*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14273 ***

[Illustration]




Invisible Links

_Translated from the Swedish of_

Selma Lagerlöf

Author of “The Story of Gösta Berling,” “The Miracles of
Antichrist,” etc.
by

Pauline Bancroft Flach


Contents

 THE SPIRIT OF FASTING AND PETTER NORD
 THE LEGEND OF THE BIRD’S NEST
 THE KING’S GRAVE
 THE OUTLAWS
 THE LEGEND OF REOR
 VALDEMAR ATTERDAG
 MAMSELL FREDRIKA
 THE ROMANCE OF A FISHERMAN’S WIFE
 MOTHER’S PORTRAIT
 A FALLEN KING
 A CHRISTMAS GUEST
 UNCLE REUBEN
 DOWNIE
 AMONG THE CLIMBING ROSES




THE SPIRIT OF FASTING AND PETTER NORD


I

I can see before me the little town, friendly as a home. It is so small
that I know its every hole and corner, am friends with all the children
and know the name of every one of its dogs. Who ever walked up the
street knew to which window he must raise his eyes to see a lovely face
behind the panes, and who ever strolled through the town park knew well
whither he should turn his steps to meet the one he wished to meet.

One was as proud of the beautiful roses in the garden of a neighbor, as
if they had grown in one’s own. If anything mean or vulgar was done, it
was as great a shame as if it had happened in one’s own family; but at
the smallest adventure, at a fire or a fight in the market-place, one
swelled with pride and said: “Only see what a community! Do such things
ever happen anywhere else? What a wonderful town!”

In my beloved town nothing ever changes. If I ever come there again, I
shall find the same houses and shops that I knew of old; the same holes
in the pavements will cause my downfall; the same stiff hedges of
lindens, the same clipped lilac bushes will captivate my fascinated
gaze. Again shall I see the old Mayor who rules the whole town walking
down the street with elephantine tread. What a feeling of security
there is in knowing that you are walking there! And deaf old Halfvorson
will still be digging in his garden, while his eyes, clear as water,
stare and wander as if they would say: “We have investigated
everything, everything; now, earth, we will bore down to your very
centre.”

But one who will not still be there is little, round Petter Nord: the
little fellow from Värmland, you know, who was in Halfvorson’s shop; he
who amused the customers with his small mechanical inventions and his
white mice. There is a long story about him. There are stories to be
told about everything and everybody in the town. Nowhere else do such
wonderful things happen.

He was a peasant boy, little Petter Nord. He was short and round; he
was brown-eyed and smiling. His hair was paler than birch leaves in the
autumn; his cheeks were red and downy. And he was from Värmland. No
one, seeing him, could imagine that he was from any other place. His
native land had equipped him with its excellent qualities. He was quick
at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready with his tongue, clear in
his thoughts. And, moreover, full of fun, good-natured and brave, kind
and quarrelsome, inquisitive and a chatterbox. A madcap, he never could
show more respect to a burgomaster than to a beggar! But he had a
heart; he fell in love every other day, and confided in the whole town.

This child of rich gifts attended to the work in the shop in rather an
extraordinary manner. The customers were waited on while he fed the
white mice. Money was changed and counted while he put wheels on his
little automatic wagons. And while he told the customers of his very
last love-affair, he kept his eye on the quart measure, into which the
brown molasses was slowly curling. It delighted his admiring listeners
to see him suddenly leap over the counter and rush out into the street
to have a brush with a passing street-boy; also to see him calmly
return to tie the string on a package or to finish measuring a piece of
cloth.

Was it not quite natural that he should be the favorite of the whole
town? We all felt obliged to trade with Halfvorson, after Petter Nord
came there. Even the old Mayor himself was proud when Petter Nord took
him apart into a dark corner and showed him the cages of the white
mice. It was nervous work to show the mice, for Halfvorson had
forbidden him to have them in the shop.

But then in the brightening February there came a few days of warm,
misty weather. Petter Nord became suddenly serious and silent. He let
the white mice nibble the steel bars of their cages without feeding
them. He attended to his duties in the most irreproachable way. He
fought with no more street boys. Could Petter Nord not bear the change
in the weather?

Oh no, the matter was that he had found a fifty-crown note on one of
the shelves. He believed that it had got caught in a piece of cloth,
and without any one’s seeing him he had pushed it under a roll of
striped cotton which was out of fashion and was never taken down from
the shelf.

The boy was cherishing great anger in his heart against Halfvorson. The
latter had destroyed a whole family of mice for him, and now he meant
to be revenged. Before his eyes he still saw the white mother with her
helpless offspring. She had not made the slightest attempt to escape;
she had remained in her place with steadfast heroism, staring with red,
burning eyes on the heartless murderer. Did he not deserve a short time
of anxiety? Petter Nord wished to see him come out pale as death from
his office and begin to look for the fifty crowns. He wished to see the
same despair in his watery eyes as he had seen in the ruby red ones of
the white mouse. The shopkeeper should search, he should turn the whole
shop upside down before Petter Nord would let him find the bank-note.

But the fifty crowns lay in its hiding-place all day without any one’s
asking about it. It was a new note, many-colored and bright, and had
big numbers in all the corners. When Petter Nord was alone in the shop,
he put a step-ladder against the shelves and climbed up to the roll of
cotton. Then he took out the fifty crowns, unfolded it and admired its
beauties.

In the midst of the most eager trade he would grow anxious lest
something should have happened to the fifty crowns. Then he pretended
to look for something on the shelf, and groped about under the roll of
cotton till he felt the smooth bank-note rustle under his fingers.

The note had suddenly acquired a supernatural power over him. Might
there not be something living in it? The figures surrounded by wide
rings were like magnetic eyes. The boy kissed them all and whispered:
“I should like to have many, very many like you.”

He began to have all sorts of thoughts about the note, and why
Halfvorson did not inquire for it. Perhaps it was not Halfvorson’s?
Perhaps it had lain in the shop for a long time? Perhaps it no longer
had any owner?

Thoughts are contagious.—At supper Halfvorson had begun to speak of
money and moneyed-men. He told Petter Nord about all the poor boys who
had amassed riches. He began with Whittington and ended with Astor and
Jay Gould. Halfvorson knew all their histories; he knew how they had
striven and denied themselves; what they had discovered and ventured.
He grew eloquent when he began on such tales. He lived through the
sufferings of those young people; he followed them in their successes;
he rejoiced in their victories. Petter Nord listened quite fascinated.

Halfvorson was stone deaf, but that was no obstacle to conversation,
for he read by the lips everything that was said. On the other hand, he
could not hear his own voice. It rolled out as strangely monotonous as
the roar of a distant waterfall. But his peculiar way of speaking made
everything he said sink in, so that one could not escape from it for
many days. Poor Petter Nord!

“What is most needed to become rich,” said Halfvorson, “is the
foundation. But it cannot be earned. Take note that they all have found
it in the street or discovered it between the lining and cloth of a
coat which they had bought at a pawnbroker’s sale; or that it had been
won at cards, or had been given to them in alms by a beautiful and
charitable lady. After they had once found that blessed coin,
everything had gone well with them. The stream of gold welled from it
as from a fountain. The first thing that is necessary, Petter Nord, is
the foundation.”

Halfvorson’s voice sounded ever fainter and fainter. Young Petter Nord
sat in a kind of trance and saw endless vistas of gold before him. On
the dining table rose great piles of ducats; the floor heaved white
with silver, and the indistinct patterns on the dirty wall-paper
changed into banknotes, big as handkerchiefs. But directly before his
eyes fluttered the fifty-crown note, surrounded by wide rings, luring
him like the most beautiful eyes. “Who can know,” smiled the eyes,
“perhaps the fifty crowns up on the shelf is just such a foundation?”

“Mark my words,” said Halfvorson, “that, after the foundation, two
things are necessary for those who wish to reach the heights. Work,
untiring work, Petter Nord, is one; and the other is renunciation.
Renunciation of play and love, of talk and laughter, of morning sleep
and evening strolls. In truth, in truth, two things are necessary for
him who would win fortune. One is called work, and the other
renunciation.”

Petter Nord looked as if he would like to weep. Of course he wished to
be rich, naturally he wished to be fortunate, but fortune should not be
so anxiously and sadly won. Fortune ought to come of herself. Just as
Petter Nord was fighting with the street boys, the noble lady should
stop her coach at the shop-door, and invite the Värmland boy to the
place at her side. But now Halfvorson’s voice still rolled in his ears.
His brain was full of it. He thought of nothing else, knew nothing
else. Work and renunciation, work and renunciation, that was life and
the object of life. He asked nothing else, dared not think that he had
ever wished anything else.

The next day he did not dare to kiss the fifty-crown note, did not dare
even to look at it. He was silent and low-spirited, orderly and
industrious. He attended to all his duties so irreproachably that any
one could see that there was something wrong with him. The old Mayor
was troubled about the boy and did what he could to cheer him.

“Did you think of going to the Mid-Lent ball this evening?” asked the
old man. “So, you did not. Well, then I invite you. And be sure that
you come, or I will tell Halfvorson where you keep your mouse-cages.”

Petter Nord sighed and promised to go to the ball.

The Mid-Lent ball, fancy Petter Nord at the Mid-Lent ball! Petter Nord
would see all the beautiful ladies of the town, delicate, dressed in
white, adorned with flowers. But of course Petter Nord would not be
allowed to dance with a single one of them. Well, it did not matter. He
was not in the mood to dance.

At the ball he stood in a doorway and made no attempt to dance. Several
people had asked him to take part, but he had been firm and said no. He
could not dance any of those dances. Neither would any of those fine
ladies be willing to dance with him. He was much too humble for them.

But as he stood there, his eyes began to kindle and shine, and he felt
joy creeping through his limbs. It came from the dance music; it came
from the fragrance of the flowers; it came from all the beautiful faces
about him. After a little while he was so sparklingly happy that, if
joy had been fire, he would have been surrounded by bursting flames.
And if love were it, as many say it is, it would have been the same. He
was always in love with some pretty girl, but hitherto with only one at
a time. But when he now saw all those beautiful ladies together, it was
no longer a single fire, which laid waste his sixteen-year-old heart;
it was a whole conflagration.

Sometimes he looked down at his boots, which were by no means dancing
shoes. But how he could have marked the time with the broad heels and
spun round on the thick soles! Something was dragging and pulling him
and trying to hurl him out on the floor like a whipped ball. He could
still resist it, although his excitement grew stronger as the hours
advanced. He grew delirious and hot. Heigh ho, he was no longer poor
Petter Nord! He was the young whirlwind, that raises the seas and
overthrows the forests.

Just then a hambo-polska[1] struck up. The peasant boy was quite beside
himself. He thought it sounded like the polska, like the Värmland
polska.

 [1] A Swedish national dance of a very lively character

Suddenly Petter Nord was out on the floor. All his fine manners dropped
off him. He was no longer at the town-hall ball; he was at home in the
barn at the midsummer dance. He came forward, his knees bent, his head
drawn down between his shoulders. Without stopping to ask, he threw his
arms round a lady’s waist and drew her with him. And then he began to
dance the polska.

The girl followed him, half unwillingly, almost dragged. She was not in
time; she did not know what kind of a dance it was, but suddenly it
went quite of itself. The mystery of the dance was revealed to her. The
polska bore her, lifted her; her feet had wings; she felt as light as
air. She thought that she was flying.

For the Värmland polska is the most wonderful dance. It transforms the
heavy-footed sons of earth. Without a sound soles an inch thick float
over the unplaned barn floor. They whirl about, light as leaves in an
autumn wind. It is supple, quick, silent, gliding. Its noble, measured
movements set the body free and let it feel itself light, elastic,
floating.

While Petter Nord danced the dance of his native land, there was
silence in the ball-room. At first people laughed, but then they all
recognized that this was dancing. It floated away in even, rapid
whirls; it was dancing indeed, if anything.

In the midst of his delirium Petter Nord perceived that round about him
reigned a strange silence. He stopped short and passed his hand over
his forehead. There was no black barn floor, no leafy walls, no light
blue summer night, no merry peasant maiden in the reality he gazed
upon. He was ashamed and wished to steal away.

But he was already surrounded, besieged. The young ladies crowded about
the shop-boy and cried: “Dance with us; dance with us!”

They wished to learn the polska. They all wished to learn to dance the
polska. The ball was turned from its course and became a
dancing-school. All said that they had never known before what it was
to dance. And Petter Nord was a great man for that evening. He had to
dance with all the fine ladies, and they were exceedingly kind to him.
He was only a boy, and such a madcap besides. No one could help making
a pet of him.

Petter Nord felt that this was happiness. To be the favorite of the
ladies, to dare to talk to them, to be in the midst of lights, of
movement, to be made much of, to be petted, surely this was happiness.

When the ball was over, he was too happy to think about it. He needed
to come home to be able to think over quietly what had happened to him
that evening.

Halfvorson was not married, but he had in his house a niece who worked
in the office. She was poor and dependent on Halfvorson, but she was
quite haughty towards both him and Petter Nord. She had many friends
among the more important people of the town and was invited to families
where Halfvorson could never come. She and Petter Nord went home from
the ball together.

“Do you know, Nord,” asked Edith Halfvorson, “that a suit is soon to be
brought against Halfvorson for illicit trading in brandy? You might
tell me how it really is.”

“There is nothing worth making a fuss about,” said Petter Nord.

Edith sighed. “Of course there is nothing. But there will be a lawsuit
and fines and shame without end. I wish that I really knew how it is.”

“Perhaps it is best not to know anything,” said Petter Nord.

“I wish to rise in the world, do you see,” continued Edith, “and I wish
to drag Halfvorson up with me, but he always drops back again. And then
he does something so that I become impossible too. He is scheming
something now. Do you not know what it is? It would be good to know.”

“No,” said Petter Nord, and not another word would he say. It was
inhuman to talk to him of such things on the way home from his first
ball.

Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy. There
sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with Petter Nord
of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked. Now he heard what
he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know the seventh
commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes. That was what he
deserved.

God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and get a
new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but now it was
quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing conscience and the
soul’s freedom for their sake! As if they were worth as much as a white
mouse, if the heart could not be glad at the same time! He clapped his
hands and cried out in joy—that he was free, free, free! There was not
even a longing to possess the fifty crowns in his heart. How good it
was to be happy!

When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson the
fifty crowns early the next morning. Then he became uneasy that the
tradesman might come into the shop before him the next morning, search
for the note and find it. He might easily think that Petter Nord had
hidden it to keep it. The thought gave him no peace. He tried to shake
it off, but he could not succeed. He could not sleep. So he rose, crept
into the shop and felt about till he found the fifty crowns. Then he
fell asleep with the note under his pillow.

An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand was
fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and
swearing.

Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his hand
and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to his room.
“You see that I was right,” said Halfvorson. “You see that it was well
worth while for me to drag you up to bear witness against him! You see
that he is a thief!”

“No, no, no,” screamed poor Petter Nord. “I did not wish to steal. I
only hid the note.”

Halfvorson heard nothing. Both the women stood with their backs turned
to the room, as if determined to neither hear nor see.

Petter Nord sat up in bed. He looked all of a sudden pitifully weak and
small. His tears were streaming. He wailed aloud.

“Uncle,” said Edith, “he is weeping.”

“Let him weep,” said Halfvorson, “let him weep!” And he walked forward
and looked at the boy. “You can weep all you like,” he said, “but that
does not take me in.”

“Oh, oh,” cried Petter Nord, “I am no thief. I hid the note as a
joke—to make you angry. I wanted to pay you back for the mice. I am not
a thief. Will no one listen to me. I am not a thief.”

“Uncle,” said Edith, “if you have tortured him enough now, perhaps we
may go back to bed?”

“I know, of course, that it sounds terrible,” said Halfvorson, “but it
cannot be helped.” He was gay, in very high spirits. “I have had my eye
on you for a long time,” he said to the boy. “You have always something
you are tucking away when I come into the shop. But now I have caught
you. Now I leave witnesses, and now I am going for the police.”

The boy gave a piercing scream. “Will no one help me, will no one help
me?” he cried. Halfvorson was gone, and the old woman who managed his
house came up to him.

“Get up and dress yourself, Petter Nord! Halforson has gone for the
police, and while he is away you can escape. The young lady can go out
into the kitchen and get you a little food. I will pack your things.”

The terrible weeping instantly ceased. After a short time of hurry the
boy was ready. He kissed both the women on the hand, humbly, like a
whipped dog. And then off he ran.

They stood in the door and looked after him. When he was gone, they
drew a sigh of relief.

“What will Halfvorson say?” said Edith.

“He will be glad,” answered the housekeeper.

“He put the money there for the boy, I think. I guess that he wanted to
be rid of him.”

“But why? The boy was the best one we have had in the shop for many
years.”

“He probably did not want him to give testimony in the affair with the
brandy.”

Edith stood silent and breathed quickly. “It is so base, so base,” she
murmured. She clenched her fist towards the office and towards the
little pane in the door, through which Halfvorson could see into the
shop. She would have liked, she too, to have fled out into the world,
away from all this meanness. She heard a sound far in, in the shop. She
listened, went nearer, followed the noise, and at last found behind a
keg of herring the cage of Petter Nord’s white mice.

She took it up, put it on the counter, and opened the cage door. Mouse
after mouse scampered out and disappeared behind boxes and barrels.

“May you flourish and increase,” said Edith. “May you do injury and
revenge your master!”

II

The little town lay friendly and contented under its red hill. It was
so embedded in green that the church tower only just stuck up out of
it. Garden after garden crowded one another on narrow terraces up the
slope, and when they could go no further in that direction, they leaped
with their bushes and trees across the street and spread themselves out
between the scattered farmhouses and on the narrow strips of earth
about them, until they were stopped by the broad river.

Complete silence and quiet reigned in the town. Not a soul was to be
seen; only trees and bushes, and now and again a house. The only sound
to be heard was the rolling of balls in the bowling-alley, like distant
thunder on a summer day. It belonged to the silence.

But now the uneven stones of the market-place were ground under
iron-shod heels. The noise of coarse voices thundered against the walls
of the town-hall and the church was thrown back from the mountain, and
hastened unchecked down the long street. Four wayfarers disturbed the
noonday peace.

Alas, for the sweet silence, the holiday peace of years! How terrified
they were! One could almost see them betaking themselves in flight up
the mountain slopes.

One of the noisy crew who broke into the village was Petter Nord, the
Värmland boy, who six years before had run away, accused of theft.
Those who were with him were three longshoremen from the big commercial
town that lies only a few miles away.

How had little Petter Nord been getting on? He had been getting on
well. He had found one of the most sensible of friends and companions.

As he ran away from the village in the dark, rainy February morning,
the polska tunes seethed and roared in his ears. And one of them was
more persistent than all the others. It was the one they all had sung
during the ring dance.

    Christmas time has come,
    Christmas time has come,
    And after Christmas time comes Easter.
    That is not true at all,
    That is not true at all,
    For Lent comes after Christmas feasting.

The fugitive heard it so distinctly, so distinctly. And then the wisdom
that is hidden in the old ring dance forced itself upon the little
pleasure-loving Värmland boy, forced itself into his very fibre,
blended with every drop of blood, soaked into his brain and marrow. It
is so; that is the meaning. Between Christmas and Easter, between the
festivals of birth and death, comes life’s fasting. One shall ask
nothing of life; it is a poor, miserable fast. One shall never trust
it, however it may appear. The next moment it is gray and ugly again.
It is not its fault, poor thing, it cannot help it!

Petter Nord felt almost proud at having cheated life out of its most
profound secret.

He thought he saw the pallid Spirit of Fasting creeping about over the
earth in the shape of a beggar with Lenten twigs[2] in her hand. And he
heard how she hissed at him: “You have wished to celebrate the festival
of joy and merry moods in the midst of the time of fasting, which is
called life. Therefore shame and dishonor shall befall you, until you
change your ways.”

 [2] In Sweden, just before Easter, bunches of birch twigs with small
 feathers tied on the ends, are sold everywhere on the streets. The
 origin of this custom is unknown.—TRANS.

He had changed his ways, and the Spirit of Fasting had protected him.
He had never needed to go farther than to the big town, for he was
never followed. And in its working quarter the Spirit of Fasting had
her dwelling. Petter Nord found work in a machine shop. He grew strong
and energetic. He became serious and thrifty. He had fine Sunday
clothes; he acquired new knowledge, borrowed books and went to
lectures. There was nothing really left of little Petter Nord but his
white hair and his brown eyes.

That night had broken something in him, and the heavy work at the
machine-shop made the break ever bigger, so that the wild Värmland boy
had crept quite out through it. He no longer talked nonsense, for no
one was allowed to speak in the shop, and he soon learned silent ways.
He no longer invented anything new, for since he had to look after
springs and wheels in earnest, he no longer found them amusing. He
never fell in love, for he could not be interested in the women of the
working quarter, after he had learned to know the beauties of his
native town. He had no mice, no squirrels, nothing to play with. He had
no time; he understood that such things were useless, and he thought
with horror of the time when he used to fight with street boys.

Petter Nord did not believe that life could be anything but gray, gray,
gray. Petter Nord always had a dull time, but he was so used to it that
he did not notice it. Petter Nord was proud of himself because he had
become so virtuous. He dated his good behavior from that night when Joy
failed him and Fasting became his companion and friend.

But how could the virtuous Petter Nord be coming to the village on a
work-day, accompanied by three boon companions, who were loafers and
drunken?

He had always been a good boy, poor Petter Nord. And he had always
tried to help those three good-for-nothings as well as he could,
although he despised them. He had come with wood to their miserable
hovel, when the winter was most severe, and he had patched and mended
their clothes. The men held together like brothers, principally because
they were all three named Petter. That name united them much more than
if they bad been born brothers. And now they allowed the boy on account
of that name to do them friendly services, and when they had got their
grog ready and settled themselves comfortably on their wooden chairs,
they entertained him, sitting and darning the gaping holes in their
stockings, with gallows humor and adventurous lies. Petter Nord liked
it, although he would not acknowledge it. They were now for him almost
what the mice had been formerly.

Now it happened that these wharf-rats had heard some gossip from the
village. And after the space of six years they brought Petter Nord
information that Halfvorson had put the fifty crowns out for him to
disqualify him as a witness. And in their opinion Petter Nord ought to
go back to the town and punish Halfvorson.

But Petter Nord was sensible and deliberate, and equipped with the
wisdom of this world. He would not have anything to do with such a
proposal.

The Petters spread the story about through the whole quarter. Every one
said to Petter Nord: “Go back and punish Halfvorson, then you will be
arrested, and there will be a trial, and the thing will get into the
papers, and the fellow’s shame will be known throughout all the land.”

But Petter Nord would not. It might be amusing, but revenge is a costly
pleasure, and Petter Nord knew that Life is poor. Life cannot afford
such amusements.

One morning the three men had come to him and said that they were going
in his place to beat Halfvorson, “that justice should be done on
earth,” as they said.

Petter Nord threatened to kill all three of them if they went one step
on the way to the village.

Then one of them who was little and short, and whose name was
Long-Petter, made a speech to Petter Nord.

“This earth,” he said, is an apple hanging by a string over a fire to
roast. By the fire I mean the kingdom of the evil one, Petter Nord, and
the apple must hang near the fire to be sweet and tender; but if the
string breaks and the apple falls into the fire, it is destroyed.
Therefore the string is very important, Petter Nord. Do you understand
what is meant by the string?”

“I guess it must be a steel wire,” said Petter Nord.

“By the string I mean justice,” said Long-Petter with deep seriousness.
“If there is no justice on earth, everything falls into the fire.
Therefore the avenger may not refuse to punish, or if he will not do
it, others must.”

“This is the last time I will offer any of you any grog,” said Petter
Nord, quite unmoved by the speech.

“Yes, it can’t be helped,” said Long-Petter, “justice must be done.”

“We do not do it to be thanked by you, but in order that the honorable
name of Petter shall not be brought to disrepute,” said one, whose name
was Rulle-Petter, and who was tall and morose.

“Really, is the name so highly esteemed!” said Petter Nord,
contemptuously.

“Yes, and the worst of it is that they are beginning to say everywhere
in all the saloons that you must have meant to steal the fifty crowns,
since you will not have the shopkeeper punished.”

Those words bit in deep. Petter Nord started up and said that he would
go and beat the shopkeeper.

“Yes, and we will go with you and help you,” said the loafers.

And so they started off, four men strong, to the village. At first
Petter Nord was gloomy and surly, and much more angry with his friends
than with his enemy. But when he came to the bridge over the river, he
became quite changed. He felt as if he had met there a little, weeping
fugitive, and had crept into him. And as he became more at home in the
old Petter Nord he felt what a grievous wrong the shopkeeper had done
him. Not only because he had tried to tempt him and ruin him, but,
worst of all, because he had driven him away from that town, where
Petter Nord could have remained Petter Nord all the days of his life.
Oh, what fun he had had in those days, how happy and glad he had been,
how open his heart, how beautiful the world! Lord God, if he had only
been allowed always to live here! And he thought of what he was
now—silent and stupid, serious and industrious—quite like a prodigal.

He grew passionately angry with Halfvorson, and instead of, as before,
following his companions, he dashed past them.

But the tramps, who had not come merely to punish Halfvorson, but also
to let their wrath break loose, hardly knew how to begin. There was
nothing for an angry man to do here. There was not a dog to chase, not
a street-sweeper to pick a quarrel with, nor a fine gentleman at whom
to throw an insult.

It was early in the year; the spring was just turning into summer. It
was the white time of cherry and hawthorn blossoms, when bunches of
lilacs cover the high, round bushes, and the air is full of the
fragrance of the apple-blossoms. These men who had come direct from
paved streets and wharves to this realm of flowers were strangely
affected by it. Three pairs of fists that till now had been fiercely
clenched, relaxed, and three pairs of heels thundered a little less
violently against the pavement.

From the market-place they saw a pathway that wound up the hill. Along
it grew young cherry-trees which formed vaulted arches with their white
tops. The arch was light and floating, and the branches absurdly
slender, altogether weak, delicate and youthful.

The cherry-tree path attracted the eyes of the men against their will.
What an unpractical hole it was, where people planted cherry trees,
where any one could take the cherries. The three Petters had considered
it before as a nest of iniquity, full of cruelty and tyranny. Now they
began to laugh at it, and even to despise it a little.

But the fourth one of the company did not laugh. His longing for
revenge was seething ever more fiercely, for he felt that this was the
town where he ought to have lived and labored. It was his lost
paradise. And without paying any attention to the others he walked
quickly up the street.

They followed him; and when they saw that there was only one street,
and when they saw only flowers, and more flowers the whole length of
it, their scorn and their good humor increased. It was perhaps the
first time in their lives that they had ever noticed flowers, but here
they could not help it, for the clusters of lilac blossoms brushed off
their caps and the petals of cherry-blossoms rained down over them.

“What kind of people do you suppose live in this town?” said
Long-Petter, musingly.

“Bees,” answered Cobbler-Petter, who had received his name because he
had once lived in the same house as a shoemaker.

Of course, little by little, they perceived a few people. In the
windows, behind shining panes and white curtains, appeared young,
pretty faces, and they saw children playing on the terraces. But no
noise disturbed the silence. It seemed to them as if the trump of the
Day of Doom itself would not be able to wake this town. What could they
do with themselves in such a town!

They went into a shop and bought some beer. There they asked several
questions of the shopman in a terrible voice. They asked if the
fire-brigade had their engines in order, and wondered if there were
clappers in the church bells, if there should happen to be an alarm.

They drank their beer in the street and threw the bottles away. One,
two, three, all the bottles at the same corner, thunder and crash, and
the splinters flew about their ears.

They heard steps behind them, real steps; voices, loud, distinct
voices; laughter, much laughter, and, moreover, a rattling as if of
metal. They were appalled, and drew back into a doorway. It sounded
like a whole company.

It was one, too, but of young girls. All the maids of the town were
going out in a body to the pastures to milk.

It made the deepest impression on these city men, these citizens of the
world. The maids of the town with milk-pails! It was almost touching!

They suddenly jumped out of their doorway and cried “Boo!”

The whole troop of girls scattered instantly. They screamed and ran.
Their skirts fluttered; their head cloths loosened; their milk-pails
rolled about the street.

And at the same time, along the whole street, was heard a deafening
sound of gates and doors slammed to, of hooks and bolts and locks.

Farther down the street stood a big linden tree, and under it sat an
old woman by a table with candies and cakes. She did not move; she did
not look round; she only sat still. She was not asleep either.

“She is made of wood,” said Cobbler-Petter.

“No, of clay,” said Rulle-Petter.

They walked abreast, all three. Just in front of the old woman they
began to reel. They staggered against her table. And the old woman
began to scold.

“Neither of wood nor of clay,” they said,—“venom, only venom.”

During all this time Petter Nord had not spoken to them, but now, at
last, they were directly in front of Halfvorson’s shop, and there he
was waiting for them.

“This is, undeniably, my affair,” he said proudly, and pointed at the
shop. “I wish to go in alone and attend to it. If I do not succeed,
then you may try.”

They nodded. “Go ahead, Petter Nord! We will wait outside.”

Petter Nord went in, found a young man alone in the shop, and asked
about Halfvorson. He heard that the latter had gone away. He had quite
a talk with the clerk, and obtained a good deal of information about
his master.

Halfvorson had never been accused of illicit trade. How he had behaved
towards Petter Nord every one knew, but no one spoke of that affair any
more. Halfvorson had risen in the world, and now he was not at all
dangerous. He was not inhuman to his debtors, and had ceased to spy on
his shop-boys. The last few years he had devoted himself to gardening.
He had laid out a garden around his house in the town, and a kitchen
garden near the customhouse. He worked so eagerly in his gardens that
he scarcely thought of amassing money.

Petter Nord felt a stab in his heart. Of course the man was good. He
had remained in paradise. Of course any one was good who lived there.

Edith Halfvorson was still with her uncle, but she had been ill for a
while. Her lungs were weak, ever since an attack of pneumonia in the
winter.

While Petter Nord was listening to all this, and more too, the three
men stood outside and waited.

In Halfvorson’s shadeless garden a bower of birch had been arranged so
that Edith might lie there in the beautiful, warm spring days. She
regained her strength slowly, but her life was no longer in danger.

Some people make one feel that they are not able to live. At their
first illness they lie down and die. Halfvorson’s niece was long since
weary of everything, of the office, of the dim little shop, of
money-getting. When she was seventeen years old, she had the incentive
of winning friends and acquaintances. Then she undertook to try to keep
Halfvorson in the path of virtue, but now everything was accomplished.
She saw no prospect of escaping from the monotony of her life. She
might as well die.

She was of an elastic nature, like a steel spring: a bundle of nerves
and vivacity, when anything troubled or tormented her. How she had
worked with strategy and artifice, with womanly goodness and womanly
daring, before she had reached the point with her uncle when she was
sure that there was no longer danger of any Petter Nord affairs! But
now that he was tamed and subdued, she had nothing to interest her.
Yes, and yet she would not die! She lay and thought of what she would
do when she was well again.

Suddenly she started up, hearing some one say in a very loud voice that
he alone wished to settle with Halvorson. And then another voice
answered: “Go ahead, Petter Nord!”

Petter Nord was the most terrible, the most fatal name in the world. It
meant a revival of all the old troubles. Edith rose with trembling
limbs, and just then three dreadful creatures came around the corner
and stopped to stare at her. There was only a low rail and a thin hedge
between her and the street.

Edith was alone. The maids had gone to milk, and Halfvorson was working
in his garden by the custom-house, although he had told the shop-boy to
nay that he had gone away, for he was ashamed of his passion for
gardening. Edith was terribly frightened at the three men as well as at
the one who had gone into the shop. She was sure that they wished to do
her harm. So she turned and ran up the mountain by the steep, slippery
path and the narrow, rotten wooden steps which led from terrace to
terrace.

The strange men thought it too delightfully funny that she ran from
them. They could not resist pretending that they wished to catch her.
One of them climbed up on the railing, and all three shouted with a
terrible voice.

Edith ran as one runs in dreams, panting, falling, terrified to death,
with a horrible feeling of not getting away from one spot. All sorts of
emotions stormed through her, and shook her so that she thought she was
going to die. Yes, if one of those men laid his hand on her, she knew
that she should die. When she had reached the highest terrace, and
dared to look back, she found that the men were still in the street,
and were no longer looking at her. Then she threw herself down on the
ground, quite powerless. The exertion had been greater than she could
bear. She felt something burst in her. Then blood streamed from her
lips.

She was found by the maids as they went home from the milking. She was
then half dead. For the moment she was brought back to life, but no one
dared to hope that she could live long.

She could not talk that day enough to tell in what way she had been
frightened. Had she done so, it is uncertain if the strange men had
come alive from the town. They fared badly enough as it was. For after
Petter Nord had come out to them again, and had told them that
Halfvorson was not at home, all four of them in good accord went out
through the gates, and found a sunny slope where they could sleep away
the time until the shopman returned.

But in the afternoon, when all the men of the town, who had been
working in the fields, came home again, the women told them about the
tramps’ visit, about their threatening questions in the shop where they
had bought the beer, and about all their boisterous behavior. The women
exaggerated and magnified everything, for they had sat at home and
frightened one another the whole afternoon. Their husbands believed
that their houses and homes were in danger. They determined to capture
the disturbers of the peace, found a stout-hearted man to lead them,
took thick cudgels with them and started off.

The whole town was alive. The women came out on their doorsteps and
frightened one another. It was both terrible and exciting.

Before long the captors returned with their game. They had them all
four. They had made a ring round them while they slept and captured
them. No heroism had been required for the deed.

Now they came back to the town with them, driving them as if they had
been animals. A mad thirst for revenge had seized upon the conquerors.
They struck for the pleasure of striking. When one of the prisoners
clenched his fist at them, he received a blow on the head which knocked
him down, and thereupon blows hailed upon him, until he got up and went
on. The four men were almost dead.

The old poems are so beautiful. The captured hero sometimes must walk
in chains in the triumphal procession of his victorious enemy. But he
is proud and beautiful still in adversity. And looks follow him as well
as the fortunate one who has conquered him. Beauty’s tears and wreaths
belong to him still, even in misfortune.

But who could be enraptured of poor Petter Nord? His coat was torn and
his tow-colored hair sticky with blood. He received the most blows, for
he offered the most resistance. He looked terrible, as he walked. He
roared without knowing it. Boys caught hold of him, and he dragged them
long distances. Once he stopped and flung off the crowd in the street.
Just as he was about to escape, a blow from a cudgel fell on his head
and knocked him down. He rose up again, half stunned, and staggered on,
blows raining upon him, and the boys hanging like leeches to his arms
and legs.

They met the old Mayor, who was on his way home from his game of whist
in the garden of the inn. “Yes,” he said to the advance guard,—“yes,
take them to the prison.”

He placed himself at the head of the procession, shouted and ordered.
In a second everything was in line. Prisoners and guards marched in
peace and order. The villagers’ cheeks flushed; some of them threw down
their cudgels; others put them on their shoulders like muskets. And so
the prisoners were transferred into the keeping of the police, and were
taken to the prison in the market-place.

Those who had saved the town stood a long time in the market-place and
told of their courage and of their great exploit. And in the little
room of the inn, where the smoke is as thick as a cloud, and the great
men of the town mix their midnight toddy, more is heard of the deed,
magnified. They grow bigger in their rocking-chairs; they swell in
their sofa corners; they are all heroes. What force is slumbering in
that little town of mighty memories! Thou formidable inheritance, thou
old Viking blood!

The old Mayor did not like the whole affair. He could not quite
reconcile himself to the stirring of the old Viking blood. He could not
sleep for thinking of it, and went out again into the street and
strolled slowly towards the square.

It was a mild spring night. The church clock’s only hand pointed to
eleven. The balls had ceased to roll on the bowling alley. The curtains
were drawn down. The houses seemed to sleep with closed eyelids. The
steep hill behind was black, as if in mourning. But in the midst of all
the sleep there was one thing awake—the fragrance of the flowers did
not sleep. It stole over the linden hedges; poured out from the
gardens; rushed up and down the street; climbed up to every window
standing open, to every skylight that sucked in fresh air.

Every one whom the fragrance reached instantly saw before him his
little town, although the darkness had gently settled down over it. He
saw it as a village of flowers, where it was not house by house, but
garden by garden. He saw the cherry trees that raised their white
arches over the steep wood-path, the lilac clusters, the swelling buds
of glorious roses, the proud peonies, and the drifts of flower-petals
on the ground beneath the hawthorns.

The old Mayor was deep in thought. He was so wise and so old. Seventy
years had he reached, and for fifty he had managed the affairs of the
town. But that night be asked himself if he had done right. “I had the
town in my hand,” he thought, “but I have not made it anything great.”
And he thought of its great past, and was the more uncertain if he had
done right.

He stood in the market-place, looking out over the river. A boat came
with oars. A few villagers were coming home from a picnic. Girls in
light dresses held the oars. They steered in under the arch of the
bridge, but there the current was strong and they were drawn back.
There was a violent struggle. Their slender bodies were bent backwards,
until they lay even with the edge of the boat. Their soft arm-muscles
tightened. The oars bent like bows. The noise of laughter and cries
filled the air. Again and again the current conquered. The boat was
driven back. And when at last the girls had to land at the market quay,
and leave the boat for men to take home, how red and vexed they were,
and how they laughed! How their laughter echoed down the street! How
their broad, shady hats, their light, fluttering summer dresses
enlivened the quiet night.

The old Mayor saw in his mind’s eye, for in the darkness he could not
see them distinctly, their sweet, young faces, their beautiful clear
eyes and red lips. Then he straightened himself proudly up. The little
town was not without all glory. Other communities could boast of other
things, but he knew no place richer in flowers and in the enchanting
fairness of its women.

Then the old man thought with new-born courage of his efforts. He need
not fear for the future of the town. Such a town did not need to
protect itself with strict laws.

He felt compassion on the unfortunate prisoners. He went and waked the
justice of the peace, and talked with him. And the two were of one
mind. They went together to the prison and set Petter Nord and his
companions free.

And they did right. For the little town is like the Milo Aphrodite. It
has alluring beauty, and it lacks arms to hold fast.

III

I shall almost be compelled to leave reality, and turn to the world of
saga and extravagance to be able to relate what now happened. If young
Petter Nord had been Per, the Swineherd, with a gold crown under his
hat, it would all have seemed simple and natural. But no one, of
course, will believe me if I say that Petter Nord also wore a royal
crown on his tow hair. No one can ever know how many wonderful things
happen in that little town. No one can guess how many enchanted
princesses are waiting there for the shepherd boy of adventure.

At first it looked as if there were to be no more adventures. For when
Petter Nord had been set free by the old Mayor, and for the second time
had to flee in shame and disgrace from the town, the same thoughts came
over him as when he fled the first time. The polska tunes rang again
suddenly in his ears, and loudest among them all sounded the old
ring-dance.

    Christmas time has come,
    Christmas time has come,
    And after Christmas time comes Easter.
    That is not true at all,
    That is not true at all,
    For Lent comes after Christmas feasting.

And he saw distinctly the pallid Spirit of Fasting stealing about over
the earth with her bundle of twigs on her arm. And she called to him:
“Spendthrift, spendthrift! You have wished to celebrate the festival of
revenge and reparation during the time of fasting, that is called life.
Can you afford such extravagances, foolish one?”

Thereupon he had again sworn obedience and become the quiet and thrifty
workman. He again stood peaceful and sensible at his work. No one could
believe that it was he who had roared with rage and flung about the
people in the street, as an elk at bay shakes off the dogs.

A few weeks later Halfvorson came to him at the machine-shop. He looked
him up, at his niece’s desire. She wished, if possible, to speak to him
that same day.

Petter Nord began to shake and tremble when he saw Halfvorson. It was
as if he had seen a slippery snake. He did not know which he wished
most—to strike him or to run away from him; but he soon perceived that
Halfvorson looked much troubled.

The tradesman looked as one does after having been out in a strong
wind. The muscles of his face were drawn; his mouth was compressed; his
eyes red and full of tears. He struggled visibly with some sorrow. The
only thing in him that was the same was his voice. It was as inhumanly
expressionless as ever.

“You need not be afraid of the old story nor of the new one either,”
said Halfvorson. “It is known that you were with those men who made all
the trouble with us the other day. And as we supposed that they came
from here, I could learn where you were. Edith is going to die soon,”
he continued, and his whole face twitched as if it would fall to
pieces. “She wishes to speak to you before she dies. But we wish you no
harm.”

“Of course I shall come,” said Petter Nord.

Soon they were both on board the steamer. Petter Nord was decked out in
his fine Sunday clothes. Under his hat played and smiled all the dreams
of his boyhood in a veritable kingly crown; they encircled his light
hair. Edith’s message made him quite dizzy. Had he not always thought
that fine ladies would love him? And now here was one who wished to see
him before she died. Most wonderful of all things wonderful!—He sat and
thought of her as she had been formerly. How proud, how alive! And now
she was going to die. He was in such sorrow for her sake. But that she
had been thinking of him all these years! A warm, sweet melancholy came
over him.

He was really there again, the old, mad Petter Nord. As soon as he
approached the village the Spirit of Fasting went away from him with
disgust and contempt.

Halfvorson could not keep still for a moment. The heavy gale, which he
alone perceived, swept him forward and back on the deck. As he passed
Petter, he murmured a few words, so that the latter could know by what
paths his despairing thoughts wandered.

“They found her on the ground, half dead—blood everywhere about her,”
he said once. And another time: “Was she not good? Was she not
beautiful? How could such things come to her?” And again: “She has made
me good too. Could not see her sitting in sorrow all day long and
ruining the account-book with her tears.” Then this came: “A clever
child, besides. Won her way with me. Made my home pleasant. Got me
acquaintances among fine people. Understood what she was after, but
could not resist her.” He wandered away to the bow of the boat. When he
came back he said: “I cannot bear to have her die.”

He said it all with that helpless voice, which he could not subdue or
control. Petter Nord had a proud feeling that such a man as he who wore
a royal crown on his brow had no right to be angry with Halfvorson. The
latter was separated from men by his infirmity, and could not win their
love. Therefore he had to treat them all as enemies. He was not to be
measured by the same standard as other people.

Petter Nord sank again into his dreams. _She_ had remembered him all
these years, and now she could not die before she had seen him. Oh,
fancy that a young girl for all these years had been thinking of him,
loving him, missing him!

As soon as they landed and reached the tradesman’s house, he was taken
to Edith, who was waiting for him in the arbor.

The happy Petter Nord woke from his dreams when he saw her. She was a
fair vision, this girl, withering away in emulation with the rootless
birches around her. Her big eyes had darkened and grown clearer. Her
hands were so thin and transparent that one feared to touch them for
their fragility.

And it was she who loved him. Of course he had to love her instantly in
return, deeply, dearly, ardently! It was bliss, after so many years, to
feel his heart glow at the sight of a fellow-being.

He had stopped motionless at the entrance of the arbor, while eyes,
heart and brain worked most eagerly. When she saw how he stood and
stared at her, she began to smile with that most despairing smile in
the world, the smile of the very ill, that says: “See, this is what I
have become, but do not count on me! I cannot be beautiful and charming
any longer. I must die soon.”

It brought him back to reality. He saw that he had to do not with a
vision, but with a spirit which was about to spread its wings, and
therefore had made the walls of its prison so delicate and transparent.
It now showed so plainly in his face and in the way he took Edith’s
hand, that he all at once suffered with her suffering,— that he had
forgotten everything but grief, that she was going to die. The sick
girl felt the same pity for herself, and her eyes filled with tears.

Oh, what sympathy he felt for her from the first moment. He understood
instantly that she would not wish to show her emotion. Of course it was
agitating for her to see him, whom she had longed for so long, but it
was her weakness that had made her betray herself. She naturally would
not like him to pay any attention to it. And so he began on an innocent
subject of conversation.

“Do you know what happened to my white mice?” he said.

She looked at him with admiration. He seemed to wish to make the way
easier for her. “I let them loose in the shop,” she said. “They have
thriven well.”

“No, really! Are there any of them left?”

“Halfvorson says that he will never be rid of Petter Nord’s mice. They
have revenged you, you understand,” she said with meaning.

“It was a very good race,” answered Petter Nord, proudly.

The conversation lagged for a while. Edith closed her eyes, as if to
rest, and he kept a respectful silence. His last answer she had not
understood. He had not responded to what she had said about revenge.
When he began to talk of the mice, she believed that he understood what
she wished to say to him. She knew that he had come to the town a few
weeks before to be revenged. Poor Petter Nord! Many a time she had
wondered what had become of him. Many a night had the cries of the
frightened boy come to her in dreams. It was partly for his sake that
she should never again have to live through such a night, that she had
begun to reform her uncle, had made his house a home for him, had let
the lonely man feel the value of having a sympathetic friend near him.
Her lot was now again bound together with that of Petter Nord. His
attempt at revenge had frightened her to death. As soon as she had
regained her strength after that severe attack, she had begged
Halfvorson to look him up.

And Petter Nord sat there and believed that it was for love she had
called him. He could not know that she believed him vindictive, coarse,
degraded, a drunkard and a bully. He who was an example to all his
comrades in the working quarter, he could not guess that she had
summoned him, in order to preach virtue and good habits to him, in
order to say to him, if nothing else helped: “Look at me, Petter Nord!
It is your want of judgment, your vindictiveness, that is the cause of
my death. Think of it, and begin another life!”

He had come filled with love of life and dreams to celebrate love’s
festival, and she lay there and thought of plunging him into the black
depths of remorse.

There must have been something of the glory of the kingly crown shining
on her, which made her hesitate so that she decided to question him
first.

“But, Petter Nord, was it really you who were here with those three
terrible men?”

He flushed and looked on the ground. Then he had to tell her the whole
story of the day with all its shame. In the first place, what
unmanliness he had shown in not sooner demanding justice, and how he
had only gone because he was forced to it, and then how he had been
beaten and whipped instead of beating some one himself. He did not dare
to look up while he was speaking; he did expect that even those gentle
eyes would judge him with forbearance. He felt that he was robbing
himself of all the glory with which she must have surrounded him in her
dreams.

“But Petter Nord, what would have happened if you had met Halfvorson?”
asked Edith, when he had finished.

He hung his head even lower. “I saw him well enough,” he said. “He had
not gone away. He was working in his garden outside the gates. The boy
in the shop told me everything.”

“Well, why did you not avenge yourself?” said Edith.

He was spared nothing.—But he felt the inquiring glance of her eyes on
him and he began obediently: “When the men lay down to sleep on a
slope, I went alone to find Halfvorson, for I wished to have him to
myself. He was working there, staking his peas. It must have rained in
torrents the day before, for the peas had been broken down to the
ground; some of the leaves were whipped to ribbons, others covered with
earth. It was like a hospital, and Halfvorson was the doctor. He raised
them up so gently, brushed away the earth and helped the poor little
things to cling to the twigs. I stood and looked on. He did not hear
me, and he had no time to look up. I tried to retain my anger by force.
But what could I do? I could not fly at him while he was busy with the
peas. My time will come afterwards, I thought.

“But then he started up, struck himself on the forehead and rushed away
to the hotbed. He lifted the glass and looked in, and I looked too, for
he seemed to be in the depths of despair. Yes, it was dreadful, of
course. He had forgotten to shade it from the sun, and it must have
been terribly hot under the glass. The cucumbers lay there half-dead
and gasped for breath; some of the leaves were burnt, and others were
drooping. I was so overcome, I too, that I never thought what I was
doing, and Halfvorson caught sight of my shadow. ‘Look here, take the
watering-pot that is standing in the asparagus bed and run down to the
river for water,’ he said, without looking up. I suppose he thought it
was the gardener’s boy. And I ran.”

“Did you, Petter Nord?”

“Yes; you see, the cucumbers ought not to suffer on account of our
enmity. I thought myself that it showed lack of character and so on,
but I could not help it. I wanted to see if they would come to life.
When I came back, he had lifted the glass off and still stood and
stared despairingly. I thrust the watering-pot into his hand, and he
began to pour over them. Yes, it was almost visible what good it did in
the hotbed. I thought almost that they raised themselves, and he must
have thought so too, for he began to laugh. Then I ran away.”

“You ran away, Petter Nord, you ran away?”

Edith had raised herself in the arm-chair.

“I could not strike him,” said Petter Nord.

Edith felt an ever stronger impression of the glory round poor Petter
Nord’s head. So it was not necessary to plunge him into the depths of
remorse with the heavy burden of sin around his neck. Was he such a
man? Such a tender-hearted, sensitive man! She sank back, closed her
eyes and thought. She did not need to say it to him. She was astonished
that she felt such a relief not to have to cause him pain.

“I am so glad that you have given up your plans for revenge, Petter
Nord,” she began in friendly tones. “It was about that that I wished to
talk to you. Now I can die in peace.”

He drew along breath. She was not unfriendly.

She did not look as if she had been mistaken in him. She must love him
very much when she could excuse such cowardice.—For when she said that
she had sent for him to ask him to give up his thoughts of revenge, it
must have been from bashfulness not to have to acknowledge the real
reason of the summons. She was so right in it. He who was the man ought
to say the first word.

“How can they let you die?” he burst out. “Halfvorson and all the
others, how can they? If I were here, I would refuse to let you die. I
would give you all my strength. I would take all your suffering.”

“I have no pain,” she said, smiling at such bold promises.

“I am thinking that I would like to carry you away like a frozen bird,
lay you under my vest like a young squirrel. Fancy what it would be to
work if something so warm and soft was waiting for one at home! But if
you were well, there would be so many—”

She looked at him with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in his
proper place. But she must have seen again something of the magic crown
about the boy’s head, for she had patience with him. He meant nothing.
He had to talk as he did. He was not like others.

“Ah,” she said, indifferently, “there are not so many, Petter Nord.
There has hardly been any one in earnest.”

But now there came another turn to his advantage. In her suddenly awoke
the eager hunger of a sick person for compassion. She longed for the
tenderness, the pity that the poor workman could give her. She felt the
need of being near that deep, disinterested sympathy. The sick cannot
have enough of it. She wished to read it in his glance and his whole
being. Words meant nothing to her.

“I like to see you here,” she said. “Sit here for a while, and tell me
what you have been doing these six years!”

While he talked, she lay and drew in the indescribable something which
passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But by some
strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened and vivified.

Nevertheless she did get one impression from his story. It took her
into the workman’s quarter, into a new world, full of tumultuous hopes
and strength. How they longed and trusted! How they hated and suffered!

“How happy the oppressed are,” she said.

It occurred to her, with a longing for life, that there might be
something for her there, she who always needed oppression and
compulsion to make life worth living.

“If I were well,” she said, “perhaps I would have gone there with you.
I should enjoy working my way up with some one I liked.”

Petter Nord started. Here was the confession that he had been waiting
for the whole time. “Oh, can you not live!” he prayed. And he beamed
with happiness.

She became observant. “That is love,” she said to herself. “And now he
believes that I am also in love. What madness, that Värmland boy!”

She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in
Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her. She had not the
heart to spoil his happy mood. She felt compassion for his foolishness
and let him live in it. “It does not matter, as I am to die so soon,”
she said to herself.

But she sent him away soon after, and when he asked if he might not
come again, she forbade him absolutely. “But,” she said, “do you
remember our graveyard up on the hill, Petter Nord. You can come there
in a few weeks and thank death for that day.”

As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson. He was
walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the
thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer.
To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he
sought him out. But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith
had not told him everything. He was serious, but at the same time he
certainly was madly happy.

“Has Edith told you why she is dying?” said Halfvorson.

“No,” answered Petter Nord.

Halfvorson laid his hand on his shoulder as if to keep him from
escaping.

“She is dying because of you, because of your damned pranks. She was
slightly ill before, but it was nothing. No one thought that she would
die; but then you came with those three wretched tramps, and they
frightened her while you were in my shop. They chased her, and she ran
away from them, ran till she got a hemorrhage. But that is what you
wanted; you wished to be revenged on me by killing her, wished to leave
me lonely and unhappy without a soul near me who cares for me. All my
joy you wished to take from me, all my joy.”

He would have gone on forever, overwhelmed Petter Nord with reproaches,
killed him with curses; but the latter tore himself away and ran, as if
an earthquake had shaken the town and all the houses were tumbling
down.

IV

Behind the town the mountain walls rise perpendicularly, but after one
has climbed up them by steep stone steps and slippery pine paths, one
finds that the mountain spreads out into a wide, undulating plateau.
And there lies an enchanted wood.

Over the whole stretch of the mountain stands a pine wood without
pine-needles; a wood which dies in the spring and grows green in the
autumn; a lifeless wood, which blossoms with the joy of life when other
trees are laying aside their green garments; a wood that grows without
any one knowing how, that stands green in winter frosts and brown in
summer dews.

It is a newly-planted wood. Young firs have been forced to take root in
the clefts between the granite blocks. Their tough roots have bored
down like sharp wedges into the fissures and crevices. It was very well
for a while; the young trees shot up like spires, and the roots bored
down into the granite. But at last they could go no further, and then
the wood was filled with an ill-concealed peevishness. It wished to go
high, but also deep. After the way down had been closed to it, it felt
that life was not worth living. Every spring it was ready to throw off
the burden of life in its discouragement. During the summer when Edith
was dying, the young wood was quite brown. High above the town of
flowers stood a gloomy row of dying trees.

But up on the mountain it is not all gloom and the agony of death. As
one walks between the brown trees, in such distress that one is ready
to die, one catches glimpses of green trees. The perfume of flowers
fills the air; the song of birds exults and calls. Then thoughts rise
of the sleeping forest and of the paradise of the fairy-tale, encircled
by thorny thickets. And when one comes at last to the green, to the
flower fragrance, to the song of the birds, one sees that it is the
hidden graveyard of the little town.

The home of the dead lies in an earth-filled hollow in the mountain
plateau. And there, within the grey stone walls, the knowledge and
weariness of life end. Lilacs stand at the entrance, bending under
heavy clusters. Lindens and beeches spread a lofty arch of luxuriant
growth over the whole place. Jasmines and roses blossom freely in that
consecrated earth. Over the big old tombstones creep vines of ivy and
periwinkle.

There is a corner where the pine-trees grow mast-high. Does it not seem
as if the young wood outside ought to be ashamed at the sight of them?
And there are hedges there, quite grown beyond their keeper’s hands,
blooming and sending forth shoots without thought of shears or knife.

The town now has a new burial-place, to which the dead can come without
special trouble. It was a weary way for them to be carried up in
winter, when the steep wood-paths are covered with ice, and the steps
slippery and covered with snow. The coffin creaked; the bearers panted;
the old clergyman leaned heavily on the sexton and the grave-digger.
Now no one has to be buried up there who does not ask it.

The graves are not beautiful. There are few who know how to make the
resting-place of the dead attractive. But the fresh green sheds its
peace and beauty over them all. It is strangely solemn to know that
those who are buried are glad to lie there. The living who go up after
a day hot with work, go there as among friends. Those who sleep have
also loved the lofty trees and the stillness.

If a stranger comes up there, they do not tell him of death and loss;
they sit down on the big slabs of stone, on the broad burgomaster
tombs, and tell him about Petter Nord, the Värmland boy, and of his
love. The story seems fitting to be told up here, where death has lost
its terrors. The consecrated earth seems to rejoice at having also been
the scene of awakened happiness and new-born life.

For it happened that after Petter Nord ran away from Halfvorson, he
sought refuge in the graveyard.

At first he ran towards the bridge over the river and turned his steps
towards the big town. But on the bridge the unfortunate fugitive
stopped. The kingly crown on his brow was quite gone. It had
disappeared as if it had been spun of sunbeams. He was deeply bent with
sorrow; his whole body shook; his heart throbbed; his brain burned like
fire.

Then he thought he saw the Spirit of Fasting coming towards him for the
third time. She was much more friendly, much more compassionate than
before; but she seemed to him only so much the more terrible.

“Alas, unhappy one,” she said, “surely this must be the last of your
pranks! You have wished to celebrate the festival of love during that
time of fasting which is called life; but you see what happens to you.
Come now and be faithful to me; you have tried everything and have only
me to whom to turn.”

He waved his arm to keep her off. “I know what you wish of me. You wish
to lead me back to work and renunciation, but I cannot. Not now, not
now!”

The pallid Spirit of Fasting smiled ever more mildly. “You are
innocent, Petter Nord. Do not grieve so over what you have not caused!
Was not Edith kind to you? Did you not see that she had forgiven you?
Come with me to your work! Live, as you have lived!”

The boy cried more vehemently. “Is it any better for me, do you think,
that I have killed just her who has been kind to me, her, who cares for
me? Had it not been better if I had murdered some one whom I wished to
murder. I must make amends. I must save her life. I cannot think of
work now.”

“Oh, you madman,” said the Spirit of Fasting, “the festival of
reparation which you wish to celebrate is the greatest audacity of
all.”

Then Petter Nord rebelled absolutely against his friend of many years.
He scoffed at her. “What have you made me believe?” he said. “That you
were a tiresome and peevish old woman with arms full of small, harmless
twigs. You are a sorceress of life. You are a monster. You are
beautiful, and you are terrible. You yourself know no bounds nor
limits; why should I know them? How can you preach fasting, you, who
wish to deluge me with such an overmeasure of sorrow? What are the
festivals I have celebrated compared to those you are continually
preparing for me! Begone with your pallid moderation! Now I wish to be
as mad as yourself.”

Not one step could he take towards the big town. Neither could he turn
directly round and again go the length of the one street in the
village; he took the path up the mountain, climbed to the enchanted
pine-wood, and wandered about among the stiff, prickly young trees,
until a friendly path led him to the graveyard. There he found a
hiding-place in a corner where the pines grew high as masts, and there
he threw himself weary unto death on the ground.

He almost lost consciousness. He did not know if time passed or if
everything stood still. But after a while steps were heard, and he woke
to a feeble consciousness. He seemed to have been far, far away. He saw
a funeral procession draw near, and instantly a confused thought rose
in him. How long had he lain there? Was Edith dead already? Was she
looking for him here? Was the corpse in the coffin hunting for its
murderer? He shook and sweated. He lay well hidden in the dark pine
thicket; but he trembled for what might happen if the corpse found him.
He bent aside the branches and looked out. A hunted deserter could not
have spied more wildly after his pursuers.

The funeral was that of a poor man. The attendance was small. The
coffin was lowered without wreaths into the grave. There was no sign of
tears on any of the faces. Petter Nord had still enough sense to see
that this could not be Edith Halfvorson’s funeral train.

But if this was not she, who knows if it was not a greeting from her.
Petter Nord felt that he had no right to escape. She had said that he
was to go up to the graveyard. She must have meant that he was to wait
for her there, so that she could find him to give him his punishment.
The funeral was a greeting, a token. She wished him to wait for her
there.

To his sick brain the low churchyard wall rose as high as a rampart. He
stared despairingly at the frail trellis-gate; it was like the most
solid door of oak. He was imprisoned. He could never get away, until
she herself came up and brought him his punishment.

What she was going to do with him he did not know. Only one thing was
distinct and clear; that he must wait here until she came for him.
Perhaps she would take him with her into the grave; perhaps she would
command him to throw himself from the mountain. He could not know—he
must wait for a while yet.

Reason fought a despairing struggle: “You are innocent, Petter Nord. Do
not grieve over what you have not caused! She has not sent you any
messages. Go down to your work! Lift your foot and you are over the
wall; push with one finger and the gate is open.”

No, he could not. Most of the time he was in a stupor, a trance. His
thoughts were indistinct, as when on the point of falling asleep. He
only knew one thing, that he must stay where he was.

The news came to her lying and fading in emulation with the rootless
birches. “Petter Nord, with whom you played one summer day, is in the
graveyard waiting for you. Petter Nord, whom your uncle has frightened
out of his senses, cannot leave the graveyard until your flower-decked
coffin comes to fetch him.”

The girl opened her eyes as if to look at the world once more. She sent
a message to Petter Nord. She was angry at his mad pranks. Why could
she not die in peace? She had never wished that he should have any
pangs of conscience for her sake.

The bearer of the message came back without Petter Nord. He could not
come. The wall was too high and the gate too strong. There was only one
who could free him.

During those days they thought of nothing else in the little town. “He
is there; he is there still,” they told one another every day. “Is he
mad?” they asked most often, and some who had talked with him answered
that he certainly would be when “she” came. But they were exceedingly
proud of that martyr to love who gave a glory to the town. The poor
took him food. The rich stole up on the mountain to catch a glimpse of
him.

But Edith, who could not move, who lay helpless and dying, she who had
so much time to think, with what was she occupying herself? What
thoughts revolved in her brain day and night? Oh, Petter Nord, Petter
Nord! Must she always see before her the man who loved her, who was
losing his mind for her sake, who really, actually was in the graveyard
waiting for her coffin.

See, that was something for the steel-spring in her nature. That was
something for her imagination, something for her benumbed senses. To
think what he meant to do when she should come! To imagine what he
would do if she should not come there as a corpse!

They talked of it in the whole town, talked of it and nothing else. As
the cities of ancient times had loved their martyrs, the little village
loved the unhappy Petter Nord; but no one liked to go into the
graveyard and talk to him. He looked wilder each day. The obscurity of
madness sank ever closer about him. “Why does she not try to get well?”
they said of Edith. “It is unjust of her to die.”

Edith was almost angry. She who was so tired of life, must she be
compelled to take up the heavy burden again? But nevertheless she began
an honest effort. She felt what a work of repairing and mending was
going on in her body with seething force during these weeks. And no
material was spared. She consumed incredible quantities of those things
which give strength and life, whatever they may be: malt extract or
codliver oil, fresh air or sunshine, dreams or love.

And what glorious days they were, long, warm, and sunny!

At last she got the doctor’s permission to be carried up there. The
whole town was in alarm when she undertook the journey. Would she come
down with a madman? Could the misery of those weeks be blotted out of
his brain? Would the exertions she had made to begin life again be
profitless? And if it were so, how would it go with her?

As she passed by, pale with excitement, but still full of hope, there
was cause enough for anxiety. No one concealed from themselves that
Petter Nord had taken quite too large a place in her imagination. She
was the most eager of all in the worship of that strange saint. All
restraints had fallen from her when she had heard what he suffered for
her sake. But how would the sight of him affect her enthusiasm? There
is nothing romantic in a madman.

When she had been carried up to the gate of the graveyard, she left her
bearers and walked alone up the broad middle path. Her gaze wandered
round the flowering spot, but she saw no one.

Suddenly she heard a faint rustle in a clump of fir-trees, and she saw
a wild, distorted face staring from it. Never had she seen terror so
plainly stamped on a face. She was frightened herself at the sight of
it, mortally frightened. She could hardly restrain herself from running
away.

Then a great, holy feeling welled up in her. There was no longer any
thought of love or enthusiasm, but only grief that a fellow-being, one
of the unhappy ones who passed through the vale of tears with her,
should be destroyed.

The girl remained. She did not give way a single step; she let him
slowly accustom himself to the sight of her. But she put all the
strength she possessed in her gaze. She drew the man to her with the
whole force of the will that had conquered the illness in herself.

He came forward out of his corner, pale, wild and unkempt. He advanced
towards her, but the terror never left his face. He looked as if he
were fascinated by a wild beast, which came to tear him to pieces. When
he was quite close to her, she put both her hands on his shoulders and
looked smiling into his face.

“Come, Petter Nord, what is the matter with you? You must go from here!
What do you mean by staying so long up here in the graveyard, Petter
Nord?”

He trembled and sank down. But she felt that she subdued him with her
eyes. Her words, on the other hand, seemed to have absolutely no
meaning to him.

She changed her tone a little. “Listen to what I say, Petter Nord. I am
not dead. I am not going to die. I have got well in order to come up
here and save you.”

He still stood in the same dull terror. Again there came a change in
her voice. “You have not caused my death,” she said more tenderly, “you
have given me life.”

She repeated it again and again. And her voice at last was trembling
with emotion, thick with weeping. But he did not understand anything of
what she said.

“Petter Nord, I love you so much, so much!” she burst out.

He was just as unmoved.

She knew nothing more to try with him. She would have to take him down
with her to the town and let time and care help.

It is not easy to say what the dreams she had taken up there with her
were and what she had expected from this meeting with the man who loved
her. Now, when she was to give it all up and treat him as a madman
only, she felt such pain, as if she was about to lose the dearest thing
life had given her. And in that bitterness of loss she drew him to her
and kissed him on the forehead.

It was meant as a farewell to both happiness and life. She felt her
strength fail her. A mortal weakness came over her.

But then she thought she saw a feeble sign of life in him. He was not
quite so limp and dull. His features were twitching. He trembled more
and more violently. She watched with ever-growing alarm. He was waking,
but to what? At last he began to weep.

She led him away to a tomb. She sat down on it, pulled him down in
front of her and laid his head on her lap. She sat and caressed him,
while he wept.

He was like some one waking from a nightmare.

“Why am I weeping?” he asked himself. “Oh, I know; I had such a
terrible dream. But it is not true. She is alive. I have not killed
her. So foolish to weep for a dream.”

Gradually everything grew clear to him; but his tears continued to
flow. She sat and caressed him, but he wept still for a long time.

“I feel such a need of weeping,” he said.

Then he looked up and smiled. “Is it Easter now?” he asked.

“What do you mean by now?”

“It can be called Easter, when the dead rise again,” he continued.
Thereupon, as if they had been intimate many years, he began to tell
her about the Spirit of Fasting and of his revolt against her rule.

“It is Easter now, and the end of her reign,” she said.

But when he realized that Edith was sitting there and caressing him, he
had to weep again. He needed so much to weep. All the distrust of life
which misfortunes had brought to the little Värmland boy needed tears
to wash it away. Distrust that love and joy, beauty and strength
blossomed on the earth, distrust in himself, all must go, all did go,
for it was Easter; the dead lived and the Spirit of Fasting would never
again _come into power_.




THE LEGEND OF THE BIRD’S NEST


Hatto the hermit stood in the wilderness and prayed to God. A storm was
raging, and his long beard and matted hair waved about him like
weather-beaten tufts of grass on the summit of an old ruin. But he did
not push his hair out of his eyes, nor did he tuck his beard into his
belt, for his arms were uplifted in prayer. Ever since sunrise he had
raised his gnarled, hairy arms towards heaven, as untiringly as a tree
stretches up its branches, and he meant to remain standing so till
night. He had a great boon to pray for.

He was a man who had suffered much of the world’s anger. He had himself
persecuted and tortured, and persecutions and torture from others had
fallen to his share, more than his heart could bear. So he went out on
the great heath, dug himself a hole in the river bank and became a holy
man, whose prayers were heard at God’s throne.

Hatto the hermit stood there on the river bank by his hole and prayed
the great prayer of his life. He prayed God that He should appoint the
day of doom for this wicked world. He called on the trumpet-blowing
angels, who were to proclaim the end of the reign of sin. He cried out
to the waves of the sea of blood, which were to drown the unrighteous.
He called on the pestilence, which should fill the churchyards with
heaps of dead.

Round about stretched a desert plain. But a little higher up on the
river bank stood an old willow with a short trunk, which swelled out at
the top in a great knob like a head, from which new, light-green shoots
grew out. Every autumn it was robbed of these strong, young branches by
the inhabitants of that fuel-less heath. Every spring the tree put
forth new, soft shoots, and in stormy weather these waved and fluttered
about it, just as hair and beard fluttered about Hatto the hermit.

A pair of wagtails, which used to make their nest in the top of the
willow’s trunk among the sprouting branches, had intended to begin
their building that very day. But among the whipping shoots the birds
found no quiet. They came flying with straws and root fibres and dried
sedges, but they had to turn back with their errand unaccomplished.
Just then they noticed old Hatto, who called upon God to make the storm
seven times more violent, so that the nests of the little birds might
be swept away and the eagle’s eyrie destroyed.

Of course no one now living can conceive how mossy and dried-up and
gnarled and black and unlike a human being such an old plain-dweller
could be. The skin was so drawn over brow and cheeks, that he looked
almost like a death’s-head, and one saw only by a faint gleam in the
hollows of the eye sockets that he was alive. And the dried-up muscles
of the body gave it no roundness, and the upstretched, naked arms
consisted only of shapeless bones, covered with shrivelled, hardened,
bark-like skin. He wore an old, close-fitting, black robe. He was
tanned by the sun and black with dirt. His hair and beard alone were
light, bleached by the rain and sun, until they had become the same
green-gray color as the under side of the willow leaves.

The birds, flying about, looking for a place to build, took Hatto the
hermit for another old willow-tree, checked in its struggle towards the
sky by axe and saw like the first one. They circled about him many
times, flew away and came again, took their landmarks, considered his
position in regard to birds of prey and winds, found him rather
unsatisfactory, but nevertheless decided in his favor, because he stood
so near to the river and to the tufts of sedge, their larder and
storehouse. One of them shot swift as an arrow down into his
upstretched hand and laid his root fibre there.

There was a lull in the storm, so that the root-fibre was not torn
instantly away from the hand; but in the hermit’s prayers there was no
pause: “May the Lord come soon to destroy this world of corruption, so
that man may not have time to heap more sin upon himself! May he save
the unborn from life! For the living there is no salvation.”

Then the storm began again, and the little root-fibre fluttered away
out of the hermit’s big gnarled hand. But the birds came again and
tried to wedge the foundation of the new home in between the fingers.
Suddenly a shapeless and dirty thumb laid itself on the straws and held
them fast, and four fingers arched themselves so that there was a quiet
niche to build in. The hermit continued his prayers.

“Oh Lord, where are the clouds of fire which laid Sodom waste? When
wilt Thou let loose the floods which lifted the ark to Ararat’s top?
Are not the cups of Thy patience emptied and the vials of Thy grace
exhausted? Oh Lord, when wilt Thou rend the heavens and come?”

And feverish visions of the Day of Doom appeared to Hatto the hermit.
The ground trembled, the heavens glowed. Across the flaming sky he saw
black clouds of flying birds, a horde of panic-stricken beasts rushed,
roaring and bellowing, past him. But while his soul was occupied with
these fiery visions, his eyes began to follow the flight of the little
birds, as they flashed to and fro and with a cheery peep of
satisfaction wove a new straw into the nest.

The old man had no thought of moving. He had made a vow to pray without
moving with uplifted hands all day in order to force the Lord to grant
his request. The more exhausted his body became, the more vivid visions
filled his brain. He heard the walls of cities fall and the houses
crack. Shrieking, terrified crowds rushed by him, pursued by the angels
of vengeance and destruction, mighty forms with stern, beautiful faces,
wearing silver coats of mail, riding black horses and swinging
scourges, woven of white lightning.

The little wagtails built and shaped busily all day, and the work
progressed rapidly. On the tufted heath with its stiff sedges and by
the river with its reeds and rushes, there was no lack of building
material. They had no time for noon siesta nor for evening rest.
Glowing with eagerness and delight, they flew to and fro, and before
night came they had almost reached the roof.

But before night came, the hermit had begun to watch them more and
more. He followed them on their journeys; he scolded them when they
built foolishly; he was furious when the wind disturbed their work; and
least of all could he endure that they should take any rest.

Then the sun set, and the birds went to their old sleeping place in
among the rushes.

Let him who crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face comes
on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle
outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings
skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing upright. Snakes
glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike
necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water-rats flee
before preying beasts, and a fox bounds after a bat, which is chasing
mosquitos by the river. It seems as if every tuft has come to life. But
through it all the little birds sleep on the waving rushes, secure from
all harm in that resting-place which no enemy can approach, without the
water splashing or the reeds shaking and waking them.

When the morning came, the wagtails believed at first that the events
of the day before had been a beautiful dream.

They had taken their landmarks and flew straight to their nest, but it
was gone. They flew searching over the heath and rose up into the air
to spy about. There was not a trace of nest or tree. At last they
lighted on a couple of stones by the river bank and considered. They
wagged their long tails and cocked their heads on one side. Where had
the tree and nest gone?

But hardly had the sun risen a handsbreadth over the belt of trees on
the other bank, before their tree came walking and placed itself on the
same spot where it had been the day before. It was just as black and
gnarled as ever and bore their nest on the top of something, which must
be a dry, upright branch.

Then the wagtails began to build again, without troubling themselves
any more about nature’s many wonders.

Hatto the hermit, who drove the little children away from his hole
telling them that it had been best for them if they had never been
born, he who rushed out into the mud to hurl curses after the joyous
young people who rowed up the stream in pleasure-boats, he from whose
angry eyes the shepherds on the heath guarded their flocks, did not
return to his place by the river for the sake of the little birds. He
knew that not only has every letter in the holy books its hidden,
mysterious meaning, but so also has everything which God allows to take
place in nature. He had thought out the meaning of the wagtails
building in his hand. God wished him to remain standing with uplifted
arms until the birds had raised their brood; and if he should have the
power to do that, he would be heard.

But during that day he did not see so many visions of the Day of Doom.
Instead, he watched the birds more and more eagerly. He saw the nest
soon finished. The little builders fluttered about it and inspected it.
They went after a few bits of lichen from the real willow-tree and
fastened them on the outside, to fill the place of plaster and paint.
They brought the finest cotton-grass, and the female wagtail took
feathers from her own breast and lined the nest.

The peasants, who feared the baleful power that the hermit’s prayers
might have at the throne of God, used to bring him bread and milk to
mitigate his wrath. They came now too and found him standing
motionless, with the bird’s nest in his hand. “See how the holy man
loves the little creatures,” they said, and were no longer afraid of
him, but lifted the bowl of milk to his mouth and put the bread between
his lips. When he had eaten and drunk, he drove away the people with
angry words, but they only smiled at his curses.

His body had long since become the slave of his will. By hunger and
blows, by praying all day, by waking a week at a time, he had taught it
obedience. Now the steel-like muscles held his arms uplifted for days
and weeks, and when the female wagtail began to sit on her eggs and
never left the nest, he did not return to his hole even at night. He
learned to sleep sitting, with upstretched arms. Among the dwellers in
the wilderness there are many who have done greater things.

He grew accustomed to the two little, motionless bird-eyes which stared
down at him over the edge of the nest. He watched for hail and rain,
and sheltered the nest as well as he could.

At last one day the female is freed from her duties. Both the birds sit
on the edge of the nest, wag their tails and consult and look
delighted, although the whole nest seems to be full of an anxious
peeping. After a while they set out on the wildest hunt for midges.

Midge after midge is caught and brought to whatever it is that is
peeping up there in his hand. And when the food comes, the peeping is
at its very loudest. The holy man is disturbed in his prayers by that
peeping.

And gently, gently he bends his arm, which has almost lost the power of
moving, and his little fiery eyes stare down into the nest.

Never had he seen anything so helplessly ugly and miserable: small,
naked bodies, with a little thin down, no eyes, no power of flight,
nothing really but six big, gaping mouths.

It seemed very strange to him, but he liked them just as they were.
Their father and mother he had never spared in the general destruction,
but when hereafter he called to God to ask of Him the salvation of the
world through its annihilation, he made a silent exception of those six
helpless ones.

When the peasant women now brought him food, he no longer thanked them
by wishing their destruction. Since he was necessary to the little
creatures up there, he was glad that they did not let him starve to
death.

Soon six round heads were to be seen the whole day long stretching over
the edge of the nest. Old Hatto’s arm sank more and more often to the
level of his eyes. He saw the feathers push out through the red skin,
the eyes open, the bodies round out. Happy inheritors of the beauty
nature has given to flying creatures, they developed quickly in their
loveliness.

And during all this time prayers for the great destruction rose more
and more hesitatingly to old Hatto’s lips. He thought that he had God’s
promise, that it should come when the little birds were fledged. Now he
seemed to be searching for a loop-hole for God the Father. For these
six little creatures, whom he had sheltered and cherished, he could not
sacrifice.

It was another matter before, when he had not had anything that was his
own. The love for the small and weak, which it has been every little
child’s mission to teach big, dangerous people, came over him and made
him doubtful.

He sometimes wanted to hurl the whole nest into the river, for he
thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones.
Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger, and
from life’s manifold visitations? But just as he thought this, a
sparrow-hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hatto seized the
marauder with his left hand, swung him about his head and hurled him
with the strength of wrath out into the stream.

The day came at last when the little birds were ready to fly. One of
the wagtails was working inside the nest to push the young ones out to
the edge, while the other flew about, showing them how easy it was, if
they only dared to try. And when the young ones were obstinate and
afraid, both the parents flew about, showing them all their most
beautiful feats of flight. Beating with their wings, they flew in
swooping curves, or rose right up like larks or hung motionless in the
air with vibrating wings.

But as the young ones still persist in their obstinacy, Hatto the
hermit cannot keep from mixing himself up in the matter. He gives them
a cautious shove with his finger and then it is done. Out they go,
fluttering and uncertain, beating the air like bats, sink, but rise
again, grasp what the art is and make use of it to reach the nest again
as quickly as possible. Proud and rejoicing, the parents come to them
again and old Hatto smiles.

It was he who gave the final touch after all.

He now considered seriously if there could not be any way out of it for
our Lord.

Perhaps, when all was said, God the Father held this earth in His right
hand like a big bird’s nest, and perhaps He had come to cherish love
for all those who build and dwell there, for all earth’s defenceless
children. Perhaps He felt pity for those whom He had promised to
destroy, just as the hermit felt pity for the little birds.

Of course the hermit’s birds were much better than our Lord’s people,
but he could quite understand that God the Father nevertheless had love
for them.

The next day the bird’s nest stood empty, and the bitterness of
loneliness filled the heart of the hermit. Slowly his arm sank down to
his side, and it seemed to him as if all nature held its breath to
listen for the thunder of the trumpet of Doom. But just then all the
wagtails came again and lighted on his head and shoulders, for they
were not at all afraid of him. Then a ray of light shot through old
Hatto’s confused brain. He had lowered his arm, lowered it every day to
look at the birds.

And standing there with all the six young ones fluttering and playing
about him, he nodded contentedly to some one whom he did not see. “I
let you off,” he said, “I let you off. I have not kept my word, so you
need not keep yours.”

And it seemed to him as if the mountains ceased to tremble and as if
the river laid itself down in easy calm in its bed.




THE KING’S GRAVE


It was at the time of year when the heather is red. It grew over the
sand-hills in thick clumps. From low tree-like stems close-growing
green branches raised their hardy ever-green leaves and unfading
flowers. They seemed not to be made of ordinary, juicy flower
substance, but of dry, hard scales. They were very insignificant in
size and shape; nor was their fragrance of much account. Children of
the open moors, they had not unfolded in the still air where lilies
open their alabaster petals; nor did they grow in the rich soil from
which roses draw nourishment for their swelling crowns. What made them
flowers was really their color, for they were glowing red. They had
received the color-giving sunshine in plenty. They were no pallid
cellar growth; the blessed gaiety and strength of health lay over all
the blossoming heath.

The heather covered the bare fields with its red mantle up to the edge
of the wood. There, on a gently sloping ridge, stood some ancient, half
ruined stone cairns; and however closely the heather tried to creep to
these, there were always rents in its web, through which were visible
great, flat rocks, folds in the mountain’s own rough skin. Under the
biggest of these piles rested an old king, Atle by name. Under the
others slumbered those of his warriors who had fallen when the great
battle raged on the moor. They had lain there now so long that the fear
and respect of death had departed from their graves. The path ran
between their resting-places. The wanderer by night never thought to
look whether forms wrapped in mist sat at midnight on the tops of the
cairns staring in silent longing at the stars.

It was a glittering morning, dewy and warm. The hunter who had been out
since daybreak had thrown himself down in the heather behind King
Atle’s pile. He lay on his back and slept. He had dragged his hat down
over his eyes; and under his head lay his leather game-bag, out of
which protruded a hare’s long ears and the bent tail-feathers of a
black-cock. His bow and arrows lay beside him.

From out of the wood came a girl with a bundle in her hand. When she
reached the flat rock between the piles of stones, she thought what a
good place it would be to dance. She was seized with an ardent desire
to try. She laid her bundle on the heather and began to dance quite
alone. She had no idea that a man lay asleep behind the king’s cairn.

The hunter still slept. The heather showed burning red against the deep
blue of the sky. An anthill stood close beside the sleeper. On it lay a
piece of quartz, which sparkled as if it had wished to set fire to all
the old stubble of the heath. Above the hunter’s head the black-cock
feathers spread out like a plume, and their iridescence shifted from
deep purple to steely blue. On the unshaded part of his face the
burning sunshine glowed. But he did not open his eyes to look at the
glory of the morning.

In the meanwhile the girl continued to dance, and whirled about so
eagerly that the blackened moss which had collected in the unevennesses
of the rocks flew about her. An old, dry fir root, smooth and gray with
age, lay upturned among the heather. She took it and whirled about with
it. Chips flew out from the mouldering wood. Centipedes and earwigs
that had lived in the crevices scurried out head over heels into the
luminous air and bored down among the roots of the heather.

When the swinging skirts grazed the heather, clouds of small grey
butterflies fluttered up from it. The under side of their wings was
white and silvery and they whirled like dry leaves in a squall. They
then seemed quite white, and it was as if a red sea threw up white
foam. The butterflies remained for a short time in the air. Their
fragile wings fluttered so violently that the down loosened and fell
like thin silver white feathers. The air seemed to be filled with a
glorified mist.

On the heath grasshoppers sat and scraped their back legs against their
wings, so that they sounded like harp strings. They kept good time and
played so well together, that to any one passing over the moor it
sounded like the same grasshopper during the whole walk, although it
seemed to be first on the right, then on the left; now in front, now
behind. But the dancer was not content with their playing and began
after a little while to hum the measure of a dance tune. Her voice was
shrill and harsh. The hunter was waked by the song. He turned on his
side, raised himself to his elbow, and looked over the pile of stones
at the dancing girl.

He had dreamt that the hare which he had just killed had leaped out of
the bag and had taken his own arrows to shoot at him. He now stared at
the girl half awake, dizzy with his dream, his head burning from
sleeping in the sun.

She was tall and coarsely built, not fair of face, nor light in the
dance, nor tuneful in her song. She had broad cheeks, thick lips and a
flat nose. She had very red cheeks, very dark hair. She was exuberant
in figure, moving with vigor and life. Her clothes were shabby but
bright in color. Red bands edged the striped skirt and bright colored
worsted fringes outlined the seams of her bodice. Other young maidens
resemble roses and lilies, but she was like the heather, strong, gay
and glowing.

The hunter watched with pleasure as the big, splendid woman danced on
the red heath among the playing grasshoppers and the fluttering
butterflies. While he looked at her he laughed so that his mouth was
drawn up towards his ears. But then she suddenly caught sight of him
and stood motionless.

“I suppose you think I am mad,” was the first thing that occurred to
her to say. At the same time she wondered how she would get him to hold
his tongue about what he had seen. She did not care to hear it told
down in the village that she had danced with a fir root.

He was a man poor in words. Not a syllable could he utter. He was so
shy that he could think of nothing better than to run away, although he
longed to stay. Hastily he got his hat on his head and his leather bag
on his back. Then he ran away through the clumps of heather.

She snatched up her bundle and ran after him. He was small, stiff in
his movements and evidently had very little strength. She soon caught
up with him and knocked his hat off to induce him to stop. He really
wished to do so, but he was confused with shyness and fled with still
greater speed. She ran after him and began to pull at his game-bag.
Then he had to stop to defend it. She fell upon him with all her
strength. They fought, and she threw him to the ground. “Now he will
not speak of it to any one,” she thought, and rejoiced.

At the same moment, however, she grew sick with fright, for the man who
lay on the ground turned livid and his eyes rolled inwards in his head.
He was not hurt in any way, however. He could not bear emotion. Never
before had so strong and conflicting feelings stirred within that
lonely forest dweller. He rejoiced over the girl and was angry and
ashamed and yet proud that she was so strong. He was quite out of his
head with it all.

The big, strong girl put her arm under his back and lifted him up. She
broke the heather and whipped his face with the stiff twigs until the
blood came back to it. When his little eyes again turned towards the
light of day, they shone with pleasure at the sight of her. He was
still silent; but he drew forward the hand which she had placed about
his waist and caressed it gently.

He was a child of starvation and early toil. He was dry and pallid,
thin and anaemic. She was touched by his faintheartedness; he who
nevertheless seemed to be about thirty years old. She thought that he
must live quite alone in the forest since he was so pitiful and so
meanly dressed. He could have no one to look after him, neither mother
nor sister nor sweetheart.


The great compassionate forest spread over the wilderness. Concealing
and protecting, it took to its heart everything which sought its help.
With its lofty trunks it kept watch by the lair of the fox and the
bear, and in the twilight of the thick bushes it hid the egg-filled
nests of little birds.

At the time when people still had slaves, many of them escaped to the
woods and found shelter behind its green walls. It became a great
prison for them which they did not dare to leave. The forest held its
prisoners in strict discipline. It forced the dull ones to use their
wits and educated those ruined by slavery to order and honor. Only to
the industrious did it give the right to live.

The two who met on the heath were descendants of such prisoners of the
forest. They sometimes went down to the inhabited, cultivated valleys,
for they no longer feared to be reduced to the slavery from which their
forefathers had fled, but they were happiest in the dimness of the
forest. The hunter’s name was Tönne. His real work was to cultivate the
earth, but he also could do other things. He collected herbs, boiled
tar, dried punk, and often went hunting. The dancer was called Jofrid.
Her father was a charcoal burner. She tied brooms, picked juniper
berries and brewed ale of the white-flowering myrtle. They were both
very poor.

They had never met before in the big wood, but now they thought that
all its paths wound into a net, in which they ran forward and back and
could not possibly escape one another. They never knew how to choose a
way where they did not meet.

Tönne had once had a great sorrow. He had lived with his mother for a
long while in a miserable, wattled hut, but as soon as he was grown up
he was seized with the idea to build her a warm cabin. During all his
leisure moments he went into the clearing, cut down trees and hewed
them into squared pieces. Then he hid the timber in dark crannies under
moss and branches. It was his intention that his mother should not know
anything of all this work before he was ready to build the house. But
his mother died before he could show her what he had collected; before
he had time to tell her what he had wished to do. He, who had worked
with the same zeal as David, King of Israel, when he gathered treasures
for the temple of God, grieved most bitterly over it. He lost all
interest in the building. For him the brushwood shelter was good
enough. Yet he was hardly better off in his home than an animal in its
hole.

When he, who had always heretofore crept about alone, was now seized
with the desire to seek Jofrid’s company, it certainly meant that he
would like to have her for his sweetheart and his bride. Jofrid also
waited daily for him to speak to her father or to herself about the
matter. But Tönne could not. This showed that he was of a race of
slaves. The thoughts that came into his head moved as slowly as the sun
when he travels across the sky. And it was more difficult for him to
shape those thoughts to connected speech than for a smith to forge a
bracelet out of rolling grains of sand.

One day Tönne took Jofrid to one of the clefts, where he had hidden his
timber. He pulled aside the branches and moss and showed her the
squared beams. “That was to have been mother’s house,” he said. The
young girl was strangely slow in understanding a young man’s thoughts.
When he showed her his mother’s logs she ought to have understood, but
she did not understand.

Then he decided to make his meaning even plainer. A few days later he
began to drag the logs up to the place between the cairns, where he had
seen Jofrid for the first time. She came as usual along the path and
saw him at work. Nevertheless she went on without saying anything.
Since they had become friends she had often given him a good handshake,
but she did not seem to want to help him with the heavy work. Tönne
still thought that she ought to have understood that it was now her
house which he meant to build.

She understood it very well, but she had no desire to give herself to
such a man as Tönne. She wished to have a strong and healthy husband.
She thought it would be a poor livelihood to marry any one who was weak
and dull. Still, there was much which drew her to that silent, shy man.
She thought how hard he had worked to gladden his mother and had not
enjoyed the happiness of being ready in time. She could weep for his
sake. And now he was building the house just where he had seen her
dance. He had a good heart. And that interested her and fixed her
thoughts on him, but she did not at all wish to marry him.

Every day she went over the heather field and saw the log cabin grow,
miserable and without windows, with the sunlight filtering in through
the leaky walls.

Tönne’s work progressed very quickly, but not with care. His timbers
were not bent square, the lark was scarcely taken off. He laid the
floor with split young trees. It was uneven and shaky. The heather,
which grew and blossomed under it,—for at year had passed since the day
when Tönne had lain aleep behind King Atle’s pile,— pushed up bold red
clusters through the cracks, and ants without number wandered out and
in, inspecting the fragile work of man.

Wherever Jofrid went during those days, the thought never left her that
a house was being built for her there. A home was being prepared for
her upon the heath. And she knew that if she did not enter there as
mistress, the bear and the fox would make it their home. For she knew
Tönne well enough to understand that if he found he had worked in vain,
he would never move into the new house. He would weep, poor man, when
he heard that she would not live there. It would be a new sorrow for
him, as deep as when his mother died. But he had himself to blame,
because he had not asked her in time.

She thought that she gave him a sufficient hint in not helping him with
the house. She often felt impelled to do so. Every time she saw any
soft, white moss, she wanted to pick it to fill in the leaky walls. She
longed, too, to help Tönne to build the chimney. As he was making it,
all the smoke would gather in the house. But it did not matter how it
was. No food would ever be cooked there, no ale brewed. Still it was
odious that the house would never leave her thoughts.

Tönne worked, glowing with eagerness, certain that Jofrid would
understand his meaning, if only the house were ready. He did not wonder
much about her; he had enough to do to hew and shape. The days went
quickly for him.

One afternoon, when Jofrid came over the moor, she saw that there was a
door in the cottage and a slab of stone for a threshold. Then she
understood that everything must now be ready, and she was much
agitated. Tönne had covered the roof with tufts of flowering heather,
and she was seized by an intense longing to enter under that red roof.
He was not at the new house and she decided to go in. The house was
built for her. It was her home. It was not possible to resist the
desire to see it.

Within it was more attractive than she had expected. Rushes were
strewed over the floor. It was full of the fresh fragrance of pine and
resin. The sunshine that played through the windows and cracks made
bands of light through the air. It looked as if she had been expected;
in the crannies of the wall green branches were stuck, and in the
fireplace stood a newly cut fir-tree. Tönne had not moved in his old
furniture. There was nothing but a new table and a bench, over which an
elk skin was thrown.

As soon as Jofrid had crossed the threshold, she felt the pleasant
cosiness of home surrounding her. She was happy and content while she
stood there, but to leave it seemed to her as hard as to go away and
serve strangers. It happened that Jofrid had expended much hard work in
procuring a kind of dower for herself. With skilful hands she had woven
bright colored fabrics, such as are used to adorn a room, and she
wanted to put them up in her own home, when she got one. Now she
wondered how those cloths would look here. She wished she could try
them in the new house.

She hurried quickly home, fetched her roll of weavings and began to
fasten the bright-colored pieces of cloth up under the roof. She threw
open the door to let the big setting sun shine on her and her work. She
moved eagerly about the cottage, brisk, gay, bumming a merry tune. She
was perfectly happy. It looked so fine. The woven roses and stars shone
as never before.

While she worked she kept a good look-out over the moor and the graves,
for it seemed to her as if Tönne might now too be lying hidden behind
one of the cairns and laughing at her. The king’s grave lay opposite
the door and behind it she saw the sun setting. Time after time she
looked out. She felt as if some one was sitting there and watching her.

Just as the sun was so low that only a few blood-red beams filtered
over the old stone heap, she saw who it was who was watching her. The
whole pile of stones was no longer stones, but a mighty, old warrior,
who was sitting there, scarred and gray, and staring at her. Round
about his head the rays of the sun made a crown, and his red mantle was
so wide that it spread over the whole moor. His head was big and heavy,
his face gray as stone. His clothes and weapons were also
stone-colored, and repeated so exactly the shadings and mossiness of
the rock, that one had to look closely to see that it was a warrior and
not a pile of stones. It was like those insects which resemble
tree-twigs. One can go by them twenty times before one sees that it is
a soft animal body one has taken for hard wood.

But Jofrid could no longer be mistaken. It was the old King Atle
himself sitting there. She stood in the doorway, shaded her eyes with
her hand, and looked right into his stony face. He had very small,
oblique eyes under a dome-like brow, a broad nose and a long beard. And
he was alive, that man of stone. He smiled and winked at her. She was
afraid, and what terrified her most of all were his thick, muscular
arms and hairy hands. The longer she looked at him the broader grew his
smile, and at last he lifted one of his mighty arms to beckon her to
him. Then Jofrid took flight towards home.

But when Tönne came home and saw the housc adorned with starry
weavings, he found courage to send a friend to Jofrid’s father. The
latter asked Jofrid what she thought about it and she gave her consent.
She was well pleased with the way it had turned out, even if she had
been half forced to give her hand. She could not say no to the man, to
whose house she had already carried her dower. Still she looked first
to see that old King Atle had again become a pile of stones.


Tönne and Jofrid lived happily for many years. They earned a good
reputation. “They are good,” people said. “See how they stand by one
another, see how they work together, see how one cannot live apart from
the other!”

Tönne grew stronger, more enduring and less heavy-witted every day.
Jofrid seemed to have made a whole man of him. Almost always he let her
rule, but he also understood how to carry out his own will with
tenacious obstinacy.

Jests and merriment followed Jofrid wherever she went. Her clothes
became more vivid the older she grew. Her whole face was bright red.
But in Tönne’s eyes she was beautiful.

They were not so poor as many others of their class. They ate butter
with their porridge and mixed neither bran nor bark in their bread.
Myrtle ale foamed in their tankards. Their flocks of sheep and goats
increased so quickly that they could allow themselves meat.

Tönne once worked for a peasant in the valley. The latter, who saw how
he and his wife worked together with great gaiety, thought like many
another: “See, these are good people.”

The peasant had lately lost his wife, and she had left behind her a
child six months old. He asked Tönne and Jofrid to take his son as a
foster-child.

“The child is very dear to me,” he said, “therefore I give it to you,
for you are good people.”

They had no children of their own, so that it seemed very fitting for
them to take it. They accepted it too without hesitation. They thought
it would be to their advantage to bring up a peasant’s child, besides
which they expected to be cheered in their old age by their foster-son.

But the child did not live to grow up with them. Before the year was
out it was dead. It was said by many that it was the fault of the
foster-parents, for the child had been unusually strong before it came
to them. By that no one meant, however, that they had killed it
intentionally, but rather that they had undertaken something beyond
their powers. They had not had sense or love enough to give it the care
it needed. They were accustomed only to think of themselves and to look
out for themselves. They had no time to care for a child. They wished
to go together to their work every day and to sleep a quiet sleep at
night. They thought that the child drank too much of their good milk
and did not allow him as much as themselves. They had no idea that they
were treating the boy badly. They thought that they were just as tender
to him as parents generally are. It seemed more to them as if their
foster-son had been a punishment and a torment. They did not mourn him
when he died.

Women usually enjoy nothing better than to take care of a child; but
Jofrid had a husband, whom she often had to care for like a mother, so
that she desired no one else. They also love to see their children’s
quick growth; but Jofrid had pleasure enough in watching Tönne develop
sense and manliness, in adorning and taking care of her house, in the
increase of their flocks, and in the crops which they were raising
below on the moor.

Jofrid went to the peasant’s farm and told him that the child was dead.
Then the man said: “I am like the man who puts cushions in his bed so
soft that he sinks down to the hard bottom. I wished to care too well
for my son, and look, now he is dead!” And he was heart-broken.

At his words Jofrid began to weep bitterly. “Would to God that you had
not left your son with us!” she said. “We were too poor. He could not
get what he needed with us.”

“That is not what I meant,” answered the peasant. “I believe that you
have over-indulged the child. But I will not accuse any one, for over
life and death God alone rules. Now I mean to celebrate the funeral of
my only son with the same expense as if he had been full grown, and to
the feast I invite both Tönne and you. By that you may know that I bear
you no grudge.”

So Tönne and Jofrid went to the funeral banquet. They were well
treated, and no one said anything unfriendly to them. The women who had
dressed the child’s body had related that it had been miserably thin
and had borne marks of great neglect. But that could easily come from
sickness. No one wished to believe anything bad about the
foster-parents, for it was known that they were good people.

Jofrid wept a great deal during those days, especially when she heard
the women tell how they had to wake and toil for their little children.
She noticed, too, that the women at the funeral were continually
talking of their children. Some rejoiced so in them that they never
could stop telling of their questions and games. Jofrid would have
liked to have talked about Tönne, but most of them never spoke of their
husbands.

Late one evening Jofrid and Tönne came home from the festivities. They
went straight to bed. But hardly had they fallen asleep before they
were waked by a feeble crying. “It is the child,” they thought, still
half asleep, and were angry at being disturbed. But suddenly both of
them sat right up in the bed. The child was dead. Where did that crying
come from? When they were quite awake, they heard nothing, but as soon
as they began to drop off to sleep they heard it. Little, tottering
feet sounded on the stone threshold outside the house, a little hand
groped for the door, and when it could not open it, the child crept
crying and feeling along the wall, until it stopped just outside where
they were sleeping. As soon as they spoke or sat up, they perceived
nothing; but when they tried to sleep, they distinctly heard the
uncertain steps and the suppressed sobbings.

That which they had not wished to believe, but which seemed a
possibility during these last days, now became a certainty. They felt
that they had killed the child. Why otherwise should it have the power
to haunt them?

From that night all happiness left them. They lived in constant fear of
the ghost. By day they had some peace, but at night they were so
disturbed by the child’s weeping and choking sobs, that they did not
dare to sleep alone. Jofrid often went long distances to get some one
to stop over night in their house. If there was any stranger there, it
was quiet, but as soon as they were alone, they heard the child.

One night, when they had found no one to keep them company and could
not sleep for the child, Jofrid got up from her bed.

“You sleep, Tönne,” she said. “If I keep awake, we will not hear
anything.”

She went out and sat down on the doorstep, thinking of what they ought
to do to get peace, for they could not go on living as things were. She
wondered if confession and penance and mortification and repentance
could relieve them from this heavy punishment.

Then it happened that she raised her eyes and saw the same vision as
once before from this place. The pile of stones had changed to a
warrior. The night was quite dark, but still she could plainly see that
old King Atle sat there and watched her. She saw him so well that she
could distinguish the moss-grown bracelets on his wrists and could see
how his legs were bound with crossed bands, between which his calf
muscles swelled.

This time she was not afraid of the old man. He seemed to be a friend
and consoler in her unhappiness. He looked at her with pity, as if he
wished to give her courage. Then she thought that the mighty warrior
had once had his day, when he had overthrown hundreds of enemies there
on the heath and waded through the streams of blood that had poured
between the clumps. What had he thought of one dead man more or less?
How much would the sight of children, whose fathers he had killed, have
moved his heart of stone? Light as air would the burden of a child’s
death have rested on his conscience.

And she heard his whisper, the same which the old stone-cold heathenism
had whispered through all time. “Why repent? The gods rule us. The
fates spin the threads of life. Why shall the children of earth mourn
because they have done what the immortal gods have forced them to do?”

Then Jofrid took courage and said to herself: “How am I to blame
because the child died? It is God alone who decides. Nothing takes
place without his will.” And she thought that she could lay the ghost
by putting all repentance from her.

But now the door opened and Tönne came out to her. “Jofrid,” he said,
“it is in the house now. It came up and knocked on the edge of the bed
and woke me. What shall we do, Jofrid?”

“The child is dead,” said Jofrid. “You know that it is lying deep under
ground. All this is only dreams and imagination.” She spoke hardly and
coldly, for she feared that Tönne would do something reckless, and
thereby cause them misfortune.

“We must put an end to it,” said Tönne.

Jofrid laughed dismally. “What do you wish to do? God has sent this to
us. Could He not have kept the child alive if He had chosen? He did not
wish it, and now He persecutes us for its death. Tell me by what right
He persecutes us?”

She got her words from the old stone warrior, who sat dark and high on
his pile. It seemed as if he suggested to her everything she answered
Tönne.

“We must acknowledge that we have neglected the child, and do penance,”
said Tönne.

“Never will I suffer for what is not my fault,” said Jofrid. “Who
wanted the child to die? Not I, not I. What kind of a penance will you
do? You need all your strength for work.”

“I have already tried with scourging,” said Tönne. “It is of no avail.”

“You see,” she said, and laughed again.

“We must try something else,” Tönne went on with persistent
determination. “We must confess.”

“What do you want to tell God, that He does not know?” mocked Jofrid.
“Does He not guide your thoughts, Tönne? What will you tell Him?” She
thought that Tönne was stupid and obstinate. She had found him so in
the beginning of their acquaintance, but since then she had not thought
of it, but had loved him for his good heart.

“We will confess to the father, Jofrid, and offer him compensation.”

“What will you offer him?” she asked.

“The house and the goats.”

“He will certainly demand an enormous compensation for his only son.
All that we possess would not be enough.”

“We will give ourselves as slaves into his power, if he is not content
with less.”

At these words Jofrid was seized by cold despair, and she hated Tönne
from the depths of her soul. Everything she would lose appeared so
plainly to her,—freedom, for which her ancestors had ventured their
lives, the house, her comforts, honor and happiness.

“Mark my words, Tönne,” she said hoarsely, half choked with pain, “that
the day you do that thing will be the day of my death.”

After that no more words were exchanged between them, but they remained
sitting on the doorstep until the day came. Neither found a word to
appease or to conciliate; each felt fear and scorn of the other. The
one measured the other by the standard of his own anger, and they found
each other narrow-minded and bad-tempered.

After that night Jofrid could not refrain from letting Tönne feel that
he was her inferior. She let him understand in the presence of others
that he was stupid, and helped him with his work so that he had to
think how much stronger she was. She evidently wished to take away from
him all rights as master of the house. Sometimes she pretended to be
very lively, to distract him and to prevent him from brooding. He had
not done anything to carry out his plan, but she did not believe that
he had given it up.

During this time Tönne became more and more as he was before his
marriage. He grew thin and pale, silent and slow-witted. Jofrid’s
despair increased each day, for it seemed as if everything was to be
taken from her. Her love for Tönne came back, however, when she saw him
unhappy. “What is any of it worth to me if Tönne is ruined?” she
thought. “It is better to go into slavery with him than to see him die
in freedom.”


Jofrid, however, could not at once decide to obey Tönne. She fought a
long and severe fight. But one morning she awoke in an unusually calm
and gentle mood. Then she thought that she could now do what he
demanded. And she waked him, saying that it should be as he wished.
Only that one day he should grant her to say farewell to everything.

The whole forenoon she went about strangely gentle. Tears rose easily
to her eyes. The heath was beautiful that day for her sake, she
thought. Frost had passed over it, the flowers were gone, and the whole
moor had turned brown. But when it was lighted by the slanting rays of
the autumn sun, it looked as if the heather glowed red once more. And
she remembered the day when she saw Tönne for the first time.

She wished that she might see the old king once more, for he had helped
her to find her happiness. She had been seriously afraid of him of
late. She felt as if he were lying in wait to seize her. But now she
thought he could no longer have any power over her. She would remember
to look for him towards night when the moon rose.

It happened that a couple of wandering musicians came by about noon.
Jofrid had the idea to ask them to stop at her house the whole
afternoon, for she wished to have a dance. Tönne had to hasten to her
parents and ask them to come. And her small brothers and sisters ran
down to the village for the other guests. Soon many people had
collected.

There was great gaiety. Tönne kept apart in a corner of the house, as
was his habit when they had guests, but Jofrid was quite wild in her
fun. With shrill voice she led the dance and was eager in offering her
guests the foaming ale. There was not much room in the cottage, but the
fiddlers were untiring, and the dance went on with life and spirit. It
grew suffocatingly warm. The door was thrown open, and all at once
Jofrid saw that night had come and that the moon had risen. Then she
went to the door and looked out into the white world of the moonlight.

A heavy dew had fallen. The whole heath was white, as the moon was
reflected in all the little drops, which had collected on every twig.
There Tönne and she would go to-morrow hand in hand to meet the most
terrible dishonor. For, however the meeting with the peasant should
turn out, whatever he might take or whatever he might let them keep,
dishonor would certainly be their lot. They, who that evening possessed
a good cottage and many friends, to-morrow would be despised and
detested by all, perhaps they would also be robbed of everything they
had earned, perhaps, too, be dishonored slaves. She said to herself:
“It is the way of death.” And now she could not understand how she
would ever have the strength to walk in it. It seemed to her as if she
were of stone, a heavy stone image like old King Atle. Although she was
alive, she felt as if she would not be able to lift her heavy stone
limbs to walk that way.

She turned her eyes towards the king’s grave and distinctly saw the old
warrior sitting there. But now he was adorned as for a feast. He no
longer wore the gray, moss-grown stone attire, but white, glittering
silver. Now again he wore a crown of beams, as when she first saw him,
but this one was white. And white shone his breastplate and armlets,
shining white were sword, hilt, and shield. He sat and watched her with
silent indifference. The unfathomable mystery which great stone faces
wear had now sunk down over him. There he sat dark and mighty, and
Jofrid had a faint, indistinct idea that he was an image of something
which was in herself and in all men, of something which was buried in
far-away centuries, covered by many stones, and still not dead. She saw
him, the old king, sitting deep in the human heart. Over its barren
field he spread his wide king’s mantle. There pleasure danced, there
love of display flaunted. He was the great stone warrior who saw famine
and poverty pass by without his stone heart being moved. “It is the
will of the gods,” he said. He was the strong man of stone, who could
bear unatoned-for sin without yielding. He always said: “Why grieve for
what you have done, compelled by the immortal gods?”

Jofrid’s breast was shaken by a sigh deep as a sob. She had a feeling
which she could not explain, a feeling that she ought to struggle with
the man of stone, if she was to be happy. But at the same time she felt
helplessly weak.

Her impenitence and the struggle out on the heath seemed to her to be
one and the same thing, and if she could not conquer the first by some
means or other, the last would gain power over her.

She looked back towards the cottage, where the weavings glowed under
the roof timbers, where the musicians spread merriment, and where
everything she loved was, then she felt that she could not go into
slavery. Not even for Tönne’s sake could she do it. She saw his pale
face within in the house, and she asked herself with a contraction of
the heart if he was worth the sacrifice of everything for his sake.

In the cottage the people had started a new dance. They arranged
themselves in a long line, took each other by the hand, and with a
wild, strong young man at the head, they rushed forward at dizzy speed.
The leader drew them through the open door out cm to the moonlit heath.
They stormed by Jofrid, panting and wild, stumbling against stones,
falling into the heather, making wide rings round the house, circling
about the heaps of stones. The last of the line called to Jofrid and
stretched out his hand to her. She seized it and ran too.

It was not a dance, only a mad rush; but there was pleasure in it,
audacity and the joy of living. The rings became bolder, the cries
sounded louder, the laughter more boisterous. From cairn to cairn, as
they lay scattered over the heath, wound the line of dancers. If any
one fell in the wild swinging, he was dragged up, the slow ones were
driven onward; the musicians stood in the doorway and played the
faster. There was no time to rest, to think, nor to look about. The
dance went on at always madder speed over the yielding moss and
slippery rocks.

During all this Jofrid felt more and more clearly that she wished to
keep her freedom, that she would rather die than lose it. She saw that
she could not follow Tönne. She thought of running away, of hurrying
into the wood and never coming back.

They had circled about all the cairns except that of King Atle. Jofrid
saw that they were now turning towards it and she kept her eyes fixed
on the stone man. Then she saw how his giant arms were stretched
towards the rushing dancers. She screamed aloud, but she was answered
by loud laughter. She wished to stop, but a strong grasp drew her on.
She saw him snatch at those hurrying by, but they were so quick that
the heavy arms could not reach any of them. It was incomprehensible to
her that no one saw him. The agony of death came over her. She thought
that he would reach her. It was for her that he had lain in wait for
many years. With the others it was only play. It was she whom he would
seize at last.

Her turn came to rush by King Atle. She saw how he raised himself and
bent for a spring to be sure of the matter and catch her. In her
extreme need she felt that if she only could decide to give in the next
day, he would not have the power to catch her, but she could not.—She
came last, and she was swung so violently that she was more dragged and
jerked forward than running herself, and it was hard for her to keep
from falling. And although she passed at lightning speed, the old
warrior was too quick for her. The heavy arms sank down over her, the
stone hands seized her, she was drawn into the silvery harness of that
breast. The agony of death took more and more hold of her, but she knew
to the very last that it was because she had not been able to conquer
the stone king in her own heart that Atle had power over her.

It was the end of the dancing and merriment. Jofrid lay dying. In the
violence of their mad rout, she had been thrown against the king’s
cairn and received her death-blow on its stones.




THE OUTLAWS


A peasant who had murdered a monk took to the woods and was made an
outlaw. He found there before him in the wilderness another outlaw, a
fisherman from the outermost islands, who had been accused of stealing
a herring net. They joined together, lived in a cave, set snares,
sharpened darts, baked bread on a granite rock and guarded one
another’s lives. The peasant never left the woods, but the fisherman,
who had not committed such an abominable crime, sometimes loaded game
on his shoulders and stole down among men. There he got in exchange for
black-cocks, for long-eared hares and fine-limbed red deer, milk and
butter, arrow-heads and clothes. These helped the outlaws to sustain
life.

The cave where they lived was dug in the side of a hill. Broad stones
and thorny sloe-bushes hid the entrance. Above it stood a thick growing
pine-tree. At its roots was the vent-hole of the cave. The rising smoke
filtered through the tree’s thick branches and vanished into space. The
men used to go to and from their dwelling-place, wading in the mountain
stream, which ran down the hill. No-one looked for their tracks under
the merry, bubbling water.

At first they were hunted like wild beasts. The peasants gathered as if
for a chase of bear or wolf. The wood was surrounded by men with bows
and arrows. Men with spears went through it and left no dark crevice,
no bushy thicket unexplored. While the noisy battue hunted through the
wood, the outlaws lay in their dark hole, listening breathlessly,
panting with terror. The fisherman held out a whole day, but he who had
murdered was driven by unbearable fear out into the open, where he
could see his enemy. He was seen and hunted, but it seemed to him seven
times better than to lie still in helpless inactivity. He fled from his
pursuers, slid down precipices, sprang over streams, climbed up
perpendicular mountain walls. All latent strength and dexterity in him
was called forth by the excitement of danger. His body became elastic
like a steel spring, his foot made no false step, his hand never lost
its hold, eye and ear were twice as sharp as usual. He understood what
the leaves whispered and the rocks warned. When he had climbed up a
precipice, he turned towards his pursuers, sending them gibes in biting
rhyme. When the whistling darts whizzed by him, he caught them, swift
as lightning, and hurled them down on his enemies. As he forced his way
through whipping branches, something within him sang a song of triumph.

The bald mountain ridge ran through the wood and alone on its summit
stood a lofty fir. The red-brown trunk was bare, but in the branching
top rocked an eagle’s nest. The fugitive was now so audaciously bold
that he climbed up there, while his pursuers looked for him on the
wooded slopes. There he sat twisting the young eaglets’ necks, while
the hunt passed by far below him. The male and female eagle, longing
for revenge, swooped down on the ravisher. They fluttered before his
face, they struck with their beaks at his eyes, they beat him with
their wings and tore with their claws bleeding weals in his
weather-beaten skin. Laughing, he fought with them. Standing upright in
the shaking nest, he cut at them with his sharp knife and forgot in the
pleasure of the play his danger and his pursuers. When he found time to
look for them, they had gone by to some other part of the forest. No
one had thought to look for their prey on the bald mountain-ridge. No
one had raised his eyes to the clouds to see him practising boyish
tricks and sleep-walking feats while his life was in the greatest
danger.

The man trembled when he found that he was saved. With shaking hands he
caught at a support, giddy he measured the height to which he had
climbed. And moaning with the fear of falling, afraid of the birds,
afraid of being seen, afraid of everything, he slid down the trunk. He
laid himself down on the ground, so as not to be seen, and dragged
himself forward over the rocks until the underbrush covered him. There
he hid himself under the young pine-tree’s tangled branches. Weak and
powerless, he sank down on the moss. A single man could have captured
him.


Tord was the fisherman’s name. He was not more than sixteen years old,
but strong and bold. He had already lived a year in the woods.

The peasant’s name was Berg, with the surname Rese. He was the tallest
and the strongest man in the whole district, and moreover handsome and
well-built. He was broad in the shoulders and slender in the waist. His
hands were as well shaped as if he had never done any hard work. His
hair was brown and his skin fair. After he had been some time in the
woods he acquired in all ways a more formidable appearance. His eyes
became piercing, his eyebrows grew bushy, and the muscles which knitted
them lay finger thick above his nose. It showed now more plainly than
before how the upper part of his athlete’s brow projected over the
lower. His lips closed more firmly than of old, his whole face was
thinner, the hollows at the temples grew very deep, and his powerful
jaw was much more prominent. His body was less well filled out but his
muscles were as hard as steel. His hair grew suddenly gray.

Young Tord could never weary of looking at this man. He had never
before seen anything so beautiful and powerful. In his imagination he
stood high as the forest, strong as the sea. He served him as a master
and worshipped him as a god. It was a matter of course that Tord should
carry the hunting spears, drag home the game, fetch the water and build
the fire. Berg Rese accepted all his services, but almost never gave
him a friendly word. He despised him because he was a thief.

The outlaws did not lead a robber’s or brigand’s life; they supported
themselves by hunting and fishing. If Berg Rese had not murdered a holy
man, the peasants would soon have ceased to pursue him and have left
him in peace in the mountains. But they feared great disaster to the
district, because he who had raised his hand against the servant of God
was still unpunished. When Tord came down to the valley with game, they
offered him riches and pardon for his own crime if he would show them
the way to Berg Rese’s hole, so that they might take him while he
slept. But the boy always refused; and if any one tried to sneak after
him up to the wood, he led him so cleverly astray that he gave up the
pursuit.

Once Berg asked him if the peasants had not tried to tempt him to
betray him, and when he heard what they had offered him as a reward, he
said scornfully that Tord had been foolish not to accept such a
proposal.

Then Tord looked at him with a glance, the like of which Berg Rese had
never before seen. Never had any beautiful woman in his youth, never
had his wife or child looked so at him. “You are my lord, my elected
master,” said the glance. “Know that you may strike me and abuse me as
you will, I am faithful notwithstanding.”

After that Berg Rese paid more attention to the boy and noticed that he
was bold to act but timid to speak. He had no fear of death. When the
ponds were first frozen, or when the bogs were most dangerous in the
spring, when the quagmires were hidden under richly flowering grasses
and cloudberry, he took his way over them by choice. He seemed to feel
the need of exposing himself to danger as a compensation for the storms
and terrors of the ocean, which he had no longer to meet. At night he
was afraid in the woods, and even in the middle of the day the darkest
thickets or the wide-stretching roots of a fallen pine could frighten
him. But when Berg Rese asked him about it, he was too shy to even
answer.

Tord did not sleep near the fire, far in in the cave, on the bed which
was made soft with moss and warm with skins, but every night, when Berg
had fallen asleep, he crept out to the entrance and lay there on a
rock. Berg discovered this, and although he well understood the reason,
he asked what it meant. Tord would not explain. To escape any more
questions, he did not lie at the door for two nights, but then he
returned to his post.

One night, when the drifting snow whirled about the forest tops and
drove into the thickest underbrush, the driving snowflakes found their
way into the outlaws’ cave. Tord, who lay just inside the entrance,
was, when he waked in the morning, covered by a melting snowdrift. A
few days later he fell ill. His lungs wheezed, and when they were
expanded to take in air, he felt excruciating pain. He kept up as long
as his strength held out, but when one evening he leaned down to blow
the fire, he fell over and remained lying.

Berg Rese came to him and told him to go to his bed. Tord moaned with
pain and could not raise himself. Berg then thrust his arms under him
and carried him there. But he felt as if he had got hold of a slimy
snake; he had a taste in the mouth as if he had eaten the unholy
horseflesh, it was so odious to him to touch the miserable thief.

He laid his own big bearskin over him and gave him water, more he could
not do. Nor was it anything dangerous. Tord was soon well again. But
through Berg’s being obliged to do his tasks and to be his servant,
they had come nearer to one another. Tord dared to talk to him when he
sat in the cave in the evening and cut arrow shafts.

“You are of a good race, Berg,” said Tord. “Your kinsmen are the
richest in the valley. Your ancestors have served with kings and fought
in their castles.”

“They have oftener fought with bands of rebels and done the kings great
injury,” replied Berg Rese.

“Your ancestors gave great feasts at Christmas, and so did you, when
you were at home. Hundreds of men and women could find a place to sit
in your big house, which was already built before Saint Olof first gave
the baptism here in Viken. You owned old silver vessels and great
drinking-horns, which passed from man to man, filled with mead.”

Again Berg Rese had to look at the boy. He sat up with his legs hanging
out of the bed and his head resting on his hands, with which he at the
same time held back the wild masses of hair which would fall over his
eyes. His face had become pale and delicate from the ravages of
sickness. In his eyes fever still burned. He smiled at the pictures he
conjured up: at the adorned house, at the silver vessels, at the guests
in gala array and at Berg Rese, sitting in the seat of honor in the
hall of his ancestors. The peasant thought that no one had ever looked
at him with such shining, admiring eyes, or thought him so magnificent,
arrayed in his festival clothes, as that boy thought him in the torn
skin dress.

He was both touched and provoked. That miserable thief had no right to
admire him.

“Were there no feasts in your house?” he asked.

Tord laughed. “Out there on the rocks with father and mother! Father is
a wrecker and mother is a witch. No one will come to us.”

“Is your mother a witch?”

“She is,” answered Tord, quite untroubled. “In stormy weather she rides
out on a seal to meet the ships over which the waves are washing, and
those who are carried overboard are hers.”

“What does she do with them?” asked Berg.

“Oh, a witch always needs corpses. She makes ointments out of them, or
perhaps she eats them. On moonlight nights she sits in the surf, where
it is whitest, and the spray dashes over her. They say that she sits
and searches for shipwrecked children’s fingers and eyes.”

“That is awful,” said Berg.

The boy answered with infinite assurance: “That would be awful in
others, but not in witches. They have to do so.”

Berg Rese found that he had here come upon a new way of regarding the
world and things.

“Do thieves have to steal, as witches have to use witchcraft?” he asked
sharply.

“Yes, of course,” answered the boy; “every one has to do what he is
destined to do.” But then he added, with a cautious smile: “There are
thieves also who have never stolen.”

“Say out what you mean,” said Berg.

The boy continued with his mysterious smile, proud at being an
unsolvable riddle: “It is like speaking of birds who do not fly, to
talk of thieves who do not steal.”

Berg Rese pretended to be stupid in order to find out what he wanted.
“No one can be called a thief without having stolen,” he said.

“No; but,” said the boy, and pressed his lips together as if to keep in
the words, “but if some one had a father who stole,” he hinted after a
while.

“One inherits money and lands,” replied Berg Rese, “but no one bears
the name of thief if he has not himself earned it.”

Tord laughed quietly. “But if somebody has a mother who begs and prays
him to take his father’s crime on him. But if such a one cheats the
hangman and escapes to the woods. But if some one is made an outlaw for
a fish-net which he has never seen.”

Berg Rese struck the stone table with his clenched fist. He was angry.
This fair young man had thrown away his whole life. He could never win
love, nor riches, nor esteem after that. The wretched striving for food
and clothes was all which was left him. And the fool had let him, Berg
Rese, go on despising one who was innocent. He rebuked him with stern
words, but Tord was not even as afraid as a sick child is of its
mother, when she chides it because it has caught cold by wading in the
spring brooks.


On one of the broad, wooded mountains lay a dark tarn. It was square,
with as straight shores and as sharp corners as if it had been cut by
the hand of man. On three sides it was surrounded by steep cliffs, on
which pines clung with roots as thick as a man’s arm. Down by the pool,
where the earth had been gradually washed away, their roots stood up
out of the water, bare and crooked and wonderfully twisted about one
another. It was like an infinite number of serpents which had wanted
all at the same time to crawl up out of the pool but had got entangled
in one another and been held fast. Or it was like a mass of blackened
skeletons of drowned giants which the pool wanted to throw up on the
land. Arms and legs writhed about one another, the long fingers dug
deep into the very cliff to get a hold, the mighty ribs formed arches,
which held up primeval trees. It had happened, however, that the iron
arms, the steel-like fingers with which the pines held themselves fast,
had given way, and a pine had been borne by a mighty north wind from
the top of the cliff down into the pool. It had burrowed deep down into
the muddy bottom with its top and now stood there. The smaller fish had
a good place of refuge among its branches, but the roots stuck up above
the water like a many-armed monster and contributed to make the pool
awful and terrifying.

On the tarn’s fourth side the cliff sank down. There a little foaming
stream carried away its waters. Before this stream could find the only
possible way, it had tried to get out between stones and tufts, and had
by so doing made a little world of islands, some no bigger than a
little hillock, others covered with trees.

Here where the encircling cliffs did not shut out all the sun, leafy
trees flourished. Here stood thirsty, gray-green alders and
smooth-leaved willows. The birch-tree grew there as it does everywhere
where it is trying to crowd out the pine woods, and the wild cherry and
the mountain ash, those two which edge the forest pastures, filling
them with fragrance and adorning them with beauty. Here at the outlet
there was a forest of reeds as high as a man, which made the sunlight
fall green on the water just as it falls on the moss in the real
forest. Among the reeds there were open places; small, round pools, and
water-lilies were floating there. The tall stalks looked down with mild
seriousness on those sensitive beauties, who discontentedly shut their
white petals and yellow stamens in a hard, leather-like sheath as soon
as the sun ceased to show itself.

One sunshiny day the outlaws came to this tarn to fish. They waded out
to a couple of big stones in the midst of the reed forest and sat there
and threw out bait for the big, green-striped pickerel that lay and
slept near the surface of the water.

These men, who were always wandering in the woods and the mountains,
had, without their knowing it themselves, come under nature’s rule as
much as the plants and the animals. When the sun shone, they were
open-hearted and brave, but in the evening, as soon as the sun had
disappeared, they became silent; and the night, which seemed to them
much greater and more powerful than the day, made them anxious and
helpless. Now the green light, which slanted in between the rushes and
colored the water with brown and dark-green streaked with gold,
affected their mood until they were ready for any miracle. Every
outlook was shut off. Sometimes the reeds rocked in an imperceptible
wind, their stalks rustled, and the long, ribbon-like leaves fluttered
against their faces. They sat in gray skins on the gray stones. The
shadows in the skins repeated the shadows of the weather-beaten, mossy
stone. Each saw his companion in his silence and immovability change
into a stone image. But in among the rushes swam mighty fishes with
rainbow-colored backs. When the men threw out their hooks and saw the
circles spreading among the reeds, it seemed as if the motion grew
stronger and stronger, until they perceived that it was not caused only
by their cast. A sea-nymph, half human, half a shining fish, lay and
slept on the surface of the water. She lay on her back with her whole
body under water. The waves so nearly covered her that they had not
noticed her before. It was her breathing that caused the motion of the
waves. But there was nothing strange in her lying there, and when the
next instant she was gone, they were not sure that she had not been
only an illusion.

The green light entered through the eyes into the brain like a gentle
intoxication. The men sat and stared with dulled thoughts, seeing
visions among the reeds, of which they did not dare to tell one
another. Their catch was poor. The day was devoted to dreams and
apparitions.

The stroke of oars was heard among the rushes, and they started up as
from sleep. The next moment a flat-bottomed boat appeared, heavy,
hollowed out with no skill and with oars as small as sticks. A young
girl, who had been picking water-lilies, rowed it. She had dark-brown
hair, gathered in great braids, and big dark eyes; otherwise she was
strangely pale. But her paleness toned to pink and not to gray. Her
cheeks had no higher color than the rest of her face, the lips had
hardly enough. She wore a white linen shirt and a leather belt with a
gold buckle. Her skirt was blue with a red hem. She rowed by the
outlaws without seeing them. They kept breathlessly still, but not for
fear of being seen, but only to be able to really see her. As soon as
she had gone they were as if changed from stone images to living
beings. Smiling, they looked at one another.

“She was white like the water-lilies,” said one. “Her eyes were as dark
as the water there under the pine-roots.”

They were so excited that they wanted to laugh, really laugh as no one
had ever laughed by that pool, till the cliffs thundered with echoes
and the roots of the pines loosened with fright.

“Did you think she was pretty?” asked Berg Rese.

“Oh, I do not know, I saw her for such a short time. Perhaps she was.”

“I do not believe you dared to look at her. You thought that it was a
mermaid.”

And they were again shaken by the same extravagant merriment.


Tord had once as a child seen a drowned man. He had found the body on
the shore on a summer day and had not been at all afraid, but at night
he had dreamed terrible dreams. He saw a sea, where every wave rolled a
dead man to his feet. He saw, too, that all the islands were covered
with drowned men, who were dead and belonged to the sea, but who still
could speak and move and threaten him with withered white hands.

It was so with him now. The girl whom he had seen among the rushes came
back in his dreams. He met her out in the open pool, where the sunlight
fell even greener than among the rushes, and he had time to see that
she was beautiful. He dreamed that he had crept up on the big pine root
in the middle of the dark tarn, but the pine swayed and rocked so that
sometimes he was quite under water. Then she came forward on the little
islands. She stood under the red mountain ashes and laughed at him. In
the last dream-vision he had come so far that she kissed him. It was
already morning, and he heard that Berg Rese had got up, but he
obstinately shut his eyes to be able to go on with his dream. When he
awoke, he was as though dizzy and stunned by what had happened to him
in the night. He thought much more now of the girl than he had done the
day before.

Towards night he happened to ask Berg Rese if he knew her name.

Berg looked at him inquiringly. “Perhaps it is best for you to hear
it,” he said. “She is Unn. We are cousins.”

Tord then knew that it was for that pale girl’s sake Berg Rese wandered
an outlaw in forest and mountain. Tord tried to remember what he knew
of her. Unn was the daughter of a rich peasant. Her mother was dead, so
that she managed her father’s house. This she liked, for she was fond
of her own way and she had no wish to be married.

Unn and Berg Rese were the children of brothers, and it had long been
said that Berg preferred to sit with Unn and her maids and jest with
them than to work on his own lands. When the great Christmas feast was
celebrated at his house, his wife had invited a monk from Draksmark,
for she wanted him to remonstrate with Berg, because he was forgetting
her for another woman. This monk was hateful to Berg and to many on
account of his appearance. He was very fat and quite white. The ring of
hair about his bald head, the eyebrows above his watery eyes, his face,
his hands and his whole cloak, everything was white. Many found it hard
to endure his looks.

At the banquet table, in the hearing of all the guests, this monk now
said, for he was fearless and thought that his words would have more
effect if they were heard by many, “People are in the habit of saying
that the cuckoo is the worst of birds because he does not rear his
young in his own nest, but here sits a man who does not provide for his
home and his children, but seeks his pleasure with a strange woman. Him
will I call the worst of men.”—Unn then rose up. “That, Berg, is said
to you and me,” she said. “Never have I been so insulted, and my father
is not here either.” She had wished to go, but Berg sprang after her.
“Do not move!” she said. “I will never see you again.” He caught up
with her in the hall and asked her what he should do to make her stay.
She had answered with flashing eyes that he must know that best
himself. Then Berg went in and killed the monk.

Berg and Tord were busy with the same thoughts, for after a while Berg
said: “You should have seen her, Unn, when the white monk fell. The
mistress of the house gathered the small children about her and cursed
her. She turned their faces towards her, that they might forever
remember her who had made their father a murderer. But Unn stood calm
and so beautiful that the men trembled. She thanked me for the deed and
told me to fly to the woods. She bade me not to be robber, and not to
use the knife until I could do it for an equally just cause.”

“Your deed had been to her honor,” said Tord.

Berg Rese noticed again what had astonished him before in the boy. He
was like a heathen, worse than a heathen; he never condemned what was
wrong. He felt no responsibility. That which must be, was. He knew of
God and Christ and the saints, but only by name, as one knows the gods
of foreign lands. The ghosts of the rocks were his gods. His mother,
wise in witchcraft, had taught him to believe in the spirits of the
dead.

Then Berg Rese undertook a task which was as foolish as to twist a rope
about his own neck. He set before those ignorant eyes the great God,
the Lord of justice, the Avenger of misdeeds, who casts the wicked into
places of everlasting torment. And he taught him to love Christ and his
mother and the holy men and women, who with lifted hands kneeled before
God’s throne to avert the wrath of the great Avenger from the hosts of
sinners. He taught him all that men do to appease God’s wrath. He
showed him the crowds of pilgrims making pilgrimages to holy places,
the flight of self-torturing penitents and monks from a worldly life.

As he spoke, the boy became more eager and more pale, his eyes grew
large as if for terrible visions. Berg Rese wished to stop, but
thoughts streamed to him, and he went on speaking. The night sank down
over them, the black forest night, when the owls hoot. God came so near
to them that they saw his throne darken the stars, and the chastising
angels sank down to the tops of the trees. And under them the fires of
Hell flamed up to the earth’s crust, eagerly licking that shaking place
of refuge for the sorrowing races of men.


The autumn had come with a heavy storm. Tord went alone in the woods to
see after the snares and traps. Berg Rese sat at home to mend his
clothes. Tord’s way led in a broad path up a wooded height.

Every gust carried the dry leaves in a rustling whirl up the path. Time
after time Tord thought that some one went behind him. He often looked
round. Sometimes he stopped to listen, but he understood that it was
the leaves and the wind, and went on. As soon as he started on again,
he heard some one come dancing on silken foot up the slope. Small feet
came tripping. Elves and fairies played behind him. When he turned
round, there was no one, always no one. He shook his fists at the
rustling leaves and went on.

They did not grow silent for that, but they took another tone. They
began to hiss and to pant behind him. A big viper came gliding. Its
tongue dripping venom hung far out of its mouth, and its bright body
shone against the withered leaves. Beside the snake pattered a wolf, a
big, gaunt monster, who was ready to seize fast in his throat when the
snake had twisted about his feet and bitten him in the heel. Sometimes
they were both silent, as if to approach him unperceived, but they soon
betrayed themselves by hissing and panting, and sometimes the wolf’s
claws rung against a stone. Involuntarily Tord walked quicker and
quicker, but the creatures hastened after him. When he felt that they
were only two steps distant and were preparing to strike, he turned.
There was nothing there, and he had known it the whole time.

He sat down on a stone to rest. Then the dry leaves played about his
feet as if to amuse him. All the leaves of the forest were there:
small, light yellow birch leaves, red speckled mountain ash, the elm’s
dry, dark-brown leaves, the aspen’s tough light red, and the willow’s
yellow green. Transformed and withered, scarred and torn were they, and
much unlike the downy, light green, delicately shaped leaves, which a
few months ago had rolled out of their buds.

“Sinners,” said the boy, “sinners, nothing is pure in God’s eyes. The
flame of his wrath has already reached you.”

When he resumed his wandering, he saw the forest under him bend before
the storm like a heaving sea, but in the path it was calm. But he heard
what he did not feel. The woods were full of voices.

He heard whisperings, wailing songs, coarse threats, thundering oaths.
There was laughter and laments, there was the noise of many people.
That which hounded and pursued, which rustled and hissed, which seemed
to be something and still was nothing, gave him wild thoughts. He felt
again the anguish of death, as when he lay on the floor in his den and
the peasants hunted him through the wood. He heard again the crashing
of branches, the people’s heavy tread, the ring of weapons, the
resounding cries, the wild, bloodthirsty noise, which followed the
crowd.

But it was not only that which he heard in the storm. There was
something else, something still more terrible, voices which he could
not interpret, a confusion of voices, which seemed to him to speak in
foreign tongues. He had heard mightier storms than this whistle through
the rigging, but never before had he heard the wind play on such a
many-voiced harp. Each tree had its own voice; the pine did not murmur
like the aspen nor the poplar like the mountain ash. Every hole had its
note, every cliff’s sounding echo its own ring. And the noise of the
brooks and the cry of foxes mingled with the marvellous forest storm.
But all that he could interpret; there were other strange sounds. It
was those which made him begin to scream and scoff and groan in
emulation with the storm.

He had always been afraid when he was alone in the darkness of the
forest. He liked the open sea and the bare rocks. Spirits and phantoms
crept about among the trees.

Suddenly he heard who it was who spoke in the storm. It was God, the
great Avenger, the God of justice. He was hunting him for the sake of
his comrade. He demanded that he should deliver up the murderer to His
vengeance.

Then Tord began to speak in the midst of the storm. He told God what he
had wished to do, but had not been able. He had wished to speak to Berg
Rese and to beg him to make his peace with God, but he had been too
shy. Bashfulness had made him dumb. “When I heard that the earth was
ruled by a just God,” he cried, “I understood that he was a lost man. I
have lain and wept for my friend many long nights. I knew that God
would find him out, wherever he might hide. But I could not speak, nor
teach him to understand. I was speechless, because I loved him so much.
Ask not that I shall speak to him, ask not that the sea shall rise up
against the mountain.”

He was silent, and in the storm the deep voice, which had been the
voice of God for him, ceased. It was suddenly calm, with a sharp sun
and a splashing as of oars and a gentle rustle as of stiff rushes.
These sounds brought Unn’s image before him.—The outlaw cannot have
anything, not riches, nor women, nor the esteem of men. —If he should
betray Berg, he would be taken under the protection of the law.—But Unn
must love Berg, after what he had done for her. There was no way out of
it all.

When the storm increased, he heard again steps behind him and sometimes
a breathless panting. Now he did not dare to look back, for he knew
that the white monk went behind him. He came from the feast at Berg
Rese’s house, drenched with blood, with a gaping axe-wound in his
forehead. And he whispered: “Denounce him, betray him, save his soul.
Leave his body to the pyre, that his soul may be spared. Leave him to
the slow torture of the rack, that his soul may have time to repent.”

Tord ran. All this fright of what was nothing in itself grew, when it
so continually played on the soul, to an unspeakable terror. He wished
to escape from it all. As he began to run, again thundered that deep,
terrible voice, which was God’s. God himself hunted him with alarms,
that he should give up the murderer. Berg Rese’s crime seemed more
detestable than ever to him. An unarmed man had been murdered, a man of
God pierced with shining steel. It was like a defiance of the Lord of
the world. And the murderer dared to live! He rejoiced in the sun’s
light and in the fruits of the earth as if the Almighty’s arm were too
short to reach him.

He stopped, clenched his fists and howled out a threat. Then he ran
like a madman from the wood down to the valley.


Tord hardly needed to tell his errand; instantly ten peasants were
ready to follow him. It was decided that Tord should go alone up to the
cave, so that Berg’s suspicions should not be aroused. But where he
went he should scatter peas, so that the peasants could find the way.

When Tord came to the cave, the outlaw sat on the stone bench and
sewed. The fire gave hardly any light, and the work seemed to go badly.
The boy’s heart swelled with pity. The splendid Berg Rese seemed to him
poor and unhappy. And the only thing he possessed, his life, should be
taken from him. Tord began to weep.

“What is it?” asked Berg. “Are you ill? Have you been frightened?”

Then for the first time Tord spoke of his fear. “It was terrible in the
wood. I heard ghosts and raw spectres. I saw white monks.”

“’Sdeath, boy!”

“They crowded round me all the way up Broad mountain. I ran, but they
followed after and sang. Can I never be rid of the sound? What have I
to do with them? I think that they could go to one who needed it more.”

“Are you mad to-night, Tord?”

Tord talked, hardly knowing what words he used. He was free from all
shyness. The words streamed from his lips.

“They are all white monks, white, pale as death. They all have blood on
their cloaks. They drag their hoods down over their brows, but still
the wound shines from under; the big, red, gaping wound from the blow
of the axe.”

“The big, red, gaping wound from the blow of the axe?”

“Is it I who perhaps have struck it? Why shall I see it?”

“The saints only know, Tord,” said Berg Rese, pale and with terrible
earnestness, “what it means that you see a wound from an axe. I killed
the monk with a couple of knife-thrusts.”

Tord stood trembling before Berg and wrung his hands. “They demand you
of me! They want to force me to betray you!”

“Who? The monks?”

“They, yes, the monks. They show me visions. They show me her, Unn.
They show me the shining, sunny sea. They show me the fishermen’s
camping-ground, where there is dancing and merrymaking. I close my
eyes, but still I see. ‘Leave me in peace,’ I say. ‘My friend has
murdered, but he is not bad. Let me be, and I will talk to him, so that
he repents and atones. He shall confess his sin and go to Christ’s
grave. We will both go together to the places which are so holy that
all sin is taken away from him who draws near them.’”

“What do the monks answer?” asked Berg. “They want to have me saved.
They want to have me on the rack and wheel.”

“Shall I betray my dearest friend, I ask them,” continued Tord. “He is
my world. He has saved me from the bear that had his paw on my throat.
We have been cold together and suffered every want together. He has
spread his bear-skin over me when I was sick. I have carried wood and
water for him; I have watched over him while he slept; I have fooled
his enemies. Why do they think that I am one who will betray a friend?
My friend will soon of his own accord go to the priest and confess,
then we will go together to the land of atonement.”

Berg listened earnestly, his eyes sharply searching Tord’s face. “You
shall go to the priest and tell him the truth,” he said. “You need to
be among people.”

“Does that help me if I go alone? For your sin, Death and all his
spectres follow me. Do you not see how I shudder at you? You have
lifted your hand against God himself. No crime is like yours. I think
that I must rejoice when I see you on rack and wheel. It is well for
him who can receive his punishment in this world and escapes the wrath
to come. Why did you tell me of the just God? You compel me to betray
you. Save me from that sin. Go to the priest.” And he fell on his knees
before Berg.

The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He was
measuring his sin against his friend’s anguish, and it grew big and
terrible before his soul. He saw himself at variance with the Will
which rules the world. Repentance entered his heart.

“Woe to me that I have done what I have done,” he said. “That which
awaits me is too hard to meet voluntarily. If I give myself up to the
priests, they will torture me for hours; they will roast me with slow
fires. And is not this life of misery, which we lead in fear and want,
penance enough? Have I not lost lands and home? Do I not live parted
from friends and everything which makes a man’s happiness? What more is
required?”

When he spoke so, Tord sprang up wild with terror. “Can you repent?” he
cried. “Can my words move your heart? Then come instantly! How could I
believe that! Let us escape! There is still time.”

Berg Rese sprang up, he too. “You have done it, then—”

“Yes, yes, yes! I have betrayed you! But come quickly! Come, as you can
repent! They will let us go. We shall escape them!”

The murderer bent down to the floor, where the battle-axe of his
ancestors lay at his feet. “You son of a thief!” he said, hissing out
the words, “I have trusted you and loved you.”

But when Tord saw him bend for the axe, he knew that it was now a
question of his own life. He snatched his own axe from his belt and
struck at Berg before he had time to raise himself. The edge cut
through the whistling air and sank in the bent head. Berg Rese fell
head foremost to the floor, his body rolled after. Blood and brains
spouted out, the axe fell from the wound. In the matted hair Tord saw a
big, red, gaping hole from the blow of an axe.

The peasants came rushing in. They rejoiced and praised the deed.

“You will win by this,” they said to Tord.

Tord looked down at his hands as if he saw there the fetters with which
he had been dragged forward to kill him he loved. They were forged from
nothing. Of the rushes’ green light, of the play of the shadows, of the
song of the storm, of the rustling of the leaves, of dreams were they
created. And he said aloud: “God is great.”

But again the old thought came to him. He fell on his knees beside the
body and put his arm under his head.

“Do him no harm,” he said. “He repents; he is going to the Holy
Sepulchre. He is not dead, he is but a prisoner. We were just ready to
go when he fell. The white monk did not want him to repent, but God,
the God of justice, loves repentance.”

He lay beside the body, talked to it, wept and begged the dead man to
awake. The peasants arranged a bier. They wished to carry the peasant’s
body down to his house. They had respect for the dead and spoke softly
in his presence. When they lifted him up on the bier, Tord rose, shook
the hair back from his face, and said with a voice which shook with
sobs,—

“Say to Unn, who made Berg Rese a murderer, that he was killed by Tord
the fisherman, whose father is a wrecker and whose mother is a witch,
because he taught him that the foundation of the world is justice.”




THE LEGEND OF REOR


There was a man called Reor. He was from Fuglekarr in the parish of
Svarteborg, and was considered the best shot in the county. He was
baptized when King Olof rooted out the old belief, and was ever
afterwards an eager Christian. He was freeborn, but poor; handsome, but
not tall; strong, but gentle. He tamed young horses with but a look and
a word, and could lure birds to him with a call. He dwelt mostly in the
woods, and nature had great power over him. The growing of the plants
and the budding of the trees, the play of the hares in the forest’s
open places and the fish’s leap in the calm lake at evening, the
conflict of the seasons and the changes of the weather, these were the
chief events in his life. Sorrow and joy he found in such things and
not in that which happened among men.

One day the skilful hunter met deep in the thickest forest an old bear
and killed him with a single shot. The great arrow’s sharp point
pierced the mighty heart, and he fell dead at the hunter’s feet. It was
summer, and the bear’s pelt was neither close nor even, still the
archer drew it off, rolled it together into a hard bundle, and went on
with the bear-skin on his back.

He had not wandered far before he perceived an extraordinarily strong
smell of honey. It came from the little flowering plants that covered
the ground. They grew on slender stalks, had light-green, shiny leaves,
which were beautifully veined, and at the top a little spike, thickly
set with white flowers. Their petals were of the tiniest, but from
among them pushed up a little brush of stamens, whose pollen-filled
heads trembled on white filaments. Reor thought, as he went among them,
that those flowers, which stood alone and unnoticed in the darkness of
the forest, were sending out message after message, summons upon
summons. The strong, sweet fragrance of the honey was their cry; it
spread the knowledge of their existence far away among the trees and
high up towards the clouds. But there was something melancholy in the
heavy perfume. The flowers had filled their cups and spread their table
in expectation of their winged guests, but none came. They pined to
death in the deep loneliness of the dark, windless forest thicket. They
seemed to wish to cry and lament that the beautiful butterflies did not
come and visit them. Where the flowers grew thickest, he thought that
they sang together a monotonous song. “Come, fair guests, come to-day,
for to-morrow we are dead, to-morrow we lie dead on the dried leaves.”

Reor was permitted to see the joyous close of the flower adventure. He
felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white
butterfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He
flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way.
Nor was he alone; butterfly after butterfly glimmered in the darkness,
until at last there was a host of white-winged honey seekers. But the
first was the leader, and he found the flowers, guided by their
fragrance. After him the whole butterfly host came storming. It threw
itself down among the longing flowers, as the conqueror throws himself
on his booty. Like a snowfall of white wings it sank down over them.
And there was feasting and drinking on every flower-cluster. The woods
were full of silent rejoicing.

Reor went on, but now the honey-sweet fragrance seemed to follow him
wherever he went. And he felt that in the wood was hidden a longing,
stronger than that of the flowers, that something there drew him to
itself, just as the flowers lured the butterflies. He went forward with
a quiet joy in his heart, as if he was expecting a great, unknown
happiness. His only fear was lest he should not be able to find the way
to that which longed for him.

In front of him, on the narrow path, crawled a white snake. He bent
down to pick up the luck-bringing animal, but the snake glided out of
his hands and up the path. There it coiled itself and lay still; but
when the huntsman again tried to catch it, glided slippery as ice
between his fingers.

Reor now grew eager to possess the wisest of beasts. He ran after the
snake, but was not able to reach it, and the latter lured him away from
the path into the trackless forest.

It was overgrown with pines, and in such places one seldom finds grassy
ground. But now the dry moss and brown pine-needles suddenly
disappeared, the stiff cranberry bushes vanished, and Reor felt under
foot velvet like turf. Over the green carpet trembled flower clusters,
light as down, on bending stems, and between the long, narrow leaves
could he seen the half-opened blossoms of the red gillyflower. It was
only a little spot, and over it spread the gnarled, red-brown branches
of the lofty pines, with bunches of close-growing needles. Through
these the sun’s rays could find many paths to the ground, and there was
suffocating heat.

In the midst of the little meadow a cliff rose perpendicularly out of
the ground. It lay in sharp sunshine, and the mossy stones were plainly
visible, and in the fresh fractures, where the winter’s frost had last
loosened some mighty blocks, the long stalks of ferns clung with their
brown roots in the earth-filled cracks, and on the inch-wide
projections a grass-green moss lifted on needle-like stems the little,
grey caps, which concealed its spores.

The cliff seemed in all ways like every other cliff, but Reor noticed
instantly that he had come upon the gable-wall of a giant’s house, and
he discovered under moss and lichen the great hinges on which the
mountain’s granite door swung.

He now believed that the snake had crept in, in the grass to hide
there, until it could come in among the rocks unnoticed, and he gave up
all hope of catching it. He perceived now again the honey-sweet
fragrance of the longing flowers and noticed that here under the cliff
the heat was suffocating. It was also marvellously quiet; not a bird
moved, not a leaf played in the wind; it was as if everything held its
breath, waiting and listening in unspeakable tension. It was as if he
had come into a room where he was not alone, although he saw no one. He
thought that some one was watching him, he felt as if he had been
expected. He knew no alarm, but was thrilled by a pleasant shiver, as
if he were soon to see something above-the-common beautiful.

In that moment he again became aware of the snake. It had not hidden
itself, it had instead crawled up on one of the blocks which the frost
had broken from the cliff. And just below the white snake he saw the
bright body of a girl, who lay asleep in the soft grass. She lay
without any other covering than a light, web-like veil, just as if she
had thrown herself down there after having taken part the whole night
in some elfin dance; but the long blades of grass and the trembling
flower-clusters stood high over the sleeper, so that Reor could
scarcely catch a glimpse of the soft lines of her body. Nor did he go
nearer in order to see better. He drew his good knife from its sheath
and threw it between the girl and the cliff, so that the steel-shy
daughter of the giants should not be able to flee into the mountain
when she awoke.

Then he stood still in deep thought. One thing he knew, that he wished
to possess the maiden who lay there; but as yet he had not quite made
up his mind how he would behave towards her.

He, who knew the language of nature better than that of man, listened
to the great, solemn forest and the stern mountain. “See,” they said,
“to you, who love the wilderness, we give our fair daughter. She will
suit you better than the daughters of the plain. Reor, are you worthy
of this most precious of gifts?”

Then he thanked in his heart the great, kind Nature and decided to make
the maiden his wife and not merely a slave. He thought that since she
had come to Christendom and human ways, she would be confused at the
thought that she had lain so uncovered, so he loosened the bearskin
from his back, unfolded the stiff hide, and threw the old bear’s
shaggy, grizzled pelt over her.

And as he did so a laugh, which made the ground shake, thundered behind
the cliff. It did not sound like derision, but as if some one had sat
in great fear and could not help laughing, when suddenly relieved of
it. The terrible silence and oppressive heat were also at an end. Over
the grass floated a cooling wind, and the pine-branches began their
murmuring song. The happy huntsman felt that the whole forest had held
its breath, wondering how the daughter of the wilderness would be
treated by the son of man.

The snake now glided down into the high grass; but the sleeper lay
bound in a magic sleep and did not move. Then Reor wrapped her in the
coarse bear-skin, so that only her head showed above the shaggy fur.
Although she certainly was a daughter of the old giant of the mountain,
she was slender and delicately made, and the strong hunter lifted her
on his arm and carried her away through the forest.

After a while he felt that some one lifted his broad-brimmed hat. He
looked up and found that the giant’s daughter was awake. She sat quiet
on his arm, but she wished to see what the man looked like who was
carrying her. He let her do as she pleased. He went on with longer
strides, but said nothing.

Then she must have noticed how hot the sun burned on his head, since
she had taken off his hat. She held it out over his head like a
parasol, but she did not put it back, rather held it so, that she could
still look down into his face. Then it seemed to him that he did not
need to ask or to speak. He carried her silently down to his mother’s
hut. But his whole being was filled with happiness, and when he stood
on the threshold of his home, he saw the white snake, which gives good
fortune, glide in under its foundation.




VALDEMAR ATTERDAG


The spring that Hellqvist’s great picture “Valdemar Atterdag levies a
Contribution on Visby” was exhibited at the Art League, I went in there
one quiet morning not knowing that that work of art was there. The big,
richly colored canvas with its many figures made at the first glance an
extraordinary impression. I could not look at any other picture, but
went straight to that one, took a chair and sank into silent
contemplation. For half an hour I lived in the Middle Ages.

Soon I was within the scene that was passing in the Visby market-place.
I saw the beer vats which began to be filled with the golden brew that
King Valdemar had ordered, and the groups which gathered around them. I
saw the rich merchant with his page bending under his gold and silver
dishes; the young burgher who shakes his fist at the king; the monk
with the sharp face who closely watches His Majesty; the ragged beggar
who offers his copper; the woman who has sunk down beside one of the
vats; the king on his throne; the soldiers who come swarming out of the
narrow streets; the high gables, and the scattered groups of insolent
guards and refractory people.

But suddenly I noticed that the chief figure of the picture is not the
king, nor any of the burghers, but one of the king’s steel-clad
shield-bearers, the one with the closed vizor.

Into that figure the artist has put a strange force. There is not a
hair of him to be seen; he is steel and iron, the whole man, and yet he
gives the impression of being the rightful master of the situation.

“I am Violence; I am Rapacity,” he says. “It is I who am levying
contribution on Visby. I am not a human being; I am merely steel and
iron. My pleasure is in suffering and evil. Let them go on and torture
one another. To-day it is I who am lord of Visby.”

“Look,” he says to the beholder, “can you see that it is I who am
master? As far as your eye can reach, there is nothing here but people
who are torturing one another. Groaning the conquered come and leave
their gold. They hate and threaten, but they obey. And the desires of
the victors grow wilder the more gold they can extort. What are
Denmark’s king and his soldiers but my servants, at least for this one
day? To-morrow they will go to church, or sit in peaceful mirth in
their inns, or also perhaps be good fathers in their own homes, but
to-day they serve me; to-day they are evil-doers and ravishers.”

The longer one listens to him, the better one understands what the
picture is; nothing but an illustration of the old story of how people
can torture one another. There is not one redeeming feature, only cruel
violence and defiant hate and hopeless suffering.

Those three beer vats were to be filled that Visby should not be
plundered and burned. Why do they not come, those Hanseaters, with
glowing enthusiasm? Why do the women not hasten with their jewels; the
revellers with their cups, the priest with his relics, eager, burning
with enthusiasm for the sacrifice? “For thee, for thee, our beloved
town! It is needless to send soldiers for us when it concerns thee! Oh,
Visby, our mother, our honor! Take back what thou hast given us!”

But the painter has not wished to see them so, and it was not so
either. No enthusiasm, only constraint, only suppressed defiance, only
bewailings. Gold is everything to them, women and men sigh over that
gold which they have to give.

“Look at them!” says the power that stands on the steps of the throne.
“It goes to their very hearts to offer it. May he who will feel
sympathy for them! They are mean, avaricious, arrogant. They are no
better than the covetous brigand whom I have sent against them.”

A woman has sunk down on the ground by the vats. Does it cost her so
much pain to give her gold? Or is she perhaps the guilty one? Is she
the cause of the laments? Is it she who has betrayed the town? Yes, it
is she who has been King Valdemar’s mistress. It is Ung-Hanse’s
daughter.

She knows well that she need give no gold. Her father’s house will not
be plundered, but she has collected what she possesses and brings it.
In the market-place she has been overcome by all the misery she has
seen and has sunk down in infinite despair.

He had been active and merry, the young goldsmith’s apprentice who
served the year before in her father’s house. It had been glorious to
stroll at his side through this same market-place, when the moon rose
from behind the gables and illumined the beauties of Visby. She had
been proud of him, proud of her father, proud of her town. And now she
is lying there, broken with grief. Innocent and yet guilty! He who is
sitting cold and cruel on the throne and who has brought all this
devastation on the town, is he the same as the one who whispered sweet
words to her? Was it to meet him that she crept, when the night before
she stole her father’s keys and opened the town-gate? And when she
found her goldsmith’s apprentice a knight with sword in hand and a
steel clad host behind him, what did she think? Did she go mad at the
sight of that stream of steel surging in through the gate which she had
opened? Too late to bemoan, maiden! Why did you love the enemy of your
town? Visby is fallen, its glory shall pass away. Why did you not throw
yourself down before the gate and let the steel-shod heels trample you
to death? Did you wish to live in order to see heaven’s thunder-bolts
strike the transgressor?

Oh maiden, at his side stands Violence and protects him. He has
violated holier things than a trusting maiden. He does not even spare
God’s own temple. He breaks away the shining carbuncles from the church
walls to fill the last vat.

The bearing of all the figures in the picture changes. Blind terror
fills everything living. The wildest soldier grows pale; the burghers
turn their eyes towards heaven; all await God’s punishment; all tremble
except Violence on the steps of the throne and the king who is his
servant.

I wish that the artist had lived long enough to take me down to the
harbor of Visby and let me see those same burghers, when they followed
the departing fleet with their eyes. They cry curses out over the
waves. “Destroy them!” they cry. “Destroy them! Oh sea, our friend,
take back our treasures! Open thy choking depths under the ungodly,
under the faithless!”

And the sea murmurs a faint assent, and Violence, who stands on the
royal ship, nods approvingly. “That is right,” he says. “To persecute
and to be persecuted, that is my law. May storm and sea destroy the
pirate fleet and take to itself the treasures of my royal servant! So
much the sooner it will be our lot to set out on new devastating
expeditions.”

The burghers on the shore turn and look up at their town. Fire has
raged there; plunder has passed through it; behind broken panes gape
pillaged dwellings. They see emptied streets, desecrated churches;
bloody corpses are lying in the narrow courts, and women crazed by
fright flee through the town. Shall they stand impotent before such
things? Is there no one whom their vengeance can reach, no one whom
they in their turn can torture and destroy?

God in Heaven, see! The goldsmith’s house is not plundered nor burned.
What does it mean? Was he in league with the enemy? Had he not the key
to one of the town gates in his keeping? Oh, you daughter of Ung-Hanse,
answer, what does it mean?

Far away on the royal ship Violence stands and watches his royal
servant, smiling behind his vizor. “Listen to the storm, Sire, listen
to the storm! The gold that you have ravished will soon lie on the
bottom of the sea, inaccessible to you. And look back at Visby, my
noble lord! The woman whom you deceived is being led between the clergy
and the soldiers to the town-wall. Can you hear the crowd following
her, cursing, insulting? Look, the masons come with mortar and trowel!
Look, the women come with stones! They are all bringing stones, all,
all!

Oh king, if you cannot see what is passing in Visby, may you yet hear
and know what is happening there. You are not of steel and iron, like
Violence at your side. When the gloomy days of old age come, and you
live under the shadow of death, the image of Ung-Hanse’s daughter will
rise in your memory.

You shall see her pale as death sink under the contempt and scorn of
her people. You shall see her dragged along between the priests and the
soldiers to the ringing of bells and the singing of hymns. She is
already dead in the eyes of the people. She feels herself dead in her
heart, killed by what she has loved. You shall see her mount in the
tower, see how the stones are inserted, hear the scraping of the
trowels and hear the people who hurry forward with their stones. “Oh
mason, take mine, take mine! Use my stone for the work of vengeance!
Let my stone help to shut Ung-Hanse’s daughter in from light and air!
Visby is fallen, the glorious Visby! God bless your hands, oh masons!
Let me help to complete the vengeance!”

Hymns sound and bells ring as for a burial.

Oh Valdemar, King of Denmark, it will be your fate to meet death also.
Then you will lie on your bed, hear and see much and suffer great
pains. You shall hear that scraping of the trowels, those cries for
vengeance. Where are the consecrated bells that drown the martyrdom of
the soul? Where are they, with their wide, bronze throats, whose
tongues cry out to God for grace for you? Where is that air trembling
with harmony, which bears the soul up to God’s space?

Oh help Esrom, help Soró, and you big bells of Lund!


What a gloomy story that picture told! It seemed curious and strange to
come out into the park, in glowing sunshine, among living human beings.




MAMSELL FREDRIKA


It was Christmas night, a real Christmas night.

The goblins raised the mountain roofs on lofty gold pillars and
celebrated the midwinter festival. The brownies danced around the
Christmas porridge in new red caps. Old gods wandered about the heavens
in gray storm cloaks, and in the Österhaninge graveyard stood the horse
of Hel.[3] He pawed with his hoof on the frozen ground; he was marking
out the place for a new grave.

 [3] The goddess of death

Not very far away, at the old manor of Årsta, Mamsell Fredrika was
lying asleep. Årsta is, as every one knows, an old haunted castle, but
Mamsell Fredrika slept a calm, quiet sleep. She was old now and tired
out after many weary days of work and many long journeys,— she had
almost traveled round the world,—therefore she had returned to the home
of her childhood to find rest.

Outside the castle sounded in the night a bold fanfare. Death mounted
on a gray charger had ridden up to the castle gate. His wide scarlet
cloak and his hat’s proud plumes fluttered in the night wind. The stern
knight sought to win an adoring heart, therefore he appeared in unusual
magnificence. It is of no avail, Sir Knight, of no avail! The gate is
closed, and the lady of your heart asleep. You must seek a better
occasion and a more suitable hour. Watch for her when she goes to early
mass, stern Sir Knight, watch for her on the church-road!


Old Mamsell Fredrika sleeps quietly in her beloved home. No one
deserves more than she the sweetness of rest. Like a Christmas angel
she sat but now in a circle of children, and told them of Jesus and the
shepherds, told until her eyes shone, and her withered face became
transfigured. Now in her old age no one noticed what Mamsell Fredrika
looked like. Those who saw the little, slender figure, the tiny,
delicate hands and the kind, clever face, instantly longed to be able
to preserve that sight in remembrance as the most beautiful of
memories.

In Mamsell Fredrika’s big room, among many relics and souvenirs, there
was a little, dry bush. It was a Jericho rose, brought back by Mamsell
Fredrika from the far East. Now in the Christmas night it began to
blossom quite of itself. The dry twigs were covered with red buds,
which shone like sparks of fire and lighted the whole room.

By the light of the sparks one saw that a small and slender but quite
elderly lady sat in the big arm-chair and held her court. It could not
be Mamsell Fredrika herself, for she lay sleeping in quiet repose, and
yet it was she. She sat there and held a reception for old memories;
the room was full of them. People and homes and subjects and thoughts
and discussions came flying. Memories of childhood and memories of
youth, love and tears, homage and bitter scorn, all came rushing
towards the pale form that sat and looked at everything with a friendly
smile. She had words of jest or of sympathy for them all.

At night everything takes its right size and shape. And just as then
for the first time the stars of heaven are visible, one also sees much
on earth that one never sees by day. Now in the light of the red buds
of the Jericho rose one could see a crowd of strange figures in Mamsell
Fredrika’s drawing-room. The hard “ma chère mère” was there, the
goodnatured Beata Hvardagslag, people from the East and the West, the
enthusiastic Nina, the energetic, struggling Hertha in her white dress.

“Can any one tell me why that person must always be dressed in white?”
jested the little figure in the arm-chair when she caught sight of her.

All the memories spoke to the old woman and said: “You have seen and
experienced so much; you have worked and earned so much! Are you not
tired? will you not go to rest?”

“Not yet,” answered the shadow in the yellow arm-chair. “I have still a
book to write. I cannot go to rest before it is finished.”

Thereupon the figures vanished. The Jericho rose went out, and the
yellow arm-chair stood empty.

In the Österhaninge church the dead were celebrating midnight mass. One
of them climbed up to the bell-tower and rang in Christmas; another
went about and lighted the Christmas candles, and a third began with
bony fingers to play the organ. Through the open doors others came
swarming in out of the night and their graves to the bright, glowing
House of the Lord. Just as they had been in life they came, only a
little paler. They opened the pew doors with rattling keys and chatted
and whispered as they walked up the aisle.

“They are the candles _she_ has given the poor that are now shining in
God’s house.”

“We lie warm in our graves as long as _she_ gives clothes and wood to
the poor.”

“She has spoken so many noble words that have opened the hearts of men;
those words are the keys of our pews.

“She has thought beautiful thoughts of God’s love. Those thoughts raise
us from our graves.”

So they whispered and murmured before they sat down in the pews and
bent their pale foreheads in prayer in their shrunken hands.


At Årsta some one came into Mamsell Fredrika’s room and laid her hand
gently on the sleeper’s arm.

“Up, my Fredrika! It is time to go to the early mass.”

Old Mamsell Fredrika opened her eyes and saw Agathe, her beloved sister
who was dead, standing by the bed with a candle in her hand. She
recognized her, for she looked just as she had done on earth. Mamsell
Fredrika was not afraid; she rejoiced only at seeing her loved one, at
whose side she longed to sleep the everlasting sleep.

She rose and dressed herself with all speed. There was no time for
conversation; the carriage stood before the door. The others must have
gone already, for no one but Mamsell Fredrika and her dead sister were
moving in the house.

“Do you remember, Fredrika,” said the sister, as they sat in the
carriage and drove quickly to the church, “do you remember how you
always in the old days expected some knight to carry you off on the
road to church?”

“I am still expecting it,” said old Mamsell Fredrika, and laughed. “I
never ride in this carriage without looking out for my knight.”

Even though they hurried, they came too late. The priest stepped down
from the pulpit as they entered the church, and the closing hymn began.
Never had Mamsell Fredrika heard such a beautiful song. It was as if
both earth and heaven joined in, in the song; as if every bench and
stone and board had sung too.

She had never seen the church so crowded: on the communion table and on
the pulpit steps sat people; they stood in the aisles, they thronged in
the pews, and outside the whole road was packed with people who could
not enter. The sisters, however, found places; for them the crowd moved
aside.

“Fredrika,” said her sister, “look at the people!”

And Mamsell Fredrika looked and looked.

Then she perceived that she, like the woman in the saga, had come to a
mass of the dead. She felt a cold shiver pass down her back, but it
happened, as often before, she felt more curious than frightened.

She saw now who were in the church. There were none but women there:
grey, bent forms, with circular capes and faded mantillas, with hats of
faded splendor and turned or threadbare dresses. She saw an unheard-of
number of wrinkled faces, sunken mouths, dim eyes and shrivelled hands,
but not a single hand which wore a plain gold ring.

Yes, Mamsell Fredrika understood it now. It was all the old maids who
had passed away in the land of Sweden who were keeping midnight mass in
the Österhaninge church.

Her dead sister leaned towards her.

“Sister, do you repent of what you have done for these your sisters?”

“No,” said Mamsell Fredrika. “What have I to be glad for if not that it
has been bestowed upon me to work for them? I once sacrificed my
position as an authoress to them. I am glad that I knew what I
sacrificed and yet did it.”

“Then you may stay and hear more,” said the sister.

At the same moment some one was heard to speak far away in the choir, a
mild but distinct voice.

“My sisters,” said the voice, “our pitiable race, our ignorant and
despised race will soon exist no more. God has willed that we shall die
out from the earth.

“Dear friends, we shall soon be only a legend. The old Mamsells’
measure is full. Death rides about on the road to the church to meet
the last one of us. Before the next midnight mass she will be dead, the
last old Mamsell.

“Sisters, sisters! We are the lonely ones of the earth, the neglected
ones at the feast, the unappreciated workers in the homes. We are met
with scorn and indifference. Our way is weary and our name is ridicule.

“But God has had mercy upon us.

“To _one_ of us He gave power and genius. To one of us He gave
never-failing goodness. To one of us He gave the glorious gift of
eloquence. She was everything we ought to have been. She threw light on
our dark fate. She was the servant of the homes, as we had been, but
she offered her gifts to a thousand homes. She was the caretaker of the
sick, as we had been, but she struggled with the terrible epidemic of
habits of former days. She told her stories to thousands of children.
She lead her poor friends in every land. She gave from fuller hands
than we and with a warmer spirit. In her heart dwelt none of our
bitterness, for she has loved it away. Her glory has been that of a
queen’s. She has been offered the treasures of gratitude by millions of
hearts. Her word has weighed heavily in the great questions of mankind.
Her name has sounded through the new and the old world. And yet she is
only an old Mamsell.

“She has transfigured our dark fate. Blessings on her name!”

The dead joined in, in a thousandfold echo: “Blessings on her name!”

“Sister,” whispered Mamsell Fredrika, “can you not forbid them to make
me, poor, sinful being, proud?”

“But, sisters, sisters,” continued the voice, “she has turned against
our race with all her great power. At her cry for freedom and work for
all, the old, despised livers on charity have died out. She has broken
down the tyranny that fenced in childhood. She has stirred young girls
towards the wide activity of life. She has put an end to loneliness, to
ignorance, to joylessness. No unhappy, despised old Mamsells without
aim or purpose in life will ever exist again; none such as we have
been.”

Again resounded the echo of the shades, merry as a hunting-song in the
wood which is sung by a happy throng of children: “Blessed be her
memory!”

Thereupon the dead swarmed out of the church, and Mamsell Fredrika
wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.

“I will not go home with you,” said her dead sister. “Will you not stop
here now also?”

“I should like to, but I cannot. There is a book which I must make
ready first.”

“Well, good-night then, and beware of the knight of the church road,”
said her dead sister, and smiled roguishly in her old way.

Then Mamsell Fredrika drove home. All Årsta still slept, and she went
quietly to her room, lay down and slept again.


A few hours later she drove to the real early mass. She drove in a
closed carriage, but she let down the window to look at the stars; it
is possible too that she, as of old, was looking for her knight.

And there he was; he sprang forward to the window of the carriage. He
sat his prancing charger magnificently. His scarlet cloak fluttered in
the wind. His pale face was stern, but beautiful.

“Will you be mine?” he whispered.

She was transported in her old heart by the lofty figure with the
waving plumes. She forgot that she needed to live a year yet.

“I am ready,” she whispered.

“Then I will come and fetch you in a week at your father’s house.”

He bent down and kissed her, and then he vanished; she began to shiver
and tremble under Death’s kiss.

A little later Mamsell Fredrika sat in the church, in the same place
where she had sat as a child. Here she forgot both the knight and the
ghosts, and sat smiling in quiet delight at the thought of the
revelation of the glory of God.

But either she was tired because she had not slept the whole night, or
the warmth and the closeness and the smell of the candles had a
soporific effect on her as on many another.

She fell asleep, only for a second; she absolutely could not help it.

Perhaps, too, God wished to open to her the gates of the land of
dreams.

In that single second when she slept, she saw her stern father, her
lovely, beautifully-dressed mother, and the ugly, little Petrea sitting
in the church. And the soul of the child was compressed by an anguish
greater than has ever been felt by a grown person. The priest stood in
the pulpit and spoke of the stern, avenging God, and the child sat pale
and trembling, as if the words had been axe-blows and had gone through
its heart.

“Oh, what a God, what a terrible God!”

In the next second she was awake, but she trembled and shuddered, as
after the kiss of death on the church-road. Her heart was once more
caught in the wild grief of her childhood.

She wished to hurry from the church. She must go home and write her
book, her glorious book on the God of peace and love.


Nothing else that can be deemed worth mentioning happened to Mamsell
Fredrika before New Year’s night. Life and death, like day and night,
reigned in quiet concord over the earth during the last week of the
year, but when New Year’s night came, Death took his sceptre and
announced that now old Mamsell Fredrika should belong to him.

Had they but known it, all the people of Sweden would certainly have
prayed a common prayer to God to be allowed to keep their purest
spirit, their warmest heart. Many homes in many lands where she had
left loving hearts would have watched with despair and grief. The poor,
the sick and the needy would have forgotten their own wants to remember
hers, and all the children who had grown up blessing her work would
have clasped their hands to pray for one more year for their best
friend. One year, that she might make all fully clear and put the
finishing-touch on her life’s work.

For Death was too prompt for Mamsell Fredrika.

There was a storm outside on that New Year’s night; there was a storm
within her soul. She felt all the agony of life and death coming to a
crisis.

“Anguish!” she sighed, “anguish!”

But the anguish gave way, and peace came, and she whispered softly:
“The love of Christ—the best love—the peace of God—the everlasting
light!”

Yes, that was what she would have written in her book, and perhaps much
else as beautiful and wonderful. Who knows? Only one thing we know,
that books are forgotten, but such a life as hers never is.

The old prophetess’s eyes closed and she sank into visions.

Her body struggled with death, but she did not know it. Her family sat
weeping about her deathbed, but she did not see them. Her spirit had
begun its flight.

Dreams became reality to her and reality dreams. Now she stood, as she
had already seen herself in the visions of her youth, waiting at the
gates of heaven with innumerable hosts of the dead round about her. And
heaven opened. He, the only one, the Saviour, stood in its open gates.
And his infinite love woke in the waiting spirits and in her a longing
to fly to his embrace, and their longing lifted them and her, and they
floated as if on wings upwards, upwards.

The next day there was mourning in the land; mourning in wide parts of
the earth.

_Fredrika Bremer was dead._




THE ROMANCE OF A FISHERMAN’S WIFE


On the outer edge of the fishing-village stood a little cottage on a
low mound of white sea sand. It was not built in line with the even,
neat, conventional houses that enclosed the wide green place where the
brown fish-nets were dried, but seemed as if forced out of the row and
pushed on one side to the sand-hills. The poor widow who had erected it
had been her own builder, and she had made the walls of her cottage
lower than those of all the other cottages and its steep thatched roof
higher than any other roof in the fishing-village. The floor lay deep
down in the ground. The window was neither high nor wide, but
nevertheless it reached from the cornice to the level of the earth.
There had been no space for a chimney-breast in the one narrow room and
she had been obliged to add a small, square projection. The cottage had
not, like the other cottages, its fenced-in garden with gooseberry
bushes and twining morning-glories and elder-bushes half suffocated by
burdocks. Of all the vegetation of the fishing-village, only the
burdocks had followed the cottage to the sand-hill. They were fine
enough in summer with their fresh, dark-green leaves and prickly
baskets filled with bright, red flowers. But towards the autumn, when
the prickles had hardened and the seeds had ripened, they grew careless
about their looks, and stood hideously ugly and dry with their torn
leaves wrapped in a melancholy shroud of dusty cobwebs.

The cottage never had more than two owners, for it could not hold up
that heavy roof on its walls of reeds and clay for more than two
generations. But as long as it stood, it was owned by poor widows. The
second widow who lived there delighted in watching the burdocks,
especially in the autumn, when they were dried and broken. They
recalled her who had built the cottage. She too had been shrivelled and
dry and had had the power to cling fast and adhere, and all her
strength had been used for her child, whom she had needed to help on in
the world. She, who now sat there alone, wished both to weep and to
laugh at the thought of it. If the old woman had not had a burr-like
nature, how different everything would have been! But who knows if it
would have been better?

The lonely woman often sat musing on the fate which had brought her to
this spot on the coast of Skone, to the narrow inlet and among these
quiet people. For she was born in a Norwegian seaport which lay on a
narrow strip of land between rushing falls and the open sea, and
although her means were small after the death of her father, a
merchant, who left his family in poverty, still she was used to life
and progress. She used to tell her story to herself over and over
again, just as one often reads through an obscure book in order to try
to discover its meaning.

The first thing of note which had happened to her was when, one evening
on the way home from the dressmaker with whom she worked, she had been
attacked by two sailors and rescued by a third. The latter fought for
her at peril of his life and afterwards went home with her. She took
him in to her mother and sisters, and told them excitedly what he had
done. It was as if life had acquired a new value for her, because
another had dared so much to defend it. He had been immediately well
received by her family and asked to come again as soon and as often as
he could.

His name was Börje Nilsson, and he was a sailor on the Swedish lugger
“Albertina.” As long as the boat lay in the harbor, he came almost
every day to her home, and they could soon no longer believe that he
was only a common sailor. He shone always in a clean, turned-down
collar and wore a sailor suit of fine cloth. Natural and frank, he
showed himself among them, as if he had been used to move in the same
class as they. Without his ever having said it in so many words, they
got the impression that he was from a respectable home, the only son of
a rich widow, but that his unconquerable love for a sailor’s profession
had made him take a place before the mast, so that his mother should
see that he was in earnest. When he had passed his examination, she
would certainly get him his own ship.

The lonely family who had drawn away from all their former friends,
received him without the slightest suspicion. And he described with a
light heart and fluent tongue his home with its high, pointed roof, the
great open fireplace in the dining-room and the little leaded glass
panes. He also painted the silent streets of his native town and the
long rows of even houses, built in the same style, against which his
home, with its irregular buttresses and terraces, made a pleasant
contrast. And his listeners believed that he had come from one of those
old burgher houses with carved gables and with overhanging second
stories, which give such a strong impression of wealth and venerable
age.

Soon enough she saw that he cared for her. And that gave her mother and
sisters great joy. The young, rich Swede came as if to raise them all
up from their poverty. Even if she had not loved him, which she did,
she would never have had a thought of saying no to his proposal. If she
had had a father or a grown-up brother, he could have found out about
the stranger’s extraction and position, but neither she nor her mother
thought of making any inquiries. Afterwards she saw how they had
actually forced him to lie. In the beginning, he had let them imagine
great ideas about his wealth without any evil intention, but when he
understood how glad they were over it, he had not dared to speak the
truth for fear of losing her.

Before he left they were betrothed, and when the lugger came again,
they were married. It was a disappointment for her that he also on his
return appeared as a sailor, but he had been bound by his contract. He
had no greetings either from his mother. She had expected him to make
another choice, but she would be so glad, he said, if she would once
see Astrid.—In spite of all his lies, it would have been an easy matter
to see that he was a poor man, if they had only chosen to use their
eyes.

The captain offered her his cabin if she would like to make the journey
in his vessel, and the offer was accepted with delight. Börje was
almost exempt from all work, and sat most of the time on the deck,
talking to his wife. And now he gave her the happiness of fancy, such
as he himself had lived on all his life. The more he thought of that
little house which lay half buried in the sand, so much the higher he
raised that palace which he would have liked to offer her. He let her
in thought glide into a harbor which was adorned with flags and flowers
in honor of Börje Nilsson’s bride. He let her hear the mayor’s speech
of greeting. He let her drive under a triumphal arch, while the eyes of
men followed her and the women grew pale with envy. And he led her into
the stately home, where bowing, silvery-haired servants stood drawn up
along the side of the broad stairway and where the table laden for the
feast groaned under the old family silver.

When she discovered the truth, she supposed at first that the captain
had been in league with Börje to deceive her, but afterwards she found
that it was not so. They were accustomed on board the boat to speak of
Börje as of a great man. It was their greatest joke to talk quite
seriously of his riches and his fine family. They thought that Börje
had told her the truth, but that she joked with him, as they all did,
when she talked about his big house. So it happened that when the
lugger cast anchor in the harbor which lay nearest to Börje’s home, she
still did not know but that she was the wife of a rich man.

Börje got a day’s leave to conduct his wife to her future home and to
start her in her new life. When they were landed on the quay, where the
flags were to have fluttered and the crowds to have rejoiced in honor
of the newly-married couple, only emptiness and calm reigned there, and
Börje noticed that his wife looked about her with a certain
disappointment.

“We have come too soon,” he had said. “The journey was such an
unusually quick one in this fine weather. So we have no carriage here
either, and we have far to go, for the house lies outside the town.”

“That makes no difference, Börje,” she had answered. “It will do us
good to walk, after having been quiet so long on board.”

And so they began their walk, that walk of horror, of which she could
not think even in her old age without moaning in agony and wringing her
hands in pain. They went along the broad, empty streets, which she
instantly recognized from his description. She felt as if she met with
old friends both in the dark church and in the even houses of timber
and brick; but where were the carved gables and marble steps with the
high railing?

Börje had nodded to her as if he had guessed her thoughts. “It is a
long way still,” he had said.

If he had only been merciful and at once killed her hope. She loved him
so then. If he of his own accord had told her everything, there would
never have been any sting in her soul against him. But when he saw her
pain at being deceived, and yet went on misleading her, that had hurt
her too bitterly. She had never really forgiven him that. She could of
course say to herself that he had wanted to take her with him as far as
possible so that she would not be able to run away from him, but his
deceit created such a deadly coldness in her that no love could
entirely thaw it.

They went through the town and came out on the adjoining plain. There
stretched several rows of dark moats and high, green ramparts, remains
from the time when the town had been fortified, and at the point where
they all gathered around a fort, she saw some ancient buildings and
big, round towers. She cast a shy look towards them, but Börje turned
off to the mounds which followed the shore.

“This is a shorter way,” he said, for she seemed to be surprised that
there was only a narrow path to follow.

He had become very taciturn. She understood afterwards that he had not
found it so merry as he had fancied, to come with a wife to the
miserable little house in the fishing village. It did not seem so fine
now to bring home a better man’s child. He was anxious about what she
would do when she should know the truth.

“Börje,” she said at last, when they had followed the shelving, sandy
hillocks for a long while, “where are we going?”

He lifted his band and pointed towards the fishing-village, where his
mother lived in the house on the sand-hill. But she believed that he
meant one of the beautiful country-seats which lay on the edge of the
plain, and was again glad.

They climbed down into the empty cow-pastures, and there all her
uneasiness returned. There, where every tuft, if one can only see it,
is clothed with beauty and variety, she saw merely an ugly field. And
the wind, which is ever shifting there, swept whistling by them and
whispered of misfortune and treachery.

Börje walked faster and faster, and at last they reached the end of the
pasture and entered the fishing village. She, who at the last had not
dared to ask herself any questions, took courage again. Here again was
a uniform row of houses, and this one she recognized even better than
that in the town. Perhaps, perhaps he had not lied.

Her expectations were so reduced that she would have been glad from the
heart if she could have stopped at any of the neat little houses, where
flowers and white curtains showed behind shining window-panes. She
grieved that she had to go by them.

Then she saw suddenly, just at the outer edge of the fishing-village,
one of the most wretched of hovels, and it seemed to her as if she had
already seen it with her mind’s eye before she actually had a glimpse
of it.

“Is it here?” he said, and stopped just at the foot of the little
sand-hill.

He bent his head imperceptibly and went on towards the little cottage.

“Wait,” she called after him, “we must talk this over before I go into
your home. You have lied,” she went on, threateningly, when he turned
to her. “You have deceived me worse than if you were my worst enemy.
Why have you done it?”

“I wanted you for my wife,” he answered, with a low, trembling voice.

“If you had only deceived me within bounds! Why did you make everything
so fine and rich? What did you have to do with man-servants and
triumphal arches and all the other magnificence? Did you think that I
was so devoted to money? Did you not see that I cared enough for you to
go anywhere with you? That you could believe you needed to deceive me!
That you could have the heart to keep up your lies to the very last!”

“Will you not come in and speak to my mother?” he said, helplessly.

“I do not intend to go in there.”

“Are you going home?”

“How can I go home? How could I cause them there at home such sorrow as
to return, when they believe me happy and rich? But with you I will not
stay either. For one who is willing to work there is always a
livelihood.”

“Stop!” he begged. “I did it only to win you.”

“If you had told me the truth, I would have stayed.”

“If I had been a rich man, who had pretended to be poor, then you would
have stayed.”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned to go, when the door of the
cottage opened and Börje’s mother came out. She was a little, dried-up
old woman with few teeth and many wrinkles, but not so old in years or
in feelings as in looks.

She had heard a part and guessed a part, for she knew what they were
quarrelling about. “Well,” she said, “that is a fine daughter-in-law
you have got me, Börje. And you have been deceiving again, I can hear.”
But to Astrid she came and patted her kindly on the cheek. “Come in
with me, you poor child! I know that you are tired and worn out. This
is my house. He is not allowed to come in here. But you come. Now you
are my daughter, and I cannot let you go to strangers, do you
understand?”

She caressed her daughter-in-law and chatted to her and drew and pushed
her quite imperceptibly forward to the door. Step by step she lured her
on, and at last got her inside the house; but Börje she shut out. And
there, within, the old woman began to ask who she was and how it had
all happened. And she wept over her and made her weep over herself. The
old woman was merciless about her son. She, Astrid, did right; she
could not stay with such a man. It was true that he was in the habit of
lying, it was really true.

She told her how it had been with her son. He had been so fair in face
and limbs, even when he was small, that she had always marvelled that
he was a poor man’s child. He was like a little prince gone astray. And
ever after it had always seemed as if he had not been in his right
place. He saw everything on such a large scale. He could not see things
as they were, when it concerned himself. His mother had wept many a
time on that account. But never before had he done any harm with his
lies. Here, where he was known, they only laughed at him.—But now he
must have been so terribly tempted. Did she really not think, she,
Astrid, that it was wonderful how the fisher boy had been able to
deceive them? He had always known so much about wealth, as if he had
been born to it. It must be that he had come into the world in the
wrong place. See, that was another proof,—he had never thought of
choosing a wife in his own station.

“Where will he sleep to-night?” asked Astrid, suddenly.

“I imagine he will lie outside on the sand. He will be too anxious to
go away from here.”

“I suppose it is best for him to come in,” said Astrid.

“Dearest child, you cannot want to see him. He can get along out there
if I give him a blanket.”

She let him actually sleep out on the sand that night, thinking it best
for Astrid not to see him. And with her she talked and talked, and kept
her, not by force, but by cleverness, not by persuasion, but by real
goodness.

But when she had at last succeeded in keeping her daughter-in-law for
her son, and had got the young people reconciled, and had taught Astrid
that her vocation in life was just to be Börje Nilsson’s wife and to
make him as happy as she could,—and that had not been the work of one
evening, but of many days,—then the old woman had laid herself down to
die.

And in that life, with its faithful solicitude for her son, there was
some meaning, thought Börje Nilsson’s wife.

But in her own life she saw no meaning. Her husband was drowned after a
few years of married life, and her one child died young. She had not
been able to make any change in her husband. She had not been able to
teach him earnestness and truth. It was rather in her the change
showed, after she had been more and more with the fishing people. She
would never see any of her own family, for she was ashamed that she now
resembled in everything a fisherman’s wife. If it had only been of any
use! If she, who lived by mending the fishermen’s nets, knew why she
clung so to life! If she had made any one happy or had improved
anybody!

It never occurred to her to think that she who considers her life a
failure because she has done no good to others, perhaps by that thought
of humility has saved her own soul.




HIS MOTHER’S PORTRAIT


In one of the hundred houses of the fishing-village, where each is
exactly like the other in size and shape, where all have just as many
windows and as high chimneys, lived old Mattsson, the pilot.

In all the rooms of the fishing-village there is the same sort of
furniture, on all the window-sills stand the same kinds of flowers, in
all the corner-cupboards are the same collections of sea-shells and
coral, on all the walls hang the same pictures. And it is a fixed old
custom that all the inhabitants of the fishing-village live the same
life. Since Mattsson, the pilot, had grown old, he had conformed
carefully to the conditions and customs; his house, his rooms and his
mode of living were like everybody else’s.

On the wall over the bed old Mattsson had a picture of his mother. One
night he dreamed that the portrait stepped down from its frame, placed
itself in front of him and said with a loud voice: “You must marry,
Mattson.”

Old Mattsson then began to make clear to his mother that it was
impossible. He was seventy years old.—But his mother’s portrait merely
repeated with even greater emphasis: “You must marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson had great respect for his mother’s portrait. It had been
his adviser on many debatable occasions, and he had always done well by
obeying it. But this time he did not quite understand its behavior. It
seemed to him as if the picture was acting in opposition to its already
acknowledged opinions. Although he was lying there and dreaming, he
remembered distinctly and clearly what had happened the first time he
wished to be married. Just as he was dressing as a bridegroom, the nail
gave way on which the picture hung and it fell to the floor. He
understood then that the portrait wished to warn him against the
marriage, but he did not obey it. He soon found that the portrait had
been right. His short married life was very unhappy.

The second time he dressed as a bridegroom the same thing happened. The
portrait fell to the ground as before, and he did not dare again to
disobey it. He ran away from bride and wedding and travelled round the
world several times before he dared come home again.—And now the
picture stepped down from the wall and commanded him to marry! However
good and obedient he was, he allowed himself to think that it was
making a fool of him.

But his mother’s portrait, which looked out with the grimmest face that
sharp winds and salt sea-foam could carve, stood solemnly as before.
And with a voice which had been exercised and strengthened for many
years by offering fish in the town marketplace, it repeated: “You must
marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson then asked his mother’s portrait to consider what kind of
a community it was they lived in.

All the hundred houses of the fishing-village had pointed roofs and
whitewashed walls; all the boats of the fishing-village were of the
same build and rig. No one there ever did anything unusual. His mother
would have been the first to oppose such a marriage if she had been
alive. His mother had held by habits and customs. And it was not the
habit and custom of the fishing-village for old men of seventy years to
marry.

His mother’s picture stretched out her beringed hand and positively
commanded him to obey. There had always been something excessively
awe-inspiring in his mother when she came in her black silk dress with
many flounces. The big, shining gold brooch, the heavy, rattling gold
chain had always frightened him. If she had worn her market-clothes, in
a striped head-cloth and with an oil-cloth apron, covered with
fish-scales and fish eyes, he would not have been quite so overawed by
her. The end of it was that he promised to get married. And then his
mother’s portrait crept up into the frame again.

The next morning old Mattsson woke in great trouble. It never occurred
to him to disobey his mother’s portrait; it knew of course what was
best for him. But he shuddered nevertheless at the time that was now
coming.

The same day he made an offer of marriage to the plainest daughter of
the poorest fisherman, a little creature, whose head was drawn down
between her shoulders and who had a projecting under-jaw. The parents
said yes, and the day when he was to go to the town and publish the
bans was appointed.

The road from the fishing-village to the town passes over windy marshes
and swampy cow-pastures. It is two miles long, and there is a tradition
that the inhabitants of the fishing-village are so rich that they could
pave it with shining silver coins. It would give the road a strange
attraction. Glimmering like a fish’s belly, it would wind with its
white scales through clumps of sedge and pools filled with water-bugs
and melancholy bullfrogs. The daisies and almond-blossoms which adorn
that forsaken ground would be mirrored in the shining silver coins;
thistles would stretch out protecting thorns over them, and the wind
would find a ringing sounding-board when it played on the thatched roof
of the cow-barns and on telephone-wires.

Perhaps old Mattsson would have found some comfort if he could have set
his heavy sea boots on ringing silver, for it is certain that he for a
time had to go that way oftener than he liked.

He had not had “clean papers.” The bans could not be published. It came
from his having run away from his bride the last time. Some time passed
before the clergyman could write to the consistory about him and get
permission for him to contract a new marriage.

As long as this time of waiting lasted, old Mattsson came to the town
every week. He sat by the door of the pastor’s room and remained there
in silent expectation until all had spoken in turn. Then he rose and
asked if the clergyman had anything for him. No, he had nothing.

The pastor was amazed at the power that all-conquering love had
acquired over that old man. There he sat in a thick, knitted jersey,
high sea-boots and weather-beaten sou’wester with a sharp, clever face
and long, gray hair, and waited for permission to get married. The
clergyman thought it strange that the old fisherman should have been
seized by so eager a longing.

“You are in a hurry with this marriage, Mattsson,” said the clergyman.

“Oh yes, it is best to get it done soon.”

“Could you not just as well give up the whole thing? You are no longer
young, Mattsson.”

The clergyman must not be too surprised. He knew well enough that he
was too old, but he was obliged to be married. There was no help for
it.

So he came again week after week for a half year, until at last the
permission came.

During all that time old Mattsson was a persecuted man. Round the green
drying-place, where the brown fish-nets were hung out, along the
cemented walls by the harbor, at the fish-tables in the market, where
cod and crabs were sold, and far out in the sound among the shoals of
herring, raged a storm of wonder and laughter.

“So he is going to be married, he, Mattsson, who ran away from his own
wedding!”

Neither bride nor groom were spared.

But the worst thing for him was that no one could laugh more at the
whole thing than he himself. No one could find it more ridiculous. His
mother’s portrait was driving him mad.


It was the afternoon of the first time of asking. Old Mattsson, still
pursued by talk and wonderings, went out on the long breakwater as far
as the whitewashed lighthouse, in order to be alone. He found his
betrothed there. She sat and wept.

He asked her whether she would have liked some one else better. She sat
and pried little bits of mortar from the lighthouse wall and threw them
into the water, answering nothing at first.

“Was there nobody you liked?”

“Oh no, of course not.”

It is very beautiful out by the lighthouse. The clear water of the
sound laps about it. The low-lying shore, the little uniform houses of
the fishing-village, and the distant town are all shining in wonderful
beauty. Out of the soft mist that hovers on the western horizon a
fishing-boat comes gliding now and again. Tacking boldly, it steers
towards the harbor. The water roars gaily past its bow as it shoots in
through the narrow harbor entrance. The sail drops silently at the same
moment. The fishermen swing their hats in joyous greeting, and on the
bottom of the boat lies the glittering spoil.

A boat came into the harbor while old Mattsson stood out by the
lighthouse. A young man sitting at the tiller lifted his hat and nodded
to the girl. The old man saw that her eyes were shining.

“Well,” he thought, “have you fallen in love with the handsomest young
fellow in the fishing-village? Yes, you will never get him. You may
just as well marry me as wait for him.”

He saw that he could not escape his mother’s picture. If the girl had
cared for any one whom there was any possibility of getting, he would
have had a good motive to be rid of the whole business. But now it was
useless to set her free.


A fortnight later was the wedding, and a few days after came the big
November gale. One of the boats of the fishing-village was swept out
into the sound. It had neither rudder nor masts, so that it was quite
unmanageable. Old Mattsson and five others were on board, and they
drifted about without food for two days. When they were rescued, they
were in a state of exhaustion from hunger and cold. Everything in the
boat was covered with ice, and their wet clothes were stiff. Old
Mattsson was so chilled that he never was well again. He lay ill for
two years; then death came.

Many thought that it was strange that his idea of marrying came just
before the unlucky adventure, for the little woman he had got took good
care of him. What would he have done if he had been alone when lying so
helpless? The whole fishing-village acknowledged that he had never done
anything more sensible than marrying, and the little woman won great
consideration for the tenderness with which she took care of her
husband.

“She will have no trouble in marrying again,” people said.

Old Mattsson told his wife, every day while he lay ill, the story of
the portrait.

“You must take it when I am dead, just as you must take everything of
mine,” he said.

“Do not speak of such things.”

“And you must listen to my mother’s portrait when the young men propose
to you. Truly there is no one in the whole fishing-village who
understands getting married better than that picture.”




A FALLEN KING


Mine was the kingdom of fancy, now I am a fallen king.

             SNOILSKY.

The wooden shoes clattered in uneasy measure on the pavements. The
street boys hurried by. They shouted, they whistled. The houses shook,
and from the courts the echo rushed out like a chained dog from his
kennel.

Faces appeared behind the window-panes. Had anything happened? Was
anything going on? The noise passed on towards the suburbs. The servant
girls hastened after, following the street boys. They clasped their
hands and screamed: “Preserve us, preserve us! Is it murder, is it
fire?” No one answered. The clattering was heard far away.

After the maids came hurrying wise matrons of the town. They asked:
“What is it? What is disturbing the morning calm? Is it a wedding? Is
it a funeral? Is it a conflagration? What is the watchman doing? Shall
the town burn up before he begins to sound the alarm?”

The whole crowd stopped before the shoemaker’s little house in the
suburbs, the little house that had vines climbing about the doors and
windows, and in front, between street and house, a yard-wide garden.
Summer-houses of straw, arbors fit for a mouse, paths for a kitten.
Everything in the best of order! Peas and beans, roses and lavender, a
mouthful of grass, three gooseberry bushes and an apple-tree.

The street boys who stood nearest stared and consulted. Through the
shining, black window-panes their glances penetrated no further than to
the white lace curtains. One of the boys climbed up on the vines and
pressed his face against the pane. “What do you see?” whispered the
others. “What do you see?” The shoemaker’s shop and the shoemaker’s
bench, grease-pots and bundles of leather, lasts and pegs, rings and
straps. “Don’t you see anybody?” He sees the apprentice, who is
repairing a shoe. Nobody else, nobody else? Big, black flies crawl over
the pane and make his sight uncertain. “Do you see nobody except the
apprentice?” Nobody. The master’s chair is empty. He looked once,
twice, three times; the master’s chair was empty.

The crowd stood still, guessing and wondering. So it was true; the old
shoemaker had absconded. Nobody would believe it. They stood and waited
for a sign. The cat came out on the steep roof. He stretched out his
claws and slid down to the gutter. Yes, the master was away, the cat
could hunt as he pleased. The sparrows fluttered and chirped, quite
helpless.

A white chicken looked round the corner of the house. He was almost
full-grown. His comb shone red as wine. He peered and spied, crowed and
called. The hens came, a row of white hens at full speed, bodies
rocking, wings fluttering, yellow legs like drumsticks. The hens hopped
among the stacked peas. Battles began. Envy broke out. A hen fled with
a full pea-pod. Two cocks pecked her in the neck. The cat left the
sparrow nests to look on. Plump, there he fell down in the midst of the
flock. The hens fled in a long, scurrying line. The crowd thought: “It
must be true that the shoemaker has run away. One can see by the cat
and the hens that the master is away.”

The uneven street, muddy from the autumn rains, resounded with talk.
Doors stood open, windows swung. Heads were put together in wondering
whisperings. “He has run off.” The people whispered, the sparrows
chirped, the wooden shoes clattered: “He has run away. The old
shoemaker has run away. The owner of the little house, the young wife’s
husband, the father of the beautiful child, he has run away. Who can
understand it? who can explain it?”

There is an old song: “Old husband in the cottage; young lover in the
wood; wife, who runs away, child who cries; home without a mistress.”
The song is old. It is often sung. Everybody understands it.

This was a new song. The old man was gone. On the workshop table lay
his explanation, that he never meant to come back. Beside it a letter
had also lain. The wife had read it, but no one else.

The young wife was in the kitchen. She was doing nothing. The neighbors
went backwards and forwards, arranging busily, set out the cups, made
up the fire, boiled the coffee, wept a little and wiped away the tears
with the dish-towel.

The good women of the quarter sat stiffly about the walls. They knew
what was suitable in a house of mourning. They kept silent by force,
mourned by force. They celebrated their holiday by supporting the
forsaken wife in her grief. Coarse hands lay quiet in their laps,
weather-beaten skin lay in deep wrinkles, thin lips were pressed
together over toothless jaws.

The wife sat among the bronze-hued women, gently blonde, with a sweet
face like a dove. She did not weep, but she trembled. She was so
afraid, that the fear was almost killing her. She bit her teeth
together, so that no one should hear how they chattered. When steps
were heard, when the clattering sounded, when some one spoke to her,
she started up.

She sat with her husband’s letter in her pocket. She thought of now one
line in it and now another. There stood: “I can bear no longer to see
you both.” And in another place: “I know now that you and Erikson mean
to elope.” And again: “You shall not do that, for people’s evil talk
would make you unhappy. I shall disappear, so that you can get a
divorce and be properly married. Erikson is a good workman and can
support you well.” Then farther down: “Let people say what they will
about me. I am content if only they do not think any evil of you, for
you could not bear it.”

She did not understand it. She had not meant to deceive him. Even if
she had liked to chat with the young apprentice, what had her husband
to do with that? Love is an illness, but it is not mortal. She had
meant to bear it through life with patience. How had her husband
discovered her most secret thoughts?

She was tortured at the thought of him! He must have grieved and
brooded. He had wept over his years. He had raged over the young man’s
strength and spirits. He had trembled at the whisperings, at the
smiles, at the hand pressures. In burning madness, in glowing jealousy,
he had made it into a whole elopement history, of which there was as
yet nothing.

She thought how old he must have been that night when he went. His back
was bent, his hands shook. The agony of many long nights had made him
so. He had gone to escape that existence of passionate doubting.

She remembered other lines in the letter: “It is not my intention to
destroy your character. I have always been too old for you.” And then
another: “You shall always be respected and honored. Only be silent,
and all the shame will fall on me!”

The wife felt deeper and deeper remorse. Was it possible that people
would be deceived? Would it do to lie so too before God? Why did she
sit in the cottage, pitied like a mourning mother, honored like a bride
on her wedding day? Why was it not she who was homeless, friendless,
despised? How can such things be? How can God let himself be so
deceived?

Over the great dresser hung a little bookcase. On the top shelf stood a
big book with brass clasps. Behind those clasps was hidden the story of
a man and a woman who lied before God and men. “Who has suggested to
you, woman, to do such things? Look, young men stand outside to lead
you away.”

The woman stared at the book, listened for the young men’s footsteps.
She trembled at every knock, shuddered at every step. She was ready to
stand up and confess, ready to fall down and die.

The coffee was ready. The women glided sedately forward to the table.
They filled their cups, took a lump of sugar in their mouths and began
to sip their boiling coffee, silently and decently, the wives of
mechanics first, the scrub-women last. But the wife did not see what
was going on. Remorse made her quite beside herself. She had a vision.
She sat at night out in a freshly ploughed field. Round about her sat
great birds with mighty wings and pointed beaks. They were gray,
scarcely perceptible against the gray ground, but they held watch over
her. They were passing sentence upon her. Suddenly they flew up and
sank down over her head. She saw their sharp claws, their pointed
beaks, their beating wings coming nearer and nearer. It was like a
deadly rain of steel. She bent her head and knew that she must die. But
when they came near, quite near to her, she had to look up. Then she
saw that the gray birds were all these old women.

One of them began to speak. She knew what was proper, what was fitting
in a house of mourning. They had now been silent long enough. But the
wife started up as from a blow. What did the woman mean to say? “You,
Matts Wik’s wife, Anna Wik, confess! You have lied long enough before
God and before us. We are your judges. We will judge you and rend you
to pieces.”

No, the woman began to speak of husbands. And the others chimed in, as
the occasion demanded. What was said was not in the husbands’ praise.
All the evil husbands had done was dragged forward. It was as
consolation for a deserted wife.

Injury was heaped upon injury. Strange beings these husbands! They beat
us, they drink up our money, they pawn our furniture. Why on earth had
Our Lord created them?

The tongues became like dragons’ fangs; they spat venom, they spouted
fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A
wife fled from her home before a drunken husband. Wives slaved for idle
husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled
like whip lashes. The misery of homes was laid bare. Long litanies were
read. From the tyranny of the husband deliver us, good Lord!

Illness and poverty, the children’s death, the winter’s cold, trouble
with the old people, everything was the husband’s fault. The slaves
hissed at their masters. They turned their stings against them, before
whose feet they crept.

The deserted wife felt how it cut and stabbed in her ears. She dared to
defend the incorrigible ones. “My husband,” she said, “is good.” The
women started up, hissed and snorted. “He has run away. He is no better
than anybody else. He, who is an old man, ought to know better than to
run away from wife and child. Can you believe that he is better than
the others?”

The wife trembled; she felt as if she was being dragged through prickly
bramble-bushes. Her husband considered a sinner! She flushed with
shame, wished to speak, but was silent. She was afraid; she had not the
power. But why did God keep silent? Why did God let such things be?

If she should take the letter and read it aloud, then the stream of
poison would be turned. The venom would sprinkle upon her. The horror
of death came over her. She did not dare. She half wished that an
insolent hand had been thrust into her pocket and had drawn out the
letter. She could not give herself as a prize. Within the workshop was
heard a shoemaker’s hammer. Did no one hear how it hammered in triumph?
She had heard that hammering and had been vexed by it the whole day.
But none of the women understood it. Omniscient God, hast Thou no
servant who could read hearts? She would gladly accept her sentence, if
only she did not need to confess. She wished to hear some one say: “Who
has given you the idea to lie before God?” She listened for the sound
of the young men’s footsteps in order to fall down and die.


Several years after this a divorced woman was married to a shoemaker,
who had been apprentice to her husband. She had not wished it, but had
been drawn to it, as a pickerel is drawn to the side of a boat when it
has been caught on the line. The fisherman lets it play. He lets it
rush here and there. He lets it believe it is free. But when it is
tired out, when it can do no more, then he drags with a light pull,
then he lifts it up and jerks it down into the bottom of the boat
before it knows what it is all about.

The wife of the absconded shoemaker had dismissed her apprentice and
wished to live alone. She had wished to show her husband that she was
innocent. But where was her husband? Did he not care for her
faithfulness. She suffered want. Her child went in rags. How long did
her husband think that she could wait? She was unhappy when she had no
one upon whom she could depend.

Erikson succeeded. He had a shop in the town. His shoes stood on glass
shelves behind broad plate-glass windows. His workshop grew. He hired
an apartment and put plush furniture in the parlor. Everything waited
only for her. When she was too wearied of poverty, she came.

She was very much afraid in the beginning. But no misfortunes befell
her. She became more confident as time went on and more happy. She had
people’s regard, and knew within herself that she had not deserved it.
That kept her conscience awake, so that she became a good woman.

Her first husband, after some years, came back to the house in the
suburbs. It was still his, and he settled down again there and wished
to begin work. But he got no work, nor would anybody have anything to
do with him. He was despised, while his wife enjoyed great honor. It
was nevertheless he who had done right, and she who had done wrong.

The husband kept his secret, but it almost suffocated him. He felt how
he sank, because everybody considered him bad. No one had any
confidence in him, no one would trust any work to him. He took what
company he could get, and learned to drink.

While he was going down hill, the Salvation Army came to the town. It
hired a big hall and began its work. From the very first evening all
the loafers gathered at the meetings to make a disturbance. When it had
gone on for about a week, Matts Wik came too to take part in the fun.

There was a crowd in the street, a crowd in the door-way. Sharp elbows
and angry tongues were there; street boys and soldiers, maids and
scrub-women; peaceable police and stormy rabble. The army was new and
the fashion. The well-to-do and the wharf-rats, everybody went to the
Salvation Army. Within, the hall was low-studded. At the farthest end
was an empty platform; unpainted benches, borrowed chairs, an uneven
floor, blotches on the ceiling, lamps that smoked. The iron stove in
the middle of the floor gave out warmth and coal gas. All the places
were filled in a moment. Nearest the platform sat the women, demure as
if in church, and back of them workmen and sewing-women. Farthest away
sat the boys on one another’s knees, and in the door-way there was a
fight among those who could not get in.

The platform was empty. The clock had not struck, the entertainment had
not begun. One whistled, one laughed. The benches were kicked to
pieces. “The War-cry” flew like a kite between the groups. The public
were enjoying themselves.

A side-door opened. Cold air streamed into the room. The fire flamed
up. There was silence. Attentive expectation filled the hall. At last
they came, three young women, carrying guitars and with faces almost
hidden by broad-brimmed hats. They fell on their knees as soon as they
had ascended the steps of the platform.

One of them prayed aloud. She lifted her head, but closed her eyes. Her
voice cut like a knife. During the prayer there was silence. The
street-boys and loafers had not yet begun. They were waiting for the
confessions and the inspiring music.

The women settled down to their work. They sang and prayed, sang and
preached. They smiled and spoke of their happiness. In front of them
they had an audience of ruffians. They began to rise, they climbed upon
the benches. A threatening noise passed through the throng. The women
on the platform caught glimpses of dreadful faces through the smoky
air. The men had wet, dirty clothes, which smelt badly. They spat
tobacco every other second, swore with every word. Those women, who
were to struggle with them, spoke of their happiness.

How brave that little army was! Ah, is it not beautiful to be brave? Is
it not something to be proud of to have God on one’s side? It was not
worth while to laugh at them in their big hats. It was most probable
that they would conquer the hard hands, the cruel faces, the
blaspheming lips.

“Sing with us!” cried the Salvation Army soldiers; “sing with us! It is
good to sing.” They started a well-known melody. They struck their
guitars and repeated the same verse over and over. They got one or two
of those sitting nearest to join in, but now sounded down by the door a
light street song. Notes struggled against notes, words against words,
guitar against whistle. The women’s strong, trained voices contested
with the boys’ hoarse falsetto, with the men’s growling bass. When the
street song was almost conquered, they began to stamp and whistle down
by the door. The Salvation Army song sank like a wounded warrior. The
noise was terrifying. The women fell on their knees.

They knelt as if powerless. Their eyes were closed. Their bodies rocked
in silent pain. The noise died down. The Salvation Army captain began
instantly: “Lord, all these Thou wilt make Thine own. We thank Thee,
Lord, that Thou wilt lead them all into Thy host! We thank Thee, Lord,
that it is granted to us to lead them to Thee!”

The crowd hissed, howled, screamed. It was as if all those throats had
been tickled by a sharp knife. It was as if the people had been afraid
to be won over, as if they had forgotten that they had come there of
their own will.

But the woman continued, and it was her sharp, piercing voice which
conquered. They had to hear.

“You shout and scream; the old serpent within you is twisting and
raging. But that is just the sign. Blessings on the old serpent’s
roarings! It shows that he is tortured, that he is afraid. Laugh at us!
Break our windows! Drive us away from the platform! To-morrow you will
belong to us. We shall possess the earth. How can you withstand us? How
can you withstand God?”

Then the captain commanded one of her comrades to come forward and make
her confession. She came smiling. She stood brave and undaunted and
told the story of her sin and her conversion to the mockers. Where had
that kitchen-girl learned to stand smiling under all that scorn? Some
of those who had come to scoff grew pale. Where had these women found
their courage and their strength? Some one stood behind them.

The third woman stepped forward. She was a beautiful child, daughter of
rich parents, with a sweet, clear voice. She did not tell of herself.
Her testimony was one of the usual songs.

It was like the shadow of a victory. The audience forgot itself and
listened. The child was lovely to look at, sweet to hear. But when she
ceased, the noise became even more dreadful. Down by the door they
built a platform of benches, climbed up and confessed.

It became worse and worse in the hall. The stove became red hot,
devoured air and belched heat. The respectable women on the front
benches looked about for a way to escape, but there was no possibility
of getting out. The soldiers on the platform perspired and wilted. They
cried and prayed for strength. Suddenly a breath came through the air,
a whisper reached their ear. They knew not from where, but they felt a
change. God was with them. He fought for them.

To the struggle again! The captain stepped forward and lifted the Bible
over her head. Stop, stop! We feel that God is working among us. A
conversion is near. Help us to pray! God will give us a soul.

They fell on their knees in silent prayer. Some in the hall joined in
the prayer. All felt an intense expectation. Was it true? Was something
great taking place in a fellow-creature’s soul, here, in their midst?
Should it be granted to them to see it? Could it be influenced by these
women?

For the moment the crowd was won. They were now just as eager for a
miracle as lately for blasphemy. No one dared to move. All panted from
excitement, but nothing happened. “O God, Thou forsakest us! Thou
forsakest us, O God!”

The beautiful salvation soldier began to sing. She chose the mildest of
melodies: “Oh, my beloved, wilt Thou not come soon?”

Touching as a praying child, the song entered their souls—like a
caress, like a blessing.

The crowd was silent, wrapped in those notes. “Mountains and forests
long, heaven and earth languish. Man, everything in the world, thirsts
that you shall open your soul to the light. Then glory will spread over
the earth, then the beasts will rise up from their degradation.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

“It is not true that thou dost linger in lofty halls. In the dark wood,
in miserable hovels thou dwellest. And thou wilt not come. My bright
heaven does not tempt thee.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

In the hall more and more began to sing the burden. Voice after voice
joined in. They did not rightly know what words they used. The tune was
enough. All their longing could sing itself free in those tones. They
sang, too, down by the door. Hearts were bursting. Wills were subdued.
It no longer sounded like a pitiful lament, but strong, imperative,
commanding.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

Down by the door, in the worst of the crowd, stood Matts Wik. He looked
much intoxicated, but that evening he had not drunk. He stood and
thought. “If I might speak, if I might speak!”

It was the strangest room he had ever seen, the most wonderful chance.
A voice seemed to say to him: “These are the rushes to which you can
whisper, the waves which will bear your voice.”

The singers started. It was as if they had heard a lion roar in their
ears. A mighty, terrible voice spoke dreadful words.

It scoffed at God. Why did men serve God? He forsook all those who
served him. He had failed his own son. God helped no one.

The voice grew louder, more like a roar every minute. No one could have
believed that human lungs could have such strength. No one had ever
heard such ravings burst from bruised heart. All bent their heads like
wanderers in the desert, when the storm beats on them.

Terrible, terrible words! They were like thundering hammer strokes
against God’s throne. Against Him who had tortured Job, who had let the
martyrs suffer, who let those who professed his faith burn at the
stake.

A few had at first tried to laugh. Some of them had thought that it was
a joke. But now they heard, quaking, that it was in earnest. Already
some rose up to flee to the platform. They asked the protection of the
Salvation Army from him who drew down upon them the wrath of God.

The voice asked them in hissing tones what rewards they expected for
their trouble in serving God. They need not count on heaven. God was
not freehanded with His heaven. A man, he said, had done more good than
was needed to be blessed. He had brought greater offerings than God
demanded. But then he had been tempted to sin. Life is long. He paid
out his hard-earned grace already in this world. He would go the way of
the damned.

The speech was the terrifying north-wind, which drives the ship into
the harbor. While the scoffer spoke, women rushed up to the platform.
The Salvation Army soldiers’ hands were embraced and kissed; they were
scarcely able to receive them all. The boys and the old men praised
God.

He who spoke continued. The words intoxicated him. He said to himself:
“I speak, I speak, at last I speak. I tell them my secret, and yet I do
not tell them.” For the first time since he made the great sacrifice he
was free from care.


It was a Sunday afternoon in the height of the summer. The town looked
like a desert of stones, like a moon landscape. There was not a cat to
be seen, nor a sparrow, hardly a fly on the sunny wall. Not a chimney
smoked. There was not a breath of air in the sultry streets. The whole
was only a stony field, out of which grew stone walls.

Where were the dogs and the people? Where were the young ladies in
narrow skirts and wide sleeves, long gloves and red sunshades? Where
were the soldiers and the fine people, the Salvation Army and the
street boys?

Whither had all those gay picnickers gone in the dewy cool of the
morning, all the baskets and accordions and bottles, which the steamer
landed? And what had happened to the procession of Good Templars?
Banners fluttered, drums thundered, boys swarmed, stamped, and
hurrahed. Or what had happened to the blue awnings under which the
little ones slept while father and mother pushed them solemnly up the
street.

All were on their way out to the wood. They complained of the long
streets. It seemed as if the stone houses followed them. At last, at
last they caught a glimpse of green. And just outside of the town,
where the road wound over flat, moist fields, where the song of the
lark sounded loudest, where the clover steamed with honey, there lay
the first of those left behind; heads in the moss, noses in the grass.
Bodies bathed in sunshine and fragrance, souls refreshed with idleness
and rest.

On the way to the wood toiled bicyclists and bearers of luncheon
baskets. Boys came with trowels and shiny knapsacks. Girls danced in
clouds of dust. Sky and banners and children and trumpets. Mechanics
and their families and crowds of laborers. The rearing horses of an
omnibus waved their forelegs over the crowd. A young man, half drunk,
jumped up on the wheel. He was pulled down, and lay kicking on his back
in the dust of the road.

In the wood a nightingale trilled and sang, piped and gurgled. The
birches were not thriving, their trunks were black. The beeches built
high temples, layer upon layer of streaky green. A toad sat and took
aim with its tongue. It caught a fly at every shot. A hedgehog trotted
about in the dried, rustling beech leaves. Dragonflies darted about
with glittering wings. The people sat down around the luncheon-baskets.
The piping, chirping crickets tried to make their Sunday a glad one.

Suddenly the hedgehog disappeared, terrified he rolled himself up in
his prickles. The crickets crept into the grass, quite silenced. The
nightingale sang as if its throat would burst. It was guitars, guitars.
The Salvation Army marched forward under the beeches. The people
started up from their rest under the trees. The dancing-green and
croquet-ground were deserted. The swings and merry-go-rounds had an
hour’s rest. Everybody followed to the Salvation Army’s camp. The
benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed
strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation
Army hat. Many a strong man wore the red shirt. There was peace and
order in the crowd. Bad words did not venture to pass the lips. Oaths
rumbled harmlessly behind teeth. And Matts Wik, the shoemaker, the
terrible blasphemer, stood now as standard-bearer by the platform. He,
too, was one of the believers. The red flag caressed his gray head.

The Salvation Army soldiers had not forgotten the old man. They had him
to thank for their first victory. They had come to him in his
loneliness. They washed his floor and mended his clothes. They did not
refuse to associate with him. And at their meetings he was allowed to
speak.

Ever since he had broken his silence he was happy. He stood no longer
as an enemy of God. There was a raging power in him. He was happy when
he could let it out. When souls were shaken by his lion voice, he was
happy.

He spoke always of himself. He always told his own story. He described
the fate of the misjudged. He spoke of sacrifices of life itself, made
without a hope of reward, without acknowledgment. He disguised what he
related. He told his secret and yet did not tell it.

He became a poet. He had the power of winning hearts. For his sake
crowds gathered in front of the Salvation Army platform. He drew them
by the fantastic images which filled his diseased brain. He captivated
them with the words of affecting lament, which the oppression of his
heart had taught him.

Perhaps his spirit in days of old had visited this world of death and
change. Perhaps he had then been a mighty skald, skilful in playing on
heartstrings. But for some evil deed he had been condemned to begin
again his earthly life, to live by the work of his hands, without the
knowledge of the strength of his spirit. But now his grief had broken
his spirit’s chains. His soul was a newly released bird. Timid and
confused, but still rejoicing in its freedom, it flew onward over the
old battlefields.

The wild, ignorant singer, the black thrush, which had grown among
starlings, listened diffidently to the words which came to his lips.
Where did he get the power to compel the crowd to listen in ecstasy to
his speech? Where did he get the power to force proud men down upon
their knees, wringing their hands? He trembled before he began to
speak. Then a quiet confidence came over him. From the inexhaustible
depths of his suffering rose ever torrents of agonized words.

Those speeches were never printed. They were hunting-cries, ringing
trumpet-notes, rousing, animating, terrifying, urgent; not to capture,
not to give again. They were lightning flashes and rolling thunder.
They shook hearts with terrible alarms. But they were transient, never
could they be caught. The cataract can be measured to its last drop,
the dizzy play of foam can be painted, but not the elusive, delirious,
swift, growing, mighty stream of those speeches.

That day in the wood he asked the gathering if they knew how they
should serve God?—as Uria served his king.

Then he, the man in the pulpit, became Uria. He rode through the desert
with the letter of his king. He was alone. The solitude terrified him.
His thoughts were gloomy. But he smiled when he thought of his wife.
The desert became a flowering meadow when he remembered his wife.
Springs gushed up from the ground at the thought of her.

His camel fell. His soul was filled with forebodings of evil.
Misfortune, he thought, is a vulture, which loves the desert. He did
not turn, but went onward with the king’s letter. He trod upon thorns.
He walked among serpents and scorpions. He thirsted and hungered. He
saw caravans drag their dark length through the sands. He did not join
them. He dared not seek strangers. He, who bears a royal letter, must
go alone. He saw at eventide the white tents of shepherds. He was
tempted, as if by his wife’s smiling dwelling. He thought he saw white
veils waving to him. He turned away from the tents out into solitude.
Woe to him if they had stolen the letter of his king!

He hesitates when he sees searching brigands pursuing him. He thinks of
the king’s letter. He reads it in order to then destroy it. He reads
it, and finds new courage. Stand up, warrior of Judah! He does not
destroy the letter. He does not give himself up to the robbers. He
fights and conquers. And so onward, onward! He bears his sentence of
death through a thousand dangers. …

It is so God’s will shall be obeyed through tortures unto death. …

While Wik spoke, his divorced wife stood and listened to him. She had
gone out to the wood that morning, beaming and contented on her
husband’s arm, most matron-like, respectable in every fold. Her
daughter and the apprentice carried the luncheon basket. The maid
followed with the youngest child. There had been nothing but content,
happiness, calm.

There they had lain in a thicket. They had eaten and drunk, played and
laughed. Never a thought of the past! Conscience was as silent as a
satisfied child. In the beginning, when her first husband had slunk
half drunk by her window, she had felt a prick in her soul.

Then she had heard that he had become the idol of the Salvation Army.
She was, therefore, quite calm. Now she had come to hear him. And she
understood him. He was not speaking of Uria; he was telling about
himself. He was writhing at the thought of his own sacrifice. He tore
bits from his own heart and threw them out among the people. She knew
that rider in the desert, that conqueror of brigands. And that
unappeased agony stared at her like an open grave. …

Night came. The wood was deserted. Farewell, grass and flowers! Wide
heaven, a long farewell! Snakes began to crawl about the tufts of
grass. Turtles crept along the paths. The wood was ugly. Everybody
longed to be back in the stone desert, the moon landscape. That is the
place for men.


Dame Anna Erikson invited all her old friends. The mechanics’ wives
from the suburbs and the poorer scrub-women came to her for a cup of
coffee. The same were there who had been with her on the day of her
desertion. One was new, Maria Anderson, the captain of the Salvation
Army.

Anna Erikson had now been many times to the Salvation Army. She had
heard her husband. He always told about himself. He disguised his
story. She recognized it always. He was Abraham. He was Job. He was
Jeremiah, whom the people threw into a well. He was Elisha, whom the
children at the wayside reviled.

That pain seemed bottomless to her. His sorrow seemed to her to borrow
all voices, to make itself masks of everything it met. She did not
understand that her husband talked himself well, that pleasure in his
power of fancy played and smiled in him.

She had dragged her daughter with her. The daughter had not wished to
go. She was serious, modest, and conscientious. Nothing of youth played
in her veins. She was born old.

She had grown up in shame of her father. She walked upright, austere,
as if saying: “Look, the daughter of a man who is despised! Look if my
dress is soiled! Is there anything to blame in my conduct?” Her mother
was proud of her. Yet sometimes she sighed. “Alas! if my daughter’s
hands were less white, perhaps her caresses would be warmer!”

The girl sat scornfully smiling. She despised theatricals. When her
father rose up to speak, she wished to go. Her mother’s hand seized
hers, fast as a vice. The girl sat still. The torrent of words began to
roar over her. But that which spoke to her was not so much the words as
her mother’s hand.

That hand writhed, convulsions passed through it. It lay in hers limp,
as if dead; it caught wildly about, hot with fever. Her mother’s face
betrayed nothing; only her hand suffered and struggled.

The old speaker described the martyrdom of silence. The friend of Jesus
lay ill. His sisters sent a message to him; but his time had not come.
For the sake of God’s kingdom Lazarus must die.

He now let all doubting, all slander be heaped upon Christ. He
described his suffering. His own compassion tortured him. He passed
through the agony of death, he as well as Lazarus. Still he had to keep
silence.

Only one word had he needed to say to win back the respect of his
friends. He was silent. He had to hear the lamentations of the sisters.
He told them the truth in words which they did not understand. Enemies
mocked at him.

And so on always more and more affecting.

Anna Erikson’s hand still lay in that of her daughter. It confessed and
acknowledged: “The man there bears the martyr’s crown of silence. He is
wrongly accused. With a word he could set himself free.”

The girl followed her mother home. They went in silence. The girl’s
face was like stone. She was pondering, searching for everything which
memory could tell her. Her mother looked anxiously at her. What did she
know?

The next day Anna Erikson had her coffee party. The talk turned on the
day’s market, on the price of wooden shoes, on pilfering maids. The
women chatted and laughed. They poured their coffee into the saucer.
They were mild and unconcerned. Anna Erikson could not understand why
she had been afraid of them, why she had always believed that they
would judge her.

When they were provided with their second cup, when they sat delighted
with the coffee trembling on the edge of their cups, and their saucers
were filled with bread, she began to speak. Her words were a little
solemn, but her voice was calm.

“Young people are imprudent. A girl who marries without thinking
seriously of what she is doing can come to great grief. Who has met
with worse than I?”

They all knew it. They had been with her and had mourned with her.

“Young people are imprudent. One holds one’s tongue when one ought to
speak, for shame’s sake. One dares not to speak for fear of what people
will say. He who has not spoken at the right time may have to repent it
a whole lifetime.”

They all believed that this was true.

She had heard Wik yesterday as well as many times before. Now she must
tell them all something about him. An aching pain came over her when
she thought of what he had suffered for her sake. Still she thought
that he, who had been old, ought to have had more sense than to take
her, a young girl, for his wife.

“I did not dare to say it in my youth. But he went away from me out of
pity, for he thought that I wanted to have Erikson. I have his letter
about it.”

She read the letter aloud for them. A tear glided demurely down her
cheek.

“He had seen falsely in his jealousy. Between Erikson and me there was
nothing then. It was four years before we were married; but I will say
it now, for Wik is too good to be misjudged. He did not run away from
wife and child from light motives, but with good intention. I want this
to be known everywhere. Captain Anderson will perhaps read the letter
aloud at the meeting. I wish Wik to be redressed. I know, too, that I
have been silent too long, but one does not like to give up everything
for a drunkard. Now it is another matter.”

The women sat as if turned to stone. Anna Erikson, her voice trembling
a little, said with a faint smile,—

“Now perhaps you will never care to come to see me again?”

“Oh, yes indeed! You were so young! It was nothing which you could
help.—It was his fault for having such ideas.”

She smiled. These were the hard beaks which would have torn her to
pieces. The truth was not dangerous nor lying either. The young men
were not waiting outside her door.

Did she know or did she not know that her eldest daughter had that very
morning left her home and had gone to her father?


The sacrifice which Matts Wik had made to save his wife’s honor became
known. He was admired; he was derided. His letter was read aloud at the
meeting. Some of those present wept with emotion. People came and
pressed his hands on the street. His daughter moved to his house.

For several evenings after he was silent at the meetings. He felt no
inspiration. At last they asked him to speak. He mounted the platform,
folded his hands together and began.

When he had said a couple of words he stopped, confused. He did not
recognize his own voice. Where was the lion’s roar? Where the raging
north wind? And where the torrent of words? He did not understand,
could not understand.

He staggered back. “I cannot,” he muttered. “God gives me no strength
to speak yet.” He sat down on a bench and buried his head in his hands.
He gathered all his powers of thought to discover first what he wanted
to talk about. Did he have to consider so in the old days? Could he
consider now? His head whirled.

Perhaps it would go if he should stand up again, place himself where he
was accustomed to stand, and begin with his usual prayer. He tried. His
face turned ashy-gray. All glances were turned towards him. A cold
sweat trickled down his forehead. He found not a word on his lips.

He sat down in his place and wept, moaning heavily. The gift was taken
from him. He tried to speak, tried silently to himself. What should he
talk about. His sorrow was taken from him. He had nothing to say to
people which he was not allowed to tell them. He had no secret to
disguise. He did not need to romance. Romance left him.

It was the agony of death; it was a struggle for life. He wished to
hold fast that which was already gone. He wished to have his grief
again in order to be able again to speak. His grief was gone; he could
not get it back.

He staggered forward like a drunken man to the platform again and
again. He stammered out a few meaningless words. He repeated like a
lesson learned by heart what he had heard others say. He tried to
imitate himself. He looked for devotion in the glances, for trembling
silence, quickening breaths. He perceived nothing. That which had been
his joy was taken from him.

He sank back into the darkness. He cursed, that he by his discourse had
converted his wife and daughter. He had possessed the most precious of
gifts and lost it. His pain was extreme.—But it is not by such grief
that genius lives.

He was a painter without hands, a singer who had lost his voice. He had
only spoken of his sorrow. What should he speak of now?

He prayed: “O God, when honor is dumb, and misjudgment speaks, give me
back misjudgment! When happiness is dumb, but sorrow speaks, give me
back sorrow!”

But the crown was taken from him. He sat there, more miserable than the
most miserable, for he had been cast down from the heights of life. He
was a fallen king.




A CHRISTMAS GUEST


One of those who had lived the life of a pensioner at Ekeby was little
Ruster, who could transpose music and play the flute. He was of low
origin and poor, without home and without relations. Hard times came to
him when the company of pensioners were dispersed.

He then had no horse nor carriole, no fur coat nor red-painted
luncheon-basket. He had to go on foot from house to house and carry his
belongings tied in a blue striped cotton handkerchief. He buttoned his
coat all the way up to his chin, so that no one should need to know in
what condition his shirt and waistcoat were, and in its deep pockets he
kept his most precious possessions: his flute taken to pieces, his flat
brandy bottle and his music-pen.

His profession was to copy music, and if it bad been as in the old
days, there would have been no lack of work for him. But with every
passing year music was less practised in Värmland. The guitar, with its
mouldy, silken ribbon and its worn screws, and the dented horn, with
faded tassels and cord were put away in the lumber-room in the attic,
and the dust settled inches deep on the long, iron-bound violin boxes.
Yet the less little Ruster had to do with flute and music-pen, so much
the more must he turn to the brandy flask, and at last he became quite
a drunkard. It was a great pity.

He was still received at the manor-houses as an old friend, but there
were complaints when he came and joy when he went. There was an odor of
dirt and brandy about him, and if he had only a couple of glasses of
wine or one toddy, he grew confused and told unpleasant stories. He was
the torment of the hospitable houses.

One Christmas he came to Löfdala, where Liljekrona, the great
violinist, had his home. Liljekrona had also been one of the pensioners
of Ekeby, but after the death of the major’s wife, he returned to his
quiet farm and remained there. Ruster came to him a few days before
Christmas, in the midst of all the preparations, and asked for work.
Liljekrona gave him a little copying to keep him busy.

“You ought to have let him go immediately,” said his wife; “now he will
certainly take so long with that that we will be obliged to keep him
over Christmas.”

“He must be somewhere,” answered Liljekrona.

And he offered Ruster toddy and brandy, sat with him, and lived over
again with him the whole Ekeby time. But he was out of spirits and
disgusted by him, like every one else, although he would not let it be
seen, for old friendship and hospitality were sacred to him.

In Liljekrona’s house for three weeks now they had been preparing to
receive Christmas. They had been living in discomfort and bustle, had
sat up with dip-lights and torches till their eyes grew red, had been
frozen in the out-house with the salting of meat and in the brew-house
with the brewing of the beer. But both the mistress and the servants
gave themselves up to it all without grumbling.

When all the preparations were done and the holy evening come, a sweet
enchantment would sink down over them. Christmas would loosen all
tongues, so that jokes and jests, rhymes and merriment would flow of
themselves without effort. Every one’s feet would wish to twirl in the
dance, and from memory’s dark corners words and melodies would rise,
although no one could believe that they were there. And then every one
was so good, so good!

Now when Ruster came the whole household at Löfdala thought that
Christmas was spoiled. The mistress and the older children and the old
servants were all of the same opinion. Ruster caused them a suffocating
disgust. They were moreover afraid that when he and Liljekrona began to
rake up the old memories, the artist’s blood would flame up in the
great violinist and his home would lose him. Formerly he had not been
able to remain long sit home.

No one can describe how they loved their master on the farm, since they
had had him with them a couple of years. And what he had to give! How
much he was to his home, especially at Christmas! He did not take his
place on any sofa or rocking-stool, but on a high, narrow wooden bench
in the corner of the fireplace. When he was settled there he started
off on adventures. He travelled about the earth, climbed up to the
stars, and even higher. He played and talked by turns, and the whole
household gathered about him and listened. Life grew proud and
beautiful when the richness of that one soul shone on it.

Therefore they loved him as they loved Christmas time, pleasure, the
spring sun. And when little Ruster came, their Christmas peace was
destroyed. They had worked in vain if he was coming to tempt away their
master. It was unjust that the drunkard should sit at the Christmas
table in a happy house and spoil the Christmas pleasure.

On the forenoon of Christmas Eve little Ruster had his music written
out, and he said something about going, although of course he meant to
stay.

Liljekrona had been influenced by the general feeling, and therefore
said quite lukewarmly and indifferently that Ruster had better stay
where he was over Christmas.

Little Ruster was inflammable and proud. He twirled his moustache and
shook back the black artist’s hair that stood like a dark cloud over
his head. What did Liljekrona mean? Should he stay because he had
nowhere else to go? Oh, only think how they stood and waited for him in
the big ironworks in the parish of Bro! The guest-room was in order,
the glass of welcome filled. He was in great haste. He only did not
know to which he ought to go first.

“Very well,” answered Liljekrona, “you may go if you will.”

After dinner little Ruster borrowed horse and sleigh, coat and furs.
The stable-boy from Löfdala was to take him to some place in Bro and
drive quickly back, for it threatened snow.

No one believed that he was expected, or that there was a single place
in the neighborhood where he was welcome. But they were so anxious to
be rid of him that they put the thought aside and let him depart. “He
wished it himself,” they said; and then they thought that now they
would be glad.

But when they gathered in the dining room at five o’clock to drink tea
and to dance round the Christmas-tree, Liljekrona was silent and out of
spirits. He did not seat himself on the bench; he touched neither tea
nor punch; he could not remember any polka; the violin was out of
order. Those who could play and dance had to do it without him.

Then his wife grew uneasy; the children were discontented, everything
in the house went wrong. It was the most lamentable Christmas Eve.

The porridge turned sour; the candles sputtered; the wood smoked; the
wind stirred up the snow and blew bitter cold into the rooms. The
stable-boy who had driven Ruster did not come home. The cook wept; the
maids scolded.

Finally Liljekrona remembered that no sheaves had been put out for the
sparrows, and he complained aloud of all the women about him who
abandoned old customs and were new-fangled and heartless. They
understood well enough that what tormented him was remorse that he had
let little Ruster go away from his home on Christmas Eve.

After a while he went to his room, shut the door and began to play as
he had not played since he had ceased roaming. It was full of hate and
scorn, full of longing and revolt. You thought to bind me, but you must
forge new fetters. You thought to make me as small-minded as
yourselves, but I turn to larger things, to the open. Commonplace
people, slaves of the home, hold me prisoner if it is in your power!

When his wife heard the music, she said: “Tomorrow he is gone, if God
does not work a miracle in the night. Our inhospitableness has brought
on just what we thought we could avoid.”

In the meantime little Ruster drove about in the snowstorm. He went
from one house to the other and asked if there was any work for him to
do, but he was not received anywhere. They did not even ask him to get
out of the sledge. Some had their houses full of guests, others were
going away on Christmas Day. “Drive to the next neighbor,” they all
said.

He could come and spoil the pleasure of an ordinary day, but not of
Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve came but once a year, and the children had
been rejoicing in the thought of it all the autumn. They could not put
that man at a table where there were children. Formerly they had been
glad to see him, but not since he had become a drunkard. Where should
they put the fellow, moreover? The servants’ room was too plain and the
guest-room too fine.

So little Ruster had to drive from house to house in the blinding snow.
His wet moustache hung limply down over his mouth; his eyes were
bloodshot and blurred, but the brandy was blown out of his brain. He
began to wonder and to be amazed. Was it possible, was it possible that
no one wished to receive him?

Then all at once he saw himself. He saw how miserable and degraded he
was, and he understood that he was odious to people. “It is the end of
me,” he thought. “No more copying of music, no more flute-playing. No
one on earth needs me; no one has compassion on me.”

The storm whirled and played, tore apart the drifts and piled them up
again, took a pillar of snow in its arms and danced out into the plain,
lifted one flake up to the clouds and chased another down into a ditch.
“It is so, it is so,” said little Ruster; “while one dances and whirls
it is play, but when one must be buried in the drift and forgotten, it
is sorrow and grief.” But down they all have to go, and now it was his
turn. To think that he had now come to the end!

He no longer asked where the man was driving him; he thought that he
was driving in the land of death.

Little Ruster made no offerings to the gods that night. He did not
curse flute-playing or the life of a pensioner; he did not think that
it had been better for him if he had ploughed the earth or sewn shoes.
But he mourned that he was now a worn-out instrument, which pleasure
could no longer use. He complained of no one, for he knew that when the
horn is cracked and the guitar will not stay in tune, they must go. He
became all at once a very humble man. He understood that it was the end
of him, on this Christmas Eve. Hunger and cold would destroy him, for
he understood nothing, was good for nothing and had no friends.

The sledge stops, and suddenly it is light about him, and he hears
friendly voices, and there is some one who is helping him into a warm
room, and some one who is pouring warm tea into him. His coat is pulled
off him, and several people cry that he is welcome, and warm hands rub
life into his benumbed fingers.

He was so confused by it all that he did not come to his senses for
nearly a quarter of an hour. He could not possibly comprehend that he
had come back to Löfdala. He had not been at all conscious that the
stable-boy had grown tired of driving about in the storm and had turned
home.

Nor did he understand why he was now so well received in Liljekrona’s
house. He could not know that Liljekrona’s wife understood what a weary
journey he had made that Christmas Eve, when he had been turned away
from every door where he had knocked. She felt such compassion on him
that she forgot her own troubles.

Liljekrona went on with the wild playing up in his room; he did not
know that Ruster had come. The latter sat meanwhile in the dining-room
with the wife and the children. The servants, who used also to be there
on Christmas Eve, had moved out into the kitchen away from their
mistress’s trouble.

The mistress of the house lost no time in setting Ruster to work. “You
hear, I suppose,” she said, “that Liljekrona does nothing but play all
the evening, and I must attend to setting the table and the food. The
children are quite forsaken. You must look after these two smallest.”

Children were the kind of people with whom little Ruster had had least
intercourse. He had met them neither in the bachelor’s wing nor in the
campaign tent, neither in wayside inns nor on the highways. He was
almost shy of them, and did not know what he ought to say that was fine
enough for them.

He took out his flute and taught them how to finger the stops and
holes. There was one of four years and one of six. They had a lesson on
the flute and were deeply interested in it. “This is A,” he said, “and
this is C,” and then he blew the notes. Then the young people wished to
know what kind of an A and C it was that was to be played.

Ruster took out his score and made a few notes.

“No,” they said, “that is not right.” And they ran away for an A B C
book.

Little Ruster began to hear their alphabet. They knew it and they did
not know it. What they knew was not very much. Ruster grew eager; he
lifted the little boys up, each on one of his knees, and began to teach
them. Liljekrona’s wife went out and in and listened quite in
amazement. It sounded like a game, and the children were laughing the
whole time, but they learned.

Ruster kept on for a while, but he was absent from what he was doing.
He was turning over the old thoughts from out in the storm. It was good
and pleasant, but nevertheless it was the end of him. He was worn .out.
He ought to be thrown away. And all of a sudden he put his hands before
his face and began to weep.

Liljekrona’s wife came quickly up to him.

“Ruster,” she said, “I can understand that you think that all is over
for you. You cannot make a living with your music, and you are
destroying yourself with brandy. But it is not the end, Ruster.”

“Yes,” sobbed the little flute-player.

“Do you see that to sit as to-night with the children, that would be
something for you? If you would teach children to read and write, you
would be welcomed everywhere. That is no less important an instrument
on which to play, Ruster, than flute and violin. Look at them, Ruster!”

She placed the two children in front of him, and he looked up, blinking
as if he had looked at the sun. It seemed as if his little, blurred
eyes could not meet those of the children, which were big, clear and
innocent.

“Look at them, Ruster!” repeated Liljekrona’s wife.

“I dare not,” said Ruster, for it was like a purgatory to look through
the beautiful child eyes to the unspotted beauty of their souls.

Liljekrona’s wife laughed loud and joyously. “Then you must accustom
yourself to them, Ruster. You can stay in my house as schoolmaster this
year.”

Liljekrona heard his wife laugh and came out of his room.

“What is it?” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she answered, “but that Ruster has come again, and that I
have engaged him as schoolmaster for our little boys.”

Liljekrona was quite amazed. “Do you dare?” he said, “do you dare? Has
he promised to give up—”

“No,” said the wife; “Ruster has promised nothing. But there is much
about which he must be careful when he has to look little children in
the eyes every day. If it had not been Christmas, perhaps I would not
have ventured; but when our Lord dared to place a little child who was
his own son among us sinners, so can I also dare to let my little
children try to save a human soul.”

Liljekrona could not speak, but every feature and wrinkle in his face
twitched and twisted as always when he heard anything noble.

Then he kissed his wife’s hand as gently as a child who asks for
forgiveness and cried aloud: “All the children must come and kiss their
mother’s hand.”

They did so, and then they had a happy Christmas in Liljekrona’s house.




UNCLE REUBEN


There was once, nearly eighty years ago, a little boy who went out into
the market-place to spin his top. The little boy’s name was Reuben. He
was not more than three years old, but he swung his little whip as
bravely as anybody and made the top spin so that it was a pleasure to
see it.

On that day, eighty years ago, it was beautiful spring weather. It was
in the month of March, and the town was divided into two worlds; one
white and warm, where the sun shone, and one cold and dark, where it
was in shadow. The whole market-place was in the sun except a narrow
edge along one row of houses.

Now it happened that the little boy, brave as he was, grew tired of
spinning his top and looked about for some place to rest. It was not
hard to find. There were no benches or seats, but every house was
supplied with stone steps. Little Reuben could not imagine anything
better.

He was a conscientious little fellow. He had a vague feeling that his
mother did not like to have him sit on strange people’s steps. His
mother was poor, but just on that account it must never look as if they
wanted to take anything of anybody. So he went and sat on their own
stone steps, for they also lived on the market-place.

The steps lay in the shadow, and it was very cold there. The little
fellow leaned his head against the railing, drew up his legs and made
himself comfortable. For a little while he watched the sunlight dance
out in the market-place and the boys running and spinning tops—then he
shut his eyes and went to sleep.

He must have slept an hour. When he awoke he did not feel so well as
when he fell asleep; everything felt so dreadfully uncomfortable. He
went in to his mother crying, and his mother saw that he was ill and
put him to bed. And in a couple of days the boy was dead.

But that is not the end of his story. It happened that his mother
mourned for him from the depths of her heart with a sorrow which defies
years and death. His mother had several other children, many cares
occupied her time and thoughts, but there was always a corner in her
heart where her son Reuben dwelt undisturbed. He was ever alive to her.
When she saw a group of children playing in the market-place, he too
was running there, and when she went about her house, she believed
fully and firmly that the little boy was still sitting and sleeping out
on those dangerous stone steps. Certainly none of her living children
were so constantly in her thoughts as her dead one.

Some years after his death little Reuben had a sister, and when she
grew to be old enough to run out on the market-place and spin tops, it
happened that she too sat down on the stone steps to rest. But her
mother felt instantly as if some one had pulled her skirt. She came out
and seized the little sister so roughly, when she lifted her up, that
she remembered it as long as she lived.

And as little did she forget how strange her mother’s face was and how
her voice trembled, when she said: “Do you know that you once had a
little brother, whose name was Reuben, and he died because he sat on
these stone steps and caught cold? You do not want to die and leave
your mother, Berta?”

Brother Reuben soon became just as living to his brothers and sisters
as to his mother. She was able to make them see with her eyes and they
too soon saw him sitting out on the stone steps. And it naturally never
occurred to them to sit down there. Yes, whenever they saw any one
sitting on stone steps, or on a stone railing, or on a stone by the
roadside, they felt a prick in their heart and thought of Brother
Reuben.

Besides, Brother Reuben was always placed highest of all the children
when they spoke of him among themselves. For they all knew that they
were a troublesome and fatiguing family, who only gave their mother
care and inconvenience. They could not believe that she would grieve
much at losing any of them. But as she really mourned for Brother
Reuben, it was certain that he must have been much better than they
were.

They would often think: “Oh, if we could only give mother as much joy
as Brother Reuben!” And yet no one knew anything more about him than
that he had played top and caught cold on the stone steps. But he must
have been something wonderful, as their mother had such a love for him.

He was wonderful too; he was more of a joy to his mother than any of
the children. Her husband died and she worked in care and want. But the
children had so strong a faith in their mother’s grief for the little
three-year-old boy, that they were convinced that if he had lived she
would not have mourned over her misfortunes. And every time they saw
their mother weep, they thought that it was because Brother Reuben was
dead, or because they were not like Brother Reuben. Soon enough an
ever-growing desire was born in them to rival their little dead brother
in their mother’s affection. There was nothing that they would not have
done for her, if she had only cared as much for them as for him. And it
was on account of that longing, I think, that Brother Reuben did more
good than any of the other children.

Fancy that when the eldest brother had earned his first money by rowing
a stranger over the river, he came and gave it to his mother without
reserving a penny! Then his mother looked so happy that he swelled with
pride, and could not help betraying how ambitious beyond measure he had
been.

“Mother, am I not now as good as Brother Reuben?” His mother looked at
him questioningly. She seemed as if she was comparing his fresh,
glowing face with the little pale boy out on the stone steps. And she
would have liked to have answered yes, if she had been able, but she
could not.

“I am very fond of you, Ivan, but you will never be like Reuben.”

It was beyond their powers; all the children realized it, and yet they
could not help trying.

They grew up strong and capable; they worked their way up to wealth and
consideration, while Brother Reuben only sat still on his stone steps.
But he still had a start; he could not be overtaken.

And at every success, every improvement, as they by degrees were able
to offer their mother a good home and comfort, it had to be reward
enough for them for their mother to say: “Ah, if my little Reuben could
have seen that!”

Brother Reuben followed his mother through the whole of her life, even
to her deathbed. It was he who robbed the death pangs of their sting,
since she knew that they bore her to him. In the midst of her greatest
suffering the mother could smile at the thought that she was going to
meet little Reuben.

And so died one whose faithful love had exalted and deified a poor
little three-year-old boy.

But neither was that the end of little Reuben’s story. To all the
brothers and sisters he had become a symbol of their life of endeavor,
of their love for their mother, of all the touching memories from the
years of struggle and failure. There was always something rich and warm
in their voices when they spoke of him.

So he also glided into the lives of the children of his brothers and
sisters. His mother’s love had raised him to greatness, and the great
influence generation after generation.

Sister Berta had a son, who had much to do with Uncle Reuben.

He was four years old the day he sat on the curbstone and stared down
into the gutter. It was full of rain water. Sticks and straws were
carried past in wild swirlings down to the sea. The little boy sat and
looked on with that pleasant calm that people feel in following the
adventurous existence of others, when they themselves are in safety.

But his peaceful philosophizing was interrupted by his mother, who, the
moment she saw him, thought of the stone steps at home and of her
brother.

“Oh, my dear little boy,” she said, “do not sit there! Do you know that
your mamma had a little brother whose name was Reuben, and he was four
years old just like you? He died because he sat on just such a
curbstone and caught cold.”

The little boy did not like being disturbed in his pleasant thoughts.
He sat still and philosophized, while his yellow, curly hair fell down
into his eyes.

Berta would not have done it for any one else, but for her dear
brother’s sake she shook her little boy quite roughly. And so he
learned respect for Uncle Reuben.

Another time this little yellow-haired man had fallen on the ice; he
had been thrown down out of sheer spite by a big, naughty boy, and
there he sat and cried to show how badly he had been treated,
especially as his mother could not be very far off.

But he had forgotten that his mother was first and last Uncle Reuben’s
sister. When she caught sight of Axel sitting on the ice, she did not
come with anything soothing or consoling, but only with that
everlasting:

“Do not sit so, my little boy! Think of Uncle Reuben, who died when he
was five years old, just as you are now, because he sat down in a
snowdrift.”

The boy stood up instantly when he heard her speak of Uncle Reuben, but
he felt a chill in his very heart. How could mamma talk about Uncle
Reuben when her little boy was in such distress! Axel had no objection
to his sitting and dying wherever he pleased, but now it seemed as if
he wished to take his own mamma away from him, and that Axel could not
bear. So he learned to hate Uncle Reuben.

High up on the stairway in Axel’s home was a stone railing, which was
dizzily beautiful to sit on. Far below lay the stone floor of the hall,
and he who sat astride up there could dream that he was being borne
along over abysses. Axel called the balustrade the good steed Grane. On
his back he bounded over burning ramparts into an enchanted castle.
There he sat proud and bold with his long curls waving, and fought
Saint George’s fight with the dragon. And as yet it had not occurred to
Uncle Reuben to want to ride there.

But of course he came. Just as the dragon was writhing in the agony of
death and Axel sat in lofty consciousness of victory, he heard his
nurse call: “Little Axel, do not sit there! Think of Uncle Reuben, who
died when he was eight years old, just as you are now, because he sat
and rode on a stone railing. You must never sit there again.”

Such a jealous old pudding-head, that Uncle Reuben! He could not bear
it, of course, because Axel was killing dragons and rescuing
princesses. If he did not look out, he, Axel, would show that he could
win glory too. If he should jump down to that stone floor and dash his
brains out, he would feel himself thrown into the shade, that big liar.

Poor Uncle Reuben! The poor, good little boy who went to play top out
in the sunny market-place! Now he was to learn what it was to be a
great man.

It was in the country at Uncle Ivan’s. A number of the cousins had
gathered in the beautiful garden. Axel was there, filled with his
hatred of his Uncle Reuben. He was longing to know if he was tormenting
any other besides himself, but there was something which made him
afraid to ask. It was as if he was going to commit some sacrilege.

At last the children were left to themselves. No big people were
present. Then Axel asked if they had ever heard of Uncle Reuben.

He saw how all the eyes flashed and that many small fists were
clenched, but it seemed as if the little mouths had been taught respect
for Uncle Reuben. “Hush!” said the whole crowd.

“No!” said Axel; “I want to know if there is any one else whom he
tortures, for I think he is the most troublesome of all uncles.”

That one brave word broke the dam which had held in the indignation of
those tormented child-hearts. There was a great murmuring and shouting.
So must a crowd of nihilists look when they revile an autocrat.

The poor, great man’s register of sins was unrolled. Uncle Reuben
persecuted the children of all his brothers and sisters. Uncle Reuben
died wherever he chose. Uncle Reuben was always the same age as the
child whose peace he wished to disturb.

And they had to show respect to him, although he was quite plainly a
liar. They might hate him in the most silent depths of their heart, but
overlook him or show him disrespect, no, then they were stopped.

What an air the old people put on when they spoke of him! Had he ever
really done anything so wonderful? To sit down and die was nothing so
surprising. And whatever great thing he may have done, it was certain
that he was now abusing his power. He opposed the children in
everything that they wanted to do, the old scarecrow. He drove them
from a noonday nap in the grass. He had discovered their best hiding
places in the park and forbidden them to go there. His last performance
was to ride on barebacked horses and to drive in the hay-rigging.

They were all sure that the poor thing had never been more than three
years old. And now he fell upon the big children of fourteen and
insisted that he was their age. It was the most provoking thing.

It was perfectly incredible what came to light about him. He had fished
from the dam; he had rowed in the little flat-bottomed boat; he had
climbed up in the willow which hangs over the water, and in which it
was so nice to sit; yes, he had even slept on the powder-horn.

But they were all certain that there was no escape from his tyranny. It
was a relief to have spoken out, but not a remedy. They could not rebel
against Uncle Reuben.

You never would have believed it, but when these children grew to be
big and had children of their own, they immediately began to make use
of Uncle Reuben, just as their parents had done before them.

And their children again, the young people who are growing up now, have
learned their lesson so well, that it happened one summer out in the
country that a five-year-old boy came up to his old grandmother Berta,
who had sat down on the steps while waiting for the carriage:—

“Grandmother once had a brother whose name was Reuben.”

“You are quite right, my little boy,” grandmother said, and stood up
instantly.

That was as much of a sign to the young people as if they had seen an
old Royalist bow before King Charles’s portrait. It made them
understand that Uncle Reuben always must remain great, however he
abused his position, only because he had been so deeply loved.

In these days, when all greatness is so carefully examined, he has to
be used with greater moderation than formerly. The limit for his age is
lower; trees, boats and powder-horns are safe from him, but nothing of
stone which can be sat upon can escape him.

And the children, the children of the day, treat him quite otherwise
than their parents did. They criticise him openly and frankly. Their
parents no longer understand how to inspire blind, terrified obedience.
Little boarding-school girls discuss Uncle Reuben and wonder if he is
anything but a myth. A six-year-old child proposes that he should prove
by experiment that it is impossible to catch a mortal cold on stone
steps.

But that is only a passing mood. That generation in their heart of
hearts is just as convinced of Uncle Reuben’s greatness as the
preceding one and obey him just as they did. The day will come when
those scoffers will go down to the home of their ancestors, try to find
the old stone steps, and raise on it a tablet with a golden
inscription.

They joke about Uncle Reuben for a few years, but as soon as they are
grown and have children to bring up, they will become convinced of the
use and need of the great man.

“Oh, my little child, do not sit on those stone steps! Your mother’s
mother had an uncle whose name was Reuben. He died when he was your
age, because he sat down to rest on just such steps.”

So will it be as long as the world lasts.




DOWNIE


I

I think I can see them as they drive away. Quite distinctly I can see
his stiff, silk hat with its broad, curving brim, such as they had in
the forties, his light waistcoat and his stock. I also see his
handsome, clean-shaven face with its small, small whiskers, his high
stiff collar, and the graceful dignity of his slightest movement. He is
sitting on the right in the chaise and is just taking up the reins, and
beside him is sitting that little woman. God bless her! I see her even
more distinctly. Like a picture I have before me that narrow, little
face, and the hat that frames it, tied under the chin, the dark-brown,
smoothly combed hair, and the big shawl with the embroidered silk
flowers. The chaise in which they are driving has a seat with a green,
fluted back, and of course the innkeeper’s horse which is to take them
the first six miles is a little fat sorrel.

I lost my heart to her from the very first moment. There is no sense in
it, for she is the most insignificant little person; but I was won by
seeing all the eyes that followed her when she drove away. In the first
place, I see how her father and mother look after her from where they
stand in the doorway of the baker’s shop. Her father even has tears in
his eyes, but her mother has no time to weep yet. She must use her eyes
to look at her daughter as long as the latter can wave and nod to her.
And then of course there are merry greetings from the children in the
little street and roguish glances from all the pretty, little factory
girls from behind windows and doors, and dreamy looks from some of the
young salesmen and apprentices. But all nod good-will and god-speed to
her. And then there are anxious glances from some poor, old women, who
come out and curtsey and take off their spectacles to be able to see
her as she drives by in state. But I cannot see a single unfriendly
look following her; no, not in the whole length of the street.

When she is out of sight, her father wipes the tears from his eyes with
his sleeve.

“Don’t be sad now, mother!” he says. “You will see that she will come
out all right. Downie will manage, mother, even if she is so little.”

“Father,” says the mother with great emphasis, “you speak in a strange
way. Why should Anne-Marie not be able to manage it? She is as good as
anybody.”

“Of course she is, mother; but still, mother, still—I would not be in
her shoes, nor go where she is going. No, that I would not!”

“Well, and what good would that do, you ugly old baker!” says mother,
who sees that he is so uneasy about the girl that he needs to be
cheered with a little joke. And father laughs, for he does that as
easily as he cries. And then the old people go back into their shop.

In the meantime Downie, the little silken flower, is in very good
spirits as she drives along the road. A little afraid of her betrothed,
perhaps; but in her heart Downie is a little afraid of everybody, and
that is a great help to her, for on account of it every one tries to
show her that they are not dangerous.

Never has she had such respect for Maurits as to-day. Now that they
have left the back street, and all her friends are behind them, it
seems to her that Maurits really grows to something big. His hat and
collar and whiskers stiffen, and the bow of his necktie swells. His
voice grows thick in his throat, and he speaks with difficulty. She
feels a little depressed by it, but it is splendid to see Maurits so
impressive.

Maurits is so clever; he has so much advice to give!—it is hard to
believe—but Maurits talks only sense the whole way. But that is just
like Maurits. He asks her if she understands clearly what this journey
means to him. Does she think it is only a pleasure trip along the
country road? Thirty miles in a good chaise with her betrothed by her
side did seem quite like a pleasure trip, and a beautiful place to
drive to, a rich uncle to visit—perhaps she has thought that it was
only for amusement?

Fancy if he knew that she had prepared herself for this journey by a
long conference with her mother before they went to bed; and by a long
succession of anxious dreams through the night, and with prayers, and
with tears! But she pretends to be stupid, in order to get more
enjoyment out of Maurits’s wisdom. He likes to show it, and she is glad
to let him.

“The real trouble is that you are so sweet,” says Maurits; for that was
how he had come to care for her, and it was really very stupid of him.
His father was not at all in favor of it. And his mother! He hardly
dared to think of what a fuss she had made when Maurits had informed
her that he had engaged himself to a poor girl from a back street—a
girl who had no education, no accomplishments, and who was not even
pretty; only sweet.

In Maurits’s eyes, of course, the daughter of a baker was just as good
as the son of a burgomaster, but every one did not have such liberal
views as he. If Maurits had not had his rich uncle, it could never have
come to anything; for he was only a student, and had nothing to marry
on. But if they now could win his uncle over their way was clear.

I see them so plainly as they drive along the road. She looks a little
unhappy as she listens to his wisdom. But she is content in her
thoughts! How sensible Maurits is! And when he speaks of the sacrifices
he is making for her, it is only his way of saying how much he cares
for her.

And if she had expected that alone together on such a beautiful day he
perhaps might be not quite the same as when they sat at home with her
mother—but that would not have been right of Maurits. She is proud of
him.

He is telling her what kind of a man his uncle is. If he will befriend
them their fortune is made. Uncle Theodore is incredibly rich. He owns
eleven smelting-furnaces, and farms and houses besides, and mines and
stocks. To all these Maurits is the proper heir. But Uncle Theodore is
a little uncertain to have to do with when it concerns any one he does
not like. If he is not pleased with Maurits’s wife, he can will away
everything.

The little face grows paler and smaller, but Maurits only stiffens and
swells. There is not much chance of Anne-Marie’s turning his uncle’s
head as she did his. His uncle is quite a different kind of man. His
taste—well, Maurits does not think much of his taste but he thinks that
it would be something loud-voiced, something flashing and red which
would strike Uncle. Besides, he is a confirmed old bachelor—thinks
women are only a bother. The most important thing is that he shall not
dislike her too much. Maurits will take care of the rest. But she must
not be silly. Is she crying—! Oh, if she does not look better by the
time they arrive, Uncle will send them off inside of a minute. She is
glad for their sakes that Uncle is not as clever as Maurits. She hopes
it is no sin against Maurits to think that it is good that Uncle is
quite a different sort of person. For fancy, if Maurits had been Uncle,
and two poor young people had come driving to him to get aid in life;
then Maurits, who is so sensible, would certainly have begged them to
return whence they came, and wait to get married until they had
something to marry on.

Uncle, however, was decidedly terrifying in his own way. He drank, and
gave great parties, where everybody was very lively, and he did not at
all understand how to manage his affairs. He must know that every one
cheated him, but he was none the less cheerful. And heedless!—the
burgomaster had sent by Maurits some shares in an undertaking that was
not prosperous; but Uncle would buy them of him, Maurits had said.
Uncle did not care where he threw his money away. He had stood in town
in the market-place and tossed silver to the street boys. Playing away
a couple of thousand crowns in a single night, or lighting his pipe
with ten-crown notes, were among the things Uncle did.

Thus they drove on, and thus they talked while they were driving.

They arrived toward evening. Uncle’s “residence,” as he called it, did
not stand by the ironworks. It lay far from all smoke and hammering, on
the slope of the mountain, looking over a wide view of lakes and long
hills. It was a stately building, with wooded lawns and groves of
birches round about it, but few cultivated fields, for the place was a
pleasure palace, not a farm.

The young people drove up an avenue lined with birches and elms. Then
they drove between two low, thick rows of hedges and were about to turn
up to the house.

But just where the road turned, a triumphal arch was raised, and there
stood Uncle with his dependents to greet them. Downie never could have
believed that Maurits would have prepared such a reception for her. Her
heart grew light, and she seized his hand and pressed it in gratitude.
More she could not do then, for they were just under the arch.

And there he stood, the well-known man, the ironmaster, Theodore
Fristeat, big and black-bearded, and beaming with good-will. He waved
his hat and shouted hurrah, and all the people shouted hurrah, and
tears rose in Anne-Marie’s eyes, although she was smiling. And of
course they all had to like her from the very first moment, if only for
her way of looking at Maurits. For she thought that they were all there
for his sake, and she had to turn her eyes away from the whole
spectacle to look at him, as he took off his hat with a sweep and bowed
so beautifully and royally. Oh, such a look as she gave him! Uncle
Theodore almost left off hurrahing and felt like swearing when he saw
it.

No, she wished no harm to any one on earth, but if the estate really
had been Maurits’s, it would have been very suitable. It was most
impressive to see him, as he stood on the steps of the porch and turned
to the people to thank them. The ironmaster was stately too, but what
was his manner compared to Maurits’s. He only helped her down from the
carriage, and took her shawl and hat like a footman, while Maurits
lifted his hat from his white brow and said: “Thank you, my children!”
No, the ironmaster certainly had no manners; for as he profited by his
rights as an uncle and took her in his arms, he noticed that she
managed to look at Maurits while he was kissing her, and he swore,
really swore quite fiercely. Downie was not accustomed to find any one
disagreeable, but it certainly would be no easy task to please Uncle
Theodore.

“To-morrow,” says uncle, “there will be a big dinner here, and a ball,
but to-day you young people must rest after your journey. Now we will
eat our supper, and then we will go to bed.”

They are escorted into a drawing-room, and there they are left alone.
The ironmaster rushes out like a wind which is afraid of being shut in.
Five minutes later he is rolling down the avenue in his big carriage,
and the coachman is driving so that the horses seem to be lying along
the ground. After another five minutes uncle is there again, and now an
old lady is sitting beside him in the carriage.

And in he comes, with a kind, talkative old lady on his arm. And she
takes Anne-Marie and embraces her, but Maurits she greets more stiffly.
No one can take any liberties with Maurits.

However, Anne-Marie is very glad that this pleasant old lady has come.
She and the ironmaster have such a merry way of joking with one
another.

But when they have said good-night and Anne-Marie has come into her
little room, something too tiresome and provoking happens.

Uncle and Maurits are walking in the garden, and she knows that Maurits
is unfolding his plans for the future. Uncle does not seem to be saying
anything at all; he is only walking and striking the blades of grass
with his stick. But Maurits will persuade him fast enough that the best
thing for him to do is to give Maurits a position as manager of one of
his steel-works, if he does not care to give him the works outright.
Maurits has grown so practical since he has been in love. He often
says: “Is it not best for me, who am to be a great landowner, to make
myself familiar with it all? What is the use of taking my bar
examinations?”

They are walking directly under the window and nothing prevents them
from seeing that she is sitting there; but as they do not mind it, no
one can ask that she shall not hear what they are saying. It is really
just as much her affair as it is Maurits’s.

Then Uncle Theodore suddenly stops and he looks angry. He looks quite
furious, she thinks, and she almost calls to Maurits to take care. But
it is too late, for Uncle Theodore has seized Maurits, crushed his
ruffle, and is shaking him till he twists like an eel. Then he slings
him from him with such force that Maurits staggers backwards and would
have fallen if he had not found support in a tree trunk. And there
Maurits stands and gasps “What?” Yes, what else should he say?

Ah, never has she admired Maurits’s self-control so much! He does not
throw himself upon Uncle Theodore and fight him. He only looks calmly
superior, merely innocently surprised. She understands that he controls
himself so that the journey may not be for nothing. He is thinking of
her, and is controlling himself.

Poor Maurits! it seems that his uncle is angry with him on her account.
He asks if Maurits does not know that his uncle is a bachelor when he
brings his betrothed here without bringing her mother with him. Her
mother! Downie is offended in Maurits’s behalf. It was her mother who
had excused herself and said that she could not leave the bakery.
Maurits answers so too, but his uncle will accept no excuses.—Well, his
mother, then; she could have done her son that service. Yes, if she had
been too haughty they had better have stayed where they were. What
would they have done if his old lady had not been able to come? And how
could a betrothed couple travel alone through the country?—Really,
Maurits was not dangerous. No, that he had never believed, but people’s
tongues are dangerous.—Well, and finally it was that chaise! Had
Maurits ferreted out the most ridiculous vehicle in the whole town? To
let that child shake thirty miles in a chaise, and to let him raise a
triumphal arch for a chaise!—He would like to shake him again! To let
his uncle shout hurrah for a tip-cart! He was getting too unreasonable.
How she admired Maurits for being so calm! She would like to join in
the game and defend Maurits, but she does not believe that he would
like it.

And before she goes to sleep, she lies and thinks out everything she
would have said to defend Maurits. Then she falls asleep and starts up
again, and in her ears rings an old saying:—

    “A dog stood on a mountain-top,
    He barked aloud and would not stop.
    His name was you, His name was I,
    His name was all in Earth and Sky.
    What was his name?
    His name was why.”

The saying had irritated her many a time. Oh, how stupid she had
thought the dog was! But now half asleep, she confuses the dog “What”
with Maurits and she thinks that the dog has his white forehead. Then
she laughs. She laughs as easily as she cries. She has inherited that
from her father.

II

How has “it” come? That which she dares not call by name?

“It” has come like the dew to the grass, like the color to the rose,
like the sweetness to the berry, imperceptibly and gently without
announcing itself beforehand.

It is also no matter how “it” came or what “it” is. Were it good or
evil, fair or foul, still it is forbidden; that which never ought to
exist. “It” makes her anxious, sinful, unhappy.

“It” is that of which she never wishes to think. “It” is what shall be
torn away and thrown out; and yet it is nothing that can be seized and
caught. She shuts her heart to “it,” but it comes in just the same.
“It” turns back the blood in her veins and flows there, drives the
thoughts from her brain and reigns there, dances through her nerves and
trembles in her finger-tips. It is everywhere in her, so that if she
had been able to take away everything else of which her body consisted
and to have left “it” behind, there would remain a complete impression
of her. And yet “it” was nothing.

She wishes never to think of “it,” and yet she has to think of “it”
constantly. How has she become so wicked? And then she searches and
wonders how “it” came.

Ah Downie! How tender are our souls, and how easily awakened are our
hearts!

She was sure that “it” had not come at breakfast, surely not at
breakfast.

Then she had only been frightened and shy. She had been so terrified
when she came down to breakfast and found no Maurits, only Uncle
Theodore and the old lady.

It had been a clever idea of Maurits to go hunting; although it was
impossible to discover what he was hunting in midsummer, as the old
lady remarked. But he knew of course that it was wise to keep away from
his uncle for a few hours until the latter became calm again. He could
not know that she was so shy, nor that she had almost fainted when she
had found him gone and herself left alone with uncle and the old lady.
Maurits had never been shy. He did not know what torture it is.

That breakfast, that breakfast! Uncle had as a beginning asked the old
lady if she had heard the story of Sigrid the beautiful. He did not ask
Downie, neither would she have been able to answer. The old lady knew
the story well, but he told it just the same. Then Anne-Marie
remembered that Maurits had laughed at his uncle because in all his
house he only had two books, and those were Afzelius’ “Fairy Tales” and
Nösselt’s “Popular Stories for Ladies.” “But those he knows,” Maurits
had said.

Anne-Marie had found the story pretty. She liked it when Bengt Lagman
had pearls sewn on the breadth of homespun. She saw Maurits before her;
how royally proud he would have looked when ordering the pearls! That
was just the sort of thing Maurits would have done well.

But when uncle had come to that part of the story where Bengt Lagman
went into the woods to avoid the meeting with his angry brother, and
instead let his young wife meet the storm, then it became so plain that
uncle understood Maurits had gone hunting to escape his wrath and that
he knew how she thought to win him over. —Yes, yesterday, then they had
been able to make plans, Maurits and she, how she should coquet with
uncle, but to-day she had no thought of carrying them out. Oh, she had
never behaved so foolishly! Every drop of blood streamed into her face,
and her knife and fork fell with a terrible clatter out of her hands
down on her plate.

But Uncle Theodore had shown no mercy and had gone on with the story
until he came to that princely speech: “Had my brother not done it, I
would have done it myself.” He said it with such a strange emphasis
that she was forced to look up and to meet his laughing brown eyes.

And when he saw the trouble staring from her eyes, he began to laugh
like a boy. “What do you think,” he cried, “Bengt Lagman thought when
he came home and heard that ‘Had my brother?’ I think he stopped at
home the next time.”

Tears rose to Downie’s eyes, and when Uncle saw that he laughed louder.
“Yes, it is a fine partisan my nephew has chosen,” he seemed to say,
“You are not playing your part, my little girl.” And every time she had
looked at him the brown eyes had repeated: “Had my brother not done it,
I would have done it myself.” Downie was not quite sure that the eyes
did not say “nephew.” And fancy how she behaved. She began to cry, and
rushed from the room.

But it was not then that “it” came, nor during the walk of the
forenoon.

Then she was occupied with something quite different. Then she was
overcome with pleasure at the beautiful place and that nature was so
wonderfully near. She felt as if she had found again something she had
lost long, long ago.

People thought she was a city girl. But she had become a country lass
as soon as she put her foot on the sandy path. She felt instantly that
she belonged to the country.

As soon as she had calmed down a little she had ventured out by herself
to inspect the place. She had looked about her on the lawn in front of
the door. Then she suddenly began to whirl about; she hung her hat on
her arm and threw her shawl away. She drew the air into her lungs so
that her nostrils were drawn together and whistled.

Oh, how brave she felt!

She made a few attempts to go quietly and sedately down to the garden,
but that was not what attracted her. Turning off to one side, she
started towards the big groups of barns and out-houses. She met a
farm-girl and said a few words to her. She was surprised to hear how
brisk her own voice sounded; it was like an officer at the front. And
she felt how smart she looked when, with head proudly raised and a
little on one side, moving with a quick, free motion and with a little
switch in her hand, she entered the barn.

It was not, however, what she had expected. No long rows of horned
creatures were there to impress her, for they were all out at pasture.
A single calf stood in its pen and seemed to expect her to do something
for him. She went up to him, raised herself on tiptoe, held her dress
together with one hand and touched the calf’s forehead with the
finger-tips of the other.

As the calf still did not seem to think that she had done enough and
stretched out his long tongue, she graciously let him lick her little
finger. She could not resist looking about her, as if to find some one
to admire her bravery. And she discovered that Uncle Theodore stood at
the barn-door and laughed at her.

Then he had gone with her on her walk. But “it” did not come then, not
then at all. It had only wonderfully come to pass that she was no
longer afraid of Uncle Theodore. He was like her mother; he seemed to
know all her faults and weaknesses, and it was so comfortable. She did
not need to show herself better than she was.

Uncle Theodore wished to take her to the garden and to the terraces by
the pond, but that was not to her mind. She wished to know what there
could be in all those big buildings.

So he went patiently with her to the dairy and to the ice-house; to the
wine-cellar and to the potato bins. He took the things in order, and
showed her the larder, and the wood shed, and the carriage-house, and
the laundry. Then he led her through the stable of the draught-horses,
and that of the carriage horses; let her see the harness-room and the
servants’ rooms; the laborers’ cottages and the wood-carving room. She
became a little confused by all the different rooms that Uncle Theodore
had considered necessary to establish on his estate; but her heart was
glowing with enthusiasm at the thought of how splendid it must be to
have all that to rule over. So she was not tired, although they walked
through the sheep-houses and the piggeries, and looked in at the hens
and the rabbits. She faithfully examined the weaving-rooms and the
dairies, the smoke-house and the smithy, all with growing enthusiasm.
Then they visited the big lofts; drying-rooms for the clothes and
drying-rooms for the wood; hay-lofts, and lofts for dried leaves for
the sheep to eat.

The dormant housewife in her awoke to life and consciousness at all
this perfection. But most of all, she was moved by the great brewhouse
and the two neat bakeries with the wide oven and the big table.

“Mother ought to see that,” she said.

In the bakehouse they had sat down and rested, and she had told of her
home. He was already like a friend, although his brown eyes laughed at
everything she said.

At home everything was so quiet; no life, no variety. She had been a
delicate child, and her parents had watched over her on account of it,
and let her do nothing. It was only as play that she was allowed to
help in the baking and in the shop. Somehow she came to tell him that
her father called her Downie. She had also said: “Everybody spoils me
at home except Maurits, and that is why I like him so much. He is so
sensible with me! He never calls me Downie; only Anne-Marie. Maurits is
so admirable.”

Oh, how it had danced and laughed in uncle’s eyes! She could have
struck him with her switch. She repeated almost with a sob: “Maurits is
so admirable.”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Uncle had answered. “He is going to be my heir.”
Whereupon she had cried: “Ah; Uncle Theodore, why do you not marry?
Think how happy any one would be to be mistress of such an estate!”

“How would it be then with Maurits’s inheritance?” uncle had asked
quite softly.

Then she had been silent for a long while, for she could not say to
Uncle that she and Maurits did not ask for the inheritance, for that
was just what they did do. She wondered if it was very ugly for them to
do so. She suddenly had a feeling as if she ought to beg Uncle for
forgiveness for some great wrong that they had done him. But she could
not do that either.

When they came in again, Uncle’s dog came to meet them. It was a tiny,
little thing on the thinnest legs, with fluttering ears and
gazelle-like eyes; a nothing with a shrill, little voice.

“You wonder, perhaps, that I have such a little dog,” Uncle Theodore
had said.

“I suppose I do,” she had answered.

“But, you see, it is not I who have chosen Jenny for my dog, but Jenny
who has taken me as a master. You would like to hear the story,
Downie?” That name he had instantly seized upon.

Yes, she would like it, although she understood that it would be
something irritating he would say.

“Well, you see, when Jenny came here the first time she lay on the
knees of a fine lady from the town, and had a blanket on her back and a
cloth about her head. Hush, Jenny; it is true that you had it! And I
thought what a little rat it was. But do you know when that little
creature was put down on the ground here some memories of her childhood
or something must have wakened in her. She scratched, and kicked, and
tried to rub off her blanket. And then she behaved like the big dogs
here; so we said that Jenny must have grown up in the country.

“She lay out on the doorstep and never even looked at the parlor sofa,
and she chased the chickens, and stole the cat’s milk, and barked at
beggars, and darted about the horses’ legs when we had guests. It was a
pleasure and a joy to us to see how she behaved. You must understand, a
little thing that had only lain in a basket and been carried on the
arm! It was wonderful. And so when they were going to leave, Jenny
would not go. She stood on the steps and whined so pitifully and jumped
up on me, and really asked to be allowed to stay. So there was nothing
for us to do but to let her stay. We were touched by the little
creature; it was so small, and yet wished to be a country dog. But I
had never thought that I should ever keep a lap-dog. Soon, perhaps, I
shall get a wife too.”

Oh, how hard it is to be shy, to be uneducated! She wondered if Uncle
had been very surprised when she rushed away so hurriedly. But she had
felt as if he had meant her when he spoke of Jenny. And perhaps he had
not at all. But any way—yes she had been so embarrassed. She could not
have stayed.

But it was not then “it” came, not then.

Perhaps it was in the evening at the ball. Never had she had such a
good time at any ball! But if any one had asked her if she had danced
much, she would have needed to reconsider and acknowledge that she had
not. But it was the best proof that she had really enjoyed herself when
she had not even noticed that she had been a little neglected.

She had so much enjoyed looking at Maurits. Just because she had been a
little bit severe to him at breakfast and laughed at him yesterday, it
was such a pleasure to her to see him at the ball. He had never seemed
to her so handsome and so superior.

He had seemed to feel that she would consider herself injured because
he had not talked and danced only with her. But it had been pleasure
enough for her to see how every one liked Maurits. As if she had wished
to exhibit their love to the general gaze! Oh, Downie was not so
foolish!

Maurits danced many dances with the beautiful Elizabeth Westling. But
that had not troubled her at all, for Maurits had time after time come
up and whispered: “You see, I can’t get away from her. We are old
friends. Here in the country they are so unaccustomed to have a partner
who has been in society and can both dance and talk. You must lend me
to the daughters of the county magnates for this evening, Anne-Marie.”

But Uncle, too, gave way to Maurits. “Be host for this evening,” he
said to him, and Maurits was. He was everywhere. He led the dance, he
led the drinking, and he made a speech for the county and for the
ladies. He was wonderful. Both Uncle and she had watched Maurits, and
then their eyes had met. Uncle had smiled and nodded to her. Uncle
certainly was proud of Maurits. She had felt badly that Uncle did not
really do justice to his nephew. Towards morning Uncle had been loud
and quarrelsome. He had wanted to join the dance, but the girls drew
back from him when he came up to them and pretended to be engaged.

“Dance with Anne-Marie,” Maurits had said to his uncle, and it had
sounded rather patronising. She was so frightened that she quite shrank
together.

Uncle was offended too, turned on his heel and went into the
smoking-room.

Maurits came up to her and said with a hard, hard voice:—

“You are ruining everything, Anne-Marie. Must you look like that when
Uncle wishes to dance with you? If you could know what he said to me
yesterday about you! You must do something too, Anne-Marie. Do you
think it is right to leave everything to me?”

“What do you wish me to do, Maurits?”

“Oh, now there is nothing; now the game is spoiled. Think all I had won
this evening! But it is lost now.”

“I will gladly ask Uncle’s pardon, if you like, Maurits.” And she
really meant it. She was honestly sorry to have hurt Uncle.

“That is of course the only right thing to do; but one can ask nothing
of any one as ridiculously shy as you are.”

She had not answered, but had gone straight to the smoking-room, which
was almost empty. Uncle had thrown himself down in an arm-chair.

“Why will you not dance with me?” she had asked.

Uncle Theodore’s eyes were closed. He opened them and looked long at
her. It was a look full of pain that she met. It made her understand
how a prisoner must feel when he thinks of his chains. It made her
sorry for Uncle. It seemed as if he had needed her much more than
Maurits, for Maurits needed no one. He was very well as he was. So she
laid her hand on Uncle Theodore’s arm quite gently and caressingly.

Instantly new life awoke in his eyes. He began to stroke her hair with
his big hand. “Little mother,” he had said.

Then “it” came over her while he stroked her hair. It came stealing, it
came creeping, it came rushing, as when elves pass through dark woods.

III

One evening thin, soft clouds are floating in the sky; one evening all
is still and mild; one evening the air is filled with fine white down
from the aspens and poplars.

It is quite late, and no one is up except Uncle Theodore, who is
walking in the garden and is considering how he can separate the young
man and the young woman.

For never, never in the world shall it come to pass that Maurits leaves
his house with her at his side while Uncle Theodore stands on the steps
and wishes them a pleasant journey.

Is it a possibility to let her go at all, since she has filled the
house for three days with merry chirping, since she in her quiet way
has accustomed them to be cared for and petted by her, since they have
all grown used to seeing that soft, supple little creature roving about
everywhere. Uncle Theodore says to himself that it is not possible. He
cannot live without her.

Just then he strikes against a dandelion which has gone to seed, and,
like men’s resolutions and men’s promises, the white ball of down is
scattered, its white floss flies out and is dispersed.

The night is not cold as the nights generally are in that part of the
country. The warmth is kept in by the grey cloud blanket. The winds
show themselves merciful for once and do not blow.

Uncle Theodore sees her, Downie. She is weeping because Maurits has
forsaken her. But he draws her to him and kisses away her tears.

Soft and fine, the white down falls from the great ripe clusters of the
trees,—so light that the air will scarcely let them fall, so fine and
delicate that they hardly show on the ground.

Uncle Theodore laughs to himself when he thinks of Maurits. In thought
he goes in to him the next morning while he is still lying in his bed.
“Listen, Maurits,” he means to say to him. “I do not wish to inspire
you with false hopes. If you marry this girl, you need not expect a
penny from me. I will not help to ruin your future.”

“Do you think so badly of her, uncle?” Maurits will say.

“No, on the contrary; she is a nice girl, but still not the one for
you. You shall have a woman like Elizabeth Westling. Be sensible,
Maurits; what will become of you if you break off your studies and go
into trade for that child’s sake. You are not suited to it, my boy.
Something more is needed for such work than to be able to lift your hat
gracefully from your head and to say: ‘Thank you, my children!’ You are
cut out and made for a civil official. You can become minister.”

“If you have such a good opinion of me,” Maurits will answer, “help me
with my examination and let us afterwards be married!”

“Not at all, not at all. What do you think would become of your career
if you had such a weight as a wife? The horse which drags the bread
wagon does not go fast ahead. Think of the girl from the bakery as a
minister’s wife! No, you ought not to engage yourself for at least ten
years, not before you have made your place. What would the result be if
I helped you to be married? Every year you would come to me and beg for
money. You and I would both weary of that.”

“But, uncle, I am a man of honor. I have engaged myself.”

“Listen, Maurits! Which is better? For her to go and wait for you for
ten years, and then find that you will not marry her, or for you to
break it off now? No, be decided, get up, take the chaise and go home
before she wakes. It will never do at any rate for a betrothed couple
to wander about the country by themselves. I will take care of the girl
if you only give up this madness. My old friend will go home with her.
You shall be supported by me so that you do not need to worry about
your future. Now be sensible; you will please your parents by obeying
me. Go now, without seeing her! I will talk to her. She will not stand
in the way of your happiness. Do not try to see her before you leave,
then you could grow soft-hearted, for she is sweet.”

And at those words Maurits makes an heroic decision and goes his way.

And when he has gone, what will happen then?

“Scoundrel,” sounds in the garden, loud and threateningly, as if to a
thief. Uncle Theodore looks about him. Is it no one else? Is it only he
calling so at himself?

What will happen afterwards? Oh, he will prepare her for Maurits’s
departure; show her that Maurits was not worthy of her; make her
despise him. And then when she has cried her heart out on his breast,
he shall so carefully, so skilfully make her understand what he feels,
lure her, win her.

The down still falls. Uncle Theodore stretches out his big hand and
catches a bit of it.

So fine, so light, so delicate! He stands and looks at it.

It falls about him, flake after flake. What will become of them? They
will be driven by the wind, soiled by the earth, trampled upon by heavy
feet.

He begins to feel as if that light down fell upon him with the heaviest
weight. Who will be the wind; who will be the earth; who will be the
shoe when it is a question of such defenceless little things?

And as a result of his extraordinary knowledge of Nösselt’s “Popular
Stories,” an episode from one of them occurred to him like what he had
just been thinking.

It was an early morning, not falling night as now. It was a rocky
shore, and down by the sea sat a beautiful youth with a panther skin
over his shoulder, with vine leaves in his hair, with thyrsus in his
hand. Who was he? Oh, the god Bacchus himself.

And the rocky shore was Naxos. It was the seas of Greece the god saw.
The ship with the black sails swiftly sailing towards the horizon was
steered by Theseus and in the grotto, the entrance of which opened high
up in a projection of the steep cliff, slept Ariadne.

During the night the young god had thought: “Is this mortal youth
worthy of that divine girl!” And to test Theseus he had in a dream
frightened him with the loss of his life, if he did not instantly
forsake Ariadne. Then the latter had risen up, hastened to the ship,
and fled away over the waves without even waking the girl to say
good-bye.

Now the god Bacchus sat there smiling, rocked by the tenderest hopes,
and waited for Ariadne.

The sun rose, the morning breeze freshened. He abandoned himself to
smiling dreams. He would know well how to console the forsaken one; he,
the god Bacchus himself.

Then she came. She walked out of the grotto with a beaming smile. Her
eyes sought Theseus, they wandered farther away to the anchoring-place
of the ship, to the sea—to the black sails.

And then with a piercing scream, without consideration, without
hesitation, down into the waves, down to death and oblivion.

And there sat the god Bacchus, the consoler.

So it was. Thus had it actually happened. Uncle Theodore remembers that
Nösselt adds in a few words that sympathetic poets affirm that Ariadne
let herself be consoled by Bacchus. But the sympathizers were certainly
wrong. Ariadne would not be consoled.

Good God, because she is good and sweet, so that he must love her,
shall she for that reason be made unhappy!

As a reward for the sweet little smiles she had given him; because her
soft little hand had lain so trustingly in his; because she had not
been angry when he jested, shall she lose her betrothed and be made
unhappy?

For which of all her misdemeanors shall she be condemned? Because she
has shown him a room in his innermost soul, which seems to have stood
fine and clean and unoccupied all these years awaiting just such a
tender and motherly little woman; or because she has already such power
over him that he hardly dares to swear lest she hear it; or for what
shall she be condemned?

Oh, poor Bacchus, poor Uncle Theodore! It is not easy to have to do
with such delicate, light bits of down.—They leap into the sea when
they see the black sails.

Uncle Theodore swears softly because Downie has not black hair, red
cheeks, coarse limbs.

Then another flake falls and it begins to speak: “It is I who would
have followed you all your days. I would have whispered a warning in
your ear at the card-table. I would have moved away the wineglass. You
would have borne it from me.” “I would,” he whispers, “I would.”

Another comes and speaks too: “It is I who would have reigned over your
big house and made it cheery and warm. It is I who would have followed
you through the desert of old age. I would have lighted your fire, have
been your eyes and your staff. Should I have been fit for that?” “Sweet
little Downie,” he answers, “you would.”

Again a flake comes and says: “I am so to be pitied. To-morrow my
betrothed is leaving me without even saying farewell. To-morrow I shall
weep, weep all day long, for I shall feel the shame of not being good
enough for Maurits. And when I come home—I do not know how I shall be
able to come home; how I can cross my father’s threshold after this.
The whole street will be full of whispering and gossip when I show
myself. Every one will wonder what evil thing I have done, to be so
badly treated. Is it my fault that you love me?” He answers with a sob
in his throat: “Do not speak so, little Downie! It is too soon to speak
so.”

He wanders there the whole night and towards midnight comes a little
darkness. He is in great trouble; the heavy, sultry air seems to be
still in terror of some crime which is to be committed in the morning.

He tries to calm the night by saying aloud: “I shall not do it.”

Then the most wonderful thing happens. The night is seized with a
trembling dread. It is no longer the little flakes which are falling,
but round about him rustle great and small wings. He hears something
flying but does not know whither.

They rush by him; they graze his cheek; they touch his clothes and
hands; and he understands what it is. The leaves are falling from the
trees; the flowers flee from their stalks; the wings fly away from the
butterflies; the song forsakes the birds.

And he understands that when the sun rises his garden will be a waste.
Empty, cold, and silent winter shall reign there; no play of
butterflies; no song of birds.

He remains until the light comes again, and he is almost astonished
when he sees the thick masses of leaves on the trees. “What is it,
then,” he says, “which is laid waste if it was not the garden? Not even
a blade of grass is missing. It is I who must live in winter and cold
hereafter, not the garden. It is as if the mainspring of life were
gone. Ah, you old fool, this will pass like everything else. It is too
much ado about a little girl.”

IV

How very improperly “it” behaved the morning they were to leave! During
the two days after the ball “it” had been rather something inspiring,
something exciting; but now when Downie is to leave, when “it” realizes
that the end has come, that “it” will never play any part in her life,
then it changes to a death thrust, to a deathly coldness.

She feels as if she were dragging a body of stone down the stairs to
the breakfast-room. She stretches out a heavy, cold hand of stone when
she says good-morning; she speaks with a slow tongue of stone; smiles
with hard stone lips. It is a labor, a labor.

But who can help being glad when everything is arranged according to
old-fashioned faith and honor.

Uncle Theodore turns to Downie at breakfast and explains with a
strangely harsh voice that he has decided to give Maurits the position
of manager at Laxohyttan; but as the aforesaid young man, continued
Uncle, with a strained attempt to return to his usual manner, is not
much at home in practical occupations, he may not enter upon the
position until he has a wife at his side. Has she, Miss Downie, tended
her myrtle so well that she can have a crown and wreath in September?

She feels how he is looking into her face. She knows that he wishes to
have a glance as thanks, but she does not look up.

Maurits leaps up. He embraces Uncle and makes a great deal of noise.
“But, Anne-Marie, why do you not thank Uncle? You must kiss Uncle
Theodore, Anne-Marie. Laxohyttan is the most beautiful place in the
world. Come now, Anne-Marie!”

She raises her eyes. There are tears in them, and through the tears a
glance full of despair and reproach falls on Maurits. She cannot
understand; he insists upon going with an uncovered light into the
powder magazine. Then she turns to Uncle Theodore; but not with the
shy, childish manner she had before, but with a certain nobleness, with
something of the martyr, of an imprisoned queen.

“You are much too good to us,” she says only.

Thus is everything accomplished according to the demands of honor.
There is not another word to be said in the matter. He has not robbed
her of her faith in him whom she loves. She has not betrayed herself.
She is faithful to him who has made her his betrothed, although she is
only a poor girl from a little bakery in a back street.

And now the chaise can be brought up, the trunks be corded, the
luncheon-basket filled.

Uncle Theodore leaves the table. He goes and places himself by a
window. Ever since she has turned to him with that tearful glance he is
out of his senses. He is quite mad, ready to throw himself upon her,
press her to his breast and call to Maurits to come and tear her away
if he can.

His hands are in his pockets. Through the clenched fists cramp-like
convulsions are passing.

Can he allow her to put on her hat, to say goodbye to the old lady?

There he stands again on the cliff of Naxos and wishes to steal the
beloved for himself. Nor, not steal! Why not honorably and manfully
step forward and say: “I am your rival, Maurits. Your betrothed must
choose between us. You are not married; there is no sin in trying to
win her from you. Look well after her. I mean to use every expedient.”

Then he would be warned, and she would know what alternative lay before
her.

His knuckles cracked when he clenched his fists again. How Maurits
would laugh at his old uncle when he stepped forward and explained
that! And what would be the good of it? Would he frighten her, so that
he would not even be allowed to help them in the future?

But how will it go now when she approaches to say good-bye to him? He
almost screams to her to take care, to keep three paces away from him.

He remains at the window and turns his back on them all, while they are
busy with their wraps and their luncheon-basket. Will they never be
ready to go? He has already lived it through a thousand times. He has
taken her hand, kissed her, helped her into the chaise. He has done it
so many times that he believes she is already gone.

He has also wished her happiness. Happiness—Can she be happy with
Maurits? She has not looked happy this morning. Oh yes, certainly she
has. She wept with joy.

While he is standing there Maurits suddenly says to Anne-Marie: “What a
dunce I am! I am quite forgetting to speak to Uncle about father’s
shares.”

“I think it would be best if you did not,” Downie answers. “Perhaps it
is not right.”

“Nonsense, Anne-Marie. The shares do not pay anything just now. But who
knows if they will not be better some day? And besides, what does it
matter to Uncle? Such a little thing—”

She interrupts with unusual eagerness, almost anxiously. “I beg of you,
Maurits, do not do it. Give in to me this once.”

He looks at her, a little offended. “This once!—as if I were a tyrant
over you. No, do you see, I cannot; just for that word I think that I
ought not to yield.”

“Do not cling to a word, Maurits. This means more than polite phrases.
I think it is not well of you to wish to cheat Uncle now when he has
been so good to us.”

“Be quiet, Anne-Marie, be quiet! What do you understand of business?”
His whole manner is now irritatingly calm and superior. He looks at her
as a schoolmaster looks at a good pupil who is making a fool of himself
at his examination.

“That you do not at all understand what is at stake!” she cries. And
she strikes out despairingly with her hands.

“I really must talk to Uncle now,” says Maurits, “if for nothing else,
to show him that there is no question of any deceit. You behave so that
Uncle can believe that I and my father are veritable cheats.”

And he comes forward to his uncle and explains to him what these shares
which his father wishes to sell him are. Uncle Theodore listens to him
as well as he can. He understands instantly that his brother has made a
bad speculation and wishes to protect himself from loss. But what of
it, what of it? He is accustomed to render to the whole family
connection such services. But he is not thinking of that, but of
Downie. He wonders what is the meaning of that look of resentment she
casts upon Maurits. It was not exactly love.

And so in the midst of his despair over the sacrifice he has to make, a
faint glimmer of hope begins to rise up before him. He stands and
stares at it like a man who is sleeping in a haunted room and sees a
light mist rise from the floor and condense and grow and become a
tangible reality.

“Come with me into my room, Maurits,” he says; “you shall have the
money immediately.”

But while he speaks his eyes rest on Downie to see if the ghost can be
prevailed upon to speak. But as yet he sees only dumb despair in her.

But he has hardly sat down by the desk in his room when the door opens
and Anne-Marie comes in.

“Uncle Theodore,” she says, very firmly and decidedly, “do not buy
those papers!”

Ah, such courage, Downie! Who would have believed it of you who had
seen you three days ago, when you sat at Maurits’s side in the chaise
and seemed to shrink and grow smaller for every word he said.

Now she needs all her courage, for Maurits is angry in earnest.

“Hold your tongue!” he hisses at her, and then roars to make himself
heard by Uncle Theodore, who is sitting at his desk and counting notes.

“What is the matter with you? The shares give no interest now; I have
told Uncle that; but Uncle knows as well as I that they will pay. Do
you think Uncle will let himself be cheated by one like me? Uncle
surely understands those things better than any of us. Has it ever been
my intention to give out these shares as good? Have I said anything but
that for him who can wait it may be a good affair?”

Uncle Theodore says nothing; he only hands a package of notes to
Maurits. He wonders if this will make the ghost speak.

“Uncle,” says the little intractable proclaimer of the truth, for it is
a known fact that no one can be more intractable than those soft,
delicate creature when they are in the right, “these shares are not
worth a shilling and will never be. We all know it at home there.”

“Anne-Marie, you make me out a scoundrel!”

She surveys him all over as if her eyes were the moving blades of a
pair of scissors, and she cuts off him bit by bit everything in which
she had clothed him; and when at last she sees him in all the nakedness
of egotism and selfishness, her terrible little tongue passes sentence
upon him:—

“What else are you?”

“Anne-Marie!”

“Yes, what else are we both,” continues the merciless tongue, which,
since it has once started, finds it best to clear up this matter which
has tortured her conscience ever since she has begun to realize that
this rich man who owned this big estate had a heart too which could
suffer and yearn. So while her tongue is so well started and all
shyness seems to have fallen from her, she says:—

“When we placed ourselves in the chaise at home there, what did we
think? What did we talk about on the way? About how we would deceive
him there. ‘You must be brave, Anne-Marie,’ you said. ‘And you must be
crafty, Maurits,’ I said. We thought only of ingratiating ourselves. We
wished to have much and we wished to give nothing except hypocrisy. It
was not our intention to say: ‘Help us, because we are poor and care
for one another,’ but we were to flatter and fawn until Uncle was
charmed by me or by you; that was our intention. But we meant to give
nothing in return; neither love nor respect nor even gratitude. And why
did you not come alone, why must I come too? You wished to show me to
him; you wished me to—to—”

Uncle Theodore rises when he sees Maurits raise his hand against her.
For now he has finished counting, and follows what is passing with his
heart swelling with hope. His heart flies wide open to receive her as
she now screams and runs into his arms, runs there without hesitation
or consideration, quite as if there were no other place on earth to
which to run.

“Uncle, he will strike me!”

And she presses close, close to him.

But Maurits is now calm again. “Forgive my impetuosity, Anne-Marie,” he
says. “It hurt me to hear you speak in such a childish way in Uncle’s
presence. But Uncle must also understand that you are only a child.
Still I grant that not even the most just wrath gives a man the right
to strike a woman. Come here now and kiss me. You need not seek
protection from me with anybody.”

She does not move, does not turn, only clings more closely.

“Downie, shall I let him take you?” whispers Uncle Theodore.

She answers only with a shudder, which quivers through him also.

Uncle Theodore feels so strong, so inspired. He, too, no longer sees
his perfect nephew as before in the bright light of his perfection. He
dares to jest with him.

“Maurits,” he says, “you surprise me. Love makes you weak. Can you so
promptly forgive her having called you a scoundrel? You must break with
her instantly. Your honor, Maurits, think of your honor! Nothing in the
world can permit a woman to insult a man. Place yourself in the chaise,
my boy, and go away without this abandoned creature! It is only pure
and simple justice after such an insult.”

As he finishes this speech, he puts his big hands about her head and
bends it back so that he can kiss her forehead.

“Give up this abandoned creature!” he repeats.

But now Maurits begins to understand also. He sees the light in Uncle
Theodore’s eyes and how one smile after the other dances over his lips.

“Come, Anne-Marie!”

She starts. Now he calls her as the man to whom she has promised
herself. She feels she must obey. And she lets go of Uncle Theodore so
suddenly that he cannot stop her, but she cannot go to Maurits; so she
slides down to the floor and there she remains sitting and sobs.

“Go home alone in your chaise, Maurits,” says Uncle Theodore sharply.
“This young lady is guest in my house as yet, and I intend to protect
her from your interference.”

He no longer thinks of Maurits, but only to lift her up, dry her tears
and whisper that he loves her.

Maurits, who sees them, the one weeping, the other comforting, cries:
“Oh, this is a conspiracy! I am tricked! This is a comedy! You have
stolen my betrothed from me and you mock me! You let me call one who
never intends to come! I congratulate you on this affair, Anne-Marie!”

As he rushes out and slams the door, he calls back: “Fortune-hunter!”

Uncle Theodore makes a movement as if to go after him and chastise him,
but Downie holds him back.

“Ah, Uncle Theodore, do let Maurits have the last word. Maurits is
always right. Fortune-hunter,—that is just what I am, Uncle Theodore.”

She creeps again close to him without hesitation, without question. And
Uncle Theodore is quite confused; just now she was weeping and now she
is laughing; just now she was going to marry one man and now she is
caressing another. Then she lifts up her head and smiles: “Now I am
your little dog. You cannot be rid of me.”

“Downie,” says Uncle Theodore with his gruffest voice: “You have known
it the whole time!”

She began to whisper: “Had my brother—”

“And yet you wished, Downie—Maurits is lucky to be rid of you. Such a
foolish, deceitful, hypocritical Downie, such an unreliable little
wisp, such a, such a—”


Ah, Downie, ah, silken flower! You were certainly not a fortune-hunter
only; you were also a fortune-giver, otherwise there would be nothing
left of your happy peace in the house where you lived. To this day the
garden is shaded by big beeches and the birch tree trunks stand there
white and spotless from the root upwards. To this day the snake suns
himself in peace on the slope, and in the pond in the park swims a carp
which is so old that no boy has the heart to catch it. And when I come
there, I feel that there is festival in the air, and it seems as if the
birds and flowers still sang their beautiful songs of you.




AMONG THE CLIMBING ROSES


I could wish that the people with whom I have spent my summer would let
their glance fall on these lines. Now when the cold, dark nights have
come, I should like to carry their thoughts back to that bright, warm
season.

Above all, I should like to remind them of the climbing-roses that
enclosed the veranda, of the delicate, somewhat thin foliage of the
clematis, which in the sunlight as well as in the moonlight was drawn
in dark gray shadows on the light gray stone floor and threw a light
lace-like veil over everything, and of its big, bright blossoms with
their ragged edges.

Other summers remind me of fields of clover, or of birch-woods, or of
apple-trees and berry bushes, but that summer took its character from
the climbing-roses. The bright, delicate buds, that could resist
neither wind nor rain, the light, waving, pale-green shoots, the soft,
bending stems, the exuberant richness of blossoms, the gaily humming
hosts of insects, all follow me and rise up before me in their glory,
when I think of that summer, that rosy, delicate, dainty summer.

Now, when the time for work has come, people often ask me how I passed
my summer. Then everything glides from my memory, and it seems to me as
if I had sat day in and day out on the veranda behind the climbing
roses and breathed in fragrance and sunshine. What did I do? Oh, I
watched others work.

There was a little upholsterer bee which worked from morning till
night, from night till morning. From the soft, green leaves it sawed
out a neat little oval with its sharp jaws, rolled it together as one
rolls up a real carpet, and with the precious burden pressed to it, it
fluttered away to the park and lighted on an old tree stump. There it
burrowed down through dark passage-ways and mysterious galleries, until
at last it reached the bottom of a perpendicular shaft. In its unknown
depths, where neither ant nor centipede ever had ventured, it spread
out the green leaf roll and covered the uneven floor with the most
beautiful carpet. And when the floor was covered, the bee came back for
new leaves to cover the walls of the shaft, and worked so quickly and
eagerly, that there was soon not a leaf in the rose hedge that did not
have an oval hole which bore testimony that it had been forced to
assist in the adorning of the old tree-stump.

One fine day the little bee changed its occupation. It bored deep in
among the ragged petals of the full-blown roses, sucked and drank all
it could in those beautiful larders, and when it had got its fill, it
flew quickly away to the old stump to fill the freshly-papered chambers
with brightest honey.

The little upholsterer bee was not the only one who worked in the
rose-bushes. There was also a spider, a quite unparalleled spider. It
was bigger than any spider I have ever seen; it was bright orange with
a clearly marked cross on its back, and it had eight long,
red-and-white striped legs, all equally well marked. You ought to have
seen it spin! Every thread was drawn out with the greatest precision
from the first ones that were only for supports to the last fine
connecting thread. And you should have seen it balance its way along
the slender threads to seize a fly or to take its place in the middle
of the web, motionless, patient, waiting for hours.

That big, orange spider won my heart; he was so patient and so wise.
Every day he had his little encounter with the upholsterer bee, and he
always came out of the affair with the same unfailing tact. The bee who
took his way close by him caught time and time again in his net.
Instantly it began to buzz and tear; it dragged at the fine web and
behaved like a mad thing, which naturally resulted in its being more
and more entangled and getting both legs and wings wound up in the
sticky net.

As soon as the bee was exhausted and weakened, the spider came creeping
out to it. It kept always at a respectful distance, but with the
extreme end of one of the beautiful, red striped legs it gave the bee a
little push, so that it swung round in the web. When the bee had again
buzzed and raged itself tired, it received another gentle shove, and
then another and yet another, until it spun round like a top and did
not know what it was doing in its fury, and became so confused that it
could not defend itself. But during the whirling the threads that held
it fast twisted ever more tightly, till the tension became so great
that they broke, and the bee fell to the ground. Yes, that was what the
spider had wished, of course.

And that performance could they repeat, those two, day after day as
long as the bee had work in the rose-bushes. Never could the little bee
learn to look out for the spider-web, and never did the spider show
anger or impatience. I liked them both; the little, eager, furry
worker, as well as the big, crafty, old hunter.

Very few great events happened in the garden of the climbing roses.
Between the espaliers one could see the little lake lying and twinkling
in the sunlight. And it was a lake which was too little and too shut in
to be able to heave in real waves, but at every little ripple on the
gray surface thousands of small sparkles that glistened and played on
the waves flew up; it seemed as if its depths had been full of fire
that could not get out. And it was the same with the summer life there;
it was usually so quiet, but if there came the slightest, little
ripple—oh, how it could shine and glitter!

We needed nothing great to make us happy. A flower or a bird could make
us merry for several hours, not to speak of the upholsterer bee. I
shall never forget what pleasure I had once on his account.

The bee had been in the spider-web as usual, and the spider had as
usual helped him out; but it had been fastened so securely that it had
had to buzz a dreadfully long time and had been very tamed and subdued
when it had flown away. I bent forward to see if the spider-web had
suffered much damage. Fortunately it had not; but on the other hand a
little yellow larva was caught in the web, a little threadlike monster,
which consisted of only jaws and claws, and I was agitated, really
agitated, at the sight of it.

I knew them, those May-bug larvæ, that in thousands crawl up on the
flowers and hide themselves under their petals. Did I not know them and
yet admire them, those bold, cunning parasites, that sit hidden and
wait, only wait, even if it is for weeks, until a bee comes, in whose
yellow and black down they can hide. And did I not know their hateful
skill just when the little cell-builder has filled a room with honey
and on its surface laid the egg from which the rightful owner of the
cell and the honey will come forth, just then to creep down on the egg
and with careful balancing sit on it as on a boat; for if they should
come down into the honey, they would drown. And while the bee covers
the thimble-like cell with a green roof and carefully shuts in its
young one, the yellow larva tears open the egg with its sharp jaws and
devours its contents, while the egg-shell has still to serve as craft
on the dangerous honey-sea.

But gradually the little yellow larva grows flat and big and can swim
by itself on the honey and drink of it, and in the course of time a
fat, black beetle comes out of the bee-cell. It is certain that this is
not what the little bee wished to effect by its work, and however
cunningly and cleverly the beetle may have behaved, it is nevertheless
nothing but a lazy parasite, who deserves no sympathy.

And my bee, my own little, industrious bee, bad flown about with such a
yellow hanger-on in its down. But while the spider had spun round with
it, the larva had loosened and fallen down on the spider-web, and now
the big, orange spider came and gave it a bite and transformed it in a
second into a skeleton without life or substance.

When the little bee came again, its humming was like a hymn to life.

“Oh, thou beauteous life,” it said. “I thank thee that happy work among
roses and sunshine has fallen to my lot. I thank thee that I can enjoy
thee without anxiety or fear.

“Well I know that spiders lie in wait and beetles steal, but happy work
is mine, and brave freedom from care. Oh, thou beauteous life, thou
glorious existence!”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14273 ***