The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas Read Free Book Online Page B

and I, waving to each other in the field.
    That was all he needed. What was more, he heard it so distinctly that he put it into words and repeated it.
    “Yes, here we are, you and I, in the field,” he said, just as warm and gently, but not as secretively as she had done.
    “Yes, we are,” said the girl.
    It was really true. She was standing looking at him, awkward and helpless though he was; she was quite spellbound.
    “One two three, pang!” said the young man, giving her leg a pinch – this seemed to be his favorite pastime – and at once the girl became completely absorbed by her boyfriend again.
    “Yes,” said the farmer too.
    The farmer with the big field. They glanced at him quickly and knew what he meant; pang!
    Once again the three of them moved quickly past Mattis. He looked across them. They seemed to have all the things he longed for: the three things. These people were nothing but the three things. They were full of them and yet they didn’t give them a thought, weren’t even aware of them, as far as he could see. How could they go around, calmly thinning out a turnip field?
    He lay flat on his stomach pulling things up, his thoughts roaming wildly. Help me, he thought.
    But his thoughts flitted aimlessly as before. Although he meant to pull up weeds, he pulled up turnips.
    Nobody wants to help me, that’s the trouble, he thought, and colors began dancing in front of his eyes.
    The precious turnips infuriated him. They lay there puny andthreadlike when he’d pulled up the things they were resting against. Mattis wanted to shout abuse at them in his wretchedness, wanted to call them dreary little weaklings, not worth lying here for, feeling miserable. His thoughts wandered back and forth. This was what always happened when he tried to work – nothing had changed. And that was what was really bothering him today: no change, just the same old routine.
    Thank goodness! There was a call from the others on the far side of the ridge.
    “Mattis!”
    It was the farmer himself, the wise one. The beautiful one and the strong one said nothing, but they were there all right. All the three things were there.
    “Food?” Mattis shouted back, quick as lightning.
    “Yes, come along!” cried the farmer, still out of sight. The pleasant calls rang back and forth across the ridge. Mattis was already on the move.
    Mattis still had a bit of his first two rows left to do. But the end was at least in sight, so it might have been worse, he reflected, feeling a little better now he was on his way to a good meal.
    The others didn’t say a word about his poor work when he joined them to leave the field. Not a single word was said – but Mattis wassure they were thinking of nothing else. He bottled it up inside him for a while, but in the end he exploded: “You can come out with whatever it is you’re thinking!” he said to them as they washed their dirty hands in the stream.
    “What is it we’re thinking, then?” asked the young man. It was the first time he had spoken to Mattis.
    “I know it alright,” said Mattis who was in a state of great agitation and had to go on tormenting himself.
    “Ah well,” said the farmer, “let’s go back to the house and get something to eat. Have a little rest and—”
    They washed their hands in a clear little stream that flowed near the edge of the field. The girl washed her hands in the same pool as Mattis. Down in the water, made turbid by their mud, their hands touched for a brief moment as they plunged them in. A shock ran right through him. Gradually the running water swept the pool and the hands in it clean again. But now he dared not go anywhere near her.
    The girl looked at him, and he had no time to think.
    “It was almost like touching an electric fence,” he blurted out.
    Afterward he thought he had put it rather well, but all she did was turn away. Surely she wasn’t laughing? Her boyfriend was washing his hands nearby, too, and when he’d finished he put