Chapter XIII

Johannes met Camilla in the street; she was with her mother, her father and Young Richmond; they stopped their carriage and talked to him in a friendly way.

Camilla clutched his arm and said:

"You didn't come to our party. We had a great time, I can tell you; we were expecting you to the very last, but you didn't come."

"I was prevented," he replied.

"Excuse me for not having been to see you since," she went on. "I shall come one of these days, for certain, when Richmond has gone away. Oh, what a time we had! Victoria was taken ill, she was driven home, have you heard? I'm going up to her directly. I expect she's much better, quite well again perhaps. I've given Richmond a medallion, almost the same as yours. Look here, Johannes, you must promise me to look after your stove; when you're writing you forget everything and your room gets as cold as ice. You must ring for the girl."

"Yes, I'll ring for the girl," he answered.

Mrs. Seier spoke to him too, asked about his work, that piece about the Race, how was it getting on? She was eagerly looking forward to his next book.

Johannes gave the necessary answers, bowed very low and watched the carriage drive away. How little all this concerned him, this carriage, these people, this chatter! A cold and empty feeling came upon him and haunted him all the way home. Outside his doorway a man was walking up and down, an old acquaintance, the former Tutor at the Castle.

Johannes greeted him.

He was dressed in a long, warm overcoat which was carefully brushed and there was a brisk and decided air about him.

"Here you see your friend and colleague," he said. "Give me your hand, young man. God has guided my ways marvellously since we last met; I am married, I have a home, a little garden, a wife. The days of miracles are not yet past. Have you any observation to make on my last remark?"

Johannes looked at him in surprise.

"Agreed then. Yes, you see, I was giving lessons to her son. She has a son, a young hopeful from her first marriage; of course she has been married before, she was a widow. You see, I married a widow. You may object that this was not arranged by my fairy godmother; but there it is, I married a widow. The young hopeful she had already. It was like this, I go there and look at the garden and the widow and for a while I am absorbed in intense thought on the subject. Suddenly I have it and I say to myself: well, I dare say it wasn't promised by your fairy godmother and all that; but I'll do it all the same, I take it, for it was probably written in the book of fate. You see, that's how it came about."

"Congratulations!" said Johannes.

"Stop! not a word more. I know what you're going to say. What about the first one, you will say, have you forgotten the eternal love of your youth? That's exactly what you will say. May I then ask you, my good sir, in my turn, what became of my first, only and eternal love? Didn't she take a captain in the artillery? Moreover I will ask you another little question: have you ever, ever seen a case of a man getting the one he should have got? I haven't. There's a legend about a man whose prayers God heard in the matter, so that he was given his first and only love. But he didn't get much satisfaction out of it. Why not? you will ask again, and behold, I answer you: for the simple reason that she died immediately after--_immediately_ after, do you hear? ha-ha-ha, instantly. So it is always. Naturally one doesn't get the right woman, but if it happens once in a while out of pure cussedness, then she dies straight away. There's always some trick in it. So then the man is reduced to providing himself with another love of the best available sort and there's no reason why he should die of the change. I tell you, Nature has ordained it so wisely that he bears it remarkably well. Just look at me."

Johannes said:

"I can see that you're doing well."

"Excellently for that matter. Look, feel and listen! Has a set of unenticing troubles swept over my person? I have clothes, shoes, house and home, wife and children--well, the hopeful anyhow. What was I saying?--with regard to my poetry I'll answer the question on the spot. Oh, my young colleague, I am older than you and perhaps a little better equipped by Nature. I keep my poems in a drawer. They are to be published after my death. But then you get no pleasure out of them, you will object? You are wrong again there, for in the meantime I delight my household with them. In the evening when the lamp is lit I unlock the drawer, take out my poems and read them aloud to my wife and the hopeful. One is forty, the other twelve, they are both enchanted. If you come and see us one day you will find supper and toddy. Now I've invited you. God preserve you from death."

He gave Johannes his hand. Suddenly he asked:

"Have you heard about Victoria?"

"About Victoria? No. Oh yes, I heard just now, a moment ago...."

"Haven't you seen her declining, getting greyer and greyer under the eyes?"

"I haven't seen her since last spring at home. Is she still ill?"

The Tutor answered in a comically hard voice, stamping his foot:

"Yes."

"I heard just now.... No, I haven't seen her declining, I haven't met her. Is she very ill?"

"Very. Probably dead by now, you understand."

Johannes gave a stunned look at the man, then at his door, wondered whether he should go in or stay where he was; looked at the man again, at his long coat, his hat; and he smiled in a confused and painful way like one in distress.

The old Tutor resumed in a threatening tone:

"Another example; can you get away from it? _She_ did not get the right one either, her sweet-heart from childhood's days, a splendid young Lieutenant. He went shooting one evening, a shot hit him right in the forehead and blew his head to pieces. There he lay, a victim of the little trick God had a mind to play with him. Victoria, his bride, began to decline, a worm was preying on her, cribbling her heart like a sieve; we, her friends, could see it. Then a few days ago she went to a party, to some people named Seier; by the bye, she told me you were to have been there too, but didn't come. Be that as it may, at this party she overtaxes her strength, thoughts of her beloved rush in upon her and she is lively from sheer bravado; she dances, dances the whole evening, dances like a mad person. Then she falls, the floor turns red under her; they lift her up, carry her out, drive her home. She was near the end."

The Tutor went close up to Johannes and said in a hard voice:

"Victoria is dead."

Johannes began fending vaguely with his arms just like a blind man.

"Dead? When did she die? Do you say Victoria is dead?"

"She is dead," replied the Tutor. "She died this morning, this very forenoon." He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a thick letter. "And she confided this letter to me to hand to you. Here it is. After my death, she said. She is dead. I hand you this letter. My mission is ended."

And without taking leave, without a word more, the Tutor turned and strolled slowly down the street and vanished.

Johannes was left with the letter in his hand. Victoria was dead. He spoke her name aloud again and again and his voice was without feeling, almost callous. He looked at the letter and recognized the writing; there were big and small letters, the lines were straight, and she who had written them was dead!

Then he entered his doorway, went upstairs, found the right key to put into his latch and opened his door. His room was cold and dark. He sat down in the window and read Victoria's letter by the last of the daylight.

"Dear Johannes," she wrote. "When you read this letter I shall be
dead. Everything is so strange to me now, I am no longer ashamed to
write to you again as though nothing had happened to prevent it.
Before, while I was altogether among the living, I would rather
have suffered night and day than written to you again; but now I
have begun to pass away I do not think so any longer. Strangers
have seen me bleed, the Doctor has examined me and found that I
have only a shred of a lung left; what is there to hold me back now?

"I have been thinking as I lay here in bed of the last words I said
to you. It was that evening in the wood. I never thought then that
they would be my last words, for then I would have said good-bye
to you at the same time and thanked you. Now I shall never see you
again, so now I am sorry I did not throw myself down and kiss your
shoe and the ground you trod on, to show you how unspeakably I have
loved you. I have lain here both yesterday and today wishing I
could be just well enough to go home again and walk in the wood and
find the place where we sat when you held both my hands; for then I
could lie down there and see if I could find the trace of you and
kiss all the heather about. But I cannot come home now, unless, as
Mamma thinks, I may possibly get a little better.

"Dear Johannes, it is so curious to think that all I have ever been
able to do was to come into the world and love you and now say
good-bye to life. It is strange indeed to lie here waiting for the
day and the hour. I am moving step by step away from life and the
people in the street and the noise of the traffic; I shall never
see spring again either, and these houses and streets and the trees
in the Park I shall leave behind. Today I was allowed to sit up in
bed and look out of the window a little while. Down at the corner
I saw two people meet, they stopped and shook hands and laughed
at what they said; but it seemed so strange to me that I who lay
and watched them was to die. It made me think--of course those two
people do not know that I am lying here waiting for my hour; but if
they did know it they would still stop and talk just as they are
doing now. Last night when it was dark I thought my last hour had
come, my heart began to stand still and I seemed to hear already
the distant roar of eternity coming towards me. But the next moment
I was back from somewhere a long way off and began to breathe
again. It was a feeling I can't describe at all. Mamma thinks it
was perhaps only the river and the waterfall at home that were in
my mind.

"O God, if you knew how I have loved you, Johannes. I have not been
able to show it to you, so many things have come in my way, and
above all my own nature. Papa was hard on himself in the same way
and I am his daughter. But now that I am to die and it is all too
late, I write to you once more and tell you so. I ask myself why
I do it, as it cannot make any difference to you, especially as I
shall not even be alive any more; but I want so much to be near you
to the last so that I may not feel more lonely than before, at any
rate. When you read this it is as though I can see your shoulders
and hands and watch every movement you make as you hold the letter
before you and read it. So we are not so far from each other, I
think to myself. I cannot send for you, I have no right to do that.
Mamma would have sent for you two days ago, but I would rather
write. And I would rather you should remember me as I was once,
before I began to be ill. I remember you ... [here some words are
omitted] ... my eyes and eye-brows; but even they are not as they
were. That is another reason why I would not have you come. And I
will ask you not to see me in my coffin either. I expect I am much
the same as when I was alive, only a little paler, and I am lying
in a yellow dress; but still you would regret it if you came and
saw me.

"Now I have been writing at this letter so many times today and
yet I have not been able to say a thousandth part of what I wanted
to say. It is so terrible for me to die, I do not want to, I am
still hoping so fervently to God that perhaps I might get a little
better, if only till the spring. Then the days are light and there
are leaves on the trees. If I got well again now I would never be
unkind to you any more, Johannes. How I have cried and thought
about that! Oh, I would go out and stroke all the stones in the
street and stop and thank every step of the stairs as I went by and
be good to all. It would not matter how badly off I was if I might
only live. I should never complain again about anything; no, I
would smile at any one who attacked me and struck me and thank and
praise God if I might live. My life is so unlived, I have not been
able to do anything for anybody, and this failure of a life is to
end now. If you knew how unwilling I was to die perhaps you would
do something, do all in your power. I don't suppose you can do
anything; but I thought that if you and every one else prayed for
me and would not let me go then God would grant me life. Oh, how
thankful I should be, I would never do harm to any one again, but
smile at whatever fell to my lot, if only I were allowed to live.

"Mamma is sitting here crying. She sat here all night and cried
for me. That does me a little good, it softens the bitterness
of my going. And today I was thinking--how would you take it, I
wonder, if I came straight up to you in the street one day when I
was nicely dressed, and did not say anything to hurt you as I have
done, but gave you a rose which I had bought on purpose? Then the
next moment I remembered that I could never again do what I wanted;
for I can never be well again before I die. I cry so often, I lie
still and cry ceaselessly and inconsolably; it does not hurt my
chest if I do not sob. Johannes, dear, dear friend, my only beloved
on earth, come to me now and be here a little while when it begins
to grow dark. I shall not cry then, but smile as well as I am able,
from sheer joy at your coming.

"Ah, where are my pride and my courage! I am not my father's
daughter now; but this is because my strength has left me. I have
suffered for a long time, Johannes, long before these last days.
When you were abroad I suffered, and afterwards, since I came to
town in the spring I have done nothing but suffer every day. I
have never known before how infinitely long the night can be. I
have seen you twice in the street during this time; once you were
humming as you passed me, but you did not see me. I had hope of
seeing you at the Seiers'; but you did not come. I should not have
spoken to you or come quite close to you, but should have been
grateful to be able to look at you a long way off. But you did not
come. Then I thought perhaps it was on my account you kept away. At
eleven o'clock I began to dance because I could not bear to wait
any longer. Ah, Johannes, I have loved you, loved only you all my
life. It is Victoria who writes this and God is reading it over my
shoulder.

"And now I must say good-bye, it is nearly dark and I cannot see
any more. Good-bye, Johannes, thanks for every day. When I fly away
from earth I shall still thank you to the last and say your name to
myself all the way. Farewell, be happy all your life and forgive me
the wrong I have done you and that I could not throw myself at your
feet and beg your forgiveness. I do so now in my heart. Farewell,
Johannes, and good-bye for ever. And thanks once more for every
single day and hour. I can no more.

Your

VICTORIA.

"Now I have had the lamp lit and it is all much brighter. I have
been lying in a trance and again been far away. Thank God, it was
not so uncanny as before, I even heard a little music and above all
it was not dark. I am so thankful. But now I have no more strength
to write. Good-bye, my beloved...."

THE END

* * * * *

_The Works of_

KNUT HAMSUN

_Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1920_

HUNGER [_Sult_] _Translated by George
Egerton. With an introduction by Edwin Björkman._

GROWTH OF THE SOIL
[_Markens Gröde_] _Translated, with an essay on Hamsun,
by W. W. Worster._

PAN _Translated by W. W. Worster. With an
introduction by Edwin Björkman._

SHALLOW SOIL [_Ny Jord_] _Translated,
with an introductory essay, by Carl Christian Hyllested._

DREAMERS [_Sværmere_] _Translated by
W. W. Worster._

WANDERERS [_Under Høststjærnen and
En Vandrer Spiller med Sordin._] _Translated by W.
W. Worster. With an introduction by Edwin Björkman._

VICTORIA _Translated by A. G. Chater._

_In preparation_

CHILDREN OF THE TIME
[_Børn av Tiden._]

THE VILLAGE OF SEGELFOSS
[_Segelfoss By._]

ROSA

BENONI

_ALFRED A KNOPF_
_PUBLISHER_ _NEW YORK_