Chapter 10
Over the entire village the autumn lay heavy with dark sky and humid air, and the clouds lay over the hills like a big, white curtain.
As he walked, Cand. filos. Daniel Braut looked at the cloud-covered hill, and the forest that dragged itself along the hills, tight and dark like the night, reminding him of his old hulder dreams: And he smiled at the heavy thoughts. (1)
It was good that he came from the city. There was no one here who would ask him for money. And there was no one here who could pierce him with eyes that shone with secret laughter because he had made himself a work horse (2) They have not said anything about it. But he had seen on the surface what they were thinking. Was it true that he had been with Pater omnipotens and got himself converted? Was it true that since then he had whistled at the theater and got himself drunk? But Ole Bentsen went about talking how vulnerable we are, and how easy it was to slide back.
Daniel had been afraid of his comrades. He had locked himself in and read for the examination, but he could not read continuously as he had before; he easily got a headache. And when he wanted to rest, there came uneasy thoughts like a swarm of flies. What if Pater got to know that he was not a “true Israelite”! What if Fram and Rud got to know that he had gotten himself “converted”! What would this good man say? And what will they say altogether? He had conducted himself in such a way that nobody could believe him anymore.
But the worst thing was that he had to report to Pater every one and then. He was afraid when he came and he was ashamed when he left; because here, with Pater, he needs to be converted ....
Never in his days has he had it so bad; not even when he was starving.
Up here at Stensrud it was better. But actually he was not safe here either. The thought of Hirsch nagged his conscience; and the thought of Pater kept him in eternal unrest. If Pater knew that cheating was involved with this Israelie, then the proprietor would get to know it too, and one could understand how it would go. It would be just as bad if student Stensrud, the son of the proprietor, got to know more than he should. Student Stensrud was the one who recommended Daniel for the post of house tutor; but student Stensrud knew Daniel only through Pater and Haugum; and if he found out that Braut was an old friend of Fram and a whistle blower....
One should be careful. The only thing that could save him if things should go wrong was for him to get on the good side of the proprietor before things went wrong. That is what he should do. And he went about his work as best he could to give a good impression.
He came here with the idea that he would repent for his sin against chaplain Hirsch through his work as a teacher; he would teach the two small Stensruds to believe in the spirit. But he soon understood that the proprietor did not like this spiritual method, and he gave it up. He would repent for his sin against Hirsch later; it was not for him to choose what he wanted now. So he began to conduct the class with the method that he had learned from kandidat Massmann.
Unfortunately there was little drive in the boys. They were heavy and lazy; and he did not like them. Working with them was like splashing water on the goose. As time went by Daniel slid back into the soulless method of the latin school: examined them in the lessons and was indifferent. But when Mrs. Andrine asked about her sons, the house tutor sid that he believes they were boys with good abilities. They had not yet succeeded but they will eventually get better. One could not reasonably defend a different answer to the mother, either, he thought.
Mrs. Andrine was the second wife of the proprietor; she was formerly the housekeeper with the old senior vicar. She was a good cook and managed the house well; more than that she could not manage; and nobody expected more than that from her. “The one who had grown up in such a house!” Daniel thought, “could have been a different person.” And if old Ole Johannes Sørbraut had been such a man like old proprietor Stensrud, he could have avoided all the bad things and gotten all that was good! But one must believe that Our Lord had a meaning with all this. He must have seen that Daniel would not have done well with having good days. If he had been rich, he might have been a profligate.
The proprietor was a man of 58 years, quiet and steady, wise and heavy. In his younger days he had, as he himself said, been quite a “scoundrel” but with age and experience, he had learned to see “all sides” in most things; and now he was fourth in standing in the list of civil servants. With the first wife, he got money; and it was then that he became moderate, according to teacher Borreberg, a Jaaøbæk follower; “he made a step to the right for every thousand he earned”, and was now as white as the priest’s mass vestments. He always talked with great respoct about the academic education. He was not impatient. The only thing he demanded from people was that they should be enlightened and independent, so that they should not merely borrow opinions from the People’s Gazette or from others, and so that they should not be blown in all directions by each popular idea or opinion or by every phrase maker; and in that, he ws right. He said a lot about the “common people” that Daniel would have liked to oppose if it were not for the fact that he needed to be careful.
With his first wife, the proprietor had three children. Of them, student Stensrud was the youngest. The second youngest was named Louise and was married to the grocer Storr in Kristiania; the eldest, Miss Hanna, lived at home.
Miss Hanna was 26 years old. But Daniel thought she was older. She had been to a school in Kristiania and was a lady; wore city clothes and did embroidery and played the piano. Daniel was quite shy when he was with Miss Hanna; what should one say to such a woman? From novels, he knew that it was a special art to talk with ladies: they should be treated in a particular way, which nobody could manage to do unless one was trained for it. But as time went by, he was able to chat with her. And in this way, he was able to borrow books from her. When they became acquainted, things took care of themselves. It became evident that she was not difficult to talk with. What she wanted to hear about most was Kristiania, and also the student life. Daniel told her about what he knew of those things; invented small stories that would make the topic believable; and he shut up about such things that he thought ought not to be told to a young lady such as she.
Once he mentioned that he knew Hans Haugum, and since then, he told her several times about him; she knew him too. He had been here sometimes when her mother was alive, she said; her mother came from the same village as his and hand known his parents. And one day, when Haugum had been mentiond, Hanna said, “He is now engaged, you know that, don’t you?” as she stood at the window and looked out. “No?” wondered Daniel, “when was that?” That was the latest news, Hanna had received a letter about it from Louse. “Is that so?” Daniel wasn’t quite sure if he liked the news or not; it was so unexpected.
He himself was not yet engaged. Twice he had worked at a letter to Inga in the summer; but he had not finished it. He could not find beautiful words; what he wrote was so cold and empty; the sad thing was that he seldom saw her. And the feeling of love need to be nurtured as all other kinds of life.
There was something special and quite unreasonable that Daniel had wondered about; recently he had realized that he had not quite forgotten Berta Maria. The bad thing that had happened to her was his fault! One evening after his arrival, he had a nice dream about her. He thought that she sat on his lap and he was holding her around the waist. She held himself tight against him and her arms around were around his neck; and she lay in his arms so soft and warm. And she cried with love and sorrow; he felt the tears wet against his face; he was so glad and happy that he kissed her. But she begged him not to be angry with her because of the bad thing she had done, because she had loved somebody that she could not have... and she snuggled close and warm to him. Daniel was so heartily glad that he kissed her once more, and then he woke up. But he still felt the face that was wet with tears, and that soft, soft kiss; he still felt the warm of her body in his arms; and he grasped the air in bewilderment because she was not there.
This dream had lived inside him since then; and he remembered her just as she was in his dream; dreamed the dream again and again when he was awake, and was powerless to drive away the dream. Such nonsense could not have lasted long; but as long as it lasted, there was no use in proposing to Inga; because she would know if there was seriousness in the game. Besides, as long as one has not yet taken the civil service examination....
As the autumn went by, Miss Hanna became more acquainted with “Kandidat Braut” that she sometimes went with him when he went out for a walk. Daniel could not help feeling proud that such a lady was friendly with him; but it would have been much better if she were prettier. Miss Hanna, like her father and her brother, was big-boned and powerfully built, but with a pale skin; the face was big, the hair light, the eyes quiet and lazy. Daniel guessed that she could be 28 years, the finest flowers of her youth were gone; the hulder’s veil, the dream, the magic that nobody can interpret were not there; he could not talk with her as much as he wanted, but was just as cold. If it were not for that, he would have felt quite at home at Steinsrud.
Twice a week in the evening, there was whist and toddy; but never more than one glass, and never later than 10 o’clock. Now and then the sheriff was there; sometimes the priest himself. It was not fun. And when the proprietor sat and explained again and again that it was important to be “independent”, so that one would not be driven by the winds of all sorts of theories and phrases, Daniel was sometimes afraid that the proprietor meant it for him.
For Daniel was not independent. He knew that now. His opinions had always been the opinions of those he was most often with; and when he had heard an opinion that was expressed powerfully, he had taken that and forgoten what he had believed previously. More than once he had heard people say that one should have “independent opinions”, but he had never taken it seriously. He was home-grown with the belief that what matters is having the correct opinions; and that is something he could not now change. What is the use of thinking independently when one thinks erroneously? And it is easy enough to think wrong when one listens to his own mind. Fram and Rud alike were independent enough, but they were rationalists. And how far would they get along with that?
There is little use in being independent when one should die. It was about having the correct belief. If one did not have that, then one would go to hell no matter how independent he was. And here in this world it is actually the same way: wrong opinions ruined a man.
It must be possible to think independently and right too; and that was what people meant. But how should one achieve that? Once, he asked the proprietor about this. He answered that it was about having the will to be right. If one wanted to find what is right, then one found it; but if one let the thoughts run independently but was indifferent about the directions it went, then one find himself in wilderness. Daniel found this reasonable, that it was the will that mattered; that is what he always heard. But it was not totally clear, the thought would rather go its own way; and one could not rely on the will keeping to the right course.
No, thinking independetly was not easy. If one only wanted to take such a thing as the republic... yes, one could think up reasons both for and against. But in case the reasons for were just as strong as the reasons against? Or, in case the reasons for were stronger than the reasons against, and if one did not want to be a republican?
Then, one should look for arguments against, until one found out that they were not as strong as they seemed. Or find reasons for and find out that they were not as strong as they looked. Could one then say that one had thought independently about the free state?
But maybe, the free state was not a correct thing, after all? There were people who thought that. There were wise people who were for and wise people who were against; and each had their arguments...
What it was all about is that one should make assumptions. If one assumed one thing, then one arrived here; and if one assumed another thing, then one got there; and if one did not assume anything, then he went around in a ring, like a man in a dark fog.
As we went about and pondered on this, he remembered some lectures on ethics that he had at the University. In those lectures the professors had explained the different forms of statehood in such a clear way that Daniel could never think of getting better reasons in this case; and he had written down those lectures. Unfortunately he did not bring them with him; he had lent them to Halvor Mosebø. But if he had them here, then he could read through them and he would have such clear arguments as any other man could wish for in this case. Now there was no possibility for that, because he did not even know where Halvor Mosebø was living.
That one could not have all these as in one’s faith, then one could have the right and the true established! A reliable political catechism would be a necessity for young people. As it is now, one is almost confused. Should one think without guidance, it would be like a ship without a map and a compass. It could happen that one could get a good idea. But how could one know if the idea was good or bad?
If one needed to ask others for advice, then one did not get any further. There were just as many opinions as there were people, and each one held his opinion to be the only correct one. And everybody had a number of arguments. It was not everybody’s business to find himself comfortable in such a Babel.
Thus the young candidate in philosophy went about one dark afternoon and broke his head with it; and he did not like it at all. But when he looked at the high hills that stood beautiful and dressed in clothes of grey and white linen fog, or at the forest that drew itself along the soft mounds, endlessly like a sorrow, then he thought of the hulder and of Berta Maria. And he felt such a consuming yearning. Oh, if he only had a person who understood him, all of him! Oh, if he had one, he could love! He walked along so alone like a thief in the night.
But when he came to the dinner table and listened to the proprietor, and sometimes to the sheriff or the priest, sitting there and explaining everything, and were so confident and had such a good knowledge, he sighed and thought to himself, blessed are these old ones who have everything settled and comfortable.
The sheriff was also old, a tall and gray bachelor with the strict face of a judge and a sharp nose; he was a laywer, and he wanted to be regarded as a civil servant. But the priest. the Reverent Ring, that Daniel had once met at grocer Helle’s. Now he had come here and he had a specially good position. He looked older now, but cheeful and respectable. He was glad to hear that Mr. Braut was not a Jaabæk man; “that will also gladden your old benefactor, grocer Helle,” he said. Thank god, the grocer Helle had recovered from his bankruptchy; he now has a business that progresses well; and he would soon be rich again. “Oh, yes, the Lord does not forget those who are doing well.” Daniel sat and thought about this, if he could be given another chance to ask grocer Helle for financial help; but that would be his last resort.
It made him feel big to be together with such brilliant people such as these. They who have their life in order, those who did not have reason to be afraid! He had never thought that a student could have what he has now. When the postman came to the farm, or when the proprietor came home from the city, he never felt himself safe; and when Hanna told him one day that there would be city people coming for a visit during Christmas, he was outright uneasy. “They are coming! You shall see, they are coming!” he said to himself. Sometimes he went about feeling afraid that he might see his name printed on the same page together with Fram’s in The Good Citizen.
But The Good Citizen did not have his name in it. Daniel had to wonder if the newspaper was not worse than it really was. It had better reasons than he had thought. It contained various ugly items against the common folk, also a couple of harsh things against chaplain Hirsch, but if one should be just, then one must remember that the newspaper saw all these things with its own eyes.
Sometimes he was caught by the idea that maybe “The Good Citizen was right, after all. It spoke so authoritatively and convincingly, and rejected the “common people” with such power that one almost must believed it. All of these chatter about freedom and people and spirit and ideas, was that just a phrase? One should take the world as she was, and this The Citizen understood better than the idealist.
But he could meet teacher Borreberg one day, or he would remember his old friends and teachers, Hirsch, Bliland, Haugum, Jens Rud, and then he would see that The Citizen was wrong. Some wrong it was. The others were not completely right either.... oh, if one could only find a middle way”
There must be a middle ground somewhere. It went too far on both sides, one must reconcile these opposing ideas. And he remembered something that he had heard from the professors about “mediating”, resolve conflicting ideas into “a higher unit”. He went about struggling with this often. He wanted to be free of the basic ideas he had from Hirsch, so he wanted to take as much from The Good Citizen, and he must not come into conflict with Pater either; he could go along as well as he could with Fram and Jens Rud also, as it would not be good to be on the opposite side if it should come to a debate with them. But the more Daniel struggled with all these “arguments”, the more his head got messed up.
Those who could, would be brave! The best would be able to take up his own opinions from before, be of “the common people” as in the old days; and defend his opinions with tooth and claw; both against the proprietor and the others. But such is unthinkable now. He was not his own man; others had power over his life and his destiny; if they would not help him forward, he would just stand there. At last he did not see more than one way out. He has to hold on to his own old opinions as well as he could, but be quiet about it until he could get away from here. It would never do to come here as a 24-year old chap and candidate in philosophy without having his own opinion!
There was one thing he could do that would help him feel more adult, and that he did; he let his beard grow. He believed it would help more than a little, and that meant that he did not have to worry about shaving.
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(1) Cand. filos. - a graduate student who has passed the first examination and is working for the second.
(2) work horse - literal translation of “mjøltrår”, a reference to Daniel’s mindless struggle for food without thought of what he