down. Has the forest taught you nothing, then? What have I learned in the
forest? _That young trees grow there_.

In my footsteps walks youth, youth that is shamelessly, barbarously
scorned, merely because it is young, scorned by stupidity and
degeneration. I have seen this for many years. I know nothing more
despicable than your school education and your school-education standards.
Whether you have a catechism or a compass by which to guide your life is
all the same; come here, my friend, and I will give you a compass made of
my latest iron.




IX


A tourist arrived at the farm: the first tourist. And the master of the
house himself went with him across the fjeld, and as for Solem, why, he,
too, went with him so that he might know the way for later tourists. We
found the fat, short, and thin-haired stranger standing in the yard, an
elderly, well-to-do man who walked for the sake of his health and the last
twenty years of his life. Josephine, the dear girl, made her feet a breeze
beneath her skirts, and got him into the living room, with its piano and
its earthenware bowls with beaded edges. When he was leaving, he brought
out his small change, which Josephine received in her gray, young-girl's
fingers. On the other side of the fjeld, Solem was given two crowns for
acting as guide, and that was good pay. All went so well that the master
himself was content.