Look Back on Happiness | Page 9

hangs from
the roof. The Lapp himself is a dull nonentity who can neither tell
fortunes nor conjure. His daughter has gone across the field; she has
learned to read, but not to write, at the village school. The two old
people, husband and wife, are fools. The whole family share a sort of
animal dumbness; if I ask them a question, I may or may not get half a
reply: "Mm-no, mm-yes." I am not a Lapp, and so they distrust me.
All the afternoon the mist lay white on the forest. I slept a while. In the
evening, the sky was clear again, and there were a few degrees of frost.
I left the hut. The moon stood full and silent above the earth.
Heigh-ho--what untuned strings!
But where are the birds all gone away, and what kind of place is this?
Here where I stand nothing moves or stirs, in this world that is dead, no
event occurs; I stand in a silvermine. My eyes sweep round, but I sorely
miss a homely, well-known outline.
And so he came to a silver wood-- thus ran an ancient tale. Here rests a
song of shimmering fire as though it were sung by a starry choir. And
swift in my youth, I leap to bind fast the troll, the cunning male, and
awaken a maid from her sleep.
Today I smile at childish tales, old age has made me wise. Once
proudly in prodigal youth I trod, now by age my foot is heavily shod;
yet my heart--my heart would fly. I am driven by fire and bound by ice,
no rest nor repose have I.
A shuddering chill falls on the night, like a cloud from the lungs in the
cold. There passed a great gust through the silver lace of the woods,
like a lion's royal pace on paws that are soundless and still. It may be a
god on his evening stroll. The roots of the forest thrill.
When I returned to the hut, the daughter had also returned home, and
sat eating after her long march. Olga the Lapp, tiny and queer,
conceived in a snowdrift, in the course of a greeting. "Boris!" they said
and fell on their noses.
She had bought red and blue pieces of cloth at the draper's shop in the
village, and no sooner had she finished eating than she pushed the cups
and plates away and began to embroider her Sunday jacket with pretty
strips of the cloth. All the while she never spoke a word, because a
stranger was in the room.

"You know me, Olga, don't you?"
"Mm."
"But you look so angry."
"M-no."
"How's the snow track across the fjeld?"
"All right."
I knew there was a deserted hut the family had once lived in, and asked:
"How far is it to your old hut?"
"Not far," said Olga.
Olga Lapp has someone to smile at surely, even if she will not smile at
me. Here she sits in the great forest, pandering to her vanity and sewing
wonderful scrolls on her jacket. On Sunday, no doubt, she will wear it
to church and meet the man whose eyes it is meant to gladden.
I was not anxious to stay any longer with these small beings, these
human grains of sand. As I had slept enough in the afternoon and the
moon was bright, I prepared to leave. After laying in a further supply of
reindeer cheese and whatever other food I could get, I left the hut. But
what a surprise: the bright moonlight was gone, and the sky was
overcast; there was no frost, only mild weather and wet woods. It was
spring.
When Olga Lapp saw this, she advised me against leaving; but why
should I listen to her chatter? She came with me a little way into the
woods to direct me, then turned and went back, tiny and queer, her
feathers ruffled like a hen's.

VI
It was difficult to advance. Never mind. A few hours later I found
myself high up on the fjeld; I must have strayed from the path. What is
that dark shape there? A mountain peak. And that over there? Another
peak. Let us pitch camp on the spot, then.
There was a deep goodness and tenderness about this mild night. I sat
in the dark recalling forgotten memories of my childhood, and many
experiences in this place and that. And what a satisfaction it is, too, to
have money in one's pocket, even if one sleeps in the open!
During the night I woke up; I found it growing too warm for me under
my crag, and loosened my sleeping bag. It seemed to me, too, that a
sound still hummed in my ear, as