wonderful memories of those days of my extreme youth that sometimes they are more real to me than the
events of last year or even of yesterday. A child who may grow to adulthood with the sea and the forest and the orchards at
hand may count himself a very lucky child indeed.
Before we had reached the age when we were allowed to go to school. Evan and I had occasion to spend a great deal of time
together, and I believe that because of this we each understood that in some indefinable manner our souls, and hence our paths,
were to be inextricably linked, and perhaps I knew already that whatever fate might befall the one would surely befall the
other. And as regards the outside world, that is to say the world of nature (and the people and spirits and animals who inhabited
that tangible world), each of us was for the other a filter. I remember with a clarity that would seem to be extraordinary
after so many years (these events having occurred at such a young age) talking with Evan all the long days and into the nights
(for is not a day actually longer when one is a child, time being of an illusory and deceptive nature?) as if we were indeed
interpreting for each other and for ourselves the mysterious secrets and truths of life itself.
We were bathed together in a copper tub that was brought out once a week and set upon a stand in the kitchen near to the stove.
My father bathed first, and then my mother, and then Karen, and lastly, Evan and me together. Evan and I were fearful of our
father’s nakedness and respectful of our mother’s modesty, and so we busied ourselves in another room during the times when
our parents used the copper tub. But no such restraints had yet descended upon us as regards our sister, Karen, who would
have been, when I was five, seventeen, and who possessed most of the attributes of a grown woman, attributes that both frightened
and amazed me, although I cannot say it was with any reverence for her person that Evan and I often peeked behind the curtain
and made rude sounds and in this way tortured our sister, who would scream at us from the tub and, more often than not, end
the evening in tears. And thus I suppose I shall have to admit here that Evan and myself, while not cruel or mischievous by
nature or necessarily to anyone else in our company, were sometimes moved to torment and tease our sister, because it was,
I think, so easy to do and at the same time so enormously, if unforgivably, rewarding.
When our turn for the bath had come, we would have clean water that had been heated by our mother in great pots and then poured
into the copper tub, and my brother and myself, who until a late age had no shame between us, would remove our clothing and
play in the hot soapy water as if in a pool in the woods, and I remember the candlelight and warmth of this ritual with a
fondness that remains with me today.
Each morning of the school year, when we were younger and not needed to be hired out, Evan and I rode together in the wagon
of our nearest neighbor, Torjen Helgessen, who went every day into Laurvig to bring his milk and produce to market, and home
again each afternoon after the dinner hour. The school day was five hours long, and we had the customary subjects of religion,
Bible History, catechism, reading, writing, arithmetic and singing. We had as our texts Pontoppidan’s Explanation, Vogt’s
Bible History and Jensen’s Reader. The school was a modern one in many of its aspects. It had two large rooms, one above the
other, each filled with wooden desks and a chalkboard that ran the length of one wall. Girls were in the lower room and boys
in the upper. Unruly behavior was not allowed, and the students of Laurvig School received the stick when necessary. My brother
had it twice, once for throwing chalk erasers at another student, and once for being rude to Mr. Hjorth, a Pietist and thus
an extremely strict and sometimes irritating man, who
events of last year or even of yesterday. A child who may grow to adulthood with the sea and the forest and the orchards at
hand may count himself a very lucky child indeed.
Before we had reached the age when we were allowed to go to school. Evan and I had occasion to spend a great deal of time
together, and I believe that because of this we each understood that in some indefinable manner our souls, and hence our paths,
were to be inextricably linked, and perhaps I knew already that whatever fate might befall the one would surely befall the
other. And as regards the outside world, that is to say the world of nature (and the people and spirits and animals who inhabited
that tangible world), each of us was for the other a filter. I remember with a clarity that would seem to be extraordinary
after so many years (these events having occurred at such a young age) talking with Evan all the long days and into the nights
(for is not a day actually longer when one is a child, time being of an illusory and deceptive nature?) as if we were indeed
interpreting for each other and for ourselves the mysterious secrets and truths of life itself.
We were bathed together in a copper tub that was brought out once a week and set upon a stand in the kitchen near to the stove.
My father bathed first, and then my mother, and then Karen, and lastly, Evan and me together. Evan and I were fearful of our
father’s nakedness and respectful of our mother’s modesty, and so we busied ourselves in another room during the times when
our parents used the copper tub. But no such restraints had yet descended upon us as regards our sister, Karen, who would
have been, when I was five, seventeen, and who possessed most of the attributes of a grown woman, attributes that both frightened
and amazed me, although I cannot say it was with any reverence for her person that Evan and I often peeked behind the curtain
and made rude sounds and in this way tortured our sister, who would scream at us from the tub and, more often than not, end
the evening in tears. And thus I suppose I shall have to admit here that Evan and myself, while not cruel or mischievous by
nature or necessarily to anyone else in our company, were sometimes moved to torment and tease our sister, because it was,
I think, so easy to do and at the same time so enormously, if unforgivably, rewarding.
When our turn for the bath had come, we would have clean water that had been heated by our mother in great pots and then poured
into the copper tub, and my brother and myself, who until a late age had no shame between us, would remove our clothing and
play in the hot soapy water as if in a pool in the woods, and I remember the candlelight and warmth of this ritual with a
fondness that remains with me today.
Each morning of the school year, when we were younger and not needed to be hired out, Evan and I rode together in the wagon
of our nearest neighbor, Torjen Helgessen, who went every day into Laurvig to bring his milk and produce to market, and home
again each afternoon after the dinner hour. The school day was five hours long, and we had the customary subjects of religion,
Bible History, catechism, reading, writing, arithmetic and singing. We had as our texts Pontoppidan’s Explanation, Vogt’s
Bible History and Jensen’s Reader. The school was a modern one in many of its aspects. It had two large rooms, one above the
other, each filled with wooden desks and a chalkboard that ran the length of one wall. Girls were in the lower room and boys
in the upper. Unruly behavior was not allowed, and the students of Laurvig School received the stick when necessary. My brother
had it twice, once for throwing chalk erasers at another student, and once for being rude to Mr. Hjorth, a Pietist and thus
an extremely strict and sometimes irritating man, who
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