The Bridges

by Tarjei Vesaas

  He felt a pang of regret.

  ‘Aud,’ he said, out of the misery he felt even in the midst of this flaring emotion, his deep misery when he faced Aud.

  ‘Yes, Torvil,’ was all Aud said.

  How had she said it? He could not interpret her tone. He was proud of Aud who had not taken to her heels and run away, but was standing still, a witness. He tried to imagine that she was strong and free, standing there. Most likely she wasn’t; he knew he was only thinking so in order to justify himself.

  And now she wasn’t going to stay with them any longer. She took a step towards them.

  ‘Valborg—’

  Valborg looked up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve seen a solution, Valborg?’

  Valborg found nothing to say.

  ‘So I’ll go home without saying good-bye,’ continued Aud. She nodded to them and went. The fine, thick drizzle settled about her making her cheeks rosy.

  Misery? Yes, that too.

  What in the world have I done?

  Valborg said, not in the least strong and free inside his raincoat, ‘Torvil, do you know what you’re doing? Do you really know? I’m not playing, Torvil. I accept you in all seriousness. And I feel so tremendously happy. But can I believe in it?’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ answered Torvil, ‘except that it has to be this way. Let me kiss you, Valborg!’

  ‘Yes ...’

  ‘You’re going to be my girl, Valborg.’

  ‘But are you sure? Young as you are?’

  He looked into her eyes. He imagined there was a new light in them. Yes, there was! Her eyes were opened wide towards his, and there was a light in them.

  ‘I want it,’ he said. ‘And you want it.’

  ‘Yes. And now you must let me go, Torvil.’

  ‘What do you mean, go?’

  ‘You see—this happened too quickly and overwhelmingly. I must collect myself alone. I don’t know how to describe it—come to my senses, really feel that it’s true. I always think you have to do that in private. You too must go away alone and think. Think it over, in case this has happened too quickly.’

  ‘I shan’t. We’re not going back on it now,’ said Torvil angrily.

  ‘No—but you can’t be sure.’

  ‘You mustn’t think like this, Valborg, and you’re not going. It’s not even dark yet.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose I was thinking of the first evening we met, when we sat in the dark.’

  ‘Yes, that was a strange evening. But now you must allow each of us to be alone, as I said.’

  At last he loosened the violent hold he had of Valborg.

  ‘All right. I suppose I’d better. Can you meet me tomorrow morning? I can’t wait for two whole days this time. I want to meet you again soon.’

  ‘Not tomorrow morning,’ said Valborg. ‘You must think for most of tomorrow too—that’s not such a long time for thinking, it seems to me. I’ve told you I’m tremendously happy, anyway.’

  Tomorrow evening, then?’

  ‘Yes. Or the same time as today. And under this fir tree,’ she added, clearly well-disposed towards it.

  Torvil was incapable of thinking. He was still in the grip of emotion, still saw that light.

  ‘You must come to us. I want to show you to Mother and Father.’

  Valborg laughed.

  ‘How you rush ahead, my boy. Oh no, you’ll have to wait a good while before doing that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t want to be paraded in front of them yet. I must recover properly first. And after that I think we ought to wait for a good long time.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You seem to be afraid I’ll disappear, Torvil. Do you think I shall? What’s the reason?’

  He looked at her, unable to tell her that Aud was the reason.

  ‘I can come with you part of?’

  ‘That you can do.’

  They squelched along in the wet. It was curious to be walking in the wet woods today. There was a hint of twilight. It had almost stopped raining.

  Valborg halted on the path, as if she had just thought of something that had to be explained. ‘Aud is your sister, isn’t she?’

  Torvil winced. This business of Aud had been lurking all the time, as far as he was concerned, although his recklessness seemed to have swept it away a while ago.

  ‘What do you mean, my sister?’ he was forced to reply.

  Valborg looked at him fearfully.

  ‘Isn’t she your sister?’

  ‘Would you like her to be?’

  ‘Like her to be? But Torvil! You behave as if you were brother and sister, both of you. You always have. You look alike too, I think.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Are you doing this on purpose, Torvil? I believe she is your sister after all.’

  Torvil said with difficulty, ‘No, I’m afraid she isn’t. She’s a playfellow, but that’s all.’

  Valborg somehow seemed alarmed.

  ‘But you act all the time as if you’re related, in everything I’ve seen during these strange days.’

  ‘You heard what I said; she’s a playfellow. Ever since we were quite small. So I suppose that’s why.’

  Can’t be helped, he thought, pushing it away. This is what I want, it’s Valborg. In the meantime he told her about himself and Aud.

  ‘We’ve lived next door to each other all our lives. You must have seen the two houses standing side by side. We’ve been brought up like brother and sister.’

  ‘Yes. As children. But it can’t be the same now.’

  ‘You said yourself that we looked like it.’

  ‘Because nothing else occurred to me, from the way you behaved. But since you’re not brother and sister, then it’s all very different. The things I had noticed about you appear in a new light and mean something else.’

  Torvil was silent.

  ‘Torvil, have I come between you? Is that what’s happened really?’

  ‘No.’

  In spite of everything he thought he could say no. It ought to be possible to defend himself somehow for saying no.

  ‘I mustn’t do that,’ said Valborg.

  Torvil told her. ‘Absolutely nothing serious has been said or done by Aud or myself. Our parents want it like that, and try to push things that way. It’s often annoyed us.’

  ‘Can you talk like that on behalf of both of you? You do it all the time. What does Aud want?’

  ‘I’m telling you we’ve never—’

  Valborg interrupted, ‘I’m asking you, what does Aud want? What would she prefer?’

  ‘I have to say I’m not sure. We like one another, obviously. But there’s nothing to be done when things happen the way they did today. Then it’s not just a matter of liking. Aud and I haven’t promised each other a thing. We may have thought about it, but we haven’t said it. And this is what I want, Valborg. Was I to know how this was to come and turn everything upside down?’ He hugged her to him in distress.

  When she could breathe again Valborg said, ‘This is crazy, Torvil. We’re not old enough.’

  Oh, surely you’re old enough, he was about to say, but kept it back. A dark shadow passed by. Not now, all this must be kept out of it! he said, almost out loud. ‘Anyway it happened all the same, whether you’re old enough or whatever you are,’ he said.

  She hugged him back.

  ‘Yes, I’m not forgetting that. But you must leave me alone now, so that I can hide myself away.’

  ‘Let me look in your eyes first.’

  He walked home in a daze. Valborg had disappeared among the trees and bushes. He was afraid and happy; he could not have said which emotion was the stronger. A dripping wet bush slapped him in the face. When he wiped away the moisture he felt his cheek burning. The moisture was cool and refreshing. He dried his face and told himself: I’m not even looking where I’m going today. Everything’s different.

  There
sat Aud.

  Torvil started in surprise. There sat Aud under a tree, waiting for him. Feelings he could not name passed through him: smarting, strange.

  Waiting for him.

  Of course. He understood her very well. She was waiting for him so that they could come calmly home together, and she would avoid all the questions about why she had returned alone and sooner than they had announced when they left.

  Aud did not look as if she wanted to come away from under her tree. He was smarting and uneasy as he went over to her and said, ‘It’s stopped raining. You don’t need to sit under the trees.’

  ‘I’d noticed that, Torvil.’

  She got to her feet.

  Torvil studied her face. He discovered nothing new. Nothing seemed harmed. But what did he know about it? If he could have talked about what he felt, then—but it was impossible.

  ‘You’re coming home, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought I would. I suppose we’d better turn up as we usually do.’

  ‘That’s what I thought when I saw you there.’

  ‘But you came much more quickly than I’d expected,’ said Aud.

  ‘It’s getting a bit dark already,’ answered Torvil nervously, searching for something to say and lighting on what was nearest. Stupid, for Aud couldn’t stop herself saying, ‘You managed it in daylight all right, Torvil.’

  He winced. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say something like that,’ he said, dropping his voice.

  Aud took his arm.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean to. You haven’t deserved it.’

  ‘Shall we go? Come on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They walked along in silence. But after a while Aud returned to what she had said.

  ‘I couldn’t keep it in, Torvil. But I won’t say it again. Will you try to forget what I said?’

  ‘I’ll treasure everything you’ve said,’ he teased. ‘We must talk about this, but you’ll have to let me wait a bit, so I can—I still feel so confused.’

  ‘I hadn’t expected you so soon.’

  ‘Valborg said she had to think. She too.’

  ‘I can understand her very well—in one way. On the other hand I find it difficult to understand.’

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about it now,’ said Torvil, in torment.

  ‘No, my dear, of course not. I’m not asking for anything, believe me.’

  They walked on a little way, but suddenly Torvil confessed, ‘Valborg thought I was your brother.’

  Aud stopped short. ‘What did you say?’ She threw her arms round him roughly and wildly, in a way she had never done before.

  ‘But, Torvil—’

  Was there relief in her voice? Yes, clearly. All at once, despite his confusion and excitement, he understood why. So he hastened to repeat what he had said.

  ‘Yes, she said she had thought you were my sister all along.’

  Aud had released him and was standing with a curious expression on her face.

  ‘Aud?’

  She pulled herself together.

  ‘Don’t say anything for a while, Torvil. Let’s go home where everything is as it used to be.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll come to see you this evening, so that we can talk about it all. Would you like me to?’

  ‘Yes, do come.’

  28

  The Rising Eye in the Well

  The eye has come to the well—I can see it deep down each time I look long enough. Something unbelievable has happened. The eye in the well: I cannot stop looking at it, now that a well has opened up, a well that rises as I watch. It is not my own, ordinary eye I see there—it has been transformed. I can’t look at it any more; if I do I begin to tremble.

  I am strong and strange tonight.

  Tomorrow I must make the effort.

  Until recently there was no well. Freezing and burning and miserable, I was looking into the abyss. The abyss down there. No bridge across it. I clung fast to the edge with my burden, dizzily feeling it give way, feeling the clammy breath rising from it. From a decaying stillness somewhere.

  Unbelievable.

  Someone came across.

  I must look again, to see if it’s true.

  Yes. There is no abyss—even though there was before. There is a well with rising water in it. The eye is there. It rises as I watch. The water rises clearly in the well with the image of the new eye shining within it. It rises up with such a light that I am afraid. Afraid of looking at it. Afraid of not being able to make the effort. I have to look aside and simply trust that it is true, trust that I will be able to make the effort I must make—and afterwards be able to leave the darkness and the wilderness and become a different person.

  No decaying abyss. No choking in the darkness. Instead I lift my head and breathe.

  Not exposed. Not rejected and naked. A channel has opened.

  I know what to do. But I must look at the eye in the well. My own eye after someone crossed over from the other side.

  The gliding walls of water still polish the stones on the banks, and the piers of the bridge cleave and part the flow to right and left as they should, as the piers decide. The slime on the bottom thickens until the next flood—thick river-bed currents smoothed over by the surface.

  I simply stand, someone on the big bridge. What in the world has happened?

  Nobody knows who it is standing on the bridge looking down into the water. And looking to see if the eye from the well is there too. If it is true it will be here.

  Here too.

  I won’t admit I’m looking for the other. I’m looking for the eye—and it rises up and is here. From deep down it rises up with its curious light. I have to turn away before the bridge keels over.

  I realize it is true. Here as well. Wherever I go it is true. I am not destroyed and condemned and naked. I am to live and go ashore. I am to outgrow something.

  Outgrow something?

  A channel has opened?

  Will the shadow grow pale? Then my hands will become hands again—as they were just now. The moment I see the eye facing me in the water I believe this and seize it as my own. This is a strange night before tomorrow.

  The current glides on. It is up to the mighty river to decide how far it will carry its freight. Everything it carries has been given to it.

  I move away trembling.

  I leave this place with something in my heart that I cannot name. All the same I do not feel stripped. I shall not sink straight down. Instead I can make an effort on my own. It goes through me like a streak of light that I am to outgrow my condemnation of myself.

  The well with rising water. I meet my eye with rising courage.

  29

  Aud

  Later that evening Torvil went across to Aud as he had promised. He knew she was in her room.

  No one watched him go, but this occasion was anything but usual for him. They were not easy steps to take.

  Indoors sat the older generation, without a suspicion that their image of the future had been turned upside down by Torvil, presently on his way to Aud.

  Torvil pictured the day when they would break the news. The calm, deep disappointment and the surprise. The sorrow too in one of the houses—that was the worst part.

  Well, never mind about the old people. The real difficulty and bitterness lay in his guilt towards the other party: Aud herself. Aud is unhappy.

  He went in to her in the autumn evening.

  Aud was standing up when he came in. Perhaps she did not want to receive him sitting down.

  I saw you coming,’ she said. T was standing at the window looking out.’

  ‘Have you been waiting for me?’

  ‘Well—I wouldn’t say waiting. Things are a bit different this evening, aren’t they? One can always happen to be standing by the window.’

  She was not like a sister now, nor like a sweetheart. He noticed immediately that she was keeping her distance. She seemed taller too. He suddenly found it difficult to remember his business here. />
  In his confusion, rooted to the spot, he said the first thing that came into his head. ‘How many times have I come here to your room?’

  Aud answered quickly, ‘We’re not going to weep over it, surely?’

  He stood there, feeling stupid. She was dragging them head-first into the muddle. He pulled himself together as quickly as he could, and replied. ‘No, I don’t think so. It hadn’t occurred to me, for this reason. I think I know you pretty well,’ he added, when Aud said nothing.

  ‘I remember you did, though, not so very long ago,’ he said, when Aud still said nothing.

  She came and stood right in front of him. ‘Torvil, we’re not going to talk about that.’

  Torvil said firmly, ‘That’s exactly what you would talk about if you were me now.’

  He seized Aud by the arm, holding her harder than he realized, as he reminded her how it had all begun, with Aud’s weeping behind the stone. It was strange to be holding her arm this time; he had done so countless times, but now it was a different arm, an arm whose support he needed.

  ‘It was you who made the ring round Valborg, Aud. Don’t you remember how you spat at me when all I could think of was running home? If you hadn’t done what you did, then ...’

  He stopped, and Aud said, ‘Yes, stop there. And you can let go. I’m not here to be held for the asking as I used to be.’

  ‘Dear Aud,’ he said.

  ‘Come here and sit down.’

  She drew up a chair for herself as well. He felt comfortable and secure with her beside him.

  Torvil, I’m forced to talk about what troubles both of us. I suppose I must presume that what you feel today you will feel just as much tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and next year and so on—about Valborg and you. That it wasn’t something that simply exploded because of a mood.’

  ‘It feels as if it’ll last, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘All right, I suppose it will. You are honest, you know—in a way.’

  ‘It mustn’t be something that’s simply exploded, as you call it.’

  ‘I agree with you. It would be a great shame, Torvil.’

  He listened carefully to what she was saying. Her words settled on him like weights.

  Aud smiled at him a little, because he was looking so serious and gloomy.