From a Swedish homestead
by Selma Lagerlöf · English · Gutenberg #44630 · 489,973 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: From a Swedish homestead
Author: Selma Lagerlöf
Translator: Jessie Brochner
Release date: January 8, 2014 [eBook #44630]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM A SWEDISH HOMESTEAD ***
_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD
_From a SWEDISH_ HOMESTEAD
_By_
SELMA LAGERLÖF
_Translated by_
JESSIE BROCHNER
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1916
_Copyright, 1901, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_A_ LIST _of the_ STORIES
_Page_
_The_ STORY _of a_ COUNTRY HOUSE 1
_Queens at_ KUNGAHÄLLA 135
_On the_ SITE _of the Great_ KUNGAHÄLLA 135
_The Forest_ QUEEN 141
SIGRID STORRÄDE 157
ASTRID 172
_Old_ AGNETE 219
_The Fisherman's_ RING 231
_Santa_ CATERINA _of_ SIENA 257
_The Empress's_ MONEY-CHEST 277
_The_ PEACE _of_ GOD 291
_A_ STORY _from_ HALSTANÄS 309
_The_ INSCRIPTION _on the_ GRAVE 323
_The_ BROTHERS 339
_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD
I
_The_ STORY _of a_ COUNTRY HOUSE
_The_ STORY _of a_ COUNTRY HOUSE
I
It was a beautiful autumn day towards the end of the thirties. There was
in Upsala at that time a high, yellow, two-storied house, which stood
quite alone in a little meadow on the outskirts of the town. It was a
rather desolate and dismal-looking house, but was rendered less so by
the Virginia-creepers which grew there in profusion, and which had crept
so high up the yellow wall on the sunny side of the house that they
completely surrounded the three windows on the upper story.
At one of these windows a student was sitting, drinking his morning
coffee. He was a tall, handsome fellow, of distinguished appearance. His
hair was brushed back from his forehead; it curled prettily, and a lock
was continually falling into his eyes. He wore a loose, comfortable
suit, but looked rather smart all the same.
His room was well furnished. There was a good sofa and comfortable
chairs, a large writing-table, a capital bookcase, but hardly any books.
Before he had finished his coffee another student entered the room. The
new-comer was a totally different-looking man. He was a short,
broad-shouldered fellow, squarely built and strong, ugly, with a large
head, thin hair, and coarse complexion.
'Hede,' he said, 'I have come to have a serious talk with you.'
'Has anything unpleasant happened to you?'
'Oh no, not to me,' the other answered; 'it is really you it concerns.'
He sat silent for a while, and looked down. 'It is so awfully unpleasant
having to tell you.'
'Leave it alone, then,' suggested Hede.
He felt inclined to laugh at his friend's solemnity.
'I can't leave it alone any longer,' said his visitor. 'I ought to have
spoken to you long ago, but it is hardly my place. You understand? I
can't help thinking you will say to yourself: "There's Gustaf Alin, son
of one of our cottagers, thinks himself such a great man now that he can
order me about."'
'My dear fellow,' Hede said, 'don't imagine I think anything of the
kind. My father's father was a peasant's son.'
'Yes, but no one thinks of that now,' Alin answered. He sat there,
looking awkward and stupid, resuming every moment more and more of his
peasant manners, as if that could help him out of his difficulty. 'When
I think of the difference there is between your family and mine, I feel
as if I ought to keep quiet; but when I remember that it was your father
who, by his help in days gone by, enabled me to study, then I feel that
I must speak.'
Hede looked at him with a pleasant smile.
'You had better speak out and have done with it,' he said.
'The thing is,' Alin said, 'I have heard people say that you don't do
any work. They say you have hardly opened a book during the four terms
you have been at the University. They say you don't do anything but play
on the violin the whole day; and that I can quite believe, for you never
wanted to do anything else when you were at school in Falu, although
there you were obliged to work.'
Hede straightened himself a little in his chair. Alin grew more and more
uncomfortable, but he continued with stubborn resolution:
'I suppose you think that anyone owning an estate like Munkhyttan ought
to be able to do as he likes--work if he likes, or leave it alone. If he
takes his exam., good; if he does not take his exam., what does it
matter? for in any case you will never be anything but a landed
proprietor and iron-master. You will live at Munkhyttan all your life. I
understand quite well that is what you must think.'
Hede was silent, and Alin seemed to see him surrounded by the same wall
of distinction which in Alin's eyes had always surrounded his father,
the Squire, and his mother.
'But, you see, Munkhyttan is no longer what it used to be when there was
iron in the mine,' he continued cautiously. 'The Squire knew that very
well, and that was why it was arranged before his death that you should
study. Your poor mother knows it, too, and the whole parish knows it.
The only one who does not know anything is you, Hede.'
'Don't you think I know,' Hede said a little irritably, 'that the
iron-mine cannot be worked any longer?'
'Oh yes,' Alin said, 'I dare say you know that much, but you don't know
that it is all up with the property. Think the matter over, and you will
understand that one cannot live from farming alone at Vesterdalarne. I
cannot understand why your mother has kept it a secret from you. But, of
course, she has the sole control of the estate, so she need not ask your
advice about anything. Everybody at home knows that she is hard up. They
say she drives about borrowing money. I suppose she did not want to
disturb you with her troubles, but thought that she could keep matters
going until you had taken your degree. She will not sell the estate
before you have finished, and made yourself a new home.'
Hede rose, and walked once or twice up and down the floor. Then he
stopped opposite Alin.
'But what on earth are you driving at, Alin? Do you want to make me
believe that we are not rich?'
'I know quite well that, until lately, you have been considered rich
people at home,' Alin said. 'But you can understand that things must
come to an end when it is a case of always spending and never earning
anything. It was a different thing when you had the mine.'
Hede sat down again.
'My mother would surely have told me if there were anything the matter,'
he said. 'I am grateful to you, Alin; but you have allowed yourself to
be frightened by some silly stories.'
'I thought that you did not know anything,' Alin continued obstinately.
'At Munkhyttan your mother saves and works in order to get the money to
keep you at Upsala, and to make it cheerful and pleasant for you when
you are at home in the vacations. And in the meantime you are here doing
nothing, because you don't know there is trouble coming. I could not
stand any longer seeing you deceiving each other. Her ladyship thought
you were studying, and you thought she was rich. I could not let you
destroy your prospects without saying anything.'
Hede sat quietly for a moment, and meditated. Then he rose and gave Alin
his hand with rather a sad smile.
'You understand that I feel you are speaking the truth, even if I _will_
not believe you? Thanks.'
Alin joyfully shook his hand.
'You must know, Hede, that if you will only work no harm is done. With
your brains, you can take your degree in three or four years.'
Hede straightened himself.
'Do not be uneasy, Alin,' he said; 'I am going to work hard now.'
Alin rose and went towards the door, but hesitated. Before he reached it
he turned round.
'There was something else I wanted,' he said. He again became
embarrassed. 'I want you to lend me your violin until you have commenced
reading in earnest.'
'Lend you my violin?'
'Yes; pack it up in a silk handkerchief, and put it in the case, and let
me take it with me, or otherwise you will read to no purpose. You will
begin to play as soon as I am out of the room. You are so accustomed to
it now you cannot resist if you have it here. One cannot get over that
kind of thing unless someone helps one; it gets the mastery over one.'
Hede appeared unwilling.
'This is madness, you know,' he said.
'No, Hede, it is not. You know you have inherited it from the Squire. It
runs in your blood. Ever since you have been your own master here in
Upsala you have done nothing else but play. You live here in the
outskirts of the town simply not to disturb anyone by your playing. You
cannot help yourself in this matter. Let me have the violin.'
'Well,' said Hede, 'before I could not help playing, but now Munkhyttan
is at stake; I am more fond of my home than of my violin.'
But Alin was determined, and continued to ask for the violin.
'What is the good of it?' Hede said. 'If I want to play, I need not go
many steps to borrow another violin.'
'I know that,' Alin replied, 'but I don't think it would be so bad with
another violin. It is your old Italian violin which is the greatest
danger for you. And besides, I would suggest your locking yourself in
for the first few days--only until you have got fairly started.'
He begged and begged, but Hede resisted; he would not stand anything so
unreasonable as being a prisoner in his own room.
Alin grew crimson.
'I must have the violin with me,' he said, 'or it is no use at all.' He
spoke eagerly and excitedly. 'I had not intended to say anything about
it, but I know that it concerns more than Munkhyttan. I saw a young girl
at the Promotion Ball in the spring who, people said, was engaged to
you. I don't dance, you know, but I liked to watch her when she was
dancing, looking radiant like one of the lilies of the field. And when I
heard that she was engaged to you, I felt sorry for her.'
'Why?'
'Because I knew that you would never succeed if you continued as you had
begun. And then I swore that she should not have to spend her whole life
waiting for one who never came. She should not sit and wither whilst
waiting for you. I did not want to meet her in a few years with
sharpened features and deep wrinkles round her mouth----'
He stopped suddenly; Hede's glance had rested so searchingly upon him.
But Gunnar Hede had already understood that Alin was in love with his
_fiancée_. It moved him deeply that Alin under these circumstances tried
to save him, and, influenced by this feeling, he yielded and gave him
the violin.
When Alin had gone, Hede read desperately for a whole hour, but then he
threw away his book.
It was not of much good his reading. It would be three or four years
before he could be finished, and who could guarantee that the estate
would not be sold in the meantime?
He felt almost with terror how deeply he loved the old home. It was like
witchery. Every room, every tree, stood clearly before him. He felt he
could not part with any of it if he were to be happy. And he was to sit
quietly with his books whilst all this was about to pass away from him.
He became more and more restless; he felt the blood beating in his
temples as if in a fever. And then he grew quite beside himself because
he could not take his violin and play himself calm again.
'My God!' he said, 'Alin will drive me mad. First to tell me all this,
and then to take away my violin! A man like I must feel the bow between
his fingers in sorrow and in joy. I must do something; I must get money,
but I have not an idea in my head. I cannot think without my violin.'
He could not endure the feeling of being locked in. He was so angry with
Alin, who had thought of this absurd plan, that he was afraid he might
strike him the next time he came.
Of course he would have played, if he had had the violin, for that was
just what he needed. His blood rushed so wildly, that he was nearly
going out of his mind.
Just as Hede was longing most for his violin a wandering musician began
to play outside. It was an old blind man. He played out of tune and
without expression, but Hede was so overcome by hearing a violin just at
this moment that he listened with tears in his eyes and with his hands
folded.
The next moment he flung open the window and climbed to the ground by
the help of the creepers. He had no compunction at leaving his work. He
thought the violin had simply come to comfort him in his misfortune.
Hede had probably never before begged so humbly for anything as he did
now, when he asked the old blind man to lend him his violin. He stood
the whole time with his cap in his hand, although the old man was blind.
The musician did not seem to understand what he wanted. He turned to the
young girl who was leading him. Hede bowed to the poor girl and repeated
his request. She looked at him, as if she must have eyes for them both.
The glance from her big eyes was so steady that Hede thought he could
feel where it struck him. It began with his collar, and it noticed that
the frills of his shirt were well starched, then it saw that his coat
was brushed, next that his boots were polished.
Hede had never before been subjected to such close scrutiny. He saw
clearly that he would not pass muster before those eyes.
But it was not so, all the same. The young girl had a strange way of
smiling. Her face was so serious, that one had the impression when she
smiled that it was the first and only time she had ever looked happy;
and now one of these rare smiles passed over her lips. She took the
violin from the old man and handed it to Hede.
'Play the waltz from "Freischütz," then,' she said.
Hede thought it was strange that he should have to play a waltz just at
that moment, but, as a matter of fact, it was all the same to him what
he played, if he could only have a bow in his hand. That was all he
wanted. The violin at once began to comfort him; it spoke to him in
faint, cracked tones.
'I am only a poor man's violin,' it said; 'but such as I am, I am a
comfort and help to a poor blind man. I am the light and the colour and
the brightness in his life. It is I who must comfort him in his poverty
and old age and blindness.'
Hede felt that the terrible depression that had cowed his hopes began to
give way.
'You are young and strong,' the violin said to him. 'You can fight and
strive; you can hold fast that which tries to escape you. Why are you
downcast and without courage?'
Hede had played with lowered eyes; now he threw back his head and looked
at those who stood around him. There was quite a crowd of children and
people from the street, who had come into the yard to listen to the
music. It appeared, however, that they had not come solely for the sake
of the music. The blind man and his companion were not the only ones in
the troupe.
Opposite Hede stood a figure in tights and spangles, and with bare arms
crossed over his chest. He looked old and worn, but Hede could not help
thinking that he looked a devil of a fellow with his high chest and long
moustaches. And beside him stood his wife, little and fat, and not so
very young either, but beaming with joy over her spangles and flowing
gauze skirts.
During the first bars of the music they stood still and counted, then a
gracious smile passed over their faces, and they took each other's hands
and began to dance on a small carpet. And Hede saw that during all the
equilibristic tricks they now performed the woman stood almost still,
whilst her husband did all the work. He sprang over her, and twirled
round her, and vaulted over her. The woman scarcely did anything else
but kiss her hand to the spectators.
But Hede did not really take much notice of them. His bow began to fly
over the strings. It told him that there was happiness in fighting and
overcoming. It almost deemed him happy because everything was at stake
for him. Hede stood there, playing courage and hope into himself, and
did not think of the old tight-rope dancers.
But suddenly he saw that they grew restless. They no longer smiled; they
left off kissing their hands to the spectators; the acrobat made
mistakes, and his wife began to sway to and fro in waltz time.
Hede played more and more eagerly. He left off 'Freischütz' and rushed
into an old 'Nixie Polka,' one which generally sent all the people mad
when played at the peasant festivals.
The old tight-rope dancers quite lost their heads. They stood in
breathless astonishment, and at last they could resist no longer. They
sprang into each other's arms, and then they began to dance a waltz in
the middle of the carpet.
How they danced! dear me, how they danced! They took small, tripping
steps, and whirled round in a small circle; they hardly went outside the
carpet, and their faces beamed with joy and delight. There was the
happiness of youth and the rapture of love over these two old people.
The whole crowd was jubilant at seeing them dance. The serious little
companion of the blind man smiled all over her face, and Hede grew much
excited.
Just fancy what an effect his violin could have! It made people quite
forget themselves. It was a great power to have at his disposal. Any
moment he liked he could take possession of his kingdom. Only a couple
of years' study abroad with a great master, and he could go all over the
world, and by his playing earn riches and honour and fame.
It seemed to Hede that these acrobats must have come to tell him this.
That was the road he should follow; it lay before him clear and smooth.
He said to himself: 'I will--I _will_ become a musician! I _must_ be
one! This is better than studying. I can charm my fellow-men with my
violin; I can become rich.'
Hede stopped playing. The acrobats at once came up and complimented him.
The man said his name was Blomgren. That was his real name; he had other
names when he performed. He and his wife were old circus people. Mrs.
Blomgren in former days had been called Miss Viola, and had performed on
horseback; and although they had now left the circus, they were still
true artists--artists body and soul. That he had probably already
noticed; that was why they could not resist his violin.
Hede walked about with the acrobats for a couple of hours. He could not
part with the violin, and the old artists' enthusiasm for their
profession appealed to him. He was simply testing himself. 'I want to
find out whether there is the proper stuff for an artist in me. I want
to see if I can call forth enthusiasm. I want to see whether I can make
children and idlers follow me from house to house.'
On their way from house to house Mr. Blomgren threw an old threadbare
mantle around him, and Mrs. Blomgren enveloped herself in a brown cloak.
Thus arrayed, they walked at Hede's side and talked.
Mr. Blomgren would not speak of all the honour he and Mrs. Blomgren had
received during the time they had performed in a real circus; but the
_directeur_ had given Mrs. Blomgren her dismissal under the pretence
that she was getting too stout. Mr. Blomgren had not been dismissed: he
had himself resigned his position. Surely no one could think that Mr.
Blomgren would remain with a _directeur_ who had dismissed his wife!
Mrs. Blomgren loved her art, and for her sake Mr. Blomgren had made up
his mind to live as a free artist, so that she could still continue to
perform. During the winter, when it was too cold to give performances in
the street, they performed in a tent. They had a very comprehensive
repertoire. They gave pantomimes, and were jugglers and conjurers.
The circus had cast them off, but Art had not, said Mr. Blomgren. They
served Art always. It was well worth being faithful to Art, even unto
death. Always artists--always. That was Mr. Blomgren's opinion, and it
was also Mrs. Blomgren's.
Hede walked quietly and listened. His thoughts flew restlessly from plan
to plan. Sometimes events happen which become like symbols, like signs,
which one must obey. There must be some meaning in what had now happened
to him. If he could only understand it rightly, it might help him
towards arriving at a wise resolution.
Mr. Blomgren asked the student to notice the young girl who was leading
the blind man. Had he ever before seen such eyes? Did he not think that
such eyes must mean something? Could one have those eyes without being
intended for something great?
Hede turned round and looked at the little pale girl. Yes, she had eyes
like stars, set in a sad and rather thin face.
'Our Lord knows always what He is about,' said Mrs. Blomgren; 'and I
also believe that He has some reason for letting such an artist as Mr.
Blomgren perform in the street. But what was He thinking about when He
gave that girl those eyes and that smile?'
'I will tell you something,' said Mr. Blomgren; 'she has not the
slightest talent for Art. And with those eyes!'
Hede had a suspicion that they were not talking to him, but simply for
the benefit of the young girl. She was walking just behind them, and
could hear every word.
'She is not more than thirteen years old, and not by any means too old
to learn something; but, impossible--impossible, without the slightest
talent! If one does not want to waste one's time, sir, teach her to sew,
but not to stand on her head. Her smile makes people quite mad about
her,' Mr. Blomgren continued. 'Simply on account of her smile she has
had many offers from families wishful to adopt her. She could grow up in
a well-to-do home if she would only leave her grandfather. But what does
she want with a smile that makes people mad about her, when she will
never appear either on horseback or on a trapeze?'
'We know other artists,' said Mrs. Blomgren, 'who pick up children in
the street and train them for the profession when they cannot perform
any longer themselves. There is more than one who has been lucky enough
to create a star and obtain immense salaries for her. But Mr. Blomgren
and I have never thought of the money; we have only thought of some day
seeing Ingrid flying through a hoop whilst the whole circus resounded
with applause. For us it would have been as if we were beginning life
over again.'
'Why do we keep her grandfather?' said Mr. Blomgren. 'Is he an artist
fit for us? We could, no doubt, have got a previous member of a
Hofkapell if we had wished. But we love that child; we cannot do without
her; we keep the old man for her sake.'
'Is it not naughty of her that she will not allow us to make an artist
of her?' they said.
Hede turned round. The little girl's face wore an expression of
suffering and patience. He could see that she knew that anyone who could
not dance on the tight-rope was a stupid and contemptible person.
At the same moment they came to another house, but before they began
their performance Hede sat down on an overturned wheelbarrow and began
to preach. He defended the poor little girl. He reproached Mr. and Mrs.
Blomgren for wishing to hand her over to the great, cruel public, who
would love and applaud her for a time, but when she grew old and worn
out, they would let her trudge along the streets in rain and cold. No;
he or she was artist enough, who made a fellow-being happy. Ingrid
should only have eyes and smiles for one, should keep them for one only;
and this one should never leave her, but give her a safe home as long as
he lived.
Tears came into Hede's eyes whilst he spoke. He spoke more to himself
than to the others. He felt it suddenly as something terrible to be
thrust out into the world, to be severed from the quiet home-life. He
saw that the great, star-like eyes of the girl began to sparkle. It
seemed as if she had understood every single word. It seemed as if she
again felt the right to live.
But Mr. Blomgren and his wife had become very serious. They pressed
Hede's hand and promised him that they would never again try and
persuade the little girl to become an artist. She should be allowed to
lead the life she wished. He had touched them. They were
artists--artists body and soul; they understood what he meant when he
spoke of love and faithfulness.
Then Hede parted from them and went home. He no longer tried to find any
secret meaning in his adventure. After all, it had meant nothing more
than that he should save this poor sorrowful child from always grieving
over her incapacity.
II
Munkhyttan, the home of Gunnar Hede, was situated in a poor parish in
the forests of Vesterdalarne. It was a large, thinly-populated parish,
with which Nature had dealt very stingily. There were stony,
forest-covered hills, and many small lakes. The people could not
possibly have earned a livelihood there had they not had the right to
travel about the country as pedlars. But to make up for it, the whole of
this poor district was full of old tales of how poor peasant lads and
lassies had gone into the world with a pack of goods on their backs, to
return in gilded coaches, with the boxes under the seats filled with
money.
One of the very best stories was about Hede's grandfather. He was the
son of a poor musician, and had grown up with his violin in his hand,
and when he was seventeen years old he had gone out into the world with
his pack on his back. But wherever he went his violin had helped him in
his business. He had by turns gathered people together by his music and
sold them silk handkerchiefs, combs, and pins. All his trading had been
brought about with music and merriment, and things had gone so well with
him that he had at last been able to buy Munkhyttan, with its mine and
ironworks, from the poverty-stricken Baron who then owned the property.
Then he became the Squire, and the pretty daughter of the Baron became
his wife.
From that time the old family, as they were always called, had thought
of nothing else but beautifying the place. They removed the main
building on to the beautiful island which lay on the edge of a small
lake, round which lay their fields and their mines. The upper story had
been added in their time, for they wanted to have plenty of room for
their numerous guests; and they had also added the two large flights of
steps outside. They had planted ornamental trees all over the
fir-covered island. They had made small winding pathways in the stony
soil, and on the most beautiful spots they had built small pavilions,
hanging like large birds'-nests over the lake. The beautiful French
roses that grew on the terrace, the Dutch furniture, the Italian violin,
had all been brought to the house by them. And it was they who had built
the wall protecting the orchard from the north wind, and the
conservatory.
The old family were merry, kind-hearted, old-fashioned people. The
Squire's wife certainly liked to be a little aristocratic; but that was
not at all in the old Squire's line. In the midst of all the luxury
which surrounded him he never forgot what he had been, and in the room
where he transacted his business, and where people came and went, the
pack and the red-painted, home-made violin were hung right above the old
man's desk.
Even after his death the pack and the violin remained in the same place.
And every time the old man's son and grandson saw them their hearts
swelled with gratitude. It was these two poor implements that had
created Munkhyttan, and Munkhyttan was the best thing in the world.
Whatever the reason might be--and it was probably because it seemed
natural to the place that one lived a good, genial life there, free from
trouble--Hede's family clung to the place with greater love than was
good for it. And more especially Gunnar Hede was so strongly attached to
it that people said that it was incorrect to say of him that he owned an
estate. On the contrary, it was an old estate in Vesterdalarne that
owned Gunnar Hede.
If he had not made himself a slave of an old rambling manor-house and
some acres of land and forest, and some stunted apple-trees, he would
probably have continued his studies, or, better still, gone abroad to
study music, which, after all, was no doubt his proper vocation in this
world. But when he returned from Upsala, and it became clear to him that
they really would have to sell the estate if he could not soon earn a
lot of money, he decided upon giving up all his other plans, and made up
his mind to go out into the world as a pedlar, as his grandfather before
him had done.
His mother and his _fiancée_ besought him rather to sell the place than
to sacrifice himself for it in this manner, but he was not to be moved.
He put on peasant's attire, bought goods, and began to travel about the
country as a pedlar. He thought that if he only traded a couple of years
he could earn enough to pay the debt and save the estate.
And as far as the latter was concerned he was successful enough. But he
brought upon himself a terrible misfortune.
When he had walked about with his pack for a year or so he thought that
he would try and earn a large sum of money at one stroke. He went far
north and bought a large flock of goats, about a couple of hundred. And
he and a comrade intended to drive them down to a large fair in
Vermland, where goats cost twice as much as in the north. If he
succeeded in selling all his goats, he would do a very good business.
It was in the beginning of November, and there had not yet been any
snow, when Hede and his comrade set out with their goats. The first day
everything went well with them, but the second day, when they came to
the great Fifty-Mile Forest, it began to snow. Much snow fell, and it
stormed and blew severely. It was not long before it became difficult
for the animals to make their way through the snow. Goats are certainly
both plucky and hardy animals, and the herd struggled on for a
considerable time; but the snow-storm lasted two days and two nights,
and it was terribly cold.
Hede did all he could to save the animals, but after the snow began to
fall he could get them neither food nor water. And when they had worked
their way through deep snow for a whole day they became very footsore.
Their feet hurt them, and they would not go any longer. The first goat
that threw itself down by the roadside and would not get up again and
follow the herd Hede lifted on to his shoulder so as not to leave it
behind. But when another and again another lay down he could not carry
them. There was nothing to do but to look the other way and go on.
Do you know what the Fifty-Mile Forest is like? Not a farmhouse, not a
cottage, mile after mile, only forest; tall-stemmed fir-trees, with bark
as hard as wood, and high branches; no young trees with soft bark and
soft twigs that the animals could eat. If there had been no snow, they
could have got through the forest in a couple of days; now they could
not get through it at all. All the goats were left there, and the men
too nearly perished. They did not meet a single human being the whole
time. No one helped them.
Hede tried to throw the snow to one side so that the goats could eat the
moss; but the snow fell so thickly, and the moss was frozen fast to the
ground. And how could he get food for two hundred animals in this way?
He bore it bravely until the goats began to moan. The first day they
were a lively, rather noisy herd. He had had hard work to make them all
keep together, and prevent them from butting each other to death. But
when they seemed to understand that they could not be saved their
nature changed, and they completely lost their courage. They all began
to bleat and moan, not faintly and peevishly, as goats usually do, but
loudly, louder and louder as the danger increased. And when Hede heard
their cries he felt quite desperate.
They were in the midst of the wild, desolate forest; there was no help
whatever obtainable. Goat after goat dropped down by the roadside. The
snow gathered round them and covered them. When Hede looked back at this
row of drifts by the wayside, each hiding the body of an animal, of
which one could still see the projecting horns and the hoofs, then his
brain began to give way.
He rushed at the animals, which allowed themselves to be covered by the
snow, swung his whip over them, and hit them. It was the only way to
save them, but they did not stir. He took them by the horns and dragged
them along. They allowed themselves to be dragged, but they did not move
a foot themselves. When he let go his hold of their horns, they licked
his hands, as if beseeching him to help them. As soon as he went up to
them they licked his hands.
All this had such a strong effect upon Hede that he felt he was on the
point of going out of his mind.
It is not certain, however, that things would have gone so badly with
him had he not, after it was all over in the forest, gone to see one
whom he loved dearly. It was not his mother, but his sweetheart. He
thought himself that he had gone there because he ought to tell her at
once that he had lost so much money that he would not be able to marry
for many years. But no doubt he went to see her solely to hear her say
that she loved him quite as much in spite of his misfortunes. He thought
that she could drive away the memory of the Fifty-Mile Forest.
She could, perhaps, have done this, but she would not. She was already
displeased because Hede went about with a pack and looked like a
peasant; she thought that for that reason alone it was difficult to love
him as much as before. Now, when he told her that he must still go on
doing this for many years, she said that she could no longer wait for
him. This last blow was too much for Hede; his mind gave way.
He did not grow quite mad, however; he retained so much of his senses
that he could attend to his business. He even did better than others,
for it amused people to make fun of him; he was always welcome at the
peasants' houses. People plagued and teased him, but that was in a way
good for him, as he was so anxious to become rich. And in the course of
a few years he had earned enough to pay all his debts, and he could have
lived free from worry on his estate. But this he did not understand; he
went about half-witted and silly from farm to farm, and he had no longer
any idea to what class of people he really belonged.
III
Raglanda was the name of a parish in the north of East Vermland, near
the borders of Dalarne, where the Dean had a large house, but the pastor
only a small and poor one. But poor as they were at the small parsonage,
they had been charitable enough to adopt a poor girl. She was a little
girl, Ingrid by name, and she had come to the parsonage when she was
thirteen years old.
The pastor had accidentally seen her at a fair, where she sat crying
outside the tent of some acrobats. He had stopped and asked her why she
was crying, and she had told him that her blind grandfather was dead,
and that she had no relatives left. She now travelled with a couple of
acrobats, and they were good to her, but she cried because she was so
stupid that she could never learn to dance on the tight-rope and help to
earn any money.
There was a sorrowful grace over the child which touched the pastor's
heart. He said at once to himself that he could not allow such a little
creature to go to the bad amongst these wandering tramps. He went into
the tent, where he saw Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren, and offered to take the
child home with him. The old acrobats began to weep, and said that
although the girl was entirely unfitted for the profession, they would
so very much like to keep her; but at the same time they thought she
would be happier in a real home with people who lived in the same place
all the year round, and therefore they were willing to give her up to
the pastor if he would only promise them that she should be like one of
his own children.
This he had promised, and from that time the young girl had lived at the
parsonage. She was a quiet, gentle child, full of love and tender care
for those around her. At first her adopted parents loved her very
dearly, but as she grew older she developed a strong inclination to lose
herself in dreams and fancies. She lived in a world of visions, and in
the middle of the day she could let her work fall and be lost in dreams.
But the pastor's wife, who was a clever and hard-working woman, did not
approve of this. She found fault with the young girl for being lazy and
slow, and tormented her by her severity so that she became timid and
unhappy.
When she had completed her nineteenth year, she fell dangerously ill.
They did not quite know what was the matter with her, for this happened
long ago, when there was no doctor at Raglanda, but the girl was very
ill. They soon saw she was so ill that she could not live.
She herself did nothing but pray to God that He would take her away from
this world. She would so like to die, she said.
Then it seemed as if our Lord would try whether she was in earnest. One
night she felt that she grew stiff and cold all over her body, and a
heavy lethargy fell upon her. 'I think this must be death,' she said to
herself.
But the strange thing was that she did not quite lose consciousness. She
knew that she lay as if she were dead, knew that they wrapped her in
her shroud and laid her in her coffin, but she felt no fear of being
buried, although she was still alive. She had but the one thought that
she was happy because she was about to die and leave this troublesome
life.
The only thing she was uneasy about was lest they should discover that
she was not really dead and would not bury her. Life must have been very
bitter to her, inasmuch as she felt no fear of death whatever.
But no one discovered that she was living. She was conveyed to the
church, carried to the churchyard, and lowered into the grave.
The grave, however, was not filled in; she had been buried before the
service on Sunday morning, as was the custom at Raglanda. The mourners
had gone into church after the funeral, and the coffin was left in the
open grave; but as soon as the service was over they would come back,
and help the grave-digger to fill in the grave.
The young girl knew everything that happened, but felt no fear. She had
not been able to make the slightest movement to show that she was alive,
even if she had wanted to; but even if she had been able to move, she
would not have done so; the whole time she was happy because she was as
good as dead.
But, on the other hand, one could hardly say that she was alive. She had
neither the use of her mind nor of her senses. It was only that part of
the soul which dreams dreams during the night that was still living
within her.
She could not even think enough to realize how terrible it would be for
her to awake when the grave was filled in. She had no more power over
her mind than has one who dreams.
'I should like to know,' she thought, 'if there is anything in the whole
wide world that could make me wish to live.'
As soon as that thought rushed through her it seemed to her as if the
lid of the coffin, and the handkerchief which had been placed over her
face, became transparent, and she saw before her riches and beautiful
raiment, and lovely gardens with delicious fruits.
'No, I do not care for any of these things,' she said, and she closed
her eyes for their glories.
When she again looked up they had disappeared, but instead she saw quite
distinctly a little angel of God sitting on the edge of the grave.
'Good-morning, thou little angel of God,' she said to him.
'Good-morning, Ingrid,' the angel said. 'Whilst thou art lying here
doing nothing, I would like to speak a little with thee about days gone
by.'
Ingrid heard distinctly every word the angel said; but his voice was not
like anything she had ever heard before. It was more like a stringed
instrument; it was not like singing, but like the tones of a violin or
the clang of a harp.
'Ingrid,' the angel said, 'dost thou remember, whilst thy grandfather
was still living, that thou once met a young student, who went with
thee from house to house playing the whole day on thy grandfather's
violin?'
The girl's face was lighted by a smile.
'Dost thou think I have forgotten this?' she said. 'Ever since that time
no day has passed when I have not thought of him.'
'And no night when thou hast not dreamt of him?'
'No, not a night when I have not dreamt of him.'
'And thou wilt die, although thou rememberest him so well,' said the
angel. 'Then thou wilt never be able to see him again.'
When he said this it was as if the dead girl felt all the happiness of
love, but even that could not tempt her.
'No, no,' she said; 'I am afraid to live; I would rather die.'
Then the angel waved his hand, and Ingrid saw before her a wide waste of
desert. There were no trees, and the desert was barren and dry and hot,
and extended in all directions without any limits. In the sand there
lay, here and there, objects which at the first glance looked like
pieces of rock, but when she examined them more closely, she saw they
were the immense living animals of fairy tales, with huge claws and
great jaws, with sharp teeth; they lay in the sand, watching for prey.
And between these terrible animals the student came walking along. He
went quite fearlessly, without suspecting that the figures around him
were living.
'But warn him! do warn him!' Ingrid said to the angel in unspeakable
fear. 'Tell him that they are living, and that he must take care.'
'I am not allowed to speak to him,' said the angel with his clear voice;
'thou must thyself warn him.'
The apparently dead girl felt with horror that she lay powerless, and
could not rush to save the student. She made one futile effort after the
other to raise herself, but the impotence of death bound her. But then
at last, at last, she felt her heart begin to beat, the blood rushed
through her veins, the stiffness of death was loosened in her body. She
arose and hastened towards him.
IV
It is quite certain the sun loves the open places outside the small
village churches. Has no one ever noticed that one never sees so much
sunshine as during the morning service outside a small, whitewashed
church? Nowhere else does one see such radiant streams of light, nowhere
else is the air so devoutly quiet. The sun simply keeps watch that no
one remains on the church hill gossiping. It wants them all to sit
quietly in church and listen to the sermon--that is why it sends such a
wealth of sunny rays on to the ground outside the church wall.
Perhaps one must not take it for granted that the sun keeps watch
outside the small churches every Sunday; but so much is certain, that
the morning Ingrid had been placed in the grave in the churchyard at
Raglanda, it spread a burning heat over the open space outside the
church. Even the flint stones looked as if they might take fire as they
lay and sparkled in the wheel-ruts. The short, down-trodden grass
curled, so that it looked like dry moss, whilst the yellow dandelions
which grew amongst the grass spread themselves out on their long stems,
so that they became as large as asters.
A man from Dalarne came wandering along the road--one of those men who
go about selling knives and scissors. He was clad in a long, white
sheep-skin coat, and on his back he had a large black leather pack. He
had been walking with this burden for several hours without finding it
too hot, but when he had left the highroad, and came to the open place
outside the church, he stopped and took off his hat in order to dry the
perspiration from his forehead.
As the man stood there bare-headed, he looked both handsome and clever.
His forehead was high and white, with a deep wrinkle between the
eyebrows; the mouth was well formed, with thin lips. His hair was parted
in the middle; it was cut short at the back, but hung over his ears, and
was inclined to curl. He was tall, and strongly, but not coarsely,
built; in every respect well proportioned. But what was wrong about him
was his glance, which was unsteady, and the pupils of his eyes rolled
restlessly, and were drawn far into the sockets, as if to hide
themselves. There was something drawn about the mouth, something dull
and heavy, which did not seem to belong to the face.
He could not be quite right, either, or he would not have dragged that
heavy pack about on a Sunday. If he had been quite in his senses, he
would have known that it was of no use, as he could not sell anything in
any case. None of the other men from Dalarne who walked about from
village to village bent their backs under this burden on a Sunday, but
they went to the house of God free and erect as other men.
But this poor fellow probably did not know it was a holy day until he
stood in the sunshine outside the church and heard the singing. He was
sensible enough at once to understand that he could not do any business,
and then his brain began to work as to how he should spend the day.
He stood for a long time and stared in front of him. When everything
went its usual course, he had no difficulty in managing. He was not so
bad but that he could go from farm to farm all through the week and
attend to his business, but he never could get accustomed to the
Sunday--that always came upon him as a great, unexpected trouble.
His eyes became quite fixed, and the muscles of his forehead swelled.
The first thought that took shape in his brain was that he should go
into the church and listen to the singing, but he would not accept this
suggestion. He was very fond of singing, but he dared not go into the
church. He was not afraid of human beings, but in some churches there
were such quaint, uncanny pictures, which represented creatures of which
he would rather not think.
At last his brain worked round to the thought that, as this was a
church, there would probably also be a churchyard, and when he could
take refuge in a churchyard all was well. One could not offer him
anything better. If on his wanderings he saw a churchyard, he always
went in and sat there awhile, even if it were in the middle of a
workaday week.
Now that he wanted to go to the churchyard a new difficulty suddenly
arose. The burial-place at Raglanda does not lie quite near the church,
which is built on a hill, but on the other side of the road; and he
could not get to the entrance of the churchyard without passing along
the road where the horses of the church-goers were standing tied up.
All the horses stood with their heads deep in bundles of hay and
nosebags, chewing. There was no question of their being able to do the
man any harm, but he had his own ideas as to the danger of going past
such a long row of animals.
Two or three times he made an attempt, but his courage failed him, so
that he was obliged to turn back. He was not afraid that the horses
would bite or kick. It was quite enough for him that they were so near
that they could see him. It was quite enough that they could shake their
bridles and scrape the earth with their hoofs.
At last a moment came when all the horses were looking down, and seemed
to be eating for a wager. Then he began to make his way between them. He
held his sheepskin cloak tightly around him so that it should not flap
and betray him, and he went on tiptoe as lightly as he could. When a
horse raised its eyelid and looked at him, he at once stopped and
curtsied. He wanted to be polite in this great danger, but surely
animals were amenable to reason, and could understand that he could not
bow when he had a pack full of hardware upon his back; he could only
curtsy.
He sighed deeply, for in this world it was a sad and troublesome thing
to be so afraid of all four-footed animals as he was. He was really not
afraid of any other animals than goats, and he would not have been at
all afraid of horses and dogs and cats had he only been quite sure that
they were not a kind of transformed goats. But he never was quite sure
of that, so as a matter of fact it was just as bad for him as if he had
been afraid of all kinds of four-footed animals.
It was no use his thinking of how strong he was, and that these small
peasant horses never did any harm to anyone: he who has become possessed
of such fears cannot reason with himself. Fear is a heavy burden, and it
is hard for him who must always carry it.
It was strange that he managed to get past all the horses. The last few
steps he took in two long jumps, and when he got into the churchyard he
closed the gate after him, and began to threaten the horses with his
clenched fist.
'You wretched, miserable, accursed goats!'
He did that to all animals. He could not help calling them goats, and
that was very stupid of him, for it had procured him a name which he did
not like. Everyone who met him called him the 'Goat.' But he would not
own to this name. He wanted to be called by his proper name, but
apparently no one knew his real name in that district.
He stood a little while at the gate, rejoicing at having escaped from
the horses, but he soon went further into the churchyard. At every cross
and every stone he stopped and curtsied, but this was not from fear:
this was simply from joy at seeing these dear old friends. All at once
he began to look quite gentle and mild. They were exactly the same
crosses and stones he had so often seen before. They looked just as
usual. How well he knew them again! He must say 'Good-morning' to them.
How nice it was in the churchyard! There were no animals about there,
and there were no people to make fun of him. It was best there, when it
was quite quiet as now; but even if there were people, they did not
disturb him. He certainly knew many pretty meadows and woods which he
liked still better, but there he was never left in peace. They could not
by any means compare with the churchyard. And the churchyard was better
than the forest, for in the forest the loneliness was so great that he
was frightened by it. Here it was quiet, as in the depths of the
forest; but he was not without company. Here people were sleeping under
every stone and every mound; just the company he wanted in order not to
feel lonely and strange.
He went straight to the open grave. He went there partly because there
were some shady trees, and partly because he wanted company. He thought,
perhaps, that the dead who had so recently been laid in the grave might
be a better protection against his loneliness than those who had passed
away long ago.
He bent his knees, with his back to the great mound of earth at the edge
of the grave, and succeeded in pushing the pack upwards, so that it
stood firmly on the mound, and he then loosened the heavy straps that
fastened it. It was a great day--a holiday. He also took off his coat.
He sat down on the grass with a feeling of great pleasure, so close to
the grave that his long legs, with the stockings tied under the knee,
and the heavy laced shoes dangled over the edge of the grave.
For a while he sat still, with his eyes steadily fixed upon the coffin.
When one was possessed by such fear as he was, one could not be too
careful. But the coffin did not move in the least; it was impossible to
suspect it of containing any snare.
He was no sooner certain of this than he put his hand into a side-pocket
of the pack and took out a violin and bow, and at the same time he
nodded to the dead in the grave. As he was so quiet he should hear
something pretty.
This was something very unusual for him. There were not many who were
allowed to hear him play. No one was ever allowed to hear him play at
the farms, where they set the dogs at him and called him the 'Goat'; but
sometimes he would play in a house where they spoke softly, and went
about quietly, and did not ask him if he wanted to buy any goat-skins.
At such places he took out his violin and treated them to some music;
and this was a great favour--the greatest he could bestow upon anybody.
As he sat there and played at the edge of the grave it did not sound
amiss; he did not play a wrong note, and he played so softly and gently
that it could hardly be heard at the next grave. The strange thing about
it was that it was not the man who could play, but it was his violin
that could remember some small melodies. They came forth from the violin
as soon as he let the bow glide over it. It might not, perhaps, have
meant so much to others, but for him, who could not remember a single
tune, it was the most precious gift of all to possess such a violin that
could play by itself.
Whilst he played he sat with a beaming smile on his face. It was the
violin that spoke and spoke; he only listened. Was it not strange that
one heard all these beautiful things as soon as one let the bow glide
over the strings? The violin did that. It knew how it ought to be, and
the Dalar man only sat and listened. Melodies grew out of that violin as
grass grows out of the earth. No one could understand how it happened.
Our Lord had ordered it so.
The Dalar man intended to remain sitting there the whole day, and let
the dear tunes grow out of the violin like small white and many-coloured
flowers. He would play a whole meadowful of flowers, play a whole long
valleyful, a whole wide plain.
But she who lay in the coffin distinctly heard the violin, and upon her
it had a strange effect. The tones had made her dream, and what she had
seen in her dreams caused her such emotion that her heart began to beat,
her blood to flow, and she awoke.
But all she had lived through while she lay there, apparently dead, the
thoughts she had had, and also her last dream--everything vanished in
the same moment she awoke to consciousness. She did not even know that
she was lying in her coffin, but thought she was still lying ill at home
in her bed. She only thought it strange that she was still alive. A
little while ago, before she fell asleep, she had been in the pangs of
death. Surely, all must have been over with her long ago. She had taken
leave of her adopted parents, and of her brothers and sisters, and of
the servants. The Dean had been there himself to administer the last
Communion, for her adopted father did not think he could bear to give it
to her himself. For several days she had put away all earthly thoughts
from her mind. It was incomprehensible that she was not dead.
She wondered why it was so dark in the room where she lay. There had
been a light all the other nights during her illness. And then they had
let the blankets fall off the bed. She was lying there getting as cold
as ice. She raised herself a little to pull the blankets over her. In
doing so she knocked her head against the lid of the coffin, and fell
back with a little scream of pain. She had knocked herself rather
severely, and immediately became unconscious again. She lay as
motionless as before, and it seemed as if life had again left her.
The Dalar man, who had heard both the knock and the cry, immediately
laid down his violin and sat listening; but there was nothing more to be
heard--nothing whatever. He began again to look at the coffin as
attentively as before. He sat nodding his head, as if he would say 'Yes'
to what he was himself thinking about, namely, that nothing in this
world was to be depended upon. Here he had had the best and most silent
of comrades, but had he not also been disappointed in him?
He sat and looked at the coffin, as if trying to see right through it.
At last, when it continued quite still, he took his violin again and
began to play. But the violin would not play any longer. However gently
and tenderly he drew his bow, there came forth no melody. This was so
sad that he was nearly crying. He had intended to sit still and listen
to his violin the whole day, and now it would not play any more.
He could quite understand the reason. The violin was uneasy and afraid
of what had moved in the coffin. It had forgotten all its melodies, and
thought only of what it could be that had knocked at the coffin-lid.
That is how it is one forgets everything when one is afraid. He saw
that he would have to quiet the violin if he wanted to hear more.
He had felt so happy, more so than for many years. If there was really
anything bad in the coffin, would it not be better to let it out? Then
the violin would be glad, and beautiful flowers would again grow out of
it.
He quickly opened his big pack, and began to rummage amongst his knives
and saws and hammers until he found a screw-driver. In another moment he
was down in the grave on his knees and unscrewing the coffin-lid. He
took out one screw after the other, until at last he could raise the lid
against the side of the grave; at the same moment the handkerchief fell
from off the face of the apparently dead girl. As soon as the fresh air
reached Ingrid, she opened her eyes. Now she saw that it was light. They
must have removed her. Now she was lying in a yellow chamber with a
green ceiling, and a large chandelier was hanging from the ceiling. The
chamber was small, but the bed was still smaller. Why had she the
sensation of her arms and legs being tied? Was it because she should lie
still in the little narrow bed? It was strange that they had placed a
hymn-book under her chin; they only did that with corpses. Between her
fingers she had a little bouquet. Her adopted mother had cut a few
sprigs from her flowering myrtle, and laid them in her hands. Ingrid was
very much surprised. What had come to her adopted mother? She saw that
they had given her a pillow with broad lace, and a fine hem-stitched
sheet. She was very glad of that; she liked to have things nice. Still,
she would rather have had a warm blanket over her. It could surely not
be good for a sick person to lie without a blanket. Ingrid was nearly
putting her hands to her eyes and beginning to cry, she was so bitterly
cold. At the same moment she felt something hard and cold against her
cheek. She could not help smiling. It was the old, red wooden horse, the
old three-legged Camilla, that lay beside her on the pillow. Her little
brother, who could never sleep at night without having it with him in
his bed, had put it in her bed. It was very sweet of her little brother.
Ingrid felt still more inclined to cry when she understood that her
little brother had wanted to comfort her with his wooden horse.
But she did not get so far as crying. The truth all at once flashed upon
her. Her little brother had given her the wooden horse, and her mother
had given her her white myrtle flowers, and the hymn-book had been
placed under her chin, because they had thought she was dead.
Ingrid took hold of the sides of the coffin with both hands and raised
herself. The little narrow bed was a coffin, and the little narrow
chamber was a grave. It was all very difficult to understand. She could
not understand that this concerned her, that it was she who had been
swathed like a corpse and placed in the grave. She must be lying all the
same in her bed, and be seeing or dreaming all this. She would soon find
out that this was no reality, but that everything was as usual.
All at once she found the explanation of the whole thing--'I often have
such strange dreams. This is only a vision'--and she sighed, relieved
and happy. She laid herself down in her coffin again; she was so sure
that it was her own bed, for that was not very wide either.
All this time the Dalar man stood in the grave, quite close to the foot
of the coffin. He only stood a few feet from her, but she had not seen
him; that was probably because he had tried to hide himself in the
corner of the grave as soon as the dead in the coffin had opened her
eyes and begun to move. She could, perhaps, have seen him, although he
held the coffin-lid before him as a screen, had there not been something
like a white mist before her eyes so that she could only see things
quite near her distinctly. Ingrid could not even see that there were
earthen walls around her. She had taken the sun to be a large
chandelier, and the shady lime-trees for a roof. The poor Dalar man
stood and waited for the thing that moved in the coffin to go away. It
did not strike him that it would not go unrequested. Had it not knocked
because it wanted to get out? He stood for a long time with his head
behind the coffin-lid and waited, that it should go. He peeped over the
lid when he thought that now it must have gone. But it had not moved; it
remained lying on its bed of shavings.
He could not put up with it any longer; he must really make an end of
it. It was a long time since his violin had spoken so prettily as
to-day, he longed to sit again quietly with it. Ingrid, who had nearly
fallen asleep again, suddenly heard herself addressed in the sing-song
Dalar dialect:
'Now, I think it is time you got up.'
As soon as he had said this he hid his head. He shook so much over his
boldness that he nearly let the lid fall.
But the white mist which had been before Ingrid's eyes disappeared
completely when she heard a human being speaking. She saw a man standing
in the corner, at the foot of the coffin, holding a coffin-lid before
him. She saw at once that she could not lie down again and think it was
a vision. Surely he was a reality, which she must try and make out. It
certainly looked as if the coffin were a coffin, and the grave a grave,
and that she herself a few minutes ago was nothing but a swathed and
buried corpse. For the first time she was terror-stricken at what had
happened to her. To think that she could really have been dead that
moment! She could have been a hideous corpse, food for worms. She had
been placed in the coffin for them to throw earth upon her; she was
worth no more than a piece of turf; she had been thrown aside
altogether. The worms were welcome to eat her; no one would mind about
that.
Ingrid needed so badly to have a fellow-creature near her in her great
terror. She had recognized the Goat directly he put up his head. He was
an old acquaintance from the parsonage; she was not in the least afraid
of him. She wanted him to come close to her. She did not mind in the
least that he was an idiot. He was, at any rate, a living being. She
wanted him to come so near to her that she could feel she belonged to
the living and not to the dead.
'Oh, for God's sake, come close to me!' she said, with tears in her
voice.
She raised herself in the coffin and stretched out her arms to him.
But the Dalar man only thought of himself. If she were so anxious to
have him near her, he resolved to make his own terms.
'Yes,' he said, 'if you will go away.'
Ingrid at once tried to comply with his request, but she was so tightly
swathed in the sheet that she found it difficult to get up.
'You must come and help me,' she said.
She said this, partly because she was obliged to do it, and partly
because she was afraid that she had not quite escaped death. She must be
near someone living.
He actually went near her, squeezing himself between the coffin and the
side of the grave. He bent over her, lifted her out of the coffin, and
put her down on the grass at the side of the open grave.
Ingrid could not help it. She threw her arms round his neck, laid her
head on his shoulder and sobbed. Afterwards she could not understand how
she had been able to do this, and that she was not afraid of him. It was
partly from joy that he was a human being--a living human being--and
partly from gratitude, because he had saved her.
What would have become of her if it had not been for him? It was he who
had raised the coffin-lid, who had brought her back to life. She
certainly did not know how it had all happened, but it was surely he who
had opened the coffin. What would have happened to her if he had not
done this? She would have awakened to find herself imprisoned in the
black coffin. She would have knocked and shouted; but who would have
heard her six feet below the ground? Ingrid dared not think of it; she
was entirely absorbed with gratitude because she had been saved. She
must have someone she could thank. She must lay her head on someone's
breast and cry from gratitude.
The most extraordinary thing, almost, that happened that day was, that
the Dalar man did not repulse her. But it was not quite clear to him
that she was alive. He thought she was dead, and he knew it was not
advisable to offend anyone dead. But as soon as he could manage, he
freed himself from her and went down into the grave again. He placed the
lid carefully on the coffin, put in the screws and fastened it as
before. Then he thought the coffin would be quite still, and the violin
would regain its peace and its melodies.
In the meantime Ingrid sat on the grass and tried to collect her
thoughts. She looked towards the church and discovered the horses and
the carriages on the hillside. Then she began to realize everything. It
was Sunday; they had placed her in the grave in the morning, and now
they were in church.
A great fear now seized Ingrid. The service would, perhaps, soon be
over, and then all the people would come out and see her. And she had
nothing on but a sheet! She was almost naked. Fancy, if all these people
came and saw her in this state! They would never forget the sight. And
she would be ashamed of it all her life.
Where should she get some clothes? For a moment she thought of throwing
the Dalar man's fur coat round her, but she did not think that that
would make her any more like other people.
She turned quickly to the crazy man, who was still working at the
coffin-lid.
'Oh,' she said, 'will you let me creep into your pack?'
In a moment she stood by the great leather pack, which contained goods
enough to fill a whole market-stall, and began to open it.
'You must come and help me.'
She did not ask in vain. When the Dalar man saw her touching his wares
he came up at once.
'Are you touching my pack?' he asked threateningly.
Ingrid did not notice that he spoke angrily; she considered him to be
her best friend all the time.
'Oh, dear good man,' she said, 'help me to hide, so that people will not
see me. Put your wares somewhere or other, and let me creep into the
pack, and carry me home. Oh, do do it! I live at the Parsonage, and it
is only a little way from here. You know where it is.'
The man stood and looked at her with stupid eyes. She did not know
whether he had understood a word of what she said. She repeated it, but
he made no sign of obeying her. She began again to take the things out
of the pack. Then he stamped on the ground and tore the pack from her.
However should Ingrid be able to make him do what she wanted?
On the grass beside her lay a violin and a bow. She took them up
mechanically--she did not know herself why. She had probably been so
much in the company of people playing the violin that she could not bear
to see an instrument lying on the ground.
As soon as she touched the violin he let go the pack, and tore the
violin from her. He was evidently quite beside himself when anyone
touched his violin. He looked quite malicious.
What in the world could she do to get away before people came out of
church?
She began to promise him all sorts of things, just as one promises
children when one wants them to be good.
'I will ask father to buy a whole dozen of scythes from you. I will lock
up all the dogs when you come to the Parsonage. I will ask mother to
give you a good meal.'
But there was no sign of his giving way. She bethought herself of the
violin, and said in her despair:
'If you will carry me to the Parsonage, I will play for you.'
At last a smile flashed across his face. That was evidently what he
wanted.
'I will play for you the whole afternoon; I will play for you as long as
you like.'
'Will you teach the violin new melodies?' he asked.
'Of course I will.'
But Ingrid now became both surprised and unhappy, for he took hold of
the pack and pulled it towards him. He dragged it over the graves, and
the sweet-williams and southernwood that grew on them were crushed under
it as if it were a roller. He dragged it to a heap of branches and
wizened leaves and old wreaths lying near the wall round the churchyard.
There he took all the things out of the pack, and hid them well under
the heap. When it was empty he returned to Ingrid.
'Now you can get in,' he said.
Ingrid stepped into the pack, and crouched down on the wooden bottom.
The man fastened all the straps as carefully as when he went about with
his usual wares, bent down so that he nearly went on his knees, put his
arms through the braces, buckled a couple of straps across his chest,
and stood up. When he had gone a few steps he began to laugh. His pack
was so light that he could have danced with it.
* * * * *
It was only about a mile from the church to the Parsonage. The Dalar man
could walk it in twenty minutes. Ingrid's only wish was that he would
walk so quickly that she could get home before the people came back from
church. She could not bear the idea of so many people seeing her. She
would like to get home when only her mother and the maid-servants were
there.
Ingrid had taken with her the little bouquet of flowers from her adopted
mother's myrtle. She was so pleased with it that she kissed it over and
over again. It made her think more kindly of her adopted mother than she
had ever done before. But in any case she would, of course, think kindly
of her now. One who has come straight from the grave must think kindly
and gently of everything living and moving on the face of the earth.
She could now understand so well that the Pastor's wife was bound to
love her own children more than her adopted daughter. And when they were
so poor at the Parsonage that they could not afford to keep a nursemaid,
she could see now that it was quite natural that she should look after
her little brothers and sisters. And when her brothers and sisters were
not good to her, it was because they had become accustomed to think of
her as their nurse. It was not so easy for them to remember that she had
come to the Parsonage to be their sister.
And, after all, it all came from their being poor. When father some day
got another living, and became Dean, or even Rector, everything would
surely come right. Then they would love her again, as they did when she
first came to them. The good old times would be sure to come back again.
Ingrid kissed her flowers. It had not been mother's intention, perhaps,
to be hard; it was only worry that had made her so strange and unkind.
But now it would not matter how unkind they were to her. In the future
nothing could hurt her, for now she would always be glad, simply because
she was alive. And if things should ever be really bad again, she would
only think of mother's myrtle and her little brother's horse.
It was happiness enough to know that she was being carried along the
road alive. This morning no one had thought that she would ever again go
over these roads and hills. And the fragrant clover and the little birds
singing and the beautiful shady trees, which had all been a source of
joy for the living, had not even existed for her. But she had not much
time for reflection, for in twenty minutes the Dalar man had reached the
Parsonage.
No one was at home but the Pastor's wife and the maid-servants, just as
Ingrid had wished. The Pastor's wife had been busy the whole morning
cooking for the funeral feast. She soon expected the guests, and
everything was nearly ready. She had just been into the bedroom to put
on her black dress. She glanced down the road to the church, but there
were still no carriages to be seen. So she went once again into the
kitchen to taste the food.
She was quite satisfied, for everything was as it ought to be, and one
cannot help being glad for that, even if one is in mourning. There was
only one maid in the kitchen, and that was the one the Pastor's wife had
brought with her from her old home, so she felt she could speak to her
in confidence.
'I must confess, Lisa,' she said, 'I think anyone would be pleased with
having such a funeral.'
'If she could only look down and see all the fuss you make of her,' Lisa
said, 'she would be pleased.'
'Ah!' said the Pastor's wife, 'I don't think she would ever be pleased
with me.'
'She is dead now,' said the girl, 'and I am not the one to say anything
against one who is hardly yet under the ground.'
'I have had to bear many a hard word from my husband for her sake,' said
the mistress.
The Pastor's wife felt she wanted to speak with someone about the dead
girl. Her conscience had pricked her a little on her account, and this
was why she had arranged such a grand funeral feast. She thought her
conscience might leave her alone now she had had so much trouble over
the funeral, but it did not do so by any means. Her husband also
reproached himself, and said that the young girl had not been treated
like one of their own children, and that they had promised she should be
when they adopted her; and he said it would have been better if they had
never taken her, when they could not help letting her see that they
loved their own children more. And now the Pastor's wife felt she must
talk to someone about the young girl, to hear whether people thought she
had treated her badly.
She saw that Lisa began to stir the pan violently, as if she had
difficulty in controlling her anger. She was a clever girl, who
thoroughly understood how to get into her mistress's good books.
'I must say,' Lisa began, 'that when one has a mother who always looks
after one, and takes care that one is neat and clean, one might at
least try to obey and please her. And when one is allowed to live in a
good Parsonage, and to be educated respectably, one ought at least to
give some return for it, and not always go idling about and dreaming. I
should like to know what would have happened if you had not taken the
poor thing in. I suppose she would have been running about with those
acrobats, and have died in the streets, like any other poor wretch.'
A man from Dalarne came across the yard; he had his pack on his back,
although it was Sunday. He came very quietly through the open
kitchen-door, and curtsied when he entered, but no one took any notice
of him. Both the mistress and the maid saw him, but as they knew him,
they did not think it necessary to interrupt their conversation.
The Pastor's wife was anxious to continue it; she felt she was about to
hear what she needed to ease her conscience.
'It is perhaps as well she is gone,' she said.
'Yes, ma'am,' the servant said eagerly; 'and I am sure the Pastor thinks
just the same. In any case he soon will. And the mistress will see that
now there will be more peace in the house, and I am sure the master
needs it.'
'Oh!' said the Pastor's wife, 'I was obliged to be careful. There were
always so many clothes to be got for her, that it was quite dreadful. He
was so afraid that she should not get as much as the others that she
sometimes even had more. And it cost so much, now that she was grown
up.'
'I suppose, ma'am, Greta will get her muslin dress?'
'Yes; either Greta will have it, or I shall use it myself.'
'She does not leave much behind her, poor thing!'
'No one expects her to leave anything,' said her adopted mother. 'I
should be quite content if I could remember ever having had a kind word
from her.'
This is only the kind of thing one says when one has a bad conscience,
and wants to excuse one's self. Her adopted mother did not really mean
what she said.
The Dalar man behaved exactly as he always did when he came to sell his
wares. He stood for a little while looking round the kitchen; then he
slowly pushed the pack on to a table, and unfastened the braces and the
straps; then he looked round to see if there were any cats or dogs
about. He then straightened his back, and began to unfasten the two
leather flaps, which were fastened with numerous buckles and knots.
'He need not trouble about opening his pack to-day,' Lisa said; 'it is
Sunday, and he knows quite well we don't buy anything on Sundays.'
She, however, took no notice of the crazy fellow, who continued to
unfasten his straps. She turned round to her mistress. This was a good
opportunity for insinuating herself.
'I don't even know whether she was good to the children. I have often
heard them cry in the nursery.'
'I suppose it was the same with them as it was with their mother,' said
the Pastor's wife; 'but now, of course, they cry because she is dead.'
'They don't understand what is best for them,' said the servant; 'but
the mistress can be certain that before a month is gone there will be no
one to cry over her.'
At the same moment they both turned round from the kitchen range, and
looked towards the table, where the Dalar man stood opening his big
pack. They had heard a strange noise, something like a sigh or a sob.
The man was just opening the inside lid, and out of the pack rose the
newly-buried girl, exactly the same as when they laid her in the coffin.
And yet she did not look quite the same. She looked almost more dead now
than when she was laid in her coffin. Then she had nearly the same
colour as when she was alive; now her face was ashy-gray, there was a
bluish-black shadow round her mouth, and her eyes lay deep in her head.
She said nothing, but her face expressed the greatest despair, and she
held out beseechingly, and as if to avert their anger, the bouquet of
myrtle which she had received from her adopted mother.
This sight was more than flesh and blood could stand. Her mother fell
fainting to the ground; the maid stood still for a moment, gazing at the
mother and daughter, covered her eyes with her hands, and rushed into
her own room and locked the door.
'It is not me she has come for; this does not concern me.'
But Ingrid turned round to the Dalar man.
'Put me in your pack again, and take me away. Do you hear? Take me away.
Take me back to where you found me.'
The Dalar man happened to look through the window. A long row of carts
and carriages was coming up the avenue and into the yard. Ah, indeed!
then he was not going to stay. He did not like that at all.
Ingrid crouched down at the bottom of the pack. She said not another
word, but only sobbed. The flaps and the lids were fastened, and she was
again lifted on to his back and carried away. Those who were coming to
the funeral feast laughed at the Goat, who hastened away, curtsying and
curtsying to every horse he met.
V
Anna Stina was an old woman who lived in the depths of the forest. She
gave a helping hand at the Parsonage now and then, and always managed
opportunely to come down the hillside when they were baking or washing.
She was a nice, clever old woman, and she and Ingrid were good friends.
As soon as the young girl was able to collect her thoughts, she made up
her mind to take refuge with her.
'Listen,' she said to the Dalar man. 'When you get onto the highroad,
turn into the forest; then go straight on until you come to a gate;
there you must turn to the left; then you must go straight on until you
come to the large gravel-pit. From there you can see a house: take me
there, and I will play to you.'
The short and harsh manner in which she gave her orders jarred upon her
ears, but she was obliged to speak in this way in order to be obeyed; it
was the only chance she had. What right had she to order another person
about--she who had not even the right to be alive?
After all this she would never again be able to feel as if she had any
right to live. This was the most dreadful part of all that had happened
to her: that she could have lived in the Parsonage for six years, and
not even been able to make herself so much loved that they wished to
keep her alive. And those whom no one loves have no right to live. She
could not exactly say how she knew it was so, but it was as clear as
daylight. She knew it from the feeling that the same moment she heard
that they did not care about her an iron hand seemed to have crushed her
heart as if to make it stop. Yes, it was life itself that had been
closed for her. And the same moment she had come back from death, and
felt the delight of being alive burn brightly and strongly within her,
just at that moment the one thing that gave her the right of existing
had been torn from her.
This was worse than sentence of death. It was much more cruel than an
ordinary sentence of death. She knew what it was like. It was like
felling a tree--not in the usual manner, when the trunk is cut through,
but by cutting its roots and leaving it standing in the ground to die by
itself. There the tree stands, and cannot understand why it no longer
gets nourishment and support. It struggles and strives to live, but the
leaves get smaller and smaller, it sends forth no fresh shoots, the bark
falls off, and it must die, because it is severed from the spring of
life. Thus it is it must die.
At last the Dalar man put down his pack on the stone step outside a
little house in the midst of the wild forest. The door was locked, but
as soon as Ingrid had got out of the pack she took the key from under
the doorstep, opened the door, and walked in.
Ingrid knew the house thoroughly and all it contained. It was not the
first time she had come there for comfort; it was not the first time she
had come and told old Anna Stina that she could not bear living at home
any longer--that her adopted mother was so hard to her that she would
not go back to the Parsonage. But every time she came the old woman had
talked her over and quieted her. She had made her some terrible coffee
from roasted peas and chicory, without a single coffee-bean in it, but
which had all the same given her new courage, and in the end she had
made her laugh at everything, and encouraged her so much, that she had
simply danced down the hillside on her way home.
Even if Anna Stina had been at home, and had made some of her terrible
coffee, it would probably not have helped Ingrid this time. But the old
woman was down at the Parsonage to the funeral feast, for the Pastor's
wife had not forgotten to invite any of those of whom Ingrid had been
fond. That, too, was probably the result of an uneasy conscience.
But in Anna's room everything was as usual. And when Ingrid saw the
sofa with the wooden seat, and the clean, scoured table, and the cat,
and the coffee-kettle, although she did not feel comforted or cheered,
she felt that here was a place where she could give vent to her sorrow.
It was a relief that here she need not think of anything but crying and
moaning.
She went straight to the settle, threw herself on the wooden seat, and
lay there crying, she did not know for how long.
The Dalar man sat outside on the stone step; he did not want to go into
the house on account of the cat. He expected that Ingrid would come out
and play to him. He had taken the violin out long ago. As it was such a
long time before she came, he began to play himself. He played softly
and gently, as was his wont. It was barely possible for the young girl
to hear him playing.
Ingrid had one fit of shivering after the other. This was how she had
been before she fell ill. She would no doubt be ill again. It was also
best that the fever should come and put an end to her in earnest.
When she heard the violin, she rose and looked round with bewildered
glance. Who was that playing? Was that her student? Had he come at last?
It soon struck her, however, that it was the Dalar man, and she lay down
again with a sigh. She could not follow what he was playing. But as soon
as she closed her eyes the violin assumed the student's voice. She also
heard what he said; he spoke with her adopted mother and defended her.
He spoke just as nicely as he had done to Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren. Ingrid
needed love so much, he said. That was what she had missed. That was
why she had not always attended to her work, but allowed dreams to fill
her mind. But no one knew how she could work and slave for those who
loved her. For their sake she could bear sorrow and sickness, and
contempt and poverty; for them she would be as strong as a giant, and as
patient as a slave.
Ingrid heard him distinctly and she became quiet. Yes, it was true. If
only her adopted mother had loved her, she would have seen what Ingrid
was worth. But as she did not love her, Ingrid was paralyzed in her
efforts. Yes, so it had been.
Now the fever had left her, she only lay and listened to what the
student said. She slept a little now and then; time after time she
thought she was lying in her grave, and then it was always the student
who came and took her out of the coffin. She lay and disputed with him.
'When I am dreaming it is you who come,' she said.
'It is always I who come to you, Ingrid,' he said. 'I thought you knew
that. I take you out of the grave; I carry you on my shoulders; I play
you to sleep. It is always I.'
What disturbed and awoke her was the thought that she had to get up and
play for the Dalar man. Several times she rose up to do it, but could
not. As soon as she fell back upon the settle she began to dream. She
sat crouching in the pack and the student carried her through the
forest. It was always he.
'But it was not you,' she said to him.
'Of course it was I,' he said, smiling at her contradicting him. 'You
have been thinking about me every day for all these years; so you can
understand I could not help saving you when you were in such great
danger.'
Of course she saw the force of his argument; and then she began to
realize that he was right, and that it was he. But this was such
infinite bliss that she again awoke. Love seemed to fill her whole
being. It could not have been more real had she seen and spoken with her
beloved.
'Why does he never come in real life?' she said, half aloud. 'Why does
he only come in my dreams?'
She did not dare to move, for then love would fly away. It was as if a
timid bird had settled on her shoulder, and she was afraid of
frightening it away. If she moved, the bird would fly away, and sorrow
would overcome her.
When at last she really awoke, it was twilight. She must have slept the
whole afternoon and evening. At that time of the year it was not dark
until after ten o'clock. The violin had ceased playing, and the Dalar
man had probably gone away.
Anna Stina had not yet come back. She would probably be away the whole
night. It did not matter to Ingrid; all she wanted was to lie down again
and sleep. She was afraid of all the sorrow and despair that would
overwhelm her as soon as she awoke. But then she got something new to
think about. Who could have closed the door? who had spread Anna Stina's
great shawl over her? and who had placed a piece of dry bread beside her
on the seat? Had he, the Goat, done all this for her? For a moment she
thought she saw dream and reality standing side by side, trying which
could best console her. And the dream stood joyous and smiling,
showering over her all the bliss of love to comfort her. But life, poor,
hard, and bitter though it was, also brought its kindly little mite to
show that it did not mean to be so hard upon her as perhaps she thought.
VI
Ingrid and Anna Stina were walking through the dark forest. They had
been walking for four days, and had slept three nights in the Säter
huts. Ingrid was weak and weary; her face was transparently pale; her
eyes were sunken, and shone feverishly. Old Anna Stina now and then
secretly cast an anxious look at her, and prayed to God that He would
sustain her so that she might not die by the wayside. Now and then the
old woman could not help looking behind her with uneasiness. She had an
uncomfortable feeling that the old man with his scythe came stealthily
after them through the forest to reclaim the young girl who, both by the
word of God and the casting of earth upon her, had been consecrated to
him.
Old Anna Stina was little and broad, with a large, square face, which
was so intelligent that it was almost good-looking. She was not
superstitious--she lived quite alone in the midst of the forest without
being afraid either of witches or evil spirits--but as she walked there
by the side of Ingrid she felt as distinctly as if someone had told her
that she was walking beside a being who did not belong to this world.
She had had that sensation ever since she had found Ingrid lying in her
house that Monday morning.
Anna Stina had not returned home on the Sunday evening, for down at the
Parsonage the Pastor's wife had been taken very ill, and Anna Stina, who
was accustomed to nurse sick people, had stayed to sit up with her. The
whole night she had heard the Pastor's wife raving about Ingrid's having
appeared to her; but that the old woman had not believed. And when she
returned home the next day and found Ingrid, the old woman would at once
have gone down to the Parsonage again to tell them that it was not a
ghost they had seen; but when she had suggested this to Ingrid, it had
affected her so much that she dared not do it. It was as if the little
life which burnt in her would be extinguished, just as the flame of a
candle is put out by too strong a draught. She could have died as easily
as a little bird in its cage. Death was prowling around her. There was
nothing to be done but to nurse her very tenderly and deal very gently
with her if her life was to be preserved.
The old woman hardly knew what to think of Ingrid. Perhaps she was a
ghost; there seemed to be so little life in her. She quite gave up
trying to talk her to reason. There was nothing else for it but giving
in to her wishes that no one should hear anything about her being alive.
And then the old woman tried to arrange everything as wisely as
possible. She had a sister who was housekeeper on a large estate in
Dalarne, and she made up her mind to take Ingrid to her, and persuade
her sister, Stafva, to give the girl a situation at the Manor House.
Ingrid would have to be content with being simply a servant. There was
nothing else for it.
They were now on their way to the Manor House. Anna Stina knew the
country so well that they were not obliged to go by the highroad, but
could follow the lonely forest paths. But they had also undergone much
hardship. Their shoes were worn and in pieces, their skirts soiled and
frayed at the bottom, and a branch had torn a long rent in Ingrid's
sleeve.
On the evening of the fourth day they came to a hill from which they
could look down into a deep valley. In the valley was a lake, and near
the edge of the lake was a high, rocky island, upon which stood a large
white building. When Anna Stina saw the house, she said it was called
Munkhyttan, and that it was there her sister lived.
They made themselves as tidy as they could on the hillside. They
arranged the handkerchiefs which they wore on their heads, dried their
shoes with moss, and washed themselves in a forest stream, and Anna
Stina tried to make a fold in Ingrid's sleeve so that the rent could not
be seen.
The old woman sighed when she looked at Ingrid, and quite lost courage.
It was not only that she looked so strange in the clothes she had
borrowed from Anna Stina, and which did not at all fit her, but her
sister Stafva would never take her into her service, she looked so
wretched and pitiful. It was like engaging a breath of wind. The girl
could be of no more use than a sick butterfly.
As soon as they were ready, they went down the hill to the lake. It was
only a short distance. Then they came to the land belonging to the Manor
House.
Was that a country house?
There were large neglected fields, upon which the forest encroached more
and more. There was a bridge leading on to the island, so shaky that
they hardly thought it would keep together until they were safely over.
There was an avenue leading from the bridge to the main building,
covered with grass, like a meadow, and a tree which had been blown down
had been left lying across the road.
The island was pretty enough, so pretty that a castle might very well
have been built there. But nothing but weeds grew in the garden, and in
the large park the trees were choking each other, and black snakes
glided over the green, wet walks.
Anna Stina felt uneasy when she saw how neglected everything was, and
went along mumbling to herself: 'What does all this mean? Is Stafva
dead? How can she stand everything looking like this? Things were very
different thirty years ago, when I was last here. What in the world can
be the matter with Stafva?' She could not imagine that there could be
such neglect in any place where Stafva lived.
Ingrid walked behind her, slowly and reluctantly. The moment she put her
foot on the bridge she felt that there were not two walking there, but
three. Someone had come to meet her there, and had turned back to
accompany her. Ingrid heard no footsteps, but he who accompanied them
appeared indistinctly by her side. She could see there was someone.
She became terribly afraid. She was just going to beg Anna Stina to turn
back and tell her that everything seemed so strange here that she dare
not go any further. But before she had time to say anything, the
stranger came quite close to her, and she recognised him. Before, she
only saw him indistinctly; now she saw him so clearly that she could see
it was the student.
It no longer seemed weird and ghost-like that he walked there. It was
only strangely delightful that he came to receive her. It was as if it
were he who had brought her there, and would, by coming to welcome her,
show that it was.
He walked with her over the bridge, through the avenue, quite up to the
main building.
She could not help turning her head every moment to the left. It was
there she saw his face, quite close to her cheek. It was really not a
face that she saw, only an unspeakably beautiful smile that drew
tenderly near her. But if she turned her head quite round to see it
properly, it was no longer there. No, there was nothing one could see
distinctly. But as soon as she looked straight before her, it was there
again, quite close to her.
Her invisible companion did not speak to her, he only smiled. But that
was enough for her. It was more than enough to show her that there was
one in the world who kept near her with tender love.
She felt his presence as something so real, that she firmly believed he
protected her and watched over her. And before this happy consciousness
vanished all the despair which her adopted mother's hard words had
called forth.
Ingrid felt herself again given back to life. She had the right to live,
as there was one who loved her.
And this was why she entered the kitchen at Munkhyttan with a faint
blush on her cheeks, and with radiant eyes, fragile, weak, and
transparent, but sweet as a newly-opened rose.
She still went about as if in a dream, and did not know much about where
she was; but what surprised her so much that it nearly awakened her was
to see a new Anna Stina standing by the fireplace. She stood there,
little and broad, with a large, square face, exactly like the other. But
why was she so fine, with a white cap with strings tied in a large bow
under her chin, and with a black bombazine dress? Ingrid's head was so
confused, that it was some time before it occurred to her that this must
be Miss Stafva.
She felt that Anna Stina looked uneasily at her, and she tried to pull
herself together and say 'Good-day.' But the only thing her mind could
grasp was the thought that he had come to her.
Inside the kitchen there was a small room, with blue-checked covering on
the furniture. They were taken into that room, and Miss Stafva gave them
coffee and something to eat.
Anna Stina at once began to talk about their errand. She spoke for a
long time; said that she knew her sister stood so high in her
ladyship's favour that she left it to her to engage the servants. Miss
Stafva said nothing, but she gave a look at Ingrid as much as to say
that it would hardly have been left with her if she had chosen servants
like her.
Anna Stina praised Ingrid, and said she was a good girl. She had
hitherto served in a parsonage, but now that she was grown up she wanted
really to learn something, and that was why Anna Stina had brought her
to one who could teach her more than any other person she knew.
Miss Stafva did not reply to this remark either. But her glance plainly
showed that she was surprised that anyone who had had a situation in a
parsonage had no clothes of her own, but was obliged to borrow old Anna
Stina's.
Then old Anna Stina began to tell how she lived quite alone in the
forest, deserted by all her relatives. And this young girl had come
running up the hill many an evening and many an early morning to see
her. She had therefore thought and hoped that she could now help her to
get a good situation.
Miss Stafva said it was a pity that they had gone such a long way to
find a place. If she were a clever girl, she could surely get a
situation in some good family in their own neighbourhood.
Anna Stina could now clearly see that Ingrid's prospects were not good,
and therefore she began in a more solemn vein:
'Here you have lived, Stafva, and had a good, comfortable home all your
life, and I have had to fight my way in great poverty. But I have never
asked you for anything before to-day. And now you will send me away
like a beggar, to whom one gives a meal and nothing more.'
Miss Stafva smiled a little; then she said:
'Sister Anna Stina, you are not telling me the truth. I, too, come from
Raglanda, and I should like to know at what peasant's house in that
parish grow such eyes and such a face.'
And she pointed at Ingrid, and continued:
'I can quite understand, Anna Stina, that you would like to help one who
looks like that. But I do not understand how you can think that your
sister Stafva has not more sense than to believe the stories you choose
to tell her.'
Anna Stina was so frightened that she could not say a word, but Ingrid
made up her mind to confide in Miss Stafva, and began at once to tell
her whole story in her soft, beautiful voice.
And Ingrid had hardly told of how she had been lying in the grave, and
that a Dalar man had come and saved her, before old Miss Stafva grew red
and quickly bent down to hide it. It was only a second, but there must
have been some cause for it, for from that moment she looked so kind.
She soon began to ask full particulars about it; more especially she
wanted to know about the crazy man, whether Ingrid had not been afraid
of him. Oh no, he did no harm. He was not mad, Ingrid said; he could
both buy and sell. He was only frightened of some things.
Ingrid thought the hardest of all was to tell what she had heard her
adopted mother say. But she told everything, although there were tears
in her voice.
Then Miss Stafva went up to her, drew back the handkerchief from her
head, and looked into her eyes. Then she patted her lightly on the
cheek.
'Never mind that, little miss,' she said. 'There is no need for me to
know about that. Now sister and Miss Ingrid must excuse me,' she said
soon after, 'but I must take up her ladyship's coffee. I shall soon be
down again, and you can tell me more.'
When she returned, she said she had told her ladyship about the young
girl who had lain in the grave, and now her mistress wanted to see her.
They were taken upstairs, and shown into her ladyship's boudoir.
Anna Stina remained standing at the door of the fine room. But Ingrid
was not shy; she went straight up to the old lady and put out her hand.
She had often been shy with others who looked much less aristocratic;
but here, in this house, she did not feel embarrassed. She only felt so
wonderfully happy that she had come there.
'So it is you, my child, who have been buried,' said her ladyship,
nodding friendlily to her. 'Do you mind telling me your story, my child?
I sit here quite alone, and never hear anything, you know.'
Then Ingrid began again to tell her story. But she had not got very far
before she was interrupted. Her ladyship did exactly the same as Miss
Stafva had done. She rose, pushed the handkerchief back from Ingrid's
forehead and looked into her eyes.
'Yes,' her ladyship said to herself, 'that I can understand. I can
understand that he must obey those eyes.'
For the first time in her life Ingrid was praised for her courage. Her
ladyship thought she had been very brave to place herself in the hands
of a crazy fellow.
She _was_ afraid, she said, but she was still more afraid of people
seeing her in that state. And he did no harm; he was almost quite right,
and then he was so good.
Her ladyship wanted to know his name, but Ingrid did not know it. She
had never heard of any other name but the Goat. Her ladyship asked
several times how he managed when he came to do business. Had she not
laughed at him, and did she not think that he looked terrible--the Goat?
It sounded so strange when her ladyship said 'the Goat.' There was so
much bitterness in her voice when she said it, and yet she said it over
and over again.
No; Ingrid did not think so, and she never laughed at unfortunate
people. The old lady looked more gentle than her words sounded.
'It appears you know how to manage mad people, my child,' she said.
'That is a great gift. Most people are afraid of such poor creatures.'
She listened to all Ingrid had to say, and sat meditating. 'As you have
not any home, my child,' she said, 'will you not stay here with me? You
see, I am an old woman living here by myself, and you can keep me
company, and I shall take care that you have everything you want. What
do you say to it, my child? There will come a time, I suppose,'
continued her ladyship, 'when we shall have to inform your parents that
you are still living; but for the present everything shall remain as it
is, so that you can have time to rest both body and mind. And you shall
call me "Aunt"; but what shall I call you?'
'Ingrid--Ingrid Berg.'
'Ingrid,' said her ladyship thoughtfully. 'I would rather have called
you something else. As soon as you entered the room with those star-like
eyes, I thought you ought to be called Mignon.'
When it dawned upon the young girl that here she would really find a
home, she felt more sure than ever that she had been brought here in
some supernatural manner, and she whispered her thanks to her invisible
protector before she thanked her ladyship, Miss Stafva, and Anna Stina.
* * * * *
Ingrid slept in a four-poster, on luxurious featherbeds three feet high,
and had hem-stitched sheets, and silken quilts embroidered with Swedish
crowns and French lilies. The bed was so broad that she could lie as she
liked either way, and so high that she must mount two steps to get into
it. At the top sat a Cupid holding the brightly-coloured hangings, and
on the posts sat other Cupids, which held them up in festoons.
In the same room where the bed stood was an old curved chest of drawers
inlaid with olive-wood, and from it Ingrid might take as much
sweetly-scented linen as she liked. There was also a wardrobe containing
many gay and pretty silk and muslin gowns that only hung there and
waited until it pleased her to put them on.
When she awoke in the morning there stood by her bedside a tray with a
silver coffee-set and old Indian china. And every morning she set her
small white teeth in fine white bread and delicious almond-cakes; every
day she was dressed in a fine muslin gown with a lace fichu. Her hair
was dressed high at the back, but round her forehead there was a row of
little light curls.
On the wall between the windows hung a mirror, with a narrow glass in a
broad frame, where she could see herself, and nod to her picture, and
ask:
'Is it you? Is it really you? How have you come here?'
In the daytime, when Ingrid had left the chamber with the four-poster,
she sat in the drawing-room and embroidered or painted on silk, and when
she was tired of that, she played a little on the guitar and sang, or
talked with the old lady, who taught her French, and amused herself by
training her to be a fine lady.
But she had come to an enchanted castle--she could not get away from
that idea. She had had that feeling the first moment, and it was always
coming back again. No one arrived at the house, no one left it. In this
big house only two or three rooms were kept in order; in the others no
one ever went. No one walked in the garden, no one looked after it.
There was only one man-servant, and an old man who cut the firewood. And
Miss Stafva had only two servants, who helped her in the kitchen and in
the dairy.
But there was always dainty food on the table, and her ladyship and
Ingrid were always waited upon and dressed like fine ladies of rank.
If nothing thrived on the old estate, there was, at any rate, fertile
soil for dreams, and even if they did not nurse and cultivate flowers
there, Ingrid was not the one to neglect her dream-roses. They grew up
around her whenever she was alone. It seemed to her then as if red
dream-roses formed a canopy over her.
Round the island where the trees bent low over the water, and sent long
branches in between the reeds, and where shrubs and lofty trees grew
luxuriantly, was a pathway where Ingrid often walked. It looked so
strange to see so many letters carved on the trees, to see the old seats
and summer-houses; to see the old tumble-down pavilions, which were so
worm-eaten that she dared not go into them; to think that real people
had walked here, that here they had lived, and longed, and loved, and
that this had not always been an enchanted castle.
Down here she felt even more the witchery of the place. Here the face
with the smile came to her. Here she could thank him, the student,
because he had brought her to a home where she was so happy, where they
loved her, and made her forget how hardly others had treated her. If it
had not been he who had arranged all this for her, she could not
possibly have been allowed to remain here; it was quite impossible.
She knew that it must be he. She had never before had such wild fancies.
She had always been thinking of him, but she had never felt that he was
so near her that he took care of her. The only thing she longed for was
that he himself should come, for of course he would come some day. It
was impossible that he should not come. In these avenues he had left
behind part of his soul.
* * * * *
Summer went, and autumn; Christmas was drawing near.
'Miss Ingrid,' said the old housekeeper one day, in a rather mysterious
manner, 'I think I ought to tell you that the young master who owns
Munkhyttan is coming home for Christmas. In any case, he generally
comes,' she added, with a sigh.
'And her ladyship, who has never even mentioned that she has a son,'
said Ingrid.
But she was not really surprised. She might just as well have answered
that she had known it all along.
'No one has spoken to you about him, Miss Ingrid,' said the housekeeper,
'for her ladyship has forbidden us to speak about him.'
And then Miss Stafva would not say any more.
Neither did Ingrid want to ask any more. Now she was afraid of hearing
something definite. She had raised her expectations so high that she was
herself afraid they would fail. The truth might be well worth hearing,
but it might also be bitter, and destroy all her beautiful dreams. But
from that day he was with her night and day. She had hardly time to
speak to others. She must always be with him.
One day she saw that they had cleared the snow away from the avenue. She
grew almost frightened. Was he coming now?
The next day her ladyship sat from early morning in the window looking
down the avenue. Ingrid had gone further into the room. She was so
restless that she could not remain at the window.
'Do you know whom I am expecting to-day, Ingrid?'
The young girl nodded; she dared not depend upon her voice to answer.
'Has Miss Stafva told you that my son is peculiar?'
Ingrid shook her head.
'He is very peculiar--he--I cannot speak about it. I cannot--you must
see for yourself.'
It sounded heartrending. Ingrid grew very uneasy. What was there with
this house that made everything so strange? Was it something terrible
that she did not know about? Was her ladyship not on good terms with her
son? What was it, what was it?
The one moment in an ecstasy of joy, the next in a fever of uncertainty,
she was obliged to call forth the long row of visions in order again to
feel that it must be he who came. She could not at all say why she so
firmly believed that he must be the son just of this house. He might,
for the matter of that, be quite another person. Oh, how hard it was
that she had never heard his name!
It was a long day. They sat waiting in silence until evening came.
The man came driving a cartload of Christmas logs, and the horse
remained in the yard whilst the wood was unloaded.
'Ingrid,' said her ladyship in a commanding and hasty tone, 'run down
to Anders and tell him that he must be quick and get the horse into the
stable. Quick--quick!'
Ingrid ran down the stairs and on to the veranda; but when she came out
she forgot to call to the man. Just behind the cart she saw a tall man
in a sheepskin coat, and with a large pack on his back. It was not
necessary for her to see him standing curtsying and curtsying to
recognise him. But, but----She put her hand to her head and drew a deep
breath. How would all these things ever become clear to her? Was it for
that fellow's sake her ladyship had sent her down? And the man, why did
he pull the horse away in such great haste? And why did he take off his
cap and salute? What had that crazy man to do with the people of this
house?
All at once the truth flashed upon Ingrid so crushingly and
overwhelmingly that she could have screamed. It was not her beloved who
had watched over her; it was this crazy man. She had been allowed to
remain here because she had spoken kindly of him, because his mother
wanted to carry on the good work which he had commenced.
The Goat--that was the young master.
But to her no one came. No one had brought her here; no one had expected
her. It was all dreams, fancies, illusions! Oh, how hard it was! If she
had only never expected him!
But at night, when Ingrid lay in the big bed with the brightly-coloured
hangings, she dreamt over and over again that she saw the student come
home. 'It was not you who came,' she said. 'Yes, of course it was I,'
he replied. And in her dreams she believed him.
* * * * *
One day, the week after Christmas, Ingrid sat at the window in the
boudoir embroidering. Her ladyship sat on the sofa knitting, as she
always did now. There was silence in the room.
Young Hede had been at home for a week. During all that time Ingrid had
never seen him. In his home, too, he lived like a peasant, slept in the
men-servants' quarters, and had his meals in the kitchen. He never went
to see his mother.
Ingrid knew that both her ladyship and Miss Stafva expected that she
should do something for Hede, that at the least she would try and
persuade him to remain at home. And it grieved her that it was
impossible for her to do what they wished. She was in despair about
herself and about the utter weakness that had come over her since her
expectations had been so shattered.
To-day Miss Stafva had just come in to say that Hede was getting his
pack ready to start. He was not even staying as long as he generally did
at Christmas, she said with a reproachful look at Ingrid.
Ingrid understood all they had expected from her, but she could do
nothing. She sewed and sewed without saying anything.
Miss Stafva went away, and there was again silence in the room. Ingrid
quite forgot that she was not alone; a feeling of drowsiness suddenly
came over her, whilst all her sad thoughts wove themselves into a
strange fancy.
She thought she was walking up and down the whole of the large house.
She went through a number of rooms and salons; she saw them before her
with gray covers over the furniture. The paintings and the chandeliers
were covered with gauze, and on the floors was a layer of thick dust,
which whirled about when she went through the rooms. But at last she
came to a room where she had never been before; it was quite a small
chamber, where both walls and ceiling were black. But when she came to
look more closely at them, she saw that the chamber was neither painted
black, nor covered with black material, but it was so dark on account of
the walls and the ceiling being completely covered with bats. The whole
room was nothing but a huge nest for bats. In one of the windows a pane
was broken, so one could understand how the bats had got in in such
incredible numbers that they covered the whole room. They hung there in
their undisturbed winter sleep; not one moved when she entered. But she
was seized by such terror at this sight that she began to shiver and
shake all over. It was dreadful to see the quantity of bats she so
distinctly saw hanging there. They all had black wings wrapped around
them like cloaks; they all hung from the walls by a single long claw in
undisturbable sleep. She saw it all so distinctly that she wondered if
Miss Stafva knew that the bats had taken possession of a whole room. In
her thoughts she then went to Miss Stafva and asked her whether she had
been into that room and seen all the bats.
'Of course I have seen them,' said Miss Stafva. 'It is their own room. I
suppose you know, Miss Ingrid, that there is not a single old country
house in all Sweden where they have not to give up a room to the bats?'
'I have never heard that before,' Ingrid said.
'When you have lived as long in the world as I have, Miss Ingrid, you
will find out that I am speaking the truth,' said Miss Stafva.
'I cannot understand that people will put up with such a thing,' Ingrid
said.
'We are obliged to,' said Miss Stafva. 'Those bats are Mistress Sorrow's
birds, and she has commanded us to receive them.'
Ingrid saw that Miss Stafva did not wish to say anything more about that
matter, and she began to sew again; but she could not help speculating
over who that Mistress Sorrow could be who had so much power here that
she could compel Miss Stafva to give up a whole room to the bats.
Just as she was thinking about all this, she saw a black sledge, drawn
by black horses, pull up outside the veranda. She saw Miss Stafva come
out and make a low curtsy. An old lady in a long black velvet cloak,
with many small capes on the shoulders, alighted from the sledge. She
was bent, and had difficulty in walking. She could hardly lift her feet
sufficiently to walk up the steps.
'Ingrid,' said her ladyship, looking up from her knitting, 'I think I
heard Mistress Sorrow arrive. It must have been her jingle I heard. Have
you noticed that she never has sledge-bells on her horses, but only
quite a small jingle? But one can hear it--one can hear it! Go down
into the hall, Ingrid, and bid Mistress Sorrow welcome.'
When Ingrid came down into the front hall, Mistress Sorrow stood talking
with Miss Stafva on the veranda. They did not notice her.
Ingrid saw with surprise that the round-backed old lady had something
hidden under all her capes which looked like crape; it was put well up
and carefully hidden. Ingrid had to look very closely before she
discovered that they were two large bat's wings which she tried to hide.
The young girl grew still more curious and tried to see her face, but
she stood and looked into the yard, so it was impossible. So much,
however, Ingrid did see when she put out her hand to the
housekeeper--that one of her fingers was much longer than the others,
and at the end of it was a large, crooked claw.
'I suppose everything is as usual here?' she said.
'Yes, honoured Mistress Sorrow,' said Miss Stafva.
'You have not planted any flowers, nor pruned any trees? You have not
mended the bridge, nor weeded the avenue?'
'No, honoured mistress.'
'This is quite as it should be,' said the honoured mistress. 'I suppose
you have not had the audacity to search for the vein of ore, or to cut
down the forest which is encroaching on the fields?'
'No, honoured mistress.'
'Or to clean the wells?'
'No, nor to clean the wells.'
'This is a nice place,' said Mistress Sorrow; 'I always like being here.
In a few years things will be in such a state that my birds can live all
over the house. You are really very good to my birds, Miss Stafva.'
At this praise the housekeeper made a deep curtsy.
'How are things otherwise at the house?' said Mistress Sorrow. 'What
sort of a Christmas have you had?'
'We have kept Christmas as we always do,' said Miss Stafva. 'Her
ladyship sits knitting in her room day after day, thinks of nothing but
her son, and does not even know that it is a festival. Christmas Eve we
allowed to pass like any other day--no presents and no candles.'
'No Christmas tree, no Christmas fare?'
'Nor any going to church; not so much as a candle in the windows on
Christmas morning.'
'Why should her ladyship honour God's Son when God will not heal her
son?' said Mistress Sorrow.
'No, why should she?'
'He is at home at present, I suppose? Perhaps he is better now?'
'No, he is no better. He is as much afraid of things as ever.'
'Does he still behave like a peasant? Does he never go into the rooms?'
'We cannot get him to go into the rooms; he is afraid of her ladyship,
as the honoured mistress knows.'
'He has his meals in the kitchen, and sleeps in the men-servants'
room?'
'Yes, he does.'
'And you have no idea how to cure him?'
'We know nothing, we understand nothing.'
Mistress Sorrow was silent for a moment; when she spoke again there was
a hard, sharp ring in her voice:
'This is all right as far as it goes, Miss Stafva; but I am not quite
satisfied with you, all the same.'
The same moment she turned round and looked sharply at Ingrid.
Ingrid shuddered. Mistress Sorrow had a little, wrinkled face, the under
part of which was so doubled up that one could hardly see the lower jaw.
She had teeth like a saw, and thick hair on the upper lip. Her eyebrows
were one single tuft of hair, and her skin was quite brown.
Ingrid thought Miss Stafva could not see what she saw: Mistress Sorrow
was not a human being; she was only an animal.
Mistress Sorrow opened her mouth and showed her glittering teeth when
she looked at Ingrid.
'When this girl came here,' she said to Miss Stafva, 'you thought she
had been sent by God. You thought you could see from her eyes that she
had been sent by Our Lord to save him. She knew how to manage mad
people. Well, how has it worked?'
'It has not worked at all. She has not done anything.'
'No, I have seen to that,' said Mistress Sorrow. 'It was my doing that
you did not tell her why she was allowed to stay here. Had she known
that, she would not have indulged in such rosy dreams about seeing her
beloved. If she had not had such expectations, she would not have had
such a bitter disappointment. Had disappointment not paralyzed her, she
could perhaps have done something for this mad fellow. But now she has
not even been to see him. She hates him because he is not the one she
expected him to be. That is my doing, Miss Stafva, my doing.'
'Yes; the honoured mistress knows her business,' said Miss Stafva.
Mistress Sorrow took her lace handkerchief and dried her red-rimmed
eyes. It looked as if it were meant for an expression of joy.
'You need not make yourself out to be any better than you are, Miss
Stafva,' she said. 'I know you do not like my having taken that room for
my birds. You do not like the thought of my having the whole house soon.
I know that. You and your mistress had intended to cheat me. But it is
all over now.'
'Yes,' said Miss Stafva, 'the honoured mistress can be quite easy. It is
all over. The young master is leaving to-day. He has packed up his pack,
and then we always know he is about to leave. Everything her ladyship
and I have been dreaming about the whole autumn is over. Nothing has
been done. We thought she might at least have persuaded him to remain at
home, but in spite of all we have done for her, she has not done
anything for us.'
'No, she has only been a poor help, I know that,' said Mistress Sorrow.
'But, all the same, she must be sent away now. That was really what I
wanted to see her ladyship about.'
Mistress Sorrow began to drag herself up the steps on her tottering
legs. At every step she raised her wings a little, as if they should
help her. She would, no doubt, much rather have flown.
Ingrid went behind her. She felt strangely attracted and fascinated. If
Mistress Sorrow had been the most beautiful woman in the world, she
could not have felt a greater inclination to follow her.
When she went into the boudoir she saw Mistress Sorrow sitting on the
sofa by the side of her ladyship, whispering confidentially with her, as
if they were old friends.
'You must be able to see that you cannot keep her with you,' said
Mistress Sorrow impressively. 'You, who cannot bear to see a flower
growing in your garden, can surely not stand having a young girl about
in the house. It always brings a certain amount of brightness and life,
and that would not suit you.'
'No; that is just what I have been sitting and thinking about.'
'Get her a situation as lady's companion somewhere or other, but don't
keep her here.'
She rose to say good-bye.
'That was all I wanted to see you about,' she said. 'But how are you
yourself?'
'Knives and scissors cut my heart all day long,' said her ladyship. 'I
only live in him as long as he is at home. It is worse than usual, much
worse this time. I cannot bear it much longer.' . . .
Ingrid started; it was her ladyship's bell that rang. She had been
dreaming so vividly that she was quite surprised to see that her
ladyship was alone, and that the black sledge was not waiting before the
door.
Her ladyship had rung for Miss Stafva, but she did not come. She asked
Ingrid to go down to her room and call her.
Ingrid went, but the little blue-checked room was empty. The young girl
was going into the kitchen to ask for the housekeeper, but before she
had time to open the door she heard Hede talking. She stopped outside;
she could not persuade herself to go in and see him.
She tried, however, to argue with herself. It was not his fault that he
was not the one she had been expecting. She must try to do something for
him; she must persuade him to remain at home. Before, she had not had
such a feeling against him. He was not so very bad.
She bent down and peeped through the keyhole. It was the same here as at
other places. The servants tried to lead him on in order to amuse
themselves by his strange talk. They asked him whom he was going to
marry. Hede smiled; he liked to be asked about that kind of thing.
'She is called Grave-Lily--don't you know that?' he said.
The servant said she did not know that she had such a fine name.
'But where does she live?'
'Neither has she home nor has she farm,' Hede said. 'She lives in my
pack.'
The servant said that was a queer home, and asked about her parents.
'Neither has she father nor has she mother,' Hede said. 'She is as fine
as a flower; she has grown up in a garden.'
He said all this with a certain amount of clearness, but when he wanted
to describe how beautiful his sweetheart was he could not get on at all.
He said a number of words, but they were strangely mixed together. One
could not follow his thoughts, but evidently he himself derived much
pleasure from what he said. He sat smiling and happy.
Ingrid hurried away. She could not bear it any longer. She could not do
anything for him. She was afraid of him. She disliked him. But she had
not got further than the stairs before her conscience pricked her. Here
she had received so much kindness, and she would not make any return.
In order to master her dislike she tried in her own mind to think of
Hede as a gentleman. She wondered how he had looked when he wore good
clothes, and had his hair brushed back. She closed her eyes for a moment
and thought. No, it was impossible, she could not imagine him as being
any different from what he was. The same moment she saw the outlines of
a beloved face by her side. It appeared at her left side wonderfully
distinct. This time the face did not smile. The lips trembled as if in
pain, and unspeakable suffering was written in sharp lines round the
mouth.
Ingrid stopped half-way up the stairs and looked at it. There it was,
light and fleeting, as impossible to grasp and hold fast as a sun-spot
reflected by the prism of a chandelier, but just as visible, just as
real. She thought of her recent dream, but this was different--this was
reality.
When she had looked a little at the face, the lips began to move; they
spoke, but she could not hear a sound. Then she tried to see what they
said, tried to read the words from the lips, as deaf people do, and she
succeeded.
'Do not let me go,' the lips said; 'do not let me go.'
And the anguish with which it was said! If a fellow-creature had been
lying at her feet begging for life, it could not have affected her more.
She was so overcome that she shook. It was more heart-rending than
anything she had ever heard in her whole life. Never had she thought
that anyone could beg in such fearful anguish. Again and again the lips
begged, 'Do not let me go!' And for every time the anguish was greater.
Ingrid did not understand it, but remained standing, filled with
unspeakable pity. It seemed to her that more than life itself must be at
stake for one who begged like this, that his very soul must be at stake.
The lips did not move any more; they stood half open in dull despair.
When they assumed this expression she uttered a cry and stumbled. She
recognised the face of the crazy fellow as she had just seen it.
'No, no, no!' she said. 'It cannot be so! It must not! it cannot! It is
not possible that it is he!'
The same moment the face vanished. She must have sat for a whole hour on
the cold staircase, crying in helpless despair. But at last hope sprang
up in her, strong and fair. She again took courage to raise her head.
All that had happened seemed to show that she should save him. It was
for that she had come here. She should have the great, great happiness
of saving him.
* * * * *
In the little boudoir her ladyship was talking to Miss Stafva. It
sounded so pitiful to hear her asking the housekeeper to persuade her
son to remain a few days longer. Miss Stafva tried to appear hard and
severe.
'Of course, I can ask him,' she said; 'but your ladyship knows that no
one can make him stay longer than he wants.'
'We have money enough, you know. There is not the slightest necessity
for him to go. Can you not tell him that?' said her ladyship.
At the same moment Ingrid came in. The door opened noiselessly. She
glided through the room with light, airy steps; her eyes were radiant,
as if she beheld something beautiful afar off.
When her ladyship saw her she frowned a little. She also felt an
inclination to be cruel, to give pain.
'Ingrid,' she said, 'come here; I must speak with you about your
future.'
The young girl had fetched her guitar and was about to leave the room.
She turned round to her ladyship.
'My future?' she said, putting her hand to her forehead. 'My future is
already decided, you know,' she continued, with the smile of a martyr;
and without saying any more she left the room.
Her ladyship and Stafva looked in surprise at each other. They began to
discuss where they should send the young girl. But when Miss Stafva came
down to her room she found Ingrid sitting there, singing some little
songs and playing on the guitar, and Hede sat opposite her, listening,
his face all sunshine.
* * * * *
Ever since Ingrid had recognised the student in the poor crazy fellow,
she had no other thought but that of trying to cure him; but this was a
difficult task, and she had no idea whatever as to how she should set
about it. To begin with, she only thought of how she could persuade him
to remain at Munkhyttan; and this was easy enough. Only for the sake of
hearing her play the violin or the guitar a little every day he would
now sit patiently from morning till evening in Miss Stafva's room
waiting for her.
She thought it would be a great thing if she could get him to go into
the other rooms, but that she could not. She tried keeping in her room,
and said she would not play any more for him if he did not come to her.
But after she had remained there two days, he began to pack up his pack
to go away, and then she was obliged to give in.
He showed great preference for her, and distinctly showed that he liked
her better than others; but she did not make him less frightened. She
begged him to leave off his sheepskin coat, and wear an ordinary coat.
He consented at once, but the next day he had it on again. Then she hid
it from him; but he then appeared in the man-servant's skin coat. So
then they would rather let him keep his own. He was still as frightened
as ever, and took great care no one came too near him. Even Ingrid was
not allowed to sit quite close to him.
One day she said to him that now he must promise her something: he must
give over curtsying to the cat. She would not ask him to do anything so
difficult as give up curtsying to horses and dogs, but surely he could
not be afraid of a little cat.
Yes, he said; the cat was a goat.
'It can't be a goat,' she said; 'it has no horns, you know.'
He was pleased to hear that. It seemed as if at last he had found
something by which he could distinguish a goat from other animals.
The next day he met Miss Stafva's cat.
'That goat has no horns,' he said; and laughed quite proudly.
He went past it, and sat down on the sofa to listen to Ingrid playing.
But after he had sat a little while he grew restless, and he rose, went
up to the cat, and curtsied.
Ingrid was in despair. She took him by his arm and shook him. He ran
straight out of the room, and did not appear until the next day.
'Child, child,' said her ladyship, 'you do exactly as I did; you try the
same as I did. It will end by your frightening him so that he dare not
see you any more. It is better to leave him in peace. We are satisfied
with things as they are if he will only remain at home.'
There was nothing else for Ingrid to do but wring her hands in sorrow
that such a fine, lovable fellow should be concealed in this crazy man.
Ingrid thought again and again, had she really only come here to play
her grandfather's tunes to him? Should they go on like that all through
life? Would it never be otherwise?
She also told him many stories, and in the midst of a story his face
would lighten up, and he would say something wonderfully subtle and
beautiful. A sane person would never have thought of anything like it.
And no more was needed to make her courage rise, and then she began
again with these endless experiments.
* * * * *
It was late one afternoon, and the moon was just about to rise. White
snow lay on the ground, and bright gray ice covered the lake. The trees
were blackish-brown, and the sky was a flaming red after the sunset.
Ingrid was on her way to the lake to skate. She went along a narrow path
where the snow was quite trodden down. Gunnar Hede went behind her.
There was something cowed in his bearing that made one think of a dog
following its master.
Ingrid looked tired; there was no brightness in her eyes, and her
complexion was gray.
As she walked along she wondered whether the day, which was now so
nearly over, was content with itself--if it were from joy it had
lighted the great flaming red sunset far away in the west.
She knew she could light no bonfire over this day, nor over any other
day. In the whole month that had passed since she recognised Gunnar Hede
she had gained nothing.
And to-day a great fear had come upon her. It seemed to her as if she
might perhaps lose her love over all this. She was nearly forgetting the
student, only for thinking of the poor fellow. All that was bright and
beautiful and youthful vanished from her love. Nothing was left but
dull, heavy earnest.
She was quite in despair as she walked towards the lake. She felt she
did not know what ought to be done--felt that she must give it all up.
Oh, God, to have him walking behind her apparently strong and hale, and
yet so helplessly, incurably sick!
They had reached the lake, and she was putting on her skates. She also
wanted him to skate, and helped him to put on his skates; but he fell as
soon as he got on to the ice. He scrambled to the bank and sat down on a
stone, and she skated away from him.
Just opposite the stone upon which Gunnar Hede was sitting was an islet
overgrown with birches and poplars, and behind it the radiant evening
sky, which was still flaming red. And the fine, light, leafless tops of
the trees stood against the glorious sky with such beauty that it was
impossible not to notice it.
Is it not a fact that one always recognises a place by a single feature?
One does not exactly know how even the most familiar spot looks from
all sides. And Munkhyttan one always knew by the little islet. If one
had not seen the place for many years, one would know it again by this
islet, where the dark tree-tops were lifted towards the sunset.
Hede sat quite still, and looked at the islet and at the branches of the
trees and at the gray ice which surrounded it.
This was the view he knew best of all; there was nothing on the whole
estate he knew so well, for it was always this islet that attracted the
eye. And soon he was sitting looking at the islet without thinking about
it, just as one does with things one knows so well. He sat for a long
time gazing. Nothing disturbed him, not a human being, not a gust of
wind, no strange object. He could not see Ingrid; she had skated far
away on the ice.
A rest and peace fell upon Gunnar Hede such as one only feels in home
surroundings. Security and peace came to him from the little islet; it
quieted the everlasting unrest that tormented him.
Hede always imagined he was amongst enemies, and always thought of
defending himself. For many years he had not felt that peace which made
it possible for him to forget himself. But now it came upon him.
Whilst Gunnar Hede was sitting thus and not thinking of anything, he
happened mechanically to make a movement as one may do when one finds
one's self in accustomed circumstances. As he sat there with the shining
ice before him and with skates on his feet, he got up and skated on to
the lake, and he thought as little of what he was doing as one thinks of
how one is holding fork or spoon when eating.
He glided over the ice; it was glorious skating. He was a long way off
the shore before he realized what he was doing.
'Splendid ice!' he thought. 'I wonder why I did not come down earlier in
the day. It is a good thing I was more here yesterday,' he said. 'I will
really not waste a single day during the rest of my vacation.'
No doubt it was because Gunnar Hede happened to do something he was in
the habit of doing before he was ill that his old self awakened within
him.
Thoughts and associations connected with his former life began to force
themselves upon his consciousness, and at the same time all the thoughts
connected with his illness sank into oblivion.
It had been his habit when skating to take a wide turn on the lake in
order to see beyond a certain point. He did so now without thinking, but
when he had turned the point he knew he had skated there to see if there
was a light in his mother's window.
'She thinks it is time I was coming home, but she must wait a little;
the ice is too good.'
But it was mostly vague sensations of pleasure over the exercise and the
beautiful evening that were awakened within him. A moonlight evening
like this was just the time for skating; he was so fond of this peaceful
transition from day to night. It was still light, but the stillness of
night was already there, the best both of day and of night.
There was another skater on the ice; it was a young girl. He was not
sure if he knew her, but he skated towards her to find out. No; it was
no one he knew, but he could not help making a remark when he passed her
about the splendid ice.
The stranger was probably a young girl from the town. She was evidently
not accustomed to be addressed in this unceremonious manner; she looked
quite frightened when he spoke to her. He certainly was queerly dressed;
he was dressed quite like a peasant.
Well, he did not want to frighten her away. He turned off and skated
further up the lake; the ice was big enough for them both.
But Ingrid had nearly screamed with astonishment. He had come towards
her skating elegantly, with his arms crossed, the brim of his hat turned
up, and his hair thrown back, so that it did not fall over his ears.
He had spoken with the voice of a gentleman, almost without the
slightest Dalar accent. She did not stop to think about it. She skated
quickly towards the shore. She came breathless into the kitchen. She did
not know how to say it shortly and quickly enough.
'Miss Stafva, the young master has come home!'
The kitchen was empty; neither the housekeeper nor the servants were
there. Nor was there anybody in the housekeeper's room. Ingrid rushed
through the whole house, went into rooms where no one ever went. The
whole time she cried out, 'Miss Stafva, Miss Stafva! the young master
has come home!'
She was quite beside herself, and went on calling out, even when she
stood on the landing upstairs, surrounded by the servants, Miss Stafva,
and her ladyship herself. She said it over and over again. She was too
much excited to stop. They all understood what she meant. They stood
there quite as much overcome as she was.
Ingrid turned restlessly from the one to the other. She ought to give
explanations and orders, but about what? That she could so lose her
presence of mind! She looked wildly questioning at her ladyship.
'What was it I wanted?'
The old lady gave some orders in a low, trembling voice. She almost
whispered.
'Light the candles and make a fire in the young master's room. Lay out
the young master's clothes.'
It was neither the place nor the time for Miss Stafva to be important.
But there was all the same a certain superior ring in her voice as she
answered:
'There is always a fire in the young master's room. The young master's
clothes are always in readiness for him.'
'Ingrid had better go up to her room,' said her ladyship.
The young girl did just the opposite. She went into the drawing-room,
placed herself at the window, sobbed and shook, but did not herself
know that she was not still. She impatiently dried the tears from her
eyes, so that she could see over the snowfield in front of the house. If
only she did not cry, there was nothing she could miss seeing in the
clear moonlight. At last he came.
'There he is! there he is!' she cried to her ladyship. 'He walks
quickly! he runs! Do come and see!'
Her ladyship sat quite still before the fire. She did not move. She
strained her ears to hear, just as much as the other strained her eyes
to see. She asked Ingrid to be quiet, so that she could hear how he
walked. Ah, yes, she would be quiet. Her ladyship should hear how he
walked. She grasped the window-sill, as if that could help her.
'You _shall_ be quiet,' she whispered, 'so that her ladyship can hear
how he walks.'
Her ladyship sat bending forward, listening with all her soul. Did she
already hear his steps in the court-yard? She probably thought he would
go towards the kitchen. Did she hear that it was the front steps that
creaked? Did she hear that it was the door to the front hall that
opened? Did she hear how quickly he came up the stairs, two or three
steps at a time? Had his mother heard that? It was not the dragging step
of a peasant, as it had been when he left the house.
It was almost more than they could bear, to hear him coming towards the
door of the drawing-room. Had he come in then, they would no doubt both
have screamed. But he turned down the corridor to his own rooms.
Her ladyship fell back in her chair, and her eyes closed. Ingrid thought
her ladyship would have liked to die at that moment. Without opening her
eyes, she put out her hand. Ingrid went softly up and took it; the old
lady drew her towards her.
'Mignon, Mignon,' she said; 'that was the right name after all. But,'
she continued, 'we must not cry. We must not speak about it. Take a
stool and come and sit down by the fire. We must be calm, my little
friend. Let us speak about something else. We must be perfectly calm
when he comes in.'
Half an hour afterwards Hede came in; the tea was on the table, and the
chandelier was lighted. He had dressed; every trace of the peasant had
disappeared. Ingrid and her ladyship pressed each other's hands.
They had been sitting trying to imagine how he would look when he came
in. It was impossible to say what he might say or do, said her ladyship.
One never had known what he might do. But in any case they would both be
quite calm. A feeling of great happiness had come over her, and that had
quieted her. She was resting, free from all sorrow, in the arms of
angels carrying her upwards, upwards.
But when Hede came in, there was no sign of confusion about him.
'I have only come to tell you,' he said, 'that I have got such a
headache, that I shall have to go to bed at once. I felt it already when
I was on the ice.'
Her ladyship made no reply. Everything was so simple; she had never
thought it would be like that. It took her a few moments to realize that
he did not know anything about his illness, that he was living somewhere
in the past.
'But perhaps I can first drink a cup of tea,' he said, looking a little
surprised at their silence.
Her ladyship went to the tea-tray. He looked at her.
'Have you been crying, mother? You are so quiet.'
'We have been sitting talking about a sad story, I and my young friend
here,' said her ladyship, pointing to Ingrid.
'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I did not see you had visitors.'
The young girl came forward towards the light, beautiful as one would be
who knew that the gates of heaven the next moment would open before her.
He bowed a little stiffly. He evidently did not know who she was. Her
ladyship introduced them to each other. He looked curiously at Ingrid.
'I think I saw Miss Berg on the ice,' he said.
He knew nothing about her--had never spoken to her before.
* * * * *
A short, happy time followed. Gunnar Hede was certainly not quite
himself; but those around him were happy in the belief that he soon
would be. His memory was partly gone. He knew nothing about certain
periods of his life; he could not play the violin; he had almost
forgotten all he knew; and his power of thinking was weak; and he
preferred neither to read nor to write. But still he was very much
better. He was not frightened; he was fond of his mother; he had again
assumed the manners and habits of a gentleman. One can easily understand
that her ladyship and all her household were delighted.
Hede was in the best of spirits--bright and joyous all day long. He
never speculated over anything, put to one side everything he could not
understand, never spoke about anything that necessitated mental
exertion, but talked merrily and cheerfully. He was most happy when he
was engaged in bodily exercise. He took Ingrid out with him sledging and
skating. He did not talk much to her, but she was happy to be with him.
He was kind to Ingrid, as he was to everyone else, but not in the least
in love with her. He often wondered about his _fiancée_--wondered why
she never wrote. But after a short time that trouble, too, left him. He
always put away from him anything that worried him.
Ingrid thought that he would never get really well by doing like this.
He must some time be made to think--to face his own thoughts, which he
was afraid of doing now. But she dared not compel him to do this, and
there was no one else who dared. If he began to care for her a little,
perhaps she might dare. She thought all they now wanted, every one of
them, was a little happiness.
* * * * *
It was just at that time that a little child died at the Parsonage at
Raglanda where Ingrid had been brought up; and the grave-digger was
about to dig the grave.
The man dug the grave quite close to the spot where the previous summer
he had dug the grave for Ingrid. And when he had got a few feet into the
ground he happened to lay bare a corner of her coffin. The grave-digger
could not help smiling a little to himself. Of course he had heard that
the dead girl lying in this coffin had appeared. She was supposed to
have unscrewed her coffin-lid on the very day of her funeral, risen from
the grave, and appeared at the Parsonage. The Pastor's wife was not so
much liked but that people in the parish rather enjoyed telling this
story about her. The grave-digger thought that people should only know
how securely the dead were lying in the ground, and how fast the
coffin-lids. . . .
He interrupted himself in the midst of this thought. On the corner of
the coffin which was exposed the lid was not quite straight, and one of
the screws was not quite fast. He did not say anything, he did not think
anything, but stopped digging and whistled the whole reveille of the
Vermland Regiment--for he was an old soldier. Then he thought he had
better examine the thing properly. It would never do for a grave-digger
to have thoughts about the dead which might come and trouble him during
the dark autumn nights. He hastily removed some more earth. Then he
began to hammer on the coffin with his shovel. The coffin answered quite
distinctly that it was empty--empty.
Half an hour after the grave-digger was at the Parsonage. There was no
end to the questionings and surmises. So much they were all agreed
upon--that the young girl had been in the Dalar man's pack. But what had
become of her afterwards?
Anna Stina stood at the oven in the Parsonage and looked after the
baking, for of course there was baking to be done for the new funeral.
She stood for a long time listening to all this talk without saying a
word. All she took care of was that the cakes were not burnt. She put
sheet-tins in and took sheet-tins out, and it was dangerous to approach
her as she stood there with the long baker's shovel. But suddenly she
took off her kitchen-apron, wiped the worst of the sweat and the soot
from her face, and was talking with the Pastor in his study almost
before she knew how it had come about.
After this it was not so very wonderful that one day in March the
Pastor's little red-painted sledge, ornamented with green tulips, and
drawn by the Pastor's little red horse, pulled up at Munkhyttan. Ingrid
was of course obliged to go back with the Pastor home to her mother. The
Pastor had come to fetch her. He did not say much about their being glad
that she was alive, but one could see how happy he was. He had never
been able to forgive himself that they had not been more kind to their
adopted daughter. And now he was radiant at the thought that he was
allowed to make a new beginning and make everything good for her this
time.
They did not speak a word about the reason why she had run away. It was
of no use bringing that up again so long after. But Ingrid understood
that the Pastor's wife had had a hard time, and had suffered many pangs
of conscience, and that they wanted to have her back again in order to
be good to her. She felt that she was almost obliged to go back to the
Parsonage to show that she had no ill-feeling against her adopted
parents.
They all thought it was the most natural thing that she should go to the
Parsonage for a week or two. And why should she not? She could not make
the excuse that they needed her at Munkhyttan. She could surely be away
for some weeks without it doing Gunnar Hede any harm. She felt it was
hard, but it was best she should go away, as they all thought it was the
right thing.
Perhaps she had hoped they would ask her not to go away. She took her
seat in the sledge with the feeling that her ladyship or Miss Stafva
would surely come and lift her out of it, and carry her into the house
again. It was impossible to realize that she was actually driving down
the avenue, that she was turning into the forest, and that Munkhyttan
was disappearing behind her.
But supposing it was from pure goodness that they let her go? They
thought, perhaps, that youth, with its craving for pleasure, wanted to
get away from the loneliness of Munkhyttan. They thought, perhaps, she
was tired of being the keeper of a crazy man. She raised her hand, and
was on the point of seizing the reins and turning the horse. Now that
she was several miles from the house it struck her that that was why
they had let her go. She would have liked so much to have gone back and
asked them.
In her utter loneliness she felt as if she were groping about in the
wild forest. There was not a single human being who answered her or
advised her. She received just as much answer from fir and pine, and
squirrel and owl, as she did from any human being.
It was really a matter of utter indifference to her how they treated her
at the Parsonage. They were very kind to her, as far as she knew, but it
really did not matter. If she had come to a palace full of everything
one could most desire, that would likewise have been the same to her. No
bed is soft enough to give rest unto one whose heart is full of longing.
In the beginning she had asked them every day, as modestly as she could,
if they would not let her go home, now that she had had the great
happiness of seeing her mother and her brothers and sisters. But the
roads were really too bad. She must stay with them until the frost had
disappeared. It was not a matter of life and death, they supposed, to go
back to that place.
Ingrid could not understand why it annoyed people when she said she
wanted to go back to Munkhyttan. But this seemed to be the case with her
father and her mother and everybody else in the parish. One had no
right, it appeared, to long for any other place in the world, when one
was at Raglanda.
She soon saw it was best not to speak about her going away. There were
so many difficulties in the way whenever she spoke about it. It was not
enough that the roads were still in the same bad condition; they
surrounded her with walls and ramparts and moats. She would knit and
weave, and plant out in the forcing-frames. And surely she would not go
away until after the large birthday party at the Dean's? And she could
not think of leaving till after Karin Landberg's wedding.
There was nothing for her to do but to lift her hands in supplication to
the spring, and beg it to make haste with its work, beg for sunshine and
warmth, beg the gentle sun to do its very best for the great border
forest, send small piercing rays between the fir-trees, and melt the
snow beneath them. Dear, dear sun! It did not matter if the snow were
not melted in the valley, if only the snow would vanish from the
mountains, if only the forest paths became passable, if only the Säter
girls were able to go to their huts, if only the bogs became dry, if
only it became possible to go by the forest road, which was half the
distance of the highroad.
Ingrid knew one who would not wait for carriage, or ask for money to
drive, if only the road through the forest became passable. She knew one
who would leave the Parsonage some moonlight night, and who would do it
without asking a single person's permission.
She thought she had waited for the spring before. That everybody does.
But now Ingrid knew that she had never before longed for it. Oh no, no!
She had never before known what it was to long. Before she had waited
for green leaves and anemones, and the song of the thrush and the
cuckoo. But that was childishness--nothing more. They did not long for
the spring who only thought of what was beautiful. One should take the
first bit of earth that peeped through the snow, and kiss it. One should
pluck the first coarse leaf of the nettle simply to burn into one that
now the spring had come.
Everybody was very good to her. But although they did not say anything,
they seemed to think that she was always thinking of leaving them.
'I can't understand why you want to go back to that place and look after
that crazy fellow,' said Karin Landberg one day. It seemed as if she
could read Ingrid's thoughts.
'Oh, she has given up thinking of that now,' said the Pastor's wife,
before the young girl had time to answer.
When Karin was gone the Pastor's wife said:
'People wonder that you want to leave us.'
Ingrid was silent.
'They say that when Hede began to improve perhaps you fell in love with
him.'
'Oh no! Not after he had begun to improve,' Ingrid said, feeling almost
inclined to laugh.
'In any case, he is not the sort of person one could marry,' said her
adopted mother. 'Father and I have been speaking about it, and we think
it is best that you should remain with us.'
'It is very good of you that you want to keep me,' Ingrid said. And she
was touched that now they wanted to be so kind to her.
They did not believe her, however obedient she was. She could not
understand what little bird it was that told them about her longing.
Now her adopted mother had told her that she must not go back to
Munkhyttan. But even then she could not leave the matter alone.
'If they really wanted you,' she said, 'they would write for you.'
Ingrid again felt inclined to laugh. That would be the strangest thing
of all, should there be a letter from the enchanted castle. She would
like to know if her adopted mother thought that the King of the Mountain
wrote for the maiden who had been swallowed by the mountain to come back
when she had gone to see her mother?
But if her adopted mother had known how many messages she had received
she would probably have been even more uneasy. There came messages to
her in her dreams by nights, and there came messages to her in her
visions by day. He let Ingrid know that he was in need of her. He was so
ill--so ill!
She knew that he was nearly going out of his mind again, and that she
must go to him. If anyone had told her this, she would simply have
answered that she knew it.
The large star-like eyes looked further and further away. Those who saw
that look would never believe that she meant to stay quietly and
patiently at home.
It is not very difficult either to see whether a person is content or
full of longing. One only needs to see a little gleam of happiness in
the eyes when he or she comes in from work and sits down by the fire.
But in Ingrid's eyes there was no gleam of happiness, except when she
saw the mountain stream come down through the forest, broad and strong.
It was that that should prepare the way for her.
It happened one day that Ingrid was sitting alone with Karin Landberg,
and she began to tell her about her life at Munkhyttan. Karin was quite
shocked. How could Ingrid stand such a life?
Karin Landberg was to be married very soon. And she was now at that
stage when she could speak of nothing but her lover. She knew nothing
but what he had taught her, and she could do nothing without first
consulting him.
It occurred to her that Oluf had said something about Gunnar Hede which
would help to frighten Ingrid if she had begun to like that crazy
fellow. And then she began to tell her how mad he had really been. For
Oluf had told her that when he was at the fair last autumn some
gentlemen had said that they did not think the Goat was mad at all. He
only pretended to be in order to attract customers. But Oluf had
maintained that he was mad, and in order to prove it went to the market
and bought a wretched little goat. And then it was plain enough to see
that he was mad. Oluf had only put the goat in front of him on the
counter where his knives and things lay, and he had run away and left
both his pack and his wares, and they had all laughed so awfully when
they saw how frightened he was. And it was impossible that Ingrid could
care for anyone who had been so crazy.
It was, no doubt, unwise of Karin Landberg that she did not look at
Ingrid whilst she told this story. If she had seen how she frowned, she
would perhaps have taken warning.
'And you will marry anyone who could do such a thing!' Ingrid said. 'I
think it would be better to marry the Goat himself.'
This Ingrid said in downright earnest, and it seemed so strange to Karin
that she, who was always so gentle, should have said anything so unkind,
that it quite worried her. For several days she was quite unhappy,
because she feared Oluf was not what she would like him to be. It simply
embittered Karin's life until she made up her mind to tell Oluf
everything; but he was so nice and good, that he quite reassured her.
It is not an easy task to wait for the spring in Vermland. One can have
sun and warmth in the evening, and the next morning find the ground
white with snow. Gooseberry-bushes and lawns may be green, but the trees
of the birch-forest are bare, and seem as if they will never spring out.
At Whitsuntide there was spring in the air, but Ingrid's prayers had
been of no avail. Not a single Säter girl had taken up her abode in the
forest, not a fen was dry; it was impossible to go through the forest.
On Whit-Sunday Ingrid and her adopted mother went to church. As it was
such a great festival, they had driven to church. In olden days Ingrid
had very much enjoyed driving up to the church in full gallop, whilst
people along the roadside politely took off their hats, and those who
were standing on the road rushed to the side as if they were quite
frightened. But at the present moment she could not enjoy anything.
'Longing takes the fragrance from the rose, and the light from the full
moon,' says an old proverb.
But Ingrid was glad for what she heard in church. It did her good to
hear how the disciples were comforted in their longing. She was glad
that Jesus thought of comforting those who longed so greatly for Him.
Whilst Ingrid and the rest of the congregation were in church a tall
Dalar man came walking down the road. He wore a sheepskin coat, and had
a large pack on his back, like one who cannot tell winter from summer,
or Sunday from any other day. He did not go into the church, but stole
timidly past the horses that were tied to the railings, and went into
the churchyard.
He sat down on a grave and thought of all the dead who were still
sleeping, and of one of the dead who had awakened to life again. He was
still sitting there when the people left the church. Karin Landberg's
Oluf was one of the first to leave the church, and when he happened to
look across the churchyard he discovered the Dalar man. It is hard to
say whether it was curiosity or some other motive that prompted him, but
he went up to talk to him. He wanted to see if it were possible that he
who was supposed to have been cured had become mad again.
And it was possible. He told him at once that he sat there waiting for
her who was called Grave-Lily. She was to come and play to him. She
played so beautifully that the sun and the stars danced.
Then Karin Landberg's Oluf told him that she for whom he was waiting was
standing outside the church. If he stood up, he could see her. She
would, no doubt, be glad to see him.
The Pastor's wife and Ingrid were just getting into the carriage, when a
tall Dalar man came running up to them. He came at a great pace in spite
of all the horses he must curtsy to, and he beckoned eagerly to the
young girl.
As soon as Ingrid saw him she stood quite still. She could not have told
whether she was most glad to see him again or most grieved that he had
again gone out of his mind; she only forgot everything else in the
world.
Her eyes began to sparkle. In that moment she saw nothing of the poor
wretched man. She only felt that she was once again near the beautiful
soul of the man for whom she had longed so terribly.
There were a great many people about, and they could not help looking at
her. They could not take their eyes from her face. She did not move; she
stood waiting for him. But those who saw how radiant she was with
happiness must have thought that she was waiting for some great and
noble man, instead of a poor, half-witted fellow.
They said afterwards that it almost seemed as if there were some
affinity between his soul and hers--some secret affinity which lay so
deeply hidden beneath their consciousness that no human being could
understand it.
But when Hede was only a step or two from Ingrid her adopted mother took
her resolutely round the waist and lifted her into the carriage. She
would not have a scene between the two just outside the church, with so
many people present. And as soon as they were in the carriage the man
sent his horses off at full gallop.
A wild, terrified cry was heard as they drove away. The Pastor's wife
thanked God that she had got the young girl into the carriage.
It was still early in the afternoon when a peasant came to the Parsonage
to speak with the Pastor. He came to speak about the crazy Dalar man. He
had now gone quite raving mad, and they had been obliged to bind him.
What did the Pastor advise them to do? What should they do with him?
The Pastor could give them no other advice but to take him home. He told
the peasant who he was, and where he lived.
Later on in the evening he told Ingrid everything. It was best to tell
her the truth, and trust to her own common-sense.
But when night came it became clear to her that she had not time to wait
for the spring. The poor girl set out for Munkhyttan by the highroad.
She would no doubt be able to get there by that road, although she knew
that it was twice as long as the way through the forest.
* * * * *
It was Whit-Monday, late in the afternoon. Ingrid walked along the
highroad. There was a wide expanse of country, with low mountains and
small patches of birch forest between the fields. The mountain-ash and
the bird-cherry were in bloom; the light, sticky leaves of the aspen
were just out. The ditches were full of clear, rippling water which made
the stones at the bottom glisten and sparkle.
Ingrid walked sorrowfully along, thinking of him whose mind had again
given way, wondering whether she could do anything for him, whether it
was of any use that she had left her home in this manner.
She was tired and hungry; her shoes had begun to go to pieces. Perhaps
it would be better for her to turn back. She could never get to
Munkhyttan.
The further she walked, the more sorrowful she became. She could not
help thinking that it could be of no use her coming now that he had gone
quite out of his mind. There was no doubt it was too late now; it was
quite hopeless to do anything for him.
But as soon as she thought of turning back she saw Gunnar Hede's face
close to her cheek, as she had so often seen it before. It gave her new
courage; she felt as if he were calling for her. She again felt hopeful
and confident of being able to help him.
Just as Ingrid raised her head, looking a little less downcast, a queer
little procession came towards her.
There was a little horse, drawing a little cart; a fat woman sat in the
cart, and a tall, thin man, with long, thin moustaches walked by the
side of it.
In the country, where no one understood anything about art, Mr. and
Mrs. Blomgren always went in for looking like ordinary people. The
little cart in which they travelled about was well covered over, and no
one could suspect that it only contained fireworks and conjuring
apparatus and marionettes.
No one could suspect that the fat woman who sat on the top of the load,
looking like a well-to-do shopkeeper's wife, was formerly Miss Viola,
who once sprang through the air, or that the man who walked by her side,
and looked like a pensioned soldier, was the same Mr. Blomgren who
occasionally, to break the monotony of the journey, took it into his
head to turn a somersault over the horse, and play the ventriloquist
with thrushes and siskins that sang in the trees by the roadside, so
that he made them quite mad.
The horse was very small, and had formerly drawn a roundabout, and
therefore it would never go unless it heard music. On that account Mrs.
Blomgren generally sat playing the Jews'-harp, but as soon as they met
anyone, she put it in her pocket, so that no one should discover they
were artists, for whom country people have no respect whatever. Owing to
this they did not travel very fast, but they were not in any hurry
either.
The blind man, who played the violin, had to walk some little distance
behind the others in order not to betray the fact of his belonging to
the company. The blind man was led by a little dog; he was not allowed
to have a child to lead him, for that would always have reminded Mr.
and Mrs. Blomgren of a little girl who was called Ingrid. That would
have been too sad.
And now they were all in the country on account of the spring. For
however much money Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren were making in the towns, they
felt they _must_ be in the country at that time of the year, for Mr. and
Mrs. Blomgren were artists.
They did not recognise Ingrid, and she went past them without taking any
notice of them, for she was in a hurry; she was afraid of their
detaining her. But directly afterwards she felt that it was heartless
and unkind of her, and turned back.
If Ingrid could have felt glad about anything, she would have been glad
by seeing the old people's joy at meeting her. You may be sure they had
plenty to talk about. The little horse turned its head time after time
to see what was wrong with the roundabout.
Strangely enough, it was Ingrid who talked the most. The two old people
saw at once that she had been crying, and they were so concerned that
she was obliged to tell them everything that had happened to her.
But it was a relief to Ingrid to speak. The old people had their own way
of taking things; they clapped their hands when she told them how she
had got out of the grave and how she had frightened the Pastor's wife.
They caressed her and praised her because she had run away from the
Parsonage. For them nothing was dull or sad, but everything was bright
and hopeful. They simply had no standard by which to measure reality,
and therefore its hardness could not affect them. They compared
everything they heard with the pieces from marionette theatres and
pantomimes. Of course, one also put a little sorrow and misery into the
pantomime, but that was only done to heighten the effect. And, of
course, everything would end well. In the pantomimes it always ended
well.
There was something infectious in all this hopefulness. Ingrid knew they
did not at all understand how great her trouble was, but it was cheering
all the same to listen to them.
But they were also of real help to Ingrid. They told her that they had
had dinner a short time since at the inn at Torsäker, and just as they
were getting up from the table some peasants came driving up with a man
who was mad. Mrs. Blomgren could not bear to see mad people, and wanted
to go away at once, and Mr. Blomgren had consented. But supposing it was
Ingrid's madman! And they had hardly said the words before Ingrid said
that it was very likely, and wanted to set off at once.
Mr. Blomgren then asked his wife in his own ceremonious manner if they
were not in the country solely on account of the spring, and if it were
not just the same where they went. And old Mrs. Blomgren asked him
equally ceremoniously in her turn if he thought she would leave her
beloved Ingrid before she had reached the harbour of her happiness.
Then the old roundabout horse was turned, and conversation grew more
difficult, because they again had to play on the Jews'-harp. As soon as
Mrs. Blomgren wished to say anything, she was obliged to hand the
instrument to Mr. Blomgren, and when Mr. Blomgren wanted to speak, he
gave it back again to his wife. And the little horse stood still every
time the instrument passed from mouth to mouth.
The whole time they did their best to comfort Ingrid. They related all
the fairy tales they had seen represented at the dolls' theatre. They
comforted her with the 'Enchanted Princess,' they comforted her with
'Cinderella,' they comforted her with all the fairy tales under the sun.
Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren watched Ingrid when they saw that her eyes grew
brighter. 'Artist's eyes,' they said, nodding contentedly to each other.
'What did we say? Artist's eyes!'
In some incomprehensible manner they had got the idea that Ingrid had
become one of them, an artist. They thought she was playing a part in a
drama. It was a triumph for them in their old age.
On they went as fast as they could. The old couple were only afraid that
the madman would not be at the inn any longer. But he was there, and the
worst of it was, no one knew how to get him away.
The two peasants from Raglanda who had brought him had taken him to one
of the rooms and locked him in whilst they were waiting for fresh
horses. When they left him his arms had been tied behind him, but he had
somehow managed to free his hands from the cord, and when they came to
fetch him he was free, and, beside himself with rage, had seized a
chair, with which he threatened to strike anyone who approached him.
They could do nothing but beat a hasty retreat and lock the door. The
peasants now only waited for the landlord and his men to return and help
them to bind him again.
All the hope which Ingrid's old friends had reawakened within her was,
however, not quenched. She quite saw that Gunnar Hede was worse than he
had ever been before, but that was what she had expected. She still
hoped. It was not their fairy tales, it was their great love that had
given her new hope.
She asked the men to let her go to the madman. She said she knew him,
and he would not do her any harm; but the peasants said they were not
mad. The man in the room would kill anybody who went in.
Ingrid sat down to think. She thought how strange it was that she should
meet Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren just to-day. Surely that meant something. She
would never have met them if it had not been for some purpose. And
Ingrid thought of how Hede had regained his senses the last time. Could
she not again make him do something which would remind him of olden
days, and drive away his mad thoughts? She thought and thought.
* * * * *
Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren sat on a seat outside the inn, looking more
unhappy than one would have thought was possible. They were not far from
crying.
Ingrid, their 'child,' came up to them with a smile--such a smile as
only she could have--and stroked their old, wrinkled cheeks, and said
it would please her so much if they would let her see a performance like
those she used to see every day in the olden time. It would be such a
comfort to her.
At first they said no, for they were not at all in proper artist humour,
but when she had expended a few smiles upon them they could not resist
her. They went to their cart and unpacked their costumes.
When they were ready they called for the blind man, and Ingrid selected
the place where the performance was to be held. She would not let them
perform in the yard, but took them into the garden belonging to the inn,
for there was a garden belonging to this inn. It was mostly full of beds
for vegetables which had not yet come up, but here and there was an
apple-tree in bloom. And Ingrid said she would like them to perform
under one of the apple-trees in bloom.
Some lads and servant-girls came running when they heard the violin, so
there was a small audience. But it was hard work for Mr. and Mrs.
Blomgren to perform. Ingrid had asked too much of them; they were really
much too sad.
And it was very unfortunate that Ingrid had taken them out into the
garden. She had evidently not remembered that the rooms in the inn faced
this way. Mrs. Blomgren was very nearly running away when she heard a
window in one of the rooms quickly opened. Supposing the madman had
heard the music, and supposing he jumped out of the window and came to
them?
But Mrs. Blomgren was somewhat reassured when she saw who had opened
the window. It was a young gentleman with a pleasant face. He was in
shirt-sleeves, but otherwise very decently dressed. His eye was quiet,
his lips smiled, and he stroked his hair back from his forehead with his
hand.
Mr. Blomgren was working, and was so taken up with the performance that
he did not notice anything. Mrs. Blomgren, who had nothing else to do
but kiss her hands in all directions, had time to observe everything.
It was astonishing how radiant Ingrid suddenly looked. Her eyes shone as
never before, and her face was so white that light seemed to come from
it. And all this radiancy was directed towards the man in the window.
He did not hesitate long. He stood up on the window-sill and jumped down
to them, and he went up to the blind man and asked him to lend him his
violin. Ingrid at once took the violin from the blind man and gave it to
him.
'Play the waltz from "Freischütz,"' she said.
Then the man began to play, and Ingrid smiled, but she looked so
unearthly that Mrs. Blomgren almost thought that she would dissolve into
a sunbeam, and fly away from them. But as soon as Mrs. Blomgren heard
the man play she knew him again.
'Is that how it is?' she said to herself. 'Is it he? That was why she
wanted to see two old people perform.'
* * * * *
Gunnar Hede, who had been walking up and down his room in such a rage
that he felt inclined to kill someone, had suddenly heard a blind man
playing outside his window, and that had taken him back to an incident
in his former life.
He could not at first understand where his own violin was, but then he
remembered that Alin had taken it away with him, and now the only thing
left for him to do was to try and borrow the blind man's violin to play
himself quiet again; he was so excited. And as soon as he had got the
violin in his hand he began to play. It never occurred to him that he
could not play. He had no idea that for several years he had only been
able to play some poor little tunes.
He thought all the time he was in Upsala, outside the house with the
Virginia-creepers, and he expected the acrobats would begin to dance as
they had done last time. He endeavoured to play with more life to make
them do so, but his fingers were stiff and awkward; the bow would not
properly obey them. He exerted himself so much that the perspiration
stood on his forehead.
At last, however, he got hold of the right tune--the same they had
danced to the last time. He played it so enticingly, so temptingly, that
it ought to have melted their hearts. But the old acrobats did not begin
to dance. It was a long time since they had met the student at Upsala;
they did not remember how enthusiastic they were then. They had no idea
what he expected them to do.
Gunnar Hede looked at Ingrid for an explanation why they did not dance.
When he looked at her there was such an unearthly radiance in her eyes
that in his astonishment he gave up playing. He stood a moment looking
round the small crowd. They all looked at him with such strange, uneasy
glances. It was impossible to play with people staring at him so. He
simply went away from them. There were some apple-pears in bloom at the
other end of the garden, so he went there.
He saw now that nothing fitted in with the ideas he had just had that
Alin had locked him in, and that he was at Upsala. The garden was too
large, and the house was not covered with red creepers. No, it could not
be Upsala. But he did not mind very much where he was. It seemed to him
as if he had not played for centuries, and now he had got hold of a
violin. Now he would play. He placed the violin against his cheek, and
began. But again he was stopped by the stiffness in his fingers. He
could only play the very simplest things.
'I shall have to begin at the beginning,' he said.
And he smiled and played a little minuet. It was the first thing he had
learnt. His father had played it to him, and he had afterwards played it
from ear. He saw all at once the whole scene before him, and he heard
the words:
'The little Prince should learn to dance, but he broke his little leg.'
Then he tried to play several other small dances. They were some he had
played as a school boy. They had asked him to play at the
dancing-lessons at the young ladies' boarding-school. He could see the
girls dance and swing about, and could hear the dancing-mistress beat
the time with her foot.
Then he grew bolder. He played first violin in one of Mozart's
quartettes. When he learnt that, he was in the Sixth Form at the Latin
school at Falun. Some old gentlemen had practised this quartette for a
concert, but the first violin had been taken ill, and he was asked to
take his part, young as he was. He remembered how proud he had been.
Gunnar Hede only thought of getting his fingers into practice when he
played these childish exercises. But he soon noticed that something
strange was happening to him. He had a distinct sensation that in his
brain there was some great darkness that hid his past. As soon as he
tried to remember anything, it was as if he were trying to find
something in a dark room; but when he played, some of the darkness
vanished. Without his having thought of it, the darkness had vanished so
much that he could now remember his childhood and school life.
Then he made up his mind to let himself be led by the violin; perhaps it
could drive away all the darkness. And so it did, for every piece he
played the darkness vanished a little. The violin led him through the
one year after the other, awoke in him memories of studies, friends and
pleasures. The darkness stood like a wall before him, but when he
advanced against it, armed with the violin, it vanished step by step.
Now and then he looked round to see whether it closed again behind him.
But behind him was bright day.
The violin came to a series of duets for piano and violin. He only
played a bar or two of each. But a large portion of the darkness
vanished; he remembered his _fiancée_ and his engagement. He would like
to have dwelt a little over this, but there was still much darkness left
to be played away. He had no time.
He glided into a hymn. He had heard it once when he was unhappy. He
remembered he was sitting in a village church when he heard it. But why
had he been unhappy? Because he went about the country selling goods
like a poor pedlar. It was a hard life. It was sad to think about it.
The bow went over the strings like a whirlwind, and again cut through a
large portion of the darkness. Now he saw the Fifty-Mile Forest, the
snow-covered animals, the weird shapes, the drifts made of them. He
remembered the journey to see his _fiancée_, remembered that she had
broken the engagement. All this became clear to him at one time.
He really felt neither sorrow nor joy over anything he remembered. The
most important thing was that he did remember. This of itself was an
unspeakable pleasure. But all at once the bow stopped, as if of its own
accord. It would not lead him any further. And yet there was more--much
more--that he must remember. The darkness still stood like a solid wall
before him.
He compelled the bow to go on. And it played two quite common tunes, the
poorest he had ever heard. How could his bow have learned such tunes?
The darkness did not vanish in the least for these tunes. They really
taught him nothing; but from them came a terror which he could not
remember having ever felt before--an inconceivable, awful fear, the mad
terror of a doomed soul.
He stopped playing; he could not bear it. What was there in these
tunes--what was there? The darkness did not vanish for them, and the
awful thing was, that it seemed to him that when he did not advance
against the darkness with the violin and drive it before him, it came
gliding towards him to overwhelm him.
He had been standing playing, with his eyes half closed; now he opened
them and looked into the world of reality. He saw Ingrid, who had been
standing listening to him the whole time. He asked her, not expecting an
answer, but simply to keep back the darkness for a moment:
'When did I last play this tune?'
But Ingrid stood trembling. She had made up her mind, whatever happened,
now he should hear the truth. Afraid she was, but at the same time full
of courage, and quite decided as to what she meant to do. He should not
again escape her, not be allowed to slip away from her. But in spite of
her courage she did not dare to tell him straight out that these were
the tunes he had played whilst he was out of his mind; she evaded the
question.
'That was what you used to play at Munkhyttan last winter,' she said.
Hede felt as if he were surrounded by nothing but mysteries. Why did
this young girl say '_du_' to him? She was not a peasant girl.[A] Her
hair was dressed like other young ladies', on the top of the head and
in small curls. Her dress was home-woven, but she wore a lace collar.
She had small hands and a refined face. This face, with the large,
dreamy eyes, could not belong to a peasant girl. Hede's memory could not
tell him anything about her. Why did she, then, say '_du_' to him? How
did she know that he had played these tunes at home?
[A] The peasants in the Dalar district used formerly to address
everybody by the pronoun _du_ (thou), even when speaking to the King;
this custom is now, however, not so general.--I.B.
'What is your name?' he said. 'Who are you?'
'I am Ingrid, whom you saw at Upsala many years ago, and whom you
comforted because she could not learn to dance on the tight-rope.'
This went back to the time he could partly remember. Now he did remember
her.
'How tall and pretty you have grown, Ingrid!' he said. 'And how fine you
have become! What a beautiful brooch you have!'
He had been looking at her brooch for some time. He thought he knew it;
it was like a brooch of enamel and pearls his mother used to wear. The
young girl answered at once.
'Your mother gave it to me. You must have seen it before.'
Gunnar Hede put down the violin and went up to Ingrid. He asked her
almost violently:
'How is it possible--how can you wear her brooch? How is it that I don't
know anything about your knowing my mother?'
Ingrid was frightened. She grew almost gray with terror. She knew
already what the next question would be.
'I know nothing, Ingrid. I don't know why I am here. I don't know why
you are here. Why don't I know all this?'
'Oh, don't ask me!'
She went back a step or two, and stretched out her hands as if to
protect herself.
'Won't you tell me?'
'Don't ask! don't ask!'
He seized her roughly by the wrist to compel her to tell the truth.
'Tell me! I am in my full senses! Why is there so much I can't
remember?'
She saw something wild and threatening in his eyes. She knew now that
she would be obliged to tell him. But she felt as if it were impossible
to tell a man that he had been mad. It was much more difficult than she
had thought. It was impossible--impossible!
'Tell me!' he repeated.
But she could hear from his voice that he would not hear it. He was
almost ready to kill her if she told him. Then she summoned up all her
love, and looked straight into Gunnar Hede's eyes, and said:
'You have not been quite right.'
'Not for a long time?'
'I don't quite know--not for three or four years.'
'Have I been out of my mind?'
'No, no! You have bought and sold and gone to the fairs.'
'In what way have I been mad?'
'You were frightened.'
'Of whom was I frightened?'
'Of animals.'
'Of goats, perhaps?'
'Yes, mostly of goats.'
He had stood clutching her by the wrist the whole time. He now flung her
hand away from him--simply flung it. He turned away from Ingrid in a
rage, as if she had maliciously told him an infamous lie.
But this feeling gave way for something else which excited him still
more. He saw before his eyes, as distinctly as if it had been a picture,
a tall Dalar man, weighed down by a huge pack. He was going into a
peasant's house, but a wretched little dog came rushing at him. He
stopped and curtsied and curtsied, and did not dare to go in until a man
came out of the house, laughing, and drove the dog away.
When he saw this he again felt that terrible fear. In this anguish the
vision disappeared, but then he heard voices. They shouted and shrieked
around him. They laughed. Derision was showered upon him. Worst and
loudest were the shrill voices of children. One word, one name came over
and over again: it was shouted, shrieked, whispered, wheezed into his
ear--'The Goat! the Goat!' And that all meant him, Gunnar Hede. All that
he had lived in. He felt in full consciousness the same unspeakable fear
he had suffered whilst out of his mind. But now it was not fear for
anything outside himself--now he was afraid of himself.
'It was I! it was I!' he said, wringing his hands. The next moment he
was kneeling against a low seat. He laid his head down and cried, cried:
'It was I!' He moaned and sobbed. 'It was I!' How could he have courage
to bear this thought--a madman, scorned and laughed at by all? 'Ah! let
me go mad again!' he said, hitting the seat with his fist. 'This is more
than a human being can bear.'
He held his breath a moment. The darkness came towards him as the
saviour he invoked. It came gliding towards him like a mist. A smile
passed over his lips. He could feel the muscles of his face relax, feel
that he again had the look of a madman. But that was better. The other
he could not bear. To be pointed at, jeered at, scorned, mad! No, it was
better to be so again and not to know it. Why should he come back to
life? Everyone must loathe him. The first light, fleeting clouds of the
great darkness began to enwrap him.
Ingrid stood there, seeing and hearing all his anguish, not knowing but
that all would soon be lost again. She saw clearly that madness was
again about to seize him. She was so frightened, so frightened, all her
courage had gone. But before he again lost his senses, and became so
scared that he allowed no one to come near him, she would at least take
leave of him and of all her happiness.
Gunnar Hede felt that Ingrid came and knelt down beside him, laid her
arm round his neck, put her cheek to his, and kissed him. She did not
think herself too good to come near him, the madman, did not think
herself too good to kiss him.
There was a faint hissing in the darkness. The mist lifted, and it was
as if serpents had raised their heads against him, and now wheezed with
anger that they could not reach to sting him.
'Do not be so unhappy,' Ingrid said. 'Do not be so unhappy. No one
thinks of the past, if you will only get well.'
'I want to be mad again,' he said. 'I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to
think how I have been.'
'Yes, you can,' said Ingrid.
'No; that no one can forget,' he moaned. 'I was so dreadful! No one can
love me.'
'I love you,' she said.
He looked up doubtfully.
'You kissed me in order that I should not go out of my mind again. You
pity me.'
'I will kiss you again,' she said.
'You say that now because you think I am in need of hearing it.'
'Are you in need of hearing that someone loves you?'
'If I am--if I am? Ah, child,' he said, and tore himself away from her,
'how can I possibly bear it, when I know that everyone who sees me
thinks: "That fellow has been mad; he has gone about curtsying for dogs
and cats."'
Then he began again. He lay crying with his face in his hands.
'It is better to go out of one's mind again. I can hear them shouting
after me, and I see myself, and the anguish, the anguish, the
anguish----'
But then Ingrid's patience came to an end.
'Yes, that is right,' she cried; 'go out of your mind again. I call that
manly to go mad in order to escape a little anguish.'
She sat biting her lips, struggling with her tears, and as she could
not get the words out quickly enough, she seized him by the shoulder and
shook him. She was enraged and quite beside herself with anger because
he would again escape her, because he did not struggle and fight.
'What do you care about me? What do you care about your mother? You go
mad, and then you will have peace.' She shook him again by the arm. 'To
be saved from anguish, you say, but you don't care about one who has
been waiting for you all her life. If you had any thought for anyone but
yourself, you would fight against this and get well; but you have no
thought for others. You can come so touchingly in visions and dreams and
beg for help, but in reality you will not have any help. You imagine
that your sufferings are greater than anyone else's, but there are
others who have suffered more than you.'
At last Gunnar Hede raised his eyes, and looked her straight in the
face. She was anything but beautiful at this moment. Tears were
streaming down her cheeks, and her lips trembled, whilst she tried to
get out the words between her sobs. But in his eyes her emotion only
made her more beautiful. A wonderful peace came over him, and a great
and humble thankfulness. Something great and wonderful had come to him
in his deepest humiliation. It must be a great love--a great love.
He had sat bemoaning his wretchedness, and Love came and knocked at his
door. He would not merely be tolerated when he came back to life;
people would not only with difficulty refrain from laughing at him.
There was one who loved him and longed for him. She spoke hardly to him,
but he heard love trembling in every single word. He felt as if she were
offering him thrones and kingdoms. She told him that whilst he had been
out of his mind he had saved her life. He had awakened her from the
dead, had helped her, protected her. But this was not enough for her;
she would possess him altogether.
When she kissed him he had felt a life-giving balm enter his sick soul,
but he had hardly dared to think that it was love that made her. But he
could not doubt her anger and her tears. He was beloved--he, poor
wretched creature! he who had been held in derision by everybody! and
before the great and humble bliss which now filled Gunnar Hede vanished
the last darkness. It was drawn aside like a heavy curtain, and he saw
plainly before him the region of terror through which he had wandered.
But there, too, he had met Ingrid; there he had lifted her from the
grave; there he had played for her at the hut in the forest; there she
had striven to heal him.
But only the memory of her came back: the feelings with which she had
formerly inspired him now awoke. Love filled his whole being; he felt
the same burning longing that he had felt in the churchyard at Raglanda
when she was taken from him.
In that region of terror, in that great desert, there had at any rate
grown one flower that had comforted him with fragrance and beauty, and
now he felt that love would dwell with him forever. The wild flower of
the desert had been transplanted into the garden of life, and had taken
root and grown and thriven, and when he felt this he knew he was saved;
he knew that the darkness had found its master.
Ingrid was silent. She was tired, as one is tired after hard work; but
she was also content, for she felt she had carried out her work in the
best possible manner. She knew she had conquered.
At last Gunnar Hede broke the silence.
'I promise you that I will not give in,' he said.
'Thank you,' Ingrid answered.
Nothing more was said.
Gunnar Hede thought he would never be able to tell her how much he loved
her. It could never be told in words, only shown every day and every
hour of his life.
_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD
II
_Queens at_ KUNGAHÄLLA
_Queens at_ KUNGAHÄLLA
_On the_ SITE _of the Great_ KUNGAHÄLLA
Should a stranger who had heard about the old city of Kungahälla ever
visit the site on the northern river where it once lay, he would
assuredly be much surprised. He would ask himself whether churches and
fortifications could melt away like snow, or if the earth had opened and
swallowed them up. He stands on a spot where formerly there was a mighty
city, and he cannot find a street or a landing-stage. He sees neither
ruins nor traces of devastating fires; he only sees a country seat,
surrounded by green trees and red outbuildings. He sees nothing but
broad meadows and fields, where the plough does its work year after year
without being hindered either by brick foundations or old pavements.
He would probably first of all go down to the river. He would not expect
to see anything of the great ships that went to the Baltic ports or to
distant Spain, but he would in all likelihood think that he might find
traces of the old ship-yards, of the large boat-houses and
landing-stages. He presumes that he will find some of the old kilns
where they used to refine salt; he will see the worn-out pavement on the
main street that led to the harbour. He will inquire about the German
pier and the Swedish pier; he would like to see the Weeping Bridge where
the women of Kungahälla took leave of their husbands and sons when they
went to distant lands, but when he comes down to the river's edge he
sees nothing but a forest of waving reeds. He sees a road full of holes
leading down to the ferry; he sees a couple of common barges and a
little flat-bottomed ferryboat that is taking a peasant cart over to
Hisingen, but no big ships come gliding up the river. He does not even
see any dark hulls lying and rotting at the bottom of the river.
As he does not find anything remarkable down at the harbour, he will
probably begin to look for the celebrated Convent Hill. He expects to
see traces of the palisading and ramparts which in olden days surrounded
it. He is hoping to see the ruins of the high walls and the long
cloisters. He says to himself that anyhow there must be ruins of that
magnificent church where the cross was kept--that miracle-working cross
which had been brought from Jerusalem. He thinks of the number of
monuments covering the holy hills which rise over other ancient cities,
and his heart begins to beat with glad expectation. But when he comes to
the old Convent Hill which rises above the fields, he finds nothing but
clusters of murmuring trees; he finds neither walls, nor towers, nor
gables perforated with pointed arched windows. Garden seats and benches
he will find under the shadow of the trees, but no cloisters decorated
with pillars, no hewn gravestones.
Well, if he has not found anything here, he will in any case try to
find the old King's Hall. He thinks about the large halls from which
Kungahälla is supposed to have derived its name. It might be that there
was something left of the timber--a yard thick--that formed the walls,
or of the deep cellars under the great hall where the Norwegian kings
celebrated their banquets. He thinks of the smooth green courtyard of
the King's Hall, where the kings used to ride their silver-shod
chargers, and where the queens used to milk the golden-horned cows. He
thinks of the lofty ladies' bower; of the brewing-room, with its large
boilers; of the huge kitchen, where half an ox at a time was placed in
the pot, and where a whole hog was roasted on the spit. He thinks of the
serfs' house, of the falcon's cages, of the great pantries--house by
house all round the courtyard, moss-grown with age, decorated with
dragons' heads. Of such a number of buildings there must be some traces
left, he thinks.
But should he then inquire for the old King's Hall, he will be taken to
a modern country-house, with glass veranda and conservatories. The
King's seat has vanished, and with it all the drinking-horns, inlaid
with silver, and the shields, covered with skin. One cannot even show
him the well-kept courtyard, with its short, close grass, and with
narrow paths of black earth. He sees strawberry-beds and hedges of
rose-trees; he sees happy children and young girls dancing under apple
and pear trees. But he does not see strong men wrestling, or knights
playing at ball.
Perhaps he asks about the great oak on the Market Place, beneath which
the Kings sat in judgment, and where the twelve stones of judgment were
set up. Or about the long street, which was said to be seven miles long!
Or about the rich merchants' houses, separated by dark lanes, each
having its own landing-stage and boathouse down by the river. Or about
the Marie Church in the Market Place, where the seamen brought their
offerings of small, full-rigged ships, and the sorrowful, small silver
hearts.
But there is nothing left to show him of all these things. Cows and
sheep graze where the long street used to be. Rye and barley grow on the
Market Place, and stables and barns stand where people used to flock
round the tempting market-stalls.
How can he help feeling disappointed? Is there not a single thing to be
found, he says, not a single relic left? And he thinks perhaps that they
have been deceiving him. The great Kungahälla can never have stood here,
he says. It must have stood in some other place.
Then they take him down to the riverside, and show him a roughly-hewn
stone block, and they scrape away the silver-gray lichen, so that he can
see there are some figures hewn in the stone. He will not be able to
understand what they represent; they will be as incomprehensible to him
as the spots in the moon. But they will assure him that they represent a
ship and an elk, and that they were cut in the stone in the olden days
to commemorate the foundation of the city.
And should he still not be able to understand, they will tell him what
is the meaning of the inscription on the stone.
_The Forest_ QUEEN
Marcus Antonius Poppius was a Roman merchant of high standing. He traded
with distant lands; and from the harbour at Ostia he sent well-equipped
triremas to Spain, to Britain, and even to the north coast of Germany.
Fortune favoured him, and he amassed immense riches, which he hoped to
leave as an inheritance to his only son. Unfortunately, this only son
had not inherited his father's ability. This happens, unfortunately, all
the world over. A rich man's only son. Need one say more? It is, and
always will be, the same story.
One would almost think that the gods give rich men these incorrigible
idlers, these dull, pale, languid fools of sons, to show man what
unutterable folly it is to amass riches. When will the eyes of mankind
be opened? When will men listen to the warning voice of the gods?
Young Silvius Antonius Poppius, at the age of twenty, had already tried
all the
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