Autumn

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Title:     Autumn
Author: Alexander Lange Kielland [More Titles by Kielland]

Translated By R. L. Cassie.

 

AARRE, October 7, 1890.

I had intended to send a few observations upon the wild-goose to Nature, but since they have extended to quite a long letter, they go to Dagbladet. It is not because I believe that they represent anything new that no one has observed before; but I know how thoughtlessly most of us let the sun shine, and the birds fly, without any idea of what a refreshment it is for a man's soul to understand what he sees in Nature, and how interesting animal life becomes when we have once learned that there is a method and a thought in every single thing that the animal undertakes, and what a pleasure it is to discover this thought, and trace the beautiful reasoning power which is Nature's essence.

And thus most of us go through life, and down into a hole in the ground like moles, without having taken any notice of the bird that flew or the bill that sang. We believe that the small birds are sparrows, the larger probably crows; barndoor fowls are the only ones we know definitely.

I met a lady the other day who was extremely indignant about this. She had asked the man at whose house she was staying--a very intelligent peasant--what kind of bird it was that she had seen in the fields. It was evident that it was a thrush--merely a common thrush--and she described the bird to him: it was about half as large as a pigeon, gray and speckled with yellow; it hopped in the fields, and so on.

'Would it be the bird they call a swallow?' suggested the man.

'Not at all,' replied the lady angrily. 'I rather think it was a kind of thrush.'

'Oh! then you had better ask my wife.'

'So she understands birds, does she?' exclaimed the lady, much mollified.

'Yes, she is mad with them, they do so much mischief among the cherries.'

With this my lady had to go. But the story is not yet finished; the worst is to come.

For when, indignant at the countryman's ignorance of the bird-world, she told all this in town, there was one very solemn gentleman who said:

'Are you sure that it was not a gull?'

This went beyond all bounds, thought my lady, and she came and complained bitterly to me.

When wild-geese fly in good order, as they do when in the air for days and nights together, the lines generally form the well-known plough, with one bird at the point, and the two next ones on either side of him a little way behind.

Hitherto I have always been content with the explanation that we received and gave one another as boys, viz., that the birds chose this formation in order to cleave the air, like a snow-plough clearing a way.

But it suddenly occurred to me the other day that this was pure nonsense--an association of ideas called forth by the resemblance to a plough, which moves in earth or snow, but which has no meaning up in the air.

What is cloven air? And who gets any benefit by it?

Yes, if the geese flew as they walk--one directly behind the other--there might perhaps, in a contrary wind, be some little shelter and relief for the very last ones. But they fly nearly side by side in such a manner that each one, from first to last, receives completely 'uncloven' air right in the breast; there can be no suggestion that it is easier for the last than for the first bird to cut a way.

The peculiar order of flight has quite another meaning, viz., to keep the flock together on the long and fatiguing journey; and if we start from this basis, the reasoning thought becomes also evident in the arrangement itself.

Out here by the broad Aarre Water there pass great flights of wild-geese; and in bad weather it may happen that they sit in thousands on the water, resting and waiting.

But even if the flock flies past, there is always uneasiness and noise when they come over Aarre Water. The ranks break, for a time the whole becomes a confused mass, while they all scream and quack at the same time.

Only slowly do they form again and fly southward in long lines, until they shrink to thinner and thinner threads in the gray autumn sky, and their last sound follows them upon the north wind.

Then I always believe that there has been a debate as to whether they should take a little rest down on Aarre Water. There are certainly many old ones who know the place again, and plenty of the young are tender-winged, and would fain sit on the water and dawdle away a half-day's time.

But when it is eventually resolved to fly on without stopping, and the lines again begin to arrange themselves, it has become clear to me that each seeks his own place in the ranks slanting outwards behind the leaders, so that by this means he may be conducted along with the train without being under the necessity of troubling about the way.

If these large, heavy birds were to fly in a cluster for weeks, day and night, separation and confusion would be inevitable. They would get in each other's way every minute with their heavy wings, there would be such a noise that the leader's voice could not be distinguished, and it would be impossible to keep an eye upon him after dark. Besides, over half the number are young birds, who are undertaking this tremendous journey for the first time, and who naturally, at Aarre Water, begin to ask if it be the Nile that they see. Time would be lost, the flock would be broken up, and all the young would perish on the journey, if there were not, in the very disposition of the ranks, something of the beautiful reasoning thought binding them together.

Let us now consider the first bird, who leads the flock--presumably an old experienced gander. He feels an impulse towards the south, but he undoubtedly bends his neck and looks down for known marks in the landscape. That is why the great flocks of geese follow our coast-line southward until the land is lost to view.

But the birds do not look straight forward in the direction of their bills: they look to both sides. Therefore, the bird next to the leader does not follow right behind him in the 'cloven' air, but flies nearly alongside, so that it has the leader in a direct line with its right or left eye at a distance of about two wing-flaps.

And the next bird does the same, and the next; each keeps at the same distance from its fore-bird.

And what each bird sees of its fore-bird are the very whitest feathers of the whole goose, under the wings and towards the tail, and this, in dark nights, is of great assistance to the tired, half-sleeping creatures.

Thus each, except the pilot himself, has a fore-bird's white body in a line with one eye, and more they do not need to trouble about. They can put all their strength into the monotonous work of wing-flapping, as long as they merely keep the one eye half open and see that they have the fore-bird in his place. Thus they know that all is in order, that they are in connection with the train, and with him at the head who knows the way.

If from any cause a disturbance arises, it is soon arranged upon this principle; and when the geese have flown a day or two from the starting-point, such rearrangement is doubtless effected more rapidly and more easily. For I am convinced that they soon come to know one another personally so well that each at once finds his comrade in flight, whom he is accustomed to have before his eye, and therefore they are able to take their fixed places in the ranks as surely and accurately as trained soldiers.

We can all the more readily imagine such a personal acquaintance among animals, as we know that even men learn with comparative ease to distinguish individuals in flocks of the same species of beasts. If we townspeople see a flock of sheep, it presents to us the same ovine face--only with some difference between old and young. But a peasant-woman can at once take out her two or three ewes from the big flock that stands staring by the door--indeed, she can even recognise very young lambs by their faces.

Thus I believe I understand the reason for the wild-goose's order of flight better than when I thought of a plough that 'clove' the air; and, as already stated, it may well be that many have been just as wise long ago. But I venture to wager that the great majority of people have never thought of the matter at all, and I fear that multitudes will think of it somewhat in this fashion: 'What is it to me how those silly geese fly?'

I often revert to the strangely thoughtless manner in which knowledge of animal life is skipped over in the teaching of the young. The rude and wild conception of animals which the clergy teach from the Old Testament seems to cause only deep indifference on the part of the girls, and, in the boys, an unholy desire to ramble about and blaze away with a gun.

Here there has been a shooting as on a drill-ground all the summer, until now only the necessary domestic animals are left. Among the cows, the starlings were shot into tatters, so that they crawled wingless, legless, maimed, into holes in the stone fences to die. If a respectable curlew sat by the water's edge mirroring his long bill, a rascal of a hunter lay behind a stone and sighted; and was there a water-puddle with rushes that could conceal a young duck, there immediately came a fully-armed hero with raised gun. Even English have been here! They had some new kind of guns--people said--that shot as far as you pleased, and round corners and behind knolls. They murdered, I assure you; they laid the district bare as pest and pox! I must stop, for I am growing so angry.

I have had thoughts of applying for a post as inspector of birds in the Westland. I should travel round and teach people about the birds, exhibit the common ones, so that all might have the pleasure of recognising them in Nature; accustom people to listen to their song and cry, and to take an interest in their life, their nests, eggs, and young.

Then I should inflame the peasants against the armed farm-boys, day-labourers, and poachers, and against the sportsmen from town, who stroll around without permission and crack away where they please. It only wants a beginning and a little combination, for the peasant, in his heart, is furious at this senseless shooting.

Perhaps some day, when not a single bird is left, my idea of an inspector may come to be honoured and valued. Would that a godly Storthing [Footnote: Parliament.] may then succeed in finding a pious and well-recommended man, who can instruct the people in a moral manner as to where the humid Noah accommodated the ostriches in the ark, or what he managed to teach the parrots during the prolonged rainy weather.

We, too, have recently had a deluge. The lakes and the river have risen to the highest winter-marks. But the soil of this blessed place is so sandy that roads and fields remain firm and dry, the water running off and disappearing in a moment.

It has also blown from all quarters, with varying force, for three weeks. We press onward over the plain, and stagger about among the houses, where the gusts of wind rush in quite unexpectedly with loud claps. The fishing-rod has had to be carried against the wind, and the water of the river has risen in the air like smoke.

And the sea, white with wrath, begins to form great heavy breakers far out in many fathoms of water, rolls them in upon the strand, inundates large tracts, and carries away the young wrack-grass and what we call 'strandkaal' [Footnote: Sea-kale.]--all that has grown in summer and gathered a little flying sand around it as tiny fortifications; the sea has washed the beach quite bare again, and fixed its old limits high up among the sand-heaps, where they are strong enough to hold out for the winter.

I have now been here four months to a day, and have seen the corn since it was light-green shoots until now, when it is well secured in the barns,--where there was room. For the crop has been so heavy--not in the memory of man has there been such a year on this coast--that rich stacks of corn are standing on many farms, and the lofts are crammed to the roof-trees.

Inland there is corn yet standing out; it is yellowing on the fields, which are here green and fresh as in the middle of spring.

We have had many fine days; but autumn is the time when Jæderen is seen at its best.

As the landscape nowhere rises to any great height, we always see much sky; and, although we do not really know it, we look quite as much at the magnificent, changeful clouds as at the fine scenery, which recedes far into the distance and is never strikingly prominent.

And all day long, in storm and violent showers, the autumn sky changes, as if in a passionate uproar of wrath and threatenings, alternating with reconciliation and promise, with dark brewing storm-clouds, gleams of sunshine and rainbows, until the evening, when all is gathered together out on the sea to the west.

Then cloud chases cloud, with deep openings between, which shine with a lurid yellow. The great bubbling storm-clouds form a framework around the western sky, while everywhere shoot yellow streaks and red beams, which die away and disappear and are pressed down into the sea, until we see only one sickly yellow stripe of light, far out upon the wave.

Then darkness rolls up from the sea in the west and glides down from the fjelds in the east, lays itself to rest upon the black wastes of heather, and spreads an uncanny covering over the troubled Aarre Waters, which groan and sob and sigh among rushes and stones. A stupendous melancholy rises up from the sea and overflows all things, while the wakeful breakers, ever faithful, murmur their watchman-song the livelong night.

[The end]
Alexander Lange Kielland's short story: Autumn

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