Victoria

Translated from the Norwegian of Knut Hamsun By Arthur G. Chater

New York Alfred A Knopf 1923

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

Published, April, 1923 Second Printing, June, 1923

Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.

Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York. Bound by H. Wolff Estate, New York.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Victoria

The Miller's son walked in thought. He was a big lad of fourteen, tanned by sun and wind and full of all manner of ideas.

When he grew up he would go to work in a match factory. It was so jolly and dangerous; he might get his fingers covered with sulphur so that nobody would dare shake hands with him. He would be thought a lot of by his chums on account of his lurid trade.

He looked about in the wood for his birds. For he knew them all, knew where their nests were, understood their cries and had different calls to answer them. More than once he had given them dough balls made of flour from his father's mill.

All these trees along the path were good friends of his. In spring he had drawn their sap and in winter had been a little father to them, freeing them of snow and helping them to hold up their boughs. And even up in the abandoned granite quarry there wasn't a stone that was a stranger to him, he had cut letters and signs on them and set them up, arranged them like a congregation around their parson. All kinds of strange things happened in that old granite quarry.

He turned off and came down to the mill-dam. The mill was at work; an immense and ponderous noise surrounded him. He was in the habit of wandering about here, talking to himself aloud. Every bead of foam seemed to have a little life to talk about, and over by the sluice the water fell straight down and looked like a shining sheet of stuff hung out to dry. In the pool below the fall there were fish; he had stood there with his rod many a time.

When he grew up he would be a diver. That was it. Then he would step down into the sea from the deck of a ship and enter strange realms and countries where great and wonderful forests stood swaying and a castle of coral lay at the bottom. And the Princess beckoned to him from a window and said "Come in!"

Then he heard his name called; his father stood behind him and shouted "Johannes!"

"There's a message for you from the Castle. You're to row the children over to the island!"

He went off in a hurry. A new favour and a great one had been vouchsafed to the Miller's son.

"The Mansion" looked like a little castle in the green landscape, indeed it was like a stupendous palace in its solitude. The house was built of wood and painted white, with many bow-windows in its walls and roof, and a flag flew on the round tower when there were visitors. People called it the Castle. And outside its grounds lay the bay to one side, and to the other the great forests; far away some little farms were to be seen.

Johannes appeared at the landing-stage and got the young people into the boat. He knew them of old; they were the children of the "Castle" and their friends from town. They all had on high boots for wading; but Victoria, who only had little shoes on and besides was not more than ten, she had to be carried ashore when they reached the island.

"Shall I carry you?" asked Johannes.

"Let me!" said Otto, the gentleman from town, a man nearly old enough to leave school, and he took her in his arms.

Johannes stood and watched her being carried high up on land and heard her thanks. Then Otto looked back:

"Well, you'll look after the boat—what was his name?"

"Johannes," answered Victoria. "Yes, he'll look after the boat."

He was left behind. The others went off into the island, carrying baskets for collecting eggs. He stood pondering for a while; he would have liked to go with the others and they could have dragged the boat ashore for the matter of that. Too heavy? It wasn't too heavy. And he laid his fist on the boat and hauled it up a little way.

He heard the laughter and chatter of the young party growing fainter. All right, good-bye for the present. But they might have taken him with them. He knew of nests that he could have taken them to, wonderful hidden holes in the rock, where lived birds of prey with tufts on their beaks. And once he had seen a stoat.

He shoved the boat off and started to row round to the other side of the island. He had rowed a good way when they shouted to him:

"Row back. You're scaring the birds."

"I only wanted to show you where the stoat lives?" he answered tentatively. He waited a moment. "And then we could smoke out the snakes' nest? I've got some matches."