August by Knut Hamsun

Author:Knut Hamsun [Hamsun, Knut]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780865273740
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 1930-01-05T14:00:00+00:00

The revival in Polden took place mainly in the ranks of the mothers. They had no incentive other than what they made for themselves; they met together down by the brook or in each other’s homes, got out their books of sermons and their psalm books and Teodor’s Ragna, she read aloud to them. They had such wonderful times, they believed, and even certain of the menfolk sometimes came to their meetings—Kristofer, who had always been a great tough brute of a man, became so confused by hunger and religion that now and then he went off by himself and wept.

And there lay August in bed.

His fate was different from that of the others. It was true that he was sick and he lay there talking to himself and calling himself ‘Captain’ and ‘Massa August’ and imagining he was looking through a spy glass at some girls bathing on a beach. Voices came to him from somewhere up under the eaves and he answered them; his talk seemed to be concerned with a certain negro-girl who had begged him to spare her, but to whose entreaties he had turned a deaf ear—ha, ha! Massa August had not been as foolish as that! He was also labouring with a mighty scheme to hold a fair in Polden as soon as possible. Why not? The whole parish would attend, and folk from the steamer-landing and from the neighbouring parishes, as well. He would have an enormous merry-go-round and a lottery, but no bears—’No, to hell with that idea!’ he cried out in his delirium. Damned if he would, shut up. . . .

Edevart stayed by his bedside night and day; occasionally he would leave him to lie down in the next room, keeping the door between them open, however. The doctor had termed his illness ‘a kind of inflammation of the lungs’ and was giving him hypodermic injections and a certain kind of medicine; the patient must not be left alone a minute lest, in his delirium, he be tempted to get up out of bed.

He was not out of his head the entire time; during the forenoon of the third day he had a lucid moment. He did not consider it absolutely impossible for him to die; on the contrary, he was afraid that developments were leading in that direction and he was much concerned about how he would fare on the other side of life. Suddenly, he asked Edevart if it were storming outside the fjord and which way the wind was blowing. ‘H’m, in from the Atlantic, eh!’ he said and nodded.

He was entirely clear in his mind, but he was wrestling frantically with various problems which did not appear to be wholly related. ‘I wanted to plant something this spring,’ he said. ‘But now I’m going to die, all right.’

‘You’re not going to die,’ said Edevart.

‘Ho, don’t you think so? What was I going to say? When you had that farm of yours out in Dakota—you didn’t raise tobacco on your farm, did you?’

‘Tobacco? No.

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