Thirty-seven-year-old Mattis, from the point of view of those around him, a moronic fool, lives on the shore of a forest lake with his forty-year-old sister Hege. Recently, the relationship between them is not going well. Tired of having to think daily about how to feed herself and her brother, from morning till night, she is busy knitting sweaters (the only source of money), cleaning her house, cooking, Hege began to annoy Mattis' fantasies, which, as she thinks, come from inactivity. Mattis has a mind on his tongue. And today they are sitting on the porch of their dilapidated house. Hehe, as always, knits, and Mattis is dreamily looking somewhere in the forest. Suddenly he happily informs his sister that he sees gray hair - it is so interesting! Hehe couldn’t hold on to a destructive gaze: another would have thought about where she got this gray hair!
In the evening, a miracle happens with Mattis: he witnesses an evening woodcock pulling over their house. This has never happened before! Watching the bird, the hero thinks that now everything will be fine, the difficult time of misunderstanding between him and his sister is over. Excited, Mattis bursts into Hege's room to share his joy, asks her to go outside - to look at his woodcock, but runs into a wall of misunderstanding.
At night, Mattis sees a wonderful dream: he became a handsome, strong, courageous guy. Sleeves burst with bangs from muscles as he bends his arm. His head is full of those words that girls love to hear. Birds call him into the forest - and from there a beautiful girl comes out to him, his girlfriend - she was born from evening cravings. In a dream, the hero becomes the owner of the three treasures to which he is so eager: mind, strength, love.
But morning comes, and with it, reality comes into Mattis's life: Hehe, with her constant grumbling that Mattis should go to work. How can he work, because thoughts that flood after the craving will interfere with him! A woodcock pulls over their house - that’s what he should think about now! Yes, and do not hire him for a long time - everyone in the district knows that the Fool can not work. But Hehe is inexorable - she knows that the main thing in life. Mattis walks from homestead to homestead - everywhere the owners look down upon seeing him. In one unfamiliar estate he was hired to weed turnips, but very soon they also realized that he was a Fool. Now with this estate he said goodbye forever.
Mattis is always thinking about woodcock. He pulls over their house in the morning and evening, when people sleep. But he, Mattis, can sit on the porch at this time. They are with woodcock together. Mattis walks into the forest, decrypts the woodcock letters (footprints at the bottom of the puddle), writes him the answers. They are with woodcock together! Finally, someone understands him! Harmony with nature is what Mattis strives for. The hero has wisdom unknown to the ordinary, “normal” person. He understands the soul of nature, finds in communication with her the long-awaited reassurance.
Woodcock is killed by a hunter guy, to whom Mattis, in a fit of spiritual openness, himself spoke about the craving. When Mattis picks up a shot bird from the ground, she looks at him - it seems to him - then the film tightened her eyes. Mattis buries a bird under a large stone. Now she lies there, but this last look will always disturb him, recalling that his happiness is destroyed by evil people who do not understand the wise language of nature. The hero is looking for and simple human love. After all, it is so important that someone chooses you in life. But who will choose the Fool? And in Mattis there is so much unspent tenderness. Once he met on the lake with two girls: Anna and Inger. The girls are non-native, so they still don’t know that he is a Fool. Perhaps they are aware of this, but they feel Mattis's kindness, insecurity, his reverent, caring attitude towards them - and it was precisely with this attitude of the guys that they yearned deep down. Mattis is struggling to behave as expected - after all, this is his first real meeting with the girls. He offers a boat ride. He knows: rowing is the only thing that he can do well. He directs the boat to the shore on which the grocery store is standing - now everyone sees that Mattis is very good at handling the oars and that he, like a real guy, is riding the girls on the boat! This incident lives in Mattis's memory for a long time, giving him pleasure.
Mattis is very afraid that Hehe will leave him. He sees: the sister has changed recently, has become irritable, indifferent to him. She forbids looking into her eyes, and that means something. Increasingly, he repeats the phrase: "Just do not leave me!"
Hege invites Mattis to do the transportation. He manages the boat well - let him be on duty at the lake, suddenly someone will need to cross over to the other side. Mattis is very grateful to his sister for this proposal: transportation is the only work that will not interfere with his thoughts, dreams. The hero realizes that hardly anyone will use his services, but immediately immerses himself in this game. He likes to pronounce this word, "carrier". It is not so easy to be a carrier - you have to keep up with both here and here. And who knows how to drive a boat straighter than he? It’s a pity that the boat’s footprint does not stay on the water, if only it had been visible for several days!
During a thunderstorm, which Mattis is panicky afraid of, a misfortune occurs: one of the two dry aspens standing in front of the house in which the heroes live falls, cut off by lightning. Everyone in the county knows that these aspens are called Hege-i-Mattis. Now one of the aspens has fallen. But whose? Mattis is full of heavy forebodings, it seems to him that Ashe Hege has fallen. He is very afraid of losing his sister, shares his anxiety with her, but she does not want to hear such nonsense.
A stranger appears in the family of Mattis and Hege - lumberjack Jörgen. Mattis himself transported it to his shore, Jörgen became his only passenger during the time of the carrier. Now the lumberjack lives in the attic of their house, the money he pays for the room allows Hehe to keep the house in order, to feed himself and his brother. Gradually, Mattis begins to notice changes in Khega: she becomes even more indifferent to him, but then blooms with every appearance of Jörgen. Mattis is sure: they will leave him, now nobody really needs him. He wants to return Hehe, leads her to the forest, to their treasured bump (once they were sitting here and had long conversations about a variety of things), he talks about his fears. But Hehe, indifferent in her happiness to someone else's pain, does not want to know about Mattis' experiences, she accuses him of selfishness. As he does not understand, because now she has a reliable support in life, and now she and Yergen will be able to provide a comfortable life for the family!
Mattis's anxiety was growing when Ergen forbade him to engage in transportation and took him with him to the forest. He wants to teach Mattis to cut down a forest - this can always make a living. What for? Do they want to leave him? And by what right does Jorgen intervene in his life?
One day during a break in work, Jörgen tells Mattis about poisonous mushrooms - fly agaric: of them in the old days cooked soup for those who wanted to kill. Driven to despair, Mattis rips off one of the fly agaric growing nearby and eats a large chunk. Yergen is scared, but soon he becomes convinced that nothing is happening to Mattis, and scoffs at him: he had to eat a whole mushroom, or even not one.
Returning home, Mattis sees fly agaric everywhere. They seemed to surround the house with a poisonous ring. But before they were not here? Mattis asks her sister about this, but she indifferently answers that it has always been like that.
And so Mattis has a plan. He will wait for good weather and go to the lake. Having swum to a deep place, he will break a hole in the holey bottom of the boat, it will quickly fill with water. And Mattis, who does not know how to swim, will hold the oars under his armpits. Let nature itself decide: should he die or live with Hege and Ergen.
Mattis is waiting for good weather. At night, he listens to the “good” wind rustling outside the walls of the house, and peace descends upon him. He does not want to go to the lake, but the decision has been made, he will not retreat.
And then the wind stopped. Even at night, Mattis heard this, but now he won’t go, he never said that he would do it at night. After all, the only passenger during the carrier’s work. Gradually, Mattis begins to notice changes in Khega: she becomes even more indifferent to him, but he blossoms with every appearance of Jörgen, Mattis is sure that they will leave him, now nobody really needs him. Indeed, in the early morning wind can begin again. But in the morning, Mattis hears Hege's words: “Today is so quiet ...” It's time to implement the plan.
The farther Mattis sailed away, the wider became his native coast, which opened to him from his place. Everything he saw was dear to him. Temptations prevailed over him, teasing with clear air and golden trees. Sometimes he thought: no need to look there - and looked down. He had to restrain himself so that he had the strength to implement the plan.
And now the rotten board in the bottom is knocked out, the boat quickly fills with water. He hung on the oars, he flounders in the water, gradually moving in the right direction - to the shore. But suddenly the wind begins - nevertheless, it began that day again! And now the water became agitated, as if she wanted him to choke, to release the oars.
"Mattis!" - Turning around, he shouted in hopeless despair. On a deserted lake, his cry sounded like the cry of an unknown bird ...
