Father was given a reminder that autumn. A warning.

After the potatoes had been dug and the barley field plowed, Per and his father worked on the cleared land. Father was compelled to do so; Per had to help him. Then the warning came, one day in the middle of the work period. He was using the crowbar to lift out a large stone. Per was helping him. They put all their strength into it. Father groaned and dropped the crowbar. The stone, with all its weight, fell back towards Per, and he barely escaped being crushed. Father was bent double, his face white.

"It's my stomach," he said.

He scarcely managed to walk home with Per's support. What will Mother say? thought Per. Yes, haven't I told you so plenty of times? she would say. Don't let her say it! Let her take him in and put him to bed and not say a word about how right her prophecies have been. But she will say she was right. . . .

They got home. Mother met them in the yard, white in the face. Aunt Anne and Åsmund came.

"What is it?" said Mother.

"Oh---I've torn a muscle---"

"Yes, haven't I told you that's what would happen in the end?" said Mother.

Per groaned inwardly.

"Oh, yes, you've told me so," said Father wearily and with   [p. 137]   annoyance. "How fortunate that you should be proved right."

Per wished he could run away. That they could talk like that to each other when they had been together so long, worked together, and slept together. And that they could say it in another person's hearing, and torture him.

Mother's color shifted from white to red.

"Come along," she said shamefacedly, and took hold of Father, took hold of him with infinite care. Suddenly she was infinitely gentle. Hands that had cared for newborn children. They were different from Auntie's hands. Auntie would never have been able to take hold of him so gently.

"Come along, Eilev," said Mother.

He went in and lay down.

Per was told to drive for the doctor. There was a low, tense ringing in his ears as he went. Was Father going to die?

The doctor said there was nothing to be done but sit still. It was a torn muscle and was dangerous.

"Will I mend?"

"Yes."

"No, I won't," said Father bitterly in his thick earth voice. He was caulked with earth. His tongue was bitter. He was impatient and offended.

The doctor left. Father lay in pain all that evening and through the night. They stayed up fully dressed. In the morning he fell asleep.

They sat feeling how important he was. All night they had felt it. They saw in each other's eyes that morning how important he was. There he lay sleeping. Mother began preparing the new day that was dawning. Aunt Anne went to the barn. Only Per and Åsmund could go to bed.

Later that day Father sat up quietly.

He sat like that all the autumn and during most of the winter. He had been warned. His eyes were impatient; he had never been able to sit still.

That winter it was Per who drove the firewood. As soon as the snow was right, Per and Goldie slid down a long, white   [p. 138]   lane through the trees and came home with wood. Then they left again, and again returned.

What was the matter now?

He felt poor inside. He felt thirsty. He felt everything that was uncomfortable, inside himself.

Some days differed from others: a low sky and mild air, a dead calm with mist on the surrounding mountains. Then the echo was there, in places where he never heard it normally. Per sometimes felt a desire to call out in the tremendous silence. He sat on the load and gave a long shout. It echoed back to him and made him feel better. Goldie turned his head in amazement.

One day Per left Goldie in the woods to search for a way through to new piles of timber. After a while he heard him give a single wild whinny. It sounded as if he were afraid of being left alone. Per was seized with guilt; instinctively he gave a bellow and came back again to Goldie to keep him company.

What should he do?

There were wide snow-covered marshes to cross, and the desolate landscape filled him with wonder and strange thoughts: that wild whinny of Goldie's, that bellow from the cattle in the darkness, that trembling body of Botolv's when he was about to die.

God wishes nobody harm; you don't need to worry about that.

No, and yet---

The snow-covered landscape marched past his eyes. Goldie, drawing the load, seemed a symbol of peace. But Goldie, too, had revealed something about himself in that wild whinny when the man left him: he was afraid of something.

The Christmas party came around, as did everything that was routine. Per was there. He had thought he would not bother, but he went just the same. An old habit from his schooldays. It was the best party there was, the only one really.

The tree had always been a blaze of light and had always tinkled with bells you could not hear but knew were there. It blazed and tinkled today too. The children sang carols around it with shining eyes. Per sat among the grown-ups around the walls feeling left out. Each time the door opened, a cloud of vapor poured into the room. It was frosty outside.

If only I could be given the tree! Be given it shining and sanctified. Be given just one thing once more---

Olav Bringa walked past. Olav had grown. Shortly afterwards Per felt somebody's eyes on him. It was Olav again. Then he disappeared into the next room.

Per sat and sat, or so it seemed. The time dragged. The children tramped up and down in front of him. Åsmund was among them. He and Knut Prikken, his shepherd comrade, were singing hand in hand.

Åsne Bakken appeared from somewhere out of the crowd and sat down beside Per on the bench.

"Good evening, Per."

She said it as if it were quite ordinary to be saying Good evening, Per. To Per it seemed as if the lights on the Christmas tree had begun to dance.

"Have you been here a long time this evening?" he asked indifferently. "I haven't seen you."

"Yes, I've been here all the time."

"I haven't seen you."

"No, but I'm sitting next to you now," she answered, with embarrassment.

"Yes, so I see," said Per.

He had only one thought: let it last, let it last.

She was so close to him on the crowded bench that he felt her weight. She had changed again since he saw her last, he thought. He looked at her. She was silent and not at all gay this evening. Her eyes shone when she looked at the tree.

"What are you doing now?" she asked.

"Hauling firewood," he said, and was glad he could; it sounded grown-up. "And you're at Bringa?"

"Yes, I'm at Bringa."

The light from the tree made her face radiant. Per thought that now Åsne was grown-up.

"Do you like it at Bringa?" he asked, and then was angry with himself for asking such a stupid and intimate question.

"Oh, yes. Why don't you ever come over on Sundays?" she asked.

"What?" he said, although he had heard very well.

"Why don't you ever come over on Sundays, I said."

He felt he wanted to doze off, to relax and fall asleep. He did not reply.

A girl stretched her hand out to Åsne: "Come on!"

It was Randi Bratterud. A circle of older boys and girls was forming outside the ring of children. Åsne stood up and took the hand. Then the circle began to move, taking Randi and Åsne with it.

When they reappeared on the other side of the tree, they were singing with wide-open, little-girl mouths. They went past incessantly; there were innumerable verses to the carol. The tall, shining tree hid them for the space of a wink each time they circled it. Once when they reappeared, Olav Bringa was between them, Åsne on his left and Randi on his right. Olav was holding their hands. He opened his mouth and sang. Per saw Olav singing and went straight out and walked home. It was bitterly cold, and the ice crackled underfoot. The stars in the sky were crackling with cold too.