Chapter 12
Christmas was long and tedious.
It consisted of toddy parties and eating parties day after day in the whole village, and staying up late and dances in between; it was a partying that Daniel had never seen before; Endre Storr said in his own way that it was “the savage who was on a rampage.” He and the other city guys however did not stay long; they went back to the city a few days after Christmas day.
But Daniel thought it went well. The fine gentlemen had been cordial towards him; and he was sure that they did not know anything. And the Christmas partying was something he could always manage. Compared with last year when he was starving in the city, he was in heaven now.
In reality he fancied the Christmas life here; it was something he realized when it ended. It was actually painful to be back at work and eat plain food; and when he first worked with the little boys again and listened to their German lessons, he could have run away to the forest; he was so very tired of it. Never in the world could he endure this. He felt it so keenly, both in the day and in the evening.
One pleasure he had, and that was his beard that has now grown. And he was actually more independent now than he had ever been. He no longer had such a great respect for the proprietor. And that loud mouthed Endre Storr had not moved him from his old faith in the spirit and ideas. He had, one day, dared to argue with this man. He had asked, could the grocer stand by his statement, that it was only the rich who could be enlightened? To this, the grocer said yes. And he had authorities to refer to, thinkers “whom Mr. Kandidat, of course, knew as well as he did”, yes, it was not Daniel who won in that argument. But he knew that Storr was not right; after he had thought about the reasons. Storr had not been right at all. What he stood for was opposed to everything that Daniel had heard and learned; the whole society, from chaplain Hirsch to Dølen, from Professor Darre to Fram, would unanimously condemn such materialism.
He was no longer so tied up wth his old authority figures as before. He began to understand that not everything that glittered was gold; when even a man like folk high school teacher Meier could be a spiritual business speculator; so it was not easy to know what one should believe; The Good Citizen was perhaps lying less than people thought. Who could, for example, know if chaplain Hirsch himself was such an exemplary man as he was regarded? Had he not once left a good mission because he could earn a hundred more in annual salary somewhere elese? No, no, Daniel would not think so about Hirsch. But the others, whom could he trust among the others?
From Mrs. Louise, he had heard that the sweetheart of Hans Haugum was a girl who had 10,000 dalar. Who could have thought that Haugum had such thoughts for money? And who could know if he had sold and betrayed the ideals of his youth for 10,000 dalar?
Mrs. Louise had said that Haugum was a man who had been lucky. Hmm, yes, in a way. It would not have been bad at all if Inga Holm also had been rich; that would have been a nice way to escape poverty. Or.... if one have had another ideal? It was actually mindless to tie himself up before he was old enough to have gotten a little bit of understanding about the world.
He thought that it was quite clear that Hanna had nothing against him. Lately, she had even become more like a woman of the household, both in her way of dressing and other things; and it had come about one day after Daniel had said, during a conversation about Mrs. Stensurd, that he fancied homely women. Before Christmas she would rather play Norwegian folk tunes that he had said he was fond of; after Christmas, when he told her that he loved “Gluntarne” (a Swedish operetta), she began to play the tunes, played “Gluntar” that Daniel almost got tired of it. Several such signs were there; and Daniel thought to himself that it was really a pity because she is worth more than something that was left behind like a forgotten memory.
He went about silent about his opinions as before. But he did it in another way, because he did not want to lie. When the proprietor came up with his statements, Daniel spoke of what others said in opposition; “So and so said this; what shall one reply to that?” and then he let the proprietor win. That went well. Daniel was actually tired of this kind of politics.
More and more he yearned to be in the city. Everyday he looked in The Citizen if there might be a position for him. But it didn’t look good. If there was something, it was either too big for a student with average standing, or too small to live on. He began to dream about Lias in America. It could happen that the clod had come up with something there; found gold in California; married himself to wealth; and then, one day, sent him a big letter of credit.... It was strange that Lias had not written anything.
Yes, one day he wrote. Daniel saw the American postmark and with a pounding heart, he ripped the letter open . Lias told him that he had been working himself to exhaustion and had “many kinds of business”, but he now had, for the first time, come to enjoy himself because he had gotten a regular job as a cowhand. Daniel cried, was very disappointed. Cowhand! And so wrote that clod so bravely as if he had found gold... explaining about politics, about American “freedom”; here there was freedom, he wrote. Very well. So wrote everyone else. It was all rubbish. Here in Norway was enough freedom too, for those who had money... Daniel put down the letter; the money transfer from America was not anything to dream about.
He dreamed more and more about the city and about formal refinement. One thing he could create quite quickly which would help with the formal refinement, he thought; and that was spectacles. He began to complain that he had got such weak eyes; and when the propreitor went to Kristiania for the market day, Daniel came along to seek a solution for this; and he got spectacles. That helped a lot. The spectacles took something from the kindness of his face; laid a cold glimmer over it that made it look strict; Daniel looked at the mirrow and thought that if he grew a better beard, nobody would think that he had ever been a farmer.
During this trip to the city, he got the chance to meet some old acquaintances. One night he was sitting at a hotel café with student Stensrud, Endre Storr and Knutzon, when there came some guys and sat themselves at a table nearby and began drinking toddy; one of them was unfamiliar to him; the others were Aslak Fjordan, Gregus Johnsen and Strand. They were quite tipsy; and they looked scruffy; Daniel turned his back towards them; they did not fit in his company.
Storr was drinking a red wine cocktail and said that markets was a bad habit; Knutzon said otherwise, and Daniel thought that he had definitely good reasons. But at last Knutzon could not defend his arguments against Storr. Then he said quietly that what he had said was something he got from another man like grocer Lampe; and one should then believe that that man knew what he said.. Hm, so such people too were not totally indepedent! thought Daniel; he was enjoying himself. But that they had the guts to admit it!
Storr went on with the national economy. He cursed the farmers who cut down their forest and thus ruined their own and the country’s capital; but perhaps one had to be a beggar so that one would have to learn how to work. What we had been living on before–the forest, shipping, fishing–was so much like living on the shares we buy in these ventures and this makes us into dreamers and teaches us bad morals. People walk about on the edge of the seas and put all their savings in buying shares in a ship or fish industry; if it went well, then they earned money and they put their earnings in shares in another ship; if it went wrong, then the whole thing fell apart; and they were left with two empty hands; that was a Grundung (entrepreneur) without real basis; it had to end up in poverty. But the worst thing was that they wrecked progress and weakened the will. People learned to rely on luck; wanted to be rich very quickly; dreaming instead of working; digging for old treasures or bought a license to mine sulphur and quartz... Even religion was used to teach people in this outrageous way of thinking. The priests went about preaching that they should rely on Our Lord and not to worry about tomorrow; it was sinful to labor for wealth; one should be “satisfied with what he has”, live like the birds in the air... could one expect such people to grow up with such teachings? They are a people of spineless dreamers. They went and worked heavily all their lives, but nothing comes out of it. Could not Our Lord make it so well that they could find a clump of gold in their fields? Could not Our Lord send a rich fishery ; provide a lot of freight cargo, let it rain with 12 shillings, snow with dalar notes? The students laughed; Daniel laughed with them, rather red at the cheeks. But, Storr continued, if our farmers went to America, they became people of another kind. There was not one there who told them that they should rely on Our Lord; they learned that they should help themselves; and when they have learned that; then they managed to cope; to work is something they could do! Daniel could not think of anything to contradict Storr tonight. He was right in some, especially what he said about the farmers.
“Oh, oh, oh!” laughed Aslak Fjordan at his corner; he laughed more and more loudly; “I agree with those who want the priests taken away; that I agree with; oh! oh! oh! the swine! Are they not standing there so that their lies rain down every Sunday that God created? Don’t they think that we know that Jesus became God during the church meeting at Nicea, 300 years after he died? ho-oh-oh! Appointed him God with a simple majority vote? And he got the majority because the emperor voted with it! If the emperor had supported Arius then, as he had done several times before, then Jesus would never in this world have become God! They knew it, the swine beasts!” Huh, what nonsense. What madness in thought and speech, even the dialect was vular! But Gregus Johnsen sat and nodded and thought that Aslak spoke well; maybe he lived on Aslak these days. Now and then he ran his fingers through his hair and held his fingers before him and stared at them with a dark, moody face... wanted to see if he was losing hair... a sign of a miserable condition, poverty, total poverty was what Daniel saw when he looked at these guys; he turned away from them in disugst.
“Yes, by god, he dares come in!” said Endre Storr in a low voice and stared at the door. Daniel followed his eyes and saw a man whom he thought he knew. Yes, he knew the man. It was Olai Bruvik. “That is a Norwegian odel farmer,” said Storr. “See how he steady and reliable he looks, so calm and serious and honest; one should think that was an angel of god; but then he is but a cunning scoundrel. He was trading some years in the city; got money from his wife and wasted them, so that he lived on credit and cheated half the city... because nobody could believe otherwise with such an appearance! But... recently he acted on it. The creditors should get one and a half per cent, it was said.”
Daniel thought he should be independent and said that there were scoundrels in the city as well as in the countryside. To this, Endre Storr agreed. This Bruvik was a representative for the whole people. We come here and regard ourselves as steadfast and honest; and when everything was put together, then we were just a people of fantasy weavers. Superficial, unreliable, gypsies. It was not expected that the farmer should be better than others; on the contrary. It takes a lot of culture before people learned that it was wrong to lie; before they learned to distinguish between truth and lie. This, thought Daniel, were strange words, but he kept quiet. They drank; Storr offered them cigars.
“A memory toast for Olsen the First!” shouted Aslak Fjordan and drank. “Olsen the First was a fine guy! If I could afford it, I should travel down there tomorrow and followed him into the earth. Moreover, I had seen for a long time that he had tuberculosis”. Daniel was shocked to hear this; he also remembered that he owed Olsen the First 4 dalar that he now did not have to pay.... “Hærland also has tuberculosis,” said Gregus Johnsen. “Yes, that is worse,” said Strand; “Hærland was, by god, one of the best heads I have ever known.” “He could become something great,” said Aslak. “But he has had it so bad... too much work and too little food; cold room; bad boots; that is how it goes in the world.” Daniel felt uneasy; huh, never in this life again! Then a thought came over him that he pushed away; it would be a relief for him, if all his old acquaintances would die.
When they left, Aslak Fjordan was quarreling with Strand about Fram; it sounded like Strand and Fram had become enemies, and Aslak wanted to blame Strand for this. But Strand swore that it was Fram who was to blame. Daniel got away unseen. The only acquaintance that he met after that was a “robber” who came forward and presented himself and talked about “popular” politics and asked to borrow a half dalar; the fellow looked terrible. Daniel gave him one mark and left.
Up at Steinsrud, the days went slowly by. One day there was an ad for a position in The Good Citizen that Daniel thought he could manage, and he wanted to apply for it, if only he had gotten “laud” (honors). As he went about and wondered if it would be useful to write to Pater about this position, and get him to write a recommendatin for him, he got a letter from chaplain Hirsch.
It was a long letter. Daniel felt cold in his heart when he recognized the handwriting. Uneasily he skimmed through the letter. Did the chaplain know anything?
Hirsch explained his reasons for not writing before this; it was mainly because he thought it best that Daniel ought to develop himself independently. Now, the chaplain thought that the time had come.
“Rud has told me that since the last summer, you have been a house tutor in the countryside; and I know that you have gotten yourself together and have become clear about what must be the reason for your life,” he wrote. And he continued, “I hope with all my heart that you have kept your childlike disposition through all your struggles, for you know that it is the children who shall inherit the heavenly kingdom. And I especially believe and am confident that you have kept yourself free from the city nonsense, this empty hole of “formal refinement” or whatever they call it; you were of a too warm and real nature that such could not entice you. You have seen so much of the city life that you know what it is worth. Glib tongues and empty hearts; small pleasures taken seriously; jokes for wisdom; dancing around the golden calf and aping the soulless fashion instead of a life in love and power; that, in a few words, is the hallmark of that life for those that want to be regarded as the highest; I do not want to talk about what is hidden behind all the glimmer and which should rather not be mentioned. Each serious thought is killed with laughter, their life’s widsom is: Let us eath and drink, for tomorrow we die.
“I do not forget that which is good and beautiful in the city; that is both art and other things that can lift and gladden the soul; and there will always be many things to find that live a true human life in the middle of the emptiness and noise. What I speak of is about that which we especially call “the city life”, the life which makes people into fashion dolls and dance masters and kill life and soul and seriousness in an endless chase after nonsense; and empties people out of all soulful marrow, that they finally cannot have other opinions and thoughts other than what is fashionable. And you will get to know this as well as I have. No, as I think I have taught you. Man is, thank god, something other than a wig holder or a dressed-up doll; and the life is nothing else but being able to dance well and being a lion in a ballroom. And that is the greatest I have learned here in the countryside: no matter how poor and miserable and the “common life of the people” can seem dull to those who look at it “from above” through their lorgnettes, that is actually what is richest and most true. Here there is little form, but the more content; there is clear, tinkling ore that one finds here; the surface is cold and dark, but beneath that hides the gold, heart’s gold. Here we would have to start; here is where the work would have to start that will wake up the people’s souls in Norway.
“You would have seen that I, in these years, have had much to bear. I had thought the people different during that time when I lived and dreamed in Kristiania; many times I have almost given up on my belief. I have realized that people are not only in hibernation but have been locked inside all this lack of spirit; food strivers on one side and pietism on the other; that the work was hard like steel and filled the life, totally rendered powerless by the long nightmare. .But laer I have almost personally known the people, have these dark thoughts melted away; and I shall, if we meet one day, be able to tell you about this. Much sadness I have seen; but more heart’s gold I have found. And often where one would have expected anything but gold.”
“More and more I have learned to see that the right way to wake up the people is not to send the farmer to the city, where he is often spoiled and forget both ‘the mother tongue and the forefathers tradition”; no, the farmer must be a farmer; and get refinement – true refinement, soulful and heartfelt – right at the home’s foundation. Therefore, I have not helped others, except you, to study; I would rather send them to the people’s high school. This is the greatest and most beautiful that has come up in the northern countries in the most recent times; and it will achieve something – fist and foremost in Norway – that foreigners and the next generations will find wonderful.
The chaplain had to keep himself from building a people’s high school for a year or to, said the letter, he could not do so much as he would like when he had a priest-civil service position to mange; and now that his father-in-law was dead, he could afford to dare to think of such things. First, he must go abroad for a year and rest and collect knowledge; but then the idea should start working. He asked Daniel if he would like to be a part of this.
“You will not get a big salary, but it would be big enough for you to cope, considering the conditions in the countryside; and so when one has got enough, one should not have more; and I know that you have been glowing with such thoughts about life, as this work has been built on, you know that the life’s goal for man is to have something big to work for and strive for; you will never regret that you have sacrificed yourself to such a beautiful and spiritual work as this is. I do not want to persuade you; each and everyone has to take the work for which he feels a call; where he will best find the goal. But I ask you to think about this, if you are sure that you feel yourself called for this. You have thought of becoming a priest; are you still determined about this, that you will manage this heavy work in times such as this? Or maybe, science attracts you? Anyway, think well about this, that nothing is worse than to regret ‘having made the wrong decision’”.The letter ended with a hearfelt greeting. Daniel dragged out a deep breath and thought half with gladness and half with contempt: he doesn’t know anything, either.
Daniel did not take much notice of the first part of the letter, about the city life. It could be true in a way, but it was mostly about finding an answer to this thing about the people’s high school.
He certainly did not have the calling to become a high school teacher. He did not have the right attitude. Go up there among the farmers and teach them the wisdom of life; that could be beautiful and good... even if the farmer needed just as much of things other than education. Man of science? No, that is something he had never considered. He did not care much about science. In reality, he did not exactly know what it was good for. We had the truth. Everything that Our Lord had found convenient for us to know had been written in the Bible. What was it they were looking for? And if they were forever messing and digging in meat and blood and dead carcasses, they never found out what life was all about; and they never understood anything about life either. That which they were looking for was in the Bible; and much more. The more one thought about it, the more one wanted to find out things; that the Bible gave the answer to all our questions, and the answers we wouild find would seem to be the deepest and best. There was one thing or other in the Bible that we did not understand, but that also proved that the bible was God’s word; for if it had been made by man, then we could understand everything totally. It was theology that Daniel had always thought about. It taught us to interpret the Bible; and a theologian could know more than anyone else of what was worth knowing. Theology was the only true philosphy; it knew something, that one; that which others call philosophy, that was just phrases. And when he had learned what he should, then he would become a priest. A priest had a beautiful mission; and the priest was a man that people had use for; and whom they respected. It was him who was responsible for the church, and who was always listened to in the parish; nobody could do as much as he can. And Daniel saw in his mind a nice and white priest’s farmhouse, alight among green trees; and he saw himself sitting there, father and lord, and saw a priest’s wife – yes, that was Inga.
No, he does not want to be a people’s high school teacher. He was not finished with the student life, anyway. He had to go back to the city. He had much to do there; he should read theology and other things, and work himself towards independent opinions.... As he went pondering on this, he came to think that when the chaplain was rich, then he could help him? When it was theology that he wanted to study? That thought gripped him in such a way that he at once set himself to writing a reply to the letter.
He was not so clear about himsef, he wrote, that he did not dare to reply either yes or no to the question about the people’s high school. The only thing he knew was that he needed to read theology for a year or two. He managed this with many words, and he did it well. Eventually, he came to his need for money. It was not easy to get a job for those who had only taken the second examination, so it would take time before he could advance himself; but he had to wait and see if it would not work out. But there was nothing worth saying in the beginning, thought Daniel; he sent the letter.
He was waiting a long time for the reply. He began to wonder if he should write to the grocer Helle and try with him. But then came the letter from the chaplain. It said that Daniel should talk with jens Rud, then he would find a solution. But the chaplain did not want Daniel to be lazing about too long “reading in peace, as that theology we now have was the worst German and soulless thing that one could think about; and it was outright dangerous to mess with; and everything else considered, then one learned more from life than from all the books. Therefore, Jens Rud would try to help him get work if necessary, but not so much work in order that he should be able to read at the same time.
Daniel did not like this very much. But a solution was always better than nothing. And so one realizes that eventually. When he told Hanna that he would be leaving, he saw that she did not welcome the idea; and he could not deny to himself that he liked it..
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(1) Arius - a theologian from Alexandria who said that Jesus was not God but the son of God