GROWTH

OF THE

SOIL



Translated from the Norwegian of

KNUT HAMSUN

by W.W. WORSTER


[ORIGINAL TITLE "MARKENS GRØDE"]


1917




Chapter I


The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest--who trod it
into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here.
There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other,
following the faint tracks over marsh and moorland, wearing them