



Produced by Donald Lainson





THE GREAT HUNGER


By Johan Bojer




Translated from the Norwegian by

W. J. Alexander Worster and C. Archer





THE GREAT HUNGER




Book I



Chapter I


For sheer havoc, there is no gale like a good northwester, when it roars
in, through the long winter evenings, driving the spindrift before it
between the rocky walls of the fjord. It churns the water to a froth
of rushing wave crests, while the boats along the beach are flung in
somersaults up to the doors of the grey fisher huts, and solid old barn
gangways are lifted and sent flying like unwieldy birds over the fields.
"Mercy on us!" cry the maids, for it is milking-time, and they have
to fight their way on hands and knees across the yard to the cowshed,
dragging a lantern that WILL go out and a milk-pail that WON'T be held.
And "Lord preserve us!" mutter