, that I might have hidden something under
neath. Then they opened my suitcase and began root
ing about inside.
A question was raised about a report from the
doctor. Didn't I have anything in writing from
the doctor? No. It was the police who came with me ;
I was a prisoner ; I was a traitor, you understand.
The kindly head nurse aske me how I could have
got myself in such a pass. It doesn't matter, I said.
Yes, yes indeed, it was altogether wrong of me, all
very sad. I said that I would make an accounting for
everything later.
They led me to the -bath. I said that I was hungry
and tired, but they said I was to bathe. When I was
getting into my clothes again, I couldn't find my tie
pin. It had been removed from my tie while I was
in the tub, and no one had said anything. I got down
on the floor and searched ; no. I asked the attendant ;
no. I became irate and shouted ; hush, hush, hush !
I explained that it was an expensive little pin, an
Oriental pearl, in contrast to the big displays which
some wore. Finally a nurse says that the pin has been
taken care of.
And finally I was given some tiny slices of bread
which I took to munch on. While I was doing that,
I was called. I did not understand what they said,
and when I asked them to put it in writing, they wrote
legen* on a piece of paper. "What's legen? " I asked.
They wrote legen again another place on the paper
* legen, reformed spelling of ltxgen, "the doctor."
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

and underlined it. "Is it ltegen you mean, the doc

tor ? " Yes, yes, they nodded. "I have no need of any
doctor," I said. "I'm not sick."
The doctor was on the second floor and I crawled
upstairs. In my upset condition I said all kinds of
things, prattled, complained that I was exhausted and
ought to have been allowed to come by boat. The
stenographer took notes ; the doctor was patient and
wanted to help me : "Since you have not come by
boat, the reason surely is that the train went so much
faster," he said. "Yes, only five hours later," I said.
I asked him his name. "Ruud," he said. "I am so
tired and must sleep," I said.
A brief introduction.
Checked in thus at the Psychiatric Clinic in Oslo,
an institution for "the nervous and mentally ill." It
is 1 945 , from October 15 on. My days go by in writ
ing answers to Professor Langfeldt's written ques
tions. These answers are hastily put together, written
under distressing conditions, within the time strictly
set by regulation, in all too poor light, during in
creasing depression. I mean, that is, they are no col
lection of nuggets. But they are my work.
Since there was no time for me to make copies of
my answers, and since the professor has refused to
lend me the originals, I have nothing to insert here in
this void.

The year is 1 946, February 1 1 .

I am out of the institution again.
 Helf:MSUO(

That does not mean that I am free, but I can

breathe again. And breathe again is in truth the only
thing I can do for the present. I am feeling too low. I
come from a health institution and am very low. I was
well when I went in.
Perhaps there will be time later to come back
to my stay at the Psychiatric Clinic, the friendly at
tendants, the genuinely -good head nurse, Christmas
45 , the patients, taking walks-it must all wait. I must
regain my strength.
First I must try to take refuge at Landvik Old
People's Home. There are difficulties ; the home is
under new management, my old room has been
taken by another old r:1an, the place is full. Onsrud,
the chief of police at Arendal, did all that he could
for me ; all the people at the home also put in a
good word for me, and I was allowed in.
Here my recuperation was to take place. But I
was no young man ; it was hard for me to get back to
the normal life which had been interrupted five
months ago. My convalescence took month after
month. I refused to see anyone ; letters came for me,
I did not answer, I simply could not. I took my
walks in the slush, but I trembled all over afterwards.
I dozed and slept much even as I sat in my chair in
the middle of the day. The people here said it came
from debility.
I pulled myself together and had the sheath-knife
sent off. Oh, that knife ! I had not come by it dis
honestly ; it had attached itself to me at Grimstad
hospital and then had lain together with my other
things down in the cellar of the Clinic for four
 OD( OVERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

months. I sent it by mail to the hospital : Here is a

sheath-knife ; please take it away ; I cannot stand see
ing it any more ; it is not mine.
I also tried to put my other affairs in order as well
as I could manage. I checked important days in the
almanac, I subscribed without permission to a couple
of newspapers, I patched my clothes. It is full winter
with sparkling sun and longer and longer days ; it is
a sort of equatorial period : at 7 o'clock, dusk going
toward night ; at the next 7 o'clock, dawn going
toward day. The balance is held beautifully for a
while, then the equator tips.
In this time I had no desire to read. I had, of
course, the history of civilization, the Bible, and the
work on New Guinea, but I quickly tired of proper
books and preferred reading rubbish and news
papers. Now and then in the kitchen I came upon
some sort of religious paper which I studied. It was
well written and often well thought out. It was the
paper Evangelisten, which was sent here at no charge,
and it contained Adventist articles contributed by
missionaries. The most recent issues were well printed
on excellent paper, a feast to leaf through and a
respite to my impaired vision. I could not help think
ing of my friend from Klttran in Nordland ; he
might have joined this huge Adventist society and
saved himself to a large extent from going barefoot.
But he must go alone, he said.
One evening the head nurse at Grimstad hospital
came over in a car. Her errand was to give me back
the sheath-knife !
 HeA::MSU[J( 53

I was not yet up to thinking clearly, and I was

caught standing there.
"This sheath-knife," she said, "which you have sent
me does not belong to the hospital and we don't want
to keep it. It's a beautiful knife, but it isn't ours."
"Not mine either," I said.
"You'll have to ask at home," she said ; "it must
have come from Nprholm."
I asked nothing ; I was not capable of even less.
*

The days go by, the months go by, I do not get much

better. Someone dies at the home ; we have old people
to spare. If some pass away, others come in their
place, with no effect upon us survivors. It must be
so. The snow is gone and it is spring. Little by little
my desire to work returns, but not my strength. I
still do not answer letters.
Tobacco is off ration, but there is not much to be
got out of it, not a bit. What, then, do I want? 'Vhy
am I so negative ? Spring, summer, and everything,
but Lord, what a stupid existence ! I sharpen two new
pencils with the sheath-knife in order to be ready
for a sublime explanation, but it will not come. What
shall I do ? I am turned inside out, that's the trouble.
I am weary of myself, have no wishes, no interests, no
pleasures. Four or five senses in torpor and the sixth
sense snatched away.
I can thank the attorney general for that.
*
54 0 0( O VERGROWO( 'PA<J'HS

Landvik Home for the Aged

Grimstad
23 July 1 946
The Attorney General,
Oslo.
I have been in doubt whether to write this letter.
It will scarcely be of any use. I should also have been
busy with something better, so far along in years.
My excuse is that I do not write for the present.
I write for the person who perhaps comes after us
to read this. And I write for our grandchildren.
After having been moved about a couple of times
in the course of the summer last year, I was con
fined on October 1 5 to the Psychiatric Clinic in Oslo.
The reason for this confinement is a puzzle to more
than myself. The official name of the institution is
"for the nervous and mentally ill," but I was neither
nervous nor mentally ill. I was an old man and I
was deaf, but I was sound and spry when I was
wrenched out of my normal life and my work and
imprisoned. The question will perhaps some day be
raised as to the basis for the Attorney General's
arbitrary and ill-advised manner of treating me. You
might have called me before you and taken a moment
to speak to me. But you did not. You might have ob
tained a medical report explaining why I required
confinement. But you did not. The district physician
examined me for ten minutes-"merely a physical"
as he says-and mentioned perhaps "a little high
blood pressure," mentioned perhaps my cerebral
hemorrhage. Does blood pressure demand confine-
 55

ment for a mental examination ? Is a cerebral hemor

rhage which has left not the slightest effect on my
mentality sufficient reason for confinement ? People
who have had cerebral homorrhages are more than
a few ; hardening of the arteries is no rare and pecu
liar disease. I know a man who has had a cerebral
hemorrhage who has no fewer than two doctoral
degrees. He states that the hemorrhage had no effect
on him.
I must assume that my name was unknown to the
Attorney General. But you could have sought in
formation where information may be found. Some
one surely would have been able to tell you that I
was no stranger in the field of psychology, that dur
ing a very long career of writing I had created several
hundred figures-created them inwardly and exter
nally like living people, in every condition and aspect,
in dreams and in action. You did not seek such in
formation about me. You turned me over sight un
seen, so to speak, to an institution and to a professor
who was no better informed. To be sure, he came
equipped with his school-books and his learned works
which he had learned by heart and taken his ex
aminations in, but something other than that was
required here. Though the Attorney General was un
informed, the professor ought to have dismissed
me on the spot. He ought perhaps also to have hesi
tated before trying to apply his special learning to a
matter lying totally beyond his ken.
Besides, what was supposed to come of it ? \Vas it a
matter of having me declared insane and thus not
 00( OVERGROW:J( 'PA 'THS

responsible for my actions ? Was that the Attorney

General's good intention ? If so, you reckoned without
me. From the first moment of the hearing held on
June 23 I had assumed responsibility for what I had
done and ever since have maintained that stand un
swervingly. I knew, you see, in my heart that if I
could speak without hindrance, the wind would turn
for me towards acquittal, or as close to acquittal as I
would dare go and the court accept. I knew that I
was innocent, deaf and innocent ; I would have readily
got through an examination by the prosecuting at
torney solely by relating most of the truth.
But this situation was completely altered in the
circumstances of my being locked up month after
month in bondage, in compulsion, coercion, prohibi
tion, torture, inquisition. I have no doubt that the insti
tution can produce excellent testimony to the contrary.
Let it. We do not all have the same degree of sensitiv
ity, rightly or wrongly, but we react according to our
abilities. Some live, rest, and work in fits and starts ;
they get nowhere trying to think anything through.
Should it happen that a bit of heaven's grace comes
their way, they tumble all over themselves, or simply
fall flat. For my part I would ten times rather have
been made to sit in irons in an ordinary jail than be
forced to live together with those more or less men
tally ill people in the Psychiatric Cline.
But there I was left to stay.
A prisoner is not to be let off gently. The professor
asked questions and I replied ; I wrote and wrote
because I was deaf; I took pains to answer everything.
I sat in the miserable light of a frosted globe high
 H.!ltMSUO( 57

up i n the ceiling in the darkest months o f the year.

I realized afterwards that my wisdom had become im
paired, but I wrote so that scholarship and learning
would not founder on me. The professor required me
to explain my "two marriages" as he put it. I refused
-so emphatically the first time that I thought it was
enough. But it was not enough. The professor re
peated his monstrous 'question in writing and orally
two more times and each time held "the authorities"
to blame. I answered not a word. It was not my
self I wanted to conceal ; I wanted to prevent an enor
mity.
But the professor was undismayed. He secured per
mission from "the authorities" to have my wife trans
ported from Arendal in to the clinic in Oslo for
an examination. The result of this session may be
read, pages 1 32ff., in the magnum opus sent to the
jury.
A prisoner is not to be let off gently. Not for any
cause !
When at a certain point I thought I could glimpse
the end of scholarship, the professor had me go
through something which he calls the judicial in
vestigation or test. It turned out to be absolutely
nothing other than what had already been done. In
every respect it was exactly the same as what we had
spent months on in questions and answers. Not even
the tone was different, nor a new approach, nor any
thing with statistics-a di fference that might have
shown that now we were dealing in profundities.
Nothing. All it did was to make the time pass, to
make the time pass in weeks and months.
ss 0 [}( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

The last time I dared suppose I could see the end,

the professor had been forwarded three letters of
mine which I was now to make an accounting for.
The letters were so-fifty-years old and had to do
with something foolish on my part, but in connection
with very bad treatment I had suffered while the re
nowned Mossin was in the police. Now I had to write
and rewrite because I was deaf ; it was of no interest
to the living or the dead anymore, but the episode
served to torture me a bit more. I survived that too,
but in the final weeks I kept going solely by drawing
on my reserve. When a friend found me and took
me away, I was like jelly.
And what had been gained then by it all ? Law and
justice, a huge apparatus. The examining magistrate's
appointment of two psychiatrists designated before
hand, transportation under police guard back and
forth across the land, publicity and visits from for
eigners who were to be shown the caged animal, four
months to affix learned labels to every conceivable
state of mind I might have been in-and then, at last,
the judgment : I was not and had not been insane, but
I had permanently impaired faculties.
All too true. They had become badly impaired by
my detention at the Psychiatric Clinic.
There were two experts, but one kept himself-or
was kept-almost entirely out of it. I saw the director
twice, each time for perhaps a quarter of an hour. He
gave the impression of being forthright and without
pretension ; it was possible to talk with him. He only
made the unexpected mistake of shoving in my face
 H.AtMSUO( 59

a report of my visit to Hitler, when I was supposed to

have expressed anti-Semitism. I have not to this day
read this report other than to acknowledge it. I make
attacks on the Jews ? I have had too many good
friends among them for that, and these friends have
been fine friends to me. I respectful!y suggest that
the director search through my collected writings and
see if he can find any hostility to Jews.
In my writing this way about and against the pro
fessor as the second expert, .it has of course not been
my intention to cast doubt on his ability in itself. I
have no qualification for that. Certainly he knows his
work ; that is to say, he knows his work. I submit
only that his work has nothing to do with me. Neither
the man nor his prying pertained to me.
Mr. Attorney General ! When you announced the
experts' judgment of me, you allowed the public at
the same time to take for granted that you had broken
off legal proceedings against me and withdrew the
charges.
Excuse me, but again you acted without me. You
did not consider the possibility of my being dissatis
fied with this decision. You forgot that in the hearings
and always afterwards I have stood by what I had
done and awaited sentencing. Your impulsive course
of action caused me to dangle between heaven and
earth, and my case was nevertheless not settled. Half
of it remained. You thought I benefited thereby, but
I did not, and I believe that some people will agree
with me. Until recently I was not just anybody in
Norway and the world, and it did not suit me to live
6o 00( O VERGROW{}( 'PA 'THS

out the rest of my days in a sort of amnesty from

you without having to answer for my action.
But you, Mr. Attorney General, struck the weapon
from my hand.
You no doubt believe you have made amends now
-afterwards-by issuing a summons calling me be
fore the district court. This amends nothing. I have
been thrust out of my secure and proper position.
What has become now of your "cancelation of legal
proceedings" and your "withdrawal of charges"? You
let your lawyers and your clerks be interviewed on
my case from every superficial point of view ; you
use me as a guinea pig in your most peculiar judiciary
methods. You might have considered the position I
took during the hearings, and little by little saved
yourself from having to take instruction for your con
duct from journalists and the press. And finally, what
do you think now of doing with the four months of
torment I endured in the clinic? Am I to have it free
of charge from your hands? Am I to have it as an
advance on the punishment to come ?
If I had been given some peace, it was my inten
tion to have taken to court my acquittal by the district
court. The idea is not so farfetched as you perhaps
believe. I have something left of my "permanently
impaired faculties" and would have used them first
to discuss certain material, and then to invite the court
to examine my case with justice and nothing but jus
tice.
But I have abandoned that plan. I have lost my
courage. Even in the event of success in court there
 HoAO'v!SUO( 61

would be nothing to prevent public opinion from tak

ing another half turn of the screw. I would have
become a guinea pig again.
Respectfully,

The summer passes. I am not aware of any significant

differences in the seasons ; they file past one another
but not by months. Time is timeless and summer has
departed from me.
But something has happened here. I am not writing
a book, not even a diary, God spare me ; I vault over
vast spaces by airplane and cannot keep up with every
thing that happens. But something filters through to
me nevertheless from my surroundings. The old
superintendent at the home has gone and a new one
come instead. One of the two beauties in the office
down below has left us, but we have one left. Our old
people's home has become too dilapidated for us and
we propose to build a new one.
It will be no petty affair. I see from us old folks
that we now have something worth fussing over ; we
are to have bathrooms, laundry, infirmary, bakery,
hen house, woodshed, and all outside rooms for
twenty or thirty people under one roof. \Ve have never
heard of such splendors before, and our imagination
soars as it has not since our youth. Some of us
try to defend our old home ; surely we have not had it
so bad here, and besides-isn't it the idea that we are
62 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

here to die ? Yes, of course. But actually we are

going to take everything with us that we can up to
the last moment. Are we not to go along with the
times, are we not to modernize ourselves in a new
home? Just bring it on ! We can easily get used to
new conditions on this last mile and die with a
cigarette in our mug.
Yes, we shall die. But not quite yet, says St. Augus
tine.

I go and buy shoe laces. They are too long and reach
three times around my ankle, but I do nothing about
it. I come upon the man who is building a house on
the hill. It is a scandal to the eyes ; he is building his
new roof at an oblique angle right through an older
roof which is to remain in place. I wonder if I have
seen it all wrong down from the road? The man has
been in the construction business in America, so he
should know what he is doing. But I cannot get over
it and go to investitgate which of us is wrong. I
wanted to do this last year, before I fell into the
hands of the doctors.
I have long been deliberating over repairing my
galoshes with the coming of fall. They are from the
first World War, but they still have good soles ; it is
only that the right one is ripped and will not stay on
my foot. It has bothered me for years, but now it is
impossible because I happened to stumble in it and
had to carry it home in my hand. It is beginning to
 H.A:MSUO(

be a cross I have to bear. I sew it up with good strong

wool thread, but it does not last ; the stitches pull out
and make things worse. So there is nothing to be done
for it now, but they have been good galoshes ; I have
walked in them in many lands, rips and all, and they
went with me to Vienna and to Hitler on a celebrated
occasion. Now though I should toss them never so far
away it was not because my shoes required these thick
soles to walk in. The one goes along with the other.
And I have tied up my galosh with the one shoe lace.

One, two, three, four-thus I sit and make notes and

write down little odds and ends for myself. Nothing
will come of it, it is only habit. Cautious words dribble
out of me. I am a faucet that goes on dripping, one,
two, three, four-
Isn't there a star named Mira? I might have
looked it up, but I have nothing to look it up in.
Never mind. Mira is a star that comes, shines a little,
and is gone. That is the entire course of its life. Man
kind, I think here of you. Of all living creatures in
the world you are born to be almost a mere nothing.
You are neither good nor evil ; you have come into
being without any purpose. You emerge out of the
mist and return to the mist, so utterly nebulous you
are. And mankind, should you mount a noble steed,
that steed is noble no longer. Ever so, whatever the
day and the way, slowly-
Do you dismount and fling your hat to the earth
 00( O VERGRO WO( 'PA 'THS

before two eyes, two eyes you meet ? You do not have
spirit enough for that.
Now a new and hopeful race is spiraling up out of
the earth. It is newborn and innocent ; I read about it,
but do not know any names. Never mind. They are all
shooting stars, all of them ; they come, shine a little,
and are gone. Come and go, as I came and went.

Once I had an uncle on Hamarl')y, a confirmed bache

lor, tightfisted and short-tempered, very silent, what
is called a good head for business and a well-to-do
man. He was no shining light, but he had a house on
the parsonage grounds and was the postal clerk for
the whole parish-in those days there was no post
office every tenth house. My uncle was a remarkable
fellow of his kind ; he had been able to buy a large
house and a stabbur* with it out of the buildings of
the parsonage itself. How he had been able to do
this, I do not know, but the pastor, whom he had
had of necessity to deal with, was named Bent Fred
rik Hansen and went later to 0rlandet. After him
Fredrik Motzfeldt Raum Fladmark came to us on
Hamarl')y, and afterwards he went to Nordre
Odalen. The last man was Christian Engebret Nico
laisen, but I do not know what became of him for I
went away and lost sight of him. But my uncle lived
* stabbur, a small wooden storehouse raised off the ground on high

posts and often the most elaborately carved building on a Nor

wegian farm.
 He!I0'11SUO(

the whole time in his big house with the stabbur,

bought from the parsonage.
Besides the post office he had charge of the public
library, which in fact he had rescued from terrible
deterioration. He bought and bartered, though with
out a commercial license ; he sent to the south for
books to sell and also wrote off at his own discretion
for books for the library, without consulting anyone.
His housekeeper was named Sissel ; maybe she was
a good woman, but she starved me for several years.
In my time, uncle was no old man, yet he had
begun to be stiff in his joints and could not write. I
was eight years old when I went to him and was
trained to do all his writing for him. This was done
under shameful discipline. He himself lay the whole
day dressed on a bench, a so-called slagbenk, and be
came more and more an invalid.
All this is not important.
But one day, when I might have been about nine
years old, a very dark and tall man came into the
postoffice, a huge giant. I looked at him in astonish
ment. He handed over a letter to me and a four
ski/ling piece for a stamp.
My uncle started talking to him. His name was
Hans Paulsen Torpelvand and he lived really in the
neighboring parish of Tysfjord but patronized our
post office because it was closer.
"Out traveling today ? " says my uncle.
"Yes. With a little letter for my son in Kristiania."
"I have read about him," said my uncle.
66 00( O VERGROW{}( 'PA 'l'HS

"Oh," said the father. "Well, I have also read

about him, but I understand very little."
"It's often that way."
"And his mother had very much hoped that he
would come back ordained. But apparently he isn't
going to do that."
My uncle replied from the slagbenk : "He is more
than ordained ! "
I do not know where my uncle had hit on such an
answer, probably from newspapers and books which
he had rummaged in. But the promising son in Kris
tiana, who was that ? Paul Botten-Hansen, no less. He
was one of the best of his time in Norway. *
My father also had a promising son once upon a
time.
And not a little care and attention are needed for
such promise. But let us, who have been disappointed, j
not become tragic. That leads nowhere either.

A little spruce stands at the bottom of the un

kempt garden next door. Why should I care? I can
scarcely see into the corner where it is. Naturally it
does not thrive and is surely doomed. It is pretty
and small, three feet tall and straight as a die, but
a sturdy poplar overshadows it and with its leaves
sweeps against its top day and night and does not
* Paul Botten-Hansen ( 1 82. 4- 1 8 6 9 ) , biographer, critic, editor
(with Ibsen and others) of literary and political publications in
Kristiania (Oslo) .
give it a moment's peace. If my way did not pass
by it-but there is no other path-, and if it were
not so hopeless-but it is none of my concern. Since
I have nothing to do with it, I only make a slow
circling around in the dark fall evenings and cut
away overhanging leaves and branches so that it will
have peace in the night. But many mornings there
are new leaves and new branches, and I cannot reach
up high enough. I have found a box to stand on, but
lights are on in all the win.dows of the house and a
dog barks a warning. Why not go in full daylight and
clear away leaves and branches once and for all? I
could have done that last year. But then I was not
here-in captivity.
It is all very absurd.
I keep an eye out for the neighbor and go up to
him and greet him. "Yau should trim away the pop
lar and save that little spruce ! " He does not answer;
he has probably read in the paper that they have had
to give me a mental examination. "I feel sorry for
the little spruce," I say. Then the man smiles straight
up toward an open window in the house and leaves
me.
In my idleness I pass away the time some dark fall
evenings by trimming back some leaves and branches,
but I cannot reach high and the wind swings down
new leaves and new branches. It is hopeless.
But one morning a man is there with an axe and a
saw and lops off the whole poplar from top to bot
tom. It is nothing to me, but he seems to have had
68 00{ O VERGROW[}{ 'PA'IHS

orders ; he lops off some other large leafy trees at the

same time. He is thorough.
Had someone then been sitting behind the window
and listened to my talk with the neighbor a few days
ago and saw his wry smile? I suppose it was his wife.
Despite that, it will be spring before we know if the
leader on the little spruce is still alive. A long wait
ing time.
Someone calls to me, I hear it-
But it is not so, only my imagination. I want to be
interesting to myself. I was remiss in not having
twisted that little knob for the psychiatrists ; they
would have had a fine word for it. Here I sit, sound
and spry, and knowingly trick myself. It must be
schizophrenia at least.
That someone would call to me is pure whimsey,
and that I should recognize it as such by myself is a
hard blow ; I would not have tolerated it in someone
else. No one has called to me, but I pretend it is so.
Why do I do that ? My thoughts fly in all direc
tions. I do it as an exercise, I do it to try to get back
into shape again after the depression in the Psychi
chiatric Clinic. It has gone away a little in the course
of the months, but it will not go away completely. I
was already too old when I was subjected to the
experimentation ; it will take time to get over it. I
must trust in my peasant sense and my general
healthfulness.
Does this idea of someone's calling me come com
pletely out of the blue? It can be traced back to a
couple of Professor Langfeldt's questions : Had I at
 HoJftJI,!SUO(

any time experienced anything strange, anything that

could be called supernatural? I began quite simply
to reconstruct a very deep and moving childhood ex
perience, but it did not come off and all my pains
were wasted on him ; he understood nothing. "But
have you ever heard anything ? " he asked. I did not
answer. I could not bring myself to.
It was undoubtedly- the recollection of this inter
view which led to my thinking someone had called
to me. I know nothing more profound than that
about it.
But I have at last got it figured out down here on
earth about the sheath-knife. That is something, at
least. It came to me happily and unexpectedly. Oh,
we miserable human beings, we see little, come to
nothing, understand less. I should have known it by
myself, but I did not.
When Stevenson sat writing on his island in the
South Pacific he heard a divine voice from within. He
asked no questions, he turned to no reference works ;
he was a genius in eruption, he had revelations. He
was ill, but he wrote himself out of his illness in a
divine madness. He read about our living in the age
of concrete and died of :1 stroke.
Yes, the sheath-knife is mine. It was sent to me by
Postmaster Erik Frydenlund in Aurdal a long time
ago. Too bad I did not have that good knife along
when I was out cutting leaves and branches in the
dark fall evenings.
But how had the sheath-knife come furtively to
me at Grimstad hospital ? A very simple story : Little
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'l'HS

Esben had come on a visit, and he had wanted very

badly to get hold of that big, wonderful knife ; there
was nothing his mother could do but hide it on the
bottom of the wood-box. So far so good. But then
of course she forgot to warn me when she left for
home.
While I am writing this about the sheath-knife, it
is just as well to mention one other thing : I have
got new galoshes. The people at home are dressing
me up ; they probably have pooled their kroner and
re and formed a club.
But I have no use for new galoshes. I have tied
laces around the old ones with the thick soles and
worn them for many months now. What else should
I have used shoelaces that are too long for if not for
tying up the galoshes? And the lucky part of it is that
they are suited for this; the binding can scarcely be
seen.
I do not intend to put my new galoshes to use.

If only the winter were over. If only in the Lord's

name the winter were over !
My sight is a little weak. It feels odd to me not
to see well, and in the beginning I thought it was
not true ; I thought I had got something in my eyes.
I still had my very fine glasses, which I saw so well
with only a few months ago ; had they gone bad
now?
I took a car at considerable expense to go to the
 HeAtMSUO( 71

eye doctor. Look here : I can't get things into sharp

focus, can't read as before, can't thread a needle.
What sort of nonsense is that? Has something gone
wrong in both my eyes at the same time? To this I
do not get much of an answer. He screws knobs for
white lines and red lines and letters and numbers.
"There seems to be something a little wrong with
my left eye," I say helpfully. He gives no answer.
This annoys me, and I persist : "You see, when I cover
my left eye I am still able to read large clear print.
But if I make the opposite test and cover my right
eye, all I see is a big black spot." "Hm," he says.
This annoys me still more, and I insist that there
fore there is something wrong with my left eye ! "I
can give you some prism lenses, if you like," he says
at last. "Is that it ? " I say ; am I to have prism lenses?
There is something called prism binoculars also,
which lets us see monsters. "I do not think there is
anything more we can do for you," he says and
bows.
That is the limit ! I am driven home in a car com
pletely exasperated with the eye doctor and do not
believe in him, do not believe in him one bit.
Now I work out a way of getting to Oslo. Chris
mas is approaching, and I must hurry. Since I can
not sit up straight for twelve hours traveling in the
train, I have it carefully written down when I can go
by boat, and I am on my way. It goes smoothly ;
everyone helps me ; for that matter, I am in high
spirits on board, a man in his best years. Everything
has been arranged for me ; I am in Oslo, go to the
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

hotel, get my meals, get my hair cut and go to the

eye doctor.
This will be something of a trial for me. It is a
miserable day, it is raining and the streets are terrible
and I cannot see. I walk up four flights in one
building and down again. I suspect I have lost my
way and I look at the numbers. Suddenly a man
comes up to me; there is a young lady with him. C(Is
there something I can do for you? " he asks. "Thank
you, but I am only looking for an eye doctor," I
reply. "There ! " he says and points. The lady smiles.
"Why do you bother to go out of your way to help
a stranger in this rotten weather? " I ask. The lady
smiles even more. C(I recognized you," he says. I
thank them cordially and walk into the building.
Wasn't it here I had walked all the way up to the
fourth floor once before ? Now I search every floor
and all the names with a finetooth comb and find
the doctor. There are three ahead of me in the wait
mg room.
By old habit I would like to look through the
newspapers and magazines, but I do not see very well.
I must wait. The patients go out and come in again ;
they shift around ; a nurse comes to asssure me that
though I must wait, it will not be for long.
And now I have become quite calm ; soon I shall
have my eyesight back again. It was really most kind
of that gentleman and lady to take the time to help
me in this rain. A patient speaks to me, but I am
deaf and must nod at random. She goes on talking,
and I point to my ears to show that my hearing
 H.ACI!SUO( 73

has recently gone bad, but there i s hardly anything

wrong, really, with my eyesight, just a little mote in
the left eye. I am in good spirits and talk a blue
streak. The lady must have wondered at last if I was
in my right mind and left me in peace. A long time
goes by before I am called in. The lady has now writ
ten something on a piece of paper and shows it to
me ; she is thanking me for a couple of books or
something of that sort-
In the doctor's office we test one thing after the
other) but he kindly excuses me from the ordeal of
red lines and letters. We try out glasses and lenses ;
I have another turn of waiting outside, but now it
was the lady's turn to go i n and I saw no more of her.
The rest went quickly. The doctor would advise
me to do some writing. Writing? I cannot and never
could. But why that ? I do not do any writing now,
stopped many years ago. However, it would be nice to
be able to see again and to read a little now and then.
Well, well. He telephoned the optician's and ordered
something to be ready in January. I would have to
wait. "But can't you give me some glasses right
now ? , I asked. "Let me look at your glasses ; they
look like pretty good glasses," he says. "Marvelous,"
I said ; "up until a few months ago I could see with
them as clearly as in my young days, but now I sup
pose I am to have other glasses, a little stronger per
haps, isn't that so ? " He wrote out a prescription ; I
scarcely looked at it, but it was to be filled in January.
Glasses I was not to have, but instead something
peculiar that I had not asked for : a prescription for a
74 0[}( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

magnifying glass and a bottle of iodine ! I could go

to the pharmacy any time and get the iodine, he said.
When I wanted to pay him, he waved me away with
his hand and turned back to his desk.
So I came back to the hotel with a bottle of iodine
and a prescription for a magnifying glass which was to
be had at the optician's in January. For my eyesight I
had got nothing.
A strange lot, these eye doctors. I have received a
bad impression of them.
But otherwise my stay in Oslo was pure pleasure
and happiness, the finest Christmas I have experi
enced in a hotel. I took walks all around, visited my
children and grandchildren, went to exhibitions,
poked around delightedly in the city of Oslo after an
absence of ages. Many things were strange to me, the
busses, all the restaurants, totally unfamiliar young
people up and doing, night and day. Everyone was
helpful and polite on my walks ; they wanted to give
me their seat or their newspaper ; when they saw I
wished to get off, they wanted to open the doors for
me, but I had been a streetcar conductor in Chicago
and knew how to take care of myself. On the whole I
could not notice any chilly friendliness toward me,
even though I was still in custody. A young lady
stopped me in the middle of Karl J ohan Street, said
something, laughed, and threw her arms around my
neck. I remember she had brown eyes. A man with a
knapsack on his back looked at me and said : "Are you
out in this weather without galoshes? Come with me
and we'll get some ! " He took hold of me and pulled
 H.AOI1SUO( 75

me along. When h e became troublesome, I thanked

him and got back into the hotel.
But there was a lot of bother about the boats during
the holidays ; I was delayed because some did not
come and others canceled their sailings. I was ten days
getting back to the old people's home.

I have let my things fall into shameful disorder,

have not answered letters, not thanked for flowers or
small gifts with cards and greetings. Now it is the
second year that I have neglected to thank my good
publisher in Barcelona ; he never forgets to telegraph
good wishes at the turn of the year. Here lies a heap
of letters from abroad in the bottom of my chest,
even many more from last year. They do not know I
am confined ; they cannot imagine that I have not
found a place in the New Order. But I can.
The days slip by.
I still do not understand much of what is going on
in the world. I read the papers and study the dis
patches, but I am not up to it, I will have to improve
more. The trip to Oslo was good for me even if I
got no help for my eyes. We tether a tame animal
with kindness, give it room to play in, then leave it
to itself. That is what a tether is. Nevertheless, I must
be grateful for the public kindness that allowed me to
make the trip ; things would have been worse if it
had not occurred. A lot happened. I was not merely
some distinguished looking elderly gentleman to the
 00( O VERGROW{}( 'PA 'THS

lady who embraced me on Karl Johan. No indeed.

And I was no sloven but had on a clean coat for the
gentleman who wanted to give me galoshes. And be
sides these two, countless others who were friendly
toward me. I was neither hated nor despised by
people. And that is good. But if it had been otherwise,
I should not have cared. I am so old.

Among the things I have difficulty understanding is

why the newspapers continue to interest themselves
and the public in my "case," and why this case con
tinues to be postponed.
Last summer it was postponed no less than three
times to different dates. And nothing was altered by
my receiving on May I , 1 946, official summons to
the district court, officially served upon me by the
Grimstad police. Nothing altered: the case was only
postponed to the coming September ! That was a
pretty long leap. But many pardons, the case will
now be postponed from September 46 to March 47 .
Then it turned into a comedy with rope tricks. I
cease taking notice.
Had I perhaps not taken pains to keep abreast and
keep myself informed? But I saw only unrest and con
fusion wherever I turned. First, the attorney general
retired. Then our regular magistrate quit and later
went back to his duties as district judge. Then the
prosecuting attorney went off one day to become a
 HdliMSUO( 77

judge in the neighboring county. I was informed

again and again that my case was ready. It never got
to court.
I wonder and try to find out if there may be some
legalistic advantage in my "postponements." Could it
be possible that someone is counting on my old age
and is waiting for me simply to die away, to die of
myself? But if that is so, would not the case then be
undecided forever, and what would be the advantage
in that? Would it not really be best to do something
'
about me while I am still alive? Besides it surely must
be one of the most tiresome and most interminable
things to wait for someone else to die. There have
been heirs to fortunes who can tell about that.
Boganis tells of a dog that had lost the trail but
picked up the scent just as it went over a ditch-and
then simply continued on the other side. Indeed that
is what he did, simply continued.
Something more which continues : My last post
ponement was until March 47, isn't that so ? It is now
March 47, almost into April, but today I read that
I have been deferred until "sometime in the sum
mer" ! I do not make an issue of it, but merely nod
to show I am aware of the phenomenon. After +7
comes 48. A tame animal is tethered.
It can well be that from now on it will be most
practical to postpone me by the half and whole year
at a time. For how else will they put up with my
tenaciousness through all the coming years ? A bad
joke to be tricked by.
 00( OVERGROWIJ( 'PA 'THS

Now it is the Supreme Court that is being blamed

for not being ready to take my case. It is nice to have
something stable to take the blame.

Isn't it true that long long ago we were much happier

to be alive than we are now? Perhaps I know that that
is badly put and poorly written, but I do it deliber
ately ; something stirs within me, whatever it may
be, perhaps an indulgence in my own deficiences. An
intentional helplessness, an affiiction from the Bible.
Some words of Bunyan's occur to me : As I walked
through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
certain place . . . That sums up all I remember of
Bunyan. But I leaned back in sweet enjoyment of the
passage. A lucky hit by the forces of deficiency.
A Lapp came down from the mountain wastes and
got to see green meadows and woods ; he rejoiced and
said : "It's so beautiful I have to laugh ! " He said
it in song that was more than song. ''Selah ! " says
David. I don't know what selah means, but David
says it. It is beautiful.
God bless everything that is not merely ordinary
human talk that we have to sit and listen to. Silence
also has God's blessing.
During the war I could sometimes notice in the
others when there was shooting going on. But I
could not hear cannons, perhaps because they were
too far away. My deafness was an advantage, but
 H<:Jf:MSUO( 79

only so long as it was not pistols and rifleshots, for

then my deafness quite frankly was rotten help. I can
hear faint noises still, even slow finger taps on the
door, but I am deaf and do not hear and do not
follow what people say in conversation. It sounds
to me only like a continuous buzz. Everyone has
ceased for so long to speak to me that I have for
gotten how to talk; I have been alone ; I used to see
well, but did not hear. I have attained the condition
of certain Orientals : the necessary silence. I do not
even talk to myself any more, having got out of that
bad habit.
But I no longer see as before ; that is worse than
the deafness. It was supposed to be that I would get
a magnifying glass in January, but even though it is
spring I have not got it yet.
-
But thank God, at least it is spring !
I walk b y the little spruce standing in the snow
and still alive. I walk by and do not stop even for a
moment in front of the windows, and I say to myself,
"No, the spruce won't be anything to look at for a
long time yet, so go on past ! " But of course every
one saw as. early as March that the top was alive.
In thirty years it will be a big spruce, timber.
There are very few songbirds here. It has been a
hard winter and probably many have died ; around
the houses of the old people's home a thin little
crow or a magpie flaps its wings. One day I thought
I had caught sight of a late harbinger of spring,
but since I could not see well enough I could not
So 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

decide whether it was a starling or a blackbird that

had wintered over. In any event, it had risked its life
at this place, where there are four big cats.

When I go on my daily walks through the slush it

happens that I meet a little yellow dog who lets me
talk to him and pet him ; otherwise I never see a
soul along the whole way. It suits me fine that I
can be by myself and do not have to keep asking
what people say to me. Then the snow melts away
from the curbstones, so that I recognize them again ;
the sun has become good and warm and many paths
through the woods begin to appear. I think of Martin
from Klpttran on Hamarpy ; it is now a year or
a year and a half since he came to me here in the
woods. He too had to go it alone, but he had a
mission ; that have not I. He wandered up and down
in the land and prayed to God.
A branch moves with a bird on it. I stop right
there. On another branch of another tree a new bird
sits; they seem to belong together, a pair of sparrows
who flew toward each other and met and separated
five times right before my eyes. It takes place in the
air ; they tremble together a second and separate and
meet again, five times. Afterwards they look as
though they had not done it. The he-bird especially
was unabashed and seemed only to want to scold her.
I did not call out, I did not do that but I did rebuke
him in righteous wrath for being a base and ungallant
 He/ltMSUO( 81

soul ; they might have got some good from that.

Shortly afterwards the female went her way ; served
him right !
I do not know what St. Francis says about this.
Oh, the infinitely small in the midst of the infinitely
great in this incomparable world. I am glad to be
alive again.
The trip to Oslo did me good.

What is this feeling of spring, this sense of burgeon

ing which raises havoc each year with our senses? God
knows. A female missionary in a foreign land would
perhaps call it the voice of the homeland in order to
make it a little religious and remote ; however, I dis
cover it for myself and mean it literally : it does have
something to do with home and homeland. We want
to go back again, we want to go home. We do not
have a spring feeling away from home, where we
sense only a twinge at being in a new place. A twinge
without heart.
A memory from Helsingfors in r 898 or 99 But
it goes back some fifty years and cannot be relied
upon ; I have forgotten names and the sequence may
be out of order.
There were two in the bookstore when I came in :
the one a middle-aged bareheaded fellow in a white
shirt outside his trousers and wearing high boots, the
other a younger man with a trowel in his hand. There
was no one behind the counter.
8z 0 0( O VERGROW{]( 1'A 'THS

"Coming right away," the first one said to me. "The

girl has only gone upstairs to get a book for me."
I found a chair and sat down.
"I'm Russian," said the man.
"As though that's something to brag about ! "
scoffed the man with the trowel.
"I'm from Norway," I said.
The Russian, interested : "Indeed. From Norway.
Planning to stay? "
"Yes, a year."
"Makes no difference what country we're from,"
said the bricklayer. "I'm from Finland, from the
world." His words went unnoticed.
The Russian came up to me : "I haven't seen you
before ; where do you live in town ? "
"I don't live i n town ; I live far out, on Fpllisp
Road."
"I have to live here in town and wait, but I don't
like it."
The Russian talked freely. He had been with his
master, who had gone off-where, he didn't know, a
long way off, abroad. But he was tired of waiting,
didn't like it here, wanted to get home again. How
was it he could speak Swedish when he was Russian?
Oh, he had learned it as a child from his father and
all through the years afterwards ; his parents were
Swedish Finns ; they were dead, but he himself was
born in Russia and was a Russian.
"Nothing to be ashamed of," said the bricklayer.
But he went unnoticed.
I thought to myself that then this Russian had prob-
 He!l:MSUO(

ably been born in captivity in a remote province in

the North, but I could not understand how he could
now be here and I did not want to ask.
He kept on talking ; he owned a cottage, a pretty
cottage painted red, and many trees and a wood and
a little brook running past. Dear God ! His wife and
children were waiting for him ; he worked for the
nobleman on his estate, a vast estate, miles and miles,
many hundreds of servants and people.
The clerk came down from the second storey with
a book for him. The man seized it, crossed himself and
shoved it into his pocket. "I'm waiting for money," he
said to the lady, "much money. I'll pay you very
soon. This gentleman is from Norway," he said of
me.
The lady smiled.
"He's going to be here a year, but I don't like it
here and want to go home."
The lady looked at me : "Can I help you? "
"A small Russian-Swedish dictionary."
The Russian took the book out of his pocket,
crossed himself and leafed through it. On the cover
was some sort of icon.
"What kind of book is that ? " asked the bricklayer.
He got no answer and continued : "A saint's book. I'd
like to take it on my trowel and heave it away."
"It is very dear to him," said the lady at the
counter.
The bricklayer turned to me : "What are we to say
to such nonsense ? They are like animals, they know
nothing, read saints' books, cross themselves. 'I was
 00( O VERGROW[]( 'PA 'THS

born in Russia and am a Russian,' he says. What

difference does that make ? "
"No, no," said the lady.
"What do you mean ? " asked the bricklayer
sharply.
"It does make a difference. We have a country, a
homeland."
"Exactly ! That's the kind of talk we are born and
raised in; we read it in the newspapers and hear it in
the market-place. But do you want to know what I
think? "
Suddenly the Russian broke into ecstasy : "Oh, my
wonderful, saintly Russia l "
"Homesickness has made him hysterical," the lady
said to me.
The bricklayer makes ready to leave us, to leave
the whole place. His face is pale and he says
brusquely : "Homeland ?--Dh, go on ! Do you want to
know something? Do you know what I think? Home
land and all that mush about love and reverence !
Listen to me: Homeland is wherever you have it
good. Yes, that's what I think. That's all there is to
say about homeland."
The clerk smiles at him : "I know, it's something
like that that you teach the other bricklayers."
He halts. "What do you know about that ? "
"It's what I have heard. You give talks i n the
union."
A moment after the bricklayer went out two gentle
men entered, travelers, English-speaking, requesting
a map of Finland.
 H.A:MSUO( ss

The Russian introduced himself : "I am Russian."

"Hush," said the lady quietly.
The two men talked to each other at the counter.
They also wanted a big map of Russia to see where
they had been. "We've come from China," they ex
plained. "Stupendous trip. Months on the way,
through all of Russia. We're Americans."
The lady spoke English ,and could reply.
"What are they saying ? " asked the Russian.
"Hush," said the lady.
"I only want to know if they have come from
Russia."
"Yes, they've come from Russia."
"Oh, praise be to Christ Jesus. So they have come
on the great railway that has no end." He named
provinces and many cities. He named a yellow station
house for the estate ; twenty versts away was his
home. He crossed himself. Forgive me, you had to
go past the big yellow station house, you can't miss
it, and only twenty little versts further on was his
home. It is right by the brook among the poplars and
juniper bushes, and there are songbirds there beyond
number.
''What does he want?" asked the American.
The lady smiled : "He wants to know if you have
ridden past his home in Russia."
The Americans in confusion : "What ? How do we
know? His home in Russia ? "
"He is painfully homesick. His people have gone
off and left him, and here he has to stay . . . "
"Has he been left behind ? "
86 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA'THS

"He had been ordered to travel home at once and

got money for the trip. But he got into bad com
pany and drank up the money."
"Poor boy ! " said the Americans, smiling. "And
now he longs for home? So do we," they said. "That's
a sickness we know well enough. But we're boarding
ship for home right now."
"I wish you a pleasant voyage."
"Thank you. Where did you learn to speak Eng
lish ? "
"In America. I'm home here only for a visit."
"Is that so ? " nodded the Americans. "And then
you'll be coming back to us? "
"That's the idea."
The Russian forward again : "Ask them anyway if
they saw the songbirds."
"I can't ask them that," said the clerk kindly
The Americans said goodbye and left. At the door
they turned and asked the clerk if it would be any
help to the man to give him money for the trip
home?
"I don't believe so," she answered. "He has got to
wait for orders from his people."
"Now they have gone, and I didn't get to know
that ! " the Russian sniffed. "Excuse me, but they
surely will be there when I get home, don't you
think?"
"Who? The sparrows ? Yes, they'll be there."
"You should have seen them. They flew down to
the brook and put their bills in, exactly as though
they were thirsty too, the little dears ! " The Russian
wept. "They were a few miserable birds," he said
 HcAiMSUD{

and straightened up ; "they were gray and yellow

and almost impossible to chase away before they came
back again. The sky was black with them, a mil
lion-"
The tears ran down into his gray beard.
I became bored with his hysteria and had to won
der how the lady put up with him.
She answered : "I'm a finn and am homesick my
self ! " And she bent forward and whispered over the
counter to me: ((We are kindred spirits, I suppose.
But that's something I'd never let him know."

One wet, foggy day I was out walking downtown. It

was between the wars and I was free then. I was
carrying some books I had bought, a couple of
packages of books a little troublesome to carry because
they kept shifting and almost slipped out of my
hands. I was intending to go to the post office with
a book for the Red Cross.
Then something happened.
A young man suddenly appeared, called me by
name and said : ((I'm going to hit you ! "
He was well dressed and did not look like a thief.
"I'm going to hit you," he said again and seemed
embarrassed, trying to catch his breath. I came to a
halt, and he did the same. "No, that was stupidl
said, a stupid beginning, but I thought I might h i t
you for a loan-"
"I thought you wanted to assault me."
"Oh no, far from it. I'm in a fix. I'm terribly sorry
88 0 0( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

to bother you, but I had to know if it would work

with you."
"A loan ? "
"Yes, a loan. I don't make a habit o f doing this
sort of thing, but I'm in a bad way."
I gave him my book packages to hold and reached
into my pocket ; those days I had a few coins to spare.
While I was getting out some money it occurred to
me that it was no mean little sum he was asking for,
but a loan. Besides, he had an honest and attractive
face.
While I was fumbling with this, he started walking
slowly. I paid no attention until he was several paces
ahead and I said, "Here you are ! " and followed him.
But now he had got a good bit ahead, and I called
to him and held up my hand with the money in it.
He kept walking. I called a few more times, but he
increased his speed and had got far up Pilestraedet.
He turned in on a side street.
I stood there gaping. Now I have had even that
happen to me ! I had to laugh a foolish, astonished
laugh as I stood there.
And so the young man had run off with my books.
But if he had counted on their being worth more
than my loan, he had figured wrong. I made a good
profit on his crooked speculation.
But it was not that that concerned me then. It inter
ested me to consider his case a little more closely.
Why had he begun by wanting to "hit" me ? To
set himself up, to give himself courage in case he was
refused. He abandoned those tactics right away, for
 H.A[}I1SUO(

that matter, and broke down. The next was that he

felt sheepish holding my book packages-he who had
come asking for help ! If I had looked up I would
have seen the shame in his face and made him even
more ashamed, but I was busy. He was in a painful
situation and he shifted his weight, moved his foot
forward. Originally he did not have the slightest
thought of wanting to run away from me, not at all.
He tried to be a little brave, he thought it helped his
case, and his one step led to his taking others until he
was on his way into concealment.
But now things were going against him ; he had
got himself into a painful dilemma. He had heard
my cries and could have turned back in time, but to
turn about and stand before me face to face after that
would have been the worst of all. So what in the
world was he to do ?
Young man, you are clearly not used to being in
want; you are not used to asking for help. You gave
the impression of being of good family and of being
yourself an upright lad. A "temporary embarrass
ment" had popped up for you and you thought you
needed a "loan." Maybe it was a milk bill or some
other trifle. Good Lord, you will be in for much
worse in life.
But now with the books lying there before you,
you cannot have them sent back to the owner, nor can
you have them lying there on the desk before every
one's eyes. Will you not try to get rid of them, dis
pose of them? I ask because there is a way out. You
hesitate to turn them into money since they are after
 OD( O VERGROWD( 'PA<J'HS

all not your books. Indeed, your refusal does you

honor. But can you afford it? Excuse my meddling
in all this, but you will go to Omtvedt's with the
books. They are new, bound copies. You will get
enough for the milk bill.
How did you come to scorch your fingers with
these books? It can all be explained. You no doubt
wanted to spare an old man from fumbling with
money out on the street and arousing attention. That
was a kindly thought. Naturally you also knew in
your heart that I could not come bounding after you.
But you yourself really could not shout stop thief,
could you ? Finally you have got into such a tangle
that you have perhaps thought of suicide. So every
thing can be explained.
But now as for me, I cannot go on standing here.
People are beginning to look at me. I am obliged
to give you up. Besides, I am on my way to the post
office.
I sank to the ground !
The post office-the book for the Red Cross
Mrs. Vogt-
Mrs. Ida Vogt had something to do with a bazaar
for the Red Cross and asked for a book by me for
the lottery. I bought the book and wrote some words
of wisdom in it. But it made only a measly gift, so
I attached a hundred-kroner bill inside to make the
book a better prize for the auction. I had it nicely
wrapped up and was on my way to the post office with
it.
But now everything has gone wrong. A young
 HeJl:711 SUD(

man with an honest and attractive face had stood by

me in the book store and seen what I was doing. He
followed me and sized me up and wrapped me
around his little finger.
He went home with the book. That is what he did.
But to Mrs. Vogt I had to send a new copy with
new words of wisdom. And I received warm thanks
from the lady for my idea about the hundred-kroner
bill.

I promised a little while back, I think, that perhaps I

would return to my time in the Psychiatric Clinic.
I made no hard and fast promise, but I should have
promised nothing at all nor even mentioned it.
Even now I have reminders of what my stay there
destroyed for me. It cannot be measured ; it has noth
ing to do with weight and measure. It was a slow,
slow pulling up by the roots.
Where does the blame lie ? No one person, no one
thing ; a system. Domination over a living being,
regulations lacking mercy and tact, a psychology of
blank spaces and labels, a whole science bristling
defiance.
Others can endure that sort of torture ; that is no
concern of mine. For my part, I could not. Which the
psychiatrist ought perhaps to have understood. I was
in good health ; I was turned into jelly.
I do not have it in me to complain and to be dis
satisfied with the world and with life, not even now.
 00( O VERGROW{}{ 'PA'THS

I am no malcontent. I joke a lot, laugh easily, have

a happy nature. I n this I take after my father, who
was known to be the same. For other good traits I
may have I owe thanks to my mother. I am a product.
But I am not writing my autobiography.
I shall now jot down a few chance occurrences,
random recollections from the Men's Ward of the
Psychiatric Clinic. I will include a couple of serious
things which have bobbed up on their own, though
I will recall them with great distaste.
It is an institution organized and managed on
jesuitical lines, with a half dozen full grown men to
help out when necessary, and with no end of nurses
in white to animate the place by coming into the
rooms like a rush of white doves. They were good
nurses, and the male nurses were able. In the base
ment was a workroom for patients who were to have
body exercises, and at the top of the building was the
laboratory where the properly accredited were to
conduct their experiments and make their discoveries
in the science of the soul. In between were the resi
dential rooms, where half a hundred "nervous and
mentally ill" persons were billetted. The time was
reckoned at sixty minutes to the hour because it was
impossible to be more exact. There was order and
punctuality everywhere. There was coolness, im
personality, and regulations everywhere. There was
piety and propriety.
I got the impression that institutions for the ill and
those for the insane are quite different things, though
both are for t hose whose health has failed. There
was little suggestion of a madhouse, but at nights I
 H,;!O'vfSUO( 93

would wish myself instead at an ordinary hospital,

an ordinary prison, under ordinary confinement,
forced labor, anything but the psychiatric madhouse
at Vindern. I lived there for four months ; I should
never have been there for one day. I was not a pa
tient ; I was a lodger, a boarder.
I began in the first division, in a cell with a peep
hole in the door. I was given a spoon to eat my food
with. I was not to cough too loudly. I was not to open
packages of underwear from home myself, and I was
not allowed to keep the string. There I remained a
couple of months, then I moved up one floor. Here
there was no cell, but a side room with an ordinary
door that could be locked, which I was thankful for.
It was lighter and friendlier here, not quite so
"mental." I was given a knife and fork to eat with
and after a while my watch. But there was the same
searching, the same atmosphere of snooping. My
papers and books were pawed through under the pre
text of putting them in order, and for a long time I
had to be content that my outer clothes were re
moved from my room at night and put away.
I did not see much difference in the patients here
and on the first floor ; perhaps a few more here who
had had shock treatment and were recuperating
afterwards. On our walks outdoors we all mixed to
gether, except that I who did not hear had to keep
to myself so as not to trouble either the others in talk
ing to me or myself in having constantly to ask them
to repeat.
One day a tall, dark beauty stopped and smiled in
my direction. She was dressed as a nurse under her
94 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA<J'HS

dark coat. I had not seen her before, but I got up

from my bench, greeted her and said that I did not
hear. "I know that ! , I saw her answer. Then she
strolled away.
For a few weeks I did not see her. But one Sunday
-I believe it was a Sunday-she emerged from the
women's section dressed for traveling. She carried a
small bag and was walking with a man. I greeted her
and stood still. She came right over to me and said
she wanted to say goodbye and to thank me for some
one of my books. I asked if she was going away, but
she answered that she was only going for a walk with
her husband. She was very friendly and took pains to
talk near my ear. After that I used to see her now
and then on promenades ; no, she was hardly a nurse ;
I had been mistaken, she was a patient, nervous, rest
less, a lady.
Another Sunday-if it was a Sunday-a young man
greeted me. He was walking with an elderly lady
who perhaps was his mother. He did not speak, only
nodded. The lady took no part in it, but turned away.
After a week he came again and repeated his greeting
then and again after still another week. The lady
turned away each time. Perhaps he was going against
her will ; I wanted to prevent her being further
distressed, and I greeted him and said that perhaps
he did not know that I was arrested, but had been
confined here by the police. I did not hear his answer,
but I comprehended the words : "All the same to
me ! , After that I saw neither him nor the lady any
more.
 Hell:.M SUO( 95

It became something of a mystery to me that the

personnel endured that place. The men ran little risk,
but the nurses could enter service at a fairly early age
and be here for twenty years. Might I inquire what
they were paid? That they would not say. Pension ?
That they would not say. Time off? Well, certain
days ! I could not very well go on asking questions.
But this was the beginning of the mystery for me.
They were, many of them, kindly persons, used to
social intercourse and well-spoken-educated women
who had been to school, had read books before they
came here. Now they read no more. Could they en
dure not reading? Oh yes, easily. There were Sun
day papers and Bible tracts and religious books piled
up everywhere, but I did not see any of the nurses
show interest in them. Officially the place was re
ligious, but that did not prevent their being human
beings on the side as much as they permitted them
selves to be-and there were many who did. If a
nurse did something wrong, it was kept quiet. In all
other circumstances of life she would have called
in witnesses if necessary, but it was not necessary
here. She was protected by her own silence and that
of all the others. That is the system. Should she be
involved in something she is to answer for, she
does not answer. Should things go against her, she
simply puts up with them. Not everyone can do that,
but she can. She can summon a male nurse to come
and watch her endurance. \Vhen a nurse has served
a fairly long time she has learned enough practical
jesuitry to last her for life. And at death she has no
 00( O VERGROWO( PA'I'HS

use for anything more than a pastor to forgive her

sms.
I often remember those good nurses. It is too bad
about them ; the air at the place is bad, and there they
are, growing old. No comfort, no cheer, never any
laughter; God forbid that they laugh . Many were
very likeable ; I could name names, but I do not dare
for fear of exposing them to something. In their
cradles they had been sung to about love, children,
and home. Now they had been sung to about three
closed doors to life. Then time goes by. Then they no
longer think of anything. Then they are only here.
While I was there wearing out the days, there was
nothing more on my mind than that my stay at the
clinic would come to an end. I felt myself more and
more exhausted, more and more done in. There was
nothing to reconcile me to my role of guinea pig for
the science of psychiatry, and nothing personal which
drew me close to the administration. We went by one
another on the stairs and on the walks without a
word.
At the top was Mr. Langfeldt, chief physician at
the institution and professor at the university. I had
never heard his lectures and would not, as a lay
man, have known what to make of them. Of his
students probably not all are equally devoted to his
instruction, something which plagues teachers in
several disciplines. I draw on my personal impres
sions and on intuition, both of them. I draw on
episodes, facts, and what claims I may have to psycho
logical sense. In my letter to the attorney general I
 He!10'.1SUO( 97

have hinted at my opinion of Professor Langfeldt ; it

has not changed its character since them. I think he is
the type of academician who has emerged from the
academy full of the book learning he has procured
from schoolbooks and learned works, and which he
has of course in later studies kept up to date.-This
last I naturally am not competent to speak about ;
I merely include it and assume it. I have no use for it.
He is confident in his learning. But it is not the
same as being confident in the qld wisdom : that noth
ing can be known with certainty ! By virtue of his
personality, his nature, Mr. Langfeldt stays at the
very top with his erudition, which cannot be refuted,
with his silence under criticism, and in general with
his universal superiority, which seems only an affec
tation.
During one of his rounds I saw the woman as
sistant physician give him an explanation lasting
several minutes. He halted the whole procession,
and he listened quietly. Whereupon without a word
to the lady, without a nod, he resumed his round fol
lowed by his staff. The same assistant physician
happened on one occasion to laugh aloud at a story,
a pleasantry-he merely looked at her.
Would that I might grant the psychiatrist the
power to bring a smile to his lips ! A smile which at
times might also apply to himself.
His cool and superior bearing is hardly genuine.
Rather, it is assumed for the sake of the place and the
surroundings. He is not a fossilized or stilted man,
for he would then not be so energetic or effective.
 00( OVERGROW[}( 'PA'THS

Besides managing his post as professor and his scien

tific vocation, he can find time to write books of medi
cal advice for the families of the nation, even on
occasion to provide a biological article to the sub
scribers of the popular monthly Samtiden. He is
young in years, with good public relations and surely
elected to all the proper learned societies. No, he is
not stilted. Others may be that, but not he. His bear
ing comes from affectation. He has enough life in him
to know when to keep his mouth shut and when to
speak up.
I shall mention at random a couple of examples of
the latter.
The orderlies had damaged my shaving equipment
by slicing to pieces the leather in the strop and by
throwing away an important part of the whole ap
paratus. It was nowhere to be found. Whereupon the
orderlies went their way and left me standing there.
A nurse who had been twenty years in service took
me off to one side and let me start shaving myself,
without a mirror and with her blade or someone
else's. I cut myself properly. Suddenly we heard a
bellow ; it was the professor. A real bellow : We were
in the wrong place with me and my shaving. He
fumed, raved, said "young lady" ( 40-50 years old) ,
stopped, stood there a long time and stared, did not
go, but stood and recovered himself! It made quite
a sight. The nurse was crushed ; I wiped away soap
and blood. There was no question of breathing a
word ; she might have defended herself with a few
words, mentioned the orderlies-not a bit of it before
the professor himself. Impossible.
 H<!11SUO( 99

I am not unused to having people work for me and

I wonder whether I could have got away with break
ing out in a raging bellow to a worker on such an
occasion. I think that instead of bellowing I would
have gone my way without having taken notice of
anything.
One morning the professor came directly up to
me and said, "I believe you have remembered in
correctly. You used eyeglasses, I know, while you
were in Hardanger also ! " This was his way of letting
the staff know how profound h ad been his investiga
tion of me, almost back to the womb. But I was just
as weary of his chatter about my eyeglasses, which,
mentally speaking, have absolutely no significance.
I was in Hardanger in 1 879, some sixty years ago, in
my tender youth. I could easily have given him a full
explanation, but I could not be bothered : The doctor
came one day to the farm where I lived ; it was rain
ing ; he wore a black raincoat and a black rain hat.
He had a hyphenated name, Maartman-Hansen or
something like that. Since the nearest pharmacy and
optician were in Bergen-an endless day's journey
away-the doctor had brought with him a case with
the medicines and glasses there was most use for
there it was I got my glasses in Hardanger!
But you see, we are to display mental hygiene to
the staff.
I was summoned to the professor. lVly escorts who
had come with the summons fell over themselves to
get me on my way. I found the professor and his staff
in the office. I was presented with the three letters I
mentioned in my statement of 23 July -t6 to the
1 00 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

attorney general and about which I had thus already

said all there was to say. I suppose I must have
shrugged impatiently, for immediately the professor
said in exasperation : "Now you're not to get in a
temper ; no one wants to do you harm ! " That was
said-not to one of his pupils in school but to an old
man. And so casually as he phrased it: "No one wants
to do you harm"-while in truth he could not answer
for anyone but himself. I said as much, too. The pro
fessor rose, annoyed. Without cause, without orient
ing the staff, he asked me aloud : "Have you bor
rowed money from women ? " ( Something mentioned
in the anonymous letters.) I must have gaped at him,
I must have stammered. At an earlier occasion I
had had to remind the professor that we were not
alone, but I did not do so now. I did not bring myself
to say anything, only mumbled. I do not know to my
own knowledge whether I had ever in my life bor
rowed money from women, but if I did, surely I had
paid back the loan. But what was the point of such a
question here? In the big dossier for the court the
professor has tried to set this episode straight in
writing. I do not recognize the circumstances.
But that was the tone. He wanted to show off to
the staff. Thus could a Professor Langfeldt address
a blameless old man. He knew the staff would say
nothing. The staff consisted of four doctors and
many nurses ; they would be quiet. It was said at the
hospital that the staff was there "in order to learn."
The professor was master, he could take whatever
tone he wished-and also be the teacher.
All right, let him !
 He!UMSUO( 101

In these things I have spoken of, certain aspects of

the whole setup left consequences for which the pro
fessor surely need not be blamed. I have no interest
in suggesting anything else. Thus there could be
mentioned the man's whole position as director and
host in his clinic, innkeeper without respite to a
hundred more or less ill guests and with a huge
number of men and women working under him. It
would no doubt have tried the nerves of many
a university professor. And I concede that there must
be a good deal of strictness and discipline, perhaps
also a ((bellow" now and then mixed in in order to
maintain obedience in that building at Vindern.
On the other hand, the professor may not dismiss
complaints about actions and decisions which he is
personally accountable for. Among these I count his
determined effort to summon my wife to the investi
gation and to use her statements against me, to record
her testimony and then permit it to be circulated
among lawyers and clerks in the various offices of the
court. Professor Langfeldt has no reasonable excuse
for that. Which my wife to a large extent does. She
had lived for months in the silence of prison. Now
she sat here, understandably enough, in a state of
nerves and talked freely. Her listener was a great
official personage. He had a stenographer with him
to take down her words.
I do not think I complain about nothing. The pro
fessor had repeatedly been after me for information
about my "two marriages." I refused finally to give
him an answer. The last time he questioned me in
writing. In my brief answer-also in writing-! said
1 02 00( O VERGROW(]( 'PA 'THS

of my marriage : I could shriek for fear of getting

involved in something behind my wife's back when
she is just as much arrested as I !
Was that plain talk ? It was not myself alone I
wished to conceal. But the whole enormity.
But the professor was not at a loss : with the
attorney general's help he has my wife moved from
the prison at Arendal to the clinic at Vindern in order
to examine her. The result may be read by who
ever pleases, by the whole public, in the big dossier.
I was a person who had somehow got into the
unthinkable position of being confined in a mental
clinic for observation. Professor Langfeldt could do
with me just as he pleased-and he pleased much.
It is my belief that if he had considered in advance
exactly what he had in mind to do, he would perhaps
have given up his plan. I kept my wife and my mar
riage out of it for several months, and I firmly be
lieve I was right. What would it finally have come
to ? Would any person or anyone's domestic life
including the professor's-remain untouched? It is
usually the relatives who suffer, it is usually the chil
dren who must pay ; finally, there is usually a cer
tain limit which decent, educated people refrain from
going beyond.
At the time my wife's presence was required, it
would have long been clear to the professor that I
was not mentally ill. What then was the purpose
of calling her-except curiosity and scandal ? Does
the professor maintain that the examination would
have taken another course without her contribution?
 He!l:MSUO( 103

Does he maintain that without her contribution I

would perhaps have been declared mentally ilE
The evidence is available. Maybe it will be ex
amined sometime.
I think even now that the professor's methods are
indefensible. From the very beginning of his inter
view with my wife he could have hit on a more for
tunate procedure. When he saw and heard how things
stood he could have got up and turned over the
rest of the work of excavation to other hands, to
the competent lady doctor. No such idea can ap
parently come to him, but the possibly too great will
ingness to dig up the faults in another person's life
might well have given pause to a more subtle psy
chologist. Professor Langfeldt knows in his heart
that he is hardly the man to delve into and meddle
with intimacies in someone else's marriage. He is too
solid and foursquare ; his head is full of learned
things, and those things fall into categories, life and
learning.
I recall-not the same case, but one enough like
it from one of our neighboring countries, where the
professor not only resigned his academic post, but re
signed all his offices at his asylum and was transferred
to another.

Back to the old people's home.

These are trifles I write about, and trifles that I
write. What else can they be? I am a remanded
1 04 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'I'HS

prisoner housed in an old people's home, but even if

I sat in prison I would not have greater things to
write about than here, maybe lesser. All prisoners can
only write about the eternally everyday occurrences
and wait for their doom ; nothing else is left them.
Silvio Pelico sat in an Austrian jail and wrote about
the little mouse he had adopted, his foster mouse.
I write something of that sort-for fear of what
could happen to me if I wrote of something else.
We have now among other things a certain rooster.
The first time he tried to crow, it was a serious mat
ter. He had not once intimated that he was a male,
worried as he was that someone would come and in
vestigate. Now he executed some choice hocus-pocus
in his throat, then thought it over. He made some
more choice sounds, and got no further. The poor
thing was alone in the world and scarcely dared strain
his luck. Then he heard something in his throat. It
was appalling-and at the same moment he did it !
The little hens crowded around and looked at him.
What were they looking at ? He hadn't done it. He
was mortified and had to keep quiet, but no one was
going to get him to admit he had done it. Later in
the day it came over him again ; he couldn't hold back
any longer, it was no use, it must take its course. Oh
how boundless the world was ! After that he did it
often.
When he became a full-grown fellow and still
understood nothing, it happened that one day he
came to try out his wings. A hen looked up. He tried
out his wings once more, and the hen looked up. Was
 H.AtMSUO( 1 05

she making a fool of him ? There she was curtseying

too and mocking him, but he would not endure it.
Suddenly he jumped on her and bit hard into the top
of her head. And then a terrible furor followed,
feathers and down flying everywhere. And oh, how
boundless a world it all ended in.
One evening later he sat on his perch and slept.
Thorarin Sharpshooter -to the wars went, * and so
forth. But then a hand seized him and everything
turned black, boundlessly black.

It is raining, but only a drizzle, and I do not care,

I have an umbrella. I make my way to the shelter in
the woods where I have been before. It is occupied.
What's this? Yes, it is occupied.
"Martin ! " I say.
"Well, you recognize me," he says.
Martin from Klpttran on Hamaq:>y.
He is as he was the previous time. Unaffected and
getting on in years, perhaps with a little more beard
and hair. Not tattered but patched, mended and
darned. He carried his shoes over his shoulder and
walked barefoot. His feet were fine and clean be
cause he had walked in the rain today.
There is nothing reserved or strained between us.
We are old acquaintances. He says Dokker and du
alternately to me and is genial. "It's funny seeing
* From "Buesnoren," a romantic ballad by the Norwegian poet
J. S. Welhaven ( r 8o7- 1 8 7 3 ) .
t o6 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA THS

you again ! " we both say ; but "Thank God I find you
among the living ! " he alone says.
"I guessed you came to this shelter, so I sat myself
down. No offense ! "
"How did you guess? "
" I found these bits of paper. D o you want them
back? "
"No. It's only some notes I made."
"Songs or verse or something, I suppose ? "
"Maybe, but throw them away. Have you come
from the north ? "
"Yes, I've come from the north this time. And I'm
on my way back."
"You are still wandering around the country? "
"Yes, that's about the way to put it."
"And praying to God ? "
"You know, God i s merciful. I helped with the
spring farm work at a wonderful place. They had an
organ."
"Did you get anything for helping ?"
"No. That is, I got a sack of potatoes."
"Potatoes? "
"I had no need for anything else. That's a big
thing to get nowadays. Many countries are almost out
of potatoes."
"So you read the newspapers? Can you read with
out glasses? "
"Without glasses? I'm not that old. Yes indeed, I
read a little in the papers too. But we had several
meetings at that farm where I was. They sang beauti
fully to the organ."
 HeA:MSVO( 1 07

"Have you read about Truman in the papers? "

"No, that I haven't. Truman ? "
"Yes, the president i n America."
"I'm not up on all those things," he says.
"Have you read about Kirsten Flagstad? "
"Flagstad from Lofoten? Yes, that's something I
know about."
"But she is a great -singer. She travels around
every country singing."
"Well. No, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. Travels
around just to sing? That sounds fine."
"Yes. In big halls and churches. And many, many
thousands come and listen."
"Good God in Heaven ! But for my part I can't
sing. I ought to have learned how and gone out to
sing. I know God has given me the gift, it has to be
admitted, but what I sing isn't beautiful though I
read the notes. I've been sitting here looking at you
-have you tied up your galoshes? "
((yes, but I've got new galoshes."
((Well."
"Brand-new, never been on my feet. They dress
me up back home."
"I walked past your place-what's its name? Oh
yes, Nprholm. I went by it sometime ago. A big
place. But it hadn't been taken care of."
((I know."
((But there you see how all things come to pass in
this life that are not cared for."
"I know, Martin. What do you do with the po
tatoes ? "
1 08 00( O VERGROW(}( 'PA <THS

"The potatoes? What do I do with them r I bake

them in the ashes when I'm out like this. They've
made many a good meal for me. Haven't you tried
itr" he asks me.
"Oh yes, many times in childhood."
"They're good and tasty that way."
"Yes."
"I can't think of anything better when you've been
out walking a long time and are hungry."
"Have you been to Helgeland since lastr " I ask.
"To Helgeland? Yes."
"I wondered if you might have heard about the
schoolteacher who disappeared in America."
"No, he hasn't been found."
"That's hard on the family left behind," I say.
Silence.
"What was her name-Alvilder And two chil
dren."
Silence.
"Has she tried the Red Cross or the Salvation
Army r "
"She has asked them," h e answers. "They can't
find him."
"Tell me, Martin, why shouldn't she just move
back again to Hamarpyr There she'd be with her own
people."
He pauses a long time and answers : "She can't
move back home."
"Oh."
"She had an accident some time back. I shouldn't
talk about it."
"Accident? "
 H.,1SUO( 109

When he remains silent, I reconsider and ask no

more. I recognize the cautious way of speaking from
Hamarpy when a girl has had an "accident." And I
go on sitting there spelling and adding up and think
ing to myself.
"It's so strange, the whole thing," he says slowly.
"A little girl, oh a little angel of God, she was
sitting in the grass, but 'I didn't dare go any closer
and frighten her. The weather was so warm and fine
and she had only a shirt on and a blue ribbon of silk
around her neck. I never thought anything could
be so beautiful."
"Don't you have a picture of her ? "
"Me? Oh no. I didn't even go in and say I was
there."
"\Vhy didn't you go in ? "
"No. I only upset her when I come. It's so sad ; she
thinks it's my fault the schoolteacher went away,
because I was the one who lent him the money for the
ticket."
"Well," I say bluntly, "at any rate it isn't your
fault that she's had a little one."
"That's what she says too," he replies. "At the
same time she says it is I who have wrecked and
ruined her whole life here on earth."
We both fall silent.
"Getting lighter ! " he says about the rain and peers
out. "Here comes the sun. Getting lighter ! It's
brightening up."
I am sick of Martin, but I dare not show it ; I pity
him, he is so patched and darned. I could very well
110 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

call him my brother or my relation, but he would

not like it. So many kinds make up the world.
((I would have liked so much to know her name,"
he said. ((She sat in the grass and plucked at some
thing with her fingers. I would have been so glad to
know it at Christmas when I'll be sending them a
little something. I could have named her by name if I
had known it."
((Can't you write and ask ? "
"No. But you won't believe how pretty she was.
I've seen children before this, and they're all of them
pretty and in God's image, no denying that. But she
sat quiet and played by herself in the grass and had
never sinned ! "
His blue, slightly weary eyes grew moist.
((Who is her father? " I ask.
"Don't know," he replies curtly. "Maybe some-
body from around there."
"I thought only that then she might marry him ? "
"Oh no, far from it. She's already married."
"Did you ask her? "
"Me? What do you think ? Me-? But she blurted
it out herself one time that she could never marry
again."
"She's probably getting along in years now ? "
((Her? No, I wouldn't say so. She i s just as young
as before, she hasn't changed a bit."
"Well, Martin, it was nice seeing you again," I say
and fold up my umbrella. "I've often thought of
you. You are a true wanderer; you require so little,
and you only go wandering. Thus it is with you."
"Will we meet again, do you think ? "
 He!I0\1SUD( III

I want to avoid a grand farewell and do not

answer. But I say : "Don't you get tired of walk
ing ? "
"No. Well, i f I get tired I lie down. In the name
of God."
"Tell me, Martin, while I still remember it : Did
you know last year when I met you what had hap
pened in Helgeland ? "
He looked away : " I should not have said anything.
I ought to have kept quiet."
"But you knew it was last year? "
"Yes," h e says.
All this he has kept to himself, patiently borne it.
Had he been cowed? He didn't look that sort, only
pleasant and kind.
"Martin, I don't make you out. But it isn't right
of her to blame you for what she's got into. Not right
at all."
"Things haven't been easy for her," he replies.
"She's neither a widow nor anything else. Yet she's
supposed to live together with people."
"I see that you want to bear the whole burden,
but I don't understand it."
"Burden ? I am given a helping hand," he says. "I
go to God with all my troubles. Otherwise things
would really have turned out bad for me. I pray to
God not to desert me. That's what you should do too.
Give thought to it at your age."
"What will you do with yourself when you leave
here? "
"I'll go get my knapsack which I left at a house. I'll
change into good clothes for tonight when I go to
112 00( O VERGRO WO( 'PA'I'HS

the meeting-oh, a big building with many windows.

There'll be lots of people for sure."
"I wouldn't be able to hear anything if I came."
"No. But I'll remember you when I am standing
there. I would be so happy if I really found God
tonight. With an old friend. Since we are both from
Hamary and old acquaintances-"
It was summer and sun. Each went his way, but I
had it in mind to go to the meeting. I wanted to sit
by the door and watch.
Dear, good Martin from Klttran, who go walking
there ; you have a flower blooming within you, a tiny
little flower of a sin inside you : your unrequited
love for the maid Alvilde, who would never look on
you with favor. But some day you will learn that
Alvilde has married that man from around those
parts. There is no helping it, you will have to take
the blow. And you will go to God then, too, and say
that things had not been easy for her.
On the way home I thought it all out more thor
oughly. I did not have other clothes, but I wanted
to remove my collar in case someone should recog
nize me and wonder over a deaf man's coming to a
meeting. I would put a dark tie around my neck, and
I would not take my cane, which was too light in
color.
He had not mentioned his almanac this time, I
thought. That was typical ; there was no longer any
hope of getting an almanac read ; time had rushed
past the writer and his deeds, new things had hap
pened.
 HeJl(Jl1SUO( I IJ

I could not help noticing his foolishness ; he had it,

but I would rather call it his simplicity, his childlike
ness. When he mentioned the child who sat in the
grass and never had sinned, he was a saint, an instru
ment of God. He was himself free of sin.
I had no trouble finding my way to the meeting
house ; on fences and telephone poles had been put
up posters carrying two 'names : "Simon Trostdahl,
Student of Theology and Young People's secretary,
and Martin Enevoldsen." Both names seemed to be
well-known in these circles. "Meeting tonight.
Everyone welcome." There were many people inside
and out ; all the windows were open, and several
people stood outside listening.
A local quartet sang a hymn, and the Young
People's secretary began to speak. He was a capable
looking man, practiced in preaching on a selected text
and quick with his fingers in finding a new text if he
needed it. I cannot write what he said ; perhaps it
did not amount to much anyway. I did not hear and
merely sat and watched. He spoke for half an hour.
I kept my eye on Martin. He followed every
thing closely and looked happy. As the Young
People's secretary continued, he nodded his head as
though this meeting were going exceptionally well,
both in the hymn singing and the speaking ; he could
hardly have wished for better. He stood up, clasped
his hands together and moved his lips, and I sup
posed that now he was praying to God. I knew this
also from the fact that many in the congregation had
I 14 0 0( O VERGROW:J( 'PA'THS

also folded their hands and were taking part. Thus he

proceeded into the testifying.
He did not go by a text and it was mere chance that
he now and then placed his hand on the Bible on the
table. But he kept moving his lips, so he must have
had something to say. Poor Martin had never read or
thought much ; he could scarcely choose a topic and
develop it as other preachers could. He was as ig
norant as Jesus' apostles. Of religious experience he
had had the great moment in his youth when he sat
one time in the snow on a mountain peak and felt
a bright light from above shine through him. But it
was not a light ; it could not be explained thus ; it was
a whole heaven which descended ; it was God.
He used to say that he did not speak, since he had
no training for that. He merely prayed to God. It
was indeed, as he said, that he made himself felt. I
saw shining eyes among his listeners ; handker
chiefs made their appearance ; it was not impossible
that some took pity on this kindly, middle-aged man
who went barefoot through the land and needed
hardly any food. In truth, he was a man who could
get others to pray with him. He drew people to him
and they drank in his words and followed him with
their eyes. Once I saw him point to a picture hanging
alongside a mirror, but at my distance I could not see
what was in it. Then I saw him come to a stop for a
couple of little children who had gone forward. He
ran to them at once and greeted them in wonder and
delight. A mother had probably put them down from
her lap to be free of them for a moment, but Martin
 HeJI:MSUO(

had no objections to that. He lifted them both up and

prayed to God for them and became excited and
Rushed.
All this time I had had to get along without hear
ing any of the words he said.
But it all-indeed, what did it all amount to? It
was uplifting, they had had an uplifting evening.
For them it was all a living reality to keep by them
in the coming days.
When they took leave of one.another outside, they
came down a little to earth again, sending best re
gards home and so on. But now the Young People's
secretary took the floor again and wanted to add a
few words-1 saw that he suddenly had discovered
me, and that made me feel like crawling off some
where. He was a capable preacher, this Student of
Theology, as far as I could comprehend him with my
deaf ears. He was also quite winning in his manner.
"The unbelievers say it is an impossibility for
them to believe what we believe. They say it is super
stition, or simply our stupidity which makes us into
believers. And they count up many things in the
Bible which they cannot grasp with their reason. But
beloved, there live people among us who believe as
we do and simply cannot be charged with being
stupid, isn't that true ? Oh, great teachers and wise
men whom we know-we could name them name by
name-they are not second to Pascal himself. How
then are we to understand why these women and men
come forward and testify in writing and speech to
precisely this same belief which we have for our sal-
II 6 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA <J'HS

vation and blessing? I do not wish to make myself

out to know very much ; far from it. But I can in all
simplicity answer this question. It is the miracle. It is
with the help of the guidance of the Holy Ghost that
we attain this firm belief and certainty in our hearts.
It is the miracle which comes to us by the grace of
God. I do not know if I explain it well enough, but it
is nevertheless strange that the unbelievers continue
utterly indifferent to their own good. Their precious
reason should give them better guidance."
We were on the point of a new uplift.
Martin had left a long time before.

Was it last year or even longer ago that I had full

mastery of my faculties? I recall it as in a vision. In
the mornings I would hop about untiringly from one
moment of well-being to the next, and if I had writ
ten a little during the night I would hop about still
more and thank heaven for being alive. But no more.
I am not in an old people's home to cause a stir.
But as for that, I do not know what I am here for.
News for the twentieth time about my "case" : June
3 I read in the papers that my case was now com
pletely drawn up and that the documents had all
been sent to the district court in Grimstad for judg
ment. A little later the papers said that the district
court in Grimstad had not received any documents
and that my case had been postponed until the fall.
After 1 947 comes 48, 49, 50 - 6o -
 He!l."M.SUO( I1 7

I see a flag at half-mast. Someone is dead, but it is

not me. It is not anyone else among us either ; we
have endurance. We fritter away our daily lives and
commit no follies, oh no. On the other hand no little
trifle is to slip by us on the sly ; then we do grumble.
We do not fail to note who goes out and who comes
in, who has whittled himself a new stick, who has
bought a new mouthpiece for his pipe. But when it
gets to the point where the neighboring hound
howled in the night, then we grumble indeed.
I am sure I have mentioned that one of our two
beauties who sat downstairs and kept the books de
serted us last year. None of us had the power to hold
on to her. But now even the other beauty has gone
and left us. It is a hard blow. There is nothing to do
about it, but it is no less outrageous for that. They
were both very good about bringing me my news
papers, and when they went back they left behind a
blushing smile down the whole stairway. But we can
not any of us reproach ourselves, for we did all we
could to keep them. There is no question that we
younger fellows who are not even bedridden ought
to have done the trick, but then along came some 96-
year-old who got up from his bed again and ruined it
for the rest of us. Was that any way to do ! And he
had also gone and wrapped a thick woolen scarf sev
eral times around his throat because it had a little
red in it.
We sit outside on the big balcony on the second
floor which is for our use, and we make ourselves
comfortable and smoke and putter with this and that.
II8 00( O VERGROW[]( 'PA THS

We are in good spirits and our tongues cannot stop

wagging, for it is such enchanting weather as we have
never seen the likes before. It has not rained down on
us for weeks and months, the grass is scorched, there
will be shortages this winter, the gardens lie panting
for air, the potatoes do not come into flower.
But it is not these things we are busy with now
adays. It has been several generations since we were
young. According to what we now see being at
tempted, we debate about the long stairway which
goes down from the balcony to the courtyard : how
many steps it has, who can go down it without a cane,
who can take two steps at a time. We have some
pretty active fellows among us, young swains of
seventy or eighty who claim they have begun to get
freckles again across their noses like when they were
boys. One has just had a birthday and had got the
lady in charge to put a sharp crease in his trousers.
Oh well. But it made bad blood. He would often
come shuffiing up carrying a miserable worn-out
briefcase with a zipper, as though he were here on
business. A show-off. What did he think he was doing
getting all dressed up with a briefcase and jangling a
lot of keys in his pocket ? Entirely out of place here.
And besides that, shiny shoes in the middle of the
week and his cap at a rakish angle without its being
Sunday or anything.
Right now he must have been bragging wildly
about something, for the others will not believe him,
are far from believing him, but they shake their heads
and laugh right in his face. Finally he snubs them and
leaves.
 HelltM SUO( 1 19

Still it is not a break for the rest of life, absolutely

not ; there were no hard feelings really on either side.
Actually the man is quite well liked ; he is indispen
sable ; there is no one like him to explain incredible
things about earthquakes and heavenly bodies and
atom bombs. When an airplane flew by, he could tell
exactly how it looked inside.
"You don't mean there's people on it ? " they said.
"Mean it? " he said. "A rowd of them."
More disbelief: "We don't see a soul."
He turned his eyes toward the plane : "To judge by
its weight in the air, I'd say there are some fifteen or
twenty people aboard."
"Ha ha. Beg your pardon, but where as those per
sons then? Are they all huddled up under the
covers? "

I know that I must not bother anyone with my specu

lations and recollections and perceptions ; I cannot
stand it in others. But my head sings with them, or
perhaps it is my body or my soul singing thus. It is
not the beginning of a cold or something I can cure
by putting on more clothes or taking them off ; hush,
it is something angelic, with many violins. That is it
exactly !
And shortly afterwards, something else is exactly
right. It is either verse or chaos, but it sings. An an
noyance to me and to others.
When I have wearied of myself and am empty and
feel useless, I go to the woods. It does not help, but
1 20 00( O VERGROWIJ( 'PA 'THS

neither does it make it worse. I cannot hear the mur

mur of the trees any longer, but I can see the branches
swaying, and even that is something to be thankful
for. I have this place to myself ; it is the same one
that my friend Martin from Hamar9)y discovered. It
is a kind of hollow or grotto beneath a crag with a
little grass and heather at the bottom. No one can
approach me here fro, n the back and watch what I am
doing. That 1s a virtu..: for someone who does not
hear.
How broad your hands, how strong and broad they
are,
The hands of woman born for working hard.
I see you as good Spirit of the Days-
you cut and bound the grain as in a race,
And with potatoes you were best by far.

You read no books, and you indite no dream,

But in your hour you are without compare.
For then so tender, bountiful you seem,
Immersed in life, while all your senses teem,
You plumb the depths and show life's wonder there.

I saw how you ennobled all your years

When you your children's nurse and guide became.
You nurtured, you caressed away their fears ;
God's peace, woman first among her peers !
How broad your hands, your hair so white with years,
And yet your smile is to this day a flame.
I saw later that this had not turned out so bad,
really. There are many who write no better verse.
But naturally I run down at the end ; I skip over
 H.AiMSU/J( 121

lines, have some i n excess and must leave others un

used. I am no Robert Burns. Oh, I know it well
enough and get hold of either too much or too little
and become troubled and desperate and tear up the
grass by the roots where I am sitting. Now Arild will
type this also and include it or discard it, whichever
he thinks best. I am just as pleased either way. I am
well enough used to discarding my scraps of paper,
having discarded them over the years, discarded, sal
vaged, and discarded again. These last verses I have
worked over for three days, discarding and salvaging
in my grotto. And I have had to be as wary as a smith
when beautiful but irrelevant lines have threatened
all the rest.
We are a few comrades sitting together. I have just
had a collection of verses published and have for
tunately not had to hear anything about them. But
then in comes Daniel saying : "There's no tencl.:rness
in your verse ! " I suppose he thought that was some
thing I had not known. But not at all. He was en
tirely right. And it was not only tenderness that was
lacking but all too many other things as well, the
whole kit and caboodle. I can see it in others, and I
can be moved by and burst into tears over the poetry
of others, but I cannot myself compose it. I receive
many blessed gifts from on high, but I reason them
all to pieces. All I need to do is touch them, disturb
the dust on the petals.
I do not recall whether it was Kpnig* or someone
* K nig, Christian K!i!nig, a d i rector of the Norwegian publish i n g
firm of Gyldendal.
IZ2 0 0( O VERGROW{)( PA THS

else who spoke to me about publishing a collection,

but after all it was stupid of me. Daniel was not so
far wrong ; it is just that he wants to be so high-toned.
All his life he had been upperclass, he said. Each has
his cross to bear, and that was his. Now no doubt he is
dead too.
And I go walking in the woods composing verses
even though I was not made for it. That is my affecta
tion. I am annoyed with myself about the collection,
but it cannot be undone. If anyone should set him
self to searching through it he might come across
gleams, but in any event only gleams. And I remem
ber also how indifferent I was about it, not bothering
to select, but picking up several pages at a time and
placing them in a big envelope and sending them to
K16nig.
Several years later I stood in the cellar of a hotel
in Bod\6 and burned up all the verse I had written.
And that was that. Pardon me, many years later I
stood in the cellar of a hotel in H16nefoss and burned
poetry for the last time. I do not remember any
longer the names of my hosts at these places, but they
helped stir up the ashes. Selah, saith David.
Now I should not wish it to be inferred that I am
so well stocked. No, no. But what I burned was
scarcely better or worse than in the collection. And
for t hat matter, all my poetasting has occupied me
and given me pleasure while I have been at it. Th re
could be good moments, there could be gleams.

*
 He!liMSUO( 12J

I t was reported i n Verdens Gang last summer that my

case was to come up in September. Three days later
another paper said that my case would not come up
in September. No one knows anything, but they all
think it is great fun writing about it. Why can't they
be still about me and my case r
The same sunshine, the same drought. I take my
daily walk around in the countryside and see how
everything is scorched. It is an evil miracle. The
woods are bad off and parts will surely have to be
replanted ; the heather is without flowers for the bees.
Has it happened beforer The bees put down in the
old places, look around, buzz a little, and fly home
agam.
I come to a drop in the road. I dread this awful
place and keep to the opposite side. Over a long per
iod of time stones and trash and rags and refuse of
all kinds have been dumped here ; at the worst point
the curbstone has also been overturned. All right.
But on the way back it is I who have the outer side of
the road and have to risk my life. It annoys me that I
get dizzy and frightened and am a born coward, and
today I am determined that for once I will stand and
look down. I shudder and proceed, but I force myself
to go still closer and look down.
Oh, I went too far-
Nothing serious : I did not roll over but like a
coward slid down the slope on my back, then came
to a stop.
Oh, not at all serious. I looked about. From where
I was sitting was no longer so abysmally far to the
1 24 00( OVERGROW!J\. 'PA <J'HS

bottom, not bottomless after all. I felt rather pleased

with the lake far below, despised it a little, looked
down on it. It was by chance that I had landed here,
and I was in no mind to let chance have the victory. I
pretended that I was extremely busy poking around
in the rubbish ; here were interesting things, bits of
steel wire and bones and a dead cat and tin boxes.
Should someone in a car stop up there on the road, he
was not to suppose that I had tumbled down ; I would
show him that I was looking for something, that I
was looking for some important pieces of paper which
had been blown out of my hand.
A paper sticks up out of the pile, a corner of a
newspaper. I try to pull the whole paper to me, but
without success, and I am left sitting there with a
torn piece of paper in my hand. Since I do not have
my glasses along I cannot read it, but it seems to be
in black letter, hence a local paper. I pocket the scrap.
Now to get back up to the road again. If there
should be a driver up there, I am not going to give
him the pleasure of seeing me scramble up the slope.
I will proceed close-hauled and will tack. Oh, I have
not made the trip entirely in vain. I have got a bit of
booty in my pocket ; chance has not won.
I get back to the home a little done in, but that is
my affair. Naturally the booty could have been richer,
but that is nothing to grumble over. For that matter
maybe the booty is not so wretched when I have got a
look at it. It was a scrap of newspaper without be
ginning or end, a rather long text, but unfortunately
so badly torn that it had lost any meaning. So far as I
could understand, it had to do with a man and his
 Hdii\ISU['(

wife who could not get along ";th each other, a

rather ordinary situation from the life of artists. I
could have thrown away the paper, but I wanted to
have something for having taken it home. In any case
I took care not to dramatize the episode. Here I sat
with the power to do as I pleased. I could simply
reconcile these two people, these rascals. It lay in my
power. Go home and make up

"Can't you get that child to be quiet for once "

"You know I can't."
"That's all the good I have of you "
"You try hushing her."
"But I was to get this drawing finished without
fail. There's twenty-five kroner at stake, don't you
see ? "
"That's not even enough for the rent."
"Oh, you're impossible to talk to. You deh me
from the start and wear me out."
"How long have you been working on this draw-
ing ? "
"Since last year. Now I'm going out."
"Oh no, you won't. I'm going out with the wash.''
"All right, then, go."
"And leave the child behind here ? And I about to
have another "
"There's no sense to it."
"I'll soon be sick of everything.''
"You won't be the onlv one."
''Think of it-another child. And I so young."
 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'fHS

"Listen, Olea, perhaps if I went to another paper

they would give me more."
"Perhaps."
"But it isn't finished."
"Sit down then and get it finished. And I'll try to
calm her."
"Good. I'm erasing St. John's head on a platter.
That wasn't too good."
"No."
"What do you know about it? But I'll take it out
anyway."
"Then maybe you'll have room for a stable and a
manger."
"What? "
"Hush, hush, you frightened her."
"You're out of your mind, Olea."
"I thought maybe in the corner. Toward the mar
gin."
"Ha ha ha. But that's the royal palace there. In
Jerusalem."
"Well, I didn't know that, but it was nice as it was.
With many colors. It would have been fine for a
Christmas issue."
"Olea, you'll be the death of me. Did you say
Christmas issue? "
"Yes."
"I hadn't thought of that."
"No, you don't think of anything. You only draw
and erase."
"I can't get it the way I want it. I am an artist."
"Yes. And I do the washing."
 HoA[MSUO( 127

"So that's your mood. But as for a Christmas

issue-"
"They pay the best."
"You're absolutely right. Where's the eraser ? "
"How should I know? "
"No. But here we must do everything i n one room.
And here I have to sit struggling."
"It isn't my fault, Frode."
"Be quiet. Have you realized that I've got to take
out the whole palace ? "
"Oh no, now don't exaggerate as usual. There are
many fine colors."
"A good idea ; I can let a little of it stay in for that
stable. Don't bother me, just let me go on. Will you
please go out to the sidewalk with her for a moment.
Then I'll call to you : Come and look at the stable
and the manger."
"That's lifelike."
"Yes, isn't it. But the whole thing is completely
wrong, as you'll soon enough see. It's the inside of
the palace, with a crowd of people. Herod's daughter
is dancing."
"I see that without your telling me."
"No you don't. And all these people, this crowd of
people. There are more than ten thousand kings and
tetrarchs and chieftains."
"Let them be there. It is said that there wasn't
room in the inn. Ow, stop ! You erased Herod's
daughter too."
"All right, away with her."
"You didn't always say away with me."
"Now what? Are you crying? "
128 0 0( O VERGROWD( 'PA'THS

"You could have let me stay in. I wasn't m the

way."
"But my dear Olea, you certainly could not be
dancing outside the stable."
"I could, too."
"Well, I see we'll never agree as to my art. But
I'm going to do another picture of you with hardly
anything on, only some gauze and a great many
jewels."
"It won't be as nice as this was."
"Much nicer. You still don't know me. I can make
precious stones burn, burn like flames. You will have
a triple necklace around your neck. But now let me
go on and finish the Christmas picture first. Actually,
I should have made a new drawing, but there's no
time now, and besides there were already so many
beautiful colors, as you said. You were good to get
her quiet."
"She has fallen asleep. A triple necklace-no, that
would be overdoing it. But I would gladly have big
earrings that hang down."
"Now I'll draw an ass here."
"If only I don't get too fat. For now I'm to have
another."
"Never you mind. Depend on me. I am an artist."
"Depend on you? No, you'll have to excuse me."
"Then you may do exactly what you please."
"Now we've begun to squabble again."
"I don't know what you're doing, but I am work
ing diligently. I work early and late."
 H.A:Jo.1SUO(

"Yes, and I work with the washing which we live

on."
"Olea, you have a big mouth for someone so small.
Now I shall draw in a simple family to be there with
the ass."
"I don't want to see any more."
"I don't understand '":hat you're so angry about. I
didn't take out all the people who would have seen
you dancing ; on the contrary, it's swarming with
people here and everywhere. And three of the princes
I have left standing as they were in all their finery to
be the wise men from the East. That ought to satisfy
you. I'm really getting along fine now and have
warmed up to the work."
"Well, I'm going now with the washing."
"No, wait a moment. I've only got to put in some
bushes and a few Lebanon cedars. You hadn't
thought of that. You should easily get forty for a
big picture like this."
"Me ? "
"There's no question you would get more than I
would. That's how it has been every time. For I am
too proud to stand there listening to those newspaper
people. Try The Star of Bethlehem, Olea. Better
that I carry your heavy washing, poor dear."
"Well, if that's the way you want it."
"Yes, I want it. For I am your own Frode, you
see."

*
I JO 00( OVERGROW{]( 'PA 'THS

I have wanted to write of many things in these pages

but have not done so. I have had good reason to fear
the worst and prefer rather to say nothing. Our life
and our times can go their way for all of me ; it can
all go. Here I sit.
Yesterday we flew the flag here at half-mast. It
was not I who had died, but a middle-aged man of 56,
and it was not on account of a so-called accident but
an everyday and ordinary cancer.
It does not signify. Probably he had his plans too,
but then he was stopped.
And we dotards light our pipes and putter about
some more.
It occurs to me that I have seen snekker* in a news-
* In this and the following two paragraphs, Hamsun, who was
inclined to be consenati\e in language reforms, makes reference
to controversial steps taken in .1\orway during the last one hun
dred years to rid the .1\orwegian language of foreign (chiefly
Danish and German) influences and to bring the vocabulary and
forms of the written language closer to those of spoken .1\or
wegian. Hamsun complains that the modern "reformed" spelling
of the word mekker ("joiner'') obscures the origin of the word in
mid-idkar (literally, "wood-worker") and hence also its mean
ing, as the older spelling snedker, retaining the original "d", did
not. He objects also to replacing the indefinite pronoun man with
en (literally, "one") , a change urged by some reformers on the
ground that this use of man, though common, is not authentic in
Korwegian but is essentially German. Finally, he notes ironically
that such words as sjalu and sjalusi (Norwegian spelling approx
imations of the French pronunciation of jaloux and jalousie) are
neither .1\orwegian nor French yet seem to enjoy unimpeded cur
rency in the newspapers, especially in connection with murders.
Here he feels is truly a case for keeping a .1\orwegian word :
skinsyke ("jealousy" ; literally, "sham-sickness") or even the older
spelling skindsyke, as in Danish and as urged, as Hamsun says, by
the Norwegian philologist Falk.
 He/l:MSUO( IJI

paper. What is a snekker? Of course it is not a word ;

it is not anything, merely letters on a page. It is so
plucked and emptied that it has nothing left of its
original content ; it has ended up as an invention by
journalists. I think it is a pity about snekker, which
had once been intended to be something more. And
now I myself will make an invention and restore
snekker. It will cost me only one word-if it is a
word : snididkar. There it is. Why shouldn't snid
idkar be a word ? Both roots in any case are Nordic
enough, and together they supply snekker with a
splendid content of common sense and meaning. I
have not always been so lucky with my inventions.
I used, to be sure, the word man and use it with a
clear conscience. I do not know whether it really and
truly is German, but it is an indispensable word for
us. Only journalists can avoid it and call it instead
en ["one" ] . I have never seen anything so empty
handed and helpless as that en, but I cannot any
sooner use to ["two" ] .
I have seen sjalu i n the papers, sjalusi ( murder) .
It is neither Norwegian nor French, but is supposed
to express an idea, a state of mind. We have a spank
ing good word for this idea in our skinsyke. I recall
that Hjalmar Falk wanted it to be spelled skind
syke and why? Because the Lapps in North Sweden
-

make use of a tanned calfskin [kalveskind] when

they go courting. What a man that Falk is as a do
it-yourself philosopher of speechways without the
help of Torp. The Swedes themselves have not
bothered about the calfskin, but have svartsjuka [lit-
I J2 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA'I'HS

erally, "black sickness"] for the idea, just as we have

skinsyke, skindd ["sham-death"-i.e., "suspended
animation"] , skinhellig ["sham-holy"-i.e., "sancti
monious"] , skinliv ["sham-life"-i.e., "half-life" or
"pseudo-life"] , skinfektning ["sham fight"] . Sjalusi
is neither one thing nor another. Merely an inven
tion.
As for that, in the final analysis it is perhaps utterly
inconsequential how we use language. Assuming we
can do anything with it.
It was Ol'Hansa whose idea that was and who
would take his stand for it. "Just look at selvlyd
["vowels"] and medlyd ["consonants"] ," he said.
"What good do they do us, assuming we can do
without them. They are like the wind that whirleth
about continually, as the Preacher says in the Bible."
Ol'Hansa has read many books and knows his busi
ness in various crafts and sciences, and what is right is
right. He had a little place with some land and some
animals, enough for himself and his family, no super
abundance but neither any daily want or unpaid bills
at the store. He managed very well. He was a jour
nalist when it suited him and frequently took pen in
hand, but in addition he was a great storyteller and
talker whom we sat listening to many evenings. His
philosophy was that mankind takes too many pains
to learn all sorts of unnecessary things which we then
have to make an accounting for. Let things go their
way and they will take care of themselves. Maybe he
was not always very strong in logic, "but," said
 H.;ltMSUO( IJl

Ol'Hansa, ((logic for its part isn't strictly necessary

either. I can prove it," he said.
((Good," we said. ((Begin."
((My neighbor came to me wanting to borrow a
cowbell. Well, he got it, but he didn't bring it back
and after a year or two I needed the bell myself for a
new cow I had got. Finlly I had to go and ask to
have my bell back.
(( 'I'm a poor man,' my neighbor said, almost sob
bing.
(( 'My bell,' I said.
(( 'God help me, don't you hear what I say r ' he
said.
((Where was the logic here f
((So I went out to the cow barn to find the bell.
Well, I found it all right, hanging from a nail and
lifeless-its clapper gone.
((I stood there wondering what to do. My neigh
bor had made himself understood without logic ; he
thought I would sue for the cowbell. Then it was I
who almost wept. Here I had a shamefully tight grip
on a man, but I did not use it and did not write about
him in the papers. It didn't occur to me to ; on the
contrary, I was deeply moved."
((you're an especially good man, Ol'Hansa, as
everybody knows. But what was that about selvlyd
and medlyd that you started with r "
((Oh, that. But that goes all the way back to my
youth ; I wasn't more than twenty years old, a cub.
If you're asked at that age about selvlyd and medlyd
you turn pale and cannot answer. It is one of the most
l J4 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

tangled up things you can get into. You have heard it

and learned it, but when at last you answer, I have
only to shake my head a little and you falter and say
the exact opposite of what you should."
"Tell us about it."
"In those years when I was still footloose I had
come to Gildeskiil in Salten and went to the county
commissioner for a job, which I didn't get. I poked
around in the neighborhood a bit and came to a farm
called Indyr. While we sat talking in the parlor at
lndyr, the pastor's wife came in. She was young and
pretty and everybody spoke greetings to her and
showed her to a seat. I got up to leave.
" 'Is your name Ole Hansen ? ' the beautiful
woman asked.
" 'Yes,' I bowed.
" 'The pastor would like to speak with you,' she
said. She looked at me and blushed because she had
come with this message and was young.
"The next day I went to the pastor and found him
outside on a bench. He wore a big straw hat and his
beard was gray. 'We happen to need a teacher in such
and such a place,' he said ; 'could you consider keep
ing a little school ? '
" 'Yes,' I said.
"He had me look up something in the New Testa
ment and watched out of the corner of his eye to see
how fast I could find the place.
"When I had read a passage, he said, 'You are
used to reading. When were you confirmed ? '
" 'Three years ago.'
" 'Of course you remember the Commandments.
 Huf:frfSUO( IJS

How many prayers are there i n the Lord's Prayer?'

" 'In the Lord's Prayer ? '
" 'Well, by that you mean that i t i s one single
prayer, which is perfectly right. Can you count? Nine
times nine. Seven times six. It is Christianity partic
ularly that you are to teach the children. Can you
write? Here is paper and pencil ; let me see-write
the word helliggjrelse [Sanctification] .'
"I wrote helligjrelse.
" 'The letters aren't bad, but you have forgotten
one g. No, my dear Ole Hansen, you don't know
enough.' And he started to get up.
"To ingratiate myself I wrote more on the paper
and showed it to him, several really long words. But
the pastor tried not to look at it ; he had set himself
against me. 'You write poorly,' he said. 'You spell
very badly.'
" 'Pardon me,' I said.
"He was touched by my asking his pardon, and he
didn't fail me right away but asked about singular
and plural, about consonants and punctuation marks.
"I answered as best I could, knowing nothing.
" 'Selvlyd and medlyd,' he said.

"It was dreadful. I was sure I had met the devil

himself. He got together his belongings, tipped his
big hat once, thanked me and left.
"I sat for a moment and then sneaked away. I
looked back at the windows and felt like a broken
man, nay a dog. Now of course he had gone in and
told his wife everything. 'And look here,' he'd say,
"look at the way he spells. It's the worst I've ever
I J6 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'l'HS

seen. And of selvlyd and medlyd he knows absolutely

nothing.'
"No, I did not know. I was j ust as well pleased ;
nobody ought to go about knowing such things. I
tried naming medlyd and selvlyd in reverse order,
but it didn't make me feel any happier or better, not
a bit holier in my soul. I could take or leave it.
What's the point of such nonsense? It's all wind. And
the pastor himself had a sharp, unfriendly voice, he
cowed me. His name was Daae, I remember.
" (yes but, Ol'Hansa, I don't understand-'
(( (What I am after? But I do. All these unneces
sary things which we're supposed to learn and then
hold on to the rest of our lives. Look at the journal
ists and how they do it. They don't use that kind of
parrot knowledge any more ; they make out without
it and are just as well understood. I saw today the
remains of an armchair which had belonged to an old
school principal. He sat in it till the day he died. He
had held onto all his precious drudgery for seventy
years, and now his children had sold his armchair.' "

What a shrewd dog I've been in all this ! I have

mixed together two j ournalists, Ol'Hansa and my
self, so that neither of us has said anything.

Time flies. Snow has fallen ; it is winter. At this point

I stop. No one knows how long I have sat here think
ing, but I got no further than that. I thought I might
 Helfill1S U IJ( 1J7

be able to say something fine and striking about snow

and winter, but I failed. Never mind. I awoke one
-
morning and found snow and winter ; that is all. No,
that is not all ; snow and winter are evil to me.
That there can be a season of the year altogether
unique in vileness ! The young girl speaks of it with
chattering teeth ; the wise ant flees several yards
down into the earth to gt away from it. It is all the
same to me. I have good shoes, but yesterday I read a
dispatch from the famine areas telling of children
without a crumb to eat, of children who have to be
warmed on their mother's body lest they grow stiff
with the cold.
And faced with that there is nothing one can say,
no sensible question to ask. The mountains lie yonder
in their full weight all to themselves ; the forest is
stone dead and utterly slain ; all is silent ; the snow
lies there and is white and kind ; the cold rejects all
idea of equality by birth and will not let mankind
have its say.
Time flies.
My "case" still has a long future ahead of it. The
agent from the War Claims Bureau can do no more
than he does. He reports publicly from time to time
that the case-no, it is not even "scheduled." In
October he hopes that it will come up "in the au
tumn." In November also he hopes to a couple of
newspapers that the case will come up "in the
autumn." In the autumn, he says ! That means waiting
through the winter.
In the meantime the agent has had a phone call
q8 0 0( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

from a person he can scarcely ignore. They exchange

a few words and agree that my case is no longer to be
postponed. I am scheduled for the sixteenth of De
cember in the year 1 94 7. One week before Christmas.
I walk about in my old people's home telling what
has happened-nay I skip about to everyone telling
the news.

The day dawns. The court is sitting.

Since I do not hear and my sight has become badly
impaired this last year I am somewhat confused. I
enter a dark courtroom ; I have to be directed ; I can
make out only a little here and there. Then the
prosecutor speaks, and my defense counsel, appointed
then and there, replies. Then there is a recess.
I have neither heard nor seen what has taken place,
but I am calm and observe more and more around
me. After the recess, I have the floor to present my
case. It is a little difficult for me in this poor light ; I
get a lamp, but I cannot see by it. I hold some notes
in my hand but try no longer to read them. It makes
no difference. What I said follows and is taken from
the stenographic report.

"I do not intend to take up much of the honorable

court's time. I have not been the one who has an
nounced in the press for a long,' long time, for days
and years past, that the whole roster of my sins will
 HeA:MSUO( 1 39

now be unr.olled. It was a man from the Claims

Bureau whose idea that was, a lawyer together with a
journalist. For that matter, it suits me well. Two
years ago I wrote in a long letter to the Attorney
General that I wanted to account fully for myself and
my doings. Now the opportunity is here, and I want
to do my part in seeing that the roster of my sins is
properly and honestly um:olled.
((I have observed well enough in the years that
have passed that those who have stood up and been
clever in court and defended themselves with a will
with j urists, lawyers and solicitors have had little
good of it. The verdict has in general not been much
influenced by the display of such talents. It has mostly
been in accordance with the prosecuting attorney's or
the plaintiff's brief, the so-called brief, a mysterious
concept I do not pretend to understand. I renounce
here and now any idea of being clever.
((I have, however, to ask pardon for my aphasia,
which causes my words, the phrases I have to hit on
by chance, to go beyond my meaning, and also to fall
short of it.
((For that matter I have already replied to all ques
tions, as far as I understand. In the beginning some
people from the police at Grimstad came all of a
sudden with some papers for me, which I did not
bother to read. Then there was the magistrate's hear
ing two, three, or five years ago. It's so long ago I
don't remember, but I answered the questions. Then
there was a long time when I was confined in an
institution in Oslo, where it was chiefly a question of
finding out that I was mentally ill, and where I had
 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

to answer all kinds of idiotic questions. So I can't

make it any clearer now than I have done all along.
"What tells against me, strikes me to the ground,
is wholly and solely my articles in the newspapers.
There is nothing else that can be brought against me.
For my part I can give a very simple and clear ac
counting. I have not informed against anyone, have
not attended meetings, have not even got involved
in the black market. I have not contributed to the
Front Fighters* or any other National Socialist
group, which it is now said that I was a member of.
Nothing, in short. -1 have not belonged to the Na
tional Socialists. I have tried to grasp what National
Socialism means, I have tried to understand what it
stands for, but it came to nothing. But it may well be
that now and then I did write in a Nazi spirit. I do
not know, for I do not know what the Nazi spirit is.
.
But it may well be that I did write in Yhe Nazi
spirit, that it might have filtered down a little to me
from the newspapers I read. In any case my articles
are there for anyone to see. I make no attempt to
slight them, to make them less than they are ; it is
bad enough as it is. On the contrary, I stand behind
them now as before and as I always have.
"I beg to emphasize that I was writing in an oc
cupied country, in a conquered country, and in this
connection I would like to give some very brief in
formation about myself:
"There had been held out to us the prospect of
* Front Fighters, Norwegian Nazis who fought on the German
front lines.
 HiMSUO(

Norway's attammg a high and outstanding positiOn

in the great Germanic world-community which was
now in the offing and which we all believed in, more
or less-but all believed in it. I believed in it; there
fore I wrote as I did. I wrote of Norway, which
now was to attain this high position among the Ger
manic countries of Europe. That I accordingly had
also to write in a certain measure about the occupa
tion forces should have been in all honesty and good
faith easy to understand. I did not wish to expose
myself to being misunderstood:-which as it turned
out I quite paradoxically did nevertheless. I was sur
rounded the whole time by German officers and sol
diers in my house, even at night, indeed many times
at night even until daybreak, and sometimes I could
not avoid the impression that I was surrounded by
observers, by people who were to keep watch over me
and my household. From relatively high-placed Ger
man sources I was twice (as I now recall) , twice re
minded that I had not accomplished as much as
certain named Swedes had accomplished, and it was
pointed out to me that Sweden was a neutral country,
whereas Norway was not. No, they were not par
ticularly pleased with me. They had expected more
of me than they received. When under these circum
stances, these conditions, I did my writing, it can be
easily understood how to a certain degree I had to
strike a balance, being the person I was, being a man
with the name I had, that I had to strike a balance
between my country and the other. I do not say this
to excuse myself, defend myself. On the whole, I do
 00( OVERGROWO( 'PA THS

not defend myself. I offer it in explanation, I offer it

as information to the honorable court.
"And no one told me that it was wrong that I sat
there and wrote, no one in the whole country. I sat
alone in my room, thrown back exclusively on my
own resources. I did not hear ; I was so deaf no one
could have much to do with me. They banged on the
stove pipe from below when I was to go down to get
some food ; that noise I heard. I went down, got my
food, and went back up to my room and sat down.
For months, for years, for all these years it went
that way. And not once did there come a little sign to
me. It wasn't that I was some kind of fugitive. My
name was fairly well known in the country. I thought
I had friends in both Norwegian camps, both among
the quislings and the jssinger. But there never came
a little sign to me, a bit of good advice from the
world about me. No, the world was very wary of any
thing like that. And from my household and from
my family there was seldom or never an occasion for
my getting a little information or help. Everything
had to be transacted with me in writing, and it was
too much of a bother. I was left to sit there. Under
these circumstances I had to look to only my two
newspapers, Aftenposten and Fritt Folk,* and in
these two papers nothing was said about my writing
being all wrong. On the contrary.
"And what I wrote was not wrong. It wasn't wrong
when I wrote it. It was right, and what I wrote was
right.
*Fritt Folk, chief organ of Nasjonal Sanrling, the Norwegian
Nazi party.
 H.AOI1SUO( 1 43

ui will explain. What did I write? I wrote to pre

vent Norwegian young people and menfolk from con
ducting themselves foolishly and defiantly in the
presence of the occupation forces to absolutely no
good end, only defeat and death for themselves.
That's what I wrote in many different variations.
((Those who crow over me now because they have
been the victors have beeh victorious on the surface,
superficially ; they have not had, as I have had, visits
from families, from the littlest 9n up, who came and
wept for their fathers, their sons and their brothers
who were confined behind barbed wire in some camp
and now had been-sentenced to death. Yes, sen
tenced to death. Well, I had no influence, but they
came to me. I hadn't the least influence, but I sent
telegrams. I approached Hitler and Terboven. And
by devious ways I also approached others, for ex
ample a man named MUller, who was said to wield
influence and power behind the scenes. No doubt
there is some archive or other place where all my
telegrams can be found. There were many of them.
I sent telegrams night and day when time was run
ning short and it was a matter of life or death for
my countrymen. I had the wife of my handyman
telephone in the telegrams when I could not do it
myself. And it was these same telegrams that finally
made the Germans a little suspicious of me. They
regarded me as a sort of mediator, a slightly unde
pendable mediator whom they'd best keep their eye
on. Hitler himself finally turned down my pleas.
They bored him. He referred me to Terboven, but
1 44 OD( O VERGROW[)( 'PA 'THS

Terboven did not answer me. How much use my

telegrams may have been I do not know, no more
than my pieces in the papers had any alarming
effect on my countrymen, which for my part they
had been intended to have. Instead of my having
vainly engaged in these activities with the telegraph I
might perhaps better have gone into seclusion. I
might have tried to get myself over to Sweden, as
so many did. I would not have gone astray there. I
have many friends there ; I have my big, powerful
publisher there. And I might have tried to betake
myself to England, as so many also did who later
came back from there as heroes because they had de
serted their country, fled from their land. I did
nothing in that direction, did not stir ; it never oc
curred to me. I thought I served my country best by
staying where I was, tilling the soil as best I could
in the midst of those hard times, when the nation
was short of everything, and as for the rest using
my pen for the Norway which should now attain such
a high rank among the Germanic lands of Europe.
That thought appealed to me from the very start. It
did more, it enchanted me, it captivated me. I don't
know that I was free of it any moment in all the time
I sat there in solitude. I believed it to be a great idea
for Norway, and I believe to this day that it was a
great and good idea for Norway, well worth fighting
and working for : Norway, an independent, radiant
land on the outskirts of Europe ! I had been a favorite
of the German people, just as I had been a favorite of
the Russians ; these two mighty nations held out a
 H.A:J\1SUO( 1 45

protecting hand over me and would not always refuse

my requests.
"But my efforts did not work out well at all, not
at all. I was all too soon confused in my own mind
and fell into the deepest confusion when the king
'
and his government voluntarily left the country and
put themselves out of operation here at home. It
swept the ground right rom under me. I was left
dangling between heaven and earth. I had nothing
firm to hang onto any longer. So I sat and wrote, sat
and telegraphed and brooded. My condition in those
times was brooding. I brooded over everything. Thus,
I could call to mind that every single great and proud
name in Norwegian culture had first journeyed
through Teutonic Germany in order to win the ac
claim of the world at large. It was not wrong of me to
remember that. But I was reproved for having done
so. I was criticized even for that although it is the
least disputable truth in our history, our modern
history.
"But it didn't make things any better for me ; no,
things were no better for me. On the contrary it re
sulted in my being in everyone's eyes and hearts the
one who was forsaking the Norway I had wanted to
raise up. I had been the betrayer. \Vell, never mind.
Never mind what all those eyes and hearts now want
to charge me with. It is my loss which I have to bear.
And in a hundred years it will all be forgotten. Then
even this honorable court will be forgotten, totally
forgotten. The names of everyone present here today
will be obliterated from the earth in a hundred years
 00( O VERGROW[)( 'PA 'l'HS

and will be remembered no more, named no more. It

is our fate to be forgotten.
"Because I sat there and wrote as best I knew how
and sent telegrams night and day, it is said now that
I was betraying my country. I was a traitor, it is said.
Never mind. But I did not feel it to be so at the time,
did not deem it to be so, nor do I deem it to be so
today. I am at peace with myself, my conscience is
completely clear.
"I have a rather high regard for public opinion. I
have an even higher regard for Norwegian justice, but
I do not regard it as highly as I regard my own con
sciousness of what is right and wrong. I am old
enough to have a code of conduct for myself, and it
1s mme.
"During my relatively long life and in all the
countries I have traveled in and among all the kinds
of people I have mingled with, I have unceasingly
preserved and exalted the homeland in my heart.
And I intend to go on keeping my fatherland there
while I await my final sentence.
"My thanks to this honorable court.
"It was merely these few simple things I wished
to express on this occasion, so as not to be the whole
time as dumb as I am deaf. It has not been intended
as any defense on my part. What may have seemed
like it comes only from the content of my talk ; it
comes only from my having had to mention a number
of facts. But it has not been meant as any defense ;
I have therefore not hinted anything of my evidence,
to which I might well have turned. Nor have I men-
 HeAO'JSU:J( 147

tioned all the rest of the material which I might also

have made use of. Let it be. It can wait until an
other time, perhaps until better times and for an
other court than this. Another day dawns tomorrow,
and I can wait. I have time on my side. Living or
dead, it's all the same, and above all it's all the same
to the world how it goes for one single person, in
this case me. But I can wait. I suppose that is what
I will have to do."

After my speech came the prosecutor, after him the

defense counsel. I sat hours on end not knowing
what was happening. Finally I was handed a couple
of written questions by the court, and I replied.
So the day went. It turned into dark night.
It was finished.

A lot of letters and telegrams have come ; I heap

them all in a pile to open later. Some days go by ;
Christmas comes ; I move home to Nprholm and
see everything again. Strange to see it now, the
heath under snow, the inlet under ice, and the old
sky vaulting over it all as before. Nothing unusual,
but nevertheless strange to me.
After the verdict a quiet time follows with the
transcribing of the court proceedings and an appeal to
the Supreme C'Ourt. There will be waiting as before,
q8 Oq O VERGROV.:q 'PA THS

there will again be distant prospects, but we have ad

vanced, advanced one step.
I have resumed my daily walks from my days at
the old people's home. I walk a distance like the
one there and for a like time : from Nprholm to the
bridge over the canal and home again-one and a
half or two hours. It is no fun walking just to walk,
but it is no fun with anything else either. I am no
good any longer at working with my hands ; I should
have been dead a long time ago. \Vhat am I waiting
for
I get Arild to take care of the old and the new
mail. He sends thanks here and there abroad and dis
cards the rest. I do not count on having many follow
me to my grave.
All at once : I am not to be buried anyway, I shall
be nicely burned up, bag and baggage-with thanks to
God the Father for the life I got to live here on
earth !
Here I could take adavntage of a good opportunity
and express my ideas about cremation in general. I
have books ; oh, I could have been diligent and found
out a whole lot in my books about cremation. \Vhy
don't I do it On the ground that I cannot get hold
of my books. I have them close by, but I cannot get to
them ; they are in their own building down under the
ridge, which is wholly inaccessible in the snow and
winter this year. \Vhat a state to be in !
Am I not talking pure nonsense Can't I have the
snowplow driven down to the building? I have to be
thorough and precise and explain myself : the men
 H.A;J.fS U tJ( 1 9

have other things to do, the horses have to pull dung

up to the big moors, it is a long way and it is hard
to slosh through yard-high snowdrifts for weeks and
months. Sure, I could have the snowplow sent down,
but that would not be the end of it. There is also an
incline up to the building, and that has to be cleared
away by hand. Even that is not all : there are also
steps, big stone steps covred with many yards of
drift snow and these steps are without a railing,
dangerous on several sides, and I have vertigo and
hardening of the arteries.
Have I made my account complete?
It is another story in the summer. Then I hop on
nimble foot up the steps, for then there is no snow
to blur my eyesight.
Nor is my dizziness merely a pretext. I have had it
since I was a child ; it has been of no particular conse
quence, merely something of a nuisance. I read about
burly fellows clambering around church steeples and
sit on the edge of my seat. I stood beneath the Eiffel
Tower and held tight while I watched the elevator
a...<:eend to the top. If I am to step up or down a stair
I have to turn alternately once to the right, once to
the left. It has nothing to do with infirmity ; it was
that way with me for eighty years before I became
infirm. Dear me, how simple all this must be to a
medicine man I had an elder brother, a fast stepper
on the dance floor and in every way an ordinary guy
--only he could not stand any sort of height. He
would get dizzy bringing the sheep down from the
ridge in the evening. It was too high up for him.
 00( OVERGROW[}( 'PA<J'HS

Otherwise he was all right. He died spry and men

tally alert at the age o f ninety-one.

Alternately mild weather and cold, but night frost

the whole time. Nothing to complain about. Nprholm
inlet breaks up and freezes over again, and finally
freezes for good. It is January and Hilarymas and
winter is underway. Dark and short days, the news
papers empty for months, the breath o f people and
animals hangs like smoke and steam about their
jowls.
Then the time comes when three grown men go
out on N rholm inlet with a sledge between them.
They halt when they dare go no farther, chop holes
in the ice, and set themselves to fishing. They sit
until they ache, sit until evening and dusk, smoking,
freezing, and enduring. Now and then they fumble
with numb fingers into their pockets and take out a
crust o f bread. If they have the slightest thought in
their idle heads, they do not use it nor have they any
use for it ; they are patient and empty, they are
globules of nothing.
They arise and start for home.
They have no desire to let their catch be seen.
Only one of them has the power of speech ; ask him
a question and he scarcely replies ; look into the
sledge and he says no, there's nothing to see. It is as
though they are ashamed, and maybe that is not so
 HeAtMSUO(

odd : three grown men, three days' work, and these

wretched fish cadavers.
"Well, that isn't so terribly bad," I say of the
catch and am false from top to toe. "It could have
been worse."
"We're used to both worse and better," the rhetori
cian replies.
His comrades go on, , annoyed at his entering into
conversation with me.
"But isn't it cold out there ? "
"Sure, but what's to be done about it ? "
"No."
"It's this way, you see," he says ; "a meal of fresh
fish can come in handy for us."
Lord, I had not thought of that. And I am
ashamed and repent inwardly. A family. Children.
"Aren't you coming ? " the others call and turn
back.
I look at them. I can tell this much about them in
the dusk : they are mere lads, they have no family and
no children.

The things people can hit on for amusement in a

world laid waste in snow-the things grown people
can pleasure themselves with by the side of a road !
A lady appears in front of me on my walk to the
bridge. I had not noticed where she came from,
whether from a side road or from one of the houses,
but she was in a dark cloak and rubber boots, and
 00'( O VERGROW[}( 'PA'l'HS

it was a relief for my eyes to have this person in

front of me as a marker in the midst of that insane
whiteness.
After a long while she came to a halt, as though
she was tired of having me behind her. When I tried
to get by her, she held out a camera (or whatever it
is called) and wanted to photograph me.
I shook my head.
She smiled and begged sweetly, making a poor
mouth.
"May I not? "
"No, I have been photographed enough in my
time."
"I'm waiting for a bus," she says, "but there isn't
a single place to sit here."
I pull off my jacket and spread it out for her on the
snow.
"But-but that's crazy ! " she cries. "Will you
please put your jacket back on at once."
"All right. It's warm, though," I say. "Only I
couldn't find my straw hat when I started out."
"It must be several degrees below freezing," she
said. "Never heard the likes ! " she said and bit her
lip and looked at me.
"Going into town ? " I asked.
"Won't you let me take your picture ? I would
very much like to."
"Are you from a paper? "
"I ? Oh no, not a t all. It's just that you walked
behind me so long-"
 HeA:MSUO( 153

"I see very poorly, and it was good to have you

in front of me."
"Oh, was that it? "
"Is i t the snow you're going about taking portraits
of?"
"Well, yes. The snow on the trees. It is beautiful."
"This is your bus coming, miss, I suppose."
She only looked up and let the bus go by. But at
that moment she seized her chance to get a shot of
me.
That was being just a little too clever, and I said,
"How could you ! "
"Could what ? " she asked innocently.
I feared there would be more cleverness, said good
day and walked past her.
When I came back from the bridge she still had
not gone. She came closer and tried to make herself
heard : "Have you just been to the bridge? You go
there every day. That's what you could do. You may
do what pleases you, I'll do what pleases me."
She no doubt wanted to pay me back, and unfor
tunately I rose to the bait. "While you fool around
with your child's play here there are people nearby
in Europe who are dying of hunger. Do you know
that ? "
"I have read about it," she said.
"You have read about it."
"Well, what else can we do ? What do you do
yourself? Tell me."
I had to hold my tongue and look down, look
down to the ground. I do not know if I moved my
1 54 00( O VERGROW(]( 'Pil 'l'HS

lips to form a word for myself and for the othr

guilty ones. We are all guilty. We are legion in our
guilt.
A bus honks, she waves to it and gets in. It turns
out she is not headed for town-no, no, she went back
the same way she had come !
What was it that had moved within her? A noth
ing. And what comes of our puny little play-acting
by the roadside ?
She was probably a j ournalist or something. I have
not seen her since.

Open water.
It is March. And after the extraordinary weather
of February and March N1:1rholm inlet has already
begun to break up. There is more than that breaking
up, my friend, people are thawing out. Grundtvig
was right : We feel it in us, children of the light,
that now the night is over ! Have we not felt a quick
ening in our ruinous decay? We heard often enough
in winter of the vultures hovering over our old
home, old Europe. But wasn't there anyone now who
heard the gray goose early this morning? Spring is
here.
An old calendar falls into my hands out of a
bundle of printed matter. There was nothing on my
part that called forth this calendar from the dark
ness ; I began leafing through it, but I took in very
little. I come upon a picture of Verner von Heiden-
 He!l:MSUO( 155

stam.* All right, I turn over more leaves. Wait, what

was said about Heidenstam ? I turn back the pages
and read. We are the same age, born in the same
year, and we are both dead. And although only one
of us has become a specter on gallows hill, we both
served the same goddess in our salad days. But now
we are dead.
I turn over many pages at a time and I have done
with the calendar. Near the back was Schiller. He was
born the same year as we, only a hundred years be
fore. He is dead.
Napoleon appeared before Goethe. Was a shot heard
round the world then? No. They talked to each
other, but Napoleon did not have much time. When
he emerged he is said to have spoken appreciatively
of Goethe. There is a man ! That was all. It was
as though they had not met each other. But they
are dead too.
Why is it we do nut die !
Tacitus thinks we Germanic people know how to
die. And the vikings brought no shame on us in this
regard. Our still more recent creed makes it clear
to us why on the whole there is death: we die not to
be dead, not to be something which has died ; we die
in order to go over to life, we die to live, we are
in a plan. This same Tacitus praises us for not making
a fuss of the grave. We merely tumble some clods
of earth over us for the sake of the smell. He praises
us moreover for not wanting to have tall monuments
* Heidenstam, Verner von Heidenstam ( 1 85 9-1 94 0 ) , Swedish

poet and novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize in 1 9 1 6.

 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA'THS

on our graves. We disdain them, he says. He has not

taken into account our modest little lapse in mod
ern times.

Open water and signs of spring. The rationing of

electricity at night has stopped ; I can awaken when
ever I please and read, a great gift and blessing from
heaven. Since I am deaf and do not hear, it is not
tones and music that I sense within me, but I am
teeming with life and happiness and get many bright
inspirations, ho ! It is not that we shoot down any
big birds in the game. That is not what mankind is
to do ; that is an evil and foolish deed. That can
well be, I admit, but it has in any event no connec
tion with my next random thought : I once came to
a chapel, or whatever it is called, a Mohammedan
temple, but very small and quite dilapidated. A tall,
red-bearded man went and laid some rags down on
the ground, and on top of the rags some small stones.
Then the man got down on his knees. It occurred
to me that he was praying to God. Why did he move
the stones back and forth on the rags? I understood
nothing of it, but I restrained myself and did not
smile.
I come to remember that I once have gone to
the altar in church. It was when I was confirmed. The
pastor put something in my mouth, and afterwards
let me sip from a cup. There were many people
around who watched, but they restrained themselves
and did not smile.
 HeAtMSUD( 1 57

Why remember that now? I have n o earthly use

for it and there is no wisdom in it. It uplifts me
merely because I am happy and am teeming. Firing
at random I believe it is called.
A memory quickens within me from the years of
my first time in America. No, no great matters or
curiosities, merely a series of simple experiences
from day to day on foreign soil and in a little arid
prairie town. There was not even a stream there,
and no woods, only some scru.b growth. Things went
well enough, I worked in the fields for hardworking
small farmers, but I was affiicted with homesickness
and often wept. My landlady laughed indulgently ;
she taught me the English word "homesick."
After I had worked several months the Lovelands
could no longer afford to keep me. We parted regret
fully, and it was late in the day when I set off for
the town. I was in no hurry ; there was no road to
town, only a path ; I sat down now and then and day
dreamed. When the water flowed under the ice it
was not like home ; the little pulse-beat under the
ice was more delicate and bluer back home. Then I
shed more tears.
I heard footsteps on the path. A young girl. I
knew her ; she was the daughter of a widow in those
parts. The widow had asked me a couple of times
to work for her when I finished at the Lovelands.
"Hello, Noot. Did I scare you ? "
"No."
"I'm going to town," she said.
She was carrying a churn paddle that had come
off the shaft. I offered to carry the mechanism ; I was
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA THS

familiar with it from my childhood back home, and

I could easily have fitted on the shaft with my jack
knife if I had had a piece of dry wood.
She walked on chatting and talking the whole
time, and I had to try to answer with the few words
I knew of English. It was very disagreeable, and
I wished her deep into the earth.
"Whew, it must be a long way yet to town ? "
"Yes, I hope so ! " said the little witch and laughed.
She had nothing against walking along and talking.
We came to Larsen's workshop in town. It was
getting dark.
"Noot dear, now you'll have to walk me back,"
Bridget said.
"What ! " I gasped.
"It's too dark for me to go back by myself," she
said.
Larsen was a Dane, he too said I should go with
her.
So we set out on the way back. It grew darker and
darker ; finally we had to hold hands and watch out
for twigs striking us in the face. But it was a sweet
hand to hold.
"We forgot the churn paddle ! " I suddenly
shouted.
"It doesn't matter," Bridget replied.
"It doesn't matter? "
"No, I've got you with me ! "
Why did she say that ? I was to understand that
she had been taken with me and indeed, had fallen in
love.
 HeAtMSUD( 1 59

When we arrived, I was going to turn back at once,

but that would not do ; I had to have food, supper ; I
had to stay overnight. Bridget showed me to a small
room with a bed. In the morning mother and daugh
ter persuaded me to settle down and work a short
time with them, and I looked around the farm a
little. There were two mules and three cows. "There's
no help to be had," ' said the widow querulously.
For my part I was not used to working on my own ;
at the Lovelands the husband was alive and could
supervise me, but here it was only the womenfolk
to point out the obvious. Of course I could not hang
idly about ; I chopped a big pile of wood, and then
I got the mules to hauling out manure. The days
went by.
But the widow herself perceived that she would
have to ask around for better help. One day she
went to town herself and returned with a Finn,
clearly a capable worker ; he came from eastern
Finland and knew how to manage. Young Bridget
no longer seemed so pleased to have got me ; no, she
did not look at me any more and did not hold my
hand.
What an innocent I was ! But never again in this
lifetime would I put my faith in a woman's word.
There continued to be a great need for workers.
When I got back to tqwn a farmer stopped me in the
street and asked me to come with him. No doubt
he could see from my clothes and in other ways that
I was a newcomer ; I was not wrong, there was quite
a demand for my services. I went with the man, who
1 60 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA 'THS

had two big horses pulling a wagon, and when we

got to his place he set me right to work. I was to
dig a little grave by the edge of the woods ; the meas
urements were in feet. It took me no time, and when
I was finished the man came out with a little coffin
on his shoulder and placed it in the grave. That
took no time either, and when I waited for new
orders he motioned to me to fill the grave and lay
sod over it. Then he went.
But dear God, didn't he come back again ? No.
He worked at something in the outhouses and pre
tended to be busy.
I could not make it out, shuddered and felt bad.
The body of a child had been buried, that was all. No
ceremony, not even a hymn. They were young
people I had come to, but I could not talk and did
not find out what denomination they belonged to.
Otherwise I had nothing to complain about. Here
all was well cared for : house and farm, horses and
cows. Good earth, no children. My work went well ;
the man himself milked and took care of the animals,
I worked in the fields, and yes, the housewife was
round and fat and j olly. She taught me many English
words and gave me a little room with a window and
a bed to live in. Curious people, they hit on a way
of weighing me on a steelyard but I broke off the
spike and the steelyard came down on my head. I did
not understand all of it, but they made a fuss over me
and made much of my being so thin. When the house
wife went into town with butter and wheat and to
 HeA:MSUD(

make her purchases I was not infrequently sent to

drive her.
When the spring planting was done the man
wanted to keep me a while longer, and I stayed till
the harvest. That must have been sometime in I 8 8o
or 8 I. I began to feel more at home and more used to
the people. They were both of German descent ; their
name was Spear. We sh'ook hands warmly when I left
them.
A new man now approached me and offered me
work for the entire winter chopping railroad ties. I
did not think I should accept. The man then
offered me his own little farm in tenancy. When this
too seemed not suited to me, he tried to sell me on
credit a couple of horses and a wagon for hauling.
He was full of schemes and speculations, and I had
trouble getting rid of him.
One day in town I was offered a place in a store
as delivery boy. This offer I accepted. I carried pack
ages and boxes around town according to the ad
dresses, and after each round I returned to the
store. It was the biggest store in the place, with
many men behind the counter. The owner's name
was Hart ; he was an Englishman. We sold all sorts
of things, from green soap to silk goods and canned
goods and finger bowls and writing paper. Here I
could not avoid learning the names of all the wares,
and my vocabulary took a happy swing upward.
After a time my boss decided to hire a new man
for my job as delivery boy and let me have a per
manent place in the store behind the counter. I took
 00( OVERGROW[)( 'PA <J'HS

to wearing a collar and shiny shoes, rented a room

in the town and ate at one of the hotels. The farm
ing people whom I had become acquainted with
earlier could not get over their astonishment at my
rapid rise in the world. Young Bridget from the farm
also came to the store and observed my new station
in life and perhaps regretted to her dying day that
she had broken off with me. I do not know.
I understood clearly that she would like to get me
outside and talk to me. She said : "Dear Noot, would
you please help me with all these packages? "
"With the greatest o f pleasure ! " I said. I could
easily have given the new delivery boy a wink to do
the job, but I said: "With the greatest of pleasure ! "
in splendid response. So I personally carried out her
packages to the wagon and brushed the dust off my
clothes afterwards and inquired politely about the
farm and her mother and the Finn. Well, the Finn
had left and the harvest was all in. But now her
mother no longer wanted to struggle with the farm ;
she planned on selling out and moving into town
to set up a store for chocolate and cakes and soft
drinks. Young Bridget was delighted. They had
already arranged for a small place in bad repair for
their restaurant, a shanty that could be remodeled for
this purpose.
At this point my friend Patrick enters-Pat, an
Irishman, somewhat older than I, an adventurer,
comrade, and eccentric. Pat lived just as I did in a
little attic room in town. We often talked together,
suffered together from yearning for home and were
 Hdl:MSUO(

agreed on returning home as soon as we could afford

it.
Pat had perhaps been in construction work in
his homeland and now was not averse to being called
an architect. He went to work drawing up plans for
the restaurant in so many feet and inches and laid
much stress on having it all come out right. He had
got hold of planks and boards, and in my store he
bought nails and tarboard. Then he sailed right in.
We ran into each other about one thing or another
and saw each other every day ; now and then we
might have a dollar that the other one needed and
we loaned each other books. But our mutual book lend
ing did not come to much ; I did not know enough Eng
lish to read Paine's A ge of Reason, and he did not
understand J. P. Jacobsen's Marie Grubbe, which I
had bought by mail from Chicago. Those were
young, uncertain days of hard work, but we never
once forgot that we wanted to get away from this
land and return home ; wept over it, too, in private
and felt sorry for ourselves.
Imagine young Bridget's not throwing herself pros
trate upon the ground and wailing when her child
hood home was sold ! It had a little path down into
the woods, and in the trees in the woods were song
birds which were now left behind. And there was
spring and flowers and heaven's sweet rain and the
waving grain on a summer's day ; had Bridget for
gotten all that ? And the brook that ran so prettily
across the earth, it too was sold. Lord God Father,
the brook has been sold ! And the house meditates
 00( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

and understands what has happened ; the unpainted

walls look reproachfully at her. She should have laid
her cheek against the wall and never gone away
from it.
"We don't understand the people here," says Pat.
"That's what makes it so unpleasant for us. I worked
last year on a farm in Wyoming. The man used to
pore over printed brochures and advertisements that
he got in the mail ; one day he walked up and said :
'I'm leaving now ! ' And he took his family and went
to Florida. Gave up his farm in Wyoming and went
to Florida."
"No, Pat, we don't understand the people here.
We must get away."
"But Bridget is a sweet girl," says Pat.
"What do you mean by that ? " I ask.
"She is a sweet girl. I'm doing some work now for
her and her mother. You don't know Bridget.
They're starting a restaurant."
"Oh really? " I say.
From that day on I began to have my doubts
about Pat and his longing to return to his homeland.
We talked about it and discussed it, and Pat, he de
clared himself j ust as eager to go home again to Erin
and recounted all its splendors and delights. There
were miles and miles of green meadows with cattle
and sheep and churches and castles without end.
I sat and listened and nodded that we had it like
that too.
But Pat tasted blood and contended there was no
other country that could be compared to Erin with
 HdtMSUO(

its long mountain ranges which went through ten or

twenty counties right out into the Atlantic. And great
rivers and towns and bays with ships sailing on them,
and processions with the cardinal at the head.
I nodded to much of this and said that we had it
like that too. But we ended up bragging about our
respective homelands. <;;a ldhl)piggen, I said, and Lom
seggen. "At Lomseggen there is a church ; in that
church I was confirmed in 1 8 73," I said.
That fact, which might have moved a rock, did not
move Pat. He had got his back up and talked wildly.
He mentioned an Irishman who had invented a ma
chine that could fly in the air. And he boasted about
the basalt caves in Antrim-he was himsel f from
Antrim, he said, and the caves went right down to
the center o f the earth. Pure madness, exaggerated
patriotism. He spread himsel f out about his olive
groves and rose gardens and about the fishermen who
sat side by side along the rivers-
"Ha ha ha, fishermen," I said. So he hadn't heard
about our fisheries, about Lo foten and Finnmarkr
No.
And besides that, all the other things we have.
Were our great forests and our waterfalls to be held
in such low regardr Shut your mouth, Pat. Wasn't it
true that we discovered America five hundred years
be fore Columbusr And wasn't it true that our na
tional boundaries extend to Russia even to this day ?
"To Russia? " said Pat and did not believe me.
Very well. But the main point was that we both
166 0 0( O VERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

longed for the old country again. But I had my

doubts about Pat.
Doubts about Pat? Was he not suffering hard
ships here and living in an attic with a kerosene
lamp for light? If only his people knew that ; if only
his father and mother knew that ! But he had not
wanted to write and tell them, he who back home
had two riding horses in the stables, and here a slop
ing roof with a tiny window in an iron frame to raise
up.
"Do you really have riding horses back home ? "
"That surprises you. D o you know how many win
dows there were in the big house at home? Many
more than in the whole town here. And when I have
stuck my head out through the roof all I see is clothes
lines in the yard. You don't know how those clothes
lines annoy me crisscrossing one another with
clothes waving and flapping on them while I am up
there in my room trying to do architecture in straight
lines. But I'll endure it for Bridget's sake, for Bridget
is a sweet girl."
"How are you going to get home if you get your-
self tied up with a girl here ? "
"I'll take her along," said Pat.
"Take her along? "
"Sure. You didn't think I'd leave her? You don't
really know me. Simply take her along."
"That I'd like to see," I said.
But now everything began to go to the dogs. It
could hardly have gone worse.
The clotheslines belonged to Kleist the baker, who
 HelftMSUfJ(

also had his bakery on the yard. One night Pat went out
and took down all the lines and laid them neatly to one
side, but in the morning there was a great commo
tion. Kleist was an Austrian, Viennese, a nice middle
aged man, but he had no use for this prankishness.
They talked it over soberly and Pat explained him
self : it was no prank, b';lt a nuisance to him. "Can't
you stand looking at clotheslines? " Kleist asked.
"No," said Pat. "Ha ha ha," laughed the Austrian
and thought it a joke. And he tied the clotheslines
back up again.
But it became more than a joke.
As luck would have it, none other than young
Bridget, Bridget from the farm, came to the baker
for lessons. She was going to learn to bake all the
usual sorts of cakes and rolls and coffee-bread and
pastries for her restaurant. It was perhaps a smart
idea of the mother and daughter and would have
paid off, and for a time all went well, and not once
did Pat have anything to say against it.
But afterwards it went to the dogs.
The restaurant was now open and with great suc
cess. Pat the architect had made a building out of the
shanty ; there was not only a room with tables and
chairs for soft drinks and chocolate, but also an
annex to hold the kitchen and bakery, and above,
there were several small private rooms for the
mother and daughter.
The baker had his reward for having given his
advice in all this, but he went too far. Couldn't he
have held back ? He became too young. His children
168 0 0( OVERGROWO( 'PA 'THS

were grown and had j obs ; he began to be interested

in the young girl who wanted to learn his craft and
who was so qiuck. In any event he helped have put in
place in the annex a big stove with many burners and
griddles and made the annex into a cake bakery.
Well enough, but the old jack rabbit began to wash
clothes for Bridget since he always had hot and cold
water in his big basement, and when he washed the
dough out of his own baking clothes he could easily
include Bridget's. He had seen that she did not know
what to do and he wanted to help her ; that was per
haps a kindly thought, but he went too far and it
made bad blood between him and Pat. Kleist, you see,
also washed small aprons and bibs and handker
chiefs that could not possibly have been his own-
And hung them up on the clothesline in the yard !
Pat came to me in the store and wanted me to come
along with him. He was as pale as a corpse.
"You'll have to move and get another room," I
said to him.
"You can't be serious," Pat answered. "I must
have a view."
We went to the baker, and Pat wanted to buy the
yard, but he had no money, nor did Kleist want to
sell.
"What's the matter with you ? " asked Kleist. "I
wash and hang up the clothes. I've got to be clean and
spotless the whole day, don't you understand? "
"It's all those women's clothes you're hanging up,"
said Pat. "You swine," he said.
 H:MSUO{

"Can't you stand seeing women's clothes? " asked

Kleist.
"No," said Pat.
"Ha, ha ha," the Austrian broke into laughter.
As a matter of fact Pat was not much good at
asserting himsel f ; he merely stood there, his lips
trembling. Finally he threatened his enemy loud and
clear that he would go right to the point and let his
family in Erin know about it, and his family was
noble.
This did not make much of an impression on
Kleist ; he looked uncomprehending, then he bowed
and left.
"You'll have to move," I said to Pat. "You see this
won't do."
"I will not move," said Pat.
No, o f course not, he was not ridiculous enough
yet, not crack-brained enough ! I was very much
annoyed with him and let him know it. What did I
know o f this new side of Pat ? I saw only his comical and
frantic infatuation,-what had being noble to do with
it? It was perhaps something special in Ireland, but
I did not know what. I taunted him for having be
come so taken with his little farmer's daughter that
he had lost his head.
"I would go to my death for her," he said.
That was a bit much. "And you a nobleman," I
said at random.
"It's not me that's noble, it's my mother who is
noble," he said.
He took a letter from his pocket and showed it to
 00( O VERGROW.?( 'PA THS

me ; on the reverse side of the envelope there was a

little design in green enamel which he called a coat of
arms; in any case, it looked quite distinguished. I
was out of my depth and said nothing, but it confused
me. I teased him nevertheless about his two riding
horses.
He replied : "Dear N oot, you don't understand
these things at all. We have an estate ; that's why I
have two riding horses."
I understood no more than that.
But from now on Pat lay with his head up through
the skylight all day long and kept his eye on the
clothes down in the yard. He was past talking to ;
he was motivated by overwhelming jealousy and
seemed not to recover from it. I laughed at him, but
it did no good. His eyes became fearfully sly-look
ing ; no one was going to fool him, more women's
clothes might be put up but not a stitch would
escape him.
Completely idiotic.
It lasted as long as Kleist continued lessons in the
art of baking, but one day he pronounced young
Bridget fully trained and ready to bake cakes on her
own at home in the restaurant. Then came the cJimax.
Kleist was an old, good-humored Viennese. He was
far from being any sinister jack rabbit, but a master
of his craft and proud of his willing pupil. It also
turned out that he was not concerned about the ten
dollars he was supposed to get for his teaching, but
refused to accept it. He had his own good business
in town and lived well off it. And now after weeks
 HeAtMSUD(

and months he ducked down again into his ordinary

run of daily life, and nothing had happened.
But with Pat there occurred a great transforma
tion : he was no longer in love with Bridget. It was a
miracle, a miracle like none other: he was no longer
in love with Bridget !
He who had been so downhearted, so badly used,
he who had so recently spoken of going to his death
-how was it all to be understood ? It was plain and
simple: he no longer had anyone or anything to be
jealous of, there was no longer anyone crowding
in on him, and so his ardor cooled off, his vehemence
wore off.
Poor Pat, he had become thin and emaciated, for
he had not had time to eat. His guard duty at the
skylight had allowed him no free time, but he re
cuperated in a short time, lifted up his head and
stood straight, Pat did.
We went together to the restaurant. Pat did not say
anything. We had chocolate and cakes and paid. Pat
had no love affair to keep up now ; on the contrary,
he insisted on demanding payment. Mother and
daughter looked up in surprise. He was so changed,
a new side to Pat.
Payment?-for work performed, to be sure. But
couldn't he come and live upstairs, in one of the small
rooms he had built?
Pat shook his head.
Well , but why then had he built the small rooms?
"I want my money," said Pat. "I'm heading for
Wyoming."
Ij2 O q O VERGRO H"q PACJ'HS

They were extremely unwilling and balky. Bridget

was perhaps worst, she had been spoiled by her
fatherly friend the baker and had acquired airs.
I felt annoyed with her ; she had become too
clever. She swished about in city clothes now, but she
had looked on \\ithout sorrow when her childhood
home had been sold. No, she was no good.
"1 went past Larsen's workshop the other day," I
said. "The churn paddle is still there."
''\Vhat is still there ? "
"Your churn paddle. You haven't gone back for
it."
"\Vell, I never-my churn paddle-! haven't any
use for it-you can have it, Noot. Ha ha ha."
"So I'll have a little something for my trouble in
carrying it," I said.
"Hush, Bridget," said the mother.
"It comes to two hundred and forty dollars for
my work," said Pat.
Mother and daughter clapped their hands to
gether. "\Ve'll get an appraisal of the work," they
said and were short \\ith Pat. Oh, they knew what
they were doing ; they took their time getting the
appraisal, and Pat needed the money. Finally he
had to agree to settle for half just to get the cash.
"Gypsies ! " said Pat.
At any rate I was very pleased that he had broken
off with Bridget, and we sat together again and
talked over our future. Spring was now drawing near,
and we were intent upon getting home. For my part
I wanted to quit the store ; I had been there into the
 Ho!I:MSU[}( 1 73

third year, but the pay was small and did not amount
to anything. Now I wanted to head west, to the
prairies, where I would get my board and would
incur no expenses while I worked.
"That won't amount to anything either," said Pat.
"I'm going to Wyoming."
"What will you do there ? "
"Look around. I ca n sell that farm, you know."
"What farm ? "
"The one I worked on."
"But-was it really your farm ? "
"Yes, the man abandoned i t and went to Florida."
I looked at him speechlessly and thought: Did it
then become your farm ? Pat, Pat, you're a strange
one and an adventurer under the slcies ; now I am at
odds with you again !
"I can sell it anyway," he said.
"You have a right to it," I said. "You have pay
coming to you from the farm."
"Yes," said Pat and perked up.
"Plain and simple. You were up there working
hard and long and never got anything for it."
"Yes," said Pat.
I nodded that I could understand it very clearly.
"Then too you were there for a long time, perhaps
for years-"
"A year and a half," said Pat.
"Of course. \Vell, then there's nothing to stop you.
I'm glad you told me about it. Don't forget to give
me your address before you leave."
\Vhen Pat had left it was even more unpleasant
1 74 OD( O VERGROW[}( 'P/l'l'HS

for me in that town. He was an indispensable com

panion, and I missed him. I wrote to him a couple
of times but got no answer. Perhaps he did not have
time, perhaps he was already on his way home.
Finally at the end of my time in town, Mr. Hart
offered me a good raise in salary if I would stay. It
was too late.
I went to Dalrymple's farm in Red River Valley
and stayed there until after the harvest.

It is three years today since I was arrested. And here

I sit.
It has not mattered to me, not bothered me. It
has gone by as though merely one more event, and I
take care not to say more of it than that. I have had
practice in keeping quiet.
We are all of us on a j ourney to a land where we
will arrive in good time. We have no reason to
hasten, we take events as they occur along the way.
It is only fools who grumble at heaven and hit upon
big words for these events, which are more lasting
than we and cannot be avoided. Yes, friend, how
indeed they last and are unavoidable !
We have been having heat and summer for a long
time now, up to 74 degrees in the shade. Then sud
denly it shifts and the sky becomes crystal clear and
frozen. It is night, but I go out to observe. It is full
moon, but there is no moon. What is happening?
Everything is still, not a gnat to be heard. Two hours
 HeA.iMSUO( 1 75

later I go out again and see the moon rising over the
treetops.
There is perhaps no particular disorder in this, not
at all, but it is indeed bewildering. Had I been stand
ing high enough two hours ago I would have seen the
moon climbing up from the sea like a jellyfish drip
ping with gold.
Oh my permanently impaired faculties which make
me so stupid !
Naturally, I have hardening of the arteries, but
that makes no difference either, does not bother me.
When I want to put on airs, I call it gout. It is now
more than a year since I quit using a cane. \\7hat did
I need a cane for? It was merely a kind of affectation,
like setting my hat on my head a little rakishly and
so on. Was the cane any support to me r No. We had
become companions, but nothing more. When we
fell, we always lay far apart from each other in the
snow.
As might be expected of companions.
But my gout is of course terribly annoying. I do
not hear. What then ? But I do not see, that is worse.
I can no longer read a paper, a miserable newspaper.
Never mind. For that matter that is a kind of boast
ing too ; I can read well enough when I get strong
sunlight on it.
In Nordland we had something called "walking
sight," sight enough to walk by. When Maren Maria
Kjeldsen came walking, she still had her walking
sight, but she used a cane and had many infirmities
besides. Maren K jeldsen was a mysterious figure
 00( O VERGROW[}( 'PA THS

among us ; no one knew anything about her, but it

was said that she had once been a fine young lady,
daughter of a captain or something like that, but it
was only guesswork; she herself said nothing. That
she was high-born everyone believed, for she had
Kjeldsen as her name and no one else had that name
in our part of the country. When she wandered
around our neighborhood, she had one errand : to
beg for chewing tobacco for her toothache. In her
younger days she had got used to tobacco and could
not do without it. She chewed tobacco like a sailor.
She was in other ways a slattern and had no man
ners. But this person had the most beautiful hands,
like those of a young girl. Those hands astonished
me ; they were yellow in complexion, but very soft
and fine, never having been used to do anything with,
never especially clean, but so beautiful to look at.
Finally Maren Maria went on relief and became
the parish pauper ; she was then some seventy or
eighty years old. She could see to go her established
route between the farms without escort ; she had
walking-sight to the last.
It is good to have walking-sight for years and
years.

St. John's day, 1 948.

Today the Supreme Court has gtven its verdict,
and I end my writing.