13

Spring again, after a long, uneventful school winter. He had been the best all the time. Olav Bringa had been next best. The winter had been a gray one. He had nothing in common with Åsne Bakken and Signe Moen any more; they were girls. He went home to Bufast only in order to do his homework.

Homework, homework! To have the cold joy of praise from the teacher's desk, of seeing himself envied---and of seeing himself laughed at by the helpless, stupid creatures who couldn't learn and who fell back on sneering instead.

"Why should we work harder than the others?" asked Olav.

"Don't you think it's fun, then?"

"No," said Olav.

But Olav did not give up working. Per's cold joy was infectious; Olav felt it too. They kept their place a notch ahead of the others. It was a gray winter. Per scarcely noticed what they were doing at Bufast. He was swallowed up by school.

Then it came to an end. Here was the spring. And Per was ten years old.

"Now you can do that, Per."

He ran. Shortly afterwards they were saying: "You ought to be able to manage that now that you're so old."

He made the effort. It felt like going up an endless bill in hot weather. Endless.

This spring he was to mind the sheep.

So he minded the sheep. He did everything that was expected of him. He took a bitter delight in the knowledge that they could find nothing to complain about. Then something happened.

Auntie stood in his path and said, "Now you're going to tell me what's wrong. You're so strange."

He looked at her and suddenly felt stiff with sorrow. He could not answer.

"Aren't we kind to you?" she asked.

He looked at her in fury. People could bring themselves to say things like that! Making it impossible. The tears welled over. How utterly impossible people could be!

He was caught up in the arms he had longed for when he was smaller. Auntie did it suddenly and roughly: he was lifted up from the ground and squeezed against a bosom which gave gently under the weight of his body, and then he was kissed all over his face. He hit and kicked, but she was strong. He struck her full in the face, but she laughed strangely and happily and kissed him. He tasted her lips and smelled the faint fragrance of her hair and her bosom. She had a misty film over her eyes.

He was cold with anxiety and hot with shame, for this must   [p. 69]   be shameful. One blow struck her on the nose so that it started to bleed. How beautiful her face was, how frank and warm. How good she was, and her eyes, so misty and kind. He struck her once more, and the blood ran faster..

"Put me down!"

She put him down and went out and wept bitterly. That was how he thought it: she went out and wept bitterly. He remembered that sentence from the Bible story amazingly clearly.

He ran into the woods. It was midsummer. The sheep were fenced in; he had to go out with them again after dinner. It was warm and dry. He ran down to the river. He would go home to Mother and tell her. No, he wouldn't tell anyone; it was so shameful.

When he came home, he was afraid of meeting her again. But she was nowhere to be seen, and he did not ask after her.

But then he did ask. His mother replied, "She went up into the woods with the cows. What did you want?"

"Nothing."

Mother was sitting alone .with Åsmund. The door stood open. In the ditches lay withered birch leaves.

"Looking for her again?" asked Mother. Her voice was teasing and a little envious.

"No!" he said and went out. In the doorway he met a bumblebee buzzing its way in. The bee would soon die, buzzing against the windowpane for a while and then lying on the sill with its legs in the air. That's what happened to bumblebees who came in. No, Mother would open the window and let it out at once.

Father was on his cleared land. It was a bright reddish-brown. Father was hunched there like a tireless ant. Never, never any rest---he was an ant father. There he was, hunched up. No, of course not! He wasn't an ant; he was a mountain, crushing and oppressive.

Shortly afterwards Per was on the path that wound in among the fir trees. All the puddles were churned up by cow hooves, and cow droppings had been left. It even smelled   [p. 70]   a bit of cows, they had trampled here so regularly. The grass was good.

He came down to the grassy hollows where he guessed Aunt Anne would be. Yes, there were the bells. Cautiously he crept closer; now he could see her. She was sitting on a stone. A calf was standing close to her, licking her hand. Now she put her arm around the calf's neck. The calf stood stock still; Auntie had given it food and petted it since it saw the light of day. Auntie's fingers had been the first things it had had to suck.

Per stood behind a juniper watching. Then he went home and sobbed harshly and miserably.