Switzerland, make yourself at home; we don't want to rob you; there are no pickpockets at this table. Here's to you!"

But if that doesn't help, we shall have to roll up our sleeves and fight.

There are still Norwegians left in good old Norway, and our rival--is Switzerland.

Mrs. Henriksen brings catkins in a vase into my room.

"What, is it spring?"

"Oh, it's getting on."

"Then I shall be going away. You see, Mrs. Henriksen, I should very much have liked to stay, because this is really where I belong; but what more can I do here? I don't work; I merely idle. Do you understand me? I grieve continually, and my heart sits wrinkled. My most brilliant achievement is spinning coins: I toss a coin into the air and wait. When I came here last autumn I wasn't so bad, not nearly so bad. I was only half a year younger then, yet I was ten years younger. What has happened to me since? Nothing.

Only--I'm not a better man than I was last autumn."

"But you've been all right all winter, haven't you? And three weeks ago, when you came back from the country, you were so happy!"

"Was I? I don't remember that. Ah, well, things don't move so fast, and nothing has happened to me in these three weeks. Well, never mind; at all events, I shall go away. I must travel when the spring comes. I have always done so in the past, and I want to do the same thing now. Sit down, Mrs. Henriksen."

"No, thank you, I'm too busy."

Too busy! Yes, you work--you're not ten years older than you were last autumn. You think it's hard work to rest on Sundays, don't you? Dear Madame Henriksen! You and your little daughter knit stockings for the whole family, you let your rooms, you keep your family together like a mother. But you mustn't let your little Louise sit for twelve years on a school form. If you do, you'll hardly ever see her all through her youth, those formative years of her life. And then she can't be like you or learn from you. She'll learn to have children easily enough, but she won't learn to be a mother, and when the time comes for her to keep her home and family together, she will not be able to do it. She'll only know "languages" and mathematics and the story of Bluebeard, but that is not food for the heart of a woman. That is twelve years of continual famine for her soul.

"Excuse my asking, but where are you going to?"

"I don't know, but I'm going. Why, where should I go? I shall go aboard a steamship and sail, and when I have sailed long enough, I will go ash.o.r.e.

If I find, on looking about me, that I have traveled too far or not far enough, I shall board a ship again and sail on. Once I walked across into Sweden as far as Kalmar and even oland, but that was too far, so I turned back. No one cares to know where I am, least of all myself."

x.x.xVI

You get used to everything; you even get used to the pa.s.sage of two years.

And now it is spring again....

It is market day in the frontier town; my room is noisy, for there is music down in the fields, the roundabout is whirling, the tightrope walker is gossiping outside his tent, and people of every sort throng the village. The crowds are great, and there is even a sprinkling of Norwegians from across the border. Horses snort and whinny, cows low, and trading is brisk.

In the display window of the goldsmith across the road, a great cow of silver has made its appearance, a handsome breeder that the local farmers stop to admire.

"She's too smart for my crags," says one of them with a laugh.

"What do you think's her price?" says another with a laugh.

"Why, do you want to buy her?"

"No, haven't got fodder enough this year."

A man trudges placidly down the road and also stops in front of this window. I see him from behind, and take note of his ma.s.sive back. He stands there a long time, trying to make up his mind, no doubt, for now and then he scratches his beard. There he goes, sure enough, entering the shop with a ponderous tread. I wonder if he intends to buy the silver cow!

It takes him an age, and still he hasn't come out. What on earth is he doing in there? Now that I have begun to watch him, I might as well go the whole hog. So I put on my hat and cross to the goldsmith's window myself, mingling with the other spectators, and watching the door.

At last the man re-emerges--yes, it _is_ Nikolai. It was his back and hands, but he has got a beard now, too. He looks splendid. Imagine Carpenter Nikolai being here!

We greet each other, and we talk as he shakes me slowly and ponderously by the hand. Our conversation is halting, but we get on. Yes, of course, he has gone into the shop on business, in a kind of way.

"You've not bought the silver cow, have you?"

"Oh, no, not that. It didn't amount to anything, really. In fact, I didn't buy anything."

By degrees, I discover that he is buying a horse. And he tells me that he has dug that piece of land of his, and is turning it into pasture, and his wife--oh, yes, thank you for asking--she lives in health to this day.

"By the way," he said, "have you come here over the fjeld?"

"Yes, I came last winter. In December."

"What a pity I didn't know!"

I explained that I hadn't had the time to visit his home then; I was in a hurry, there was some business---

"Yes, I understand," he said.

We said little more, for Nikolai was as taciturn as ever. Besides, he had other business to attend to; he cannot absent himself from the farm for long, and had to return next day.

"Have you bought your horse yet?"

"Well, no, I haven't."

"Do you think you will?"

"I don't know yet. I'm trying to split a difference of five and twenty _kroner_."

Later I saw Nikolai going to the goldsmith's again. He seemed to do a great deal of business there.

"I could have company across the fjeld now," I thought. "It's spring, and do I not always travel in the spring?"

I began to pack my knapsack.

Nikolai emerged once more, apparently as empty-handed as he had entered. I opened my window and called to him to ask if he had bought the horse.

"N-no--the man won't meet my price."

"Well, can't you meet his?"

"Y-yes, I could," he replied slowly. "But I don't think I've got enough money on me."