17

The earth smelled raw and warm. Sometimes it smelled bitter, sometimes heavy, sometimes mild and lukewarm like milk fresh from the cow. Father's earthy voice could be heard   [p. 84]   when he came in from the cleared land, muttering or saying a word or two. Then he would leave again. Summer had come.

Per had herded the sheep and been freed of it again. But he was most taken up with Aunt Anne.

There was something the matter with Auntie. Something had happened.

He could not get rid of Åsmund these days. He had to play with him, even though he was so big himself. And Åsmund was grateful. But Per's thoughts were with Auntie while he was thinking up games to play with his brother. Åsmund was six years old now. Per would soon be twelve.

Auntie . . .

Of course he had noticed, he who was so strangely close to her---noticed that she was different. And he was so big now that he soon guessed the reason. He was tortured by it and strongly attracted as well.

She walked differently and lay down on the ground in a different way when she rested. Her eyes were different. She carried around in herself all the rawness and strength that the earth was smelling of. Per saw it with observant eyes.

Aunt Anne was in love with someone; he could see that. He looked at her arms and at her mouth: he ached bitterly at the memory of those arms and that mouth. He had been burdened by it for a long time.

He could not rest until he had made certain---and one evening he lay in the copse down by the river and witnessed how Aunt Anne was in love, was full of love. He heard the words she spoke, and they were full of love.

He dug with his fingers into the earth. This was torture. But he listened, excited and fascinated---listened and hid it away. It was full summer, a warm, still night with clouds in the sky, but light.

Auntie's voice was that of a stranger. Per dragged himself away from the copse and thought that it was hateful to be alive. As he crawled, the earth around him smelled raw and fertile. He got far enough away so that he did not need to be   [p. 85]   so careful any more, and then he ran as far as he could. It was dangerous and hateful to be there.

He had recognized the man Aunt Anne was in love with, but it did not seem to matter who it was. It was all the same, just a man from the district.

At home in the farmyard everything was silent. The earth will be your business all your life, said God to him as he crossed the yard. He stood paralyzed with fright, so clearly did he seem to hear that voice.

Leave me alone; I haven't done you any harm, he said to this presence around him.

The haying was strenuous, as usual. Ivar was there, blunt and cross. Per helped a little with the mowing, not just raking what the others had cut. It was such tough work it made him forget about Auntie off and on. He ate and worked and slept. In the evening he read the paper and any books he could get hold of.

Auntie's state continued. Per did not tell Olav Bringa this either when they sat by the river on Sundays. After a while there were many things he did not tell him. Then one day Olav told Per about Aunt Anne and her friend. Was that the way with secrets, Per could not help wondering?

Auntie would laugh for joy sometimes in the Bufast yard and out in the meadow, laugh at the top of her voice. She stood on the earth and lay on the earth. The whole of Bufast was glad and seemed to rejoice because of her that summer. She went about as if blessing the whole farm and bestowing on it her riches. Per saw that she was beautiful. He knew that already, but now he saw it and found her incredibly beautiful.

He himself felt ugly and small.

Father's voice interrupted him sharply: "What's this? Aren't you ever going to get that finished?"

Per brought his attention back to what he was supposed to be doing and bent over the earth once more. He was beginning to know Father now, and Father proved to be strict in his demands. Do that today, said Father curtly, and you had to do   [p. 86]   it. Father clearly took note of the fact that he was bigger and stronger---and Per never tried grousing to that large, set, earthy face when it opened its mouth and gave an order.

It would never be given casually. As he obeyed, sick of it all, he tried to prove that Father's orders were wrong. But he had to give up and admit to himself that Father was right.

Father never lost. He had never been wrong as long as Per could remember. Mother had sometimes even blamed him for it, but Father had simply left the room, taking the earth smell with him, and gone to his tools on the cleared land. It was Mother, who stayed behind, who was the loser.

But you had to keep your distance with Father. Per tried many times to imagine that he was friends with Father in the same way as with Olav Bringa, but he never managed to believe it. Father and God had scared him too much, saddling him with burdens and judgments, writing the ten commandments for him. Mostly he tried to stop thinking about it now and just slogged along, working. Thinking about it would only make things more complicated.

Åsmund came and tugged at him to come and play.

"Go to Mother," said Per. "I have to work."

He pitied himself profoundly. Åsmund trudged off. Per bent down again. He was always having to bend down, picking up weeds, picking up the heads of grain after the mowing, picking up stones from the cleared land. Picking up. He thought about those mornings long ago, mornings with newborn calves in the barn and with spluttering pancakes the first sound in his ears when he awoke. It happened now as well, but not as it did then. Then there had been something different about the long jets of the first milk spurting into the bucket. And Mother had sat close to the cooking-stove with the baby in one hand and the frying pan in the other---and she had been so full of milk herself that it overflowed when the baby sucked.

Mother was no longer as she had been then: not slow in her movements, and gentle, and full of milk. Now she was brisk and firm and never had time for anything.

But there was Auntie . . .

The whole summer was Auntie's summer. Her eyes looked drunk sometimes when they met yours. Per could bear it better now than he had to begin with. The first smart had dulled.

The smart does get dulled, he learned. What was exceedingly painful to begin with hurt less and less.

Harvesttime came. Auntie helped in the fields and was happiness itself. Everyone had known about it for a long time.

It was time to dig the potatoes. One day as they were lying and sitting in the field, resting among strong-smelling, blackened potato plants, Per watched Father enjoying Auntie's happiness.

There was nothing around them but earth. The fragrance of black potato plants was the fragrance of earth, as raw and genuine as it could be. Per's back was aching, and he lay stretched out at ease on the soil, and there was Aunt Anne, sprung up out of the earth too. Father sat leaning against a sack of potatoes, watching Auntie.

She was lying contentedly on the ground, resting her head on a heap of potato plants. She lay there as if she owned the riches of all the districts round about. She moved slightly; her dress rearranged itself; all was riches.

Per was in the middle of all this. It was good to be here. Suddenly he felt it was good to be here. He did not go into what was good or how it was good. It was good to be here at Bufast. Per lay still. There was a fragrance of potato plants and raw earth---and Aunt Anne was lying here with something you couldn't put a name to, and Father was leaning against the potato sack making everything seem right.

It did not last long. When Per bent down to dig the potatoes again, the feeling had gone.