Wanderers Part 63

Just cold enough now for a little outing I have had in mind: the snow-peaks lie rosy in the sun, and my copper saucepan points to fair.

It is eight in the morning.

Knapsack and a good stock of food, an extra las.h.i.+ng in my pocket in case anything should break, and a note on the table for the man with supplies in case he should come up while I am away.

Oh, but I have been showing off nicely all to myself: pretending I was going far, and needed to equip myself with care, had occasion for all my presence of mind and endurance. A man can show off like that when he is going far; but I am not. I have no errand anywhere, and nothing calls me; I am only a wanderer setting forth from a hut, and coming back to it again; it does not matter where I am.

It is quiet and empty in the woods; all things deep in snow, holding their breath as I come. At noon, looking back from a hill, I can see Trovatn far behind; white and flat it lies, a stretch of chalk, a desert of snow. After a meal I go on again, higher and higher, nearing the fjeld now, but slowly and thoughtfully, with hands in my pockets. There is no hurry; I have only to find a shelter for the night.

Later on in the afternoon I sit down again to eat, as if I needed a meal and had earned it. But it is only for something to do; my hands are idle, and my brain inclined to fancies. It gets dark early: well to find a sheltered cleft in the hillside here; there are fallen firs enough lying about for a fire.

Such are the things I tell of now, playing with muted strings.

I was out early next morning, as soon as it began to get light. A quiet, warm snowfall came on, and there was a soughing in the air. Bad weather coming, I thought to myself; but who could have foreseen it? Neither I nor my weather-guide looked for it twenty-four hours ago.

I left my shelter and went on again over moor and heath; full day again now, and snowing. It was not the best of shelters I had found for the night: pa.s.sably soft and dry, with branches of fir to lie on, and I had not felt the cold, but the smoke from my fire drifted in over me and troubled my breathing.

But now, this afternoon, I found a better place--a s.p.a.cious and elegant cave with walls and roof complete. Room here for me and my fire, and the smoke went up. I nodded at this, and decided to settle down here, though it was early yet, and still quite light; I could distinctly make out the hills and valleys and rocks on a naked fjeld straight ahead some few hours' march away. But I nodded, as if I had reached my goal, and set to work gathering firewood and bedding for the night.

I felt so thoroughly at home here. It was not for nothing I nodded and took off my knapsack. "Was this the place you were making for?" I say, talking to myself in jest. "Yes," I answer.

The soughing in the air grew stronger; it was not snow that was falling now, but rain. Strange--a great wet rainfall down over the cave, over all the trees outside, and yet it was the cold Christmas month--December. A heat-wave had taken it into its head to visit us.

It rained and rained that night, and there was a soughing all through the trees outside. It was like spring; it filled my sleep at last with so rich an ease, that I slept on sound and deep till it was broad day.

Ten o'clock.

The rain had ceased, but it is still warm. I sit looking out of the cave, and listening to the bend and whisper of the trees. Then a stone breaks loose on the fjeld opposite; it b.u.t.ts against a rock and brings that down as well; a few faint thuds are heard. Then a rumble: I see what is happening, and the sound echoes within me; the rock loosened other rocks, an avalanche goes thundering down the mountain-side, snow and earth and boulders, leaving a smoky cloud in its wake. The stream of rubble seems in a living rage; it thrusts its way on, tearing down other ma.s.ses with it--crowding, pouring, pouring, fills up a chasm in the valley--and stops. The last few boulders settle slowly into place, and then no more. The thunder over, there is silence, and within myself is only a breathing as of a slowly descending ba.s.s.

And so I sit once more, listening to the soughing of the woods. Is it the heaving of the AEgean sea, or is it the ocean current Glimma? I grow weak from just listening. Recollections of my past life rise within me, joys by the thousand, music and eyes, flowers. There is nothing more glorious than the soughing of the woods. It is like swinging, rocking--a madness: Uganda, Antananarivo, Honolulu, Atacama, Venezuela.

But it is all the years, no doubt, that make me so weak, and my nerves that join in the sounds I hear. I get up and stand by the fire to get over it; now I think of it, I feel I could talk to the fire a little, make a speech to the dying fire. I am in a fire-proof house here, and the acoustic conditions are good. H'm!

Then the cave is darkened; it is the elk-hunter again with his dog.

It begins to freeze as I trudge along homeward to my hut. The frost soon hardens the ground, moor and heath, making it easy walking. I trudge along slowly and carelessly, hands in my pockets. There is no hurry now; it matters little where I am.