“The papers say that haymaking is easier and you can do it better if you’ve been properly educated at school,” said my brother.
“Do you believe the papers and everything they carry on about?” father said sarcastically. “In the summer the paper announced lovely weather, so why was the rain soaking your skin? Best to ask Oskar himself if it’s easier now for him to carry the hay.”
“What is there to ask?” I interjected. “It’s obvious that it’s harder.”
“I think it’s harder too,” said father. “And you went to school to quit the hardships of farm work. But there you are – where do you get it, when everyone wants to get it? The world is that way – there isn’t enough to go round for everybody. They barge into the countryside, then there are shortages there, so they all head back to the town, then that gets crowded, so there isn’t enough room for everyone. We might have more space in the countryside, but I’m afraid everyone will soon be so educated that no one will want to live in the country any more. Things are so crazy now that there’s a school for everything. You want to be a housewife, there’s a housewives’ school, you want to be a lady, there’s a school for young ladies, and for cooks there’s a cookery school. But as for potatoes, nobody knows how or can be bothered to peel them any more; it’s best to cut them up for the pigs. There’s nothing for it but to open a potato-peeling school.”
“One has already been opened,” laughed my brother.
“Well of course, what can you do,” opined father, “when people have got so blind that they won’t turn up their trousers any more and won’t learn to stop up the pigsty door without schooling in it, as old people used to say in my boyhood. But what’s mad is that as soon as a person’s gone through housewives’ school or school for young ladies, they don’t want to be a housewife or a young lady any more. And as soon as a man has learnt at school to turn up his trousers and stop up the pigsty door, he’s only good enough to be a master in the town.”
“Things are not as bad as you make out, father,” said my brother. “You see, the farmer at the farm on the church road is an educated man, and he makes a terrible fuss and bother of things.”
“Of course he makes a fuss and bother – with other people’s money. Take notice, son, we have to pay for that educated farmer’s fuss and bother,” warned father.
“Why?” asked my brother. “We don’t have anything to do with him.”
“But what if the debts caused by all that fuss, bother and new-fangled ideas are written on the chimney?” responded father.
“Who would come and write those on our chimney?” contested my brother, defending his view of the supposed mortgage on the neighbour’s house.
“My dear child, where would they write, then?” cried father. “In the end they write debts on the chimneys of those who still have a chimney. And he doesn’t have his own chimney any more, that’s surer than sure, and he and his little wife can sell his place to the highest bidder, but he’ll never see the money back that he’s put into it.”
“Of course that is surer than sure, that he’ll never see that money,” agreed my brother.
“Well, but whose money was it that will never be seen?” asked father. “According to my stupid reasoning, it belonged to all of us who live on our own money and not in debt.”
“But we have debts too,” said my brother, and now all eyes turned on me, for they all knew that those debts were incurred by me.
“Of course we have debts,” agreed father, “and they’re connected to the school too, but our place is worth more than them many times over. Or don’t you think so?”
“I do,” said my brother.
“You see!” cried father triumphantly. “So we can pay off our debts and help to pay off that educated farmer’s debts at the same time when he goes bankrupt; after all, the money is supposed to come from somebody’s pocket.”
“But if it’s given away?” asked my brother.
“No, son, in this world nothing is given away,” replied father, “or if it is, it’s taken from others’ pockets. You know what I tell you, children, and you, Oskar, don’t take offence that your father tells you this: it’s the same story with the educated farmer and his fussing as with your fussing about your coloured cap – that’s the conclusion I’ve come to, when I think about your education and everything else. Other people, who are more decent and modest, have to pay for it.”
“Old man, you’re spoiling what little pleasure we have with your talk, when we’re together rarely enough as it is,” said mother, and you could feel from her voice that the tears were not far from her eyes.
“Father, I’ve told you once already that I’m voluntarily giving up my right of inheritance in favour of Enn and Mall – isn’t that enough?” I said, as if emboldened by Mother’s words.
“No, son, it isn’t enough,” replied father, “your schooling costs more than either Enn or Mall will inherit.”
“So then, I’m in debt to Enn and Mall,” I concluded.
“You don’t owe me a thing, Oskar,” said my brother with a heavy heart at the embarrassing turn the conversation had taken.
“Nor me either!” cried Mall, getting up from her chair and going into the other room, no doubt to hide her tears.
“I didn’t mean that either,” explained father, “but I only said it so that you’d know how things really are. I don’t believe Enn would ever regard you as her debtor, Oskar, when I’m not –”
“Father, why are you even bringing up this subject?” shouted my brother. “Do what you think is right, and let Oskar and me do what we think is right. But since this subject has come up, then I’ll tell you one thing straight from the heart, Oskar, that if you come home now, or whenever you do come home, I’m always pleased, if only because my educated brother hasn’t forgotten us. Of course
I’d be even more pleased if you were doing well, and not just to get something from you.”
Those words made me wipe my own eyes and blow my nose, so the family atmosphere was perfect. But we menfolk don’t weep; we just sat silently, each by himself.
So then, everyone was pleased when I came home, but would they also have been pleased if I’d stayed at home longer? That question went unanswered, and it didn’t occur to anyone to ask it. Yet it was the main question that came to my mind only later – together with another, even more important one: am I also pleased to come home, let alone think of staying longer? For what help is others’ pleasure, if I’m sad myself? And that last question became increasingly pertinent with every passing day.
I thought of my situation as somehow unnatural. It was hard to bear the knowledge that we all – father and mother, brother and sister, myself, had once had other hopes for my future than what I had achieved, and others still had hope and belief in me that I wasn’t able to realise. There was such a big gulf between everyone’s dreams and realities, especially other people’s, that life became hard for me. What could I do about the gulf between us clearly conveyed not only by people’s faces, words, looks, but also by the bony backs and flanks and sagging necks of horses, the bleating of lambs and the lowing of cows in the byre, and the cluster of stumps where the forest had been, when I went walking, a gun on my back and a dog by my side?
Walking as a hunter used to be one of my favourite pastimes. The mere sight of a sniffing and tail-wagging dog or the sound of his barking would make my heart beat faster. A hunting dog’s pleasure pleased me as well. Now I was going in search of that pleasure, but I didn’t get very far on the snowy fields, meadows, pastures or forests, with the same white covering everywhere, which deadened the sound of steps and voices before I forgot all about the joyful dog and his barking. Or if I noticed them at all, it was something confusing, disturbing. It was painful to see a dark spot passing across the silent, bright white surface and making a noise. Why this, when all around everything had sunk into slumber, when all around was nothing but a white dream, as if someone were remembering their long-dead mother, who loved whiteness! Yes, white with a red rose! Why that joyful barking, when all around, as far as the eye could see, was a silent sadness, as if someone were mourning hopelessly! The dog should run its snout deep into the snowy plain under a cloudy sky and howl, its tail between its legs.