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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a40b755 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64808 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64808) diff --git a/old/64808-0.txt b/old/64808-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e9df0df..0000000 --- a/old/64808-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6582 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Modern Swedish Masterpieces, by Charles -Wharton Stork - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Modern Swedish Masterpieces - Short Stories Selected and Translated - -Author: Hjalmar Söderberg - Sigfrid Siwertz - Verner Von Heidenstam - Per Hallström - -Translator: Charles Wharton Stork - -Release Date: March 13, 2021 [eBook #64808] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian - Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN SWEDISH MASTERPIECES *** - - - - - MODERN SWEDISH MASTERPIECES - - - - - MODERN - SWEDISH MASTERPIECES - - _SHORT STORIES SELECTED AND TRANSLATED_ - - BY - - CHARLES WHARTON STORK - - TRANSLATOR OF “ANTHOLOGY OF SWEDISH LYRICS,” “SELECTED POEMS - BY GUSTAF FRÖDING,” ETC. - - Editor of _Contemporary Verse_ - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - - E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923 - - BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - - _All Rights Reserved_ - - - Printed in the United States of America - - TO - - THORSTEN LAURIN - - FRIEND OF ARTISTS - - PATRON OF THE ARTS - - - - -ACKNOWLEDGMENTS - - -The special thanks of the translator are due to the -American-Scandinavian Foundation of New York City for permission to -include the stories by Verner von Heidenstam from the two volumes of -_The Charles Men_, as well as for stories by Söderberg and Siwertz which -appeared in the _American Scandinavian Review_. - -Three stories by Söderberg were published in _Hearst’s Magazine_, and -others in _The Freeman_, _The Bookman_, _World Fiction_ and _The Wave_. -Hallström’s “Out of the Dark” appeared in _The Double Dealer_. We gladly -acknowledge our debt to the proprietors of these magazines for allowing -us to reprint from their pages. - -Our chief debt is, however, to the original authors and to A. Bonnier -and Co., Stockholm, for the right to translate these specimens of -Swedish genius into another language. - - - - -PREFACE - - -It is curious that, despite the rapid growth of interest in Scandinavian -literature through the English-speaking world, there has been up to now -no book to represent one of the most brilliant fields of achievement, -the Swedish short story. The work of Selma Lagerlof is well known and a -volume of Per Hallström has appeared recently, but no attempt has been -made to represent a group of the leading masters. The present -collection, whatever its failings, will at least indicate the power and -variety of the Scandinavian genius in a new and important phase of its -expression. - -The four authors here included are all living and active, from which it -may be rightly inferred that the Swedish short story is of recent -development. Verner von Heidenstam, born in 1859, winner of the Nobel -Prize for Literature in 1916, has an international reputation but is not -as yet widely known in America. The stories here selected are from his -historical novel, _The Charles Men_, set in the time of Charles XII; for -though the book has a clear unity, the separate chapters can be -understood perfectly by themselves. Per Hallström, somewhat younger, is -ranked even higher by Swedish critics as a master of short stories. The -volume of translations just published omits, quite unaccountably, the -two specimens here given which belong to his very best style. Hjalmar -Söderberg, also a writer in his fifties, has been called the Anatole -France of Sweden. Unknown in America up to now, his stories have won -marked favor on their appearance in magazines. Sigfrid Siwertz, but -slightly over forty, is the most promising of the younger generation. -Less outstanding than the others, he has nevertheless a fine balance and -much grace of detail. His chief novel, under the title _Downstream_, has -just appeared in translation. - -As to the varying characteristics of these stories it seems best to -leave everyone to form his own opinions. It is not likely that writers -of such strong individuality will appeal equally to the general public. -Such authors, however, need no apology. This volume is, unless the -translator has failed badly, a challenge to American literary taste. It -is not the book that is on trial but the reader. - - C. W. S. - - - - -CONTENTS - - -HJALMAR SÖDERBERG - - PAGE - -THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER’S WIFE 3 - -BLOOM 14 - -THE FUR COAT 28 - -THE BLUE ANCHOR 34 - -THE KISS 44 - -THE DREAM OF ETERNITY 48 - -THE DRIZZLE 54 - -THE DRAWING IN INDIA INK 58 - -THE WAGES OF SIN 61 - -COMMUNION 66 - -THE CLOWN 71 - -SIGNY 76 - -A MASTERLESS DOG 80 - - -SIGFRID SIWERTZ - -THE LADY IN WHITE 87 - -LEONARD AND THE FISHERMAN 104 - - -VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM - -WHEN THE BELLS RING 125 - -THE FORTIFIED HOUSE 145 - -THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS 168 - -CAPTURED 190 - - -PER HALLSTRÖM - -THE FALCON 221 - -OUT OF THE DARK 237 - - - - -STORIES BY -HJALMAR SÖDERBERG - - - - -THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER’S WIFE - - -This is a grim and sad story. I heard it told more than once in my -childhood, and it made me wonder and shudder. - -In a side street stands an old middle-class house with a smooth gray -façade. Through a large round-arched door without any decorations--there -is, to be sure, a date, and perhaps too a couple of garlands with -fruit--one comes upon a narrow courtyard paved with cobblestones, and a -dark, stone-paved fountain like so many of its kind, where the sun never -strikes the path. An old linden with pollarded branches, blackened bark, -and leafage thinned with age stands in one corner; it is as old as the -house, older indeed, and is always a favorite resort for the children -and cats of the courtyard. - -This was of old the yard of Wetzmann, the master chimney-sweep. - -Sweeper Wetzmann must have been a very good-natured old fellow. He had -had success in life and had got together quite a large property. He was -kind to the poor, harsh to his prentices--for such was the custom; so -perhaps it needed to be, too--and drank toddy in the tavern every -evening, for he had a poor life at home. - -His wife was likewise harsh to the prentices, but she was not kind to -the poor or to anyone else either. She had worked as maid-servant in -sweeper Wetzmann’s house before she became his second wife. At that time -Envy and Lust were the two of the seven deadly sins which were nearest -her nature; now it was rather Wrath and Pride. - -She was large and strongly built and in her earlier days must have been -handsome. - -The son Frederick was slim and pale. He was born of the first marriage, -and it was said that he resembled his mother. He had a good head and a -cheerful disposition, and was studying to be a minister. He had just -become a student when he fell into a long and severe illness which held -him to his bed a whole winter. - -In a wing of the court lived a charwoman with her daughter Magda. Was -her name really Magda? I do not know, but I always called her so to -myself when as a child I heard the older people tell of her on a winter -evening in the twilight; and I pictured to myself a pale, shy little -child’s face, flooded about with an abundance of bright hair, and with a -very red mouth. She was fifteen and had just been confirmed. Perhaps it -was that “being confirmed” which made me represent her to myself as -serious and quiet, like the young girls I used to see in church on -Sunday, and which caused me to think of her as clad in a long shiny -black dress. - -In the spring, when the student began to convalesce, the charwoman’s -daughter came by his desire to sit at his bedside a while in the -afternoon and read aloud. - -Mrs. Wetzmann did not approve of this. She was afraid a liking might -grow up between them. Her stepson, for all she cared, might fall in love -with whomsoever he wished and might betroth himself, too--that did not -concern her; but at least it must not be with a charwoman’s daughter! -She kept a mistrustful eye on Magda, but had to put up with the -arrangement. An invalid should of course be diverted in some way or -other; and the doctor had forbidden him to read in bed, because he had -weak eyes and was not to overstrain himself. - -So the girl sat by his bedside and read aloud both religious and secular -books, and the student lay there pale and weak, listening to her voice -and looking at her, too, in which he found pleasure. - -Such a red mouth she had! - -They were nearly of the same age--he was not over seventeen or -eighteen--and they had often played together as children. Soon enough -they grew confidential. - -As often as possible Mrs. Wetzmann found some excuse to go into the -sick-room to see how things were getting on there. The two young folks -ought to have noticed this and been on their guard; but then one does -not always do as one ought. One day, when she noiselessly and cautiously -opened the door, matters were in the following state: Magda had left her -chair, which had been set at some distance from the bed, and now stood -leaning over the head-board with her arms around the young man’s neck. -He in turn had raised himself half up with his elbows propped on the -pillow and was caressing her hair with a thin white hand, while they -kissed each other fervently. From time to time, also, they whispered -certain broken words without meaning. - -The sweeper’s wife grew dark red. Notwithstanding, she could not keep -from smiling inwardly: hadn’t everything turned out exactly as she knew -it would! But now there was going to be an end to it. Wrath and Pride -rose up within her, till they swelled and glowed from her cheeks and -eyes, which sent out sparks; and who knows--while she stood there silent -and unseen, regarding the two young people, who had neither eyes nor -ears for anything but each other--who knows if Envy and Lust, too, did -not covertly slink forth from their retreat and play each on its own -hidden string within her soul? - -She did not reflect long, but stepped hastily forward to the bed, seized -the girl’s slender wrist in an iron grasp, gave her a disgraceful -epithet, and flung her out of the door with a stream of the foulest -abuse. Afterwards, in the interested presence of the servants and -prentices, she swore a solemn and luscious oath that if the young girl -ever again dared to set foot within her threshold, she should get her -skin full of so many blows that she would not be able to stir a fin for -fourteen days. - -There was no one who doubted that she meant to keep her word. - -The invalid made no reproaches to his stepmother. Every time she went -through the room he turned his face to the wall; he did not wish to see -or speak to her after her performance with Magda. But one day he -confided to his father in private that he could not live unless Magda -might be his bride. The old chimney-sweeper was surprised and vexed, but -dared not immediately set up any serious opposition: his son was the one -person he cared for and who showed him any tenderness in return, and he -could not endure the thought of losing him. - -He put the matter aside for future action and gave his wife a share in -his anxiety. - - * * * * * - -How can I describe what occurred next? It sounds like an evil dream or -a story made to frighten children when they are naughty, and yet it is -true. - -It is supposed to have been on a Sunday evening in May that it happened. - -The courtyard is still, the street is still. Maybe someone hums a song -through a kitchen window, or some children play down in the alley.... -The invalid is alone in his room. He is counting the quarter-hours and -the minutes. It is spring outside now. Soon it will be summer. Shall he -never get up from his bed, never again hear the woods murmur and rustle, -never as before be able to measure the day in periods of activity and -periods of rest? And Magda.... If only he did not always see before him -her face with the wild alarm in her look that came there when his -stepmother seized her by the wrist! She had not needed to be afraid. The -wicked woman would not have dared to do her any serious harm, for she -knew that he had chosen her for his bride. - -So he lies there dreaming, now awake, now half-awake, while he lets his -pupils suck in the light of the sunbeam on the white door. When he shuts -his eyes, there swims out an archipelago of poisonously green islands -surrounded by an inky black sea. And as he dozes, the green passes over -into blue, the black brightens to bluish red with ragged dark edges, -and at last everything grows black together.... - -He feels a light hand stroking his forehead, and he starts up in bed. - -It is Magda. Magda stands before him, small and slender, with a smiling -red mouth, and lays a bunch of spring flowers in front of him on the -cover. Anemones and almond blossoms and violets. - -Is it true, is it really she? - -“How did you dare?” he whispers. - -“Your stepmother is away,” she answers. “I saw her go just now, dressed -to go out. I heard she was to go to South Stockholm, and it will surely -be long before she comes home. So then I slipped up the stairs and in to -you.” - -She stays a long while with him, telling of the woods where she has -walked alone and listened to the birds and picked spring flowers for him -whom she loves. And they kiss each other as often as possible and caress -like two children, and both are happy, while the hours run and the -sunbeam on the floor becomes burning gold and then red, then pales and -fades away. - -“Perhaps you ought to go,” says Frederick. “She may soon be home. What -should I do if she wanted to beat you, I who am lying here sick and -weak, who grow dizzy if I get up out of bed. Perhaps you ought to go.” - -“I’m not afraid,” says Magda. - -For she wants to show unmistakably that she loves him and that she will -gladly suffer for her love’s sake. - -Only when twilight comes does she kiss him for the last time and steal -out of the house. She stops a minute in the courtyard and looks up at -the window of the room where he is lying with her almond blossoms and -violets on the bed-cover. When she turns to the little room in the wing -of the court, she stands face to face with Mrs. Wetzmann, and she utters -a little scream. - -There is no living human being in the courtyard, none but these two. -Round about stand the walls, staring at them in the darkness with empty, -black windows, and the old linden trembles in its corner. - -“You’ve been up there!” says the sweeper’s wife. - -As a child I always believed that she smiled when she said this, and -that her teeth shone as white in the darkness as those of her husband’s -prentices. - -“Yes, I have been with him,” Magda may perhaps have answered, defiant -and erect even in her chalk-pale terror. - -What happened then? No one really knows, but probably there was a -desperate pursuit round the courtyard. At the foot of the old linden -the girl tripped and fell. She dared not call for help, for fear the -invalid might hear; and besides, who would have helped her? Her mother -was away at work. The infuriated woman was above her--she had meanwhile -got hold of a weapon, a broomstick or something of the sort,--and blow -followed blow. A couple of half-strangled screams from a throat -constricted by the dread of death, and then nothing more. - -A couple of prentices who had just come home stood down in the dark -doorway and looked on; they did not move a finger to help the girl. -Perhaps they did not dare; perhaps, too, they were led by a faint hope -of seeing their mistress carried off in a police wagon some day. - -When Mrs. Wetzmann went into the house after exercising her right of -mastery--for she felt by instinct that she naturally had proprietary -right to all over whom she could and would exercise it--she stumbled -against something soft in the stairway. It was Frederick. He had heard -the faint screams, had sprung from bed and gone out, and had fallen on -the stairs. - -Magda lived three days; she then died and was buried. - -Sweeper Wetzmann paid a sum of money to the charwoman, her mother, and -there were no legal proceedings on the matter. Nevertheless the old man -took it hard. He went no more to the tavern to drink toddy, but -generally sat at home in a leather-covered chair and spelled in an old -Bible. He fell into a decline, grew silent and peculiar, and it was not -a year before he too was dead and laid in earth. - -The son Frederick grew slowly better; but he never passed his -examination as minister, for both his grasp of intellect and his memory -had become weakened. He was often seen going with flowers to Magda’s -grave; he walked leaning forward and very rapidly, indeed he almost ran, -as if he had many important errands to attend to, and he mostly had a -couple of books under his arm. To the end he remained wholly -weak-minded. - -And the sweeper’s wife? She seems to have had a strong nature. There are -people who are not exactly conscienceless, but who never of their own -accord hit upon the idea that they have done anything wrong. It may -happen that a fellow with bright buttons on his coat may clap them on -the shoulder and request them to come along with him; then their -conscience awakens. But no one came to Mrs. Wetzmann. She sent her -stepson to an asylum when he became too troublesome at home, she mourned -her husband, as was proper and customary, and then she married again. -When she drove to church on the bridal day, she wore a jacket of -lilac-colored silk with gold braid and was “fixed up fit to kill”--so -said my grandmother, who was sitting at her window in the house -opposite and saw the whole display while she was turning a leaf in her -book of sermons. - - - - -BLOOM - - -On a brilliant August morning at eight o’clock precisely the gates of -the establishment of Langholm were opened for three boarders of the -establishment, who had come there for various causes and sojourned for -various periods. These periods were exactly suited to the grade and kind -of their differences with the law-abiding community as proved by their -conduct. They did not know each other, and having no feeling of -brotherhood through their common misfortune, they said to one another -neither good-morning nor good-bye. - -The man who came out first was a thick-set fellow with a beast-like -forehead and heavy wrists. One dark evening he had fallen upon an old -workman whom he did not like, knocked out some of his teeth, and kicked -him in the chest so that he coughed blood for several days. He had been -given a month for assault and battery, which did him little harm, and he -betook himself hastily to the nearest tavern. - -Next came a man who had swindled an impersonal entity known as a bank of -a fairly large sum of money. The three months he had spent indoors had -not overly bleached his fresh brandy complexion. He had a well-fitting -summer suit of dark blue with narrow white edgings; on his feet he wore -new yellow shoes, and in his hand he held an elegant little satchel of -the same color as the shoes, so that he most nearly resembled a -traveling salesman who comes whistling softly out of a hotel. He did -not, however, whistle, but mounted into a cab with a lowered hood, under -which a black-clad woman with pale and anxious features awaited him. He -then tossed an address to the coachman, and vanished in a cloud of dust. - -Last came the former tailor’s apprentice Bloom, Oscar Valdemar Napoleon. -His complexion inclined more to gray, for he had had to atone with a -nine months’ sentence for the theft of a jacket hung out for show--this -being, to be sure, his second trip to the establishment. He had in his -right breast pocket, besides his birth certificate with its less -flattering annotations, the sum of eighty crowns inserted in a blue -envelope, together with a certificate of good conduct at Langholm from -the prison director. - -That was not much to represent nine months’ work, but he had also had -his board and lodging meanwhile. For him it was in any case a -considerable sum, and it had been besides a lever for many future plans, -most of which rested on clear improbabilities, for many dreams of a new -life, for happiness and prosperity and general respect. This had been -especially the case during those last weeks when, in consideration of -his rapidly approaching freedom, he had been spared the humiliation of -being shaved, for he had felt his manly self-esteem sprout afresh and -grow in rivalry with the bristles on his upper lip and chin. But now, -when he was actually free, when he felt the light, cool breeze of the -summer morning fan about his temples and heard it rustling in the big -trees, all of these plans were pushed somewhat into the background as if -of themselves, of course only until a later time, only for a few hours -or perhaps a day, and a single great emotion of happiness rose up in him -and swept him along as though in a vertigo. Furthermore he was very -hungry, because he had hardly touched his Langholm fare on that last -morning, and he thought with yearning and satisfaction of a little -restaurant on Brenchurch Street which he knew from of old, and of a -great beefsteak with onions and one or maybe two bottles of beer--only -think of it, beer! - -On the Langholm Bridge stood a guard off duty, fishing for roach with -small bits of saffron bread. Bloom stood with his arms on the railing -and watched: it amused him to pretend that he was not in a hurry. Down -there in the deep green of the quiet water, in the shadow under the -bridge, big red-eyed roach swam back and forth around the bait, pointing -at it a while, turning around in hesitation and coming back again; now -and then came a rudd or two with red fins and yellow back, beautiful -fish, but tasting a little of clay, and once in a while came a glint -from the broad silver side of a bream. On both sides of the narrow -Langholm Bay large bending willows dipped their gray-green leaves into -the water, and the reeds waved gently in the morning wind. In the -background far away, the churches and towers of Stockholm stood in the -blue sun-haze as if cut with a fine needle. - -“Yes,” remarked Bloom to the guard, “now one can begin to live again.” - -“Yes, good luck to you, Bloom!” answered the guard without taking his -eyes from the float, which just then took a dip under the water. “That -was a bite, but the fish only took the bread and left the hook to the -landlord.” - -A steam sloop came sputtering up under the bridge on its way to the city -and lay to at the nearest landing. For a moment Bloom was tempted to go -with it, but came back directly to his first idea: the restaurant on -Brenchurch Street, beefsteak, onions and beer, so he said good-bye to -the guard and went ahead on the Langholm Road. He felt himself from of -old most at home in the section of South Stockholm between -Skinnarviksberg, Lilyholm Bridge and Langholm. - - * * * * * - -When Bloom emerged, full-fed and contented, from his restaurant, his -first impulse was to buy a new black felt hat, for the old one inclined -too much to yellow-brown, and he had heard sometime or other that the -hat makes the gentleman. After that he went to the nearest barber shop -on Horn Street and had them remove the stubble from his chin, together -with part of that on his cheeks; retaining, however--besides his -mustaches, of course--a couple of small mutton-chop whiskers next the -ears. After that he went slantwise across the street to a general -outfitter’s, whence he came out attired in a clean white collar, a -blue-edged dickey, and a brilliant light-blue necktie. A few steps -further up the street he stopped before a photographer’s show-case and -looked at himself in the glass. He was greatly moved at the -transformation he had undergone. A ribbon-like strip of paper was -picturesquely wound among portraits of serving-maids, dressmakers, -Salvation Army soldiers, recruits, and a parson with a parson’s collar; -and when he read on this that he could have half-a-dozen card-sized -pictures made for two and a half crowns, he felt an irresistible -temptation to go up and be photographed. It was partly that the day was -significant for him, so that the likeness he had taken now would be a -memento for the rest of his life; partly, too, that he had a dark -foreboding, which he tried to put by, that it might be long before he -would again be in a condition equally worthy to be immortalized in a -picture. Furthermore, he had had himself photographed at various times -previously, and he remembered with satisfaction the agreeable feeling he -had experienced in seeing his ego in an, as it were, glorified aspect, -without spots on his coat or damaging inequalities in his complexion, -handsomely shaved and with a dignified and engaging expression. He went -up to the photographer, combed his hair solicitously before a mirror, -and sat down motionless before the camera with his hands on his knees. - -“Will it be good?” he asked, when the sitting was over. - -“The gentleman will look like a bank director,” answered the -photographer after he had glanced at the plate. - -When he stood on the street again, he became conscious of his good -intentions calling more strongly and clearly than before. He ought to go -down to the city, look up a couple of God-fearing and kindly people to -whom the prison director and the pastor had given him directions, get -work, and procure himself a cheap lodging. But it was still early in the -day, the clock-maker’s time-piece over there on the corner did not yet -point quite to ten, the sun shone heart-warmingly in the blue heavens, -and the air was mild and still. He could give himself a little time, he -could go a piece toward Lilyholm out in the woods. - -Yes, the woods--he had thought of them many times while he sat caged off -there behind the grating. - -He had grown up in a village on a wooded slope half a mile south of -Stockholm. After he had been confirmed, he had been set as prentice to a -pious little tailor in South Stockholm. The tailor was a Baptist; Bloom -also became a Baptist and submitted to total immersion. But when he went -to another tailor, who belonged to the national church and constantly -misused the name of the Devil, his new faith gradually waned. He made -new acquaintances and became the betrothed of a middle-aged serving-maid -who had a bank-book and gave him money. In that way he grew accustomed -to amusements, not great, but nevertheless more than are good for poor -folks. On fine summer evenings he often sat in Mosebacke’s café or on -the river terrace drinking punch, sometimes with his intended, but -sometimes with a little dark-haired dressmaker, whom he had got to know -at Tekla’s one afternoon when she had given a tea in the maid’s room. -She was called Edith; she had thick dark hair and very red lips. She -went for long periods without work, but always knew how to provide for -herself notwithstanding. Bloom often wished that Tekla’s faithful love -for him, together with her bank-book, might by some magic means be -transferred to Edith. But Edith’s heart was inconstant and never to be -relied upon, and the bank-book still remained Tekla’s. So, as the case -was, he at least got a little enjoyment from the money of the one and -the red lips of the other. - -But then came the end. The tailor with whom he worked went bankrupt, and -he was out of work. Tekla promised to help him and took out money from -the bank; he was to have the loan of thirty crowns till he found work. -On the evening when he was to get the money she forced him to stay -longer than he cared to, and when at last he was to go and only waited -for the money, the crash came. She was all the more angry because she -had to speak low for fear of waking the family. Edith had been up in her -room that afternoon, they had fallen out about something, and Edith had -talked about all manner of things with Bloom to spite and annoy her. But -Tekla was not the kind to let anybody make fun of her. She called him a -cur and many other names, waving the three tenners under his nose and -declaring that he should never again get a farthing from her. Thereupon -he snatched them with a sudden grab and went off. He knew that she dared -not make any disturbance at night; the family might wake. - -But next day in court she accused him of theft. He first denied it, but -afterwards confessed and related the circumstances. The plaintiff’s -version of the affair, however, was altogether different: the thirty -crowns had lain on the table, he had taken them without her seeing it, -and she had never promised them to him. The one thing that became wholly -clear was that he had taken them. - -That gave him his first trip. - -Afterwards he had lived as best he could--had worked sometimes, and -sometimes starved and begged, till one evening he got the idea of -stealing a jacket on East Street so as to escape the poor-house. - - * * * * * - -He had come down to Lilyholm Bridge. Milk-wagons rattled and shaggy -peasant horses toiled painfully with their home-made carts up the steep -abutment. From the hundred factory chimneys around the shore of Arstavik -the smoke ascended quietly toward the welkin in straight columns, as -from a sacrifice well-pleasing to the Lord. The Continental Express -rushed southward along the railway embankment, its dining car full of -breakfasting travelers with anchovies on their forks. But in the -peaceful nook between the bridge and the shore a family of ducks swam to -and fro; some white, some speckled with the suggestion of a wild duck’s -plumage, while in the middle of the flock the drake stood on a floating -plank on one foot with his head under his wing, asleep. - -Bloom took a roll that he had brought with him from the restaurant on -Brenchurch Street, crumbled it to pieces, and threw the pieces to the -ducks. The flock at once grew more lively; even the drake lifted his -head and opened one eye, but shut it again. He was quite white, and his -shut eyelid was also white, so that Bloom had to think of the blank, -uncanny marble eyes he had seen in the National Museum one Sunday many -years ago. The others snapped among the bits of roll. One of them had -got hold of a piece that was too big, so she dipped it into the water -time after time in order to soften it and break it. Meanwhile another -followed all her motions constantly with watchful eyes, and when at last -the bit of roll slipped from the bill of the first, the other was -instantly there and got it. There was no conflict; the first contented -herself with following in turn and watching for a chance to recover the -lost piece. - -Bloom laughed aloud with delight. - -Yes, that’s right, he thought; he who has got something must look out -for what he has, or someone else will come and take it. He felt it -almost as a consolation to see the innocent white creature perform with -impunity and entire naturalness an act which in the language of mankind -is known as theft, and for which he had had to suffer severely. - -A speckled duck, enticed by the bits of roll, came swimming out from the -shore at the apex of a flock of little ones, gray-brown fellows with -hairy fluff and small, black, pearly-bright eyes like rats. Several -small girls on the way to school with books in their hands stopped and -surveyed them with delight and astonishment. “Look there! are those -rats?” “No, can’t you see? They’re birds.” “Only think, they aren’t -afraid of the water!” - -“Those are ducklings,” explained Bloom, adding a didactic tone: “They -are formed to go in the water. It’s no more remarkable for them to go in -the water than for fish to swim.” - -“Really!” said the largest girl. And they bounded off on their way with -little skips. - -Bloom recalled a story which he had once read in a school book about an -ugly duckling that was transformed into a swan. He sought for an -application of this to himself and partly found it in his recent -transformation at the barber shop and the photographer’s, but it did -not seem to him fully satisfactory, and he muttered to himself as he -passed on over the bridge: “Wait, I’ll show them! Just wait.” - -It was very warm, and when he came to the other side of the bridge where -nettles and burdocks were standing, gray with dust, by the edge of the -road, he took off his jacket, stuck the crook of his stick through the -loop, slung it over his shoulder, and went on out along the Lilyholm -Road whistling a cheerful tune. - -A little in front of him went a young woman with a bundle in her hand, -and he hurried his steps so as to see how she looked from in front. As -he came nearer, all at once his heart nearly stood still in his breast, -for he thought it must be Edith. At the same moment she turned. - -“No, if it isn’t Valdemar!” - -After the first expression of surprise had vanished from her face, she -smiled affably and seemed not unpleasantly affected at seeing him. She -was going to see an acquaintance who lived a little further out, and -they went on together. He found her changed, fuller than before and -redder in complexion, as if she had drunk a good deal of beer. She asked -where he had been all the long time that they had not seen each other. -He felt a certain satisfaction in her not seeming to know of his -“second trip,” and he improvised something about a lengthy illness and -employment for a while with a tailor in a neighboring town. - -Edith chattered incessantly. She talked of common acquaintances and -lamented over wrongs she had suffered. Tekla had been worst of all to -her. But now she was married to a street-cleaner who had already drunk -up her money and who beat her every day; and it served her right. She -related besides a great deal about herself, but in a style that hardly -seemed to make any pretence to veracity. - -Bloom let her prattle and for his own part did not say much. He thought -of the nine months he had spent in solitude. - -He took her gently by the arm and guided her in on a path that led into -the wood, and she grew silent in the midst of her talk and followed him -without saying anything. The path led into a deep covert along a fence -and hedge that enclosed a solitary orchard. From this orchard several -big silver poplars spread their wide and lofty crowns. On the other side -rose a fir-clad slope with mosses and ferns and dusky thickets. Over the -tops of the firs a white summer cloud sailed slowly. - - * * * * * - -Bloom was awakened by a big raindrop which fell heavily on his right -eyelid. He half raised himself and rubbed his eyes--had he been asleep? -He was alone, and it was raining. It did not rain hard as yet; these -were only the first big drops, but a black cloud was hanging directly -over him. - -Where was Edith? - -He had thrown his jacket with the stick a little to one side; he got up -and put it on. Suddenly a horrible thought came over him and he made a -swift grab at the breast pocket. - -It was empty. The blue envelope was gone--the envelope with the money -and the prison director’s recommendations. - -He felt a choking in his throat and a difficulty in breathing. - -A sudden gust of wind shot through the leafage of the poplars like a -lightning flash, and a raging squall of rain whipped him in the face. - - - - -THE FUR COAT - - -It was a cold winter that year. People shrank up in the chill and grew -smaller, all except those who had furs. Judge Richardt had a big fur -coat. It almost belonged, moreover, to his official position, for he was -managing director of a brand-new company. His old friend Dr. Henck, on -the contrary, had no fur coat: he had instead a pretty wife and three -children. Dr. Henck was thin and pale. Some people grow fat with -marriage, others grow thin. Dr. Henck had grown thin, and remained so on -this particular Christmas Eve. - -I’ve had a bad year this year, said Dr. Henck to himself, as he was on -his way to his old friend John Richardt to borrow money. It was three -o’clock of Christmas Eve, just the hour of the mid-day twilight.--I’ve -had a very bad year. My health is fragile, not to say broken. My -patients, on the contrary, have picked up, almost the whole lot of them, -I see them so seldom nowadays. Presumably I’m going to die soon. My wife -thinks so, too; I’ve seen it in her looks. In such a case it would be -desirable that the event should happen before the end of January, when -the cursed life insurance premium has to be paid. - -By the time he had reached this point in the process of his thoughts he -found himself on the corner of Government and Harbor Street. As he was -about to pass the street-crossing in order to proceed down Government -Street, he slipped on a smooth sleigh track and fell, and at the same -moment a sleigh drove up at full speed. The driver swore and the horse -instinctively turned aside, but Dr. Henck received a blow on the -shoulder from one of the runners, and furthermore a screw or nail or -some similar projection caught his overcoat and tore a big rent in it. -People gathered around him. A policeman helped him to his feet, a young -girl brushed the snow off him, an old woman gesticulated over his torn -overcoat in a way that indicated she would have liked to sew it up on -the spot if she could, and a prince of the royal house, who happened to -be going by, picked up his cap and set it on his head. So everything was -all right again except the coat. - -“Lord! what a sight you are, Gustav,” said Judge Richardt, when Henck -came up to his office. - -“Yes, I’ve been run over,” answered Henck. - -“That’s just like you,” said Richardt, laughing good-humoredly. “But you -can’t go home like that. You may gladly have the loan of my fur coat, -and I’ll send a boy home after my ulster.” - -“Thanks,” said Dr. Henck. And after he had borrowed the hundred krona he -needed, he added, “We shall be glad to have you for dinner.” - -Richardt was a bachelor and was accustomed to spend Christmas Eve with -Henck. - - * * * * * - -On the way home Henck was in a better humor than he had been for a long -time. - -That’s on account of the fur coat, he said to himself. If I had been -smart, I should have got myself a fur coat on credit long ago. It would -have strengthened my self-esteem and raised me in the popular opinion. -One can’t pay such a small fee to a doctor in a fur coat as to a doctor -in an ordinary overcoat with worn button-holes. It’s a bother that I -didn’t happen to think of that before. Now it’s too late. - -He walked a stretch through King’s Garden. It was dark already, it had -begun to snow again, and the acquaintances he met did not recognize him. - -Who knows, though, whether it’s too late, Henck went on to himself. I’m -not old yet, and I may have been mistaken about the question of my -health. I’m poor as a little fox in the woods; but so was John Richardt -not so long since. My wife has grown cold and unfriendly toward me in -these latter times. She would surely begin to love me afresh, if I could -earn more money and if I were dressed in furs. It has seemed to me that -she cared more for John since he got himself a fur coat than she did -before. She was certainly a bit sweet on him when she was a young girl, -too; but he never courted her. On the contrary he said to her and to -everybody that he wouldn’t dare to marry on less than ten thousand a -year. But I dared, and Ellen was a poor girl who wanted to marry. I -don’t believe she was so much in love with me that I should have been -able to seduce her if I had wished to. But I didn’t want to, either; how -could I have dreamed of that sort of love? I haven’t thought of that -since I was sixteen and saw Faust the first time at the opera with -Arnoldson. I’m sure, though, she was fond of me when we were first -married; one can’t be mistaken about such a thing as that. Why couldn’t -she be again? In the first days after our marriage she always said -spiteful things to John whenever they met. But then he built up a -company, invited us often to the theatre, and got himself a fur coat. -And so naturally in time my wife grew tired of saying spiteful things to -him. - - * * * * * - -Henck had still several errands to do before dinner. It was already half -past five when he came home laden with parcels. He felt very tender in -his left shoulder, otherwise there was nothing that reminded him of his -mishap in the afternoon except the fur coat. - -It’ll be fun to see what my wife will do when she sees me in a fur coat, -said Dr. Henck to himself. - -The hall was quite dark; the lamp was never lighted unless visitors were -expected. - -I hear her in the parlor now, thought Dr. Henck. She walks as lightly as -a little bird. It’s remarkable that I still get warm around the heart -every time I hear her step in the next room. - -Dr. Henck was right in his supposition that his wife would give him a -more loving reception when he had on a fur coat than she was otherwise -wont to do. She stole up close to him in the darkest corner of the hall, -twined her arms about his neck, and kissed him warmly and intensively. -Then she burrowed her head into the collar of his fur coat and -whispered: “Gustav isn’t home yet.” - -“Yes,” answered Dr. Henck in a voice that trembled slightly, while he -caressed her hair with both hands, “yes, he’s home.” - - * * * * * - -A big fire flamed in Dr. Henck’s work-room. Whisky and water stood on -the table. - -Judge Richardt lay stretched out in a large leather easy-chair and -smoked a cigar. Dr. Henck sat huddled in a corner of the sofa. The door -was open on the hall, where Mrs. Henck and the children were busy -lighting the Christmas tree. - -Dinner had been very quiet. Only the children had twittered and prattled -to one another and been happy. - -“You’re not saying anything, old fellow,” said Richardt. “Is it that -you’re sitting worrying over your torn overcoat?” - -“No,” answered Henck, “it’s rather over the fur coat.” - -There was a few minutes’ silence before he continued: - -“I’m thinking of something else, too. I’m sitting thinking that this is -the last Christmas we shall celebrate together. I’m a doctor and I know -I’ve not many days left. I know it now with full certainty. I want, -therefore, to thank you for all the kindness you’ve shown me and my wife -in these last times.” - -“Oh, you’re mistaken,” muttered Richardt, looking away. - -“No,” replied Henck, “I’m not mistaken. And I want also to thank you for -lending me your fur coat. It has given me the last seconds of happiness -I have known in my life.” - - - - -THE BLUE ANCHOR - - -I - -There was dancing in the salon, but in the darkened smoking-room sat -several men who did not dance. The younger ones had white flowers in -their button-holes, the older ones had decorations. In the corner of a -sofa sat a man a little apart from the others; he sat very silent and -smiled as at a happy dream. His face was brown, but his forehead was -white. His frock coat was as correct as anyone else’s, and he had also a -white flower in his button-hole; but his left hand, which hung over the -arm of the sofa, was tattooed with a blue anchor. - -As a matter of fact it was not a ball; there had merely been a dinner, -and afterwards there was dancing. - -A man with a decoration was standing in front of him. - -“You don’t dance, Mr. Fant?” he inquired. - -Fant replied, “I’ve just been dancing with Miss Gabel.” - -But as he said this, he felt that he blushed. Why should he have added -“with Miss Gabel.” It was surely a matter of indifference with whom he -had danced. Because he believed he had said something stupid, he was -annoyed with the man to whom he had said it, and set to staring at his -decoration without saying anything. Since this was a bogus foreign -decoration of the worst sort, the man grew embarrassed, coughed drily, -and passed on. - -Fant remained seated and stared into a mirror which faced him on an -oblique wall. But it was not himself that he saw in the mirror, it was -the flooding light of the dancing hall and the sinuous lines of the -women. They seemed to move silently in time with the music. Look at -their red lips, look at the white curves of their arms!-- - -There she was again! For the third time she glided past across the -mirror. It was her cousin she was dancing with, a boy, lately a -student--ah, well! - -No, he could not sit still, he could not look on any more. It surely -signified nothing that the boy danced with his own cousin, but he could -not look on. He rose and went out of the room. - -Someone asked, “Who is this Mr. Fant?” - -“He has invented something--a gas-burner, I believe. He is already on -the way to make a fortune.” - -“But did you see,” said the man with the foreign order, “did you see -that he has a blue anchor tattooed on one hand?” - -They suddenly burst into guffaws. - - -II - -He sauntered back and forth through the rooms. He went out into the -corridor. A couple of Knights of Vasa were sitting on the wood-box -talking about business while they gesticulated with two big cigars, on -which they had left the labels. They grew silent as he passed. - -He came into a greenish room that was half dark. From the roof on a -narrow cord hung a single electric light, its glow shaded by blue and -green fringes. On a dressing-table with a marble top an old Chinese -mandarin of porcelain sat sleeping on his crossed legs. - -How strangely far off the music sounded, as if from underneath! - -He set the mandarin’s head in motion with a little punch of his little -finger. Two mirrors repeated in unending succession the pale and -lethargic nods of the yellow head. - -Now it was quiet, the music. - -All at once she stood there, in the middle of the room. He had not heard -her enter. She held out both hands to him. He took them and drew her to -him for a kiss, but she freed herself almost immediately. - -“Somebody’s coming,” she said. - -They listened. Voices approached and moved away again. - -When all was quiet around them, he pressed her to him in a long kiss. -And he thought while she kissed him: This is life! This is eternity! - -Far away in the green darkness nodded the pale head of the mandarin. - -“No one kisses like you,” he muttered. - -“Many kiss like you,” she responded, smiling. - -He thought to himself: she’s smiling so that I shall know she’s jesting -and that she has never kissed anyone else. - -While he caressed her two small hands between his, he noticed that she -was looking at his left hand. - -“You are looking at the anchor,” he said. “It’s true that it is not -handsome. And it won’t come off.” - -She took his hand and surveyed inquisitively the blue dots that formed -an anchor. But she said nothing. - -“It was in Hamburg that was done,” he said. “I was a ship’s boy on a -vessel. We had come ashore and gone into a tavern by the harbor. I -remember it all so well: the fog, the many masts in the harbor, and the -smell of the grease. My comrades were tattooed, on the hands, arms and -body, and they thought I ought to have myself tattooed also. I couldn’t -refuse, or they would have thought I was afraid of the pain, for it hurt -a great deal. But I thought, too, it was stylish; I was hardly fourteen, -you know.” - -“Are you tattooed on the body as well?” she asked. - -Smilingly and somewhat unwillingly he answered, “Yes, I have on the -breast a ship and a bird, which is supposed to be an eagle, though it’s -more like a rooster.” - -She looked long into his eyes, then slowly raised his hand to her lips -and kissed the blue anchor. - - -III - -Years passed, and one day Richard Fant said to his wife as they were -dressing to go out to dinner, “Do you know, I think the blue anchor is -beginning to fade. Perhaps it’s on the way to vanish entirely.” - -“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she answered. - -In reality her thoughts were in another direction. She was thinking of -her cousin, Tom Gabel, who was an attaché at the embassy in Madrid. He -had now been home for two months on a visit and had promised to come and -fetch them so as to go together to the dinner. - -“Hurry up,” she said, “so that Tom won’t have to wait for you.” - -“I’m all ready,” he replied. - -He had sat down in a corner in the shadow, fully dressed. She turned and -scanned his attire. - -“You’ve forgotten your decoration,” she remarked. - -“I don’t want my decoration,” he responded. - -“But Richard! could you be so discourteous to Tom, who got it for you?” - -He went after his decoration. It was not one of the very worst, not an -order of Christus or a Nichan Iftikar; it was a medium good decoration, -a quite nice decoration. He fastened it on the lapel of his coat with -the feeling that perhaps he really needed it, seeing that he had a blue -anchor on his left hand. - - -IV - -There was a dance after the dinner, but Fant remained sitting in a sofa -corner of the smoking-room. By his side sat the man whom he had formerly -annoyed by staring at his foreign decoration, but he was now a Knight -Commander. They had become good friends and called each other by their -first names when they said anything to each other, but they said -nothing. They merely sat each in his corner of the sofa and smoked big -cigars with labels and understood each other perfectly. - -The doctors had forbidden Fant to smoke strong cigars, because he had a -bad heart. But he had just lighted the third since dinner. - -In the mirror on the middle of the opposite wall he saw the revolving of -the dancers and the flood of light from the hall. He had often wondered -how it was that they seemed to dance as though on felt or soft -greensward, soundlessly. He understood now that it came from his seeing -them in the mirror. Because the picture struck him from another quarter -than the clatter and the music, he did not connect them, and over the -flooring reflected in the mirror the dance appeared to go without noise. -Look at the girls’ white dresses! behold their panting bosoms!---- - -He recollected that he had once seen her who was now his wife float -past, as they did, in a girl’s plain white ball-dress. She was -differently clad now. - -See! there she was, sure enough, with him, her cousin. She remained -standing a moment in the doorway, erect, slender, and delicate as -always. She seemed as if quite naked under the stiff, variegated silk in -which she had wrapped her body, and which was only held together by -clasps at the shoulders and waist. They bent their heads together and -whispered. - -No, he must move about a bit, stretch his legs a little.--It is not good -to sit still too long after a big dinner and smoke three black cigars. - -He lighted the fourth and began to saunter back and forward through the -room. - -He went out into the corridor. Three young men with white flowers in -their button-holes sat on the wood-box with cigarettes in holders and -talked about women, but they became silent as he went past. He opened -the door to the little green cabinet and went in. It was empty. He set -the mandarin’s yellow head in motion with a push of his knuckle and -passed on to the window. - -The window-pane breathed frost and wintry chill. He blew on it till -there was a peep-hole between the ice-flowers, put his eye to the glass, -and looked out. The sky was dark and glittering with stars. Highest up -stood the Dipper with its handle aloft. - -It was late, then. - -He could not force himself to leave the room, because he felt a bitter -and devouring desire for his wife and the kiss of old times, the kiss -under the blue-green light from pearl fringe of the single electric -light, the kiss which the mandarin had beheld in his nodding -half-slumber. If she would only come now, precisely now! No one could -kiss as she did, no one. He had kissed other women since she no longer -loved him; but he had forgotten them all, he would not recognize them if -he met them on the street. If she would only come! Yes, even if she but -came to meet the other, even then he would take her forced and -treacherous kiss as a boon, even then-- - -He listened. Whispering voices were audible outside the door, but they -grew silent all at once and remained so. - -He had a strange sensation at his heart, he felt that in a couple of -seconds he would lie stretched on the carpet, unconscious, but he held -himself upright, and suddenly he heard from the entry where the young -men were smoking their cigarettes a very clear voice which said: “Well, -after all it’s only natural. One can’t expect her to be in love with -someone who has a blue anchor tattooed on his hand.” - - -V - -The coffin stood in the middle of the room. The black-clad woman walked -back and forth, back and forth. - -“No, he’s not coming----” - -When he finally did come, he said, “Pardon me, beloved. I was delayed by -someone who came to call----” - -She nodded stiffly. She did not believe him, because he had not kissed -her. - -When he felt that they had stood too long silent, he said, “I must be -off tomorrow. I’ve had a telegram from the minister.--But I swear to -you that I’ll come back,” he added in a somewhat lowered voice as if he -did not wish that the dead man should hear. - -She comprehended that he was lying and that he never meant to see her -again. And she nodded. - -“Good-bye,” she said. - -When he had gone, she went forward to the head of the coffin and looked -at the dead man without thinking any further, for she was too weary. But -as she stood there she remembered suddenly that she had loved him. She -had loved other men too, but it came to her now that she had loved this -one most. At that thought she felt the tears rise from deep down in her -heart; she took his left hand, the one with the blue anchor, and wetted -it with her kisses and her tears. - - - - -THE KISS - - -There was once a young girl and a very young man. They sat on a stone on -a promontory that ran out into the lake, and the waves splashed at their -feet. They sat silent, each wrapped in thought, and watched the sun go -down. - -_He_ thought that he should very much like to kiss her. When he looked -at her mouth, it occurred to him that this was just what it was meant -for. He had, to be sure, seen girls prettier than she was, and he was -really in love with someone else; but this other he could surely never -kiss, because she was an ideal, a star, and what availed “the desire of -the moth for the star”? - -_She_ thought that she should very much like to have him kiss her, so -that she might have occasion to be downright angry with him and show how -deeply she despised him. She would get up, pull her skirts tightly round -her, give him a glance brimmed with icy contempt, and go off, erect and -calm, without any unnecessary haste. But in order that he might not -divine what she thought, she asked in a low, soft voice, “Do you think -there is another life after this?” - -He thought it would be easier to kiss her if he said yes. But he could -not remember for certain what he might have said on other occasions -about the same subject, and he was afraid of contradicting himself. He -therefore looked her deep in the eyes and answered, “There are times -when I think so.” - -This answer pleased her extraordinarily, and she thought: At least I -like his hair--and his forehead, too. It’s only a pity his nose is so -ugly, and then of course he has no standing--he’s just a student who is -reading for his examinations. That was not the sort of beau to vex her -friends with. - -He thought: Now I can certainly kiss her. He was, nevertheless, terribly -afraid; he had never before kissed a girl of good family, and he -wondered if it might not be dangerous. Her father was lying asleep in a -hammock a little way off, and he was the mayor of the town. - -She thought: Perhaps it will be still better if I give him a box on the -ear when he kisses me. - -And she thought again: Why doesn’t he kiss me? Am I so ugly and -disagreeable? - -She leaned forward over the water to see her reflection, but her image -was broken by the splashing of the water. - -She thought again: I wonder how it will feel when he kisses me. As a -matter of fact she had only been kissed once, by a lieutenant after a -ball at the town hotel. He had smelt so abominably of punch and cigars -that she had felt but little flattered, although to be sure he was a -lieutenant, but otherwise she had not much cared for the kiss. -Furthermore she hated him because he had not been attentive to her -afterwards or indeed shown any interest in her at all. - -While they sat so, each engrossed in private thoughts, the sun went down -and it grew dark. - -And he thought: Seeing that she is still sitting with me, though the sun -is gone and it has become dark, it may be that she wouldn’t so much -object to my kissing her. - -Then he laid his arm softly around her neck. - -She had not expected this at all. She had imagined he would merely kiss -her and nothing more, and with that she would give him a box on the ear -and go off like a princess. Now she didn’t know what she should do; she -wanted of course to be angry with him, but at the same time she didn’t -want to lose the kiss. She therefore sat quite still. - -Thereupon he kissed her. - -It felt much more strange than she had supposed. She felt that she was -growing pale and faint, she entirely forgot that she was to give him a -box on the ear and that he was only a student reading for his -examination. - -But he thought of a passage in a book by a religious physician on “The -Sex Life of Woman,” which read: “One must guard against letting the -marital embrace come under the dominion of sensuality.” And he thought -that this must be very difficult to guard against, if even a kiss could -do so much. - - * * * * * - -When the moon came up, they were still sitting there and kissing. - -She whispered into his ear: “I loved you from the first hour I saw you.” - -And he replied: “There has never been anyone in the world for me but -you.” - - - - -THE DREAM OF ETERNITY - - -While I was still very young I believed with entire certainty that I had -an immortal soul. I regarded this as a holy and precious gift and was -both happy and proud over it. - -I often said to myself: “The life I am living is a dark and troubled -dream. Some time I shall awaken to another dream which stands closer to -reality and has a deeper meaning than this. Out of that dream I shall -awaken to a third and afterwards to a fourth, and every new dream will -stand nearer the truth than the one before. This approaching toward -truth constitutes the meaning of life, which is subtle and profound.” - -With the joy of knowing that in my immortal soul I possessed a capital -which could not be lost in play or distrained upon for debt, I carried -on a dissipated life and squandered like a prince both what was mine and -what was not mine. - -But one evening I found myself with some of my cronies in a large hall, -which glittered with gilt and electric light, while from its flooring -rose a smell of decay. Two young girls with painted faces and an old -woman whose wrinkles were filled with plaster were dancing there on a -platform, accompanied by the wail of the orchestra, cries of applause, -and the clink of broken glass. We watched the women, drank a great deal, -and conversed on the immortality of the soul. - -“It’s foolish,” said one of my comrades who was older than I, “it’s -foolish to believe that it would be a blessing to have an immortal soul. -Look at that old harridan dancing there, whose head and hands tremble if -she stays still a moment. One sees directly that she is wicked and ugly -and entirely worthless, and that she’s getting more and more so every -day. How ridiculous it would be to imagine that she had an immortal -soul! But the case is just the same with you and me and all of us. What -a mean joke it would be to give us immortality!” - -“The thing that I dislike most in what you say,” I answered, “isn’t that -you deny the immortality of the soul, but the fact that you find a -pleasure in denying it. Human beings are like children that play in a -garden surrounded by a high wall. Time and again a door is opened in the -wall, and one of the children disappears through the door. People then -tell them that it is taken to another garden bigger and more beautiful -than this, whereupon they listen a moment in silence and afterwards -continue to play among the flowers. Assume now that one of the boys is -more inquisitive than the others and climbs up on the wall so as to see -where his comrades go, and when he comes down again tells the rest what -he has seen; namely, that outside the gate sits a giant who devours the -children when they are taken out. And they all have to be taken out -through the gate in due turn! You are that boy, Martin, and I find it -unspeakably ridiculous that you tell what you think you’ve seen, not in -a spirit of despair, but as if you were proud and glad of knowing more -than the rest.” - -“The younger of those girls is very pretty,” replied Martin. - -“It’s dreadful to be annihilated, and it’s also dreadful not to be able -to be annihilated,” remarked another of my friends. - -Martin continued this line of argument. - -“Yes,” he said, “one should be able to find a middle course. Gird up -your loins and go out to look for a midway degree between time and -eternity. He who finds it may found a new religion, for he’ll then have -the most enticing bait that a fisher of men ever possessed.” - -The orchestra stopped with a clash. The gold of the hall glittered more -faintly through the tobacco smoke and through the floor boards pressed -continuously a smell of decay. - -The party broke up and we separated, each in his own direction. I -wandered a long while back and forth on the streets; I came upon streets -which I did not recognize and which I have never seen since, remarkably -desolate and empty streets, where the houses seemed to open their lines -to give me space whithersoever I turned my steps, and then to close up -again behind my back. I did not know where I had got to, before all of a -sudden I stood in front of my own door. It stood wide open. I went in -through the door and up the stairs. At one of the stair windows I -stopped and looked at the moon: I had not previously noticed that there -was moonlight that evening. - -But I have never either before or after seen the moon look so. One could -not say that it shone. It was ashen-gray and pallid and unnaturally big. -I stood a long while and stared at yonder moon, despite the fact that I -was dreadfully tired and longed to get to sleep. - -I lived in the third story. When I had gone up two flights I thanked God -there was only one left. But as I came up this flight, it struck me that -the corridor was not dark, as it had always used to be, but faintly -lighted like the other corridors where the moon glimmered in through the -stair windows. But there were only three flights of stairs in the house -besides the attic stairs; for that reason the uppermost corridor was -always dark. - -“The door of the attic is open,” I said to myself. “The light is coming -from the attic stairway. It’s unexcusable of the servants to leave the -door of the attic open, for thieves might get up into the attic.” - -But there was no attic door. There was only an ordinary stairway like -the others. - -I had counted wrong, then; I had still a flight to go up. - -But when I had mounted this flight and stood in the corridor, I had to -control myself so as not to shriek aloud. For this corridor, too, was -light, neither was there any attic door open, but a new stairway led up -just as before. Through the stair window the moon glimmered in, and it -was ashen-gray and lustreless and unnaturally big. - -I rushed up the stairway. I could no longer think. I tottered up -another, and yet another; I did not count them any longer. - -I wanted to cry out, I wanted to wake that accursed house and see human -beings around me; but my throat was constricted. - -Suddenly it occurred to me to try if I could read the names on the -door-plates. What kind of people could it be that lived in this tower of -Babel? The moonlight was too faint; I struck a match and held it close -to a brass plate. - -I read there the name of one of my friends who was dead. - -Then the bonds of my tongue were loosed and I shrieked: “Help! help! -help!” - - * * * * * - -That cry was my salvation, for it waked me up out of the terrible dream -of eternity. - - - - -THE DRIZZLE - - -Autumn is here again with its dismal days, and the sun is hiding himself -in the darkest corner of the heavens so that no one shall see how pale -and aged and worn he has grown in this latter time. But while the wind -whistles in the window-chinks and the rain purls in the rain-spouts and -a wet dog howls in front of a closed gate down below on the street and -before the fire has burned down in our tile stove, I will tell you a -story about the drizzle. - -Listen now! - -For some time back the good God had become so angered over the -wickedness of men that he resolved to punish them by making them still -wickeder. He should, in his great goodness, have liked above all things -to have drowned them all together in a new Deluge: he had not forgotten -how agreeable was the sight when all living creatures perished in the -flood. But unfortunately in a sentimental moment he had promised Noah -never to do so again. - -“Harken, my friend!” he therefore said to the Devil one day. “You are -assuredly no saint, but occasionally you have good ideas, and one can -talk things over with you. The children of men are wicked and do not -want to improve. My patience, which is infinite, has now come to an end, -and I have resolved to punish them by making them wickeder still. The -fact is I hope they will then collectively destroy each other and -themselves. It occurs to me that our interests--otherwise so far -apart--should here for once find a point of contact. What advice can you -give me?” - -The Devil bit the end of his tail reflectively. - -“Lord,” he answered finally, “Thy wisdom is as great as Thy goodness. -Statistics show that the greatest number of crimes are committed in the -autumn, when the days are dismal, the sky is gray, and the earth is -enveloped in rain and mist.” - -The good God pondered these words a long while. - -“I understand,” he said finally. “Your advice is good, and I will follow -it. You have good gifts, my friend, but you should make better use of -them.” - -The Devil smiled and wagged his tail, for he was flattered and touched. -He then limped home. - -But the good God said to himself: “Hereafter it shall always drizzle. -The clouds shall never clear; the mist never lift, the sun never shine -more. It shall be dark and gray to the end of time.” - -The umbrella makers and the overshoes manufacturers were happy at the -start, but it was not long before the smile froze upon even their lips. -People do not know what importance fair weather has for them until they -are for once compelled to do without it. The gay became melancholy. The -melancholy became mad and hanged themselves in long rows or assembled to -hold prayer-meetings. Soon no one worked any more, and the need became -great. Crime increased in a dizzying scale; the prisons were -overcrowded, the madhouses afforded room for only the clever. The number -of the living decreased, and their dwellings stood deserted. They -instituted capital punishment for suicide; nothing did any good. - -Mankind, who for so many generations had dreamed and poetized about an -eternal spring, now went to meet their last days through an eternal -autumn. - -Day by day the destruction went on. Countrysides were laid waste, cities -fell in ruins. Dogs gathered in the squares and howled; but in the -alleys an old lame man went about from house to house with a sack on his -back and collected souls. And every evening he limped home with his sack -full. - -But one evening he did not limp home. He went instead to the gate of -heaven and straight on to the good God’s throne. There he stood still, -bowed, and said: - -“Lord, Thou hast aged in these latter days. We have both of us aged, and -it is for that reason we are so dull. Ah! Lord, that was bad advice I -gave Thee. The sins that interest me need a bit of sunlight once in a -while in order to flourish. Look here! you’ve made me into a miserable -rubbish-gatherer.” - -With these words he flung his dirty sack so violently against the steps -of the throne that the cord broke and the souls fluttered out. They were -not black, but gray. - -“That’s the last of the human souls,” said the Devil. “I give them to -Thee, Lord. But beware of using them, if Thou intendest to create a new -world!” - - * * * * * - -The wind whistles in the window chinks, the rain purls in the -rain-spouts, and the story is done. He who has not understood it may -console himself with the thought that it will be fair weather tomorrow. - - - - -THE DRAWING IN INDIA INK - - -One day in April many years ago, in the time when I still wondered about -the meaning of life, I went into a little cigar booth on a back street -to buy a cigar. I selected a dark and angular El Zelo, stuffed it into -my case, paid for it, and made ready to go. But at that moment it -occurred to me to show the young girl who stood in the booth, and of -whom I used often to buy my cigars, a little sketch in India ink, which -I happened to have lying in a portfolio. I had got it from a young -artist, and to my thinking it was very fine. - -“Look here,” said I, handing it to her. “What do you think of that?” - -She took it in her hand with interested curiosity and looked at it very -long and closely. She turned it in various directions, and her face took -on an expression of strained mental activity. - -“Well, what does it mean?” she asked finally with an inquisitive glance. - -I was a little surprised. - -“It doesn’t mean anything in particular,” I answered. “It’s just a -landscape. That’s the ground and that’s the sky and that there is a -road--an ordinary road----” - -“Yes, I can see that,” she interrupted in a somewhat unfriendly tone; -“but I want to know what it _means_.” - -I stood there embarrassed and irresolute; I had never happened to think -that it ought to mean anything. But her idea was not to be removed; she -had now got it into her head that the picture must be some sort of -“Where is the cat?” affair. Why otherwise should I have shown it to her? -At last she set it up against the window-pane so as to make it -transparent. Presumably someone had once shown her a peculiar kind of -playing card, which in an ordinary light represents a nine of diamonds -or a knave of spades, but which, when one holds it up against the light, -displays something indecent. - -But her investigation brought no result. She gave back the sketch, and I -prepared to leave. Then all at once the poor girl grew very red in the -face and burst out, with a sob in her throat: - -“Shame on you! it’s real mean of you to make a fool of me like that. I -know very well I’m a poor girl, and haven’t been able to get myself a -better education, but still you don’t need to make a fool of me. Can’t -you tell me what your picture means?” - -What was I to answer? I should have given much to be able to tell her -what it meant; but I could not, for it meant precisely nothing. - - * * * * * - -Ah, well, that was many years ago. I now smoke other cigars, which I buy -in another shop, and I no longer wonder about the meaning of life--but -that is not because I think I have found it. - - - - -THE WAGES OF SIN - - -This is the story of a young girl and an apothecary with a white vest. - -She was young and slim, she smelled of pine woods and heather, and her -complexion was sunburned and a trifle freckled. So she was when I knew -her. But the apothecary was a quite ordinary apothecary; he wore a white -vest on Sundays, and on a Sunday this attracted attention. It attracted -attention in a place in the country so far away from the world that no -one in that region was so sophisticated as to wear a white vest on -Sundays except the apothecary. - -This, you see, was how it happened that one Sunday morning there was a -knock at my door, and when I opened it, the apothecary stood outside in -his white vest and bowed several times. He was very polite and very much -embarrassed. - -“I beg your most humble pardon,” he said, “but Miss Erika was here -yesterday with her sisters while you were away, and when she went, she -left her poetry book for you and me to write something in it. Here it -is. But I don’t know at all what to write. Could you perhaps -kindly----?” And he bowed again several times. - -“We will think the matter over,” I answered in a friendly tone. - -I took the book therefore and for my own share inscribed a translation -of “Du bist wie eine Blume,” which I had made myself and which I always -use for that purpose. I then began to search among my papers to see if -by any chance I had some old verses from my school days which would suit -for the apothecary. Finally I came upon the following bad poem: - - You set my thoughts in turmoil, - I wither in longing’s blight. - In solitude you haunt me, - I dreamed of you in the night. - - I dreamed that we walked together - Side by side in the twilight dim, - And through your lowered lashes - I saw the bright tear swim. - - I kissed your cheek and your eyelids, - I saw the tear-drop fall, - But oh, your red, red lips, love-- - I kissed them most of all. - - One cannot always dream sweetly. - Small rest since then have I known, - For, sorrowful oft and weary, - I watch through the night-hours alone. - - Alas! your cheeks so soft, love, - I touch but with glances trist, - And those red lips, my darling, - I never, never have kissed. - -I showed the apothecary this poem and offered to let him use it. He read -it through attentively twice and blushed all over with delight. - -“Did you really write that yourself?” he inquired in his simplicity of -heart. - -“Yes, I’m sorry to admit.” - -He thanked me very warmly for the permission to use the poem, and when -he went out of the room I imagine we both had the feeling that we must -drop the formality of “mister” at the first opportunity. - - * * * * * - -That evening there was a little party at the girl’s house. Young folks -were there. We drank cherry syrup on a veranda festooned with hop-vines. - -I sat and looked at the young girl. - -No, she was not like herself. Her eyes were bigger and more restless -than usual and her mouth was redder. And she could not sit still on her -chair. - -From time to time she cast a furtive glance at me, but more often she -looked at the apothecary. And the apothecary looked that evening like a -turkey-cock. - -When the punch was passed around, we dropped the “mister.” - - * * * * * - -We young people went down on the meadow to play games. We tossed rings -and played other games, and meanwhile the sun went down behind the hills -and it grew dark. - -We had laid the rings and the sword in a heap on the ground and were now -standing in groups, whispering and smiling, while the dusk came on. But -the young girl came up to me through the dusk and took me aside behind a -shed. - -“You must answer me a question,” said she. “Did the druggist really -write his verses himself?” Her voice trembled, and she tried to look -away as she spoke. - -“Yes,” I said. “He wrote them last night. I heard him going back and -forth in his room all night.” - -But when I had said that, I felt a sting in my conscience, for I saw -that she was a pretty and lovable child and that it was a great sin to -deceive her so. - -Who knows, I said to myself, who knows? Perhaps this is the sin of which -the Scripture says that it cannot be forgiven. - - * * * * * - -The twilight deepened, it became night, and a star burned between the -trees in the wood, where we were walking in pairs. - -But I was alone. - -I do not remember any more where I went that evening. I separated from -the others and went deeper into the wood. - -But deep within the wood among the firs I saw a birch with a shining -white stem. By the stem stood two young people kissing, and I saw that -one of them was the young girl who smelled of pine woods and heather. -But the other was the apothecary, and he was a quite ordinary apothecary -with a white vest. He held her pressed against the white stem of the -birch and kissed her. - -But when he had kissed her three times, I went away and wept bitterly. - - - - -COMMUNION - - -It happened when I was hardly more than a boy. - -It was on a blustering autumn evening on board a coast steamer. We had -not yet come in from the country, and I had to go in and out of town to -school. I had been lazy as usual and was to be examined in several -subjects in order to be promoted into a higher class. - -I went back and forward on the deck in the darkness, with collar turned -up and hands in my coat pockets, thinking of my reverses at school. I -was almost sure to flunk. As I leaned forward over the railing and saw -how the foam hissed whitely and the starboard lantern threw sparkling -green reflections on the black water, I felt tempted to jump overboard. -Then at least the mathematics teacher would be sorry for the way he had -tormented me--then, when it was too late---- - -But in the end it grew cold outside, and when I thought I had been -freezing long enough, I went into the smoking cabin. - -In my imagination I can still see the warm, comfortable interior which -met my view when I opened the door. The lighted ceiling-lamp swung -slowly back and forth like a pendulum. On the table steamed four whiskey -toddies, four cigars puffed, and four gentlemen were telling smutty -stories. I recognized them all as neighbors of our summer sojourn: a -company director, an old clergyman, a leading actor, and a button -dealer. I bowed politely and threw myself down in a corner. I had, to be -sure, a slight feeling that my presence might perhaps be superfluous; -but on the other hand it would have been asking too much of me to go out -into the wind and freeze when there was so much room in the cabin. -Furthermore I knew within myself that I might very well contribute to -the entertainment if necessary. - -The four men looked askance at me with a certain coolness, and there was -a pause. - -I was sixteen and had recently been confirmed. People have told me that -at that time I had a guileless and innocent appearance. - -The pause, however, was not long. A few swallows from the glasses, a few -puffs at the cigars, and the exchange of opinions was once more in full -swing. A peculiar circumstance struck me, though: all the stories that -were told I had already heard innumerable times, and for my part I found -them comparatively flat. Smutty stories may, as is well known, be -divided into two chief groups, one of which concentrates itself mostly -about digestive processes and circumstances related to them, whereas, on -the contrary, the other, which stands incomparably higher in degree, has -preferably to do with woman. I and my schoolmates had long since left -the former group behind us; I was therefore the more surprised to hear -these mature gentlemen give it their liveliest interest, while the -other, much more appealing group was passed over in silence. I did not -understand it. Could this possibly be out of any undue consideration for -me? I need not say to what extent the suspicion of such a thing provoked -me. The lively tone of the cabin had affected me and made me -venturesome, so that I resolved to put an end to this childishness. - -“Look here, uncle,” I burst out quite impulsively during a silence after -a story which was so harmless that even the clergyman guffawed at it, -“don’t you remember the story the captain told day before yesterday?” - -“Uncle” was the company director, who was a friend of my father. - -I continued undismayed: “That was the choicest I’ve heard in all my -days. Couldn’t you please tell it?” - -Four pairs of astonished eyes were directed upon me, and a painful -silence set in. I already regretted my rash courage. - -The company director broke the ice with a skittish little chuckle, -which was but a faint echo of the thunder he had allowed to roll out a -couple of days before when the captain had told the story. - -“Tee-hee!--yes, that wasn’t so bad----” - -He then began to tell it. It was very highly seasoned and had to do with -woman. - -The leading actor at first hid his feelings behind his customary mask of -dignified seriousness, whereas on the other hand the button dealer, an -old buck who had grown gray in sin, regarded me with a sort of furtive -interest, in which was an element of increased respect for my -personality. - -But when the anecdote began to take a somewhat precarious turn, it was -suddenly interrupted by the clergyman, a kindly old man with a pious and -childlike expression on his elderly smooth-shaven countenance. - -“Pardon the interruption, my good brother, but”--and he turned a little -in his chair so that he could direct his words at me--“how old, may I -ask, is this young man? Has he been to Our Lord’s--to Communion?” - -I felt that I flushed blood-red. I had forgotten that there was a -clergyman in the company. - -“Y-yes,” I stammered almost inaudibly. “I was confirmed last winter.” - -“Indeed!” returned the old clergyman, while he slowly stirred his glass -of toddy. - -Then without looking up, in a voice which forty years of mediation -between God and the world had impressed with the mild tone of tolerance -and indulgence, he continued: - -“Go on, my dear brother! Excuse the interruption!” - - - - -THE CLOWN - - -Yesterday a familiar face flitted by me on the street. It was pale and -had a tired expression, but the features were sharp and strongly marked. - -I did not recall his name. I was sure I had seen him sometime, perhaps a -long while ago, but I could not remember when or under what -circumstances. His face had aroused my interest without my being able to -explain why, and I dug all sorts of old recollections out of the -junk-room of my memory in order to identify him, but in vain. - -In the evening I was at the theatre. There to my surprise I found him -again on the stage in a minor rôle. He was but little disguised; I -recognized him at once and looked for his name on the program. I found -it, but it was unknown to me. I followed his acting with tense interest. -He took the part of a miserably stupid and ridiculous servant, whom -everybody made fun of. The rôle was as wretched as the piece, and he -played it mechanically and conventionally; but in certain intonations -his voice assumed a sharp and bitter character which did not belong to -the part. - -They re-echoed in my ear, those tones, till late into the night, as I -went back and forth in my room. And with their help I at last succeeded -in digging up the recollection with which they belonged. I discovered -that we had been schoolmates, but he was many years younger than I; when -I was in the highest class, he was in one of the lowest. - - * * * * * - -When I was in the top class of the school, I was one day standing at the -window toward the end of a lunch recess. Recesses at the school were an -especial abomination of mine; I could never find anything to do. I knew -that I did not know my lesson, and I could not set myself to going over -it. The slight vexation I felt about the coming lesson always faded -before a greater: a vexation about life, a gnawing premonition that the -days to follow would be as empty and meaningless as those which had -passed. - -So I was walking back and forth with my hands in my jacket pockets, now -and then stopping at the window, which was open. As I stood there, my -attention was caught by a peculiar occurrence which was taking place -down in the yard just below the window. A little boy in one of the -lowest classes, a lad of ten or eleven, lay stretched on his back, -surrounded by a crowd of other boys in a ring. Their faces, most of them -at any rate, had the expression of evil curiosity which children and -uncultured people do not know how to conceal. A little broad-shouldered -fellow with high cheekbones, who gave the impression of being very -strong for his age, stood in the ring with a whip in his hand. - -“You are my slave,” he said to the boy on the ground, “aren’t you? Say: -‘I am your slave!’” - -“I am your slave,” answered the child without hesitating; which -indicated that this was not the first time he had said it. - -“Get up,” ordered the other. - -The boy got up. - -“Imitate B., the way he looks when he comes into class!” - -B. was a teacher who went on crutches. The boy went a couple of steps -outside the ring, which opened to give him space; then he came back on -the improvised stage and executed as he did so the movements of a man -walking on crutches. He did his part very well; the illusion was -complete, and the onlookers applauded, but the little actor stood there -with a serious expression. He had a pallid little face and black -clothes; perhaps he had just lost his father or mother. - -“Laugh!” ordered the other with a light flick of the whip which he had -in his hand. - -The boy tried to obey, but it did not come easily. The laugh sounded -forced at the start, but it was not long before he succeeded in -laughing himself into a genuine, quite natural guffaw, and with that he -turned toward his “master,” as if it was at him that he laughed. But the -latter already desired to have his slave show off new accomplishments. - -“Say: ‘My farsher is a damned scoundrel!’” - -The boy looked around the circle with a helpless glance. When he saw -that no one gave a semblance of wanting to help him, and that, on the -contrary, all stood in eager expectation of something really amusing, he -said as low as he dared: - -“My farsher is a damned scoundrel.” - -That drew unbounded applause. - -“Laugh--Cry!” - -The child began to simulate weeping, but with that he now came into the -mood he was ordered to imagine. The weeping stuck in his throat, and he -shed actual tears. - -“Let him be!” said an older boy in the circle, “he’s crying in earnest.” - -And with that the school bell rang. - - * * * * * - -Some days afterwards he ran past me on the way from school. I noticed -that his jacket was ripped open in the back. - -“Wait a bit!” I said to him, “your jacket has split open in the back.” - -“No,” he said, “it hasn’t split open, they have cut it open with a -penknife.” - -“Have they dirtied your book for you, too?” I asked. - -“Yes, they’ve laid it in the gutter.” - -“Why are they so mean to you?” - -“I don’t know. They are stronger than I am.” - -He knew of no other reason. But of course that was not the only one; -they must have found something in him that irritated them. I saw it in -him that he was not like the others. The exceptional, the divergent -always irritates children and mobs. A school-boy’s eccentricities are -punished by the teacher with a well-intended monition or a dry satiric -smile; but by his comrades they are punished with kicks and cuffs and a -bloody nose, with a torn jacket, a cap carefully laid under a -rain-spout, and his best book thrown into the gutter. - -Well, he is an actor now; that was surely his natural predestination. He -now talks from the stage to a large public. It would be strange if -sometime he did not make his way; I believe he has talent. Perhaps he -will gradually transform his peculiarity to a pattern, according to -which others try to conform as to an inoffensive regular verb. - - - - -SIGNY - - -Signy was a little girl about as old as I, with a pink dress and a pink -ribbon in her hair. Her hair was dark, with curly locks, and she had -dark blue starry eyes with long lashes. She was not at all angelic. I -didn’t care a great deal for angels, perhaps in especial because they -always had fair hair. I had fair hair myself at that time, like most -children, and light hair wasn’t much, I thought. - -But I thought an awful lot of Signy. I could go about thinking of her -for whole days. It was not seldom that she did something naughty, which -I was blamed for, and sometimes I myself took the blame voluntarily. I -cared no less for her on that account, but only wished that she would do -more naughty things and I get the blame for them. But what was that bit -of deviltry she hit upon? Let me think.--She ran off and hid somewhere -where we were forbidden to go, in some dangerous place where there might -be trolls and spooks. One time I remember clearly that she wheedled me -into playing with matches--playing with fire, the most dangerous and -most strictly forbidden thing there was. Didn’t she set fire to an old -dry bush in the garden? Why, to be sure she did; and I got the switch -from mother. Oh, how I cared for Signy. And sometimes she said words -that shouldn’t be said. The shivers went up and down my back, but I only -wanted her to say them again. - -I don’t know just where she lived. It wasn’t in the same house as we -did; the other children whom I played with didn’t know her. But she must -have lived in the same street--I suppose--in a little home with a garden -surrounded by a fence. Or did she live in a garret cupola obliquely -across the street, with flowers on the window-sill?--I may just as well -say right out that she didn’t live anywhere. She existed only in my -imagination. - -Signy was the first creation of my fancy, at least the first I can -recall. I was a good six or seven years old, and at the age (just as, -besides, at sixty, seventy or more) one often thinks aloud. To be brief, -I went about prattling to myself as I imagined things about Signy, and -one fine day it happened, of course, that my mother heard me. - -“Listen to the boy,” she said to my father. “Listen how he goes around -talking to himself!” - -And to me she said, “What is it you go around talking about? What are -you thinking about?” - -Grown-ups have a terrible passion for asking children the most -inconsiderate questions. I ran off and hid. - -Another day it was the same story, and still another day. Pain and -embarrassment, questions that couldn’t be answered. - -My father said to me, “Other children talk to themselves up to four and -five years old; you are too big for that.” - -I perceived that things couldn’t go on any longer so; something must be -done. It occurred to me that it was the sibilant sound that betrayed me: -Signy, Signy; that wouldn’t do. So I changed Signy’s name to Ida. In -that way I succeeded in having her sometimes in peace, but Ida never -really got the same power of enchantment over me as Signy. One fine day -we became enemies, I quarreled with her and called her a silly girl, and -perhaps I even went so far as to scratch her. I regretted it to be sure -but wouldn’t ask her pardon, and soon after I let her go to the deuce. -At the same time I learned to think in silence--and with a few -exceptions have continued to do so. - -But whence had I got Signy? In the same house with us lived a little -girl, with whom I sometimes played. Her mother was in the ballet, and -once she dressed herself in one of her mother’s ballet skirts. But she -was neither Signy nor Ida, she performed no deviltries and had none of -Signy’s magic power over my heart. I must, then, at the age of seven -have created Signy as the German creates a camel: out of the depths of -my consciousness. - -Then, too, I was predestined. - -After that the years rolled on, and my genuinely literary impulses -arrived, only quite late. The first strong urge came when one of my -schoolmates--it was the present Professor Almqvist at the Caroline -Institute--during a lesson in Mother Tongue declaimed with powerful -effect Viktor Rydberg’s “Flying Dutchman.” I became wild with enthusiasm -and for months afterwards dreamed of nothing else than being able at -some period in the remote future to write something equally fine. - -So far I haven’t succeeded, but why should one give up hope? - - - - -A MASTERLESS DOG - - -A man died, and after he was dead no one looked after his black dog. The -dog mourned him long and bitterly. He did not, however, lie down to die -on his master’s grave; possibly because he did not know where it was; -possibly, too, because he was at bottom a young and happy dog, who -considered that there was still something left for him in life. - -There are two kinds of dogs: dogs that have a master, and dogs that have -none. Outwardly the difference is not material; a masterless dog may be -as fat as others, often fatter. No, the difference lies in another -direction. Mankind is for dogs the infinite, providence. To obey a -master, to follow him, rely upon him--that is, so to speak, the meaning -of a dog’s existence. To be sure, he has not his master in his thoughts -every minute of the day, nor does he always follow close at his heels. -No, he often runs about of his own accord with business-like intent, -sniffs around the corners of houses, makes alliance with his kind, -snatches a bone, if it comes in his way, and concerns himself about -much. Yet on the instant that his master whistles, all this is out of -his canine head more quickly than the scourge drove the hucksters out of -the temple, for he knows that there is but one thing he must attend to. -So forgetting his house-corner and his bone and his companions, he -hurries to his master. - -The dog whose master died without the dog’s knowing how, and who was -buried without the dog’s knowing where, mourned him long; but as the -days passed and nothing occurred to remind him of his master, he forgot -him. He no longer perceived the scent of his master’s footsteps on the -street where he lived. As he rolled about on a grass plot with a -comrade, it often happened that a whistle pierced the air, and in that -instant his comrade had vanished like the wind. Then he pricked up his -ears, but no whistle resembled his master’s. So he forgot him, and he -forgot still more: he forgot that he had ever had a master. He forgot -that there had ever been a time when he would not have regarded it as -possible for a dog to live without a master. He became what one would -call a dog that had seen better days, though it was in the inner meaning -of the expression, for outwardly he got along fairly well. He lived as a -dog does live: he now and then stole a good meal in the square, and got -beaten, and had love affairs, and lay down to sleep when he was tired. -He made friends and enemies. One day he thoroughly thrashed a dog that -was weaker than he, and another day he was badly handled by one that was -stronger. Early in the morning one might see him run out along his -master’s street, where out of habit he mostly continued to resort. He -ran straight forward with an air of having something important to attend -to; smelt in passing a dog that he met, but was not eager to follow up -the acquaintance; then continued his journey; but all at once sat down -and scratched himself behind the ear with intense energy. The next -moment he started up and flew right across the street to chase a red cat -down into a cellar window; whereupon, re-assuming his business manner, -he proceeded on his way and vanished around the corner. - -So his day was spent. One year followed close in the track of another, -and he grew old without noticing it. - -Then there came at last a gloomy evening. It was wet and cold, and now -and then there came a shower. The old dog had been all day on an -expedition down in the city. He walked slowly along the street, limping -a little; a couple of times he stood still and shook his black hide, -which with the years had become sprinkled with gray about the head and -neck. According to his wont he walked and sniffed, now to right, now to -left. He took an excursion in at a gateway, and when he came out had -another dog in his company. Next moment came a third. They were young -and sportive dogs that wanted to entice him to play, but he was in a bad -humor, and furthermore it began to sleet. Then a whistle pierced the -air, a long and sharp whistle. The old dog looked at both the young -ones, but they paid no attention; it was not one of their masters that -whistled. Then the old masterless dog pricked up his ears; he felt all -at once so strange. There was a fresh whistle, and the old dog sprang -irresolutely first to one side, then to the other. It was his master -that whistled, and he surely had to follow! For the third time someone -whistled, sharply and persistently as before. Where is he then, in what -direction? How could I have been separated from my master? And when did -it happen, yesterday or day before yesterday, or perhaps only a little -while ago? And what did my master look like, and what sort of smell had -he, and where is he, where is he? He sprang about and sniffed at all the -passers-by, but none of them was his master, and none wanted to be. Then -he turned and bounded along the street; at the corner he stood still and -looked around in all directions. His master was not there. Then he went -back down the street at a gallop; the mud spattered about him and the -rain dripped from his fur. He stood at all the corners, but nowhere was -his master. Then he sat down on his haunches at a street crossing, -stretched his shaggy head toward heaven, and howled. - -Have you ever seen, have you ever heard such a forgotten, masterless -dog, when he stretches his neck toward heaven and howls, howls? The -other dogs slink softly away with their tails between their legs; for -they cannot comfort him and they cannot help him. - - - - -STORIES BY -SIGFRID SIWERTZ - - - - -THE LADY IN WHITE - - -The little town slept in the noonday sunlight. Even the flowers leaned -slumberously against the lowered blinds of the open windows. Not a human -being remained in the courthouse square. Down at the harbor it was -equally quiet. A little beyond the big bridge lay a lumber barge with -limp sail. It seemed that it would be hours before she could get in. - -From a dressing room of the bath-house came a middle-aged man of rather -spare figure, with a very white and delicate skin. He carefully hung his -eye-glasses on a nail, sat down on the sunny side of a bench, blinked at -the light and smiled to himself. - -With that, there emerged into the vista toward the bay a veritable -walrus head; a coarse, hairy body shone through the green shimmering -water; and with several sharp, panting strokes the giant plunged forward -to the stairway, climbed up, and threw himself blinking upon the hot -bridge of the bath-house. - -The small white-skinned man surveyed anxiously but with interest the -face of the other; the eagle nose, the bushy eyebrows, and the bristly -drooping mustache. - -Where the deuce had he seen that face before? - -Thereupon the walrus suddenly got up and stretched out his flipper. - -“Why, devil’s in it if that isn’t little Modin!” - -“Yes, I surely thought it was someone I knew. Good-day, Brother Axelson! -Lord! but it’s hard to recognize folks out of their clothes.” - -“Aye, your own dog barks at you when you’re naked. I’m scared to death -of myself when I look at myself in a glass.”--Axelson surveyed his -new-found acquaintance with the critical look of a doctor.--“You seem to -be in good condition, Modin. Aren’t you going to plunge in?” - -“No, thanks; I’m just enjoying a sun bath. I love to sit here like this -and take in the special bath-house smell of water and sun-steeped wood. -It has a holiday scent, don’t you think?--Well, do you know, I hadn’t a -notion it was in this town you were a doctor. That’s how folks lose -sight of each other.” - -“Aye, I’ve stuck it out here these seventeen years now, you faithless -little devil.--And you’ve taken over your father’s big antiquarian book -business.” - -“Oh, you know everything of course. The same horse’s memory as ever. I -taught a while, but that didn’t suit me at all. And so when my father -died”---- - -“Your catalog is always prized by connoisseurs.” - -“The first assistant, old Salin, deserves the credit of that. He’s a -faithful martinet. It’s really the etchings and engravings that interest -me. There’s certainly a bad feeling among our regular customers because -I can’t let the finest things go away from me. I’m here to look at the -collection of the deceased banker. I was here once fifteen years ago, -while I was still a teacher. I didn’t suspect then either that you were -in the neighborhood. That visit is connected with an exquisite memory, a -fleeting yet pervasive experience, which I can only compare with the -fragrance of certain delicate perfumes.” - -“You’re very keen about perfumes, my dear Modin; I remember that from of -old. Is it because the sense of smell is the weakest of the senses?” - -Modin made the gesture of pushing up his absent spectacles. - -“The weakest? On the contrary, smell is an extraordinarily fine sense. -We can distinguish the smallest nuances with it. The truth of the matter -is simply this, that we have only fixed a few of these nuances in -words.” - -“True. But at any rate smell belongs to those senses which have least to -do with our thought.” - -“It has infinitely much to do with all that lies above or below our -comprehension. It is in the highest degree a poetic sense, and I am -sorry for anyone who has a weak power of smell.” - -Axelson turned over with a grunt so as to be burnt evenly all over. - -“Well, my dear Modin, now for your experience! This isn’t ordinarily a -town for great experiences.” - -“Very good. I came here by accident on a vacation trip. The ticket was -good for a longer journey, but the train stopped, it looked pretty, and -I got off. I left my knapsack at the hotel of Comfort and betook myself -to strolling along the select avenues of Peace.” - -“Hm! Traveling is nothing but trying to get away from yourself with -lies.” - -Modin seemed not to hear. He looked down into the water, which tossed up -a thousand splinters of sunlight. - -“It was a royal day in June: lofty blue heavens, a light breeze, -transfiguration in the air. The gardens blossomed within their red -palings and the daws cried merrily around the high church steeple. It -was a day when one suddenly stands still in the blue shade, looks over -the crosses in the churchyard grass, and finds that even death is -gentle.” - -“Hm, hm!” - -“Well, so I ate a light dinner and adventured out along the road into -the wide land of summer leafage. I have never in my life seen so much -white bloom: hedge, sloe, apple, pear, cherry. I recall too a linden -avenue--the gravel was quite yellow with the rain of blossoms--and the -branches murmured solemnly.” - -Axelson twisted himself over on his back again. - -“Excuse me, my dear brother, but did you meet anything?” - -“Everything and nothing, old friend. Without meeting a living soul I had -got out into a landscape of billowy grain fields and meadows with islets -of splendid old oaks. I walked along a blossoming ditch side and sat -down on a mossy stone close to a fence that ran around one of the knolls -of oak. It began to draw on a bit towards evening. The light had not yet -the garish colors of sunset; it was merely a thought more golden than -before. And in the low, warm light the green of the fields took on a -full-toned richness, a vehement intensity, which I shall never forget. -One speaks more often of an intense blue, but green too can take on such -a tone toward evening. - -“I don’t know how long I had sat absorbed in all this, when for some -reason or other I turned around and on the other side of the -half-dilapidated fence discovered a young lady dressed in white who was -sitting on the same slope with me. She had let the book she had been -reading sink down on her knees and was gazing similarly out into the -wondrous living sea of color. - -“At first I was almost taken aback at not being absolutely alone with my -emotion, which was so overpowering. But I soon came to myself. Very -good, thought I, at any rate there are at this moment no more than two -persons in the world, she and I. And--can you imagine it?--I, who am -ordinarily so shy and embarrassed in ladies’ society, began a -conversation: ‘Here we are sitting, we two, as _staffage_ for the -loveliest picture in the world.’ Words glided off my tongue of -themselves with a sort of gentle irresistibility which I have never felt -before or since. Perhaps my words fitted in in some way with what she -had just read in her book. She nodded with a slight smile: ‘Yes, it’s -wonderfully lovely.’ I leaned against the fence. ‘How insignificant is -all that _happens_ in life compared to such a moment of afternoon as -this?’ I said. ‘Even fate seems old and dusty, dusty with stage dust.’ - -“This was the introduction to a long conversation, at the beginning very -lively--a conversation about everything and nothing, of various colors, -of flowers and perfumes, of the flight of the swallows that wheeled -above our heads.” - -Axelson pricked up his ears. - -“Swallows,” he muttered; “then there was a barn or a dwelling-house in -the neighborhood.” - -But Modin meanwhile heard only his own voice. - -“Gradually the evening grew utterly quiet. I can still hear the soft -incessant rustling among the dry leaves heaped up in the ditch, a -rustling that told of minute unknown lives. And I can still see her -white skirt against the green hillside. Behind her the thick blossoms of -the hawthorn shone mysteriously under black, dead branches in the green -half-darkness of the oak wood. It was in truth a wood for the -imagination, a Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden. And the young woman I -talked with was Rosalind. I told her so, and she seemed to appreciate -it. - -“Gradually our conversation grew more serious. We spoke of special, -intimate, personal memories and of our common interests in life. We -weighed life and death with swift, light sensitive words. What we said -was simple, frank, stamped with the most eager and honest wish to give a -living impression of our true character. It was a genuine contact of -soul with soul. - -“Well, then the shadows of the trees on the field began to grow long and -contemplative, so we said good-bye. She picked up her book and gave me -her hand across the fence, for I had kept on standing on the other side. -‘Thanks and good evening,’ she murmured, ‘thanks and farewell.’ With -that she was gone into the woods. As for me, I went home to the hotel -and lay down in my clothes with my hands under my head, and there I lay -awake all night. That was the loveliest night of my life, I may tell -you. I felt myself marvelously cleansed and exalted, lonely and yet not -alone.--Next day I went on where my ticket was made out for. And that -was the whole thing.” - -Axelson smiled: - -“That wasn’t so terribly much.” - -“It was much to me, my dear friend. You have, to be sure, a more robust -appetite.” - -“But why the devil did you go on? Why didn’t you go back to your Forest -of Arden?” - -Modin blinked at the sun with a smile of quiet fanaticism: - -“I am no fool.” - -“But it might have been something for your whole life.” - -“As it is it’s something for my whole life, though of course you can’t -understand it. I dare affirm that never has a meeting of two persons -been so unconstrained, so deep and free. People talk of intuitive -thought, but here was an intuitive companionship without selfish purpose -or social barrier. Never a second time would such a flood of clear and -radiant ideas have surged through my consciousness. I tell you, the most -involved concatenation arranged itself automatically with lightning -speed like nodal figures at the stroke of the bow. And the memory of our -communion remains always equally fresh and pure just because I did not -wear it stale with further acquaintance. I don’t lie when I say that I -have lived in a sort of spiritual wedlock with that unknown woman. Who -can prove that the long years give more than one exquisite hour? -Humanity is so brittle and changeful that a long life together must -always be precarious. I have no idea whether she was married or became -married later. But it may very well be that I know that woman better -than her husband does. Strong impressions wear away. People can’t be -true to each other over a long period. For truth the great requisite is -freshness, immediateness. Truth must always be new, according to my -philosophy. Habit is truth’s worst enemy. How then can a lifelong -marriage be true?” - -Axelson raised his eyebrows: - -“Wait a bit. I must strike in and put a few questions before I get -angry. For instance, it would be nice to hear a closer description of -this lady with whom you have lived in such a remarkable wedlock.” - -“Very good, I can answer you, since I’m fully armed against all -sarcasms. She was a woman of an altogether unusual feminine spirit. In -her archness there was a delicate acknowledgment of her womanly -limitations. And he who knows his bounds is already beyond them. She -had, perhaps, no thoughts that were actually her own, but she had a -quick, gentle receptivity which gave one the pleasant feeling that -everything fell upon good ground and bore fruit a hundredfold. I begot -thoughts and dreams upon her and enjoyed a sort of intellectual -fertilization.” - -“But may I permit myself to doubt whether this glorified bridal mood -really made such a permanent impression on the other person?” - -“What right have you to do that?” - -“Oh, one might suppose it was only for a moment that she reverted to the -usual flighty sentimentality which lies like a broken husk around a -woman’s realism. The realism is genuine because it is rooted in -suffering and the hard limitations of nature. No, woman is not what the -bachelor thinks, not what either the ethereal or the crude bachelors -think. It may well be that her instinct was whispering all the time in -the depths: Look out for this man, because he is in reality a damned -little egoist.” - -Modin did not seem to be impressed. - -“That’s just like you, Axelson,” he muttered. “You were in the landscape -then, too. You were the corncrake. Just a harsh, obstinate noise.” - -Axelson grew all the more contentious. He strode back and forth over the -hot bridge, unconsciously holding his fists where his trousers pockets -should have been. At last he halted in front of Modin: - -“My dear brother, we have come into a condition of moral nakedness. -Permit me to be wholly frank. It looks from your body as if you had -never tried a tussle with life. I take back the term bachelor, for, with -your pardon, there is more of the old maid about you. Yes, don’t be -angry. But, you see, you keep irritating me damnably with your misuse of -the word marriage. For me marriage is a deep word, deeper even than the -word love. Marriage is something big, hard; even rough, if you like. It -is brimmed with sweetness and suffering and bitter necessity as -inescapable as the fact that you as a little delicate creature have lain -crumpled up in your tortured mother’s body. One may say in a certain -manner that a fleeting, loose relation is purer and finer than marriage, -but that is a desertion from reality, an unorganic arabesque, a petty -splendor. Marriage is an heroic word. Yes, because man and woman must -inflict heavy suffering upon each other. Sex, which frets them both, -must at certain times be felt as a curse. Between even the best and most -sober couples there are times of despair and hate. There is a disease of -hatred which is inborn in man. But still it is great to endure together. -And an honest and deep despair is something quite different from a -little cold and limp aversion without marrow in its bones. Everything -that’s honest, everything that doesn’t falsify the fundamentals of life, -has a worth, let it look as devilish bitter as it may.” - -Modin looked away, troubled by the other’s confidence. - -“My dear friend, I haven’t desired to hear all this. From your -experience you will hardly succeed in making an apology for marriage.” - -Axelson gave a jump. - -“On the contrary, you little idiot, my marriage is an uncommonly good -one. We have five children and are inseparable till death. I tell you -this: Cut out woman from your life and you are only half a man! But -that’s enough of this. I’m now--deuce take it!--roasted through. Shall -we get dressed?” - -“All right.” - -Axelson dove into his cabin. But he had scarcely got on his shirt and -trousers before he came rushing into Modin’s compartment. - -“Listen! Excuse a question. You were telling about an avenue of lindens -and a grove of oaks. Do you happen to remember anything more definite -about the road out?” - -“I don’t know of what use all this is. For the matter of that I remember -less about localities than of my own feelings.” - -“Come, try now, or I’ll think you are tricking me.” - -“I’ve a notion that I passed over a little bridge and under a high red -shaky gable, that somehow made me think of Almkvist’s story, _The Mill_. -That was surely just before my digression.” - -Axelson’s eyes gleamed. - -“My good fellow, you must have taken a remarkable circuit, because the -mill lies just two and a half minutes’ journey outside the town. Do you -by any chance remember a giant oak almost dead, which stood down on the -slope away from the others?” - -“Yes, I think I do.” - -“Good, good! Then I may tell you that about a hundred yards from the -place of your meeting stood a dwelling-house, though you could not see -it; an ordinary, white-plastered, fire-insured, fairly well mortgaged, -decent two-story house with young folks and servants and a croquet -ground. So the wonderful loneliness didn’t amount to much.” - -Modin carefully tied his necktie. - -“You’re making a fantastically vain attempt to rob me of my illusions.” - -“Just one more question: Do you remember something special in the white -lady’s appearance?” - -“By something special you mean of course a blemish. Yes, I was really -fascinated by a little scar she had on her forehead. It was a very -decorative scar, because it drew up one eyebrow a trifle and at first -glance gave her a lively and somewhat mocking appearance.” - -Axelson’s whole countenance glowed. - -“Splendid, splendid! I sewed that scar together. I know as much as you -like of the lady in question. The doctor is the whole town’s father -confessor.” - -Modin made a gesture of refusal with both hands. - -“I wish to know absolutely nothing, I beg you, nothing!” - -But Axelson was merciless. - -“This much you must know at any rate, that she got the scar when she -fell off a bicycle. And that she lived with her parents in the -white-plastered two-story house. And that she worked at the post office -from nine to one. And furthermore that she had probably just been -betrothed in that very dress. You see that I know my community.” - -“But all this is most uninteresting, my dear Axelson.” - -“Not altogether, my dear brother, not altogether.” - -Axelson dived back into his cabin. - -The two men were soon ready. Despite the summer heat Modin was attired -in black, and very jauntily; Axelson on the other hand wore a gray check -suit. The walrus looked very masterful and imposing when he was dressed. -One understood directly that he amounted to something in his community. -He stood forth on the quay and slapped the other man on the shoulder. - -“Hope you’ll do me the honor of eating dinner with me.” - -Modin as a matter of fact was much disinclined but did not see how he -could refuse. Axelson lived a little way out of the town. They passed -through an avenue of lindens. The doctor from time to time ogled his -friend sidewise. Modin walked slowly and often looked about him. He -seemed irresolute. They passed a bridge and the high red gable of a -mill. They branched off on a somewhat narrower by-road by the side of -the pond. They rounded a hillside with oaks and soon stood before a -fruit orchard, behind which rose a white-plastered two-story house. -Axelson hastened to open a gate at the gable end. - -“Be so good as to come in, my dear brother.” - -Modin hesitated, paled and grew faint, but Axelson took him by the arm -and drew him hastily along. - -Up on the veranda stood a robust lady of middle age, and on the lawn -played several bare-legged boys. - -Modin just saved himself from falling on the steps. He looked toward the -edge of the woods with a helpless glance. But his host introduced him -with a grim quiver of the mustache. - -“Doctor Amadeus Modin--my wife.” - -With that Axelson’s commanding voice rang out across the lawn, “Come -children, aren’t you going to say how-do-you-do to uncle?” - -The five boys came forward and bowed in turn. It was agony to Modin. He -sank down on a sofa and cast an anxious sidelong glance over their -close-cropped heads at the lady of the house. She was still dressed in -white, and the scar over her eyebrow was still visible. It became her as -well as ever, though in a different way. Her figure was full but firm. -She had in her something of the matron, in the proud Roman significance -of the word. They were a seasoned and vigorous couple, she and her -husband. A noticeably stern matrimonial resemblance had arisen between -these two persons, whom it never would have occurred to him to associate -with each other. Their mouths had the same expression of sharp humor. -Two veterans who had fought their battles side by side, they might have -been marching along together for many years. - -All of this passed like lightning through poor Modin’s brain. He no -longer believed actually that he knew more about the lady in white than -did her husband. - -Axelson was on the watch when his wife went in to arrange about dinner -and pounced on his guest. - -“Beware of white ladies, dear brother. So far it seems that she doesn’t -recognize you. But at dinner I may perhaps make her memory clearer. It’s -uncanny when the dead come to life, eh?” - -And with that if the brutal dog didn’t go on to hum: - - “Look out, my boy, look out, look out! - ’Tis the White Lady beyond a doubt.” - -He then hurried in for a moment after his wife, presumably to order the -wine. But Modin used the moment. He had no wish whatever to be -recognized by the bride of his dreams. On the contrary he seized his -hat, bounded away over cucumber frames and strawberry patches, and swift -as the timid doe threw himself among the sheltering trees of the wood. - - - - -LEONARD AND THE FISHERMAN - - -After a dinner consisting of an anchovy and four cold potatoes Leonard, -a needy artist in wood-cuts, wandered about aimlessly through the city. -It was a May day of the grand and dangerous sort. Over the heavens -voyaged festal white clouds of giant size, bulging with undefined -expectations. And the cool, prickly wind whistled with seductive mockery -of all that lay behind the horizon: explorations, adventures, visions of -beauty. It was a day of lightness and oppression; of futile longing for -action; of cold, far-reaching perfidy; and deep, exhausting unrest. How -can the breast expand to bursting and at the same time feel so horribly -empty? thought Leonard. Spring is the time when we not only make solemn -confession but are merged into a new vital existence; whence, then, in -the name of all the devils, is this emptiness, this lack in the midst of -plenty, this criminal tendency to put all the glory behind one as -quickly as possible? - -Brooding painfully over these things, Leonard reeled about half blind -and with aching eyes through Gustavus Adolphus Place. Finally he -succeeded in making a resolution: to go down to the River Terrace and -see whether the apple trees had begun to blossom yet. - -It proved that they had not gone beyond the budding stage. - -Leonard then dragged himself up to the railing and stood there a long -while under the branches of a large poplar, watching the Northstream -tumble its waters between the piers. - -There is a certain immobility in the midst of motion in rushing water. -The same foaming, roaring wave stays there hour after hour, year after -year, indicating a stone in the uneven bed of the torrent. Leonard -sought to calm himself with philosophizing over this wave. So does life -go on through its forms, he thought. Yonder fettered wave corresponds to -the ripple of a flower petal, the curve of a chin. Then some spring day, -maybe, the stone is undermined, an unknown obstruction in the furrow of -the stream of life is cleared away, and the wave is transformed, the -flower petal changes, the curve of the chin becomes different and -softer. - -Leonard was not the first man who had philosophized above the running -stream. But he found no rest thereby. His thoughts merely played on the -surface; they served only to sharpen his feeling of uncertainty. The -fettered wave irritated him with its feeble trembling, its futile -tossing. The continuous roar was like an indefinite warning, a dark -threat. A warning of what? A threat of what? Ah, thou wonderful month of -May! - -Leonard clenched his empty fists and sank down on a bench in complete -despair. - -With that his eye fell on a little old man of the fisher trade. He was -smoking in great repose a short pipe, muttering to himself, and picking -at his clasp-knife, which he had taken apart and hung on the railing to -dry. Leonard observed him a long time with secret envy. In winter it’s -all very fine to be young, he thought, but in spring a man ought to be -as old as possible--or at least to have rheumatism that lets up in fair -weather. He got up laboriously and pushed his way to the fisherman. - -“What have you to say to a day like this?” he grumbled. - -“Eh, well, just that I think there are bream under the bridge piers -today,” the old man said reflectively and puffed out a little blue -cloud. - -Leonard was struck by the answer. He began a long conversation with the -fisherman, whose name was Lundstrom. The best fishing was spring and -autumn, he learned. It was mostly smelt and bream. Perhaps a perch now -and again. And before Christmas everybody got a burbot or two in -eel-pots a little further up the Malar. - -He doesn’t make any too much, thought Leonard. But he doesn’t talk about -his fishing in the surly tone that poor men mostly use in growling about -their scanty earnings. He is proud of his catches, he fondles his -tackle, and his eyes rest confidently and patiently on the water. I -gather from that that he is a true fisherman, which a man isn’t very -likely to become unless he has left much behind him. - -This quiet fisher person had a strange and enigmatical charm for -Leonard. The old man had pulled together the large iron rings, and -already the dip-net was swinging festively at its gallows on his low -green-painted craft. There was only the grapnel to be pulled in. -Thereupon Leonard reached over the railing and pled touchingly to be -taken along for once. - -Yes, that would be all right enough. - -The boat was first hauled along the stone quay to the bridge and then -out with the stem set straight into the roaring whirlpool. A few quick, -well-directed oar-strokes, and they floated calmly in the back eddy from -the nearest pier of the bridge with the foaming surge to right and left -and the dusky arches of the bridge ringing and singing over their heads. -There was a dizziness in the suction between the bridge piers, a -sensation of rapid movement and yet of rest. - -Lundstrom made fast to a ring and sat down at the crank by means of -which he lowered and raised his net. - -“Now the job is to sink the net straight down,” he said; “and to do that -one must manage so that it is half taken by the current and half by the -back eddy. Perhaps the gentleman will give a pull at the oars. There, -bring her in a little and it’ll be fine!” - -Leonard brought the boat in and the net descended solemnly. - -The old man sank into meditation for a while, and this was a good time -to study him. He was by no means ill to look at. - -Why should the upper classes be condemned to appear correct and banal? -Why should fine folk go about as a monstrosity to every practised and -sensitive eye? Look at Lundstrom’s jacket here! The sun and rain of all -seasons has given it the most delicate shade of green. His hat with its -admirable patina might be of bronze. And his trousers!--what a -combination of characteristic wrinkles, telling of age, experience and -strife well sustained. What a treasure for an artist in wood-cuts! -Lundstrom’s custom had grown as one with him. It was no wretched -accident. Is there anything more agonizing than a tired, grumpy -scarecrow that peers out of a brand new summer suit, glittering with -naïve optimism? Or red-cheeked, pious rusticity sewed up in cautiously -gray, pessimistic duds from a distant, smoky, rain-dripping, overcrowded -factory district? But out of Lundstrom’s worn collar grew a face covered -with moss-gray stubble over a network of friendly wrinkles and furrows. -And out of the stubble shot up a two-story nose with room for many a -pinch of reflective snuff. Large noses may be either volcanic or placid. -Lundstrom’s was placid. It separated genially but firmly two small gray, -liquidly bright eyes, which never seemed to have fastened on anything -that burned too hot, never to have stared at anything helplessly, never -to have wavered anxiously about over empty, exhausting horizons. - -Lucky man, sighed Leonard. He sits peacefully under the voyaging clouds, -in the midst of the Northstream swollen with spring freshets he sits -peacefully at his crank. He is on the far side of indefinite -expectations and adventure and drifting about in the inane. He has -happily left his future behind him. - -“But for heaven’s sake it must surely be time for you to haul up.” - -“No hurry, no hurry,” opined Lundstrom, who nevertheless began gently to -turn the crank. The net came up with a good sediment of silver-white -splashing smelts. - -With a quiet pursing of the lips the old man emptied his cargo into the -fish-well. - -Next time there was a bream, a plump rascal. - -Beyond the bridge railing and the stone barrier over by Gustavus -Adolphus Place it was already black with people. A little boy in a blue -embroidered blouse tried very cleverly to spit on Leonard’s hat. But -Leonard began to find the folk up there altogether ephemeral, them and -the whole muddle of palace, Parliament House, churches, theatres, -prisons and banks which chance had collected along the river; the river -which had run when there were only a few islands here inhabited by -fishermen, and which would continue to run when all the splendor was -dust again. - -But Lundstrom, who grew cheerful with his good luck, began little by -little to express his opinion about one thing and another. It may as -well be said first as last that he regarded with slightly ironic -disapproval a good deal of the bustle up there in the city. Ministerial -crises, election campaigns, debates, law-suits, theatre intrigues, and -things of that sort struck him as mere nonsense. - -“Folks babble and gad about so they get tired and cross,” he said. “They -ought to fish a little more than they do. All the ministers ought to -come down here and pull the net a couple of times a week. And the party -leaders and the soloists and the other star actors as well. That would -make them really good. And if there wasn’t room for them all here, let -the government hire a big boat and carry them all out to the coast. It’s -right astonishing how folks can work things out when they are together -in a boat. And likewise how it can thaw one’s head to sit and look at a -dipsy. I don’t know how it is, but there’s surely something specially -particular about water. - -“Yes, I need only think about myself,” continued Lundstrom. “How should -I have ever got straight without this here boat and net? It doesn’t help -how quiet a man is; he gets stage fright sometimes just the same, in my -opinion. First night is first night, and that’s just how it feels in the -pit of the stomach many weeks ahead. The gentleman may imagine that it’s -a job to turn a wild and desolate wood into a fine castle hall with roof -chandeliers and a marble floor and pillars and pictures and chairs. And -all that must be done in less time than the gentleman needs to empty a -glass of punch. It was specially hard with that fellow Shakespeare, who -was hard on account of all his scenes. Imagine if a piece of cliff -scenery should come dancing down into the middle of a little petite -French boudoir, as they call it. That would look fine! Aye, if a man -went off and worried over all the misfortunes that could happen, it was -a good thing to have fishing to turn to. Down here it was as if all a -man’s troubles ran off him. Lord! a man would think, it isn’t the only -thing in life if a piece of building should go wrong up in that play-box -there. Yes, I’ve been in the theatre line over fifty years, I have. So a -man has his memories. ‘A Traveling Troupe’ was a crazy piece, for there -a man had to turn the wings hindside front, as the gentleman should -know, so that only the gray cloth could be seen from the hall. I believe -I know all the fine lines by heart from that day to this, and Hamlet too -at a pinch. One time Yorick’s skull was to have been brought out. The -public got impatient and began to cough and stamp. But we couldn’t raise -the curtain for the church-yard scene, because Hamlet had to have the -skull to make his speech about. There was the skull of a man who had -killed his wife and child and one and a half bailiffs; we had got the -loan of it from the Charles Institute. We hunted and hunted. At last I -came upon the skull in a trunk. The actor who was playing Hamlet was so -glad that he promised to give me a supper at Stromsholm. He kept his -word, too: steak and vegetables and fizzy pearls. Afterwards it came out -that somebody had hid the skull on purpose. It was somebody who wanted -to have the rôle and was nearly bursting with jealousy. He certainly -needed to get out and fish a little, eh? - -“Well, that was Hamlet. Afterwards I went over to the opera. I didn’t -regret it; music suited me better. That comes about as a man gets older, -you see. A man gets tired of the many words. But with music one can -think anything at all. I was with the opera upwards of twenty years, up -to last Christmas--Aye, aye, a man gets old.... Well, so now I get to -amuse myself with the boat here and tramping for the organ at Jacob’s -Church. Yes, that affair of the organ tramping is a special particular -story which we shan’t talk over now,” said Lundstrom, who seemed to -touch with some shyness his transition to the churchly vocation. - -Hereupon the old man again grasped his crank, and up came another -splendid batch of fat breams. With friendly, approving comment he let -them vanish into the well. - -Look here, today is turning out better than I supposed, thought Leonard, -who could hardly keep from rubbing his hands. My life and trade seem -really prosperous from the frog’s-eye view of this old fisherman. - -But Lundstrom cast a knowing, sidelong look at him. - -“No, I steal up into the theatre garret sometimes and hear a little of -this world’s music yet, as old as I am. Though it doesn’t give me -sleepless nights any more, you see. A man sleeps well when he has a big -organ to turn to.” - -Leonard smiled more broadly and sat quiet, struck by the old man’s -repose. This contented frog’s-eye view of the drama of life spread out -into a wider perspective than he had supposed at the start. - -The old man pointed to a paper sticking out of the artist’s pocket. - -“Should you perhaps care to look what they’re giving up there tonight? -‘Tristan and Isolde.’ Indeed! that’s a fine thing. Then I’ll go up a -while. You see I’ve been with them and set scenes for that opera, so -it’s an old acquaintance. Well, and so I’ll thank you for your help. -It’s past eight and that will have to be enough of the breams till -tonight.” - -It was in fact drawing on towards evening. Heaven’s great voyaging -clouds had ceased to move, saturated with the newly-won warmth of the -light, and had sunk nearer to earth. In the stealthy silence of the -early twilight the roaring of the river grew suddenly stronger, and its -whirlpools more suckingly mysterious. It was evident that the spring day -had determined to show the last and most dangerous phase of its power. - -But Lundstrom cast loose from the ring unconcernedly. His craft was -slung some fifty yards down with the surge but glided neatly into the -smooth water under the River Terrace, where it was moored at its usual -place. - -It did not occur to Leonard to say good-bye. And yet as he went up the -granite steps he felt that now he was passing out of the worthy -Lundstrom’s perspective. Here ashore the fisherman’s power of giving -certitude was no longer the same. - -No, for up on the bridge went Woman. Nothing could save one from her. -Ah, this delicate shiver in the air, this trembling in the nerves of the -invisible which sent its waves through coat and Sunday paper straight -into one’s heart! The restlessness of the day had deepened to a livelier -and more dangerous poison. That which in the morning was a sick longing -for distant horizons--what was it towards evening but the erotic urge? - -Under the low rosy clouds too went Woman, she who grows with the shades -so as with night to overshadow the world. - -A poor artist’s situation was again near to desperation. - -The enviable Lundstrom was to go in a back way and listen to ‘Tristan -and Isolde.’ Leonard followed him shyly and irresolutely to the stage -entrance of the opera house. In his eyes lay a prayer not to be left -alone in the midst of the dreadful spring evening. Lundstrom did not -fail to see the young man’s helplessness. - -“The gentleman may surely come with me,” he said. “I’m a good friend of -the porter from forty years back. He gets a bream or so now and then. -Just come along!” - -Leonard passed a gray head which nodded at a rectangular peep-hole. He -then went into a long dark corridor, where a squire with brown kilt and -broadsword stood joking at a telephone. Next there were some steps, -where Leonard continually had to stand and wait for the puffing -Lundstrom. All was silent and empty here. They met only a fireman and a -scene-shifter in a blue coat, who called Lundstrom “uncle.” - -Now a warm, dusky odor was perceptible and a muffled buzzing and -mumbling, which seemed to come from the very walls. That must be the -orchestra, which was tuning up somewhere in the depths. But Lundstrom -cautiously pushed up an iron door and they came out on the first gallery -of the stage. Down in the great cluttered space below ran workmen -arranging the ship’s deck for the first act, and some of the chorus men -stood in a laughing group waiting to take their places. - -Lundstrom cast a searching glance below. - -“Look at that!” he muttered with some disapproval; “they have made the -tent smaller. In my time it ran out to the fifth plank, mark H.” - -It was still too noisy and disturbed where they were, so they went up by -a narrow ladder to the second gallery. Lundstrom sat down on a mighty -stage dragon of lath and plaster which was hoisted up in the back-scene, -and Leonard leaned against a great machine with handles, hexagonal -cylinders and heavy felt hammers. - -“The old stage thunder,” whispered Lundstrom. “They have new, better -thunder now that goes by electricity.” - -There was a fantastic play of light and shadow up through the enormously -high vault of the stage, which extended over their heads with five more -galleries. The electric footlights below threw splintered rays up -through the grilled flooring of the galleries, until the gleams were -lost in an incredible labyrinth of ropes, weights and pulleys. The whole -was like a giant skeleton, a fantastic loom. - -This is where they weave dusty lies, thought Leonard, who found the rear -view of the drama grotesque and oppressive, so that he almost began to -long for the streets again. People must love illusion astoundingly, if -it can be made big business to such an extent. - -But with this the trickling tones of the orchestra tuning up were -suddenly silent, and after a few moments the prelude broke out with a -voice of powerful earnestness. A thrill passed through Leonard’s nerves -and in a moment he was tense and expectant. Like a living, overwhelming -stream of actuality the music burst forth through all the dusty rubbish -of illusion. - -Now the curtain was raised and the human voices came up, gushed up. -There was the sailor’s gay song of yearning on his billowy journey to -the land of King Mark, Isolde’s wildly surging hate and suffering, -Tristan’s timid, rock-firm defiance of death. So it went on to the magic -potion and the helpless, the irresistible love cry which is lost in -endless jubilation. - -The curtain fell again. - -Leonard looked at Lundstrom, wondering what he could possibly fish up -from such a stream. The old man seemed tranquil and unmoved, as he sat -on the scaly dragon and held in his mouth his unlighted pipe. - -“Now they’ve got to hurry down there,” he said, “for now the ship must -become a park.” - -Threads began to move on the giant loom, blocks creaked and giant -fabrics gave forth dust. With that the park was there, though it looked -very strange from the back, and the curtain solemnly came aloft once -more. - -The two sat squatting again at the brink of the great music torrent. -Heavy, bottomless well of tone--dark purple, restlessly driving waves, -which now and then break into foam with a cry: - - “O thou spirit’s - Highest, maddest - Exquisite burning joy!” - -Love rescued from the cold glance of day--night without -morning--yearning for death--the world’s redemption through passionate -ecstasy! - - “Quiet our trembling, - Sweetest death, - With yearning awaited, - O love-blent Death!” - -And so on to the end--the sinister dawn with the chill spectres of day, -the discovery, the crossed blades and Tristan’s wound. - -Such things are too much for a poor lonely and hungry artist on a lovely -evening in May. - -“The deuce is in it,” he muttered, “the very deuce! Why after that -should a poor devil sit and carve in wood?” - -But Lundstrom sat with his chin on his hand and gazed out of the -distance, paying hardly any attention to Leonard’s violent gestures. The -old man’s shadow was outlined on a blue background, large, vague, as -though ready to merge in the dimness of the thousand recesses around it. - -Leonard was no longer interested in him, he would have preferred to be -alone. Pshaw! the poor old codger hasn’t a notion of what is seething -down there, he thought. He’s just moidering around with old stage -properties. But thereupon Lundstrom lifted his gray head and said -something which indicated that he nevertheless could fish memories out -of the stream of tone. - -“Sometimes when I sit here I get to be with them that lie out in the -church-yard,” he muttered. “Wife and children and friends. It’s as if -the music rinsed one out inside. Everything gets clearer and one sees -that what’s been is still.” - -“I see only what will never come to pass in life for my part, and that’s -a cursed lot different,” burst out Leonard with greater bitterness than -he himself realized. In his heat he was constrained to use strong words. -But in reality he felt the beginning of a relaxation and release. - -Then came the third act. - -Tristan lies in feverish dreams by the shore of the sea. He waits for -his Isolde. But when she finally comes, he, in the wild joy of -desperation, tears open his unhealed wound and bleeds to death before it -is vouchsafed him to kiss her. So, too, it had to be. Passion has -overleaped all human bounds. It is a cool, wondrous alleviation that -finally his blood may pour forth with the poison of the potion, with all -the endless, tempestuous, lamenting, jubilating desire. - -They got up softly and pressed out through the glowing dust over mighty -craters of tone. - -Outside, the spring night was cool. Leonard grew pale and his eyes -shone. - -“In old times people opened their veins,” he muttered, “but this is a -much finer way.” - -He edged hurriedly across Gustavus Adolphus Place and took his stand at -the barrier by the river. The moon hung thin as a flower petal up in the -greenish-blue heavens, whose color seemed to consist only of coolness -and depth. The river rolled along pale mother-of-pearl dust. - -Here assuredly some one passed one day in May and was empty and sad and -full of fiery moods, thought Leonard. But now he has loved and died with -Tristan, so that now he hardly touches the ground, and everything is -silent and all the world appears as a cool and lovely memory. Yes, what -have I, Leonard the artist in wood-cuts, not experienced, seeing that I -stand here with the fate of a mighty heart behind me! In this hour I -feel love as a great enrapturing memory, something that lives in my soul -but is not able to choke my freedom. I have come to drink the potion -without its fatal poison. Verily art can give appeasement even to the -most burning Now. In art is freedom! - -Leonard had almost wholly forgotten his fisherman. But now he noted that -the old man stood steadily beside him at the rampart. His face appeared -smaller than before in the moonlight. Despite the two-story nose and the -gray stubble it was almost like a child’s. But it had always the same -stamp of repose. It peered out into the spring night, as if all this -illimitable canopy was a friendly home for brisk old folks. Naturally, -thought Leonard, the whole world is for him just a beautiful dream of -once on a time. The moon, the trees, and the rushing water here, all are -his memory, all have flowed into a great certitude, all are his -innermost self, as memories are. - -Leonard gave the old man his hand: - -“Thanks for your help!” he said. - -“Aye, thanks and good-bye, then. Now I must down there again a bit, I -suppose. Fishing is best at night.” - -Thereupon Lundstrom went to his net. But Leonard strolled without -uncertainty or restlessness up to his den on the crest of South -Stockholm. His thoughts played meanwhile with the same daring little -speech: - -Why should infinity make us homeless? he said to himself. Infinity has -its middle point somewhere. Well, and I, woodcut artist Leonard, am -sitting in the centre. Should I not then with a good heart cut at my -boxwood blocks? - - - - -STORIES BY -VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM - - - - -WHEN THE BELLS RING - - -In southern Småland, just where the stony road to Scania branches into -several village paths and a muddy slope leads up to the parish church, -there stood a mill, painted red and with the largest wings that anyone -had ever seen in all that region. The miller was dead long since. His -widow, named Kerstin Bure, a woman who in her childhood had seen happier -days and eaten from shining plates of pewter, managed the mill after her -own fashion. She never made mention of her birth or of the love-dealings -that had enticed her from a well-to-do pastor’s home to the narrow -tower-room of a miller, where the axle-beam groaned directly over her -sleeping-place; but then she did not speak of other things either. The -husband had been too poor to possess a cottage of his own and had -instead built a chimney straight through the roof of the mill. There -year after year, with her sewing in her hand, the wife had silently -continued to watch the work of the men. If at any time she was asked for -advice, she answered preferably with a nod or a shake of the head, and -she seldom went away further than a stone’s throw from the mill. In -figure she was tall and slim with delicate hands, and her face under the -starched cap, which was always of the same invariable whiteness, -reminded one of Mary Magdalen’s on the picture at the altar, though it -was more yellowed and shrunken. She never took women into her service, -and so women in particular accustomed themselves to passing her in -silence. They did not rightly know whether she was proud or meek, but -most of them thought that she might well be both. When the sexton -appeared with his beadsmen and in his best Sunday attire to solicit the -hand of this woman, who was already old and gray, she became quite -confused and abashed. She blushed to the roots of her hair and merely -shook her head. - -One morning she found an infant boy on a heap of twigs by the spring, -and as no one knew anything about the parents, she took the little one -to her with great tenderness. - -“Nobody can tell whether there lies in that heart good or evil seed,” -she said, “but the day may come when I am to try it. You shall be called -Johannes, because you are to become devout as an angel of God. I have -been sore afflicted, but for you I shall lay by a pretty penny, so that -your life-days may sometime counterbalance the heavy ones I have known.” - -The boy grew up, and when he prepared for confirmation, he surprised -everybody by his pious and godly answers. With his glossy flaxen hair -hanging over his shoulders he afterwards sat by his foster-mother on the -mill steps in the bright midsummer evenings and read diligently in the -books that he had borrowed from the pastor of the congregation. They sat -always taciturnly and quietly, but sometimes he pointed out with his -finger some line that seemed to him more beautiful than the others and -read it softly aloud. - - * * * * * - -Hay-ricks and meadows were sending out their perfume of harvest and -pasture, and so too, though withered, did the clover--or -trefoil-blossoms that lay forgotten here and there between the leaves of -the book as markers. Even late at night only a single star burned, but -that was large and radiant. Everywhere people were awake and talking, -and the cottage doors stood open. - -Many whispered to one another a dark rumor of how the Swedish army had -been beaten at Poltava and that now the Danes were to land and complete -the entire overthrow of Sweden. - -One Sunday night a rider stopped at the stairs of the mill and asked for -lodging. - -Johannes looked doubtfully at his foster-mother and asked the stranger -whether he would not rather go on up the hill to the provost’s place. - -“No,” he answered, “I want first to see tonight how the people are -getting on.” - -He managed to get his horse into the walled passage under the mill and -then settled down quite contentedly among the others to a plate of -beer-soup and a loaf of black bread. - -He had let his hair and his goat-like beard grow, so that he looked like -a common peasant, but sometimes he pulled his mouth toward his ears and -talked harshly in the broadest Scanian, and sometimes he squeezed up his -eyes and lamented in the most sentimental Smålandish. He kept awake all -night continuing his merry discourse. Once he took a piece of charcoal -and drew a speaking likeness of Johannes on the wall. A little later he -gave Kerstin Bure shrewd advice as to how she should grease the -mill-axle. Or he would sing psalms and polka-tunes, to which he himself -set the words. In the morning he took from his traveling-sack a suit -with bright soldier’s buttons. When Johannes and the old woman peeped -wonderingly through the shutters to see whither he went, he was already -standing in the church square, and there was such a clatter and hubbub -among the populace that it echoed for miles. - -“That’s Mons Bock!” clamored the crowd. “That is our valiant General -Stenbock. If we have him with us, we’ll go out and fight for our -country, every one of us, father and son, so God help us!” - -“Johannes,” said Kerstin Bure then to her sixteen-year foster-son, with -a hardness in her voice that he had never heard before, “you are meant -to keep devoutly to your books and some day wear a pastor’s surplice as -my sainted father did, but not to lose your blood in worldly feuds. -Stick your tinder-box and clasp-knife in your jacket and tie your -leather coat at your belt! Go then out into the woods and keep yourself -well hid there until we have peace in the land! Before that I do not -wish to see you again. Remember that! You hear now how the men shout on -the church square, but mayhap their mouths will soon be stopped with -black earth.” - -He did as she bade him and wandered off into the woods by unknown paths. -The firs became gradually more bristling and dense, so that for a long -distance he had to push through backwards with the leather coat over his -face. In the evening he came to a wide fen, and far out at the rim of a -black lake lay an island overgrown with alders. - -“There I’ll build my den,” he thought. But the quagmire of the swampy -fen which floated over the twofold bottom, and the dark water where not -a glimmer of daylight broke through, sank beneath his feet, until, -exhausted and half-asleep, he sat down on a ledge. - -A rustling still sounded from the ridges of the wood, but the lake lay -quiet, and the little yellow reflections of the fluffy clouds soon stood -motionless. In the infinite distance beyond the mist of the fen a -goat-bell from time to time struck a few short, unresonant strokes. Two -herd-girls blew quaveringly on their cow-horns, and on the forgotten and -dilapidated sepulchre-mound in the dip of the valley the glow-worms -kindled their lanterns in the grass. - -“Are you one of those that have run away from war service?” a voice -asked him, and when he looked up, a goat-girl was standing among the -juniper bushes, knitting. She appeared to be one or two years older than -he, and her leather boots hung on her back. - -“That’s right enough; but now the fen bars my way, and berries and ferns -get to be scant fare after a while.” - -“It must be you don’t know the woods. Nobody suffers want there. Since -my ninth year I’ve spent every summer up here in the wilds with my -goats. Trim and cut down a couple of fir saplings and tie them to your -feet with withes, and you can go on the quagmire wherever you like. -Thatch your hut with fir bark and make yourself fishinggear.” - -She carefully pulled a long basting-thread from her jacket and tied to -it a pewter pin, which she had taken from her head-dress and bent into a -hook. - -“Here you have a hook and line,” she said and continued on her way, -still knitting. - -That night he did not much heed her advice, but when the sun again shone -into his eyes, he pulled out his knife. - -As soon as he had trimmed himself a couple of skis of the sort she had -taught him to make, he betook himself out on the fen to the island. When -he stamped on the grass there, the whole island swayed like a soft -feather-bed, but he opined that this was good, because if there was -moisture in the ground, he would not need to go far to find angleworms. -Hardly, too, had he dug under the grass-roots with his fingers, before -he found abundance. To be sure, the fishing went badly at the start, but -after he had mystically laid two blades of sedge crosswise on the water, -it became at once a different affair. As he carried a tinder-box in his -jacket, it was an easy matter to broil his savory capture. - -Afterwards he began to build his hut with such haste that he did not -give himself leisure to sleep in the bright summer nights. He -understood that it might easily tumble in on the swaying ground if he -made it too high. Therefore he built instead a low turf-thatched -roof-tree, under which he could not stand upright but had to creep. -Every morning he fetched from the shore trimmed saplings, twigs, and -pieces of fir bark. Finally he built a hearth of stones, where he let -the juniper twigs smoulder and glow all night to drive off the midges. -During his work he sometimes talked to himself half aloud, pretending -that he was bailiff over a whole gang of workmen, and he called the -island Wander Isle. - -He met the goat-girl quite often. Her name was Lena. She went about with -her knitting, feeding her charges on clearings and meadows. She taught -him to set nooses and traps. Eventually they met every morning to see -whether the fortune of hunting had been favorable to them, and she made -him a good friend to all the wild animals. - -“Did you see that gorgeous bird?” she asked, pointing to a blue-black -black-cock that roused the whole wood with his thunderous wing-beats. -“Him I call the Rich Bachelor of Vaxjö, for he asks neither after his -home or his relatives, but just sits at the tavern in his fine -dress-coat and smoothes his ruffles.” - -“And just hark now!” she said one night when an owl hooted in the -ravine. “Him I call the Tax Collector, who, when he turns his head in -his white collar and rolls his red eyes or snaps his bill, frightens -both man and beast. But if it’s a question of the little white harmless -eggs in his own nest, then you’ll see. Then he has a father’s heart in -the right place.” - -But about nothing did she know so many traditions as about the cranes. - -“Never yet,” she said, “have I got to see the long-legged bald-headed -cranes when from their mossy retreats they set up their trumpeting and -hold their autumn assembly for taking flight. Round their camp they have -outposts that sit with a stone in their one uplifted claw, so that it -may tumble down and wake them if they fall asleep. But the most -wonderful thing is that then if any human being sees the ashen-gray -birds go up, he himself begins to flap with his arms and longs to be -able to fly with them, so high that the lakes below on the earth are -only like little shimmering water-drops.” - -“I want to see the cranes,” answered Johannes. - -“Perhaps you may get to see them in the autumn, but then you must first -teach yourself a great deal. First, you must be able to stand so quiet -that you look like a dry juniper bush, and to bend down so that you look -like a stone, and to lay yourself flat on the ground so that no one can -tell you from a pile of rotten twigs.” - -“All that I shall try to teach myself, but you must never go on my -island. It isn’t the way you think there. I have a high fireplace and -hangings on the walls, and the floor between the rugs is so shining and -slippery that you can’t walk on it but have to crawl.” - -The pretty stories he had read in the dean’s books ran in his memory, -and he wanted to show the girl that he was not inferior to her but could -in turn rouse her to wonder and curiosity. - -“If you’ll let me get a sight of that house, I’ll go down to the -settlement and fetch you a musketoon with bullets and powder-horn.” - -“To my island you’ll never come.” - -“If you’ll let me get a sight of that house, I’ll teach you in five days -to feed yourself on ferns and roots and nothing.” - -“That’s why I’ve come hither. Keep that promise, and you shall see my -house, if you can really get there.” - -With that he fastened the skis on his feet and vanished in the mist on -the fen. - -“The enemy stands on the shore,” he said to his imaginary soldiers on -the island, “but they have neither axe nor knife for making skis. We may -feel secure, if only we always remain upright and good.” - -But late in the evening when he was about to lay fresh juniper on the -hearth, he saw the goat-girl coming on the fen with the help of twigs -and dry branches. - -“The enemy thinks to take us by storm,” he continued, “but there is a -secret which I have long suspected. I shall make the whole Wander Isle -sail to sea like a boat.” - -He pressed a pole against the outermost tussocks of the fen, and the -floating island swam swaying further out on the water. - -Then he laid himself calmly to sleep by the crackling embers, but when -after a while he suddenly opened his eyes, the goat-girl stood straight -before him and peeped in under the low roof on which fox-skins lay -spread inside out to dry. - -She asked him nothing about the high fireplace or the hangings or the -slippery floor, but merely said, “A fresh breeze has blown up, so that -the island has driven to land on the other shore. But why do you let the -dry fox-skins lie on the roof instead of spreading them in here on the -ground? And we ought to stick in juniper around the island so that -people can’t see either us or the hut.” - -He thought she spoke sensibly and went ashore at once to collect the -juniper. When it was already long after midnight, they still worked at -the strengthening and beautifying of his island. They even made of -birch-bark and pegs a door which they could set before the entrance, and -when they finally shoved the island off from the land again, they -anchored it out in the water with two piles. - -“Now the drawbridge is raised,” said Johannes, “and we must see to -providing the new guests with entertainment such as is right.” - -“The cook-maids and scullery-maids are always so slow,” she said and -turned the two fish upon the hearth. - -The heather droned and the lake splashed so that the island and the -sedge and all the closed water-lilies swayed. As soon as mealtime had -passed, Johannes lay down at full length nearest the hearth, but Lena, -who did not yet feel that she possessed the right of ownership to Wander -Isle, huddled together outside at the entrance with one hand as a -pillow. She still heard the juniper sputter with heart’s delight, and as -she fell asleep she counted the small sparks that sailed forth above the -chink in the roof like stars through the night air. That was the -fifth--that was the sixth--that was the seventh----. So she was put in -mind of one of her songs: - - It was on the seventh morn of the week, - When the prayer-bells rang, I ween, - That the bitter tears ran a-down her cheek, - Though her bride-wreath still was green. - -Next day she no longer thought of leaving the island, and the third day -they began without noticing it to say “our island.” Every morning they -landed at the rock, and then she went up to the clearing with her goats -or followed him to examine nooses and traps. At last she began also to -teach him her art of feeding himself for many days on berries and ferns -and nothing, and she noticed that he soon won even greater aptitude in -this than she had herself. He grew thin and dry as a blown-off branch, -and yet his sinews knotted themselves all the harder. But he always -remained quiet and taciturn; and when she asked him what weighed on his -mind, he went off on his own paths and remained long away. - -They no longer knew the names of the days, but on the Sabbath the wind -carried the distant sound of the bells far into the wilderness, and then -Johannes put on his embroidered leather coat and led her upon the -overgrown sepulchre-mound, from which they could see over fen and lake. -With her hand in his he spoke then of God’s love, which covered the -wretchedest crevices with its fairest bounties, and often they knelt in -the grass for long periods and prayed that He would likewise sow a few -grains of His seed in their souls. - -After much conversation, however, Johannes was always doubly heavy in -mind and sought for solitude. - -The nights became ever darker, and often when she turned back from her -herd she had to light her way with a torch between mountain walls and -the roots of overblown trees. The giant firs, heaven high, were like -tents, where black hands sprawled out from among the ragged leafage to -seize her by the braids; but she felt no fear, she thought only of one -thing. Wherever she went and whatever she busied herself with, she only -thought that the summer would soon be ended and that no one could know -what would then become of Johannes and her. - -Then one October morning she was awakened by Johannes. - -“Do you remember the cranes you spoke of?” he asked. “Now I can both -stand so quiet that I look like a dry juniper bush, and bend down so -that I look like a stone, and lie down flat on the ground so that no one -can tell me from a pile of rotten twigs. I have taught myself more than -that. I can feed myself on berries and roots, and if those are wanting I -can starve along on nothing.” - -She sat up and listened to a far-off noise. - -“That is no cranes.” - -“Then I’ll investigate what it is.” - -He washed himself in the lake, put on his leather coat as on a Sunday, -and pushed her gently aside when she wanted to hold him back. - -“Don’t go, Johannes!” she begged. “I won’t let you go from me without -following.” - -In silence they came ashore with the island at the ledge and went down -through the woods toward the settled land to a bare clearing, from which -there was a free outlook over the mossy heath and meadows as far as -Kerstin Bure’s mill and the church. - -“Johannes!” she burst out with almost a scream, and seized him tightly -by the coat-tails. “Come back with me to our place!” - -He answered her meekly: “My conscience has pained me long enough. Do you -see down there on the heath the gray creatures with thin legs? And the -outposts that you told about are standing there too. It’s Mons Bock, who -is out again on his recruiting. In that crane-dance I’d like to play -myself.” - -He walked violently away from her, so that the coat-tail was torn off at -the cracking seam, and began to run down to the heath between the ferns -and charred stumps. - -She followed irresolutely after him, but when she saw how he spoke to -the outposts and stepped straight into the assembled crowd of armed -peasants, she went at a warm pace to get to him. - -When she came into the ring, he already stood before Mons Bock and was -taking his recruit penny. - -“Where have you stuck your knapsack, Smålander?” asked the general. - -“I have no knapsack, but I can feed myself for five days on nothing.” - -Lena pressed forward between him and the general’s dark-brown horse. - -“He, Johannes here, is no serving-boy, but we have a place of our own up -in the woods.” - -“As to the marriage I should like to see the certificate in black and -white,” answered Mons Bock, and the hot color rose and fell on her -forehead as he spoke. - -Then Lena held out in her two hands the torn-off coat-tail and let him -see that it fitted to the leather coat. - -“I call that a parson’s certificate on real sheepskin,” he broke out. -“The recruit money may therefore be yours, my good young lady, but the -boy has clean perjured himself. And now, ye worthy yeomen of Småland, -forward in Jesus’ name! Drums we have none, but we can still in our -poverty stamp with wooden shoes the old Swedish march that it makes me -warm at heart to hear.” - -Staves and wooden shoes banged and clattered on rocks and ledges. Even -the riders had wooden shoes tied fast to their feet, so that they tried -in vain to use their stirrups. - -When the last farmers had vanished across the heath, Lena went on to the -mill. She dared not relate that Johannes had gone along to the war, but -only told of how she had met him in the woods, exhibiting the coat-tail, -which was carefully inspected and turned over. - -“That’s the right coat-tail, sure enough,” said Kerstin Bure, “and -though I don’t like to see women in my service, you may as well stay -with me till Johannes comes. I really need a pair of strong arms, for I -am well on in years and all my men have been bitten with madness and -have run off with Stenbock. There is hardly an able-bodied man left in -the parish, except the sexton, the idiot!” - -After she had said this she spoke no more to Lena of what had passed in -the woods and asked nothing about Johannes, but silently continued her -occupations, as was her custom. The mill stood with unmoving wings, -because there was no meal to grind, and through the long snowy months of -winter there was heard in it neither steps nor voices. Beggars who went -past on the road supposed it was unoccupied and deserted. - - * * * * * - -When the spring began to re-appear and white trailing clouds swept -across the heavens, there came one day a boy hot and panting, who ran -along the road and to each and all whom he met shouted a single word, -until he vanished in the woods on the other side of the heather. Some -hours later a rider came at a gallop and shouted in the same manner on -all sides until he was gone. The women gathered in crowds on the hill by -the church. Sweden, Sweden was saved, and Mons Bock and his goat-boys -had beaten the whole enemy’s army at the Straits of Öresund! - -Kerstin Bure alone asked nobody what had happened but sat every noon on -the mill stairs in the glorious sunshine and carded wool with Lena. All -at once as they were sitting silent and busy, while the spring freshet -purled in ditches and brooks, they heard that the bells were ringing in -the neighboring parishes to the south, although it was Wednesday. -Expectantly the people ranged themselves along the road on both sides -and from the wide-open door of the church advanced the stumbling pastor -of the congregation, followed by his chaplains and in full ceremonials. - -Once more the well-known march of the wooden shoes clattered on ledges -and stones, but now to bag-pipes and shawms. It was the returning army -of farmers. There were deep lines of shaggy beards and slashed -sheep-skin coats and noble blue eyes. With staves in hand, muskets in -the strap, and wide hats over their flowing hair, the homeward-bound -troops marched back from their victory. Far in the van the fiery cross -went from church to church as far as the northernmost wooden chapels, -where the Lapps tied their reindeer to the steeples, and all the sunny -springtime of Sweden was filled with the song of praise that re-echoed -from the bells. - -Just in front of the hay-wagons with the wounded rode Mons Bock in his -gray overcoat with his riding-whip instead of a sword. Calling down -blessings upon their saviour, the peasants hailed him with waving aprons -and caps, but he turned to his ensigns and shouted that they should -sing. - -When the voices ceased, Mons Bock went on alone and sang stanza after -stanza which he himself had put together. - -Kerstin Bure had risen on the mill stairs and looked and looked beneath -her lifted hand, but Lena, who had broken her way forward so fearlessly -in the thickets of the wilderness, did not dare this time to wait and -look about any longer, but stole away and threw herself sobbing among -the empty meal-sacks. - -Step by step Kerstin Bure withdrew up the stairs until she stood at the -very top with her back against the wall of the mill. Then she pressed -her hands like opera-glasses to her eyes. In the last wagon Johannes -sat on the hay among the wounded, as merry and quiet as always, but -paler and with bandages around his arm and shoulder. - -She pressed her hands even harder to her eyes. - -“So after all he was what I thought him, though to prove his soul -thoroughly I commanded him otherwise. Then, though he is Kerstin Bure’s -foster-son, he shall still keep for his life long her whom he himself -has chosen, even if she is the poorest of goat-girls.” - -But at the moment she heard how the sexton and his ringer clattered at -the trap-doors of the steeple, and the great bell gave forth its first -stroke. - -She knitted her brow and went into the mill, saying: “I’ve no meal to -grind, but if he lets his bell sound, though he has had no son in the -war, my mill shall play, too.” - -Creaking, the dust-white axle-beam began to move and purr, and while the -peasant army marched singing by, the empty mill kept turning its great -wings faster and faster. - - - - -THE FORTIFIED HOUSE - - -Surprised by the winter cold, the Swedes in crowded confusion had taken -up their quarters behind the walls of Hadjash. Soon there was not a -house to be found that was not filled with the frost-bitten and the -dying. Cries of distress were heard out in the street, and here and -there beside the steps lay amputated fingers, feet, and legs. Vehicles -stood fastened to each other so tightly packed from the city gate to the -market-place that the chilly-pale soldiers who streamed in from all -sides had to crawl between the wheels and runners. Fastened in their -harness and turned away from the wind, the horses, their loins white -with frost, had already stood many days without food. No one took care -of them, and several of the drivers sat frozen to death with hands stuck -into their sleeves. Some wagons were like oblong boxes or coffins, where -from the chink of the flat lid stared out mournful faces, which read in -a prayer-book or gazed longingly with feverish delirium at the -sheltering houses. A thousand unfortunates, in muffled tones or -silently, cried to God for mercy. Under the sheltered side of the city -wall dead soldiers stood in lines, many with red Cossack coats buttoned -over their ragged Swedish uniforms and with sheepskins around their -naked feet. Wood-doves and sparrows, which were so stiff with frost that -they could be caught with the hand, had fallen on the hats and shoulders -of the standing corpses and fluttered their wings when the chaplains -went by to give a Last Communion in brandy. - -Up at the market-place among burnt areas stood an unusually large house, -from which could be heard raised voices. A soldier delivered a fagot to -an ensign who stood in the doorway, and when the soldier went back into -the street, he shrugged his shoulders and said to whomsoever cared to -hear him: “It’s only the gentlemen quarreling in the chancellery.” - -The ensign at the door had lately arrived with Lewenhaupt’s forces. He -carried the fagot into the room and threw it down by the fireplace. The -voices within ceased immediately, but as soon as he had closed the door -they began with renewed heat. - -It was His Excellency Piper who stood in the middle of the floor, his -countenance wrinkled and furrowed, with glowing cheeks and trembling -nostrils. - -“I say that the whole affair is madness,” he burst out, “madness, -madness!” - -Hermelin with his pointed nose was constantly twitching his eyes and his -hands, while he sprang back and forth in the room like a tame rat; but -Field Marshall Rehnskiöld, who with his handsome, stately figure was -standing by the fireplace, only whistled and hummed. If he had not -whistled and hummed, the quarrel would have been finished by this time, -because for once they were all fully agreed; but the fact that he -whistled and hummed instead of being silent or at least speaking, that -could be endured no longer. Lewenhaupt at the window took snuff and -snapped shut his snuff-box. His pepper-brown eyes protruded from his -head, and it looked as if his comical peruke became ever bigger and -bigger. If Rehnskiöld had not continued to whistle and hum, he would -have controlled himself today as yesterday and on all other occasions, -but now wrath rose to his brow. - -He shut his snuff-box for the last time and mumbled between his teeth, -“I do not desire that His Majesty should understand statesmanship. But -can he lead troops? Does he show real insight at a single encounter or -attack? Trained and proved old warriors, who never can be replaced, he -offers daily for an empty bravado. If our men are to storm a wall, it is -considered superfluous that they bind themselves protecting fagots or -shields, and therefore they are wretchedly massacred. To speak freely, -my worthy sirs, I can forgive an Upsala student many a boyish freak, but -I demand otherwise of a general in the field. Truly it avails not to -carry on a campaign under the command of such a master.” - -“Furthermore,” continued Piper, “His Majesty at present incommodes no -general with any particularly hard command. At the beginning, when one -succeeded in distinguishing himself more than another, it went better; -but now His Majesty goes around mediating and reconciling with a foolish -smile so that one could go crazy.” - -He raised his arms in the air with a wrath which had lost all sense and -bounds, notwithstanding he was altogether at one with Lewenhaupt. While -he was still speaking, he turned about and betook himself impetuously to -the inner apartments. The door slammed with such a clatter that -Rehnskiöld found himself yet more called upon to whistle and hum. If he -only had chosen to say something! But no, he did not. Gyllenkrook, who -sat at the table and examined departure-checks, was blazing in the face, -and a little withered-looking officer at his side whispered venomously -into his car: “A pair of diamond ear-rings given to Piper’s countess -might perhaps even yet help Lewenhaupt to new appointments.” - -If Rehnskiöld had now ceased to whistle and hum, Lewenhaupt would still -have been able to control himself, to take up the roll of papers he -carried under his coat and sit down at a corner of the table; but -instead, the venerable and at other times taciturn man grew worse and -worse. He turned about undecidedly and went toward the entrance door, -but there he suddenly stood still, drew himself up and smacked his heels -together as if he had been a mere private. Now Rehnskiöld became quiet. -The door opened. An icy gust of wind rushed into the room, and the -ensign announced with as loud and long-drawn a voice as a sentry who -calls his comrades to arms: “Hi-s Majesty!” - -The king was no longer the dazzled and wondering half-grown youth of -aforetime. Only the boyish figure with the narrow shoulders was the -same. His coat was sooty and dirty. The wrinkle around the -upward-protruding over-lip had become deeper and a trifle grin-like. On -the nose and one cheek he had frostbite, and his eyelids were red-edged -and swollen with protracted cold, but around the formerly bald vertex of -his head the combed-back hair stood up like a pointed crown. - -He held a fur cap in both hands and tried to conceal his embarrassment -and diffidence behind a stiff and cold ceremoniousness, while bowing and -smiling to each and all of those present. - -They bowed again and again still more deeply, and when he had advanced -to the middle of the floor, he stood still and bowed awkwardly toward -the sides, though with somewhat more haste, being in appearance wholly -occupied with what he was about to say. Thereupon he remained a long -while standing quite silent. - -Then he went forward to Rehnskiöld and, with a brief inclination, took -him by one of his coat-buttons. - -“I would beg,” he said, “that Your Excellency provide me with two or -three men of the common soldiers as escort for a little excursion. I -have already two dragoons with me.” - -“But, Your Majesty! the country is over-run with Cossacks. To ride in -here to the city from Your Majesty’s quarters with so small an escort -was already a feat of daring.” - -“Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Your Excellency will do as I have said. Some -one of the generals present, who is at leisure, may also mount and take -one of his men.” - -Lewenhaupt bowed. - -The king regarded him a trifle irresolutely without answering, and -remained standing after Rehnskiöld hastened out. None of the others in -the circle considered it necessary to break the silence or to move. - -Only after a very long pause did the king bow again to everyone -separately and go out into the open air. - -“Well?” inquired Lewenhaupt and clapped the ensign on the shoulder with -the return of his natural kindliness. “The ensign shall go along! This -is the first time the ensign has stood eye to eye with His Majesty.” - -“I had never expected he would be like that.” - -“He is always like that. He is too kingly to command.” - -They followed after the king, who clambered over wagons and fallen -animals. His motions were agile, never abrupt, but measured and quite -slow, so that he never for a moment lost his dignity. When he had -finally made his way forward through the throng to the city gate, he -mounted to the saddle with his attendants, who were now seven men. - -The horses stumbled on the icy street, and some fell, but Lewenhaupt’s -remonstrances only induced the king not to use his spurs yet more -heartlessly. The lackey Hultman had read aloud to him all night or had -related sagas, and had at length coaxed him into laughing at the -prophecy that, had he not been exalted by God to be a king, he would for -his whole life have become an unsociable floor-pacer, who devised much -more wonderful verses than those of the late Messenius of Disa on -Bollhus, but especially the mightiest battle stories. He tried to think -of Rolf Gotriksson, who ever rode foremost of all his men, but today it -did not please him to bound his thoughts within the playroom of a saga. -The restlessness which during the last few days had struck its claws -into his mind would not let go of its royal prey. At the chancellery he -had just seen the heated faces. Ever since the pranks of his boyhood he -had been rapt in his own imaginary world of the past. He had sat deaf to -the piercing cries of distress along the way, while he became -distrustful of each and all who exhibited a more sensitive hearing. -Today as at other times he hardly noted that they offered him the -best-rested horse and the freshest cake of bread, that in the morning -they laid a purse with five hundred ducats in his pocket. He challenged -the horseman at the first mêlée to form a ring about him and offer -themselves to death. On the other hand he noticed that the soldiers -saluted him with gloomy silence, and misfortunes had made him suspicious -even of those nearest to him. The most cautious opposition, the most -concealed disapproval, he made a note of without betraying himself, and -every word remained and gnawed at his soul. Every hour it seemed to him -that he lost an officer on whom he had formerly relied, and his heart -became all the colder. His thwarted ambition chafed and bled under the -weight of failure, and he breathed more lightly the farther behind him -he left his headquarters. - -Suddenly Lewenhaupt came to a stand, debating within himself how to -exercise an influence upon the king. - -“My heroic Ajax!” said he, and tapped his steaming horse, “you are -indeed an old manger-biter, but I have no right to founder you for no -good cause, and I myself am beginning to get on in years as you are. But -in Jesus’ name, lads, let him who can follow the king!” - -When he saw the ensign’s anxious sidelong look toward the king, he spoke -with lowered voice: “Be faithful, boy! His Majesty does not roar out as -we others do. He is too kingly to chide or bicker.” - -The king feigned to notice nothing. More and more wildly over ice and -snow he kept up the silent horse-race without goal or purpose. He had -now only four attendants. After another hour one of the remaining horses -fell with a broken fore-leg, and the rider out of pity shot a bullet -through its ear, after which he himself, alone and on foot, went to meet -an uncertain fate in the cold. - -At last the ensign was the only man who was able to follow the king, and -they had now come among bushes and saplings, where they could proceed -but at a foot-pace. On the hill above them rose a gray and sooty house -with narrow grated windows, the garden being surrounded by a wall. - -At this moment there was a shot. - -“How was that?” inquired the king, and looked around. - -“The pellet piped nastily when it went by my ear but it only bit the -corner of my hat,” answered the ensign without the least experience of -how he ought to conduct himself before the king. He had a slight Småland -accent and laughed contentedly with his whole blonde countenance. - -Enchanted by the good fortune of being man by man with him whom he -regarded as above all other living human beings, he continued: “Shall we -then go up there and take them by the beard?” - -The answer pleased the king in the highest degree, and with a leap he -stood on the ground. - -“We’ll tie our steeds here in the bushes,” he said exhilaratedly and -with bright color on his cheek. “Afterwards let us go up and run through -anybody that whistles.” - -They left the panting horses and, bending forward, climbed up the hill -among the bushes. Over the wall looked down several Cossack heads with -hanging hair, yellow and grinning as those of beheaded criminals. - -“Look!” whispered the king, and smote his hands together. “They’re -trying to pull shut the rotten gate, the fox-tails!” - -His glance, but recently so expressionless, became now flickering and -anon open and shining. He drew his broadsword and raised it with both -hands above his head. Like a young man’s god he stormed in through the -half-open door. The ensign, who cut and thrust by his side, was often -close to being struck from behind by his weapon. A musket shot blackened -the king’s right temple. Four men were cut down in the gateway and the -fifth of the band fled with a fire-shovel into the garden, pursued by -the king. - -Then the king wiped off the blood from his sword on the snow, while he -laid two ducats in the Cossack’s shovel and burst out with rising -spirits, “It is no pleasure to fight with these wretches, who never -strike back and only run. Come back when you have bought yourself a -decent sword.” - -The Cossack, who understood nothing, stared at the gold-pieces, sneaked -along the wall to the gate, and fled. Ever further and further away on -the plain he called his roving comrades with a dismal and lamenting -“Oohaho! Oohaho!” - -The king hummed to himself as if chaffing with an unseen enemy: “Little -Cossack man, little Cossack man, go gather up your rascals!” - -The walls around the garden were mouldering and black. From the -wilderness sounded an endlessly prolonged minor tone as from an æolian -harp, and the king inquisitively shouldered in the door of the -dwelling-house. This consisted of a single large and a half-dark room, -and before the fireplace lay a heap of blood-stained clothing, which -plunderers of corpses had taken from fallen Swedes. The door was thrown -shut again by the cross-draught, and the king went to the stable -buildings at the side. There was no door there, and a sound was now -heard the more plainly. Within in the darkness lay a starved white horse -bound to the iron loop of a wagon. - -A lifted broadsword would not have checked the king, but the uncertain -dusk caused the man of imagination to stand on the threshold, fearful of -the dark. Yet he gave no sign of this, but beckoned the ensign. They -stepped in down a steep stairway to a cellar. Here there was a spring, -and as a stop-cock to the singing wind which stirred the water, a deaf -Cossack with whip and reins, and without an idea of danger, was driving -a manly figure in the uniform of a Swedish officer. - -When they had loosed the rope and had bound the Cossack in the place of -the prisoner, they recognized the Holsteiner, Feuerhausen, who had -served as major in a regiment of dragoon recruits, but had been cut off -by the Cossacks and harnessed as a draught animal for hoisting water. - -He fell on his knees and stammered in broken Swedish: “Your Majesty! I -gan’t pelief my eyes.... My gratitude....” - -The king cheerily interrupted his talk and turned to the ensign: “Bring -up the two horses to the stable! Three men cannot ride comfortably on -two horses, and therefore we shall stay here till a few Cossacks come -by, from whom we can take a new horse. Let the gentleman also stand -guard at the gate.” - -After that the king went back to the dwelling-house and shut the door -after him. The horses which, desperate with hunger, had been greedily -gnawing the bark from the bushes, were meanwhile led up to the stable, -and the ensign went on guard. - -Slowly the hours went by. When it began to draw towards dusk, the storm -increased in bitterness, and in the light of sunset the snow whirled -over the desolate snow-plain. Deathly yellow Cossack faces raised -themselves spying above the bushes, and long in the blast sounded the -roving plunderers’ “Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!” - -Then Feuerhausen stepped out of the stable, where he had sat between the -horses so as not to get frost in his wounds from the ropes with which he -had been bound. He went forward to the barred doors of the -dwelling-house. - -“Your Majesty!” he stammered, “the Cossacks are gathering more and -more, and darkness is coming soon. I and the ensign can both sit on one -horse. If we delay here, this night will be Your Mightiest Majesty’s -last, which Gott in His secret dispensation forbit!” - -The king answered from within, “It must be as we said. Three men do not -ride comfortably on two horses.” - -The Holsteiner shook his head and went down to the ensign. - -“Such is His Majesty, you damt Swedes. From the stable I heard him walk -and walk back and forvart. Sickness and conscience-torture will come. -Like a _pater familiæ_ the Muscovite czar stands among his subjects. A -sugar-baker he sets up as his friend and a little serving-boy he raises -on his glorious imperial throne. Detestable are his gestures when he -gets drunk, and he treats women _à la françois_; but his first and last -word always runs: ‘For Russia’s good!’ King Carolus leafs his lands as -smoking ash-heaps and does not possess a single frient, not efen among -his nearest. King Carolus is more lonely than the meanest wagon-drifer. -He has not once a comrade’s knee to weep on. Among nobles and fine -ladies and perukes he comes like a spectre out of a thousand-year -mausoleum--and spectres mostly go about without company. Is he a man of -state? Oh, have mercy! No sense for the public. Is he a general? -Good-bye? No sense for the big masses. Only to make bridges and set up -gabions, clap his hands at captured flags and a couple of kettle-drums. -No sense for state and army, only for men.” - -“That may be also a sense,” replied the ensign. - -He walked vigorously back and forward, for his fingers were already so -stiff with cold that he scarcely could hold his drawn blade. - -The Holsteiner shifted the ragged coat-collar around his cheeks and went -on with muffled voice and eager gestures: “King Carolus laughs with -delight when the bridge breaks and men and beasts are miserably drownt. -No heart in his breast. To the deuce wit him! King Carolus is such a -little Swedish half-genius as wanders out in the worlt and beats the -drum and parades and makes a fiasco, and the parterre whistles Whee!” - -“And that is just why the Swedes go to death for him,” answered the -ensign, “that is just why.” - -“Not angry, my dearest fellow. Your teeth shone so in a laugh when we -first met.” - -“I like to hear the Herr Major talk, but I’m freezing. Will not the -major go up and listen at the king’s door?” - -The Holsteiner went up to the door and listened. When he came back he -said, “He only walks and walks, and sighs heavily like a man in anguish -of soul. So it always is now, they say. His Majesty nefer sleeps any -more at night. The comedy-actor knows he is not up to his part, and of -all life’s torments, wounded ambition becomes the bitterest.” - -“Then it should also be the last for us to jest at. Dare I beg the major -to rub my right hand with snow; it is getting numb.” - -The Holsteiner did as he desired and turned back to the king’s door. He -struck his forehead with both hands. His gray-sprinkled, bushy mustaches -stood straight out, and he mumbled, “Gott, Gott! Soon it will be too -dark to retreat.” - -The ensign called, “Good sir, I should like to ask if you would rub my -face with snow. My cheeks are freezing stiff. Of the pain in my foot I -will not speak. Ah, I can’t bear it.” - -The Holsteiner filled his hands with snow. “Let me stand guard,” he -said, “only for an hour.” - -“No, no. The king has commanded that I stay here at the entrance.” - -“Och, the king! I know him. I will make him cheerful, talk philosophy, -tell of gallant exploits. He is always amused to hear of a lover who -climbs adventurously through a window. He often looks at the beautiful -side of womankint. That appeals to his imagination, but not to his -flesh, for he is without feeling. And he is bashful. If the fair one -ever wishes to tread him under her silken shoe, she must herself -attack; but if she pretends to flee, then all the other women must -strive against a _liaison_. The most mighty lady his grandmother spoiled -everything with her shriek of ‘Marriage, marriage!’ King Carolus is from -top to toe like the Swedish queen Cristina, though he is genuinely -masculine. The two should have married each other on the same throne. -That would haf been a fine little pair. Oh, pfui, pfui! you Swedes. If a -man gallops his horses and lets people and kingdom be massacred, he is -still pure-hearted and supreme among all, only his bloot is too slow for -amours. Oh, excuse me! I know pure-hearted heroes who were faithfully in -love with two, three different maidens or wives in one and the same -week.” - -“Yes, we are so, we are so. But for Christ’s pity you must rub my hand -again. And excuse my moaning and groaning!” - -Just inside the gate, which could not be shut, lay the fallen Cossacks, -white as marble with the hoarfrost. The yellow sky became gray, and ever -nearer and more manifold in the twilight sounded the wailing cries: -“Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!” - -Now the king opened his door and came down across the garden. - -The pains in his head, from which he was accustomed to suffer, had been -increased by his ride in the wind and made his glance heavy. His -countenance bore traces of lonely soul-strife, but as he drew near, his -mouth resumed its usual embarrassed smile. His temple was still -blackened after the musket-shot. - -“It’s freshening up,” he said, and producing from his coat a loaf of -bread, he broke it in three, so that everyone had as large a piece as he -did. After that, he lifted off his riding-cape and fastened it himself -about the shoulders of the sentinel ensign. - -Abashed over his own conduct, he then took the Holsteiner forcibly by -the arm and led him up through the garden, while they chewed at their -hard bread. - -Now if ever, thought the Holsteiner, is the time to win the king’s -attention with a clever turn of speech and afterwards talk sense with -him. - -“The accommodation might be better,” he began, at the same time biting -and chewing. “Ah, good old days! That reminds me of a gallant adventure -outside of Dresden.” - -The king kept on holding him by the arm, and the Holsteiner lowered his -voice. The story was lively and salacious, and the king grew -inquisitive. The roughest ambiguities always lured out his set smile. He -listened with a despairing and half-absent man’s need of momentary -diversion. - -Only when the Holsteiner with cunning deftness began to shift the -conversation over to some words about their immediate danger did the -king again become serious. - -“Bagatelle, bagatelle!” he replied. “It is nothing at all worth -mentioning, except that we must behave ourselves well and sustain our -reputation to the last man. If the rascals come on, we will all three -place ourselves at the gate and pink them with our swords.” - -The Holsteiner stroked his forehead and felt around. He began to talk -about the stars that were just shining out. He set forth a theory for -measuring their distance from the earth. The king now listened to him -with a quite different sort of attention. He broke into the question -keenly, resourcefully, and with an unwearied desire to think out new, -surprising methods in his own way. One assertion gave a hand to another, -and soon the conversation dwelt on the universe and the immortality of -the soul, to return afresh to the stars. More and more flickered in the -heavens, and the king described what he knew about the sun-dial. He -stood up his broadsword with its scabbard in the snow and directed the -point toward the Polestar, so that next morning they might be able to -tell the time. - -“The heart of the universe,” he said, “must be either the earth or the -star that stands over the land of the Swedes. No land must be of more -account than the Swedish land.” - -Outside the wall the Cossacks were calling out, but as soon as the -Holsteiner led the talk to their threatened attack, the king was -laconic. - -“At daybreak we shall betake ourselves back to Hadjash,” said he. -“Before then we can hardly secure a third horse, so that each of us can -ride comfortably in his own saddle.” - -After he had spoken in that strain he went back into the dwelling-house. - -The Holsteiner came down with a vehement stride to the ensign, and -pointing at the king’s door, he cried out, “Forgif me, ensign. We -Germans don’t mince words when a wound oozes after a rope, but I lay -down my arms and give your lord the victory, because I also could shed -my bloot for the man. Do I love him! No-one efer understands him that -has not seen him.--But ensign, you cannot stay any longer out in the -weather.” - -The ensign replied, “No cape has warmed me more sweetly than the one I -now wear, and I lay all my cares on Christ. But in God’s name, major, go -back to the door and listen! The king might do himself some harm.” - -“His Majesty would not fall on his _own_ sword but longs for another’s.” - -“Now I hear his steps even down here. They are getting still more -violent and restless. He is so lonely. When I saw him in Hadjash bowing -and bowing among the generals, I could only think: How lonely he is!” - -“If the little Holsteiner slips away from here alife, he will always -remember the steps we heard tonight and always call this refuge Fort -Garden.” - -The ensign nodded his approval and answered, “Go to the stable, major, -and seek rest and shelter a while between the horses. And there through -the walls you can better hear the king and watch over him.” - -Thereupon the ensign began to sing with resonant voice: - - “O Father, to Thy loving grace....” - -The Holsteiner went back across the garden into the stable and, his -voice quavering with cold, intoned with the other: - - “In every time and every place - My poor weak soul would I commend. - Oh, Lord, receive it and defend.” - -“Oohaho! Oohaho!” answered the Cossacks in the storm, and it was already -night. - -The Holsteiner squeezed himself in between the two horses and listened -till weariness and sleep bowed his head. Only at dawn was he wakened by -a clamor. He sprang out into the open air and beheld the king already -standing in the garden, looking at the sword that had been set up as a -sun-dial. - -By the gate the Cossacks had collected, but when they saw the motionless -sentry, they shrank back in superstitious fear and thought of the rumors -concerning the magic of the Swedish soldiers with blow and shot. - -When the Holsteiner had gotten forward to the ensign, he grasped him -hard by the arm. - -“What now?” he asked, “Brandy?” - -At the same instant he let go his grip. - -The ensign stood frozen to death with his back again the wall of the -gate, his hands on his swordhilt, and wrapt in the king’s cloak. - -“Since we are now only two,” the king remarked, drawing his weapon out -of the snow, “we can at once betake ourselves each to his horse, as it -was arranged.” - -The Holsteiner stared him right in the eyes with re-awakened hate and -remained standing, as if he had heard nothing. Finally, however, he led -out the horses, but his hands trembled and clenched themselves so that -he could hardly draw the saddle-girths. - -The Cossacks swung their sabres and pikes, but the sentry stood at his -post. - -Then the king sprang carelessly into the saddle and set his horse to a -gallop. His forehead was clear and his cheeks rosy, and his broadsword -glimmered like a sunbeam. - -The Holsteiner looked after him. His bitter expression relaxed, and he -murmured between his teeth, while he too mounted to the saddle and with -his hand lifted to his hat raced by the sentry: “It is only joy for a -hero to see a hero’s noble death.--Thanks, comrade!” - - - - -THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS - - -The tocsin in the church tower at Narva had ceased. In a breach of the -battered rampart lay the fallen Swedish heroes, over whose despoiled and -naked bodies the Russians stormed into the city with wild cries. Some -Cossacks, who had sewed a live cat into the belly of an inn-keeper, were -still laughing in a circle around their victim, but the gigantic Peter -Alexievitch, the czar, soon burst his way through the midst of the -throng on street and courtyard and cut down his own men to check their -misdeeds. His right arm up to the shoulder was drenched with the blood -of his own subjects. Weary of murder, troop after troop finally -assembled in the square and the churchyard. Under the pretext that the -churches had been desecrated by the misbelievers who lay buried there, -bands of soldiers began to violate and plunder the graves. Stones were -pried up from the floor of the church with crowbars, and outside, the -graves were opened with shovels. Pillagers broke the copper and tin -caskets into pieces and threw dice for the silver handles and plates. -The streets, where at the first mêlée the inhabitants had thrown down -fire-brands and tiles, and where the blood of the slain was still -swimming in the gutters, were for many days piled up with rusty or -half-blackened coffins. The hair on some of the bodies had grown so that -it hung out between the boards. Some of the dead lay embalmed and well -preserved, though brown and withered, but from most of the coffins -yellow skeletons grinned forth from collapsed and mouldered shrouds. -People who stole anxiously among them read the coffin-plates in the -twilight and now and then recognized the name of a near relative, a -mother or a sister. Sometimes they saw the ravagers pull out the decayed -remains and throw them into the river. Sometimes, again, protected by -night, they themselves succeeded in carrying them off and burying them -outside the city. So in the dusk one might encounter an old man or woman -who came stealing along toilsomely with children or serving-maids, -carrying a coffin. - -One night a swarm of pillagers bivouacked in a corner of the churchyard. -Hi! what fun it was to pile up a bonfire of bed-slats and bolsters and -chairs and coffin-ends and what the devil else could be dragged forth. -Flames and sparks blazed up as high as the attic window of the -parsonage. Round about stood coffins propped one against another. The -bottom of one of the uppermost had been broken, so that the treasurer, -of blessed memory, who was inside it, stood there upright with his -spliced wig on his head and looked as if he thought: “I pray you, into -what company have I been conducted?” - -“Haha! little father,” the robbers called to him, as they roasted August -apples and onions at the flames; “you always wanted something to wet -your whistle, you there!” - -The glow of the fire lighted up the living-room of the parsonage and the -sparks flew in through the broken panes. In the rooms stood only a -broken table and a chair, upon which sat the parson with his head -propped on his hands. - -“Who knows? Perhaps it might succeed,” he mumbled and raised himself as -if he had found the key to a long-considered problem. - -His silver-white beard spread itself over all his breast, and his hair -hung down to his shoulders. In his youth as chaplain he had gone in for -a little of everything and he had never pushed back a cup that was -offered him. Afterwards as a widower in the parsonage he had worshipped -God with joy and mirth and a brimming bowl, and it was bruited about -that he did not reach first for his Bible if a well-formed wench -happened to be in his company. He therefore even now took misfortune -more bravely and resignedly than others, and his heart was as undaunted -as his soldierly body was unbowed by years. - -He went out into the entry and cautiously pulled out the five or six -rusty nails that held down a couple of boards above a little narrow -recess under the stairs. Then he lifted the boards aside. - -“Come out, my child!” he said. - -When no one obeyed him, his voice grew somewhat more severe and he -repeated his words: “Come out, Lina! Both the other maids have been -bound and carried away. It was verily at the last minute that I got you -in here. But it is almost a day since then, and you cannot live without -meat and drink. Eh?” - -When he was not obeyed, he threw back his head in annoyance, and he now -spoke in accents of harsh command: “Why don’t you obey? Do you think -there is food here? There’s not so much as a pinch of salt left in the -house. You must be got away, you understand. If it goes ill with you, if -a plunderer gets you on the way, I can only say this: clasp your arms -about his neck and follow with him on his horse’s back wherever it -carries you. Many a time in the rough-and-tumble of war have I seen such -a love, and then I have slung the soldier’s cloak over my priest’s frock -and waved my hat for a lucky end to the song. Don’t you hear, lass? When -your late father, who was a drinker--if I must tell the truth--was my -stableboy and pulled me out of a hole in the ice once, I promised for -the future to provide for him and his child. Besides, he was Swedish -born as I was. Well, haven’t I always been a fatherly master to you, or -what has Her Grace to object? Have her wits deserted her, eh?” - -Something now began to move in the pitch-black recess. An elbow struck -against the wall, there was a rustling and scraping, and with that Lina -Andersdotter stepped out in nothing but her chemise, bare legs, and a -torn red jacket without sleeves but with a whole back to it, over which -hung the braid of her brown hair. - -The light of the fire fell in through the window. Squatted together she -held her chemise between her knees, but her fresh, downward-bent face -with broad, open features was as merry as if she had just stepped out of -her settle-bed on a bright winter morning in the light of the dawn. - -The blood ran impetuously enough through the veins of the white-haired -chaplain, but in that moment he was but master and father. - -“I did not know that in my simple house folk had learned such a -ceremonious feeling of delicacy,” said he, and gave her a friendly pat -on the bare shoulders. - -She looked up. - -“No,” she said, “it’s only because I’m so wretchedly cold.” - -“Ah, well, that’s natural. That’s the way I like people to talk in my -house. But I have no garments to give you. My own hang on me in tatters. -The house may burn at any time. I myself can maybe sneak out on my way -unaccosted, and I have a Riga riksdollar in my pocket. Who asks about a -ragged old man? It’s another affair with you, Lina. I know these wild -fellows. I know but one way to get you off, but I myself shrink from -telling it. Naturally, you are afraid.” - -“Afraid I’m not. It will go with me as it may. To be sure, I am no -better than the others. Only I’m perishing of cold.” - -“Come here to the door then, but don’t be frightened. Do you see out -there in the doorway the rascals have set a little wooden casket. It -cannot be very heavy, but perhaps you will have room in it. If you dare -lay yourself in the casket, perhaps I can smuggle you out of the town.” - -“That I surely dare.” - -Her teeth chattered and she trembled, but she straightened herself up a -little, let the chemise hang free, and went out on the stones in the -doorway. - -The pastor lifted off the moist lid, which was loose, and found nothing -else in the plundered casket than shavings and a brown blanket. - -“That was just what I needed,” she shivered. She pulled up the blanket, -wrapped it over her, stepped up, and laid herself on her back in the -shavings. - -The pastor bent over her, laid both his hands on her shoulder, and -looked into her fearless eyes. She might be eighteen or nineteen years -old. Her hair was stroked smoothly back to the braid. - -As he stood so, it came over him that he had not always looked on her in -the past with as pure and fatherly feelings as he himself had wished and -as he had pretended to do. But now he did so. His long white hair fell -down as far as her cheeks. - -“May it go well with you, child! I am old. It matters little whether my -life goes on for a while still or is destroyed in the day that now is. I -have been in many a piece of mischief and many an ill deed in my time, -and for the forgiveness of my sins I will also for once have part in -something good.” - -He nodded and nodded toward her and raised himself. - -There outside the clamor sounded louder than ever. He laid on the lid -and fastened in the long, crookedly set screws as well as he was able. -Then he knelt, knotted a rope crosswise around the casket, and with -strong arms lifted the heavy burden on his back. Bending forward and -staggering, he strode out into the open air. - -“Look there!” shouted one of the pillagers at the fire, but his nearest -comrade silenced him with the word: “Let the poor old man alone! That’s -only a miserable beggar’s casket.” - -Sweat trickled out over the old man’s face, and his back and arms ached -and smarted under the severe weight. Step by step he moved forward -through the dark streets. Every now and then he had to set down the -casket on the ground to take breath, but then he stood with his hands on -the lid in constant fear of being challenged and hustled away or of -being stabbed by some roving band of soldier revelers. Several times he -had to step to one side because of the heavy wagons, loaded with men and -women, who were to be taken hundreds of miles into Russia to people the -waste regions. The great conquering czar was a sower who did not count -the seeds he strewed. - -When finally the old war-pastor reached the town gate and the watch came -to meet him, he roused his strength to the utmost with all the collected -will-power of his anxiety. With a single arm he held the casket in place -on his back, while with his free hand he drew the Riga riksdollar from -his pocket and handed it to the sentry as a bribe. - -The soldier motioned to him to go on. - -He wanted again to move his foot forward, but now he was unable. Through -the town gate he saw the river glimmer on the open plain, but then it -grew dark before his eyes. Still afraid for his burden in his -helplessness, he softly and cautiously lowered the casket beside him on -the stone flagging. Thereupon he fell forward and died. - -The other men of the watch sprang forward and began to curse and -complain. No casket could remain standing there in the door of the -gateway. - -The officers, who were sitting and gambling in a room of the casemate, -now came likewise to the spot. One of them, a little dry, weather-beaten -figure with rectangular spectacles, who was more like a clerk than a -soldier, took a lantern, came forward and held the lid slightly ajar -with his scabbard. - -First he drew back his head precipitately, nearly dropping the lantern. -The next time he bent down and looked in, he dwelt on the action longer -and more searchingly, and afterwards passed his hands over his whole -face to hide his thoughts. Then he unhooked his spectacles and stood -pondering. When he bent the third time, he sent the light back and -forward through the crevice,--and there inside lay Lina Andersdotter -quite calmly, screwing up her eyes at him in the lantern’s light without -herself knowing what was going on. - -“I’m hungry,” she said. - -He laid aside the lantern and went a couple of paces up and down through -the door with hands crossed behind his back. There came then into his -frigid expression a sly and merrily vibrating life, and unnoticed he -took some August apples and thrust them into the casket. Thereupon he -began to give commands. - -“Come here, boys! Let eight men take the casket to General Ogilvy, -salute him and say that this is a small gift from his humble servant, -Ivan Alexievitch. Eight of you others who have just come from working on -the walls go after it and roll up your leather aprons like trumpets, in -which you are to blow the regimental march. But in front of all two men -are to go with rushlights. Forward, march!” - -The savage soldiers looked open-mouth at one another and obeyed. -Laughing, they lifted the casket on their muskets. Two long stalks, -tarred and twisted about with straw, were brought forward from a corner -of the gateway and lighted at the lantern; and as the procession set -itself in motion into the field toward the camp, the musicians tooted -the march in their aprons: - - O you, who have chosen a gun to bear, - You care not for lodging or bed, lad, - You feed like a prince on the finest fare, - Of girls and of lice you’ve enough and to spare, - But when will you ever be paid, lad? - -When they came to the camp, the soldiers rushed together around them in -the torch-light. General Ogilvy, who was sitting at table, came out of -his tent. - -“Beloved little father,” said one of the bearers, “Lieutenant Ivan -Alexievitch humbly sends you this gift.” - -Ogilvy grew pale and bit his lips under his bushy gray mustaches. His -face, wrinkled and strained to harshness, was at bottom good-natured and -friendly. - -“Is he out of his right mind?” he thundered with pretended wrath, though -in reality he was as frightened as a boy. “Put down the casket and break -off the lid!” - -The soldiers pried it open with their blades, and the dark lid rattled -to one side. - -Ogilvy stared. With that he burst out laughing. He guffawed so that he -had to sit down on an earthen bench. And the soldiers laughed too. They -laughed down through the whole lane of tents, so that they reeled and -tottered and had to support themselves one against another like -drunkards. Lina Andersdotter lay there in the casket with a half-eaten -apple in her hand and made great eyes. She had now become warm again and -was as blooming of cheek as a doll. - -“By all the saints,” Ogilvy burst out. “Not ever in the catacombs of St. -Anthony has man seen such a miracle. This is a corpse that ought to be -sent to the Czar himself.” - -“By no means,” answered one of his officers. “I sent him two little -fair-haired baggages day before yesterday, but he only cares for thin -brunettes.” - -“So it is,” answered Ogilvy, and turned himself bending toward Narva. -“Salute Ivan Alexievitch and say that, when the casket is returned, -there shall lie in the bottom of it a captain’s commission.--Hey, -sweetheart!” - -He went forward and stroked Lina Andersdotter under the chin. - -But at that she sat up, took hold of his hair, and gave him a resounding -box on the ear, and after that another. - -He did not let it affect him in the least, but continued to laugh. - -“That’s the way I like them,” he said, “that’s the way I like them. I -will make you queen of the marauders, my chick, and as token thereof I -give you here a bracelet with a turquoise in the clasp. A band of our -worst rabble stole it just now from the casket of Countess Horn in -Narva.” - -He shook the chain from his wrist and she caught it eagerly to her. - -When later in the evening the cloth was laid in the tent, Lina -Andersdotter sat at the table beside Ogilvy. She had now got French -clothes of flowered brocade and wore a head-dress with blonde-lace. But -what hands! She managed to eat with gloves, but under them swelled the -big, broad fingers and the red shone between the buttons. - -“Hoho! hoho!” shouted the generals. “Those hands make a man merrier than -he would get with a whole flask of Hungary. Help! Loosen our belts! Hold -us under the arms! It will be the death of us.” - -Meanwhile she helped herself, munched sweetmeats, and sat with her spoon -in the air. If anything tasted bad, she made a face. Eat she could. -Drink, on the contrary, she would not but only took a swallow in her -mouth and then spurted the wine over the generals. But all their curses -and worst expressions she picked up while she sat ever alike blooming -and gay. - -“Help, help!” shrieked the generals, choked with laughter. “Blow out the -light so they can slip her away! Hold our foreheads! Help! Will you have -a little pull of a tobacco pipe, mademoiselle?” - -“Go to the deuce! Can’t I sit in peace!” answered Lina Andersdotter. - -There was one thing, though, that Ogilvy skillfully concealed so that -the laughers should not turn to him and nudge him in the ribs and pull -his coat-tails and say: “Oho, little father, you’ve got into water too -deep for your bald head. Bless you, little father, bless you and your -little mishap!” - -He pretended always to treat her with slightly indifferent familiarity, -but he never sat so near her that his dog could not jump up between -them. He never took hold of her so that anyone saw it, and never either -when no one saw it, for then he knew that her hand would catch him on -the face so that the glove would split and the red shine out in all its -strength. It was enough that, notwithstanding, she now and then gave him -a slap in the middle of the face, and no one did she snub worse than -him. But at all that he only laughed with the others, so that never -before had there been in the camp such a clamor and bedlam. - -Sometimes he thought of knouting her, but he was ashamed before the -others, because everything could be heard through the tent, and he -feared that they then would the more easily guess how things stood and -how little he got along with the girl. Wait, he thought, we shall be -sitting alone sometime under lock and key. Just wait! Till then things -may go on as they do. - -“Help, help!” shouted the generals. “That’s how she carries her train. -We must take hold of it. Lord, lord, no; but just look!” - -“Take it up, you,” said she. “Take it up, you. That’s what you are -for.” - -And so the generals were cuffed and bore her train, both when she came -to the table and when she went. - -Then it happened one evening when she sat among the drinking old men -that an adjutant stepped in, hesitating and embarrassed. He turned to -Ogilvy. - -“Dare I be frank?” - -“Naturally, my lad.” - -“And whatever I say will be forgiven?” - -“By my honor. Only speak out!” - -“The czar is on his way out to the camp.” - -“Very good, he is my gracious lord.” - -The adjutant pointed at Lina Andersdotter. - -“The czar has a fancy for tall brunettes,” said Ogilvy. - -“Your Excellency, in these last days he has changed his taste.” - -“God! Call the troops to arms--and forward with the three-horse wagon!” - -Now the alarm was struck. Drums rolled, trumpets shattered, weapons -clattered, and shouts and trampling filled the night. The drinking party -was broken up, and Lina Andersdotter was set in a baggage-wagon. - -Beside the peasant who was driving, a soldier sprang up with a lighted -lantern, and she heard the peasant softly inquire of him the purpose of -the flight. - -“The czar,” answered the soldier in a monotone and pointed with his -thumb over his shoulder at the girl. - -At that the peasant shrunk together as at a frost-cold breeze and -whipped the small, shaggy horses more and more wildly. He hallooed and -beat and urged them into a thundering gallop. The lantern-light fell -caressingly on the fir bushes and the burnt homesteads; the wagon banged -and tottered among the stones, and creaked in its joints. - -Lina Andersdotter lay on her back in the hay and looked at the stars. -Whither was she carried? What fate awaited her? She wondered and -wondered. On her wrist hung the bracelet as a talisman, a pledge for the -accomplishing of Ogilvy’s wonderful prediction. Queen of the Marauders! -It sounded so grand, though at first she had so gradually discovered -what the word really betokened. She stroked and plucked at the small -silver rings. Then she sat up and scanned the stony road in the -lantern’s light. Cautiously she moved further and further out. -Unnoticed, she climbed slowly over the wagon-sill and lowered her feet -to the ground. Would she be crushed and left lying? For a few steps she -dragged along. Then she lost her hold, stumbled, and fell lacerated -among the bushes. - -On thundered the baggage-wagon with its three galloping horses, and the -lantern-light vanished. Then she got up and wiped off the blood from her -cheeks while she wandered forth into the trackless woods. - -When she met barbarous-looking fugitives and they saw her pretty face, -they at once picked berries and mushrooms for her and followed along. -She got a whole court of ragamuffins and she treated them so ill that -they scarcely dared to touch her dress, but sometimes they stabbed each -other. Finally she took service with a skipper’s wife, who was to sail -with her husband to Danzig. Scarcely had it begun to grow dark when the -ragamuffins came out one after another and took service for nothing. The -skipper sat on his cabin in the moonlight, blew his shepherd’s pipe, and -congratulated himself on having got such a willing crew. And never had -an old woman seen a stronger serving-maid. But hardly had they put to -sea when Lina Andersdotter sat herself beside the skipper with her arms -crossed, and all the ragamuffins lay on their backs and sang in tune -with the pipe. - -“Do you think I’ll scour your bunks?” said she. - -“Beat her, beat her,” cried the old woman, but the skipper only moved -nearer and blew and blew on his pipe. Night and day the vessel rocked on -the bright waves with slack sail, and the skipper played for Lina -Andersdotter, who danced with her ragamuffins, but down in the cabin -sat the old woman crying and lamenting. - -When they came to Danzig the skipper stuck the pipe under his arm and -slunk off the vessel at night with Lina Andersdotter and her -ragamuffins. They guessed now that she thought of going to the Swedish -troops in Poland and compelling the king himself to give her his hand. - -When she with her followers stepped humming in among the Swedish women -of the camp, there was uproar and alarm, because for two days they had -sat by their wagons without food. The last provisions had been delivered -to the sutlers and divided among the soldiers. Then she stepped forward -to the first corporal she happened on and set her hands on her hips. - -“Aren’t you ashamed,” said she, “to let my women starve, when in spite -of all you can’t get along without them?” - -“_Your_ women? Who are you?” - -She pointed to her bracelet. “I am Lina Andersdotter, the Queen of the -Marauders, and now take five men and follow us!” - -He looked toward his captain, the reckless Jacob Elfsberg, he looked at -her pretty face and at his men. How the line surrounded her with their -muskets, and the women armed themselves with whip-handles and pokers! At -night when the light of the camp-fire tinged the heavens, the king, -inquisitive, got into his saddle. As the wild throng came back with -well-laden wagons and oxen and sheep, the troops cheered louder than -ever: “Hurrah for King Charles! Hurrah for Queen Caroline!” - -The women thronged about the king’s horse so that the lackeys had to -hold them back, and Lina Andersdotter went to him to shake hands with -him. But he thereupon rose in his stirrups and shouted over the women’s -heads to the corporal and the five soldiers: “That’s well maraudered, -boys!” - -From that moment she would never hear the king named, and whenever she -met a man, she flung her sharpest abuse right in his face, whether he -was plain private or general. When Malcomb Bjorkman, the young -guardsman--who, however, was already famous for his exploits and -wounds--held out his hand to her, she scornfully laid in it her ragged, -empty purse; and she was never angrier than when she heard General -Meyerfelt whistling as he rode before his dragoons, or recognized -Colonel Grothusen’s yellow-brown cheeks and raven-black wig. But if a -wounded wretch lay beside the road, she offered him the last drops from -her tin flask and lifted him into her wagon. Frost and scratches soon -calloused her cheeks. High on the baggage-wagon she sat with the butt of -a whip and commanded all the wild camp-followers, loose women, lawful -wives, and thievish fellows that streamed to them from east and West. -When at night the flare of a fire arose toward heaven, the soldiers knew -that Queen Caroline was out on a plundering raid. - -Days and years went by. Then, after the jolly winter-quarters in Saxony, -when the troops were marching toward the Ukraine, the king commanded -that all women should leave the army. - -“Teach him to mind his own affairs!” muttered Lina Andersdotter, and she -very tranquilly drove on. - -But when the army came to the Beresina, there was murmuring and -lamenting among the women. They gathered around Lina Andersdotter’s cart -and wrung their hands and lifted their babies on high. - -“See what you have to answer for! The troops have already crossed the -river and broken all the bridges behind them. They have left us as prey -to the Cossacks.” - -She sat with her whip on her knee with her high boots, but on her wrist -gleamed the silver chain with its turquoise. All the more violently did -the terrified women sob and moan around her, and from the closed -baggage-wagons, which were like boxes, crept out painted and powdered -Saxon hussies. Some of them, none the less, had satin gowns and gold -necklaces. From all sides came women she had never seen before. - -“Dirty wenches!” muttered she. “Now at last I have a chance to see the -smuggled goods that the captains and lieutenants brought along in their -wagons. What have you to do among my poor baggage-crones? But now we all -come to know what a man amounts to when his haversack is getting light.” - -Then they caught hold of her clothes and called upon her as if she alone -could seal their fate. - -“Is there no one,” she asked, “who knows the psalm: ‘When I am borne -through the Vale of Death’? Sing it, sing it!” - -Some of the women struck up the psalm with choked and nearly whispering -voices, but the others rushed down to the river, hunted out boats and -wreckage from the bridges, and rowed themselves across. Each and every -one who had a husband or a beloved in the army had hoped even at the -last she would be taken along and hidden; but all the worst women of the -rabble, who belonged neither to this man nor to that, stood with their -rags or their tasteless, ridiculous gowns in a ring around Lina -Andersdotter. Meanwhile swarms of Cossacks, who had crossed the river to -snap up any straggling marauders, were sneaking up through the bushes on -their hands and knees. - -Then her heart failed her and she stepped down from the wagon. - -“Poor children!” she said, and patted the hussies on the cheek. “Poor -children, I will not desert you. But now,--devil take me!--do you pray -to God that he will make your blood-red sins white, for I have nothing -else to offer you than to shame the men and die a hero’s death.” - -She opened the wagon-chest and hunted out from among her plunder some -pikes and Polish sabres, which she put into the hands of the -softly-singing women. Thereupon she herself grasped a musket without -powder or shot and set herself among the others around the cart to wait. -So they stood in the sunset light on the highest part of the shore. - -Then the women on the river saw the Cossacks rush forward to the cart -and cut down one after another of them with the idea that they were men -in disguise. They wanted to turn their boats, and soldiers sprang down -from their ranks to the water and opened fire. - -“Hurrah for King Charles,” they cried with a thousand intermingled -voices; “and hurrah--No, it’s too late. Look, look! There is Queen -Caroline who in the midst of the harlots is dying a virgin with a musket -in her hand!” - - - - -CAPTURED - - -Far out in the wastes of Småland and Finnved wondrous prodigies appeared -in the air and after that work lost all worth and the morrow all hope. -People either went hungry or ate and drank with riot and revel amid -half-stifled curses. At every farm sat a mother or a widow in mourning. -During the day’s occupation she talked of the fallen or the captives, -and at night she started from her sleep and thought she was still -hearing the thunder of the hideous wagons on which teamsters in black -oil-cloth cloaks carried away those who had died of the plague. - -In the church of Riddarsholm the body of the Princess Hedwig Sofia had -lain unburied for seven years from lack of money, and now a new coffin -had been laid out for the old Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora, Charles’s -mother. Several sleepy ladies-in-waiting were keeping the death-watch, -and wax-lights burned mistily around the dead, who lay wrapped in a -simple covering of linen. - -The youngest lady-in-waiting arose yawning, went to the window, and drew -back the black broad-cloth to see if dawn had not appeared. - -Limping steps were heard from the ante-room, and a little man of a -gnarled and rugged figure, who in every way tried to subdue the thump of -his wooden leg, advanced to the coffin and with signs of deep reverence -lifted aside the drapery. His fair, almost white hair lay close along -his head and extended down his neck as far as his collar. From a flask -he poured embalming liquid into a funnel, which was set in the royal -corpse between the kirtle and the bodice. But the liquid was absorbed -very slowly, and, waiting, he set down the flask on the funeral carpet -and went to the lady at the window. - -“Is it not seven o’clock yet, Blomberg?” she whispered. - -“It has just struck six. It’s an awful weather outside, and I feel in -the stump of my leg that we’re going to have a snow-storm. But then it’s -a long while since one could foretell anything good in Sweden. Trust me, -not this time either will there be enough money for a decent funeral. It -was only the beginning when the sainted Ekerot prophesied misery and -conflagration. And perhaps the fire didn’t go on over the island in -front of the castle! Over the plain of Upsala it threw its light from -cathedral and citadel. In Vasterås and Linköping the tempest sweeps the -ashes around the blackened wastes--and now there’s burning in all -quarters of the kingdom. Forgive my freedom, gracious mistress, but to -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. That’s my -old maxim that saved my life once down there by the Dnieper River.” - -“Saved your life? You were then a surgeon in your regiment. You must sit -down by me here and tell the story. The time is so long.” - -Blomberg spoke resignedly and a trifle like a priest, from time to time -lifting his dexter and middle fingers with the other fingers closed. - -Both cast a glance at the corpse, which slept in its coffin with -gracefully disposed locks, and wax and rouge in the deepest of the -wrinkles. Thereupon they sat themselves on a bench in the window nook -outside the hanging broad-cloth, and Blomberg began whispering his -narrative. - - * * * * * - -I was lying unconscious in the marshy wilderness at Poltava. I had -stumped along on my wooden leg and got a blow from a horse’s hoof, and -when I came to, it was night. I felt a cold, strange hand fumble under -my coat and pull at the buttons. An abomination before the Lord are the -devices of the wicked, I thought; but gentle words are pure. Without -becoming frightened, I seized the corpse-plunderer very silently by the -breast, and by his stammered words of terror I perceived that he was one -of the Zaporogeans who had made an alliance with the Swedes and -followed the army. As surgeon I had tended many of these men, as well as -captured Poles and Muscovites, and could make myself tolerably -understood in their various languages. - -“Many devices are in the heart of man,” said I meekly; “but the counsel -of the Lord, that shall abide. No evil can befall the righteous, but the -ungodly shall be filled with misfortunes.” - -“Forgive me, pious sir,” whispered the Zaporogean. “The Swedish czar has -left us poor Zaporogeans to our fate, and the Muscovite czar, whom we -faithlessly deserted, is coming to maim and slay us. I only wanted to -get me a Swedish coat so that in a moment of need I could give myself -out as one of you. Do not be angry, godly sir!” - -To see if he had any knife, I searched out flint and steel while he was -speaking and made a fire with dry thistles and twigs which lay at my -feet. I noted then that I had before me a little frightened old man with -a sly face and two empty hands. He raised himself as vehemently as a -hungry animal that has found its prey and bent in the light over a -Swedish ensign who lay dead in the grass. Thinking that a dead man might -willingly grant a helpless ally his coat, I did nothing to hinder the -Zaporogean; but as he drew the coat from the fallen one, a letter -slipped from the pocket. I saw by the address that Falkenburg was the -name of the boy who had bled to death. He lay now as fairly and -peacefully stretched out as if he had slept in the meadow by the house -where he was born. The letter was from his sister, and I had only time -to spell out the words which from that hour became my favorite maxim: To -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. At that -moment the Zaporogean put out my light. - -“With your wise consent, sir,” he whispered, “do not draw the -corpse-plunderers hither.” - -I paid little attention to his talk, but repeated time after time: “To -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. That is a -big saying my old fellow, and you shall see that I get along further -with it than you do with your disguise.” - -“We may try it,” answered the Zaporogean, “but we must promise this, -that the one of us who survives the other shall offer a prayer for the -other’s soul.” - -“That is agreed,” I said, and gave him my hand, for it seemed as if -through misfortune I had found in this shaggy-bearded barbarian a friend -and a brother. - -He helped me up and at daybreak we fell into the long line of stragglers -and wounded that silently tottered into Poltava to give themselves up -as prisoners. They willingly tried to conceal the Zaporogean among the -rest. His big boots with their flaps reached up to his hips and his -coat-tails hung down to his spurs. As soon as a Cossack looked at him, -he turned to one of us and cried with raised voice the only Swedish -words he had come to learn in the campaign: “I Shwede, Devil-damn!” - -My Zaporogean and I with eight of my comrades were assigned quarters in -the upper story of a big stone house. As we two had come up there first, -we picked out for ourselves a little separate cubby-hole with a window -on an alley. There was nothing else there than a little straw to lie on, -but I had in my coat a tin flute, which I had from a fallen Kalmuck at -Starodub, and on which I had taught myself to play a few pretty psalms. -With that I shortened the time, and soon we noticed that, as often as I -played, a young woman came to the window on the other side of the alley. -Possibly for that reason I played more than I should have otherwise -cared to and I know not rightly whether she was fairer and more seemly -than all other women, or whether long sojourn among men had made my eye -less accustomed, but I had great joy in beholding her. However, I never -looked at her when she turned her face toward our window, because I have -always been bashful before women-folk and have never rightly understood -how to conduct myself in that which pertains to them. Never, too, have I -sought fellowship with men who go with their heads full of wenches and -do nothing but hanker after gallant intrigues. “Let everyone keep his -vessel in holiness,” Paul saith, “and not in the lust of desire as do -the heathen, which know not God; also let no one in this matter dishonor -and wrong his brother, because the Lord is a powerful avenger in all -such things.” - -I recognized, however, that a man should at all times bear himself -courteously and fittingly, and as one arm of my coat was in tatters, I -always turned that side inward when I played. - -She usually sat with arms crossed above the window-sill, and her hands -were round and white, though large. She had a scarlet-colored bodice -with silver buttons and many chains. An old witch who often stood -beneath her window with a wheel-barrow and sold bread covered with jam -called her Feodosova. - -When it grew dusk, she lighted a lamp, and since neither she nor we had -any shutters, we could follow her with our glance when she blew on the -fire, but I found it more proper that we should turn away and I -therefore set myself with my Zaporogean on the straw in the corner. - -Besides the prayer-book, I had a few torn-out leaves of Müller’s -“Sermons,” and I read and translated many passages for my Zaporogean. -But when I noticed that he did not listen, I gave it over for more -worldly objects and asked him of our neighbor on the other side of the -alley. He said that she was not unmarried, because maidens in that -country always wore a long plait tied with ribbons and a little red tuft -of silk. More likely she was a widow because her hair hung loose as a -token of sorrow. - -When it became wholly dark and we lay down on the straw, I discovered -that the Zaporogean had stolen my silver snuff-spoon, but after I had -taken it back and reproached him for his fault, we slept beside each -other as friends. - -I was almost bashful, when it was morning again, at feeling myself -happier than for a long time, but as soon as I had held prayers with the -Zaporogean and had washed and arranged myself sufficiently, I went to -the window and played one of my most beautiful psalms. - -Feodosova was already sitting in the sunlight. To show her how different -the Swedes were from her fellow-countrymen I instructed my Zaporogean to -clean our room, and after a couple of hours the white-washed walls were -shining white and free from cobwebs. All this helped me to drive away my -thoughts, but as soon as I set myself again at rest, my torments of -conscience awakened, that I could be happy in such misery. In the hall -outside, my comrades sat on floor and benches, sighing heavily and -whispering about their dear ones at home. In due turn two of us every -day were allowed to go out into the open air to the ramparts, but when I -laid myself on my straw in the evening, I was ashamed to pray God that -the lot next morning should fall upon me. I knew very well within myself -that, if I longed for an hour’s freedom, it was only to invent an errand -to the house opposite. And yet I felt that, if the lot really fell upon -me without my prayer, I should still never venture to go up there. - -When I came to the window in the morning, Feodosova lay sleeping in her -clothes on the floor with a cushion under her neck. It was still early -and cool, and I did not have the heart to set the tin flute to my mouth. -But as I stood there and waited, she may have apprehended in her sleep -that I was gazing at her, for she looked up and laughed and stretched -her arms out, and all that so suddenly that I did not manage to draw -back unnoticed. My brow became hot, I laid aside my flute, and behaved -myself in every way so clumsily and unskilfully that I never was so -displeased with myself. I pulled and straightened my belt, took my flute -again from the window, inspected it, and pretended I was blowing dust -out of it. When finally the Russian subaltern who had charge over us -unfortunates informed my Zaporogean that he was one of the two who were -to go out into the city that day, I drew the Zaporogean aside into a -corner and enjoined him with many words to pick a bunch of yellow -stellaria such as I had seen around the burned houses by the ramparts. -At a suitable opportunity we should then give them to Feodosova I said. -She appeared to be a good and worthy woman, who perchance in return -might give us poor fellows some fruit or nuts, I said. The miserable -bite of bread that the czar allowed us daily did not even quiet our -worst hunger, I said. - -He was afraid to show himself out in the sunlight, but neither did he -dare to arouse mistrust by staying in, and therefore he obeyed and went. - -Scarcely was he out of the door, though, when I began to regret that I -had not held him back, because now in solitude my embarrassment grew -much greater. I sat down on the bed in the corner, where I was -invisible, and stayed there obstinately. - -Still the time was long, for thoughts were many. After a while I heard -the Zaporogean’s voice. Without reflecting, I went to the window and saw -him standing by Feodosova with a great, splendid bouquet of stellaria, -which reminded one of irises. First she didn’t want to take them but -answered that they were impure, since they had been given by a heathen. -He pretended that he understood nothing and that he only knew a few -words of her speech but with winkings and gestures and nods he made it -intelligible that I had sent the flowers, and then at last she took -them. - -Beside myself with bashfulness, I went back into the corner, and when -the Zaporogean returned, I seized him behind the shoulders, shook him, -and stood him against the wall. - -But scarcely had I let go my grasp when he with his thoughtless vivacity -stood at the window again, made signs with his hands and threw kisses on -all five of his fingers. Then I came forward, pushed him aside, and -bowed. Feodosova sat picking the flowers apart, pulling off the leaves -and letting them fall one by one to the ground. Vehemence helped me so -that I took courage and began to speak, while I was still considering -how it would be most polite to begin a conversation. - -“The lady will not take amiss my comrade’s pranks and unseemly -gestures,” I stammered. - -She plucked still more eagerly at the flowers and answered after a time, -“My husband, when he was alive, often used to say that from heel to head -such well-made soldiers as the Swedes were not to be found. He had seen -Swedish prisoners undressed and whipped by women and had seen that the -women at the last were so moved because of their beauty, that they stuck -the rods under their arms and sobbed themselves, instead of those they -tormented. Therefore have I become very curious these days.... And the -love songs which you play sound so wonderful!” - -Her speech pleased me not altogether, and I found it little seemly to -answer in the same spirit by praising her figure and white arms. Instead -I took my flute and played my favorite psalm: “E’en from the bottom of -my heart I call Thee in my need.” - -After that we conversed of many things, and though my store of words was -small, we soon understood each other so well that never did any day seem -to me shorter. - -At mid-day, after she had clattered about with jugs and plates and swung -a palm-leaf fan over the embers in the fire-place, she lifted down from -the ceiling a landing-net with which formerly her husband had caught -small fish in the river. Into the net she put a pan with steaming -cabbage and a wooden flask with kvass, and the net was so long that she -could hand us the meal across the street. When I drank to her, she -nodded and smiled and said that she did not regard it as wrong to feel -pity for captured heathens. Toward evening she moved her spinning-wheel -to the window, and we kept on conversing when it was dusk. I no longer -felt it as a sin to be happy in the midst of the sorrow that surrounded -us, because my intent was innocent and pure. Just as I had seen the -stellaria shining over heaps of ashes among the burned and desolate -houses by the ramparts as a song of praise to God’s goodness, so seemed -to me now the joy of my heart. - -When it became night and I had held prayer with my Zaporogean and yet -once more reproached him that he had stolen my snuff-spoon, the -garrulous man began to talk to me in an undertone and say: “I see -clearly, little father, that you are in love with Feodosova, and in -truth she is a good and pure woman whom you may take to wife. That you -never would enter upon any love-dealing of another sort I have -understood from the first.” - -“Such stuff!” answered I, “such stuff!” - -“Truth is in the long run less dangerous than lying, you used to say.” - -When he struck me with my own maxim-staff, I became confounded, and he -proceeded. - -“The czar has promised good employment and wages to everyone of you -Swedes who will become his subject and be converted to the true faith.” - -“You are out of your wits. But if I could get off and take her home with -me on horseback, I would do it.” - -Next morning, when I had played my psalm, I learned that today it was my -turn to go out under the open heavens. - -I became warm and restless. I combed and fixed myself up even more -carefully than at other times, and changed to the Zaporogean’s ensign -coat so as not to wear my torn one. Meanwhile I deliberated with myself. -Should I go up to her? What should I say then? Perhaps, though, that -would be the only time in my life when I could get to speak with her, -and how should I not repent thereafter even to my gray old age, if out -of awkwardness I had missed that one chance! My heart beat more -violently than at any affair with the enemy, when I stood with my -bandages among the bullets and the fallen. I stuck the flute into my -pocket and went out. - -When I came down on the street she sat at the window without seeing me. -I would not go to her without first asking leave, and I did not know -rightly how I should conduct myself. Pondering, I took a couple of steps -forward. - -Then she heard me and looked out. - -I lifted my hand to my hat, but with a long ringing burst of laughter -she sprang up and cried, “Haha! Look, look, he has a wooden leg!” - -I stood with my hand raised, and stared and stared, and I had neither -thought nor feeling. It was as if my heart had swelled out and filled -all my breast, so that it was near to bursting. I believe I stammered -something. I only remember that I did not know whither I should turn, -that I heard her still laughing, that everything in the world was -indifferent to me, that freedom would have frightened me as much as my -captivity and my wretchedness, that of a sudden I had become a broken -man. - -I remember vaguely a long and steep lane without stone pavement, where I -was accosted by other Swedish prisoners. Perhaps, even, I answered them, -asked after their health, and took some puffs out of the tobacco pipes -they lent me. - -I believe I disturbed myself over the fact that it was so long till -night, so that I had to return the same way and pass her window in -brightest daylight. By every means I prolonged the time, speaking now to -one man, now to another, but shortly the Russian dragoons came and -ordered me to turn about to my place. - -As I went up the lane, I persuaded myself that I should not betray -myself, but should salute in a quite friendly manner before the window. -Was it her fault that so many of the Swedish soldiers of whom she had -had such fine dreams were now pitiful cripples on wooden legs? - -“Hurry up there!” thundered the dragoons, and I hastened my steps so -that the thumping of my wooden leg echoed between the walls of the -houses. - -“Dear Heavenly Father,” I muttered, “faithfully have I served my earthly -master. Is this the reward Thou givest me, that Thou makest of me in my -youth a defenseless captive, at whom women laugh? Yes, this is Thy -recompense, and Thou wilt abase me into yet deeper humiliation, that -thereby I may at length become worthy of the crown of blessedness.” - -When I came under the window and carried my hand to my hat, I saw that -Feodosova was away. That gave me no longer any relief. I stumbled up to -my prison and at every step heard the thumping of my wooden leg. - -“I have talked with Feodosova,” whispered the Zaporogean. - -I gave him no reply. My happiness, my flower, that had grown up over the -heaps of ashes, lay consumed; and if it had again shone out, I myself, -in alarm, would have trampled it to death with my wooden leg. What -signified to me the Zaporogean’s whisperings? - -“Ah!” he went on, “when you were gone, I reproached Feodosova and said -to her that you were fonder of her than she realized, and that, if you -were not a stranger and a heathen, you would ask her to be your wife.” - -In silence I clenched my hands and bit my lips together to lock up my -vexation and embarrassment, and I thanked God that he abased me every -moment more deeply in shame and ridicule before men. - -I opened the door to the outer hall and began to talk to the other -prisoners: - -“As wild asses in the desert we go painfully to seek our food. On a -field that we do not own we must go as husbandmen, and harvest in the -vineyard of the ungodly. We lie naked the whole night from lack of -garments, and are without covering against the cold. We are overwhelmed -by the deluge from the mountains, and from lack of shelter we embrace -the cliffs. But we beg Thee not for mitigation Almighty God. We pray -only: Lead us, be nigh unto us! Behold, Thou hast turned away Thy -countenance from our people and stuck thorns in our shoes, that we may -become Thy servants and Thy children. In the mould of the battle-field -our brothers sleep, and a fairer song of victory than that of the -conquerors by the sword Thou dost offer to Thy chosen ones.” - -“Yea, Lord lead us, be nigh unto us!” echoed all the prisoners -murmuringly. - -Then out of the darkest corner rose a lonely, trembling voice, which -cried: “Oh, that I were as in former months, as in the days when God -protected me, when His lamp shone upon my head, when with His light I -went into the darkness! As I was in my autumn days, when God’s -friendship was over my tent, while yet the Almighty was with me, and my -children were about me! Thus my heart cries out with Job, but I hear it -no longer and I stammer forth no longer: Take away my trials! With the -ear I have heard tell of Thee, O God, but now hath mine eye beheld -Thee.” - -“Quiet, quiet!” whispered the Zaporogean, taking hold of me, and his -hands were cold and trembling. “It can be no one else than the czar who -is coming below in the lane.” - -The lane had become filled with people, with beggars and boys and old -women and soldiers. In the middle of the throng the czar, tall and lean, -walked very calmly, without a guard. A swarm of hopping and shrieking -dwarfs were his only retinue. Now and then, turning, he embraced and -kissed the smallest dwarf on the forehead in a fatherly way. Here and -there he stood still before a house and was offered a glass of brandy, -which he jestingly emptied at a single gulp. It could be nobody but the -czar, because one saw directly that he alone ruled over both people and -city. He came so close under my window that I could have touched his -green cloth cap and the half-torn brass buttons on his brown coat. On -the skirt he had a great silver button with an artificial stone and on -his legs rough woolen stockings. His brown eyes gleamed and flashed, and -the small black mustaches stood straight up from his shining lips. - -When he caught sight of Feodosova, he became as if smitten with -madness. When she came down on the street and knelt with a cup, he -pinched her ear, then took her under the chin and lifted up her head so -that he could look her in the eyes. - -“Tell me, child,” he inquired, “where is there a comfortable room where -I can eat? May there be one at your house?” - -The czar had seldom with him on his excursions any master of ceremonies -or other courtier. He took along neither bed nor bed-clothes nor cooking -utensils; no, not even a cooking or eating vessel; but everything had to -be provided in a turn of the hand wherever it occurred to him to take -lodging. It was for this reason that there was now running and clatter -at all the gates and stairs. From this direction came a man with a pan, -from that another with an earthen platter, from yonder a third with a -ladle and drinking utensils. Up in Feodosova’s room the floor was strewn -deeply with straw. The czar helped with the work like a common servant, -and the chief direction was carried on by a hunchbacked dwarf, who was -called the Patriarch. The dwarf every once in a while put his thumb to -his nose and blew it in the air straight in front of the czar’s face, or -invented rascal tricks of which I cannot relate before a lady of -quality. - -Once when the czar turned with crossed arms to the window, he noticed me -and the Zaporogean, and nodded like a comrade. The Zaporogean threw -himself prostrate on the floor and stammered his “I Schwede. -Devil-damn!” But I pushed him aside with my foot and told him once for -all to be silent and get up, because no Swede conducted himself in that -fashion. To cover him as much as possible, I stepped in front of him and -took my position there. - -“Dat is nit übel,” said the czar, but at once fell back into his mother -speech and asked who I was. - -“Blomberg, surgeon with the Uppland regiment,” I answered. - -The czar scanned me with a narrowing gaze that was so penetrating I have -never seen a more all-discerning look. - -“Your regiment exists no longer,” he said, “and here you see -Rehnskiöld’s sword.” He lifted the sword with its scabbard from his belt -and threw it on the table so that the plates hopped. “But for certain -you are a rogue, for you wear a captain’s or ensign’s uniform.” - -I answered, “‘That is a hard saying,’ saith John the Evangelist. The -coat I borrowed, after my own fell in rags, and if that be ill done, I -will yet hope for grace, because this is my maxim: To tell the truth is -in the long run less dangerous than to lie.” - -“Good. If that is your motto, you shall take your servant with you and -come over here so that we may prove it.” - -The Zaporogean trembled and tottered as he followed behind me, but as -soon as we entered, the czar pointed me to a chair among the others at -the table as if I had been his equal and said: “Sit, Wooden-Leg!” - -He had Feodosova on his knee, without the least consideration of what -could be said about it, and round them stamped and whistled the dwarfs -and a crowd of Boyars who now began to collect. A dwarf who was called -Judas, because he carried a likeness of that arch-villain on the chain -around his neck seized a handful of shrimps from the nearest plate and -threw them to the ceiling, so that they fell in a rain over dishes and -people. When in that way he had made the others turn toward him, he -pointed at the czar with many grimaces and called cold-bloodedly to him: -“You amuse yourself, you Peter Alexievitch. Even outside of the city I -have heard tell of the pretty Feodosova of Poltava, I have; but you -always scrape together the best things for yourself, you little father.” - -“That you do,” chimed in the other dwarfs in a ring around the czar. -“You are an arch-thief, you Peter Alexievitch.” - -Sometimes the czar laughed or answered, sometimes he did not hear them, -but sat serious and meditative, and his eyes moved meanwhile like two -green-glinting insects in the sunlight. - -I called to mind how I had once seen the most blessed Charles the -Eleventh converse with Rudbeck, and how it then came over me that -Rudbeck, for all his bowings, amounted to far more than the king. Here -it was the other way about. Although the czar himself went around and -did the waiting and let himself be treated worse than a knave, I saw -only him--and Feodosova. I read his thoughts in the smallest things. I -recognized him in the forcibly curtailed caftans and shaven chins at the -city gate. - -There was a buzzing in my head, and I knelt humbly on the straw and -stammered: “Imperial Majesty! To tell the truth is in the long run less -dangerous than to lie, and the Lord said to Moses: ‘Thou shalt not hold -with the great ones in that which is evil.’ Therefore I beseech that I -may forego further eating. For behold I am soon done with the game, and -my gracious lord--who is both like and unlike Your Imperial Majesty--has -in the last year turned me to drinking filtered marsh water.” - -A twitching and trembling began in the czar’s right cheek near the eye. -“Yes, by Saint Andreas!” said he. “I am unlike my brother Charles, for -he hates women like a woman, and wine like a woman, and offers up his -people’s riches as a woman her husband’s, and abuses me like a woman; -but I respect him like a man. His health, Wooden Leg! Drink, drink!” - -The czar sprang forward, seized me by the hair, and held the goblet to -my mouth, so that the Astrakan ale foamed over my chin and collar. As we -drank the prescribed health, two soldiers entered in brownish-yellow -uniforms with blue collars and discharged their pistols, so that the hot -room, which was already filled with tobacco clouds and onion smell, was -now also enveloped in powder smoke. - -The czar sat down again at the table. Even in all that noise he wanted -to sit and think, but he never allowed anyone else to shirk the duty of -drinking and become serious like himself. He drew Feodosova afresh to -his knee. Poor, poor Feodosova! She sat there, a bit sunk together, with -arms hanging and mouth impotently half-open, as if she awaited cuff and -blow amid the caresses. Why had she not courage to pull the sword to her -from the table, press her wrist against the edge and save her honor, -before it was too late? Over and over she might have laughed at my -wooden leg and my disgrace, if with my life I could have preserved her -honor. Nor had I ever before been so near her and seen so clearly to -what a wondrous work she had been formed in the Heavenly Creator’s -hands. Poor, poor Feodosova, if you had but felt in your heart with -what a pure intent a friend regarded you in your humiliation and how he -prayed for your well-being! - -Hour after hour the banquet continued. Those of the Boyars and dwarfs -who were most completely overcome already lay relaxed in the straw and -vomited or made water, but the czar himself always rose up and leaned -out through the window. “Drink, Wooden Leg, drink!” he commanded, and -hunted me around the room with the glass, making the Boyars hold me till -I had emptied every drop. The twitching in his face became ever more -uncanny, and when we were finally together at the table again, he moved -three brimful earthen bowls in front of me and said: “Now, Wooden Leg, -you shall propose a health to be drunk all round and teach us to -understand its meaning with your maxim.” - -I raised myself again as well as I could. - -“Your health, czar!” I shouted, “for you are assuredly born to command.” - -“Why,” he asked, “should the soldiers present arms and salute me if any -other was worthier to command? Where is there anything more pitiful than -an incompetent ruler? The day I find my own son unworthy to inherit my -great, beloved realm, that day shall he die. Your first truth, Wooden -Leg, requires no bowl.” - -The pistols cracked, and all drank but the czar. - -Then I gathered the fragments of my understanding as a miser his coins, -for I believed that, if I could catch the czar in a gracious and mild -humour, I might perhaps save my Feodosova. - -“Well, then, Imperial Majesty,” I continued, therefore, lifting one of -the bowls on high “this is Astrakan ale, brewed of mead and brandy with -pepper and tobacco. It burns much before it delights, and when it -delights it puts one to sleep.” - -With that I threw the bowl to the ground so that it broke in a thousand -pieces. Then I lifted the next bowl. - -“This is Hungarian wine. ‘Drink no more only water,’ writes the Apostle -Paul to Timothy, ‘but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and -because thou art so often sick.’ So speaks a holy one to weakly men and -stay-at-homes. But go out on the battle-field amid frost and wailing and -tell me: To how many of the groaning would this bowl of sweetish wine -give relief from pain and a softer death?” - -Therewith I threw that bowl also to the ground so that it broke. Then I -lifted the third bowl. - -“This is brandy. It is despised by the fortunate and the rich, because -they thirst not after refreshment as the desert for coolness, but would -only gibe at the pleasure it gives. But brandy assumes power in the very -moment it swims over the tongue, like a despot in the moment he steps -across a threshold, and the bleeding and dying draw comfort from a few -drops.” - -“Right, right!” acclaimed the czar, and took the bowl and drank it, at -the same time that he handed me two gold-pieces, while the pistols -cracked. “You shall have a pass and a horse to go your way, and wherever -you come, you shall tell about Poltava.” - -Then I knelt yet again in the straw and stammered: “Imperial Majesty--in -my pettiness and weakness--beside you sits a--a pure and good woman.” - -“Haha!” screamed the dwarfs and Boyars and tottered to their feet. -“Haha! haha!” - -The czar got up and carried Feodosova toward me. - -“I understand. He who limps on a wooden leg may fall in love, too. Good. -I present her to you as she goes and stands, and you shall have a good -situation with me. I have promised every Swede who enters into my -service and is baptized in our faith that he shall become one of our -people.” - -Feodosova stood like a sleep-walker and stretched her hands toward me. -What did it matter that she had laughed at me. I should soon have -forgotten that and she would soon not have seen my wooden leg, for I -should have cared for her and worked for her and prayed with her and -made her home bright and tranquil. I should have lifted her up to my -bosom as a child and asked her if an honest and faithful heart could not -make another heart throb. Mayhap she already bore the answer on her -tongue, for slowly she beamed up and became flushed, and her whole face -became transfigured. Far away in a corner house on Priest Street in -Stockholm a lonely old woman sat with her sermon-book and listened and -wondered whether a letter would not be left for her through the door, -whether no disabled man would step in with a greeting from the remote -wilderness, whether I never should come or whether I lay already dead -and buried. I had prayed for her every night. I had thought of her in -the tumult in the midst of stretchers and wailing wounded. But at that -moment I thought of her no longer; I saw and heard nothing else but -Feodosova. And yet I was angry and strove against something heavy which -weighed upon my heart and which I did not understand, but was only -slowly and gradually able to make out. - -I bent to Feodosova to kiss her hand, but she whispered, “The czar’s -hand, the czar’s hand.” - -Then I stretched myself toward the czar and kissed his hand. - -“My faith,” I whispered equally softly, “and my royal lord I may not -desert.” - -The czar’s cheek still twitched, and the dwarfs in their terror pulled -forth the Zaporogean from his nook to make the czar laugh at his -ridiculous figure. But then the czar’s arms began to move convulsively. -His face grew gray and he trembled in one of his dreaded fits. He went -toward the Zaporogean and struck him in the face with clenched fist so -that the blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and with such a hoarse -and altered voice that it could no longer be recognized he hissed: “I -have seen through you, liar, from the moment you came into the room. You -are a Zaporogean, a renegade, who have hidden yourself in Swedish -clothes.--To the wheel with him, to the wheel!” - -All, even the drunken men, began to tremble and feel toward the doors, -and in his terror one of the Boyars whispered: “Bring forward the woman! -Shove her forward! As soon as he gets to see pretty faces and woman’s -limbs, he grows quiet.” - -They seized her, her bodice was cut over the bosom, and, softly wailing, -she was supported forward step by step to the czar. - -It grew black around me, and I staggered backward out of the room. I -remained standing on the street under the stars and I heard the clamor -grow muffled and the dwarfs began to sing. - -Then I clenched my hands and remembered a promise on the field of -battle to pray for a poor sinner’s soul. But the more fervently I spoke -with my God, the further went my thoughts, and my invocation became a -prayer for a yet greater sinner who with his last faithful followers -wandered about on the desolate steppes. - - * * * * * - -The surgeon ceased with an anxious glance toward the coffin, and the -lady-in-waiting followed him forward to the catafalque. - -“Amen!” said she, and the two again spread the covering over the -wax-pale Queen Dowager, Charles’ mother. - - - - -STORIES BY -PER HALLSTRÖM - - - - -THE FALCON - - -Renaud’s eyes took the color of the day: dim, lustreless and dark at -twilight; gleaming molten gold when the sunshine flitted across his hair -and outstretched neck, so that they sparkled with widening and -contracting flames as they looked out over the fields toward the blue -haze against the slanting red of the dawn, or toward the rustling of -hares in the thicket, of frightened birds and swaying branches. - -Indolent and proud was his glance, the reflection of gilded steel on a -sheathed dagger, of the luck-piece on the brown bosom of a gipsy girl; -indolent and proud, too, the rhythmic motion of his naked feet, and the -line of his arms as he laid himself down at full-length in the passion -of the moment with his hands under his head and heard the horns -jubilating in the distance and the earth quivering with the thud of the -huntsmen. - -But when it grew quiet--a quiet wonderfully intense, as if spread out in -a domed vault of restless waiting, with two black huddled specks that -rose in circles at the top--then Renaud raised his glance, as he leaned -on his elbow, his eyes wide and lips half-parted. And when the specks -came together and fell,--one subsiding in broken curves, the other -dropping always above it in a line straight as a spear,--and the blue -welkin rang again with voices, and the riders galloped forward to see -the falcon and the heron finish their fight, the boy ran up close. He -screamed with delight when the falcon, still trembling with ardor, was -lifted on his master’s glove, its wings drooped and its eyes blinded -under the hood. - -He often followed along to Sir Enguerrand’s stable yard and saw the -falconers bathe the yellow feet of the hunting birds in metal bowls, -drying them carefully as if they were princes’ children each with its -crested cloth, and caressing their necks till they shut their naked -eyelids and dreamed against the shoulders of the attendants. - -Renaud would have given ten years of his life or one of his ten fingers -to be allowed to hold them like that, the proud, silent creatures; but -they might not be touched by everybody, they were noble. They had each -its glove ornamented according to its rank, each its hood with -embroidered pattern, each its special food, and people talked to them in -a strange, archaic speech with elaborate etiquette. Renaud almost -blushed when he met their great eyes filled with languid repose, -especially before Sir Enguerrand’s white Iceland falcon, which had a -crimson hood, a gold and crimson glove, a jess with silver bells on its -foot, and a glance full of proud disdain and the yellow sunlight of -heroic story. - -The young birds, which still quivered with rage over their captivity and -dreamed under the night of their hoods of hunting free and of lifting -their necks to scream, birds that were being tamed by hunger and -darkness,--them he might sometimes lift out of their cages. He might -show them the light and see them first totter with blinded eyes and -claws clasped about his wrist, then grow more calm, as their pupils -contracted, almost gentle indeed when he gave them a bit of warm, bloody -meat. But them he cared not for, them he soon wearied of, and he quickly -learned to perceive that none had the Iceland falcon’s breast-muscles of -steel, its long wide wings and quiescent strength. But it was the most -delightful thing possible to see how the young falcons were trained to -hunt according to the wise rules of King Modus, when they had reached -the time that their memory of freedom wore off and they sat, heavy and -blind, dozing on their perches. - -The first thing was to accustom them again to fly, but with a cord on -the foot, till they had learned at the falconer’s cry to swoop down upon -the red cloth dummy fitted with a pair of large heron wings, which he -swung in the air on a string in oddly deliberate circles--that was fine -to see!--and to which he had tied the breast of a quail or a piece of -chicken. This the falcons afterwards devoured, the rage at their -confinement being dulled by thirst of blood. Soon they grew so -accustomed to this procedure that they never strained at their cord, no -gleam of wildness remained in their eyes; they at once looked about -calmly for the decoy and only rose according to rule, ascending in a -curve at the proper time to swoop down indolently and playfully in a -wide circle; and when the cord was taken off, they hardly seemed to -notice. - -The time had now come to train them for hunting, each for its particular -quarry; the smaller for quail, partridge or sparrows, the larger for -hare or heron or kites, the ignoble kites which had the nature of crows -along with their powerful talons and beaks and which could never be -tamed to eat at a knightly board. - -First they were given decoys like their quarry, with a piece of their -favorite food inside for them to search out; then disabled birds, which -they could strike their claws into at once and tear to pieces in -half-roused fury; and so on to prey that was harder to catch, until they -learned to enjoy the intoxication of the hunt. Their old wild instincts -awoke once more in full strength, but controlled and ennobled, so that -they calmly dropped their dying quarry after a short mad drink of blood -and ate only from their ornamented dishes, without greediness, as is -fitting for the birds of a knight. - -Their eyes grew indolent and proud and took on the color of the day, -black when their hood was lifted off, brightening to molten gold when -they rose in the sunlight, burning with flakes of fire above the shriek -of their prey. They bent caressingly toward Renaud’s brown hand, but -none of them was like the Iceland falcon with the weary, kinglike -disdain in its glance, and he grew disgusted with them all, pressed -their beaks harshly shut when they tried to play, and threw them from -him carelessly, and mimicked the shriek of the kite so that they -trembled with disquietude and left the aviary with men’s curses behind -them and the wide brown plain before them. - -Sir Enguerrand rode out hunting every day, nearly always wearing his -red, gold-embroidered glove, for only the bell-tinkling flight of the -Iceland falcon could awaken song within him and cause him to breathe the -sharp, volatile morning air with delight as if he drank living wine. One -day the falcon had struck a heron, bleeding, into a swamp behind a -thicket, where the huntsman found it and cracked its neck; but the -falcon itself was gone, either lured after a new quarry or recoiling -from the brown water or capriciously letting itself be lifted and -carried along by the wind. In vain they searched, in vain they called it -by the prettiest names, in vain they made the notes of the horn rebound -from every hill. Sir Enguerrand smote the mouth of the head falconer -bloody with his red glove and rode straight home across the tussocks of -the swamp with his lips shut more sharply and his eyelids sunk over the -listless pupils more gloomily than ever. The falcon they did not find. - -But Renaud found it, its jess caught in a wild rose bush, awaiting death -by starvation with its grip fast on a branch, one wing drooping, the -other lifted defiantly, its narrow head stretched threateningly forward -with the eyes fixed and beak sharp--a splendid sight it was among the -blood-red berries. Renaud’s hand trembled with eagerness as he loosed -the jess from the thorns, as the bells tinkled around his fingers and -the ring with Sir Enguerrand’s crest, and he cried aloud with joy when -the sharp claws cut into his sinewy arm and he felt that it was his, the -falcon of broadest breast and longest wings and proudest eyes of burning -gold. - -It was the more his in that he never would be able to show it to anyone, -for he knew that strict laws protected the sport of the nobles. In the -woods he would have to build a cage for it, early in the morning he -would steal thither before the bird had shaken off its chill, they -would go together across the open with searching looks directed at the -whitish heavens, they would grow fond of each other as they let the -sunlight rise and fall over their heads and the wind carry their silent -thoughts along, and the falcon would never miss its red glove or the -constraint of its pearl-sewn hood. He tied it again and ran down to the -pond, returning shortly with a duck which he had killed with a stone. -The falcon took it, and Renaud’s brain grew numb with intoxication, for -that was a sign that it did not despise him, that it was willing to be -his. - -It became his; it bent its head forward, listening, with tranquil -wide-open eyes when the frosty branches cracked under his step in the -stillness of morning; it hopped lightly down from its cage and stretched -out toward his hand, beating its wings as for flight, but it did not -fly--that was only a reminder--and therewith they hurried out to the -softly glowing expanse of the moor. - -Their eyes glanced searchingly toward the dark-red welkin. Black lay the -hills and thinning thickets, and the trees slept, their boughs heavy -with silent birds. But the heavens grew brighter, flaming with gold and -red and the lines of the plain turned to blue, and the owl sped close to -the ground, seeking its covert, and the day birds stretched their wings -and chirped softly because of the cold, and dark their flight cut -through the gleaming air. But Renaud and his falcon went quickly on, for -these were sparrows and thrushes, no prey fit for them. Down toward the -marshes sounded already the drawling cry of the herons and wide-circling -beat of their long wings, yonder was the quarry they sought. Then the -falcon was cast with breast already expanded and wings prepared to beat, -and Renaud saw it gilded by the sun as he stood with blinded eyes and -dizzy head while the bird crouched against the deep blue, and heard how -the clang of its bells mocked the shout of the herons. - -They whirred like wheels in their terror; now they tended to shoot down -to the shore and hide their long necks and stupid frightened heads with -backward-pointing tufts under the dark wooded banks, now they tried in -wavering uncertainty to rise up in a spiral, thrusting in their broad -wings to attain higher than the enemy could follow, and they swerved -like reeds in the terror of their pale hearts. - -But the falcon singled out at the start one of the strongest, one of -those that flew immediately aloft, because it loved to prove its -strength and to feel sharp, light air under its wings, and it rose as -fast and straight as if circling around a sunbeam. Soon it was -uppermost; smaller than a sparrow it looked, but something in the poise -of the wings, in the gathered strength of the body, made one divine the -sparkling savagery of its eye, its outspread talons. Of a sudden it -fell, heavy as steel, on the defenseless upturned neck of the quarry, -and they dropped like a single stone, hardly once eddying aside by a -wing’s breadth. Then Renaud ran and swam and waded so as to arrive -before the heron, which had been stunned by the stroke, could gather -itself together and in the wildness of its desperation make use of its -pointed bill. The falcon gave it the death blow sharply and swiftly, -turning its great eyes, already tranquil, on its master, for it did not -care to soil its feathers with blood, and waiting to have the warm heart -given to it. - -Afterwards it did not fly any more that day; when Renaud cast it and ran -ahead with a shout, it only took a couple of wingstrokes and lighted -again on the lad’s shoulder close to his laughing face with proud -composure. It seemed to despise all play and Renaud soon made an end, -his expression taking on the far-gazing seriousness of the falcon. He -grew more fond of it than he had ever been of anything; it seemed to him -that it was his own soul, his longing, with its broad wings and its -glance confident of victory. But there was suffering in his love, the -dismal premonition of a misfortune. Sometimes he was afraid that the -bird would fly away from him in a fit of indifference; would vanish in -a mocking sound of bells, and that would be his death, such an empty -existence. Or it seemed to him that the falcon was honor, gleaming with -sunlight against the blue, which rested itself on his shoulder for new -exploits; and in the midst of his joy he was oppressed with his own -insignificance, so that he hardly dared to look at it. There was grief -at his heart that the bird would never share his delight, that its -glance would never melt warmly into his, and he fled to the realm of -dreams. - -He laid himself down in the midst of the moor with the red heather under -his head, and the clouds glided past like human destiny, heavy and -light, gathered within a firm outline or scattered on high, with the -winds’ invisible hand ever at their shoulder, while the bushes bent -their rustling golden branches and Renaud told stories to the falcon. - -King Arthur was come again, once more from out the British sea was -handed to him his sword Excalibur, blue as the chill nightly heavens; -his twelve knights lifted their heavy heads from the stone table and -shook off their sleep, the earth resounded with their tread. Gareth was -there, the prince’s son who put on the attire of a scullery boy and -turned Lynette’s ringing scorn into love. Renaud was there, too, was of -noble birth, his horse danced beneath him, and the falcon which now -slept with sunken head sat high on his hand and sought his glance with -eyes that gleamed with joy and the yellow sunlight of heroic story. - -But the clouds glided past like human destiny, were driven dark, one -over another into a gigantic vault, from the apertures of which fell -sunbeams pale and sharp as spears, and the falcon dreamed dismal dreams -of impotent wrath and waked with a shriek. - -Before long some roving lads chanced to see Sir Enguerrand’s falcon on -Renaud’s hand, and the knight’s men seized him and bore him to the -castle. His heart froze within him when they took away the falcon, -motionless and proud as ever, without a turn of its bended neck or a -look from its cold, calm eyes. They took it to its master, but he had -not a single caress for the missing favorite that had let itself be -touched by ignoble hands. Sir Enguerrand looked down at Renaud in -silence and more and more clearly in his thoughts took form the memory -of an old hunting law from the time when the nobleman’s foot pressed, -steel shod, on the neck of the common people, and his enjoyments -fluttered unassailable around his shoulders. And Sir Enguerrand’s -eyebrows contracted about the certainty that the old law had never been -repealed. The law commanded that he who stole a falcon with a knight’s -crest on its jess should pay twelve sols of silver or six ounces of -flesh from his ribs under the beak of a hungry bird of prey. - -Sir Enguerrand knew of Renaud’s poverty and, looking at his naked brown -breast, extended his hand and touched it with an experimental, unfeeling -gesture. He then sent a message to the neighboring castle which reared -its pointed roof above the woods, and invited the seneschal and his two -daughters to be his guests three days later and see some falcons fly, -after they by their presence had heightened the solemnity of punishing a -thief--and they were to come before daybreak. - -Renaud’s eyes had widened from the darkness of the prison; they were -black and motionless, and the gleaming pupils contracted but slowly to -mirror the thin-worn clouds and rising sun of the east. Behind Sir -Enguerrand was borne the Iceland falcon, its talons fiercely clasped in -the glove, with the hood over its wakeful and famished glances that had -not seen food for three days. - -But further behind curved a line of color that flamed and burned: six -bright horses, almost blue in the gloaming, were led by pages at a run, -with cloths of red velvet on their bending necks. Red was the wagon -which they drew, and within it gold shone heavy on the tender bosoms and -slender arms of the seneschal’s daughters. Six damsels rode after it -with hair blonde as grain, their pointed feet playing beneath the hem -of their kirtles; six huntsmen blew calls which seemed to dance and -swing like wheels from the mouths of the crooked horns. The contours of -the plain danced with them and shot past one another in wine-colored -mist, while the clouds above had glittering borders like the wings of -butterflies. - -The party formed into a semi-circle, plume by plume, shoulder by -shoulder, around a bush where the captive was tied. The horsecloths -flapped in the wind; the red taking on depth in the shadow, heavy as -hopeless yearning; the red burning in the light, gay as the clamor of -victory. The maidens’ delicate necks leaned forward out of the wagon, -and their conical hoods flowed into one with the descending line of -their shoulders. They were like herons, thought Renaud, and he almost -expected to hear them add a shrill shriek, when the notes of the horns -fell far away like hurled stones, and all became silent. But when he saw -them more plainly with their thin, straight lips and strange, dreaming -eyes, which were always leveled in a chill ecstasy on something -infinitely distant, and their white, indolent hands in their laps, and -the long folds of their garments--they seemed to him wondrously -beautiful, like the most gorgeous saints’ pictures with a dimming glow -of wax tapers at their feet, and it pained him that they should see him -bound. He let his gaze leap further, past the damsels--shy, jaunty birds -that he wanted to frighten with a whistle--past the red faces and -inquisitively gaping mouths of the grooms, past the brown plain, where -he had run himself tired and dreamed himself tired. - -He knew what doom awaited him, but when the Iceland falcon was borne -forward and he realized it was this which was to exact the penalty, he -laughed in his joy, and his heart throbbed with pride, as when he -possessed the bird and the long sunny days and the plain with the -listening winds and the swaying trees of autumn yellow. - -When the falcon beheld the light and turned to look around, it gathered -its strength for flight, expecting to be swung on the arm of the bearer, -while its glances rapidly sought its prey in the air; these glances were -sharp and fierce with hunger, flaming as with sparks, and they had no -memory in their depths, they recognized no one. But Renaud’s eyes were -fixed in anxious searching on those of the bird and were filled with -tears of sorrow at not meeting them. They should have mirrored his -life’s bold longing, his contempt, and his dreams on the red heather, -but they only waited greedily for their prey, grimly and coldly as the -human spirit of curiosity or jesting on the thin lips of Sir Enguerrand. -He felt his sorrow smart more bitterly than before and turned aside his -head to recover himself, his eyelids closed and his thoughts fluttering. - -He lay thus while the herald proclaimed the law--“twelve sols of -silver--six ounces of flesh over the heart--thus does Sir Enguerrand -safeguard the pastime of the nobles.” He did not look up when his skin -was cut so that the scent of blood should attract the falcon, and when -it sank its beak in his breast he gave no cry, merely trembled, so that -the bird’s eyes flamed up in rage and its wings were spread out as if to -beat. - -The seneschal’s daughters leaned their heads forward with a gleam of -interest in their strange dreaming eyes, but they did not raise their -hands from their laps, and their garments lay as before in tranquil -folds. The horses snorted at the smell of blood and stamped on the -frosty ground so that the red horsecloths flapped against the pallor of -the deepening blue, but Renaud lay silent, and the huntsmen stood -needlessly with expanded cheeks and horns to their mouths ready to drown -his cries. - -The first agony had clutched at his finest fibres, it seemed as if his -heart would come out with them; but afterwards he had grown numb almost -to the degree of pleasure, and while the blood flowed warmly from the -wound, and the pointed beak tore at his breast, Renaud dreamed himself -into the high blue heaven of his visions, until he understood -everything, death and honor, feeling how it burned and dazzled--the -yellow sunlight of heroic story. - -When Sir Enguerrand thought that the legal six ounces had been paid, he -gave his men a sign to blow, and the falcon was lifted off, sated with -blood, its eyes filled once more with tranquil pride, and the troop set -itself in motion more gaily even than before toward the sedge that -gleamed yellow in the distance. But Renaud could not be wakened, he had -dreamed himself to death, and they merely loosed him and let him lie -with the red heather under his head. - -The Iceland falcon, however, might never sit on its master’s hand, for -Sir Enguerrand did not care to drink of a cup where another’s lips had -pressed a kiss. - - - - -OUT OF THE DARK - - -We had sat in the studio since just after dinner--a couple of us had not -had any dinner either--and had talked, talked the whole time. - -We liked to talk, we had each and every one of us convictions and -opinions so firm that they impressed all the others; yes, even -ourselves, as we thought them over. Some had also a share of scepticism, -which at suitable moments was still more impressive; and a couple simply -kept quiet, which was almost the most impressive of all. To be really -deeply silent under wide puffs of cigar smoke, with a broad back against -the wall, and a large indolent glance out of wide-open eyes, which -during the climax of a speaker are turned away in good-natured -boredom--there is surely nothing in this realm of insolvent currency -that is sounder and gives one longer credit. - -But now we were nearly all talking about nearly everything except -politics and religion, for we had come past the years when one takes -such things earnestly and had not come to the years when one takes them -practically. Furthermore we had all read at least a couple of French -novels and so had got over all naïveté. But we touched on the subject of -hypnotism, very carefully with a general feeling that “there was -something in it.” Literature we gripped by the throat and said rough -things to her face, thrusting at her a word sharp as a needle, the word -“style.” That was what she lacked, style. It is a splendid word, this; -one can hide as much or as little as one will behind it, and as an -accusation it is almost instantly condemnatory. And so we talked about -pictures and busts and verse, of synthesis and analysis, of symbolism -and realism. We were all idealists and wrapped ourselves in the very -newest imperial robes with genuine spangles of brass. - -I don’t know exactly what we were driving at, the utterances were so -varied, but it came out clearly from the total that we had the deuce -knows what resources within us and were some day going to shake new -artistic tendencies out of our sleeves as easily as the trick man does -rabbits. Among some of us there was a general flair for the joy of -living, which was taken up most seriously and discussed--a bit -tediously--as a settled duty; how one should attain to it was left to -one’s own free discretion and it was assumed that he who went to sleep -over “Hans Alienus” had a satisfactory private reason for his conduct -and might take up gymnastics instead. - -But above everything we were zealous for “the new”; we held our fingers -on the pulse of the time with the solemnity of one who had universal -pills to sell, and were only afraid that others would get ahead of us in -guessing its complaints, or that these would change, since everything -progresses so fast now. - -Leo had then walked about a while, taken an oblique stand where he cut -diagonals across the room, and snapped his fingers at every æsthetic -dogma that had ever been devised--lively, indefatigable Leo, with his -sharp, somewhat affected painter’s glance from behind his glasses, and -his handsome, exalted countenance as of a patentee of ideas; Leo, who -talked the most of all and made the greatest effect. - -“Oh, the devil take it!” he had cried--his accent was half that of a -Parisian and half that of a mountaineer--“I’ve a pain in the head. I beg -leave to take the air a bit.” - -A moment later the door had slammed, and one might as well have tried to -catch the shadow of a bird as get hold of him. Also, no one else cared -to go, since it was snowing outside, and furthermore the day was so -gray, so strikingly empty and melancholy; the sort of day that stares at -one searchingly, haunting one like a question to which one can find no -answer. But Leo went out in all weathers, distance had no meaning to -him; he walked so fast that the cold could not bite through his thin -overcoat, and besides he swore himself warm at it, fighting it as if it -was a personal enemy and keeping his brain ready to note every beautiful -composition of lines that he passed. - -We knew that in a short while he might be back with us again after he -had hurried almost around the city, his headache gone and his buoyant -figure full of nervous energy, with fresh air in his clothes, his -glasses damp with cold, and a new theory of chiaroscuro in his head. We -therefore continued meanwhile to discuss along the same line as before. -The question rose of what the soul of a masterpiece consisted, to what -degree it should be manifest, and what share emotion should play. We -agreed that the artist’s feeling should be suppressed and only reveal -its immeasurable power in lines of form; otherwise it might destroy the -proper effect, and a tendency toward declamation could not be tolerated -under any condition. We said a number of very telling things, but -nevertheless felt a bit weary, either from the yellow lamplight or -because the air was a trifle close. - -Thereupon we heard Leo talking outside the front door. He had someone -with him, then. But whom, since we were all here? We turned -inquisitively in the direction of the door. It opened and over the -threshold stepped a little, dark figure with an ugly black hat on her -head, a summer hat whose brim was bent with age and cast a grotesque -shadow on the wall. She was a little girl, but what sort of girl? - -A strange girl, to be sure. Without hesitating a moment and before -anyone said anything, she came into the middle of the room, stood still -and looked about her with a reposeful movement of the head, her hands in -the pockets of her cape, her whole slender figure wonderfully composed -and firm, her motion somewhat like a figure in a dream, when one all the -while thinks: just so, that’s what she ought to do,--and yet feels with -mysterious uneasiness that every gesture has meaning, every step hides -the significance of coming events. - -While she stood there close to the hanging lamp, which threw a sharp, -dark shadow across her face, Leo explained hurriedly: “I met her by the -street-car line. She was walking and staring up at the snow just as you -see her with her head thrown back, walking slowly in all the cold. I saw -she was pretty with a well-formed head and wanted to find out who she -was. She wasn’t at all afraid to come along.” - -“Take off your hat,” he added eagerly; “I haven’t had a good look at you -yet.” - -She took off her hat, went toward the door, and laid it with her cape -on a chair, always with the same remarkable composure of movement. Then -she came forward to the light again, and now we could see her face -clearly. - -It was pale and narrow, but not small in proportion to her figure. The -chin was strong, projecting, especially as she held her head very high, -and her profile ran into it prettily from the rounded cranium. The nose -was straight, the lips straight and pale, the contour of the cheek -uncommonly severe and beautiful, the eyebrows a little sunk towards the -middle; and the eyes, partly shut against the light, looked steadily and -calmly out from under short, dark lashes. Her hair, too, was dark. It -was hard to tell the color of the eyes, which seemed to shift from the -suggestion of gray that violets have at twilight to the glimmer of the -darkest lake. Also their size must have been more variable than usual, -for according to the thought that burned in them they widened with -distended pupils, or closed around the steel blades of her glance;--the -muscles around them were indicated under the skin with uncommon -sharpness. - -Her figure was slim and childish, that of a city girl of fifteen; the -neck slender and supple. Every expression of the face was childish, too, -but her general appearance bore the stamp of firmness, of set -character, which comes from living life all the way through. - -She looked at us without letting her glance rest on anyone, looked -beyond us at the studies on the wall, pausing a little longer there, -till at last her gaze met the yellow dials of the clock in the church -tower as it stared in through the dark atmosphere framed by the window, -and her face caught at it in silent recognition. She sat down a little -to one side of us with her thin wrists crossed, her eyes still, -reposeful and dark. - -We did not know what we should say to her, she was so strange, so -different from everything else, as she sat there in her black garments. -It was as if the darkness, the unknown darkness outside which hid the -future, had taken form and pressed in amongst us, grave and enigmatical. - -“What’s your name?” someone asked. - -“Cecilia.” - -The name acted as a stimulus to our imagination. Cecilia, the organ song -that rises through the struggling light of the church vaulting, upward, -ever upward, strong as if it knew its goal, pure through the clarity of -space, freezing under the chill of the stars. But what a strange Cecilia -was this! What song did those eyes dream? - -“And you go around alone on such an evening, Cecilia! Were you going -anywhere?” - -“No, nowhere. I like to feel the snow falling on me.” - -“Were you born here, Cecilia?” - -“No, I was born out there--we lived there then.” She stared into the -distance, with raised eyebrows, and her tone gave us the impression that -“out there” was some great, dark teeming city on the other side of the -ocean, that it was deep with black memories, painfully intriguing to the -thought. “But I’ve been here a long while,” she concluded. - -She was so pretty with her reticent, dark manner; and her brief answers -waked a trembling echo within one, like the commonplace but meaningful -words in a dream. One could have sat there a long while asking questions -at random and could have listened long. - -But Leo grew impatient. He burned with zeal to get at his drawing, for -that was why he had taken up with the girl, and he was not to be put -off. He trusted in his art, did Leo; he was wont to talk of distilling -the quintessence out of a physiognomy--and now he wished to do it with -this subject. Just a few strokes and he would have it all in a -concentrated effect: the tranquillity of chin and eyebrows, the falling -line of the neck--the girl’s whole content should be noted there; but if -so there must be no distraction, no emotions and associated thoughts to -make one’s glance stray. - -“Let her alone with your prattle,” he said; “she’s prettier when she is -quiet.” And his eyes glanced with restless penetration, as if he was -afraid of losing something, while he and the others chose their places. - -She sat motionless; the whole proceeding appeared to be entirely -indifferent to her and she continued to hold her wrists crossed and to -gaze in front of her without seeing. - -But we who did not draw felt that the silence was oppressive. Was not -this unfair to her, was it not wrong to keep her there as a mere thing -to be measured? Was not every glint of her eye, every ring in her voice -worth more than all these lines? Was it not presumptuous to attempt to -translate the changing deeps of life into the language of the deaf and -dumb? What did she hide in the vault of her brain?--what was this girl -that sat there? - -The sketchers sweated and screwed up their eyes to make them sharp. They -held up their hands against the light--they seemed to have a harder task -than they had realized--and the girl slowly drooped her eyelashes. - -With that we broke in, “You’re tired perhaps, Cecilia? It’s getting on -toward bedtime.” - -“I never sleep at night,” she answered, “I haven’t done it as long as I -can remember.” - -“But what do you do then? Are you up and about?” - -“I think,” she said, and her eyes grew deep, as if night were there -before her--“I lie and think and gaze out into the dark. It’s so silent -then; sometimes I think that everybody is dead, and I, too. It _is_ so -calm, the dark is so weightless and soft and pure.” - -Her face had grown rigidly earnest; now it suddenly glowed with nervous -life, as if a thought had burst into flames within it. - -“But sometimes I can hear. There is someone walking in the street, far -away; the stones ring under his feet, and he is coming nearer. First I -think that there is only one, and I wonder who it can be. I dream that -it’s for me that he is coming, but I don’t get up; I want him to lift me -from just where I am, and take me to him without saying a word, and -carry me far away. Then my heart begins to throb, and there’s a ringing -in my ears, and I hear many steps, a whole flood of trampling and -dancing which fills the street so completely that I think the house will -fall over and be swept away, as when the river breaks up the dirty ice. - -“And I’m so glad that I burst out laughing and stuff the blanket into my -mouth so as not to be heard. Sometimes I hear myself sing, hear it -actually, and lie and stretch out my arms; and the dark is no longer -still, or black, it is like red whirlpools only. And I lie and wait, and -know that it’s for me they are coming, and that they’ll lift me on high -and rush forward. And I know how the sky will look: black, with great -white lights. And the air will be cold and clear; it will all be as if -it were at the bottom of the sea. Everything we pass falls to pieces -behind us; there’s a sound of broken iron and a roaring and groaning of -the earth, but we hasten forward, only forward; we do not turn our -heads, we say nothing to each other, only scream with joy, as when it -thunders.” - -Her voice had a shrill and brittle ring, jubilant, but nearer to weeping -than laughter. All at once she changed her tone. - -“That’s the sort of thing I think at night,” she said wearily. - -“But when do you sleep? You must surely sleep.” - -She gave a clear, childish laugh. - -“All day if I like. Mamma pulls up the curtains of course, but I can -keep on lying. Then I can sleep, especially if there’s sunshine. One can -dream so finely in the sunshine; one can laugh and run, and then it gets -so warm, and when one gets up one is so deliciously tired!” - -“But after that? Don’t you go to school, don’t you have any work?” - -“Papa wants”--she uttered the first word with a peculiar intonation. -“Papa (I don’t know whether he is my father,” she added indifferently) -“wants me to go away; no matter where, he says. I went to school, but -they didn’t suit me there. Now I’m left in peace. Mamma talks to them -when they come after me; she has such a proud way with her, mamma has.” - -“And what do your parents do?” - -She looked up with a scornful dismissal of the subject and made no -reply. Suddenly she laughed under her breath. - -“Such a funny word!” she said. “It’s out of the catechism, isn’t it?” - -“What word?” - -“Parents. Oh, I know it means father and mother,” she drawled the words -out to a comic length. “Mother is slender,” she continued, “but she’s -beginning to get fat and lace herself. You ought to see her when she’s -drunk soda water, oh, you just ought to see her! Her teeth aren’t as -pretty any more either; she envies me mine.” - -“And what does she want you to be?” - -“It’s all the same”--her voice was cuttingly hard--“it’s all the same, -whatever she wants; it’s all the same, what she says. I shan’t do it -anyhow.” - -It was easy to imagine her home after that; what was worse, it was easy, -too, to imagine her future. - -She seemed to have tired of being examined now, and turned around to one -of the sketchers. - -“Why do you paint girls?” she inquired of the corpulent Hans. - -“Hm! Because they’re pretty.” - -“Why don’t you paint war, or red clouds like those there?” She pointed -to a landscape opposite her. - -“Because I’ve never seen a war.” - -“But red clouds you’ve seen surely. I’ve seen much handsomer ones than -those; they don’t really burn.” - -It was an impressionistic canvas; darkness creeping along the ground, -darkness leaping up to meet one from the fields, and in the midst of the -fading red off in the distance a lonely shivering poplar, the one thing -that rose above the plain, cutting like a sword against the sky proudly -and tragically. As the girl looked at it her pupils widened, contracted -and widened and trembled; she had understood it at once, and her face -became fixed by the sorrow of the picture. - -“That’s beautiful,” she said. “Is it hard to learn to paint?” - -“That depends. Can you draw?” - -“I can’t do anything but play the piano. Mamma taught me that, but I -can play better than she does, though we have no piano now.” - -“Do you sing, then?” - -“No, I _can’t_ sing”--her voice sounded more mournful than at any time -before, almost despairing--“I can’t sing at all now.” - -“Probably your voice is changing; you’ll have plenty of voice if you’ve -had it before.” - -“Oh, yes,” she replied impatiently; “it isn’t the voice I’m thinking of, -but I can never sing any more.” - -She raised her head slowly and regarded us all with a swift, deep, -strangely searching look. - -“What do you do that for?” we asked. “What are you looking for?” - -“I’m looking at your eyes.” Her voice was childish, naïvely frank and so -earnest! - -“Do you often do so?” - -“Yes, among strangers; then I don’t look at them any more.” - -“And how have you found our eyes?” - -“About like other peoples’. There is none of you who can _see_.” - -“How do you mean?” - -“I can’t say any more, but there is no one that sees, really sees -straight through you.” - -“Hm! Maybe not. Have you met any such person?” - -“No, never, but I keep on searching.” - -“And if you should see such a person, what would you do?” - -“Just wait, wait for the tide.” - -“The tide you listen for at night?” - -“Yes, for then it will come soon.” - -“Finish me now,” she urged with a look at the sketchers. “Get done with -your drawings.” And she sat as before. - -But no one could draw in his usual style, no one was satisfied with his -beginning. All were seeking for something, expressions changed, flaming -with eagerness or drooping with fatigue. It seemed as if their thoughts -tried to catch something fluttering, shifting, something that -continually fled them. - -Under these looks that were concentrated on her, together with the sharp -yellow light, she grew dazzled, hypnotized, her mouth became tired, her -eyes closed experimentally a couple of times, and then the lashes -remained lowered and she went suddenly to sleep like a child, sinking -back on the arm of the chair. - -All had ceased drawing and had leaned forward with the same thought. -What was she, this remarkable girl? Could all this be true? - -Here she had come out of the dark, had come silently as the dark itself, -enigmatical, disturbing as a dream, impossible to comprehend, impossible -to lay hold of. Was she not just a vision,--not sprung from us, oh, no, -but a vision of the slumbering darkness, the uncertain possibility, the -great new chance that might come? But her breathing was audible, light -and easy; her lean hands had the marks of the sempstress, her clothes -were threadbare--an actual girl to be sure, with blood such as ours, a -developing soul! What would ever become of her, what would become of -her? - -As if the question had been put in an audible voice, Jacques took it up, -the silent Jacques who was wont to make an epigram out of every -conviction and who filed every doubt to the point of a needle. But he -now got up to speak, advancing toward the girl with his angular motions -like those of a clasp-knife and his pointed head leaning forward. - -“What will become of her? What will become of her?” he said; “that’s -easy to guess.” - -He bent down toward her, but so as not to overshadow her; his hand -followed his words, but with light, caressing movements, as if he were -touching an invalid. But on the floor his long shadow stood bowed -against hers, and his gestures became pointed, sharp as thrusts, -merciless, threatening to the slumberer in black. - -“What will become of her--you who can wish but not will, you who wear -away your time with comparing and feeling and looking, look here at what -will become of her! First her mouth will be transformed--her eyes, too, -of course, but there the change won’t be permanent all at once; her eyes -will go back and forward a long while and kindle and be quenched, but -the mouth will retain inflexibly all that is strong enough to force in a -wrinkle, to bend a line. The lips will come to shut harder when they are -not opened by laughter. Here everything will be constricted together: -the weariness of desire, the suffocation of kisses; hate which congeals -into loathing, shame that is stifled; and then certitude will encompass -them, the certitude that it must be so, that that is the whole. - -“The cheek”--he almost touched it as it shone soft and pale in the -light--“the cheek gets more sharply modeled, more set in contour, sinks -in a little here, as when a flower petal withers. The forehead,--it will -stay the same, only a line straight across as if an invisible knife had -cut into the brain and divided the thoughts; barred in some to pine away -up here, and driven the others to wrestle in nakedness and confinement. -The hair,--it will grow darker with age and disfiguring attention, it -will droop here and lie like a weight. The eyebrows,--you see there is a -bend between them, they sink here, which gives a suggestion of nervous -sensibility, of vibrating thoughts; but this will become no longer -noticeable when she opens her eyes, nothing will be noticeable then but -their depth of weariness, their infinity of freezing chill. - -“Imagine the color of the whole harder, more vivid; weigh down all that -is heavy, make sharp all that is light and delicate, harden all that is -strong, banish joy with a cuff and blushes with a sneer, and there you -have her, that is what will become of her. Pretty, eh! prettier than now -because she’ll be even more effective to draw, eh?” - -He stood silent a while and looked at her, his shadow trembling. Then he -went on: - -“That’s what she’ll come to be, and that, too, is all that such as we -have the right to think of. But what she _might_ be, ah! what she might -be. If someone could take her as she lies there and dreams, take her and -carry her far away and lift her on high in his arms. We keep on talking -about art here, about what we intend and what the time is dreaming of. -If there is anyone that has the same dreams that she has and the -strength to will them, if there is anyone who’s a man, she is his. And -what might not become of them both!” - -He looked about him at us others who sat bending forward, gazing with -hypnotized looks at the white gleaming countenance of the girl. At his -last words we started half up; it was as if we waited that some one -should come, that some one should grip us by the hair and hurl us -forward, should lift us to where space was bright around us. Something -should come to birth in us, sharp as a steel blade, unbending, -unsullied, the blue sword of our will and life should be created among -us, true life with warm soil and the sun that impels to growth. In the -heat of the room we felt it already glowing in us by anticipation, -cheeks and foreheads were red, a warm current of blood set in, there -were white sparks in the eyes, and a shiver trembled along the spine. - -Thereupon the girl awoke, as if roused by the clamor of all these -thoughts as they beat their wings and struck together. First her eyes -stared in fright, and then she laughed. - -We all sunk back again. - -“I didn’t know where I was,” she said. - -“Oh, you weren’t afraid of us, were you?” inquired Jacques. “You saw -that there was no one dangerous here.” - -“Oh, no, I surely wasn’t afraid.” She laughed more merrily still. “No, -there’s no one dangerous here. But I must have been asleep a long while. -I must go now.” - -We all offered to go with her, but she looked straight at us. - -“Why?” she asked, “is the outside door locked?” - -“No, not yet. But the street, the dark, the snow!” - -“Oh, only that! But I went out alone. No, no, nobody needs to go along -with me. I know my way.” - -Nobody thought of opposing her, her voice was so remarkably firm; almost -scornful, we thought. - -We lighted her to the door and saw her small feet step quickly on the -yellow lamplight, which grew paler along the tile floor and was broken -by the light on the stairway. - -When she was half out of sight we called for the last time, “You’ll come -again, won’t you?” - -She turned her head. From under the ugly old hat her eyes looked out at -us, deep and sombre. - -“No,” she said, “I shan’t come again. Why should I?” - -She was gone, and we all rushed forward to the window, opened it and -leaned out, stretching ourselves over the sill. She had not got down -yet. Before us lay the black bulks of the houses, defiantly heavy and -motionless to our gaze. Here and there was a faint yellow gleam from a -street lamp; one could see some large, loose flakes glide through it. -The air was gray, swarmingly alive with darkness and a little farther -out across the roofs the church tower stood with its shining dials -against the black horizon. - -Then she came out of the house door; we could hear her steps resound up -to where we were through the chilly air. We followed the little black, -indistinct figure out to the corner, where the lamplight took hold of it -and threw it out into tawny, pale relief. With that she was gone, -vanished into the blackness, into the snow and night and threatening -uncertainty from which she had come. - -We fastened the window and sat down. In order to do something we tried -to discuss, as we were used to, about art and its future. We talked -about symbolism and syntheticism, but it all seemed less worth while now -than before, and from time to time a speaker would stop in the midst of -his period in order to examine a line in the half-finished portrait of -Cecilia, and then give it up in despair. - -And there was no warmth in the discussion, only dry and ill-tempered -sallies that cut now at one man’s, now at another’s hobby and caused -them to bolt off into the inane, where comprehension ceases. Soon we -were all silent. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN SWEDISH MASTERPIECES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<table style='min-width:0; padding:0; margin-left:0; border-collapse:collapse'> - <tr><td>Title:</td><td>Modern Swedish Masterpieces</td></tr> - <tr><td></td><td>Short Stories Selected and Translated</td></tr> -</table> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Hjalmar Söderberg, Sigfrid Siwertz, Verner Von Heidenstam and Per Hallström</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Charles Wharton Stork</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 13, 2021 [eBook #64808]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN SWEDISH MASTERPIECES ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="c"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span> </p> - -<p class="c">MODERN<br /> SWEDISH MASTERPIECES</p> - -<h1> -MODERN<br /> -SWEDISH MASTERPIECES</h1> - -<p class="c"><i>SHORT STORIES SELECTED AND TRANSLATED</i><br /> -<br /> -BY<br /> -<br /> -CHARLES WHARTON STORK<br /> -<br /><small> -TRANSLATOR OF “ANTHOLOGY OF SWEDISH LYRICS,” “SELECTED POEMS<br /> -BY GUSTAF FRÖDING,” ETC.<br /> - -Editor of <i>Contemporary Verse</i></small><br /> -<br /> -<img src="images/colophon.png" -width="120" -alt="" -/><br /> -<br /> -NEW YORK<br /> -E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY<br /> -681 FIFTH AVENUE<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span><br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1923<br /> -BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY<br /> -<i>All Rights Reserved</i><br /><br /> -Printed in the United States of America<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v">{v}</a></span> <br /><br /> -TO<br /><br /> -<big>THORSTEN LAURIN</big><br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Friend of Artists</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Patron of the Arts</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii">{vii}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"></a>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> special thanks of the translator are due to the -American-Scandinavian Foundation of New York City for permission to -include the stories by Verner von Heidenstam from the two volumes of -<i>The Charles Men</i>, as well as for stories by Söderberg and Siwertz which -appeared in the <i>American Scandinavian Review</i>.</p> - -<p>Three stories by Söderberg were published in <i>Hearst’s Magazine</i>, and -others in <i>The Freeman</i>, <i>The Bookman</i>, <i>World Fiction</i> and <i>The Wave</i>. -Hallström’s “Out of the Dark” appeared in <i>The Double Dealer</i>. We gladly -acknowledge our debt to the proprietors of these magazines for allowing -us to reprint from their pages.</p> - -<p>Our chief debt is, however, to the original authors and to A. Bonnier -and Co., Stockholm, for the right to translate these specimens of -Swedish genius into another language.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii">{viii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is curious that, despite the rapid growth of interest in Scandinavian -literature through the English-speaking world, there has been up to now -no book to represent one of the most brilliant fields of achievement, -the Swedish short story. The work of Selma Lagerlof is well known and a -volume of Per Hallström has appeared recently, but no attempt has been -made to represent a group of the leading masters. The present -collection, whatever its failings, will at least indicate the power and -variety of the Scandinavian genius in a new and important phase of its -expression.</p> - -<p>The four authors here included are all living and active, from which it -may be rightly inferred that the Swedish short story is of recent -development. Verner von Heidenstam, born in 1859, winner of the Nobel -Prize for Literature in 1916, has an international reputation but is not -as yet widely known in America. The stories here selected are from his -historical novel, <i>The Charles Men</i>, set in the time of Charles XII; for -though the book has a clear unity, the separate chapters can be -understood perfectly by themselves. Per<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x">{x}</a></span> Hallström, somewhat younger, is -ranked even higher by Swedish critics as a master of short stories. The -volume of translations just published omits, quite unaccountably, the -two specimens here given which belong to his very best style. Hjalmar -Söderberg, also a writer in his fifties, has been called the Anatole -France of Sweden. Unknown in America up to now, his stories have won -marked favor on their appearance in magazines. Sigfrid Siwertz, but -slightly over forty, is the most promising of the younger generation. -Less outstanding than the others, he has nevertheless a fine balance and -much grace of detail. His chief novel, under the title <i>Downstream</i>, has -just appeared in translation.</p> - -<p>As to the varying characteristics of these stories it seems best to -leave everyone to form his own opinions. It is not likely that writers -of such strong individuality will appeal equally to the general public. -Such authors, however, need no apology. This volume is, unless the -translator has failed badly, a challenge to American literary taste. It -is not the book that is on trial but the reader.</p> - -<p class="r"> -C. W. S.<br /></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xi" id="page_xi">{xi}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><th>HJALMAR SÖDERBERG</th></tr> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS_WIFE">The Chimney-sweeper’s Wife</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#BLOOM">Bloom</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_14">14</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_FUR_COAT">The Fur Coat</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_28">28</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_BLUE_ANCHOR">The Blue Anchor</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_KISS">The Kiss</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_44">44</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_DREAM_OF_ETERNITY">The Dream of Eternity</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_48">48</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_DRIZZLE">The Drizzle</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_54">54</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_DRAWING_IN_INDIA_INK">The Drawing in India Ink</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_WAGES_OF_SIN">The Wages of Sin</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_61">61</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#COMMUNION">Communion</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_66">66</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_CLOWN">The Clown</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_71">71</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#SIGNY">Signy</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_76">76</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#A_MASTERLESS_DOG">A Masterless Dog</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_80">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th>SIGFRID SIWERTZ</th></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_LADY_IN_WHITE">The Lady in White</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_87">87</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#LEONARD_AND_THE_FISHERMAN">Leonard and the Fisherman</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th>VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM</th></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#WHEN_THE_BELLS_RING">When the Bells Ring</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_125">125</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_FORTIFIED_HOUSE">The Fortified House</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_145">145</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_QUEEN_OF_THE_MARAUDERS">The Queen of the Marauders</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_168">168</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#CAPTURED">Captured</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_190">190</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th>PER HALLSTRÖM</th></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#THE_FALCON">The Falcon</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_221">221</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#OUT_OF_THE_DARK">Out of the Dark</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_237">237</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xii" id="page_xii">{xii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> </p> - -<h2> -STORIES BY<br /> -HJALMAR SÖDERBERG<br /></h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> </p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> </p> - -<h3><a name="THE_CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS_WIFE" id="THE_CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS_WIFE"></a>THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER’S WIFE</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS is a grim and sad story. I heard it told more than once in my -childhood, and it made me wonder and shudder.</p> - -<p>In a side street stands an old middle-class house with a smooth gray -façade. Through a large round-arched door without any decorations—there -is, to be sure, a date, and perhaps too a couple of garlands with -fruit—one comes upon a narrow courtyard paved with cobblestones, and a -dark, stone-paved fountain like so many of its kind, where the sun never -strikes the path. An old linden with pollarded branches, blackened bark, -and leafage thinned with age stands in one corner; it is as old as the -house, older indeed, and is always a favorite resort for the children -and cats of the courtyard.</p> - -<p>This was of old the yard of Wetzmann, the master chimney-sweep.</p> - -<p>Sweeper Wetzmann must have been a very good-natured old fellow. He had -had success in life and had got together quite a large property. He was -kind to the poor, harsh to his prentices—for such was the custom; so -perhaps it needed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> be, too—and drank toddy in the tavern every -evening, for he had a poor life at home.</p> - -<p>His wife was likewise harsh to the prentices, but she was not kind to -the poor or to anyone else either. She had worked as maid-servant in -sweeper Wetzmann’s house before she became his second wife. At that time -Envy and Lust were the two of the seven deadly sins which were nearest -her nature; now it was rather Wrath and Pride.</p> - -<p>She was large and strongly built and in her earlier days must have been -handsome.</p> - -<p>The son Frederick was slim and pale. He was born of the first marriage, -and it was said that he resembled his mother. He had a good head and a -cheerful disposition, and was studying to be a minister. He had just -become a student when he fell into a long and severe illness which held -him to his bed a whole winter.</p> - -<p>In a wing of the court lived a charwoman with her daughter Magda. Was -her name really Magda? I do not know, but I always called her so to -myself when as a child I heard the older people tell of her on a winter -evening in the twilight; and I pictured to myself a pale, shy little -child’s face, flooded about with an abundance of bright hair, and with a -very red mouth. She was fifteen and had just been confirmed. Perhaps it -was that “being confirmed” which made me repre<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span>sent her to myself as -serious and quiet, like the young girls I used to see in church on -Sunday, and which caused me to think of her as clad in a long shiny -black dress.</p> - -<p>In the spring, when the student began to convalesce, the charwoman’s -daughter came by his desire to sit at his bedside a while in the -afternoon and read aloud.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wetzmann did not approve of this. She was afraid a liking might -grow up between them. Her stepson, for all she cared, might fall in love -with whomsoever he wished and might betroth himself, too—that did not -concern her; but at least it must not be with a charwoman’s daughter! -She kept a mistrustful eye on Magda, but had to put up with the -arrangement. An invalid should of course be diverted in some way or -other; and the doctor had forbidden him to read in bed, because he had -weak eyes and was not to overstrain himself.</p> - -<p>So the girl sat by his bedside and read aloud both religious and secular -books, and the student lay there pale and weak, listening to her voice -and looking at her, too, in which he found pleasure.</p> - -<p>Such a red mouth she had!</p> - -<p>They were nearly of the same age—he was not over seventeen or -eighteen—and they had often played together as children. Soon enough -they grew confidential.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span></p> - -<p>As often as possible Mrs. Wetzmann found some excuse to go into the -sick-room to see how things were getting on there. The two young folks -ought to have noticed this and been on their guard; but then one does -not always do as one ought. One day, when she noiselessly and cautiously -opened the door, matters were in the following state: Magda had left her -chair, which had been set at some distance from the bed, and now stood -leaning over the head-board with her arms around the young man’s neck. -He in turn had raised himself half up with his elbows propped on the -pillow and was caressing her hair with a thin white hand, while they -kissed each other fervently. From time to time, also, they whispered -certain broken words without meaning.</p> - -<p>The sweeper’s wife grew dark red. Notwithstanding, she could not keep -from smiling inwardly: hadn’t everything turned out exactly as she knew -it would! But now there was going to be an end to it. Wrath and Pride -rose up within her, till they swelled and glowed from her cheeks and -eyes, which sent out sparks; and who knows—while she stood there silent -and unseen, regarding the two young people, who had neither eyes nor -ears for anything but each other—who knows if Envy and Lust, too, did -not covertly slink forth from their retreat and play each on its own -hidden string within her soul?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> - -<p>She did not reflect long, but stepped hastily forward to the bed, seized -the girl’s slender wrist in an iron grasp, gave her a disgraceful -epithet, and flung her out of the door with a stream of the foulest -abuse. Afterwards, in the interested presence of the servants and -prentices, she swore a solemn and luscious oath that if the young girl -ever again dared to set foot within her threshold, she should get her -skin full of so many blows that she would not be able to stir a fin for -fourteen days.</p> - -<p>There was no one who doubted that she meant to keep her word.</p> - -<p>The invalid made no reproaches to his stepmother. Every time she went -through the room he turned his face to the wall; he did not wish to see -or speak to her after her performance with Magda. But one day he -confided to his father in private that he could not live unless Magda -might be his bride. The old chimney-sweeper was surprised and vexed, but -dared not immediately set up any serious opposition: his son was the one -person he cared for and who showed him any tenderness in return, and he -could not endure the thought of losing him.</p> - -<p>He put the matter aside for future action and gave his wife a share in -his anxiety.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>How can I describe what occurred next? It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> sounds like an evil dream or -a story made to frighten children when they are naughty, and yet it is -true.</p> - -<p>It is supposed to have been on a Sunday evening in May that it happened.</p> - -<p>The courtyard is still, the street is still. Maybe someone hums a song -through a kitchen window, or some children play down in the alley.... -The invalid is alone in his room. He is counting the quarter-hours and -the minutes. It is spring outside now. Soon it will be summer. Shall he -never get up from his bed, never again hear the woods murmur and rustle, -never as before be able to measure the day in periods of activity and -periods of rest? And Magda.... If only he did not always see before him -her face with the wild alarm in her look that came there when his -stepmother seized her by the wrist! She had not needed to be afraid. The -wicked woman would not have dared to do her any serious harm, for she -knew that he had chosen her for his bride.</p> - -<p>So he lies there dreaming, now awake, now half-awake, while he lets his -pupils suck in the light of the sunbeam on the white door. When he shuts -his eyes, there swims out an archipelago of poisonously green islands -surrounded by an inky black sea. And as he dozes, the green passes over -into blue, the black brightens to bluish red<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> with ragged dark edges, -and at last everything grows black together....</p> - -<p>He feels a light hand stroking his forehead, and he starts up in bed.</p> - -<p>It is Magda. Magda stands before him, small and slender, with a smiling -red mouth, and lays a bunch of spring flowers in front of him on the -cover. Anemones and almond blossoms and violets.</p> - -<p>Is it true, is it really she?</p> - -<p>“How did you dare?” he whispers.</p> - -<p>“Your stepmother is away,” she answers. “I saw her go just now, dressed -to go out. I heard she was to go to South Stockholm, and it will surely -be long before she comes home. So then I slipped up the stairs and in to -you.”</p> - -<p>She stays a long while with him, telling of the woods where she has -walked alone and listened to the birds and picked spring flowers for him -whom she loves. And they kiss each other as often as possible and caress -like two children, and both are happy, while the hours run and the -sunbeam on the floor becomes burning gold and then red, then pales and -fades away.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you ought to go,” says Frederick. “She may soon be home. What -should I do if she wanted to beat you, I who am lying here sick and -weak, who grow dizzy if I get up out of bed. Perhaps you ought to go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I’m not afraid,” says Magda.</p> - -<p>For she wants to show unmistakably that she loves him and that she will -gladly suffer for her love’s sake.</p> - -<p>Only when twilight comes does she kiss him for the last time and steal -out of the house. She stops a minute in the courtyard and looks up at -the window of the room where he is lying with her almond blossoms and -violets on the bed-cover. When she turns to the little room in the wing -of the court, she stands face to face with Mrs. Wetzmann, and she utters -a little scream.</p> - -<p>There is no living human being in the courtyard, none but these two. -Round about stand the walls, staring at them in the darkness with empty, -black windows, and the old linden trembles in its corner.</p> - -<p>“You’ve been up there!” says the sweeper’s wife.</p> - -<p>As a child I always believed that she smiled when she said this, and -that her teeth shone as white in the darkness as those of her husband’s -prentices.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I have been with him,” Magda may perhaps have answered, defiant -and erect even in her chalk-pale terror.</p> - -<p>What happened then? No one really knows, but probably there was a -desperate pursuit round the courtyard. At the foot of the old linden -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> girl tripped and fell. She dared not call for help, for fear the -invalid might hear; and besides, who would have helped her? Her mother -was away at work. The infuriated woman was above her—she had meanwhile -got hold of a weapon, a broomstick or something of the sort,—and blow -followed blow. A couple of half-strangled screams from a throat -constricted by the dread of death, and then nothing more.</p> - -<p>A couple of prentices who had just come home stood down in the dark -doorway and looked on; they did not move a finger to help the girl. -Perhaps they did not dare; perhaps, too, they were led by a faint hope -of seeing their mistress carried off in a police wagon some day.</p> - -<p>When Mrs. Wetzmann went into the house after exercising her right of -mastery—for she felt by instinct that she naturally had proprietary -right to all over whom she could and would exercise it—she stumbled -against something soft in the stairway. It was Frederick. He had heard -the faint screams, had sprung from bed and gone out, and had fallen on -the stairs.</p> - -<p>Magda lived three days; she then died and was buried.</p> - -<p>Sweeper Wetzmann paid a sum of money to the charwoman, her mother, and -there were no legal proceedings on the matter. Nevertheless the old man -took it hard. He went no more to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> the tavern to drink toddy, but -generally sat at home in a leather-covered chair and spelled in an old -Bible. He fell into a decline, grew silent and peculiar, and it was not -a year before he too was dead and laid in earth.</p> - -<p>The son Frederick grew slowly better; but he never passed his -examination as minister, for both his grasp of intellect and his memory -had become weakened. He was often seen going with flowers to Magda’s -grave; he walked leaning forward and very rapidly, indeed he almost ran, -as if he had many important errands to attend to, and he mostly had a -couple of books under his arm. To the end he remained wholly -weak-minded.</p> - -<p>And the sweeper’s wife? She seems to have had a strong nature. There are -people who are not exactly conscienceless, but who never of their own -accord hit upon the idea that they have done anything wrong. It may -happen that a fellow with bright buttons on his coat may clap them on -the shoulder and request them to come along with him; then their -conscience awakens. But no one came to Mrs. Wetzmann. She sent her -stepson to an asylum when he became too troublesome at home, she mourned -her husband, as was proper and customary, and then she married again. -When she drove to church on the bridal day, she wore a jacket of -lilac-colored silk with gold braid and was “fixed up fit to kill”—so -said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> my grandmother, who was sitting at her window in the house -opposite and saw the whole display while she was turning a leaf in her -book of sermons.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="BLOOM" id="BLOOM"></a>BLOOM</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>N a brilliant August morning at eight o’clock precisely the gates of -the establishment of Langholm were opened for three boarders of the -establishment, who had come there for various causes and sojourned for -various periods. These periods were exactly suited to the grade and kind -of their differences with the law-abiding community as proved by their -conduct. They did not know each other, and having no feeling of -brotherhood through their common misfortune, they said to one another -neither good-morning nor good-bye.</p> - -<p>The man who came out first was a thick-set fellow with a beast-like -forehead and heavy wrists. One dark evening he had fallen upon an old -workman whom he did not like, knocked out some of his teeth, and kicked -him in the chest so that he coughed blood for several days. He had been -given a month for assault and battery, which did him little harm, and he -betook himself hastily to the nearest tavern.</p> - -<p>Next came a man who had swindled an impersonal entity known as a bank of -a fairly large<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> sum of money. The three months he had spent indoors had -not overly bleached his fresh brandy complexion. He had a well-fitting -summer suit of dark blue with narrow white edgings; on his feet he wore -new yellow shoes, and in his hand he held an elegant little satchel of -the same color as the shoes, so that he most nearly resembled a -traveling salesman who comes whistling softly out of a hotel. He did -not, however, whistle, but mounted into a cab with a lowered hood, under -which a black-clad woman with pale and anxious features awaited him. He -then tossed an address to the coachman, and vanished in a cloud of dust.</p> - -<p>Last came the former tailor’s apprentice Bloom, Oscar Valdemar Napoleon. -His complexion inclined more to gray, for he had had to atone with a -nine months’ sentence for the theft of a jacket hung out for show—this -being, to be sure, his second trip to the establishment. He had in his -right breast pocket, besides his birth certificate with its less -flattering annotations, the sum of eighty crowns inserted in a blue -envelope, together with a certificate of good conduct at Langholm from -the prison director.</p> - -<p>That was not much to represent nine months’ work, but he had also had -his board and lodging meanwhile. For him it was in any case a -considerable sum, and it had been besides a lever for many future plans, -most of which rested on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> clear improbabilities, for many dreams of a new -life, for happiness and prosperity and general respect. This had been -especially the case during those last weeks when, in consideration of -his rapidly approaching freedom, he had been spared the humiliation of -being shaved, for he had felt his manly self-esteem sprout afresh and -grow in rivalry with the bristles on his upper lip and chin. But now, -when he was actually free, when he felt the light, cool breeze of the -summer morning fan about his temples and heard it rustling in the big -trees, all of these plans were pushed somewhat into the background as if -of themselves, of course only until a later time, only for a few hours -or perhaps a day, and a single great emotion of happiness rose up in him -and swept him along as though in a vertigo. Furthermore he was very -hungry, because he had hardly touched his Langholm fare on that last -morning, and he thought with yearning and satisfaction of a little -restaurant on Brenchurch Street which he knew from of old, and of a -great beefsteak with onions and one or maybe two bottles of beer—only -think of it, beer!</p> - -<p>On the Langholm Bridge stood a guard off duty, fishing for roach with -small bits of saffron bread. Bloom stood with his arms on the railing -and watched: it amused him to pretend that he was not in a hurry. Down -there in the deep<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> green of the quiet water, in the shadow under the -bridge, big red-eyed roach swam back and forth around the bait, pointing -at it a while, turning around in hesitation and coming back again; now -and then came a rudd or two with red fins and yellow back, beautiful -fish, but tasting a little of clay, and once in a while came a glint -from the broad silver side of a bream. On both sides of the narrow -Langholm Bay large bending willows dipped their gray-green leaves into -the water, and the reeds waved gently in the morning wind. In the -background far away, the churches and towers of Stockholm stood in the -blue sun-haze as if cut with a fine needle.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” remarked Bloom to the guard, “now one can begin to live again.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, good luck to you, Bloom!” answered the guard without taking his -eyes from the float, which just then took a dip under the water. “That -was a bite, but the fish only took the bread and left the hook to the -landlord.”</p> - -<p>A steam sloop came sputtering up under the bridge on its way to the city -and lay to at the nearest landing. For a moment Bloom was tempted to go -with it, but came back directly to his first idea: the restaurant on -Brenchurch Street, beefsteak, onions and beer, so he said good-bye to -the guard and went ahead on the Langholm Road. He felt himself from of -old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> most at home in the section of South Stockholm between -Skinnarviksberg, Lilyholm Bridge and Langholm.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When Bloom emerged, full-fed and contented, from his restaurant, his -first impulse was to buy a new black felt hat, for the old one inclined -too much to yellow-brown, and he had heard sometime or other that the -hat makes the gentleman. After that he went to the nearest barber shop -on Horn Street and had them remove the stubble from his chin, together -with part of that on his cheeks; retaining, however—besides his -mustaches, of course—a couple of small mutton-chop whiskers next the -ears. After that he went slantwise across the street to a general -outfitter’s, whence he came out attired in a clean white collar, a -blue-edged dickey, and a brilliant light-blue necktie. A few steps -further up the street he stopped before a photographer’s show-case and -looked at himself in the glass. He was greatly moved at the -transformation he had undergone. A ribbon-like strip of paper was -picturesquely wound among portraits of serving-maids, dressmakers, -Salvation Army soldiers, recruits, and a parson with a parson’s collar; -and when he read on this that he could have half-a-dozen card-sized -pictures made for two and a half crowns, he felt an irresistible -temptation to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> go up and be photographed. It was partly that the day was -significant for him, so that the likeness he had taken now would be a -memento for the rest of his life; partly, too, that he had a dark -foreboding, which he tried to put by, that it might be long before he -would again be in a condition equally worthy to be immortalized in a -picture. Furthermore, he had had himself photographed at various times -previously, and he remembered with satisfaction the agreeable feeling he -had experienced in seeing his ego in an, as it were, glorified aspect, -without spots on his coat or damaging inequalities in his complexion, -handsomely shaved and with a dignified and engaging expression. He went -up to the photographer, combed his hair solicitously before a mirror, -and sat down motionless before the camera with his hands on his knees.</p> - -<p>“Will it be good?” he asked, when the sitting was over.</p> - -<p>“The gentleman will look like a bank director,” answered the -photographer after he had glanced at the plate.</p> - -<p>When he stood on the street again, he became conscious of his good -intentions calling more strongly and clearly than before. He ought to go -down to the city, look up a couple of God-fearing and kindly people to -whom the prison director and the pastor had given him directions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> get -work, and procure himself a cheap lodging. But it was still early in the -day, the clock-maker’s time-piece over there on the corner did not yet -point quite to ten, the sun shone heart-warmingly in the blue heavens, -and the air was mild and still. He could give himself a little time, he -could go a piece toward Lilyholm out in the woods.</p> - -<p>Yes, the woods—he had thought of them many times while he sat caged off -there behind the grating.</p> - -<p>He had grown up in a village on a wooded slope half a mile south of -Stockholm. After he had been confirmed, he had been set as prentice to a -pious little tailor in South Stockholm. The tailor was a Baptist; Bloom -also became a Baptist and submitted to total immersion. But when he went -to another tailor, who belonged to the national church and constantly -misused the name of the Devil, his new faith gradually waned. He made -new acquaintances and became the betrothed of a middle-aged serving-maid -who had a bank-book and gave him money. In that way he grew accustomed -to amusements, not great, but nevertheless more than are good for poor -folks. On fine summer evenings he often sat in Mosebacke’s café or on -the river terrace drinking punch, sometimes with his intended, but -sometimes with a little dark-haired dressmaker, whom he had got to know -at Tekla’s one afternoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span> when she had given a tea in the maid’s room. -She was called Edith; she had thick dark hair and very red lips. She -went for long periods without work, but always knew how to provide for -herself notwithstanding. Bloom often wished that Tekla’s faithful love -for him, together with her bank-book, might by some magic means be -transferred to Edith. But Edith’s heart was inconstant and never to be -relied upon, and the bank-book still remained Tekla’s. So, as the case -was, he at least got a little enjoyment from the money of the one and -the red lips of the other.</p> - -<p>But then came the end. The tailor with whom he worked went bankrupt, and -he was out of work. Tekla promised to help him and took out money from -the bank; he was to have the loan of thirty crowns till he found work. -On the evening when he was to get the money she forced him to stay -longer than he cared to, and when at last he was to go and only waited -for the money, the crash came. She was all the more angry because she -had to speak low for fear of waking the family. Edith had been up in her -room that afternoon, they had fallen out about something, and Edith had -talked about all manner of things with Bloom to spite and annoy her. But -Tekla was not the kind to let anybody make fun of her. She called him a -cur and many other names, waving the three tenners under his nose and -declaring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span> that he should never again get a farthing from her. Thereupon -he snatched them with a sudden grab and went off. He knew that she dared -not make any disturbance at night; the family might wake.</p> - -<p>But next day in court she accused him of theft. He first denied it, but -afterwards confessed and related the circumstances. The plaintiff’s -version of the affair, however, was altogether different: the thirty -crowns had lain on the table, he had taken them without her seeing it, -and she had never promised them to him. The one thing that became wholly -clear was that he had taken them.</p> - -<p>That gave him his first trip.</p> - -<p>Afterwards he had lived as best he could—had worked sometimes, and -sometimes starved and begged, till one evening he got the idea of -stealing a jacket on East Street so as to escape the poor-house.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>He had come down to Lilyholm Bridge. Milk-wagons rattled and shaggy -peasant horses toiled painfully with their home-made carts up the steep -abutment. From the hundred factory chimneys around the shore of Arstavik -the smoke ascended quietly toward the welkin in straight columns, as -from a sacrifice well-pleasing to the Lord. The Continental Express -rushed southward along the railway embankment, its dining car full of -break<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span>fasting travelers with anchovies on their forks. But in the -peaceful nook between the bridge and the shore a family of ducks swam to -and fro; some white, some speckled with the suggestion of a wild duck’s -plumage, while in the middle of the flock the drake stood on a floating -plank on one foot with his head under his wing, asleep.</p> - -<p>Bloom took a roll that he had brought with him from the restaurant on -Brenchurch Street, crumbled it to pieces, and threw the pieces to the -ducks. The flock at once grew more lively; even the drake lifted his -head and opened one eye, but shut it again. He was quite white, and his -shut eyelid was also white, so that Bloom had to think of the blank, -uncanny marble eyes he had seen in the National Museum one Sunday many -years ago. The others snapped among the bits of roll. One of them had -got hold of a piece that was too big, so she dipped it into the water -time after time in order to soften it and break it. Meanwhile another -followed all her motions constantly with watchful eyes, and when at last -the bit of roll slipped from the bill of the first, the other was -instantly there and got it. There was no conflict; the first contented -herself with following in turn and watching for a chance to recover the -lost piece.</p> - -<p>Bloom laughed aloud with delight.</p> - -<p>Yes, that’s right, he thought; he who has got<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span> something must look out -for what he has, or someone else will come and take it. He felt it -almost as a consolation to see the innocent white creature perform with -impunity and entire naturalness an act which in the language of mankind -is known as theft, and for which he had had to suffer severely.</p> - -<p>A speckled duck, enticed by the bits of roll, came swimming out from the -shore at the apex of a flock of little ones, gray-brown fellows with -hairy fluff and small, black, pearly-bright eyes like rats. Several -small girls on the way to school with books in their hands stopped and -surveyed them with delight and astonishment. “Look there! are those -rats?” “No, can’t you see? They’re birds.” “Only think, they aren’t -afraid of the water!”</p> - -<p>“Those are ducklings,” explained Bloom, adding a didactic tone: “They -are formed to go in the water. It’s no more remarkable for them to go in -the water than for fish to swim.”</p> - -<p>“Really!” said the largest girl. And they bounded off on their way with -little skips.</p> - -<p>Bloom recalled a story which he had once read in a school book about an -ugly duckling that was transformed into a swan. He sought for an -application of this to himself and partly found it in his recent -transformation at the barber shop<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> and the photographer’s, but it did -not seem to him fully satisfactory, and he muttered to himself as he -passed on over the bridge: “Wait, I’ll show them! Just wait.”</p> - -<p>It was very warm, and when he came to the other side of the bridge where -nettles and burdocks were standing, gray with dust, by the edge of the -road, he took off his jacket, stuck the crook of his stick through the -loop, slung it over his shoulder, and went on out along the Lilyholm -Road whistling a cheerful tune.</p> - -<p>A little in front of him went a young woman with a bundle in her hand, -and he hurried his steps so as to see how she looked from in front. As -he came nearer, all at once his heart nearly stood still in his breast, -for he thought it must be Edith. At the same moment she turned.</p> - -<p>“No, if it isn’t Valdemar!”</p> - -<p>After the first expression of surprise had vanished from her face, she -smiled affably and seemed not unpleasantly affected at seeing him. She -was going to see an acquaintance who lived a little further out, and -they went on together. He found her changed, fuller than before and -redder in complexion, as if she had drunk a good deal of beer. She asked -where he had been all the long time that they had not seen each other. -He felt a certain satisfaction in her not seeming to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> know of his -“second trip,” and he improvised something about a lengthy illness and -employment for a while with a tailor in a neighboring town.</p> - -<p>Edith chattered incessantly. She talked of common acquaintances and -lamented over wrongs she had suffered. Tekla had been worst of all to -her. But now she was married to a street-cleaner who had already drunk -up her money and who beat her every day; and it served her right. She -related besides a great deal about herself, but in a style that hardly -seemed to make any pretence to veracity.</p> - -<p>Bloom let her prattle and for his own part did not say much. He thought -of the nine months he had spent in solitude.</p> - -<p>He took her gently by the arm and guided her in on a path that led into -the wood, and she grew silent in the midst of her talk and followed him -without saying anything. The path led into a deep covert along a fence -and hedge that enclosed a solitary orchard. From this orchard several -big silver poplars spread their wide and lofty crowns. On the other side -rose a fir-clad slope with mosses and ferns and dusky thickets. Over the -tops of the firs a white summer cloud sailed slowly.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Bloom was awakened by a big raindrop which fell heavily on his right -eyelid. He half raised<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span> himself and rubbed his eyes—had he been asleep? -He was alone, and it was raining. It did not rain hard as yet; these -were only the first big drops, but a black cloud was hanging directly -over him.</p> - -<p>Where was Edith?</p> - -<p>He had thrown his jacket with the stick a little to one side; he got up -and put it on. Suddenly a horrible thought came over him and he made a -swift grab at the breast pocket.</p> - -<p>It was empty. The blue envelope was gone—the envelope with the money -and the prison director’s recommendations.</p> - -<p>He felt a choking in his throat and a difficulty in breathing.</p> - -<p>A sudden gust of wind shot through the leafage of the poplars like a -lightning flash, and a raging squall of rain whipped him in the face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_FUR_COAT" id="THE_FUR_COAT"></a>THE FUR COAT</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was a cold winter that year. People shrank up in the chill and grew -smaller, all except those who had furs. Judge Richardt had a big fur -coat. It almost belonged, moreover, to his official position, for he was -managing director of a brand-new company. His old friend Dr. Henck, on -the contrary, had no fur coat: he had instead a pretty wife and three -children. Dr. Henck was thin and pale. Some people grow fat with -marriage, others grow thin. Dr. Henck had grown thin, and remained so on -this particular Christmas Eve.</p> - -<p>I’ve had a bad year this year, said Dr. Henck to himself, as he was on -his way to his old friend John Richardt to borrow money. It was three -o’clock of Christmas Eve, just the hour of the mid-day twilight.—I’ve -had a very bad year. My health is fragile, not to say broken. My -patients, on the contrary, have picked up, almost the whole lot of them, -I see them so seldom nowadays. Presumably I’m going to die soon. My wife -thinks so, too; I’ve seen it in her looks. In such a case it would be -desirable that the event<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> should happen before the end of January, when -the cursed life insurance premium has to be paid.</p> - -<p>By the time he had reached this point in the process of his thoughts he -found himself on the corner of Government and Harbor Street. As he was -about to pass the street-crossing in order to proceed down Government -Street, he slipped on a smooth sleigh track and fell, and at the same -moment a sleigh drove up at full speed. The driver swore and the horse -instinctively turned aside, but Dr. Henck received a blow on the -shoulder from one of the runners, and furthermore a screw or nail or -some similar projection caught his overcoat and tore a big rent in it. -People gathered around him. A policeman helped him to his feet, a young -girl brushed the snow off him, an old woman gesticulated over his torn -overcoat in a way that indicated she would have liked to sew it up on -the spot if she could, and a prince of the royal house, who happened to -be going by, picked up his cap and set it on his head. So everything was -all right again except the coat.</p> - -<p>“Lord! what a sight you are, Gustav,” said Judge Richardt, when Henck -came up to his office.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ve been run over,” answered Henck.</p> - -<p>“That’s just like you,” said Richardt, laughing good-humoredly. “But you -can’t go home like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> that. You may gladly have the loan of my fur coat, -and I’ll send a boy home after my ulster.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” said Dr. Henck. And after he had borrowed the hundred krona he -needed, he added, “We shall be glad to have you for dinner.”</p> - -<p>Richardt was a bachelor and was accustomed to spend Christmas Eve with -Henck.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>On the way home Henck was in a better humor than he had been for a long -time.</p> - -<p>That’s on account of the fur coat, he said to himself. If I had been -smart, I should have got myself a fur coat on credit long ago. It would -have strengthened my self-esteem and raised me in the popular opinion. -One can’t pay such a small fee to a doctor in a fur coat as to a doctor -in an ordinary overcoat with worn button-holes. It’s a bother that I -didn’t happen to think of that before. Now it’s too late.</p> - -<p>He walked a stretch through King’s Garden. It was dark already, it had -begun to snow again, and the acquaintances he met did not recognize him.</p> - -<p>Who knows, though, whether it’s too late, Henck went on to himself. I’m -not old yet, and I may have been mistaken about the question of my -health. I’m poor as a little fox in the woods; but so was John Richardt -not so long since. My wife has grown cold and unfriendly toward me in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> -these latter times. She would surely begin to love me afresh, if I could -earn more money and if I were dressed in furs. It has seemed to me that -she cared more for John since he got himself a fur coat than she did -before. She was certainly a bit sweet on him when she was a young girl, -too; but he never courted her. On the contrary he said to her and to -everybody that he wouldn’t dare to marry on less than ten thousand a -year. But I dared, and Ellen was a poor girl who wanted to marry. I -don’t believe she was so much in love with me that I should have been -able to seduce her if I had wished to. But I didn’t want to, either; how -could I have dreamed of that sort of love? I haven’t thought of that -since I was sixteen and saw Faust the first time at the opera with -Arnoldson. I’m sure, though, she was fond of me when we were first -married; one can’t be mistaken about such a thing as that. Why couldn’t -she be again? In the first days after our marriage she always said -spiteful things to John whenever they met. But then he built up a -company, invited us often to the theatre, and got himself a fur coat. -And so naturally in time my wife grew tired of saying spiteful things to -him.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Henck had still several errands to do before dinner. It was already half -past five when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> came home laden with parcels. He felt very tender in -his left shoulder, otherwise there was nothing that reminded him of his -mishap in the afternoon except the fur coat.</p> - -<p>It’ll be fun to see what my wife will do when she sees me in a fur coat, -said Dr. Henck to himself.</p> - -<p>The hall was quite dark; the lamp was never lighted unless visitors were -expected.</p> - -<p>I hear her in the parlor now, thought Dr. Henck. She walks as lightly as -a little bird. It’s remarkable that I still get warm around the heart -every time I hear her step in the next room.</p> - -<p>Dr. Henck was right in his supposition that his wife would give him a -more loving reception when he had on a fur coat than she was otherwise -wont to do. She stole up close to him in the darkest corner of the hall, -twined her arms about his neck, and kissed him warmly and intensively. -Then she burrowed her head into the collar of his fur coat and -whispered: “Gustav isn’t home yet.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” answered Dr. Henck in a voice that trembled slightly, while he -caressed her hair with both hands, “yes, he’s home.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A big fire flamed in Dr. Henck’s work-room. Whisky and water stood on -the table.</p> - -<p>Judge Richardt lay stretched out in a large leather easy-chair and -smoked a cigar. Dr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> Henck sat huddled in a corner of the sofa. The door -was open on the hall, where Mrs. Henck and the children were busy -lighting the Christmas tree.</p> - -<p>Dinner had been very quiet. Only the children had twittered and prattled -to one another and been happy.</p> - -<p>“You’re not saying anything, old fellow,” said Richardt. “Is it that -you’re sitting worrying over your torn overcoat?”</p> - -<p>“No,” answered Henck, “it’s rather over the fur coat.”</p> - -<p>There was a few minutes’ silence before he continued:</p> - -<p>“I’m thinking of something else, too. I’m sitting thinking that this is -the last Christmas we shall celebrate together. I’m a doctor and I know -I’ve not many days left. I know it now with full certainty. I want, -therefore, to thank you for all the kindness you’ve shown me and my wife -in these last times.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re mistaken,” muttered Richardt, looking away.</p> - -<p>“No,” replied Henck, “I’m not mistaken. And I want also to thank you for -lending me your fur coat. It has given me the last seconds of happiness -I have known in my life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="THE_BLUE_ANCHOR" id="THE_BLUE_ANCHOR"></a>THE BLUE ANCHOR</h3> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE was dancing in the salon, but in the darkened smoking-room sat -several men who did not dance. The younger ones had white flowers in -their button-holes, the older ones had decorations. In the corner of a -sofa sat a man a little apart from the others; he sat very silent and -smiled as at a happy dream. His face was brown, but his forehead was -white. His frock coat was as correct as anyone else’s, and he had also a -white flower in his button-hole; but his left hand, which hung over the -arm of the sofa, was tattooed with a blue anchor.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact it was not a ball; there had merely been a dinner, -and afterwards there was dancing.</p> - -<p>A man with a decoration was standing in front of him.</p> - -<p>“You don’t dance, Mr. Fant?” he inquired.</p> - -<p>Fant replied, “I’ve just been dancing with Miss Gabel.”</p> - -<p>But as he said this, he felt that he blushed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span> Why should he have added -“with Miss Gabel.” It was surely a matter of indifference with whom he -had danced. Because he believed he had said something stupid, he was -annoyed with the man to whom he had said it, and set to staring at his -decoration without saying anything. Since this was a bogus foreign -decoration of the worst sort, the man grew embarrassed, coughed drily, -and passed on.</p> - -<p>Fant remained seated and stared into a mirror which faced him on an -oblique wall. But it was not himself that he saw in the mirror, it was -the flooding light of the dancing hall and the sinuous lines of the -women. They seemed to move silently in time with the music. Look at -their red lips, look at the white curves of their arms!—</p> - -<p>There she was again! For the third time she glided past across the -mirror. It was her cousin she was dancing with, a boy, lately a -student—ah, well!</p> - -<p>No, he could not sit still, he could not look on any more. It surely -signified nothing that the boy danced with his own cousin, but he could -not look on. He rose and went out of the room.</p> - -<p>Someone asked, “Who is this Mr. Fant?”</p> - -<p>“He has invented something—a gas-burner, I believe. He is already on -the way to make a fortune.”</p> - -<p>“But did you see,” said the man with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> foreign order, “did you see -that he has a blue anchor tattooed on one hand?”</p> - -<p>They suddenly burst into guffaws.</p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p>He sauntered back and forth through the rooms. He went out into the -corridor. A couple of Knights of Vasa were sitting on the wood-box -talking about business while they gesticulated with two big cigars, on -which they had left the labels. They grew silent as he passed.</p> - -<p>He came into a greenish room that was half dark. From the roof on a -narrow cord hung a single electric light, its glow shaded by blue and -green fringes. On a dressing-table with a marble top an old Chinese -mandarin of porcelain sat sleeping on his crossed legs.</p> - -<p>How strangely far off the music sounded, as if from underneath!</p> - -<p>He set the mandarin’s head in motion with a little punch of his little -finger. Two mirrors repeated in unending succession the pale and -lethargic nods of the yellow head.</p> - -<p>Now it was quiet, the music.</p> - -<p>All at once she stood there, in the middle of the room. He had not heard -her enter. She held out both hands to him. He took them and drew her to -him for a kiss, but she freed herself almost immediately.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Somebody’s coming,” she said.</p> - -<p>They listened. Voices approached and moved away again.</p> - -<p>When all was quiet around them, he pressed her to him in a long kiss. -And he thought while she kissed him: This is life! This is eternity!</p> - -<p>Far away in the green darkness nodded the pale head of the mandarin.</p> - -<p>“No one kisses like you,” he muttered.</p> - -<p>“Many kiss like you,” she responded, smiling.</p> - -<p>He thought to himself: she’s smiling so that I shall know she’s jesting -and that she has never kissed anyone else.</p> - -<p>While he caressed her two small hands between his, he noticed that she -was looking at his left hand.</p> - -<p>“You are looking at the anchor,” he said. “It’s true that it is not -handsome. And it won’t come off.”</p> - -<p>She took his hand and surveyed inquisitively the blue dots that formed -an anchor. But she said nothing.</p> - -<p>“It was in Hamburg that was done,” he said. “I was a ship’s boy on a -vessel. We had come ashore and gone into a tavern by the harbor. I -remember it all so well: the fog, the many masts in the harbor, and the -smell of the grease. My comrades were tattooed, on the hands, arms and -body, and they thought I ought to have myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> tattooed also. I couldn’t -refuse, or they would have thought I was afraid of the pain, for it hurt -a great deal. But I thought, too, it was stylish; I was hardly fourteen, -you know.”</p> - -<p>“Are you tattooed on the body as well?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Smilingly and somewhat unwillingly he answered, “Yes, I have on the -breast a ship and a bird, which is supposed to be an eagle, though it’s -more like a rooster.”</p> - -<p>She looked long into his eyes, then slowly raised his hand to her lips -and kissed the blue anchor.</p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p>Years passed, and one day Richard Fant said to his wife as they were -dressing to go out to dinner, “Do you know, I think the blue anchor is -beginning to fade. Perhaps it’s on the way to vanish entirely.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she answered.</p> - -<p>In reality her thoughts were in another direction. She was thinking of -her cousin, Tom Gabel, who was an attaché at the embassy in Madrid. He -had now been home for two months on a visit and had promised to come and -fetch them so as to go together to the dinner.</p> - -<p>“Hurry up,” she said, “so that Tom won’t have to wait for you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I’m all ready,” he replied.</p> - -<p>He had sat down in a corner in the shadow, fully dressed. She turned and -scanned his attire.</p> - -<p>“You’ve forgotten your decoration,” she remarked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want my decoration,” he responded.</p> - -<p>“But Richard! could you be so discourteous to Tom, who got it for you?”</p> - -<p>He went after his decoration. It was not one of the very worst, not an -order of Christus or a Nichan Iftikar; it was a medium good decoration, -a quite nice decoration. He fastened it on the lapel of his coat with -the feeling that perhaps he really needed it, seeing that he had a blue -anchor on his left hand.</p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p>There was a dance after the dinner, but Fant remained sitting in a sofa -corner of the smoking-room. By his side sat the man whom he had formerly -annoyed by staring at his foreign decoration, but he was now a Knight -Commander. They had become good friends and called each other by their -first names when they said anything to each other, but they said -nothing. They merely sat each in his corner of the sofa and smoked big -cigars with labels and understood each other perfectly.</p> - -<p>The doctors had forbidden Fant to smoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> strong cigars, because he had a -bad heart. But he had just lighted the third since dinner.</p> - -<p>In the mirror on the middle of the opposite wall he saw the revolving of -the dancers and the flood of light from the hall. He had often wondered -how it was that they seemed to dance as though on felt or soft -greensward, soundlessly. He understood now that it came from his seeing -them in the mirror. Because the picture struck him from another quarter -than the clatter and the music, he did not connect them, and over the -flooring reflected in the mirror the dance appeared to go without noise. -Look at the girls’ white dresses! behold their panting bosoms!——</p> - -<p>He recollected that he had once seen her who was now his wife float -past, as they did, in a girl’s plain white ball-dress. She was -differently clad now.</p> - -<p>See! there she was, sure enough, with him, her cousin. She remained -standing a moment in the doorway, erect, slender, and delicate as -always. She seemed as if quite naked under the stiff, variegated silk in -which she had wrapped her body, and which was only held together by -clasps at the shoulders and waist. They bent their heads together and -whispered.</p> - -<p>No, he must move about a bit, stretch his legs a little.—It is not good -to sit still too long after a big dinner and smoke three black cigars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></p> - -<p>He lighted the fourth and began to saunter back and forward through the -room.</p> - -<p>He went out into the corridor. Three young men with white flowers in -their button-holes sat on the wood-box with cigarettes in holders and -talked about women, but they became silent as he went past. He opened -the door to the little green cabinet and went in. It was empty. He set -the mandarin’s yellow head in motion with a push of his knuckle and -passed on to the window.</p> - -<p>The window-pane breathed frost and wintry chill. He blew on it till -there was a peep-hole between the ice-flowers, put his eye to the glass, -and looked out. The sky was dark and glittering with stars. Highest up -stood the Dipper with its handle aloft.</p> - -<p>It was late, then.</p> - -<p>He could not force himself to leave the room, because he felt a bitter -and devouring desire for his wife and the kiss of old times, the kiss -under the blue-green light from pearl fringe of the single electric -light, the kiss which the mandarin had beheld in his nodding -half-slumber. If she would only come now, precisely now! No one could -kiss as she did, no one. He had kissed other women since she no longer -loved him; but he had forgotten them all, he would not recognize them if -he met them on the street. If she would only come! Yes, even if she but -came to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> meet the other, even then he would take her forced and -treacherous kiss as a boon, even then—</p> - -<p>He listened. Whispering voices were audible outside the door, but they -grew silent all at once and remained so.</p> - -<p>He had a strange sensation at his heart, he felt that in a couple of -seconds he would lie stretched on the carpet, unconscious, but he held -himself upright, and suddenly he heard from the entry where the young -men were smoking their cigarettes a very clear voice which said: “Well, -after all it’s only natural. One can’t expect her to be in love with -someone who has a blue anchor tattooed on his hand.”</p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<p>The coffin stood in the middle of the room. The black-clad woman walked -back and forth, back and forth.</p> - -<p>“No, he’s not coming——”</p> - -<p>When he finally did come, he said, “Pardon me, beloved. I was delayed by -someone who came to call——”</p> - -<p>She nodded stiffly. She did not believe him, because he had not kissed -her.</p> - -<p>When he felt that they had stood too long silent, he said, “I must be -off tomorrow. I’ve had a telegram from the minister.—But I swear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span> to -you that I’ll come back,” he added in a somewhat lowered voice as if he -did not wish that the dead man should hear.</p> - -<p>She comprehended that he was lying and that he never meant to see her -again. And she nodded.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye,” she said.</p> - -<p>When he had gone, she went forward to the head of the coffin and looked -at the dead man without thinking any further, for she was too weary. But -as she stood there she remembered suddenly that she had loved him. She -had loved other men too, but it came to her now that she had loved this -one most. At that thought she felt the tears rise from deep down in her -heart; she took his left hand, the one with the blue anchor, and wetted -it with her kisses and her tears.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_KISS" id="THE_KISS"></a>THE KISS</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE was once a young girl and a very young man. They sat on a stone on -a promontory that ran out into the lake, and the waves splashed at their -feet. They sat silent, each wrapped in thought, and watched the sun go -down.</p> - -<p><i>He</i> thought that he should very much like to kiss her. When he looked -at her mouth, it occurred to him that this was just what it was meant -for. He had, to be sure, seen girls prettier than she was, and he was -really in love with someone else; but this other he could surely never -kiss, because she was an ideal, a star, and what availed “the desire of -the moth for the star”?</p> - -<p><i>She</i> thought that she should very much like to have him kiss her, so -that she might have occasion to be downright angry with him and show how -deeply she despised him. She would get up, pull her skirts tightly round -her, give him a glance brimmed with icy contempt, and go off, erect and -calm, without any unnecessary haste. But in order that he might not -divine what she thought, she asked in a low, soft voice, “Do you think -there is another life after this?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He thought it would be easier to kiss her if he said yes. But he could -not remember for certain what he might have said on other occasions -about the same subject, and he was afraid of contradicting himself. He -therefore looked her deep in the eyes and answered, “There are times -when I think so.”</p> - -<p>This answer pleased her extraordinarily, and she thought: At least I -like his hair—and his forehead, too. It’s only a pity his nose is so -ugly, and then of course he has no standing—he’s just a student who is -reading for his examinations. That was not the sort of beau to vex her -friends with.</p> - -<p>He thought: Now I can certainly kiss her. He was, nevertheless, terribly -afraid; he had never before kissed a girl of good family, and he -wondered if it might not be dangerous. Her father was lying asleep in a -hammock a little way off, and he was the mayor of the town.</p> - -<p>She thought: Perhaps it will be still better if I give him a box on the -ear when he kisses me.</p> - -<p>And she thought again: Why doesn’t he kiss me? Am I so ugly and -disagreeable?</p> - -<p>She leaned forward over the water to see her reflection, but her image -was broken by the splashing of the water.</p> - -<p>She thought again: I wonder how it will feel when he kisses me. As a -matter of fact she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> only been kissed once, by a lieutenant after a -ball at the town hotel. He had smelt so abominably of punch and cigars -that she had felt but little flattered, although to be sure he was a -lieutenant, but otherwise she had not much cared for the kiss. -Furthermore she hated him because he had not been attentive to her -afterwards or indeed shown any interest in her at all.</p> - -<p>While they sat so, each engrossed in private thoughts, the sun went down -and it grew dark.</p> - -<p>And he thought: Seeing that she is still sitting with me, though the sun -is gone and it has become dark, it may be that she wouldn’t so much -object to my kissing her.</p> - -<p>Then he laid his arm softly around her neck.</p> - -<p>She had not expected this at all. She had imagined he would merely kiss -her and nothing more, and with that she would give him a box on the ear -and go off like a princess. Now she didn’t know what she should do; she -wanted of course to be angry with him, but at the same time she didn’t -want to lose the kiss. She therefore sat quite still.</p> - -<p>Thereupon he kissed her.</p> - -<p>It felt much more strange than she had supposed. She felt that she was -growing pale and faint, she entirely forgot that she was to give him a -box on the ear and that he was only a student reading for his -examination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span></p> - -<p>But he thought of a passage in a book by a religious physician on “The -Sex Life of Woman,” which read: “One must guard against letting the -marital embrace come under the dominion of sensuality.” And he thought -that this must be very difficult to guard against, if even a kiss could -do so much.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When the moon came up, they were still sitting there and kissing.</p> - -<p>She whispered into his ear: “I loved you from the first hour I saw you.”</p> - -<p>And he replied: “There has never been anyone in the world for me but -you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="THE_DREAM_OF_ETERNITY" id="THE_DREAM_OF_ETERNITY"></a>THE DREAM OF ETERNITY</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HILE I was still very young I believed with entire certainty that I had -an immortal soul. I regarded this as a holy and precious gift and was -both happy and proud over it.</p> - -<p>I often said to myself: “The life I am living is a dark and troubled -dream. Some time I shall awaken to another dream which stands closer to -reality and has a deeper meaning than this. Out of that dream I shall -awaken to a third and afterwards to a fourth, and every new dream will -stand nearer the truth than the one before. This approaching toward -truth constitutes the meaning of life, which is subtle and profound.”</p> - -<p>With the joy of knowing that in my immortal soul I possessed a capital -which could not be lost in play or distrained upon for debt, I carried -on a dissipated life and squandered like a prince both what was mine and -what was not mine.</p> - -<p>But one evening I found myself with some of my cronies in a large hall, -which glittered with gilt and electric light, while from its flooring -rose a smell of decay. Two young girls with painted<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> faces and an old -woman whose wrinkles were filled with plaster were dancing there on a -platform, accompanied by the wail of the orchestra, cries of applause, -and the clink of broken glass. We watched the women, drank a great deal, -and conversed on the immortality of the soul.</p> - -<p>“It’s foolish,” said one of my comrades who was older than I, “it’s -foolish to believe that it would be a blessing to have an immortal soul. -Look at that old harridan dancing there, whose head and hands tremble if -she stays still a moment. One sees directly that she is wicked and ugly -and entirely worthless, and that she’s getting more and more so every -day. How ridiculous it would be to imagine that she had an immortal -soul! But the case is just the same with you and me and all of us. What -a mean joke it would be to give us immortality!”</p> - -<p>“The thing that I dislike most in what you say,” I answered, “isn’t that -you deny the immortality of the soul, but the fact that you find a -pleasure in denying it. Human beings are like children that play in a -garden surrounded by a high wall. Time and again a door is opened in the -wall, and one of the children disappears through the door. People then -tell them that it is taken to another garden bigger and more beautiful -than this, whereupon they listen a moment in silence and afterwards -continue to play among<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> the flowers. Assume now that one of the boys is -more inquisitive than the others and climbs up on the wall so as to see -where his comrades go, and when he comes down again tells the rest what -he has seen; namely, that outside the gate sits a giant who devours the -children when they are taken out. And they all have to be taken out -through the gate in due turn! You are that boy, Martin, and I find it -unspeakably ridiculous that you tell what you think you’ve seen, not in -a spirit of despair, but as if you were proud and glad of knowing more -than the rest.”</p> - -<p>“The younger of those girls is very pretty,” replied Martin.</p> - -<p>“It’s dreadful to be annihilated, and it’s also dreadful not to be able -to be annihilated,” remarked another of my friends.</p> - -<p>Martin continued this line of argument.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “one should be able to find a middle course. Gird up -your loins and go out to look for a midway degree between time and -eternity. He who finds it may found a new religion, for he’ll then have -the most enticing bait that a fisher of men ever possessed.”</p> - -<p>The orchestra stopped with a clash. The gold of the hall glittered more -faintly through the tobacco smoke and through the floor boards pressed -continuously a smell of decay.</p> - -<p>The party broke up and we separated, each<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> in his own direction. I -wandered a long while back and forth on the streets; I came upon streets -which I did not recognize and which I have never seen since, remarkably -desolate and empty streets, where the houses seemed to open their lines -to give me space whithersoever I turned my steps, and then to close up -again behind my back. I did not know where I had got to, before all of a -sudden I stood in front of my own door. It stood wide open. I went in -through the door and up the stairs. At one of the stair windows I -stopped and looked at the moon: I had not previously noticed that there -was moonlight that evening.</p> - -<p>But I have never either before or after seen the moon look so. One could -not say that it shone. It was ashen-gray and pallid and unnaturally big. -I stood a long while and stared at yonder moon, despite the fact that I -was dreadfully tired and longed to get to sleep.</p> - -<p>I lived in the third story. When I had gone up two flights I thanked God -there was only one left. But as I came up this flight, it struck me that -the corridor was not dark, as it had always used to be, but faintly -lighted like the other corridors where the moon glimmered in through the -stair windows. But there were only three flights of stairs in the house -besides the attic stairs; for that reason the uppermost corridor was -always dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The door of the attic is open,” I said to myself. “The light is coming -from the attic stairway. It’s unexcusable of the servants to leave the -door of the attic open, for thieves might get up into the attic.”</p> - -<p>But there was no attic door. There was only an ordinary stairway like -the others.</p> - -<p>I had counted wrong, then; I had still a flight to go up.</p> - -<p>But when I had mounted this flight and stood in the corridor, I had to -control myself so as not to shriek aloud. For this corridor, too, was -light, neither was there any attic door open, but a new stairway led up -just as before. Through the stair window the moon glimmered in, and it -was ashen-gray and lustreless and unnaturally big.</p> - -<p>I rushed up the stairway. I could no longer think. I tottered up -another, and yet another; I did not count them any longer.</p> - -<p>I wanted to cry out, I wanted to wake that accursed house and see human -beings around me; but my throat was constricted.</p> - -<p>Suddenly it occurred to me to try if I could read the names on the -door-plates. What kind of people could it be that lived in this tower of -Babel? The moonlight was too faint; I struck a match and held it close -to a brass plate.</p> - -<p>I read there the name of one of my friends who was dead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span></p> - -<p>Then the bonds of my tongue were loosed and I shrieked: “Help! help! -help!”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>That cry was my salvation, for it waked me up out of the terrible dream -of eternity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_DRIZZLE" id="THE_DRIZZLE"></a>THE DRIZZLE</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>UTUMN is here again with its dismal days, and the sun is hiding himself -in the darkest corner of the heavens so that no one shall see how pale -and aged and worn he has grown in this latter time. But while the wind -whistles in the window-chinks and the rain purls in the rain-spouts and -a wet dog howls in front of a closed gate down below on the street and -before the fire has burned down in our tile stove, I will tell you a -story about the drizzle.</p> - -<p>Listen now!</p> - -<p>For some time back the good God had become so angered over the -wickedness of men that he resolved to punish them by making them still -wickeder. He should, in his great goodness, have liked above all things -to have drowned them all together in a new Deluge: he had not forgotten -how agreeable was the sight when all living creatures perished in the -flood. But unfortunately in a sentimental moment he had promised Noah -never to do so again.</p> - -<p>“Harken, my friend!” he therefore said to the Devil one day. “You are -assuredly no saint, but occasionally you have good ideas, and one can<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> -talk things over with you. The children of men are wicked and do not -want to improve. My patience, which is infinite, has now come to an end, -and I have resolved to punish them by making them wickeder still. The -fact is I hope they will then collectively destroy each other and -themselves. It occurs to me that our interests—otherwise so far -apart—should here for once find a point of contact. What advice can you -give me?”</p> - -<p>The Devil bit the end of his tail reflectively.</p> - -<p>“Lord,” he answered finally, “Thy wisdom is as great as Thy goodness. -Statistics show that the greatest number of crimes are committed in the -autumn, when the days are dismal, the sky is gray, and the earth is -enveloped in rain and mist.”</p> - -<p>The good God pondered these words a long while.</p> - -<p>“I understand,” he said finally. “Your advice is good, and I will follow -it. You have good gifts, my friend, but you should make better use of -them.”</p> - -<p>The Devil smiled and wagged his tail, for he was flattered and touched. -He then limped home.</p> - -<p>But the good God said to himself: “Hereafter it shall always drizzle. -The clouds shall never clear; the mist never lift, the sun never shine -more. It shall be dark and gray to the end of time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The umbrella makers and the overshoes manufacturers were happy at the -start, but it was not long before the smile froze upon even their lips. -People do not know what importance fair weather has for them until they -are for once compelled to do without it. The gay became melancholy. The -melancholy became mad and hanged themselves in long rows or assembled to -hold prayer-meetings. Soon no one worked any more, and the need became -great. Crime increased in a dizzying scale; the prisons were -overcrowded, the madhouses afforded room for only the clever. The number -of the living decreased, and their dwellings stood deserted. They -instituted capital punishment for suicide; nothing did any good.</p> - -<p>Mankind, who for so many generations had dreamed and poetized about an -eternal spring, now went to meet their last days through an eternal -autumn.</p> - -<p>Day by day the destruction went on. Countrysides were laid waste, cities -fell in ruins. Dogs gathered in the squares and howled; but in the -alleys an old lame man went about from house to house with a sack on his -back and collected souls. And every evening he limped home with his sack -full.</p> - -<p>But one evening he did not limp home. He went instead to the gate of -heaven and straight<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> on to the good God’s throne. There he stood still, -bowed, and said:</p> - -<p>“Lord, Thou hast aged in these latter days. We have both of us aged, and -it is for that reason we are so dull. Ah! Lord, that was bad advice I -gave Thee. The sins that interest me need a bit of sunlight once in a -while in order to flourish. Look here! you’ve made me into a miserable -rubbish-gatherer.”</p> - -<p>With these words he flung his dirty sack so violently against the steps -of the throne that the cord broke and the souls fluttered out. They were -not black, but gray.</p> - -<p>“That’s the last of the human souls,” said the Devil. “I give them to -Thee, Lord. But beware of using them, if Thou intendest to create a new -world!”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The wind whistles in the window chinks, the rain purls in the -rain-spouts, and the story is done. He who has not understood it may -console himself with the thought that it will be fair weather tomorrow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_DRAWING_IN_INDIA_INK" id="THE_DRAWING_IN_INDIA_INK"></a>THE DRAWING IN INDIA INK</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>NE day in April many years ago, in the time when I still wondered about -the meaning of life, I went into a little cigar booth on a back street -to buy a cigar. I selected a dark and angular El Zelo, stuffed it into -my case, paid for it, and made ready to go. But at that moment it -occurred to me to show the young girl who stood in the booth, and of -whom I used often to buy my cigars, a little sketch in India ink, which -I happened to have lying in a portfolio. I had got it from a young -artist, and to my thinking it was very fine.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” said I, handing it to her. “What do you think of that?”</p> - -<p>She took it in her hand with interested curiosity and looked at it very -long and closely. She turned it in various directions, and her face took -on an expression of strained mental activity.</p> - -<p>“Well, what does it mean?” she asked finally with an inquisitive glance.</p> - -<p>I was a little surprised.</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t mean anything in particular,” I answered. “It’s just a -landscape. That’s the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span> ground and that’s the sky and that there is a -road—an ordinary road——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I can see that,” she interrupted in a somewhat unfriendly tone; -“but I want to know what it <i>means</i>.”</p> - -<p>I stood there embarrassed and irresolute; I had never happened to think -that it ought to mean anything. But her idea was not to be removed; she -had now got it into her head that the picture must be some sort of -“Where is the cat?” affair. Why otherwise should I have shown it to her? -At last she set it up against the window-pane so as to make it -transparent. Presumably someone had once shown her a peculiar kind of -playing card, which in an ordinary light represents a nine of diamonds -or a knave of spades, but which, when one holds it up against the light, -displays something indecent.</p> - -<p>But her investigation brought no result. She gave back the sketch, and I -prepared to leave. Then all at once the poor girl grew very red in the -face and burst out, with a sob in her throat:</p> - -<p>“Shame on you! it’s real mean of you to make a fool of me like that. I -know very well I’m a poor girl, and haven’t been able to get myself a -better education, but still you don’t need to make a fool of me. Can’t -you tell me what your picture means?”</p> - -<p>What was I to answer? I should have given<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span> much to be able to tell her -what it meant; but I could not, for it meant precisely nothing.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Ah, well, that was many years ago. I now smoke other cigars, which I buy -in another shop, and I no longer wonder about the meaning of life—but -that is not because I think I have found it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_WAGES_OF_SIN" id="THE_WAGES_OF_SIN"></a>THE WAGES OF SIN</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS is the story of a young girl and an apothecary with a white vest.</p> - -<p>She was young and slim, she smelled of pine woods and heather, and her -complexion was sunburned and a trifle freckled. So she was when I knew -her. But the apothecary was a quite ordinary apothecary; he wore a white -vest on Sundays, and on a Sunday this attracted attention. It attracted -attention in a place in the country so far away from the world that no -one in that region was so sophisticated as to wear a white vest on -Sundays except the apothecary.</p> - -<p>This, you see, was how it happened that one Sunday morning there was a -knock at my door, and when I opened it, the apothecary stood outside in -his white vest and bowed several times. He was very polite and very much -embarrassed.</p> - -<p>“I beg your most humble pardon,” he said, “but Miss Erika was here -yesterday with her sisters while you were away, and when she went, she -left her poetry book for you and me to write something in it. Here it -is. But I don’t know at all what to write. Could you perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> -kindly——?” And he bowed again several times.</p> - -<p>“We will think the matter over,” I answered in a friendly tone.</p> - -<p>I took the book therefore and for my own share inscribed a translation -of “Du bist wie eine Blume,” which I had made myself and which I always -use for that purpose. I then began to search among my papers to see if -by any chance I had some old verses from my school days which would suit -for the apothecary. Finally I came upon the following bad poem:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You set my thoughts in turmoil,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wither in longing’s blight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In solitude you haunt me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I dreamed of you in the night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I dreamed that we walked together<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Side by side in the twilight dim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And through your lowered lashes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw the bright tear swim.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I kissed your cheek and your eyelids,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw the tear-drop fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But oh, your red, red lips, love—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I kissed them most of all.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">One cannot always dream sweetly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Small rest since then have I known,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, sorrowful oft and weary,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I watch through the night-hours alone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Alas! your cheeks so soft, love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I touch but with glances trist,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And those red lips, my darling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I never, never have kissed.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>I showed the apothecary this poem and offered to let him use it. He read -it through attentively twice and blushed all over with delight.</p> - -<p>“Did you really write that yourself?” he inquired in his simplicity of -heart.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m sorry to admit.”</p> - -<p>He thanked me very warmly for the permission to use the poem, and when -he went out of the room I imagine we both had the feeling that we must -drop the formality of “mister” at the first opportunity.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>That evening there was a little party at the girl’s house. Young folks -were there. We drank cherry syrup on a veranda festooned with hop-vines.</p> - -<p>I sat and looked at the young girl.</p> - -<p>No, she was not like herself. Her eyes were bigger and more restless -than usual and her mouth was redder. And she could not sit still on her -chair.</p> - -<p>From time to time she cast a furtive glance at me, but more often she -looked at the apothecary. And the apothecary looked that evening like a -turkey-cock.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span></p> - -<p>When the punch was passed around, we dropped the “mister.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>We young people went down on the meadow to play games. We tossed rings -and played other games, and meanwhile the sun went down behind the hills -and it grew dark.</p> - -<p>We had laid the rings and the sword in a heap on the ground and were now -standing in groups, whispering and smiling, while the dusk came on. But -the young girl came up to me through the dusk and took me aside behind a -shed.</p> - -<p>“You must answer me a question,” said she. “Did the druggist really -write his verses himself?” Her voice trembled, and she tried to look -away as she spoke.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said. “He wrote them last night. I heard him going back and -forth in his room all night.”</p> - -<p>But when I had said that, I felt a sting in my conscience, for I saw -that she was a pretty and lovable child and that it was a great sin to -deceive her so.</p> - -<p>Who knows, I said to myself, who knows? Perhaps this is the sin of which -the Scripture says that it cannot be forgiven.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The twilight deepened, it became night, and a star burned between the -trees in the wood, where we were walking in pairs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span></p> - -<p>But I was alone.</p> - -<p>I do not remember any more where I went that evening. I separated from -the others and went deeper into the wood.</p> - -<p>But deep within the wood among the firs I saw a birch with a shining -white stem. By the stem stood two young people kissing, and I saw that -one of them was the young girl who smelled of pine woods and heather. -But the other was the apothecary, and he was a quite ordinary apothecary -with a white vest. He held her pressed against the white stem of the -birch and kissed her.</p> - -<p>But when he had kissed her three times, I went away and wept bitterly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="COMMUNION" id="COMMUNION"></a>COMMUNION</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T happened when I was hardly more than a boy.</p> - -<p>It was on a blustering autumn evening on board a coast steamer. We had -not yet come in from the country, and I had to go in and out of town to -school. I had been lazy as usual and was to be examined in several -subjects in order to be promoted into a higher class.</p> - -<p>I went back and forward on the deck in the darkness, with collar turned -up and hands in my coat pockets, thinking of my reverses at school. I -was almost sure to flunk. As I leaned forward over the railing and saw -how the foam hissed whitely and the starboard lantern threw sparkling -green reflections on the black water, I felt tempted to jump overboard. -Then at least the mathematics teacher would be sorry for the way he had -tormented me—then, when it was too late——</p> - -<p>But in the end it grew cold outside, and when I thought I had been -freezing long enough, I went into the smoking cabin.</p> - -<p>In my imagination I can still see the warm, comfortable interior which -met my view when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> opened the door. The lighted ceiling-lamp swung -slowly back and forth like a pendulum. On the table steamed four whiskey -toddies, four cigars puffed, and four gentlemen were telling smutty -stories. I recognized them all as neighbors of our summer sojourn: a -company director, an old clergyman, a leading actor, and a button -dealer. I bowed politely and threw myself down in a corner. I had, to be -sure, a slight feeling that my presence might perhaps be superfluous; -but on the other hand it would have been asking too much of me to go out -into the wind and freeze when there was so much room in the cabin. -Furthermore I knew within myself that I might very well contribute to -the entertainment if necessary.</p> - -<p>The four men looked askance at me with a certain coolness, and there was -a pause.</p> - -<p>I was sixteen and had recently been confirmed. People have told me that -at that time I had a guileless and innocent appearance.</p> - -<p>The pause, however, was not long. A few swallows from the glasses, a few -puffs at the cigars, and the exchange of opinions was once more in full -swing. A peculiar circumstance struck me, though: all the stories that -were told I had already heard innumerable times, and for my part I found -them comparatively flat. Smutty stories may, as is well known, be -divided into two chief groups, one of which concentrates itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> mostly -about digestive processes and circumstances related to them, whereas, on -the contrary, the other, which stands incomparably higher in degree, has -preferably to do with woman. I and my schoolmates had long since left -the former group behind us; I was therefore the more surprised to hear -these mature gentlemen give it their liveliest interest, while the -other, much more appealing group was passed over in silence. I did not -understand it. Could this possibly be out of any undue consideration for -me? I need not say to what extent the suspicion of such a thing provoked -me. The lively tone of the cabin had affected me and made me -venturesome, so that I resolved to put an end to this childishness.</p> - -<p>“Look here, uncle,” I burst out quite impulsively during a silence after -a story which was so harmless that even the clergyman guffawed at it, -“don’t you remember the story the captain told day before yesterday?”</p> - -<p>“Uncle” was the company director, who was a friend of my father.</p> - -<p>I continued undismayed: “That was the choicest I’ve heard in all my -days. Couldn’t you please tell it?”</p> - -<p>Four pairs of astonished eyes were directed upon me, and a painful -silence set in. I already regretted my rash courage.</p> - -<p>The company director broke the ice with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> skittish little chuckle, -which was but a faint echo of the thunder he had allowed to roll out a -couple of days before when the captain had told the story.</p> - -<p>“Tee-hee!—yes, that wasn’t so bad——”</p> - -<p>He then began to tell it. It was very highly seasoned and had to do with -woman.</p> - -<p>The leading actor at first hid his feelings behind his customary mask of -dignified seriousness, whereas on the other hand the button dealer, an -old buck who had grown gray in sin, regarded me with a sort of furtive -interest, in which was an element of increased respect for my -personality.</p> - -<p>But when the anecdote began to take a somewhat precarious turn, it was -suddenly interrupted by the clergyman, a kindly old man with a pious and -childlike expression on his elderly smooth-shaven countenance.</p> - -<p>“Pardon the interruption, my good brother, but”—and he turned a little -in his chair so that he could direct his words at me—“how old, may I -ask, is this young man? Has he been to Our Lord’s—to Communion?”</p> - -<p>I felt that I flushed blood-red. I had forgotten that there was a -clergyman in the company.</p> - -<p>“Y-yes,” I stammered almost inaudibly. “I was confirmed last winter.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!” returned the old clergyman, while he slowly stirred his glass -of toddy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span></p> - -<p>Then without looking up, in a voice which forty years of mediation -between God and the world had impressed with the mild tone of tolerance -and indulgence, he continued:</p> - -<p>“Go on, my dear brother! Excuse the interruption!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="THE_CLOWN" id="THE_CLOWN"></a>THE CLOWN</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">Y</span>ESTERDAY a familiar face flitted by me on the street. It was pale and -had a tired expression, but the features were sharp and strongly marked.</p> - -<p>I did not recall his name. I was sure I had seen him sometime, perhaps a -long while ago, but I could not remember when or under what -circumstances. His face had aroused my interest without my being able to -explain why, and I dug all sorts of old recollections out of the -junk-room of my memory in order to identify him, but in vain.</p> - -<p>In the evening I was at the theatre. There to my surprise I found him -again on the stage in a minor rôle. He was but little disguised; I -recognized him at once and looked for his name on the program. I found -it, but it was unknown to me. I followed his acting with tense interest. -He took the part of a miserably stupid and ridiculous servant, whom -everybody made fun of. The rôle was as wretched as the piece, and he -played it mechanically and conventionally; but in certain intonations -his voice assumed a sharp and bitter character which did not belong to -the part.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span></p> - -<p>They re-echoed in my ear, those tones, till late into the night, as I -went back and forth in my room. And with their help I at last succeeded -in digging up the recollection with which they belonged. I discovered -that we had been schoolmates, but he was many years younger than I; when -I was in the highest class, he was in one of the lowest.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When I was in the top class of the school, I was one day standing at the -window toward the end of a lunch recess. Recesses at the school were an -especial abomination of mine; I could never find anything to do. I knew -that I did not know my lesson, and I could not set myself to going over -it. The slight vexation I felt about the coming lesson always faded -before a greater: a vexation about life, a gnawing premonition that the -days to follow would be as empty and meaningless as those which had -passed.</p> - -<p>So I was walking back and forth with my hands in my jacket pockets, now -and then stopping at the window, which was open. As I stood there, my -attention was caught by a peculiar occurrence which was taking place -down in the yard just below the window. A little boy in one of the -lowest classes, a lad of ten or eleven, lay stretched on his back, -surrounded by a crowd of other boys in a ring. Their faces, most of them -at any rate, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> the expression of evil curiosity which children and -uncultured people do not know how to conceal. A little broad-shouldered -fellow with high cheekbones, who gave the impression of being very -strong for his age, stood in the ring with a whip in his hand.</p> - -<p>“You are my slave,” he said to the boy on the ground, “aren’t you? Say: -‘I am your slave!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“I am your slave,” answered the child without hesitating; which -indicated that this was not the first time he had said it.</p> - -<p>“Get up,” ordered the other.</p> - -<p>The boy got up.</p> - -<p>“Imitate B., the way he looks when he comes into class!”</p> - -<p>B. was a teacher who went on crutches. The boy went a couple of steps -outside the ring, which opened to give him space; then he came back on -the improvised stage and executed as he did so the movements of a man -walking on crutches. He did his part very well; the illusion was -complete, and the onlookers applauded, but the little actor stood there -with a serious expression. He had a pallid little face and black -clothes; perhaps he had just lost his father or mother.</p> - -<p>“Laugh!” ordered the other with a light flick of the whip which he had -in his hand.</p> - -<p>The boy tried to obey, but it did not come easily. The laugh sounded -forced at the start,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span> but it was not long before he succeeded in -laughing himself into a genuine, quite natural guffaw, and with that he -turned toward his “master,” as if it was at him that he laughed. But the -latter already desired to have his slave show off new accomplishments.</p> - -<p>“Say: ‘My farsher is a damned scoundrel!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>The boy looked around the circle with a helpless glance. When he saw -that no one gave a semblance of wanting to help him, and that, on the -contrary, all stood in eager expectation of something really amusing, he -said as low as he dared:</p> - -<p>“My farsher is a damned scoundrel.”</p> - -<p>That drew unbounded applause.</p> - -<p>“Laugh—Cry!”</p> - -<p>The child began to simulate weeping, but with that he now came into the -mood he was ordered to imagine. The weeping stuck in his throat, and he -shed actual tears.</p> - -<p>“Let him be!” said an older boy in the circle, “he’s crying in earnest.”</p> - -<p>And with that the school bell rang.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Some days afterwards he ran past me on the way from school. I noticed -that his jacket was ripped open in the back.</p> - -<p>“Wait a bit!” I said to him, “your jacket has split open in the back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, “it hasn’t split open, they have cut it open with a -penknife.”</p> - -<p>“Have they dirtied your book for you, too?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, they’ve laid it in the gutter.”</p> - -<p>“Why are they so mean to you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. They are stronger than I am.”</p> - -<p>He knew of no other reason. But of course that was not the only one; -they must have found something in him that irritated them. I saw it in -him that he was not like the others. The exceptional, the divergent -always irritates children and mobs. A school-boy’s eccentricities are -punished by the teacher with a well-intended monition or a dry satiric -smile; but by his comrades they are punished with kicks and cuffs and a -bloody nose, with a torn jacket, a cap carefully laid under a -rain-spout, and his best book thrown into the gutter.</p> - -<p>Well, he is an actor now; that was surely his natural predestination. He -now talks from the stage to a large public. It would be strange if -sometime he did not make his way; I believe he has talent. Perhaps he -will gradually transform his peculiarity to a pattern, according to -which others try to conform as to an inoffensive regular verb.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="SIGNY" id="SIGNY"></a>SIGNY</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>IGNY was a little girl about as old as I, with a pink dress and a pink -ribbon in her hair. Her hair was dark, with curly locks, and she had -dark blue starry eyes with long lashes. She was not at all angelic. I -didn’t care a great deal for angels, perhaps in especial because they -always had fair hair. I had fair hair myself at that time, like most -children, and light hair wasn’t much, I thought.</p> - -<p>But I thought an awful lot of Signy. I could go about thinking of her -for whole days. It was not seldom that she did something naughty, which -I was blamed for, and sometimes I myself took the blame voluntarily. I -cared no less for her on that account, but only wished that she would do -more naughty things and I get the blame for them. But what was that bit -of deviltry she hit upon? Let me think.—She ran off and hid somewhere -where we were forbidden to go, in some dangerous place where there might -be trolls and spooks. One time I remember clearly that she wheedled me -into playing with matches—playing with fire, the most dangerous and -most strictly forbidden thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> there was. Didn’t she set fire to an old -dry bush in the garden? Why, to be sure she did; and I got the switch -from mother. Oh, how I cared for Signy. And sometimes she said words -that shouldn’t be said. The shivers went up and down my back, but I only -wanted her to say them again.</p> - -<p>I don’t know just where she lived. It wasn’t in the same house as we -did; the other children whom I played with didn’t know her. But she must -have lived in the same street—I suppose—in a little home with a garden -surrounded by a fence. Or did she live in a garret cupola obliquely -across the street, with flowers on the window-sill?—I may just as well -say right out that she didn’t live anywhere. She existed only in my -imagination.</p> - -<p>Signy was the first creation of my fancy, at least the first I can -recall. I was a good six or seven years old, and at the age (just as, -besides, at sixty, seventy or more) one often thinks aloud. To be brief, -I went about prattling to myself as I imagined things about Signy, and -one fine day it happened, of course, that my mother heard me.</p> - -<p>“Listen to the boy,” she said to my father. “Listen how he goes around -talking to himself!”</p> - -<p>And to me she said, “What is it you go around talking about? What are -you thinking about?”</p> - -<p>Grown-ups have a terrible passion for asking children the most -inconsiderate questions. I ran off and hid.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span></p> - -<p>Another day it was the same story, and still another day. Pain and -embarrassment, questions that couldn’t be answered.</p> - -<p>My father said to me, “Other children talk to themselves up to four and -five years old; you are too big for that.”</p> - -<p>I perceived that things couldn’t go on any longer so; something must be -done. It occurred to me that it was the sibilant sound that betrayed me: -Signy, Signy; that wouldn’t do. So I changed Signy’s name to Ida. In -that way I succeeded in having her sometimes in peace, but Ida never -really got the same power of enchantment over me as Signy. One fine day -we became enemies, I quarreled with her and called her a silly girl, and -perhaps I even went so far as to scratch her. I regretted it to be sure -but wouldn’t ask her pardon, and soon after I let her go to the deuce. -At the same time I learned to think in silence—and with a few -exceptions have continued to do so.</p> - -<p>But whence had I got Signy? In the same house with us lived a little -girl, with whom I sometimes played. Her mother was in the ballet, and -once she dressed herself in one of her mother’s ballet skirts. But she -was neither Signy nor Ida, she performed no deviltries and had none of -Signy’s magic power over my heart. I must, then, at the age of seven -have created Signy as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span> the German creates a camel: out of the depths of -my consciousness.</p> - -<p>Then, too, I was predestined.</p> - -<p>After that the years rolled on, and my genuinely literary impulses -arrived, only quite late. The first strong urge came when one of my -schoolmates—it was the present Professor Almqvist at the Caroline -Institute—during a lesson in Mother Tongue declaimed with powerful -effect Viktor Rydberg’s “Flying Dutchman.” I became wild with enthusiasm -and for months afterwards dreamed of nothing else than being able at -some period in the remote future to write something equally fine.</p> - -<p>So far I haven’t succeeded, but why should one give up hope?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="A_MASTERLESS_DOG" id="A_MASTERLESS_DOG"></a>A MASTERLESS DOG</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> MAN died, and after he was dead no one looked after his black dog. The -dog mourned him long and bitterly. He did not, however, lie down to die -on his master’s grave; possibly because he did not know where it was; -possibly, too, because he was at bottom a young and happy dog, who -considered that there was still something left for him in life.</p> - -<p>There are two kinds of dogs: dogs that have a master, and dogs that have -none. Outwardly the difference is not material; a masterless dog may be -as fat as others, often fatter. No, the difference lies in another -direction. Mankind is for dogs the infinite, providence. To obey a -master, to follow him, rely upon him—that is, so to speak, the meaning -of a dog’s existence. To be sure, he has not his master in his thoughts -every minute of the day, nor does he always follow close at his heels. -No, he often runs about of his own accord with business-like intent, -sniffs around the corners of houses, makes alliance with his kind, -snatches a bone, if it comes in his way, and concerns himself about -much. Yet on the instant that his master<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> whistles, all this is out of -his canine head more quickly than the scourge drove the hucksters out of -the temple, for he knows that there is but one thing he must attend to. -So forgetting his house-corner and his bone and his companions, he -hurries to his master.</p> - -<p>The dog whose master died without the dog’s knowing how, and who was -buried without the dog’s knowing where, mourned him long; but as the -days passed and nothing occurred to remind him of his master, he forgot -him. He no longer perceived the scent of his master’s footsteps on the -street where he lived. As he rolled about on a grass plot with a -comrade, it often happened that a whistle pierced the air, and in that -instant his comrade had vanished like the wind. Then he pricked up his -ears, but no whistle resembled his master’s. So he forgot him, and he -forgot still more: he forgot that he had ever had a master. He forgot -that there had ever been a time when he would not have regarded it as -possible for a dog to live without a master. He became what one would -call a dog that had seen better days, though it was in the inner meaning -of the expression, for outwardly he got along fairly well. He lived as a -dog does live: he now and then stole a good meal in the square, and got -beaten, and had love affairs, and lay down to sleep when he was tired. -He made friends and enemies. One<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span> day he thoroughly thrashed a dog that -was weaker than he, and another day he was badly handled by one that was -stronger. Early in the morning one might see him run out along his -master’s street, where out of habit he mostly continued to resort. He -ran straight forward with an air of having something important to attend -to; smelt in passing a dog that he met, but was not eager to follow up -the acquaintance; then continued his journey; but all at once sat down -and scratched himself behind the ear with intense energy. The next -moment he started up and flew right across the street to chase a red cat -down into a cellar window; whereupon, re-assuming his business manner, -he proceeded on his way and vanished around the corner.</p> - -<p>So his day was spent. One year followed close in the track of another, -and he grew old without noticing it.</p> - -<p>Then there came at last a gloomy evening. It was wet and cold, and now -and then there came a shower. The old dog had been all day on an -expedition down in the city. He walked slowly along the street, limping -a little; a couple of times he stood still and shook his black hide, -which with the years had become sprinkled with gray about the head and -neck. According to his wont he walked and sniffed, now to right, now to -left. He took an excursion in at a gateway, and when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span> came out had -another dog in his company. Next moment came a third. They were young -and sportive dogs that wanted to entice him to play, but he was in a bad -humor, and furthermore it began to sleet. Then a whistle pierced the -air, a long and sharp whistle. The old dog looked at both the young -ones, but they paid no attention; it was not one of their masters that -whistled. Then the old masterless dog pricked up his ears; he felt all -at once so strange. There was a fresh whistle, and the old dog sprang -irresolutely first to one side, then to the other. It was his master -that whistled, and he surely had to follow! For the third time someone -whistled, sharply and persistently as before. Where is he then, in what -direction? How could I have been separated from my master? And when did -it happen, yesterday or day before yesterday, or perhaps only a little -while ago? And what did my master look like, and what sort of smell had -he, and where is he, where is he? He sprang about and sniffed at all the -passers-by, but none of them was his master, and none wanted to be. Then -he turned and bounded along the street; at the corner he stood still and -looked around in all directions. His master was not there. Then he went -back down the street at a gallop; the mud spattered about him and the -rain dripped from his fur. He stood at all the corners, but nowhere was -his master.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> Then he sat down on his haunches at a street crossing, -stretched his shaggy head toward heaven, and howled.</p> - -<p>Have you ever seen, have you ever heard such a forgotten, masterless -dog, when he stretches his neck toward heaven and howls, howls? The -other dogs slink softly away with their tails between their legs; for -they cannot comfort him and they cannot help him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span></p> - -<h2> -STORIES BY<br /> -SIGFRID SIWERTZ<br /></h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span> </p> - -<h3><a name="THE_LADY_IN_WHITE" id="THE_LADY_IN_WHITE"></a>THE LADY IN WHITE</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE little town slept in the noonday sunlight. Even the flowers leaned -slumberously against the lowered blinds of the open windows. Not a human -being remained in the courthouse square. Down at the harbor it was -equally quiet. A little beyond the big bridge lay a lumber barge with -limp sail. It seemed that it would be hours before she could get in.</p> - -<p>From a dressing room of the bath-house came a middle-aged man of rather -spare figure, with a very white and delicate skin. He carefully hung his -eye-glasses on a nail, sat down on the sunny side of a bench, blinked at -the light and smiled to himself.</p> - -<p>With that, there emerged into the vista toward the bay a veritable -walrus head; a coarse, hairy body shone through the green shimmering -water; and with several sharp, panting strokes the giant plunged forward -to the stairway, climbed up, and threw himself blinking upon the hot -bridge of the bath-house.</p> - -<p>The small white-skinned man surveyed anxiously but with interest the -face of the other;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> the eagle nose, the bushy eyebrows, and the bristly -drooping mustache.</p> - -<p>Where the deuce had he seen that face before?</p> - -<p>Thereupon the walrus suddenly got up and stretched out his flipper.</p> - -<p>“Why, devil’s in it if that isn’t little Modin!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I surely thought it was someone I knew. Good-day, Brother Axelson! -Lord! but it’s hard to recognize folks out of their clothes.”</p> - -<p>“Aye, your own dog barks at you when you’re naked. I’m scared to death -of myself when I look at myself in a glass.”—Axelson surveyed his -new-found acquaintance with the critical look of a doctor.—“You seem to -be in good condition, Modin. Aren’t you going to plunge in?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks; I’m just enjoying a sun bath. I love to sit here like this -and take in the special bath-house smell of water and sun-steeped wood. -It has a holiday scent, don’t you think?—Well, do you know, I hadn’t a -notion it was in this town you were a doctor. That’s how folks lose -sight of each other.”</p> - -<p>“Aye, I’ve stuck it out here these seventeen years now, you faithless -little devil.—And you’ve taken over your father’s big antiquarian book -business.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you know everything of course. The same horse’s memory as ever. I -taught a while,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> but that didn’t suit me at all. And so when my father -died”——</p> - -<p>“Your catalog is always prized by connoisseurs.”</p> - -<p>“The first assistant, old Salin, deserves the credit of that. He’s a -faithful martinet. It’s really the etchings and engravings that interest -me. There’s certainly a bad feeling among our regular customers because -I can’t let the finest things go away from me. I’m here to look at the -collection of the deceased banker. I was here once fifteen years ago, -while I was still a teacher. I didn’t suspect then either that you were -in the neighborhood. That visit is connected with an exquisite memory, a -fleeting yet pervasive experience, which I can only compare with the -fragrance of certain delicate perfumes.”</p> - -<p>“You’re very keen about perfumes, my dear Modin; I remember that from of -old. Is it because the sense of smell is the weakest of the senses?”</p> - -<p>Modin made the gesture of pushing up his absent spectacles.</p> - -<p>“The weakest? On the contrary, smell is an extraordinarily fine sense. -We can distinguish the smallest nuances with it. The truth of the matter -is simply this, that we have only fixed a few of these nuances in -words.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“True. But at any rate smell belongs to those senses which have least to -do with our thought.”</p> - -<p>“It has infinitely much to do with all that lies above or below our -comprehension. It is in the highest degree a poetic sense, and I am -sorry for anyone who has a weak power of smell.”</p> - -<p>Axelson turned over with a grunt so as to be burnt evenly all over.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear Modin, now for your experience! This isn’t ordinarily a -town for great experiences.”</p> - -<p>“Very good. I came here by accident on a vacation trip. The ticket was -good for a longer journey, but the train stopped, it looked pretty, and -I got off. I left my knapsack at the hotel of Comfort and betook myself -to strolling along the select avenues of Peace.”</p> - -<p>“Hm! Traveling is nothing but trying to get away from yourself with -lies.”</p> - -<p>Modin seemed not to hear. He looked down into the water, which tossed up -a thousand splinters of sunlight.</p> - -<p>“It was a royal day in June: lofty blue heavens, a light breeze, -transfiguration in the air. The gardens blossomed within their red -palings and the daws cried merrily around the high church steeple. It -was a day when one suddenly stands still in the blue shade, looks over -the crosses in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> the churchyard grass, and finds that even death is -gentle.”</p> - -<p>“Hm, hm!”</p> - -<p>“Well, so I ate a light dinner and adventured out along the road into -the wide land of summer leafage. I have never in my life seen so much -white bloom: hedge, sloe, apple, pear, cherry. I recall too a linden -avenue—the gravel was quite yellow with the rain of blossoms—and the -branches murmured solemnly.”</p> - -<p>Axelson twisted himself over on his back again.</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, my dear brother, but did you meet anything?”</p> - -<p>“Everything and nothing, old friend. Without meeting a living soul I had -got out into a landscape of billowy grain fields and meadows with islets -of splendid old oaks. I walked along a blossoming ditch side and sat -down on a mossy stone close to a fence that ran around one of the knolls -of oak. It began to draw on a bit towards evening. The light had not yet -the garish colors of sunset; it was merely a thought more golden than -before. And in the low, warm light the green of the fields took on a -full-toned richness, a vehement intensity, which I shall never forget. -One speaks more often of an intense blue, but green too can take on such -a tone toward evening.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know how long I had sat absorbed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span> all this, when for some -reason or other I turned around and on the other side of the -half-dilapidated fence discovered a young lady dressed in white who was -sitting on the same slope with me. She had let the book she had been -reading sink down on her knees and was gazing similarly out into the -wondrous living sea of color.</p> - -<p>“At first I was almost taken aback at not being absolutely alone with my -emotion, which was so overpowering. But I soon came to myself. Very -good, thought I, at any rate there are at this moment no more than two -persons in the world, she and I. And—can you imagine it?—I, who am -ordinarily so shy and embarrassed in ladies’ society, began a -conversation: ‘Here we are sitting, we two, as <i>staffage</i> for the -loveliest picture in the world.’ Words glided off my tongue of -themselves with a sort of gentle irresistibility which I have never felt -before or since. Perhaps my words fitted in in some way with what she -had just read in her book. She nodded with a slight smile: ‘Yes, it’s -wonderfully lovely.’ I leaned against the fence. ‘How insignificant is -all that <i>happens</i> in life compared to such a moment of afternoon as -this?’ I said. ‘Even fate seems old and dusty, dusty with stage dust.’</p> - -<p>“This was the introduction to a long conversation, at the beginning very -lively—a conversation about everything and nothing, of various colors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span> -of flowers and perfumes, of the flight of the swallows that wheeled -above our heads.”</p> - -<p>Axelson pricked up his ears.</p> - -<p>“Swallows,” he muttered; “then there was a barn or a dwelling-house in -the neighborhood.”</p> - -<p>But Modin meanwhile heard only his own voice.</p> - -<p>“Gradually the evening grew utterly quiet. I can still hear the soft -incessant rustling among the dry leaves heaped up in the ditch, a -rustling that told of minute unknown lives. And I can still see her -white skirt against the green hillside. Behind her the thick blossoms of -the hawthorn shone mysteriously under black, dead branches in the green -half-darkness of the oak wood. It was in truth a wood for the -imagination, a Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden. And the young woman I -talked with was Rosalind. I told her so, and she seemed to appreciate -it.</p> - -<p>“Gradually our conversation grew more serious. We spoke of special, -intimate, personal memories and of our common interests in life. We -weighed life and death with swift, light sensitive words. What we said -was simple, frank, stamped with the most eager and honest wish to give a -living impression of our true character. It was a genuine contact of -soul with soul.</p> - -<p>“Well, then the shadows of the trees on the field began to grow long and -contemplative, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> we said good-bye. She picked up her book and gave me -her hand across the fence, for I had kept on standing on the other side. -‘Thanks and good evening,’ she murmured, ‘thanks and farewell.’ With -that she was gone into the woods. As for me, I went home to the hotel -and lay down in my clothes with my hands under my head, and there I lay -awake all night. That was the loveliest night of my life, I may tell -you. I felt myself marvelously cleansed and exalted, lonely and yet not -alone.—Next day I went on where my ticket was made out for. And that -was the whole thing.”</p> - -<p>Axelson smiled:</p> - -<p>“That wasn’t so terribly much.”</p> - -<p>“It was much to me, my dear friend. You have, to be sure, a more robust -appetite.”</p> - -<p>“But why the devil did you go on? Why didn’t you go back to your Forest -of Arden?”</p> - -<p>Modin blinked at the sun with a smile of quiet fanaticism:</p> - -<p>“I am no fool.”</p> - -<p>“But it might have been something for your whole life.”</p> - -<p>“As it is it’s something for my whole life, though of course you can’t -understand it. I dare affirm that never has a meeting of two persons -been so unconstrained, so deep and free. People<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> talk of intuitive -thought, but here was an intuitive companionship without selfish purpose -or social barrier. Never a second time would such a flood of clear and -radiant ideas have surged through my consciousness. I tell you, the most -involved concatenation arranged itself automatically with lightning -speed like nodal figures at the stroke of the bow. And the memory of our -communion remains always equally fresh and pure just because I did not -wear it stale with further acquaintance. I don’t lie when I say that I -have lived in a sort of spiritual wedlock with that unknown woman. Who -can prove that the long years give more than one exquisite hour? -Humanity is so brittle and changeful that a long life together must -always be precarious. I have no idea whether she was married or became -married later. But it may very well be that I know that woman better -than her husband does. Strong impressions wear away. People can’t be -true to each other over a long period. For truth the great requisite is -freshness, immediateness. Truth must always be new, according to my -philosophy. Habit is truth’s worst enemy. How then can a lifelong -marriage be true?”</p> - -<p>Axelson raised his eyebrows:</p> - -<p>“Wait a bit. I must strike in and put a few questions before I get -angry. For instance, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span> would be nice to hear a closer description of -this lady with whom you have lived in such a remarkable wedlock.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, I can answer you, since I’m fully armed against all -sarcasms. She was a woman of an altogether unusual feminine spirit. In -her archness there was a delicate acknowledgment of her womanly -limitations. And he who knows his bounds is already beyond them. She -had, perhaps, no thoughts that were actually her own, but she had a -quick, gentle receptivity which gave one the pleasant feeling that -everything fell upon good ground and bore fruit a hundredfold. I begot -thoughts and dreams upon her and enjoyed a sort of intellectual -fertilization.”</p> - -<p>“But may I permit myself to doubt whether this glorified bridal mood -really made such a permanent impression on the other person?”</p> - -<p>“What right have you to do that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, one might suppose it was only for a moment that she reverted to the -usual flighty sentimentality which lies like a broken husk around a -woman’s realism. The realism is genuine because it is rooted in -suffering and the hard limitations of nature. No, woman is not what the -bachelor thinks, not what either the ethereal or the crude bachelors -think. It may well be that her instinct was whispering all the time in -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> depths: Look out for this man, because he is in reality a damned -little egoist.”</p> - -<p>Modin did not seem to be impressed.</p> - -<p>“That’s just like you, Axelson,” he muttered. “You were in the landscape -then, too. You were the corncrake. Just a harsh, obstinate noise.”</p> - -<p>Axelson grew all the more contentious. He strode back and forth over the -hot bridge, unconsciously holding his fists where his trousers pockets -should have been. At last he halted in front of Modin:</p> - -<p>“My dear brother, we have come into a condition of moral nakedness. -Permit me to be wholly frank. It looks from your body as if you had -never tried a tussle with life. I take back the term bachelor, for, with -your pardon, there is more of the old maid about you. Yes, don’t be -angry. But, you see, you keep irritating me damnably with your misuse of -the word marriage. For me marriage is a deep word, deeper even than the -word love. Marriage is something big, hard; even rough, if you like. It -is brimmed with sweetness and suffering and bitter necessity as -inescapable as the fact that you as a little delicate creature have lain -crumpled up in your tortured mother’s body. One may say in a certain -manner that a fleeting, loose relation is purer and finer than marriage, -but that is a desertion from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span> reality, an unorganic arabesque, a petty -splendor. Marriage is an heroic word. Yes, because man and woman must -inflict heavy suffering upon each other. Sex, which frets them both, -must at certain times be felt as a curse. Between even the best and most -sober couples there are times of despair and hate. There is a disease of -hatred which is inborn in man. But still it is great to endure together. -And an honest and deep despair is something quite different from a -little cold and limp aversion without marrow in its bones. Everything -that’s honest, everything that doesn’t falsify the fundamentals of life, -has a worth, let it look as devilish bitter as it may.”</p> - -<p>Modin looked away, troubled by the other’s confidence.</p> - -<p>“My dear friend, I haven’t desired to hear all this. From your -experience you will hardly succeed in making an apology for marriage.”</p> - -<p>Axelson gave a jump.</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, you little idiot, my marriage is an uncommonly good -one. We have five children and are inseparable till death. I tell you -this: Cut out woman from your life and you are only half a man! But -that’s enough of this. I’m now—deuce take it!—roasted through. Shall -we get dressed?”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>Axelson dove into his cabin. But he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> scarcely got on his shirt and -trousers before he came rushing into Modin’s compartment.</p> - -<p>“Listen! Excuse a question. You were telling about an avenue of lindens -and a grove of oaks. Do you happen to remember anything more definite -about the road out?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know of what use all this is. For the matter of that I remember -less about localities than of my own feelings.”</p> - -<p>“Come, try now, or I’ll think you are tricking me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve a notion that I passed over a little bridge and under a high red -shaky gable, that somehow made me think of Almkvist’s story, <i>The Mill</i>. -That was surely just before my digression.”</p> - -<p>Axelson’s eyes gleamed.</p> - -<p>“My good fellow, you must have taken a remarkable circuit, because the -mill lies just two and a half minutes’ journey outside the town. Do you -by any chance remember a giant oak almost dead, which stood down on the -slope away from the others?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think I do.”</p> - -<p>“Good, good! Then I may tell you that about a hundred yards from the -place of your meeting stood a dwelling-house, though you could not see -it; an ordinary, white-plastered, fire-insured, fairly well mortgaged, -decent two-story house with young folks and servants and a croquet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> -ground. So the wonderful loneliness didn’t amount to much.”</p> - -<p>Modin carefully tied his necktie.</p> - -<p>“You’re making a fantastically vain attempt to rob me of my illusions.”</p> - -<p>“Just one more question: Do you remember something special in the white -lady’s appearance?”</p> - -<p>“By something special you mean of course a blemish. Yes, I was really -fascinated by a little scar she had on her forehead. It was a very -decorative scar, because it drew up one eyebrow a trifle and at first -glance gave her a lively and somewhat mocking appearance.”</p> - -<p>Axelson’s whole countenance glowed.</p> - -<p>“Splendid, splendid! I sewed that scar together. I know as much as you -like of the lady in question. The doctor is the whole town’s father -confessor.”</p> - -<p>Modin made a gesture of refusal with both hands.</p> - -<p>“I wish to know absolutely nothing, I beg you, nothing!”</p> - -<p>But Axelson was merciless.</p> - -<p>“This much you must know at any rate, that she got the scar when she -fell off a bicycle. And that she lived with her parents in the -white-plastered two-story house. And that she worked at the post office -from nine to one. And further<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span>more that she had probably just been -betrothed in that very dress. You see that I know my community.”</p> - -<p>“But all this is most uninteresting, my dear Axelson.”</p> - -<p>“Not altogether, my dear brother, not altogether.”</p> - -<p>Axelson dived back into his cabin.</p> - -<p>The two men were soon ready. Despite the summer heat Modin was attired -in black, and very jauntily; Axelson on the other hand wore a gray check -suit. The walrus looked very masterful and imposing when he was dressed. -One understood directly that he amounted to something in his community. -He stood forth on the quay and slapped the other man on the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Hope you’ll do me the honor of eating dinner with me.”</p> - -<p>Modin as a matter of fact was much disinclined but did not see how he -could refuse. Axelson lived a little way out of the town. They passed -through an avenue of lindens. The doctor from time to time ogled his -friend sidewise. Modin walked slowly and often looked about him. He -seemed irresolute. They passed a bridge and the high red gable of a -mill. They branched off on a somewhat narrower by-road by the side of -the pond. They rounded a hillside with oaks and soon stood before a -fruit orchard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> behind which rose a white-plastered two-story house. -Axelson hastened to open a gate at the gable end.</p> - -<p>“Be so good as to come in, my dear brother.”</p> - -<p>Modin hesitated, paled and grew faint, but Axelson took him by the arm -and drew him hastily along.</p> - -<p>Up on the veranda stood a robust lady of middle age, and on the lawn -played several bare-legged boys.</p> - -<p>Modin just saved himself from falling on the steps. He looked toward the -edge of the woods with a helpless glance. But his host introduced him -with a grim quiver of the mustache.</p> - -<p>“Doctor Amadeus Modin—my wife.”</p> - -<p>With that Axelson’s commanding voice rang out across the lawn, “Come -children, aren’t you going to say how-do-you-do to uncle?”</p> - -<p>The five boys came forward and bowed in turn. It was agony to Modin. He -sank down on a sofa and cast an anxious sidelong glance over their -close-cropped heads at the lady of the house. She was still dressed in -white, and the scar over her eyebrow was still visible. It became her as -well as ever, though in a different way. Her figure was full but firm. -She had in her something of the matron, in the proud Roman significance -of the word. They were a seasoned and vigorous couple, she and her -husband. A noticeably stern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> matrimonial resemblance had arisen between -these two persons, whom it never would have occurred to him to associate -with each other. Their mouths had the same expression of sharp humor. -Two veterans who had fought their battles side by side, they might have -been marching along together for many years.</p> - -<p>All of this passed like lightning through poor Modin’s brain. He no -longer believed actually that he knew more about the lady in white than -did her husband.</p> - -<p>Axelson was on the watch when his wife went in to arrange about dinner -and pounced on his guest.</p> - -<p>“Beware of white ladies, dear brother. So far it seems that she doesn’t -recognize you. But at dinner I may perhaps make her memory clearer. It’s -uncanny when the dead come to life, eh?”</p> - -<p>And with that if the brutal dog didn’t go on to hum:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Look out, my boy, look out, look out!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">’Tis the White Lady beyond a doubt.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>He then hurried in for a moment after his wife, presumably to order the -wine. But Modin used the moment. He had no wish whatever to be -recognized by the bride of his dreams. On the contrary he seized his -hat, bounded away over cucumber frames and strawberry patches, and swift -as the timid doe threw himself among the sheltering trees of the wood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="LEONARD_AND_THE_FISHERMAN" id="LEONARD_AND_THE_FISHERMAN"></a>LEONARD AND THE FISHERMAN</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>FTER a dinner consisting of an anchovy and four cold potatoes Leonard, -a needy artist in wood-cuts, wandered about aimlessly through the city. -It was a May day of the grand and dangerous sort. Over the heavens -voyaged festal white clouds of giant size, bulging with undefined -expectations. And the cool, prickly wind whistled with seductive mockery -of all that lay behind the horizon: explorations, adventures, visions of -beauty. It was a day of lightness and oppression; of futile longing for -action; of cold, far-reaching perfidy; and deep, exhausting unrest. How -can the breast expand to bursting and at the same time feel so horribly -empty? thought Leonard. Spring is the time when we not only make solemn -confession but are merged into a new vital existence; whence, then, in -the name of all the devils, is this emptiness, this lack in the midst of -plenty, this criminal tendency to put all the glory behind one as -quickly as possible?</p> - -<p>Brooding painfully over these things, Leonard reeled about half blind -and with aching eyes through Gustavus Adolphus Place. Finally he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span> -succeeded in making a resolution: to go down to the River Terrace and -see whether the apple trees had begun to blossom yet.</p> - -<p>It proved that they had not gone beyond the budding stage.</p> - -<p>Leonard then dragged himself up to the railing and stood there a long -while under the branches of a large poplar, watching the Northstream -tumble its waters between the piers.</p> - -<p>There is a certain immobility in the midst of motion in rushing water. -The same foaming, roaring wave stays there hour after hour, year after -year, indicating a stone in the uneven bed of the torrent. Leonard -sought to calm himself with philosophizing over this wave. So does life -go on through its forms, he thought. Yonder fettered wave corresponds to -the ripple of a flower petal, the curve of a chin. Then some spring day, -maybe, the stone is undermined, an unknown obstruction in the furrow of -the stream of life is cleared away, and the wave is transformed, the -flower petal changes, the curve of the chin becomes different and -softer.</p> - -<p>Leonard was not the first man who had philosophized above the running -stream. But he found no rest thereby. His thoughts merely played on the -surface; they served only to sharpen his feeling of uncertainty. The -fettered wave irritated him with its feeble trembling, its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> futile -tossing. The continuous roar was like an indefinite warning, a dark -threat. A warning of what? A threat of what? Ah, thou wonderful month of -May!</p> - -<p>Leonard clenched his empty fists and sank down on a bench in complete -despair.</p> - -<p>With that his eye fell on a little old man of the fisher trade. He was -smoking in great repose a short pipe, muttering to himself, and picking -at his clasp-knife, which he had taken apart and hung on the railing to -dry. Leonard observed him a long time with secret envy. In winter it’s -all very fine to be young, he thought, but in spring a man ought to be -as old as possible—or at least to have rheumatism that lets up in fair -weather. He got up laboriously and pushed his way to the fisherman.</p> - -<p>“What have you to say to a day like this?” he grumbled.</p> - -<p>“Eh, well, just that I think there are bream under the bridge piers -today,” the old man said reflectively and puffed out a little blue -cloud.</p> - -<p>Leonard was struck by the answer. He began a long conversation with the -fisherman, whose name was Lundstrom. The best fishing was spring and -autumn, he learned. It was mostly smelt and bream. Perhaps a perch now -and again. And before Christmas everybody got a burbot or two in -eel-pots a little further up the Malar.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span></p> - -<p>He doesn’t make any too much, thought Leonard. But he doesn’t talk about -his fishing in the surly tone that poor men mostly use in growling about -their scanty earnings. He is proud of his catches, he fondles his -tackle, and his eyes rest confidently and patiently on the water. I -gather from that that he is a true fisherman, which a man isn’t very -likely to become unless he has left much behind him.</p> - -<p>This quiet fisher person had a strange and enigmatical charm for -Leonard. The old man had pulled together the large iron rings, and -already the dip-net was swinging festively at its gallows on his low -green-painted craft. There was only the grapnel to be pulled in. -Thereupon Leonard reached over the railing and pled touchingly to be -taken along for once.</p> - -<p>Yes, that would be all right enough.</p> - -<p>The boat was first hauled along the stone quay to the bridge and then -out with the stem set straight into the roaring whirlpool. A few quick, -well-directed oar-strokes, and they floated calmly in the back eddy from -the nearest pier of the bridge with the foaming surge to right and left -and the dusky arches of the bridge ringing and singing over their heads. -There was a dizziness in the suction between the bridge piers, a -sensation of rapid movement and yet of rest.</p> - -<p>Lundstrom made fast to a ring and sat down<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> at the crank by means of -which he lowered and raised his net.</p> - -<p>“Now the job is to sink the net straight down,” he said; “and to do that -one must manage so that it is half taken by the current and half by the -back eddy. Perhaps the gentleman will give a pull at the oars. There, -bring her in a little and it’ll be fine!”</p> - -<p>Leonard brought the boat in and the net descended solemnly.</p> - -<p>The old man sank into meditation for a while, and this was a good time -to study him. He was by no means ill to look at.</p> - -<p>Why should the upper classes be condemned to appear correct and banal? -Why should fine folk go about as a monstrosity to every practised and -sensitive eye? Look at Lundstrom’s jacket here! The sun and rain of all -seasons has given it the most delicate shade of green. His hat with its -admirable patina might be of bronze. And his trousers!—what a -combination of characteristic wrinkles, telling of age, experience and -strife well sustained. What a treasure for an artist in wood-cuts! -Lundstrom’s custom had grown as one with him. It was no wretched -accident. Is there anything more agonizing than a tired, grumpy -scarecrow that peers out of a brand new summer suit, glittering with -naïve optimism? Or red-cheeked, pious rusticity sewed up in cautiously<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span> -gray, pessimistic duds from a distant, smoky, rain-dripping, overcrowded -factory district? But out of Lundstrom’s worn collar grew a face covered -with moss-gray stubble over a network of friendly wrinkles and furrows. -And out of the stubble shot up a two-story nose with room for many a -pinch of reflective snuff. Large noses may be either volcanic or placid. -Lundstrom’s was placid. It separated genially but firmly two small gray, -liquidly bright eyes, which never seemed to have fastened on anything -that burned too hot, never to have stared at anything helplessly, never -to have wavered anxiously about over empty, exhausting horizons.</p> - -<p>Lucky man, sighed Leonard. He sits peacefully under the voyaging clouds, -in the midst of the Northstream swollen with spring freshets he sits -peacefully at his crank. He is on the far side of indefinite -expectations and adventure and drifting about in the inane. He has -happily left his future behind him.</p> - -<p>“But for heaven’s sake it must surely be time for you to haul up.”</p> - -<p>“No hurry, no hurry,” opined Lundstrom, who nevertheless began gently to -turn the crank. The net came up with a good sediment of silver-white -splashing smelts.</p> - -<p>With a quiet pursing of the lips the old man emptied his cargo into the -fish-well.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span></p> - -<p>Next time there was a bream, a plump rascal.</p> - -<p>Beyond the bridge railing and the stone barrier over by Gustavus -Adolphus Place it was already black with people. A little boy in a blue -embroidered blouse tried very cleverly to spit on Leonard’s hat. But -Leonard began to find the folk up there altogether ephemeral, them and -the whole muddle of palace, Parliament House, churches, theatres, -prisons and banks which chance had collected along the river; the river -which had run when there were only a few islands here inhabited by -fishermen, and which would continue to run when all the splendor was -dust again.</p> - -<p>But Lundstrom, who grew cheerful with his good luck, began little by -little to express his opinion about one thing and another. It may as -well be said first as last that he regarded with slightly ironic -disapproval a good deal of the bustle up there in the city. Ministerial -crises, election campaigns, debates, law-suits, theatre intrigues, and -things of that sort struck him as mere nonsense.</p> - -<p>“Folks babble and gad about so they get tired and cross,” he said. “They -ought to fish a little more than they do. All the ministers ought to -come down here and pull the net a couple of times a week. And the party -leaders and the soloists and the other star actors as well. That would -make them really good. And if there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span>n’t room for them all here, let -the government hire a big boat and carry them all out to the coast. It’s -right astonishing how folks can work things out when they are together -in a boat. And likewise how it can thaw one’s head to sit and look at a -dipsy. I don’t know how it is, but there’s surely something specially -particular about water.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I need only think about myself,” continued Lundstrom. “How should -I have ever got straight without this here boat and net? It doesn’t help -how quiet a man is; he gets stage fright sometimes just the same, in my -opinion. First night is first night, and that’s just how it feels in the -pit of the stomach many weeks ahead. The gentleman may imagine that it’s -a job to turn a wild and desolate wood into a fine castle hall with roof -chandeliers and a marble floor and pillars and pictures and chairs. And -all that must be done in less time than the gentleman needs to empty a -glass of punch. It was specially hard with that fellow Shakespeare, who -was hard on account of all his scenes. Imagine if a piece of cliff -scenery should come dancing down into the middle of a little petite -French boudoir, as they call it. That would look fine! Aye, if a man -went off and worried over all the misfortunes that could happen, it was -a good thing to have fishing to turn to. Down here it was as if all a -ma<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span>n’s troubles ran off him. Lord! a man would think, it isn’t the only -thing in life if a piece of building should go wrong up in that play-box -there. Yes, I’ve been in the theatre line over fifty years, I have. So a -man has his memories. ‘A Traveling Troupe’ was a crazy piece, for there -a man had to turn the wings hindside front, as the gentleman should -know, so that only the gray cloth could be seen from the hall. I believe -I know all the fine lines by heart from that day to this, and Hamlet too -at a pinch. One time Yorick’s skull was to have been brought out. The -public got impatient and began to cough and stamp. But we couldn’t raise -the curtain for the church-yard scene, because Hamlet had to have the -skull to make his speech about. There was the skull of a man who had -killed his wife and child and one and a half bailiffs; we had got the -loan of it from the Charles Institute. We hunted and hunted. At last I -came upon the skull in a trunk. The actor who was playing Hamlet was so -glad that he promised to give me a supper at Stromsholm. He kept his -word, too: steak and vegetables and fizzy pearls. Afterwards it came out -that somebody had hid the skull on purpose. It was somebody who wanted -to have the rôle and was nearly bursting with jealousy. He certainly -needed to get out and fish a little, eh?</p> - -<p>“Well, that was Hamlet. Afterwards I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> over to the opera. I didn’t -regret it; music suited me better. That comes about as a man gets older, -you see. A man gets tired of the many words. But with music one can -think anything at all. I was with the opera upwards of twenty years, up -to last Christmas—Aye, aye, a man gets old.... Well, so now I get to -amuse myself with the boat here and tramping for the organ at Jacob’s -Church. Yes, that affair of the organ tramping is a special particular -story which we shan’t talk over now,” said Lundstrom, who seemed to -touch with some shyness his transition to the churchly vocation.</p> - -<p>Hereupon the old man again grasped his crank, and up came another -splendid batch of fat breams. With friendly, approving comment he let -them vanish into the well.</p> - -<p>Look here, today is turning out better than I supposed, thought Leonard, -who could hardly keep from rubbing his hands. My life and trade seem -really prosperous from the frog’s-eye view of this old fisherman.</p> - -<p>But Lundstrom cast a knowing, sidelong look at him.</p> - -<p>“No, I steal up into the theatre garret sometimes and hear a little of -this world’s music yet, as old as I am. Though it doesn’t give me -sleepless nights any more, you see. A man sleeps well when he has a big -organ to turn to.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Leonard smiled more broadly and sat quiet, struck by the old man’s -repose. This contented frog’s-eye view of the drama of life spread out -into a wider perspective than he had supposed at the start.</p> - -<p>The old man pointed to a paper sticking out of the artist’s pocket.</p> - -<p>“Should you perhaps care to look what they’re giving up there tonight? -‘Tristan and Isolde.’ Indeed! that’s a fine thing. Then I’ll go up a -while. You see I’ve been with them and set scenes for that opera, so -it’s an old acquaintance. Well, and so I’ll thank you for your help. -It’s past eight and that will have to be enough of the breams till -tonight.”</p> - -<p>It was in fact drawing on towards evening. Heaven’s great voyaging -clouds had ceased to move, saturated with the newly-won warmth of the -light, and had sunk nearer to earth. In the stealthy silence of the -early twilight the roaring of the river grew suddenly stronger, and its -whirlpools more suckingly mysterious. It was evident that the spring day -had determined to show the last and most dangerous phase of its power.</p> - -<p>But Lundstrom cast loose from the ring unconcernedly. His craft was -slung some fifty yards down with the surge but glided neatly into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> -smooth water under the River Terrace, where it was moored at its usual -place.</p> - -<p>It did not occur to Leonard to say good-bye. And yet as he went up the -granite steps he felt that now he was passing out of the worthy -Lundstrom’s perspective. Here ashore the fisherman’s power of giving -certitude was no longer the same.</p> - -<p>No, for up on the bridge went Woman. Nothing could save one from her. -Ah, this delicate shiver in the air, this trembling in the nerves of the -invisible which sent its waves through coat and Sunday paper straight -into one’s heart! The restlessness of the day had deepened to a livelier -and more dangerous poison. That which in the morning was a sick longing -for distant horizons—what was it towards evening but the erotic urge?</p> - -<p>Under the low rosy clouds too went Woman, she who grows with the shades -so as with night to overshadow the world.</p> - -<p>A poor artist’s situation was again near to desperation.</p> - -<p>The enviable Lundstrom was to go in a back way and listen to ‘Tristan -and Isolde.’ Leonard followed him shyly and irresolutely to the stage -entrance of the opera house. In his eyes lay a prayer not to be left -alone in the midst of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span> dreadful spring evening. Lundstrom did not -fail to see the young man’s helplessness.</p> - -<p>“The gentleman may surely come with me,” he said. “I’m a good friend of -the porter from forty years back. He gets a bream or so now and then. -Just come along!”</p> - -<p>Leonard passed a gray head which nodded at a rectangular peep-hole. He -then went into a long dark corridor, where a squire with brown kilt and -broadsword stood joking at a telephone. Next there were some steps, -where Leonard continually had to stand and wait for the puffing -Lundstrom. All was silent and empty here. They met only a fireman and a -scene-shifter in a blue coat, who called Lundstrom “uncle.”</p> - -<p>Now a warm, dusky odor was perceptible and a muffled buzzing and -mumbling, which seemed to come from the very walls. That must be the -orchestra, which was tuning up somewhere in the depths. But Lundstrom -cautiously pushed up an iron door and they came out on the first gallery -of the stage. Down in the great cluttered space below ran workmen -arranging the ship’s deck for the first act, and some of the chorus men -stood in a laughing group waiting to take their places.</p> - -<p>Lundstrom cast a searching glance below.</p> - -<p>“Look at that!” he muttered with some disapproval; “they have made the -tent smaller. In my time it ran out to the fifth plank, mark H.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>It was still too noisy and disturbed where they were, so they went up by -a narrow ladder to the second gallery. Lundstrom sat down on a mighty -stage dragon of lath and plaster which was hoisted up in the back-scene, -and Leonard leaned against a great machine with handles, hexagonal -cylinders and heavy felt hammers.</p> - -<p>“The old stage thunder,” whispered Lundstrom. “They have new, better -thunder now that goes by electricity.”</p> - -<p>There was a fantastic play of light and shadow up through the enormously -high vault of the stage, which extended over their heads with five more -galleries. The electric footlights below threw splintered rays up -through the grilled flooring of the galleries, until the gleams were -lost in an incredible labyrinth of ropes, weights and pulleys. The whole -was like a giant skeleton, a fantastic loom.</p> - -<p>This is where they weave dusty lies, thought Leonard, who found the rear -view of the drama grotesque and oppressive, so that he almost began to -long for the streets again. People must love illusion astoundingly, if -it can be made big business to such an extent.</p> - -<p>But with this the trickling tones of the orchestra tuning up were -suddenly silent, and after a few moments the prelude broke out with a -voice of powerful earnestness. A thrill passed through<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span> Leonard’s nerves -and in a moment he was tense and expectant. Like a living, overwhelming -stream of actuality the music burst forth through all the dusty rubbish -of illusion.</p> - -<p>Now the curtain was raised and the human voices came up, gushed up. -There was the sailor’s gay song of yearning on his billowy journey to -the land of King Mark, Isolde’s wildly surging hate and suffering, -Tristan’s timid, rock-firm defiance of death. So it went on to the magic -potion and the helpless, the irresistible love cry which is lost in -endless jubilation.</p> - -<p>The curtain fell again.</p> - -<p>Leonard looked at Lundstrom, wondering what he could possibly fish up -from such a stream. The old man seemed tranquil and unmoved, as he sat -on the scaly dragon and held in his mouth his unlighted pipe.</p> - -<p>“Now they’ve got to hurry down there,” he said, “for now the ship must -become a park.”</p> - -<p>Threads began to move on the giant loom, blocks creaked and giant -fabrics gave forth dust. With that the park was there, though it looked -very strange from the back, and the curtain solemnly came aloft once -more.</p> - -<p>The two sat squatting again at the brink of the great music torrent. -Heavy, bottomless well of tone—dark purple, restlessly driving waves, -which now and then break into foam with a cry:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“O thou spirit’s<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Highest, maddest<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Exquisite burning joy!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Love rescued from the cold glance of day—night without -morning—yearning for death—the world’s redemption through passionate -ecstasy!</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Quiet our trembling,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sweetest death,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With yearning awaited,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">O love-blent Death!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>And so on to the end—the sinister dawn with the chill spectres of day, -the discovery, the crossed blades and Tristan’s wound.</p> - -<p>Such things are too much for a poor lonely and hungry artist on a lovely -evening in May.</p> - -<p>“The deuce is in it,” he muttered, “the very deuce! Why after that -should a poor devil sit and carve in wood?”</p> - -<p>But Lundstrom sat with his chin on his hand and gazed out of the -distance, paying hardly any attention to Leonard’s violent gestures. The -old man’s shadow was outlined on a blue background, large, vague, as -though ready to merge in the dimness of the thousand recesses around it.</p> - -<p>Leonard was no longer interested in him, he would have preferred to be -alone. Pshaw! the poor old codger hasn’t a notion of what is seething -down there, he thought. He’s just moidering<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> around with old stage -properties. But thereupon Lundstrom lifted his gray head and said -something which indicated that he nevertheless could fish memories out -of the stream of tone.</p> - -<p>“Sometimes when I sit here I get to be with them that lie out in the -church-yard,” he muttered. “Wife and children and friends. It’s as if -the music rinsed one out inside. Everything gets clearer and one sees -that what’s been is still.”</p> - -<p>“I see only what will never come to pass in life for my part, and that’s -a cursed lot different,” burst out Leonard with greater bitterness than -he himself realized. In his heat he was constrained to use strong words. -But in reality he felt the beginning of a relaxation and release.</p> - -<p>Then came the third act.</p> - -<p>Tristan lies in feverish dreams by the shore of the sea. He waits for -his Isolde. But when she finally comes, he, in the wild joy of -desperation, tears open his unhealed wound and bleeds to death before it -is vouchsafed him to kiss her. So, too, it had to be. Passion has -overleaped all human bounds. It is a cool, wondrous alleviation that -finally his blood may pour forth with the poison of the potion, with all -the endless, tempestuous, lamenting, jubilating desire.</p> - -<p>They got up softly and pressed out through the glowing dust over mighty -craters of tone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span></p> - -<p>Outside, the spring night was cool. Leonard grew pale and his eyes -shone.</p> - -<p>“In old times people opened their veins,” he muttered, “but this is a -much finer way.”</p> - -<p>He edged hurriedly across Gustavus Adolphus Place and took his stand at -the barrier by the river. The moon hung thin as a flower petal up in the -greenish-blue heavens, whose color seemed to consist only of coolness -and depth. The river rolled along pale mother-of-pearl dust.</p> - -<p>Here assuredly some one passed one day in May and was empty and sad and -full of fiery moods, thought Leonard. But now he has loved and died with -Tristan, so that now he hardly touches the ground, and everything is -silent and all the world appears as a cool and lovely memory. Yes, what -have I, Leonard the artist in wood-cuts, not experienced, seeing that I -stand here with the fate of a mighty heart behind me! In this hour I -feel love as a great enrapturing memory, something that lives in my soul -but is not able to choke my freedom. I have come to drink the potion -without its fatal poison. Verily art can give appeasement even to the -most burning Now. In art is freedom!</p> - -<p>Leonard had almost wholly forgotten his fisherman. But now he noted that -the old man stood steadily beside him at the rampart. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> face appeared -smaller than before in the moonlight. Despite the two-story nose and the -gray stubble it was almost like a child’s. But it had always the same -stamp of repose. It peered out into the spring night, as if all this -illimitable canopy was a friendly home for brisk old folks. Naturally, -thought Leonard, the whole world is for him just a beautiful dream of -once on a time. The moon, the trees, and the rushing water here, all are -his memory, all have flowed into a great certitude, all are his -innermost self, as memories are.</p> - -<p>Leonard gave the old man his hand:</p> - -<p>“Thanks for your help!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Aye, thanks and good-bye, then. Now I must down there again a bit, I -suppose. Fishing is best at night.”</p> - -<p>Thereupon Lundstrom went to his net. But Leonard strolled without -uncertainty or restlessness up to his den on the crest of South -Stockholm. His thoughts played meanwhile with the same daring little -speech:</p> - -<p>Why should infinity make us homeless? he said to himself. Infinity has -its middle point somewhere. Well, and I, woodcut artist Leonard, am -sitting in the centre. Should I not then with a good heart cut at my -boxwood blocks?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span></p> - -<h2> -STORIES BY<br /> -VERNER <small>VON</small> HEIDENSTAM<br /> -</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> </p> - -<h3><a name="WHEN_THE_BELLS_RING" id="WHEN_THE_BELLS_RING"></a>WHEN THE BELLS RING</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N southern Småland, just where the stony road to Scania branches into -several village paths and a muddy slope leads up to the parish church, -there stood a mill, painted red and with the largest wings that anyone -had ever seen in all that region. The miller was dead long since. His -widow, named Kerstin Bure, a woman who in her childhood had seen happier -days and eaten from shining plates of pewter, managed the mill after her -own fashion. She never made mention of her birth or of the love-dealings -that had enticed her from a well-to-do pastor’s home to the narrow -tower-room of a miller, where the axle-beam groaned directly over her -sleeping-place; but then she did not speak of other things either. The -husband had been too poor to possess a cottage of his own and had -instead built a chimney straight through the roof of the mill. There -year after year, with her sewing in her hand, the wife had silently -continued to watch the work of the men. If at any time she was asked for -advice, she answered preferably with a nod or a shake of the head, and -she seldom went away further than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> stone’s throw from the mill. In -figure she was tall and slim with delicate hands, and her face under the -starched cap, which was always of the same invariable whiteness, -reminded one of Mary Magdalen’s on the picture at the altar, though it -was more yellowed and shrunken. She never took women into her service, -and so women in particular accustomed themselves to passing her in -silence. They did not rightly know whether she was proud or meek, but -most of them thought that she might well be both. When the sexton -appeared with his beadsmen and in his best Sunday attire to solicit the -hand of this woman, who was already old and gray, she became quite -confused and abashed. She blushed to the roots of her hair and merely -shook her head.</p> - -<p>One morning she found an infant boy on a heap of twigs by the spring, -and as no one knew anything about the parents, she took the little one -to her with great tenderness.</p> - -<p>“Nobody can tell whether there lies in that heart good or evil seed,” -she said, “but the day may come when I am to try it. You shall be called -Johannes, because you are to become devout as an angel of God. I have -been sore afflicted, but for you I shall lay by a pretty penny, so that -your life-days may sometime counterbalance the heavy ones I have known.”</p> - -<p>The boy grew up, and when he prepared for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> confirmation, he surprised -everybody by his pious and godly answers. With his glossy flaxen hair -hanging over his shoulders he afterwards sat by his foster-mother on the -mill steps in the bright midsummer evenings and read diligently in the -books that he had borrowed from the pastor of the congregation. They sat -always taciturnly and quietly, but sometimes he pointed out with his -finger some line that seemed to him more beautiful than the others and -read it softly aloud.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Hay-ricks and meadows were sending out their perfume of harvest and -pasture, and so too, though withered, did the clover—or -trefoil-blossoms that lay forgotten here and there between the leaves of -the book as markers. Even late at night only a single star burned, but -that was large and radiant. Everywhere people were awake and talking, -and the cottage doors stood open.</p> - -<p>Many whispered to one another a dark rumor of how the Swedish army had -been beaten at Poltava and that now the Danes were to land and complete -the entire overthrow of Sweden.</p> - -<p>One Sunday night a rider stopped at the stairs of the mill and asked for -lodging.</p> - -<p>Johannes looked doubtfully at his foster-mother and asked the stranger -whether he would not rather go on up the hill to the provost’s place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No,” he answered, “I want first to see tonight how the people are -getting on.”</p> - -<p>He managed to get his horse into the walled passage under the mill and -then settled down quite contentedly among the others to a plate of -beer-soup and a loaf of black bread.</p> - -<p>He had let his hair and his goat-like beard grow, so that he looked like -a common peasant, but sometimes he pulled his mouth toward his ears and -talked harshly in the broadest Scanian, and sometimes he squeezed up his -eyes and lamented in the most sentimental Smålandish. He kept awake all -night continuing his merry discourse. Once he took a piece of charcoal -and drew a speaking likeness of Johannes on the wall. A little later he -gave Kerstin Bure shrewd advice as to how she should grease the -mill-axle. Or he would sing psalms and polka-tunes, to which he himself -set the words. In the morning he took from his traveling-sack a suit -with bright soldier’s buttons. When Johannes and the old woman peeped -wonderingly through the shutters to see whither he went, he was already -standing in the church square, and there was such a clatter and hubbub -among the populace that it echoed for miles.</p> - -<p>“That’s Mons Bock!” clamored the crowd. “That is our valiant General -Stenbock. If we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> have him with us, we’ll go out and fight for our -country, every one of us, father and son, so God help us!”</p> - -<p>“Johannes,” said Kerstin Bure then to her sixteen-year foster-son, with -a hardness in her voice that he had never heard before, “you are meant -to keep devoutly to your books and some day wear a pastor’s surplice as -my sainted father did, but not to lose your blood in worldly feuds. -Stick your tinder-box and clasp-knife in your jacket and tie your -leather coat at your belt! Go then out into the woods and keep yourself -well hid there until we have peace in the land! Before that I do not -wish to see you again. Remember that! You hear now how the men shout on -the church square, but mayhap their mouths will soon be stopped with -black earth.”</p> - -<p>He did as she bade him and wandered off into the woods by unknown paths. -The firs became gradually more bristling and dense, so that for a long -distance he had to push through backwards with the leather coat over his -face. In the evening he came to a wide fen, and far out at the rim of a -black lake lay an island overgrown with alders.</p> - -<p>“There I’ll build my den,” he thought. But the quagmire of the swampy -fen which floated over the twofold bottom, and the dark water where<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> not -a glimmer of daylight broke through, sank beneath his feet, until, -exhausted and half-asleep, he sat down on a ledge.</p> - -<p>A rustling still sounded from the ridges of the wood, but the lake lay -quiet, and the little yellow reflections of the fluffy clouds soon stood -motionless. In the infinite distance beyond the mist of the fen a -goat-bell from time to time struck a few short, unresonant strokes. Two -herd-girls blew quaveringly on their cow-horns, and on the forgotten and -dilapidated sepulchre-mound in the dip of the valley the glow-worms -kindled their lanterns in the grass.</p> - -<p>“Are you one of those that have run away from war service?” a voice -asked him, and when he looked up, a goat-girl was standing among the -juniper bushes, knitting. She appeared to be one or two years older than -he, and her leather boots hung on her back.</p> - -<p>“That’s right enough; but now the fen bars my way, and berries and ferns -get to be scant fare after a while.”</p> - -<p>“It must be you don’t know the woods. Nobody suffers want there. Since -my ninth year I’ve spent every summer up here in the wilds with my -goats. Trim and cut down a couple of fir saplings and tie them to your -feet with withes, and you can go on the quagmire wherever you like. -Thatch<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> your hut with fir bark and make yourself fishinggear.”</p> - -<p>She carefully pulled a long basting-thread from her jacket and tied to -it a pewter pin, which she had taken from her head-dress and bent into a -hook.</p> - -<p>“Here you have a hook and line,” she said and continued on her way, -still knitting.</p> - -<p>That night he did not much heed her advice, but when the sun again shone -into his eyes, he pulled out his knife.</p> - -<p>As soon as he had trimmed himself a couple of skis of the sort she had -taught him to make, he betook himself out on the fen to the island. When -he stamped on the grass there, the whole island swayed like a soft -feather-bed, but he opined that this was good, because if there was -moisture in the ground, he would not need to go far to find angleworms. -Hardly, too, had he dug under the grass-roots with his fingers, before -he found abundance. To be sure, the fishing went badly at the start, but -after he had mystically laid two blades of sedge crosswise on the water, -it became at once a different affair. As he carried a tinder-box in his -jacket, it was an easy matter to broil his savory capture.</p> - -<p>Afterwards he began to build his hut with such haste that he did not -give himself leisure to sleep<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> in the bright summer nights. He -understood that it might easily tumble in on the swaying ground if he -made it too high. Therefore he built instead a low turf-thatched -roof-tree, under which he could not stand upright but had to creep. -Every morning he fetched from the shore trimmed saplings, twigs, and -pieces of fir bark. Finally he built a hearth of stones, where he let -the juniper twigs smoulder and glow all night to drive off the midges. -During his work he sometimes talked to himself half aloud, pretending -that he was bailiff over a whole gang of workmen, and he called the -island Wander Isle.</p> - -<p>He met the goat-girl quite often. Her name was Lena. She went about with -her knitting, feeding her charges on clearings and meadows. She taught -him to set nooses and traps. Eventually they met every morning to see -whether the fortune of hunting had been favorable to them, and she made -him a good friend to all the wild animals.</p> - -<p>“Did you see that gorgeous bird?” she asked, pointing to a blue-black -black-cock that roused the whole wood with his thunderous wing-beats. -“Him I call the Rich Bachelor of Vaxjö, for he asks neither after his -home or his relatives, but just sits at the tavern in his fine -dress-coat and smoothes his ruffles.”</p> - -<p>“And just hark now!” she said one night when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> an owl hooted in the -ravine. “Him I call the Tax Collector, who, when he turns his head in -his white collar and rolls his red eyes or snaps his bill, frightens -both man and beast. But if it’s a question of the little white harmless -eggs in his own nest, then you’ll see. Then he has a father’s heart in -the right place.”</p> - -<p>But about nothing did she know so many traditions as about the cranes.</p> - -<p>“Never yet,” she said, “have I got to see the long-legged bald-headed -cranes when from their mossy retreats they set up their trumpeting and -hold their autumn assembly for taking flight. Round their camp they have -outposts that sit with a stone in their one uplifted claw, so that it -may tumble down and wake them if they fall asleep. But the most -wonderful thing is that then if any human being sees the ashen-gray -birds go up, he himself begins to flap with his arms and longs to be -able to fly with them, so high that the lakes below on the earth are -only like little shimmering water-drops.”</p> - -<p>“I want to see the cranes,” answered Johannes.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you may get to see them in the autumn, but then you must first -teach yourself a great deal. First, you must be able to stand so quiet -that you look like a dry juniper bush, and to bend down so that you look -like a stone, and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> lay yourself flat on the ground so that no one can -tell you from a pile of rotten twigs.”</p> - -<p>“All that I shall try to teach myself, but you must never go on my -island. It isn’t the way you think there. I have a high fireplace and -hangings on the walls, and the floor between the rugs is so shining and -slippery that you can’t walk on it but have to crawl.”</p> - -<p>The pretty stories he had read in the dean’s books ran in his memory, -and he wanted to show the girl that he was not inferior to her but could -in turn rouse her to wonder and curiosity.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll let me get a sight of that house, I’ll go down to the -settlement and fetch you a musketoon with bullets and powder-horn.”</p> - -<p>“To my island you’ll never come.”</p> - -<p>“If you’ll let me get a sight of that house, I’ll teach you in five days -to feed yourself on ferns and roots and nothing.”</p> - -<p>“That’s why I’ve come hither. Keep that promise, and you shall see my -house, if you can really get there.”</p> - -<p>With that he fastened the skis on his feet and vanished in the mist on -the fen.</p> - -<p>“The enemy stands on the shore,” he said to his imaginary soldiers on -the island, “but they have neither axe nor knife for making skis. We may -feel secure, if only we always remain upright and good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>But late in the evening when he was about to lay fresh juniper on the -hearth, he saw the goat-girl coming on the fen with the help of twigs -and dry branches.</p> - -<p>“The enemy thinks to take us by storm,” he continued, “but there is a -secret which I have long suspected. I shall make the whole Wander Isle -sail to sea like a boat.”</p> - -<p>He pressed a pole against the outermost tussocks of the fen, and the -floating island swam swaying further out on the water.</p> - -<p>Then he laid himself calmly to sleep by the crackling embers, but when -after a while he suddenly opened his eyes, the goat-girl stood straight -before him and peeped in under the low roof on which fox-skins lay -spread inside out to dry.</p> - -<p>She asked him nothing about the high fireplace or the hangings or the -slippery floor, but merely said, “A fresh breeze has blown up, so that -the island has driven to land on the other shore. But why do you let the -dry fox-skins lie on the roof instead of spreading them in here on the -ground? And we ought to stick in juniper around the island so that -people can’t see either us or the hut.”</p> - -<p>He thought she spoke sensibly and went ashore at once to collect the -juniper. When it was already long after midnight, they still worked at -the strengthening and beautifying of his island.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> They even made of -birch-bark and pegs a door which they could set before the entrance, and -when they finally shoved the island off from the land again, they -anchored it out in the water with two piles.</p> - -<p>“Now the drawbridge is raised,” said Johannes, “and we must see to -providing the new guests with entertainment such as is right.”</p> - -<p>“The cook-maids and scullery-maids are always so slow,” she said and -turned the two fish upon the hearth.</p> - -<p>The heather droned and the lake splashed so that the island and the -sedge and all the closed water-lilies swayed. As soon as mealtime had -passed, Johannes lay down at full length nearest the hearth, but Lena, -who did not yet feel that she possessed the right of ownership to Wander -Isle, huddled together outside at the entrance with one hand as a -pillow. She still heard the juniper sputter with heart’s delight, and as -she fell asleep she counted the small sparks that sailed forth above the -chink in the roof like stars through the night air. That was the -fifth—that was the sixth—that was the seventh——. So she was put in -mind of one of her songs:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It was on the seventh morn of the week,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the prayer-bells rang, I ween,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the bitter tears ran a-down her cheek,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though her bride-wreath still was green.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<p>Next day she no longer thought of leaving the island, and the third day -they began without noticing it to say “our island.” Every morning they -landed at the rock, and then she went up to the clearing with her goats -or followed him to examine nooses and traps. At last she began also to -teach him her art of feeding himself for many days on berries and ferns -and nothing, and she noticed that he soon won even greater aptitude in -this than she had herself. He grew thin and dry as a blown-off branch, -and yet his sinews knotted themselves all the harder. But he always -remained quiet and taciturn; and when she asked him what weighed on his -mind, he went off on his own paths and remained long away.</p> - -<p>They no longer knew the names of the days, but on the Sabbath the wind -carried the distant sound of the bells far into the wilderness, and then -Johannes put on his embroidered leather coat and led her upon the -overgrown sepulchre-mound, from which they could see over fen and lake. -With her hand in his he spoke then of God’s love, which covered the -wretchedest crevices with its fairest bounties, and often they knelt in -the grass for long periods and prayed that He would likewise sow a few -grains of His seed in their souls.</p> - -<p>After much conversation, however, Johannes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> was always doubly heavy in -mind and sought for solitude.</p> - -<p>The nights became ever darker, and often when she turned back from her -herd she had to light her way with a torch between mountain walls and -the roots of overblown trees. The giant firs, heaven high, were like -tents, where black hands sprawled out from among the ragged leafage to -seize her by the braids; but she felt no fear, she thought only of one -thing. Wherever she went and whatever she busied herself with, she only -thought that the summer would soon be ended and that no one could know -what would then become of Johannes and her.</p> - -<p>Then one October morning she was awakened by Johannes.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember the cranes you spoke of?” he asked. “Now I can both -stand so quiet that I look like a dry juniper bush, and bend down so -that I look like a stone, and lie down flat on the ground so that no one -can tell me from a pile of rotten twigs. I have taught myself more than -that. I can feed myself on berries and roots, and if those are wanting I -can starve along on nothing.”</p> - -<p>She sat up and listened to a far-off noise.</p> - -<p>“That is no cranes.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll investigate what it is.”</p> - -<p>He washed himself in the lake, put on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span> leather coat as on a Sunday, -and pushed her gently aside when she wanted to hold him back.</p> - -<p>“Don’t go, Johannes!” she begged. “I won’t let you go from me without -following.”</p> - -<p>In silence they came ashore with the island at the ledge and went down -through the woods toward the settled land to a bare clearing, from which -there was a free outlook over the mossy heath and meadows as far as -Kerstin Bure’s mill and the church.</p> - -<p>“Johannes!” she burst out with almost a scream, and seized him tightly -by the coat-tails. “Come back with me to our place!”</p> - -<p>He answered her meekly: “My conscience has pained me long enough. Do you -see down there on the heath the gray creatures with thin legs? And the -outposts that you told about are standing there too. It’s Mons Bock, who -is out again on his recruiting. In that crane-dance I’d like to play -myself.”</p> - -<p>He walked violently away from her, so that the coat-tail was torn off at -the cracking seam, and began to run down to the heath between the ferns -and charred stumps.</p> - -<p>She followed irresolutely after him, but when she saw how he spoke to -the outposts and stepped straight into the assembled crowd of armed -peasants, she went at a warm pace to get to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span></p> - -<p>When she came into the ring, he already stood before Mons Bock and was -taking his recruit penny.</p> - -<p>“Where have you stuck your knapsack, Smålander?” asked the general.</p> - -<p>“I have no knapsack, but I can feed myself for five days on nothing.”</p> - -<p>Lena pressed forward between him and the general’s dark-brown horse.</p> - -<p>“He, Johannes here, is no serving-boy, but we have a place of our own up -in the woods.”</p> - -<p>“As to the marriage I should like to see the certificate in black and -white,” answered Mons Bock, and the hot color rose and fell on her -forehead as he spoke.</p> - -<p>Then Lena held out in her two hands the torn-off coat-tail and let him -see that it fitted to the leather coat.</p> - -<p>“I call that a parson’s certificate on real sheepskin,” he broke out. -“The recruit money may therefore be yours, my good young lady, but the -boy has clean perjured himself. And now, ye worthy yeomen of Småland, -forward in Jesus’ name! Drums we have none, but we can still in our -poverty stamp with wooden shoes the old Swedish march that it makes me -warm at heart to hear.”</p> - -<p>Staves and wooden shoes banged and clattered on rocks and ledges. Even -the riders had wooden<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> shoes tied fast to their feet, so that they tried -in vain to use their stirrups.</p> - -<p>When the last farmers had vanished across the heath, Lena went on to the -mill. She dared not relate that Johannes had gone along to the war, but -only told of how she had met him in the woods, exhibiting the coat-tail, -which was carefully inspected and turned over.</p> - -<p>“That’s the right coat-tail, sure enough,” said Kerstin Bure, “and -though I don’t like to see women in my service, you may as well stay -with me till Johannes comes. I really need a pair of strong arms, for I -am well on in years and all my men have been bitten with madness and -have run off with Stenbock. There is hardly an able-bodied man left in -the parish, except the sexton, the idiot!”</p> - -<p>After she had said this she spoke no more to Lena of what had passed in -the woods and asked nothing about Johannes, but silently continued her -occupations, as was her custom. The mill stood with unmoving wings, -because there was no meal to grind, and through the long snowy months of -winter there was heard in it neither steps nor voices. Beggars who went -past on the road supposed it was unoccupied and deserted.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When the spring began to re-appear and white trailing clouds swept -across the heavens, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> came one day a boy hot and panting, who ran -along the road and to each and all whom he met shouted a single word, -until he vanished in the woods on the other side of the heather. Some -hours later a rider came at a gallop and shouted in the same manner on -all sides until he was gone. The women gathered in crowds on the hill by -the church. Sweden, Sweden was saved, and Mons Bock and his goat-boys -had beaten the whole enemy’s army at the Straits of Öresund!</p> - -<p>Kerstin Bure alone asked nobody what had happened but sat every noon on -the mill stairs in the glorious sunshine and carded wool with Lena. All -at once as they were sitting silent and busy, while the spring freshet -purled in ditches and brooks, they heard that the bells were ringing in -the neighboring parishes to the south, although it was Wednesday. -Expectantly the people ranged themselves along the road on both sides -and from the wide-open door of the church advanced the stumbling pastor -of the congregation, followed by his chaplains and in full ceremonials.</p> - -<p>Once more the well-known march of the wooden shoes clattered on ledges -and stones, but now to bag-pipes and shawms. It was the returning army -of farmers. There were deep lines of shaggy beards and slashed -sheep-skin coats and noble blue eyes. With staves in hand, muskets in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span> -the strap, and wide hats over their flowing hair, the homeward-bound -troops marched back from their victory. Far in the van the fiery cross -went from church to church as far as the northernmost wooden chapels, -where the Lapps tied their reindeer to the steeples, and all the sunny -springtime of Sweden was filled with the song of praise that re-echoed -from the bells.</p> - -<p>Just in front of the hay-wagons with the wounded rode Mons Bock in his -gray overcoat with his riding-whip instead of a sword. Calling down -blessings upon their saviour, the peasants hailed him with waving aprons -and caps, but he turned to his ensigns and shouted that they should -sing.</p> - -<p>When the voices ceased, Mons Bock went on alone and sang stanza after -stanza which he himself had put together.</p> - -<p>Kerstin Bure had risen on the mill stairs and looked and looked beneath -her lifted hand, but Lena, who had broken her way forward so fearlessly -in the thickets of the wilderness, did not dare this time to wait and -look about any longer, but stole away and threw herself sobbing among -the empty meal-sacks.</p> - -<p>Step by step Kerstin Bure withdrew up the stairs until she stood at the -very top with her back against the wall of the mill. Then she pressed -her hands like opera-glasses to her eyes. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> last wagon Johannes -sat on the hay among the wounded, as merry and quiet as always, but -paler and with bandages around his arm and shoulder.</p> - -<p>She pressed her hands even harder to her eyes.</p> - -<p>“So after all he was what I thought him, though to prove his soul -thoroughly I commanded him otherwise. Then, though he is Kerstin Bure’s -foster-son, he shall still keep for his life long her whom he himself -has chosen, even if she is the poorest of goat-girls.”</p> - -<p>But at the moment she heard how the sexton and his ringer clattered at -the trap-doors of the steeple, and the great bell gave forth its first -stroke.</p> - -<p>She knitted her brow and went into the mill, saying: “I’ve no meal to -grind, but if he lets his bell sound, though he has had no son in the -war, my mill shall play, too.”</p> - -<p>Creaking, the dust-white axle-beam began to move and purr, and while the -peasant army marched singing by, the empty mill kept turning its great -wings faster and faster.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="THE_FORTIFIED_HOUSE" id="THE_FORTIFIED_HOUSE"></a>THE FORTIFIED HOUSE</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>URPRISED by the winter cold, the Swedes in crowded confusion had taken -up their quarters behind the walls of Hadjash. Soon there was not a -house to be found that was not filled with the frost-bitten and the -dying. Cries of distress were heard out in the street, and here and -there beside the steps lay amputated fingers, feet, and legs. Vehicles -stood fastened to each other so tightly packed from the city gate to the -market-place that the chilly-pale soldiers who streamed in from all -sides had to crawl between the wheels and runners. Fastened in their -harness and turned away from the wind, the horses, their loins white -with frost, had already stood many days without food. No one took care -of them, and several of the drivers sat frozen to death with hands stuck -into their sleeves. Some wagons were like oblong boxes or coffins, where -from the chink of the flat lid stared out mournful faces, which read in -a prayer-book or gazed longingly with feverish delirium at the -sheltering houses. A thousand unfortunates, in muffled tones or -silently, cried to God for mercy. Under the sheltered side<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> of the city -wall dead soldiers stood in lines, many with red Cossack coats buttoned -over their ragged Swedish uniforms and with sheepskins around their -naked feet. Wood-doves and sparrows, which were so stiff with frost that -they could be caught with the hand, had fallen on the hats and shoulders -of the standing corpses and fluttered their wings when the chaplains -went by to give a Last Communion in brandy.</p> - -<p>Up at the market-place among burnt areas stood an unusually large house, -from which could be heard raised voices. A soldier delivered a fagot to -an ensign who stood in the doorway, and when the soldier went back into -the street, he shrugged his shoulders and said to whomsoever cared to -hear him: “It’s only the gentlemen quarreling in the chancellery.”</p> - -<p>The ensign at the door had lately arrived with Lewenhaupt’s forces. He -carried the fagot into the room and threw it down by the fireplace. The -voices within ceased immediately, but as soon as he had closed the door -they began with renewed heat.</p> - -<p>It was His Excellency Piper who stood in the middle of the floor, his -countenance wrinkled and furrowed, with glowing cheeks and trembling -nostrils.</p> - -<p>“I say that the whole affair is madness,” he burst out, “madness, -madness!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Hermelin with his pointed nose was constantly twitching his eyes and his -hands, while he sprang back and forth in the room like a tame rat; but -Field Marshall Rehnskiöld, who with his handsome, stately figure was -standing by the fireplace, only whistled and hummed. If he had not -whistled and hummed, the quarrel would have been finished by this time, -because for once they were all fully agreed; but the fact that he -whistled and hummed instead of being silent or at least speaking, that -could be endured no longer. Lewenhaupt at the window took snuff and -snapped shut his snuff-box. His pepper-brown eyes protruded from his -head, and it looked as if his comical peruke became ever bigger and -bigger. If Rehnskiöld had not continued to whistle and hum, he would -have controlled himself today as yesterday and on all other occasions, -but now wrath rose to his brow.</p> - -<p>He shut his snuff-box for the last time and mumbled between his teeth, -“I do not desire that His Majesty should understand statesmanship. But -can he lead troops? Does he show real insight at a single encounter or -attack? Trained and proved old warriors, who never can be replaced, he -offers daily for an empty bravado. If our men are to storm a wall, it is -considered superfluous that they bind themselves protecting fagots or -shields, and therefore they are wretchedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> massacred. To speak freely, -my worthy sirs, I can forgive an Upsala student many a boyish freak, but -I demand otherwise of a general in the field. Truly it avails not to -carry on a campaign under the command of such a master.”</p> - -<p>“Furthermore,” continued Piper, “His Majesty at present incommodes no -general with any particularly hard command. At the beginning, when one -succeeded in distinguishing himself more than another, it went better; -but now His Majesty goes around mediating and reconciling with a foolish -smile so that one could go crazy.”</p> - -<p>He raised his arms in the air with a wrath which had lost all sense and -bounds, notwithstanding he was altogether at one with Lewenhaupt. While -he was still speaking, he turned about and betook himself impetuously to -the inner apartments. The door slammed with such a clatter that -Rehnskiöld found himself yet more called upon to whistle and hum. If he -only had chosen to say something! But no, he did not. Gyllenkrook, who -sat at the table and examined departure-checks, was blazing in the face, -and a little withered-looking officer at his side whispered venomously -into his car: “A pair of diamond ear-rings given to Piper’s countess -might perhaps even yet help Lewenhaupt to new appointments.”</p> - -<p>If Rehnskiöld had now ceased to whistle and hum, Lewenhaupt would still -have been able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span> control himself, to take up the roll of papers he -carried under his coat and sit down at a corner of the table; but -instead, the venerable and at other times taciturn man grew worse and -worse. He turned about undecidedly and went toward the entrance door, -but there he suddenly stood still, drew himself up and smacked his heels -together as if he had been a mere private. Now Rehnskiöld became quiet. -The door opened. An icy gust of wind rushed into the room, and the -ensign announced with as loud and long-drawn a voice as a sentry who -calls his comrades to arms: “Hi-s Majesty!”</p> - -<p>The king was no longer the dazzled and wondering half-grown youth of -aforetime. Only the boyish figure with the narrow shoulders was the -same. His coat was sooty and dirty. The wrinkle around the -upward-protruding over-lip had become deeper and a trifle grin-like. On -the nose and one cheek he had frostbite, and his eyelids were red-edged -and swollen with protracted cold, but around the formerly bald vertex of -his head the combed-back hair stood up like a pointed crown.</p> - -<p>He held a fur cap in both hands and tried to conceal his embarrassment -and diffidence behind a stiff and cold ceremoniousness, while bowing and -smiling to each and all of those present.</p> - -<p>They bowed again and again still more deeply,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> and when he had advanced -to the middle of the floor, he stood still and bowed awkwardly toward -the sides, though with somewhat more haste, being in appearance wholly -occupied with what he was about to say. Thereupon he remained a long -while standing quite silent.</p> - -<p>Then he went forward to Rehnskiöld and, with a brief inclination, took -him by one of his coat-buttons.</p> - -<p>“I would beg,” he said, “that Your Excellency provide me with two or -three men of the common soldiers as escort for a little excursion. I -have already two dragoons with me.”</p> - -<p>“But, Your Majesty! the country is over-run with Cossacks. To ride in -here to the city from Your Majesty’s quarters with so small an escort -was already a feat of daring.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Your Excellency will do as I have said. Some -one of the generals present, who is at leisure, may also mount and take -one of his men.”</p> - -<p>Lewenhaupt bowed.</p> - -<p>The king regarded him a trifle irresolutely without answering, and -remained standing after Rehnskiöld hastened out. None of the others in -the circle considered it necessary to break the silence or to move.</p> - -<p>Only after a very long pause did the king bow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span> again to everyone -separately and go out into the open air.</p> - -<p>“Well?” inquired Lewenhaupt and clapped the ensign on the shoulder with -the return of his natural kindliness. “The ensign shall go along! This -is the first time the ensign has stood eye to eye with His Majesty.”</p> - -<p>“I had never expected he would be like that.”</p> - -<p>“He is always like that. He is too kingly to command.”</p> - -<p>They followed after the king, who clambered over wagons and fallen -animals. His motions were agile, never abrupt, but measured and quite -slow, so that he never for a moment lost his dignity. When he had -finally made his way forward through the throng to the city gate, he -mounted to the saddle with his attendants, who were now seven men.</p> - -<p>The horses stumbled on the icy street, and some fell, but Lewenhaupt’s -remonstrances only induced the king not to use his spurs yet more -heartlessly. The lackey Hultman had read aloud to him all night or had -related sagas, and had at length coaxed him into laughing at the -prophecy that, had he not been exalted by God to be a king, he would for -his whole life have become an unsociable floor-pacer, who devised much -more wonderful verses than those of the late Messenius of Disa on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> -Bollhus, but especially the mightiest battle stories. He tried to think -of Rolf Gotriksson, who ever rode foremost of all his men, but today it -did not please him to bound his thoughts within the playroom of a saga. -The restlessness which during the last few days had struck its claws -into his mind would not let go of its royal prey. At the chancellery he -had just seen the heated faces. Ever since the pranks of his boyhood he -had been rapt in his own imaginary world of the past. He had sat deaf to -the piercing cries of distress along the way, while he became -distrustful of each and all who exhibited a more sensitive hearing. -Today as at other times he hardly noted that they offered him the -best-rested horse and the freshest cake of bread, that in the morning -they laid a purse with five hundred ducats in his pocket. He challenged -the horseman at the first mêlée to form a ring about him and offer -themselves to death. On the other hand he noticed that the soldiers -saluted him with gloomy silence, and misfortunes had made him suspicious -even of those nearest to him. The most cautious opposition, the most -concealed disapproval, he made a note of without betraying himself, and -every word remained and gnawed at his soul. Every hour it seemed to him -that he lost an officer on whom he had formerly relied, and his heart -became all the colder. His thwarted ambition chafed and bled under the -weight of failure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span> and he breathed more lightly the farther behind him -he left his headquarters.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Lewenhaupt came to a stand, debating within himself how to -exercise an influence upon the king.</p> - -<p>“My heroic Ajax!” said he, and tapped his steaming horse, “you are -indeed an old manger-biter, but I have no right to founder you for no -good cause, and I myself am beginning to get on in years as you are. But -in Jesus’ name, lads, let him who can follow the king!”</p> - -<p>When he saw the ensign’s anxious sidelong look toward the king, he spoke -with lowered voice: “Be faithful, boy! His Majesty does not roar out as -we others do. He is too kingly to chide or bicker.”</p> - -<p>The king feigned to notice nothing. More and more wildly over ice and -snow he kept up the silent horse-race without goal or purpose. He had -now only four attendants. After another hour one of the remaining horses -fell with a broken fore-leg, and the rider out of pity shot a bullet -through its ear, after which he himself, alone and on foot, went to meet -an uncertain fate in the cold.</p> - -<p>At last the ensign was the only man who was able to follow the king, and -they had now come among bushes and saplings, where they could proceed -but at a foot-pace. On the hill above them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> rose a gray and sooty house -with narrow grated windows, the garden being surrounded by a wall.</p> - -<p>At this moment there was a shot.</p> - -<p>“How was that?” inquired the king, and looked around.</p> - -<p>“The pellet piped nastily when it went by my ear but it only bit the -corner of my hat,” answered the ensign without the least experience of -how he ought to conduct himself before the king. He had a slight Småland -accent and laughed contentedly with his whole blonde countenance.</p> - -<p>Enchanted by the good fortune of being man by man with him whom he -regarded as above all other living human beings, he continued: “Shall we -then go up there and take them by the beard?”</p> - -<p>The answer pleased the king in the highest degree, and with a leap he -stood on the ground.</p> - -<p>“We’ll tie our steeds here in the bushes,” he said exhilaratedly and -with bright color on his cheek. “Afterwards let us go up and run through -anybody that whistles.”</p> - -<p>They left the panting horses and, bending forward, climbed up the hill -among the bushes. Over the wall looked down several Cossack heads with -hanging hair, yellow and grinning as those of beheaded criminals.</p> - -<p>“Look!” whispered the king, and smote his hands together. “They’re -trying to pull shut the rotten gate, the fox-tails!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>His glance, but recently so expressionless, became now flickering and -anon open and shining. He drew his broadsword and raised it with both -hands above his head. Like a young man’s god he stormed in through the -half-open door. The ensign, who cut and thrust by his side, was often -close to being struck from behind by his weapon. A musket shot blackened -the king’s right temple. Four men were cut down in the gateway and the -fifth of the band fled with a fire-shovel into the garden, pursued by -the king.</p> - -<p>Then the king wiped off the blood from his sword on the snow, while he -laid two ducats in the Cossack’s shovel and burst out with rising -spirits, “It is no pleasure to fight with these wretches, who never -strike back and only run. Come back when you have bought yourself a -decent sword.”</p> - -<p>The Cossack, who understood nothing, stared at the gold-pieces, sneaked -along the wall to the gate, and fled. Ever further and further away on -the plain he called his roving comrades with a dismal and lamenting -“Oohaho! Oohaho!”</p> - -<p>The king hummed to himself as if chaffing with an unseen enemy: “Little -Cossack man, little Cossack man, go gather up your rascals!”</p> - -<p>The walls around the garden were mouldering and black. From the -wilderness sounded an endlessly prolonged minor tone as from an æolian -harp, and the king inquisitively shouldered in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> door of the -dwelling-house. This consisted of a single large and a half-dark room, -and before the fireplace lay a heap of blood-stained clothing, which -plunderers of corpses had taken from fallen Swedes. The door was thrown -shut again by the cross-draught, and the king went to the stable -buildings at the side. There was no door there, and a sound was now -heard the more plainly. Within in the darkness lay a starved white horse -bound to the iron loop of a wagon.</p> - -<p>A lifted broadsword would not have checked the king, but the uncertain -dusk caused the man of imagination to stand on the threshold, fearful of -the dark. Yet he gave no sign of this, but beckoned the ensign. They -stepped in down a steep stairway to a cellar. Here there was a spring, -and as a stop-cock to the singing wind which stirred the water, a deaf -Cossack with whip and reins, and without an idea of danger, was driving -a manly figure in the uniform of a Swedish officer.</p> - -<p>When they had loosed the rope and had bound the Cossack in the place of -the prisoner, they recognized the Holsteiner, Feuerhausen, who had -served as major in a regiment of dragoon recruits, but had been cut off -by the Cossacks and harnessed as a draught animal for hoisting water.</p> - -<p>He fell on his knees and stammered in broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> Swedish: “Your Majesty! I -gan’t pelief my eyes.... My gratitude....”</p> - -<p>The king cheerily interrupted his talk and turned to the ensign: “Bring -up the two horses to the stable! Three men cannot ride comfortably on -two horses, and therefore we shall stay here till a few Cossacks come -by, from whom we can take a new horse. Let the gentleman also stand -guard at the gate.”</p> - -<p>After that the king went back to the dwelling-house and shut the door -after him. The horses which, desperate with hunger, had been greedily -gnawing the bark from the bushes, were meanwhile led up to the stable, -and the ensign went on guard.</p> - -<p>Slowly the hours went by. When it began to draw towards dusk, the storm -increased in bitterness, and in the light of sunset the snow whirled -over the desolate snow-plain. Deathly yellow Cossack faces raised -themselves spying above the bushes, and long in the blast sounded the -roving plunderers’ “Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!”</p> - -<p>Then Feuerhausen stepped out of the stable, where he had sat between the -horses so as not to get frost in his wounds from the ropes with which he -had been bound. He went forward to the barred doors of the -dwelling-house.</p> - -<p>“Your Majesty!” he stammered, “the Cossacks<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> are gathering more and -more, and darkness is coming soon. I and the ensign can both sit on one -horse. If we delay here, this night will be Your Mightiest Majesty’s -last, which Gott in His secret dispensation forbit!”</p> - -<p>The king answered from within, “It must be as we said. Three men do not -ride comfortably on two horses.”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner shook his head and went down to the ensign.</p> - -<p>“Such is His Majesty, you damt Swedes. From the stable I heard him walk -and walk back and forvart. Sickness and conscience-torture will come. -Like a <i>pater familiæ</i> the Muscovite czar stands among his subjects. A -sugar-baker he sets up as his friend and a little serving-boy he raises -on his glorious imperial throne. Detestable are his gestures when he -gets drunk, and he treats women <i>à la françois</i>; but his first and last -word always runs: ‘For Russia’s good!’ King Carolus leafs his lands as -smoking ash-heaps and does not possess a single frient, not efen among -his nearest. King Carolus is more lonely than the meanest wagon-drifer. -He has not once a comrade’s knee to weep on. Among nobles and fine -ladies and perukes he comes like a spectre out of a thousand-year -mausoleum—and spectres mostly go about without company. Is he a man of -state? Oh, have mercy! No sense for the public. Is he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span> a general? -Good-bye? No sense for the big masses. Only to make bridges and set up -gabions, clap his hands at captured flags and a couple of kettle-drums. -No sense for state and army, only for men.”</p> - -<p>“That may be also a sense,” replied the ensign.</p> - -<p>He walked vigorously back and forward, for his fingers were already so -stiff with cold that he scarcely could hold his drawn blade.</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner shifted the ragged coat-collar around his cheeks and went -on with muffled voice and eager gestures: “King Carolus laughs with -delight when the bridge breaks and men and beasts are miserably drownt. -No heart in his breast. To the deuce wit him! King Carolus is such a -little Swedish half-genius as wanders out in the worlt and beats the -drum and parades and makes a fiasco, and the parterre whistles Whee!”</p> - -<p>“And that is just why the Swedes go to death for him,” answered the -ensign, “that is just why.”</p> - -<p>“Not angry, my dearest fellow. Your teeth shone so in a laugh when we -first met.”</p> - -<p>“I like to hear the Herr Major talk, but I’m freezing. Will not the -major go up and listen at the king’s door?”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner went up to the door and listened. When he came back he -said, “He only walks and walks, and sighs heavily like a man in anguish -of soul. So it always is now, they say.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> His Majesty nefer sleeps any -more at night. The comedy-actor knows he is not up to his part, and of -all life’s torments, wounded ambition becomes the bitterest.”</p> - -<p>“Then it should also be the last for us to jest at. Dare I beg the major -to rub my right hand with snow; it is getting numb.”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner did as he desired and turned back to the king’s door. He -struck his forehead with both hands. His gray-sprinkled, bushy mustaches -stood straight out, and he mumbled, “Gott, Gott! Soon it will be too -dark to retreat.”</p> - -<p>The ensign called, “Good sir, I should like to ask if you would rub my -face with snow. My cheeks are freezing stiff. Of the pain in my foot I -will not speak. Ah, I can’t bear it.”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner filled his hands with snow. “Let me stand guard,” he -said, “only for an hour.”</p> - -<p>“No, no. The king has commanded that I stay here at the entrance.”</p> - -<p>“Och, the king! I know him. I will make him cheerful, talk philosophy, -tell of gallant exploits. He is always amused to hear of a lover who -climbs adventurously through a window. He often looks at the beautiful -side of womankint. That appeals to his imagination, but not to his -flesh, for he is without feeling. And he is bashful. If the fair one -ever wishes to tread him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span> under her silken shoe, she must herself -attack; but if she pretends to flee, then all the other women must -strive against a <i>liaison</i>. The most mighty lady his grandmother spoiled -everything with her shriek of ‘Marriage, marriage!’ King Carolus is from -top to toe like the Swedish queen Cristina, though he is genuinely -masculine. The two should have married each other on the same throne. -That would haf been a fine little pair. Oh, pfui, pfui! you Swedes. If a -man gallops his horses and lets people and kingdom be massacred, he is -still pure-hearted and supreme among all, only his bloot is too slow for -amours. Oh, excuse me! I know pure-hearted heroes who were faithfully in -love with two, three different maidens or wives in one and the same -week.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, we are so, we are so. But for Christ’s pity you must rub my hand -again. And excuse my moaning and groaning!”</p> - -<p>Just inside the gate, which could not be shut, lay the fallen Cossacks, -white as marble with the hoarfrost. The yellow sky became gray, and ever -nearer and more manifold in the twilight sounded the wailing cries: -“Oohaho! Oohaho! Oohaho!”</p> - -<p>Now the king opened his door and came down across the garden.</p> - -<p>The pains in his head, from which he was accustomed to suffer, had been -increased by his ride in the wind and made his glance heavy. His -coun<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span>tenance bore traces of lonely soul-strife, but as he drew near, his -mouth resumed its usual embarrassed smile. His temple was still -blackened after the musket-shot.</p> - -<p>“It’s freshening up,” he said, and producing from his coat a loaf of -bread, he broke it in three, so that everyone had as large a piece as he -did. After that, he lifted off his riding-cape and fastened it himself -about the shoulders of the sentinel ensign.</p> - -<p>Abashed over his own conduct, he then took the Holsteiner forcibly by -the arm and led him up through the garden, while they chewed at their -hard bread.</p> - -<p>Now if ever, thought the Holsteiner, is the time to win the king’s -attention with a clever turn of speech and afterwards talk sense with -him.</p> - -<p>“The accommodation might be better,” he began, at the same time biting -and chewing. “Ah, good old days! That reminds me of a gallant adventure -outside of Dresden.”</p> - -<p>The king kept on holding him by the arm, and the Holsteiner lowered his -voice. The story was lively and salacious, and the king grew -inquisitive. The roughest ambiguities always lured out his set smile. He -listened with a despairing and half-absent man’s need of momentary -diversion.</p> - -<p>Only when the Holsteiner with cunning deftness began to shift the -conversation over to some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> words about their immediate danger did the -king again become serious.</p> - -<p>“Bagatelle, bagatelle!” he replied. “It is nothing at all worth -mentioning, except that we must behave ourselves well and sustain our -reputation to the last man. If the rascals come on, we will all three -place ourselves at the gate and pink them with our swords.”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner stroked his forehead and felt around. He began to talk -about the stars that were just shining out. He set forth a theory for -measuring their distance from the earth. The king now listened to him -with a quite different sort of attention. He broke into the question -keenly, resourcefully, and with an unwearied desire to think out new, -surprising methods in his own way. One assertion gave a hand to another, -and soon the conversation dwelt on the universe and the immortality of -the soul, to return afresh to the stars. More and more flickered in the -heavens, and the king described what he knew about the sun-dial. He -stood up his broadsword with its scabbard in the snow and directed the -point toward the Polestar, so that next morning they might be able to -tell the time.</p> - -<p>“The heart of the universe,” he said, “must be either the earth or the -star that stands over the land of the Swedes. No land must be of more -account than the Swedish land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Outside the wall the Cossacks were calling out, but as soon as the -Holsteiner led the talk to their threatened attack, the king was -laconic.</p> - -<p>“At daybreak we shall betake ourselves back to Hadjash,” said he. -“Before then we can hardly secure a third horse, so that each of us can -ride comfortably in his own saddle.”</p> - -<p>After he had spoken in that strain he went back into the dwelling-house.</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner came down with a vehement stride to the ensign, and -pointing at the king’s door, he cried out, “Forgif me, ensign. We -Germans don’t mince words when a wound oozes after a rope, but I lay -down my arms and give your lord the victory, because I also could shed -my bloot for the man. Do I love him! No-one efer understands him that -has not seen him.—But ensign, you cannot stay any longer out in the -weather.”</p> - -<p>The ensign replied, “No cape has warmed me more sweetly than the one I -now wear, and I lay all my cares on Christ. But in God’s name, major, go -back to the door and listen! The king might do himself some harm.”</p> - -<p>“His Majesty would not fall on his <i>own</i> sword but longs for another’s.”</p> - -<p>“Now I hear his steps even down here. They are getting still more -violent and restless. He is so lonely. When I saw him in Hadjash bowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span> -and bowing among the generals, I could only think: How lonely he is!”</p> - -<p>“If the little Holsteiner slips away from here alife, he will always -remember the steps we heard tonight and always call this refuge Fort -Garden.”</p> - -<p>The ensign nodded his approval and answered, “Go to the stable, major, -and seek rest and shelter a while between the horses. And there through -the walls you can better hear the king and watch over him.”</p> - -<p>Thereupon the ensign began to sing with resonant voice:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“O Father, to Thy loving grace....”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The Holsteiner went back across the garden into the stable and, his -voice quavering with cold, intoned with the other:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“In every time and every place<br /></span> -<span class="i1">My poor weak soul would I commend.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh, Lord, receive it and defend.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“Oohaho! Oohaho!” answered the Cossacks in the storm, and it was already -night.</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner squeezed himself in between the two horses and listened -till weariness and sleep bowed his head. Only at dawn was he wakened by -a clamor. He sprang out into the open air and beheld the king already -standing in the garden, looking at the sword that had been set up as a -sun-dial.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span></p> - -<p>By the gate the Cossacks had collected, but when they saw the motionless -sentry, they shrank back in superstitious fear and thought of the rumors -concerning the magic of the Swedish soldiers with blow and shot.</p> - -<p>When the Holsteiner had gotten forward to the ensign, he grasped him -hard by the arm.</p> - -<p>“What now?” he asked, “Brandy?”</p> - -<p>At the same instant he let go his grip.</p> - -<p>The ensign stood frozen to death with his back again the wall of the -gate, his hands on his swordhilt, and wrapt in the king’s cloak.</p> - -<p>“Since we are now only two,” the king remarked, drawing his weapon out -of the snow, “we can at once betake ourselves each to his horse, as it -was arranged.”</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner stared him right in the eyes with re-awakened hate and -remained standing, as if he had heard nothing. Finally, however, he led -out the horses, but his hands trembled and clenched themselves so that -he could hardly draw the saddle-girths.</p> - -<p>The Cossacks swung their sabres and pikes, but the sentry stood at his -post.</p> - -<p>Then the king sprang carelessly into the saddle and set his horse to a -gallop. His forehead was clear and his cheeks rosy, and his broadsword -glimmered like a sunbeam.</p> - -<p>The Holsteiner looked after him. His bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span> expression relaxed, and he -murmured between his teeth, while he too mounted to the saddle and with -his hand lifted to his hat raced by the sentry: “It is only joy for a -hero to see a hero’s noble death.—Thanks, comrade!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="THE_QUEEN_OF_THE_MARAUDERS" id="THE_QUEEN_OF_THE_MARAUDERS"></a>THE QUEEN OF THE MARAUDERS</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE tocsin in the church tower at Narva had ceased. In a breach of the -battered rampart lay the fallen Swedish heroes, over whose despoiled and -naked bodies the Russians stormed into the city with wild cries. Some -Cossacks, who had sewed a live cat into the belly of an inn-keeper, were -still laughing in a circle around their victim, but the gigantic Peter -Alexievitch, the czar, soon burst his way through the midst of the -throng on street and courtyard and cut down his own men to check their -misdeeds. His right arm up to the shoulder was drenched with the blood -of his own subjects. Weary of murder, troop after troop finally -assembled in the square and the churchyard. Under the pretext that the -churches had been desecrated by the misbelievers who lay buried there, -bands of soldiers began to violate and plunder the graves. Stones were -pried up from the floor of the church with crowbars, and outside, the -graves were opened with shovels. Pillagers broke the copper and tin -caskets into pieces and threw dice for the silver handles and plates. -The streets, where at the first mêlée the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span> inhabitants had thrown down -fire-brands and tiles, and where the blood of the slain was still -swimming in the gutters, were for many days piled up with rusty or -half-blackened coffins. The hair on some of the bodies had grown so that -it hung out between the boards. Some of the dead lay embalmed and well -preserved, though brown and withered, but from most of the coffins -yellow skeletons grinned forth from collapsed and mouldered shrouds. -People who stole anxiously among them read the coffin-plates in the -twilight and now and then recognized the name of a near relative, a -mother or a sister. Sometimes they saw the ravagers pull out the decayed -remains and throw them into the river. Sometimes, again, protected by -night, they themselves succeeded in carrying them off and burying them -outside the city. So in the dusk one might encounter an old man or woman -who came stealing along toilsomely with children or serving-maids, -carrying a coffin.</p> - -<p>One night a swarm of pillagers bivouacked in a corner of the churchyard. -Hi! what fun it was to pile up a bonfire of bed-slats and bolsters and -chairs and coffin-ends and what the devil else could be dragged forth. -Flames and sparks blazed up as high as the attic window of the -parsonage. Round about stood coffins propped one against another. The -bottom of one of the uppermost had been broken, so that the treasurer, -of blessed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> memory, who was inside it, stood there upright with his -spliced wig on his head and looked as if he thought: “I pray you, into -what company have I been conducted?”</p> - -<p>“Haha! little father,” the robbers called to him, as they roasted August -apples and onions at the flames; “you always wanted something to wet -your whistle, you there!”</p> - -<p>The glow of the fire lighted up the living-room of the parsonage and the -sparks flew in through the broken panes. In the rooms stood only a -broken table and a chair, upon which sat the parson with his head -propped on his hands.</p> - -<p>“Who knows? Perhaps it might succeed,” he mumbled and raised himself as -if he had found the key to a long-considered problem.</p> - -<p>His silver-white beard spread itself over all his breast, and his hair -hung down to his shoulders. In his youth as chaplain he had gone in for -a little of everything and he had never pushed back a cup that was -offered him. Afterwards as a widower in the parsonage he had worshipped -God with joy and mirth and a brimming bowl, and it was bruited about -that he did not reach first for his Bible if a well-formed wench -happened to be in his company. He therefore even now took misfortune -more bravely and resignedly than others, and his heart was as undaunted -as his soldierly body was unbowed by years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span></p> - -<p>He went out into the entry and cautiously pulled out the five or six -rusty nails that held down a couple of boards above a little narrow -recess under the stairs. Then he lifted the boards aside.</p> - -<p>“Come out, my child!” he said.</p> - -<p>When no one obeyed him, his voice grew somewhat more severe and he -repeated his words: “Come out, Lina! Both the other maids have been -bound and carried away. It was verily at the last minute that I got you -in here. But it is almost a day since then, and you cannot live without -meat and drink. Eh?”</p> - -<p>When he was not obeyed, he threw back his head in annoyance, and he now -spoke in accents of harsh command: “Why don’t you obey? Do you think -there is food here? There’s not so much as a pinch of salt left in the -house. You must be got away, you understand. If it goes ill with you, if -a plunderer gets you on the way, I can only say this: clasp your arms -about his neck and follow with him on his horse’s back wherever it -carries you. Many a time in the rough-and-tumble of war have I seen such -a love, and then I have slung the soldier’s cloak over my priest’s frock -and waved my hat for a lucky end to the song. Don’t you hear, lass? When -your late father, who was a drinker—if I must tell the truth—was my -stableboy and pulled me out of a hole in the ice once, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> promised for -the future to provide for him and his child. Besides, he was Swedish -born as I was. Well, haven’t I always been a fatherly master to you, or -what has Her Grace to object? Have her wits deserted her, eh?”</p> - -<p>Something now began to move in the pitch-black recess. An elbow struck -against the wall, there was a rustling and scraping, and with that Lina -Andersdotter stepped out in nothing but her chemise, bare legs, and a -torn red jacket without sleeves but with a whole back to it, over which -hung the braid of her brown hair.</p> - -<p>The light of the fire fell in through the window. Squatted together she -held her chemise between her knees, but her fresh, downward-bent face -with broad, open features was as merry as if she had just stepped out of -her settle-bed on a bright winter morning in the light of the dawn.</p> - -<p>The blood ran impetuously enough through the veins of the white-haired -chaplain, but in that moment he was but master and father.</p> - -<p>“I did not know that in my simple house folk had learned such a -ceremonious feeling of delicacy,” said he, and gave her a friendly pat -on the bare shoulders.</p> - -<p>She looked up.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, “it’s only because I’m so wretchedly cold.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, that’s natural. That’s the way I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> like people to talk in my -house. But I have no garments to give you. My own hang on me in tatters. -The house may burn at any time. I myself can maybe sneak out on my way -unaccosted, and I have a Riga riksdollar in my pocket. Who asks about a -ragged old man? It’s another affair with you, Lina. I know these wild -fellows. I know but one way to get you off, but I myself shrink from -telling it. Naturally, you are afraid.”</p> - -<p>“Afraid I’m not. It will go with me as it may. To be sure, I am no -better than the others. Only I’m perishing of cold.”</p> - -<p>“Come here to the door then, but don’t be frightened. Do you see out -there in the doorway the rascals have set a little wooden casket. It -cannot be very heavy, but perhaps you will have room in it. If you dare -lay yourself in the casket, perhaps I can smuggle you out of the town.”</p> - -<p>“That I surely dare.”</p> - -<p>Her teeth chattered and she trembled, but she straightened herself up a -little, let the chemise hang free, and went out on the stones in the -doorway.</p> - -<p>The pastor lifted off the moist lid, which was loose, and found nothing -else in the plundered casket than shavings and a brown blanket.</p> - -<p>“That was just what I needed,” she shivered. She pulled up the blanket, -wrapped it over her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> stepped up, and laid herself on her back in the -shavings.</p> - -<p>The pastor bent over her, laid both his hands on her shoulder, and -looked into her fearless eyes. She might be eighteen or nineteen years -old. Her hair was stroked smoothly back to the braid.</p> - -<p>As he stood so, it came over him that he had not always looked on her in -the past with as pure and fatherly feelings as he himself had wished and -as he had pretended to do. But now he did so. His long white hair fell -down as far as her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“May it go well with you, child! I am old. It matters little whether my -life goes on for a while still or is destroyed in the day that now is. I -have been in many a piece of mischief and many an ill deed in my time, -and for the forgiveness of my sins I will also for once have part in -something good.”</p> - -<p>He nodded and nodded toward her and raised himself.</p> - -<p>There outside the clamor sounded louder than ever. He laid on the lid -and fastened in the long, crookedly set screws as well as he was able. -Then he knelt, knotted a rope crosswise around the casket, and with -strong arms lifted the heavy burden on his back. Bending forward and -staggering, he strode out into the open air.</p> - -<p>“Look there!” shouted one of the pillagers at the fire, but his nearest -comrade silenced him with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span> the word: “Let the poor old man alone! That’s -only a miserable beggar’s casket.”</p> - -<p>Sweat trickled out over the old man’s face, and his back and arms ached -and smarted under the severe weight. Step by step he moved forward -through the dark streets. Every now and then he had to set down the -casket on the ground to take breath, but then he stood with his hands on -the lid in constant fear of being challenged and hustled away or of -being stabbed by some roving band of soldier revelers. Several times he -had to step to one side because of the heavy wagons, loaded with men and -women, who were to be taken hundreds of miles into Russia to people the -waste regions. The great conquering czar was a sower who did not count -the seeds he strewed.</p> - -<p>When finally the old war-pastor reached the town gate and the watch came -to meet him, he roused his strength to the utmost with all the collected -will-power of his anxiety. With a single arm he held the casket in place -on his back, while with his free hand he drew the Riga riksdollar from -his pocket and handed it to the sentry as a bribe.</p> - -<p>The soldier motioned to him to go on.</p> - -<p>He wanted again to move his foot forward, but now he was unable. Through -the town gate he saw the river glimmer on the open plain, but then it -grew dark before his eyes. Still afraid for his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> burden in his -helplessness, he softly and cautiously lowered the casket beside him on -the stone flagging. Thereupon he fell forward and died.</p> - -<p>The other men of the watch sprang forward and began to curse and -complain. No casket could remain standing there in the door of the -gateway.</p> - -<p>The officers, who were sitting and gambling in a room of the casemate, -now came likewise to the spot. One of them, a little dry, weather-beaten -figure with rectangular spectacles, who was more like a clerk than a -soldier, took a lantern, came forward and held the lid slightly ajar -with his scabbard.</p> - -<p>First he drew back his head precipitately, nearly dropping the lantern. -The next time he bent down and looked in, he dwelt on the action longer -and more searchingly, and afterwards passed his hands over his whole -face to hide his thoughts. Then he unhooked his spectacles and stood -pondering. When he bent the third time, he sent the light back and -forward through the crevice,—and there inside lay Lina Andersdotter -quite calmly, screwing up her eyes at him in the lantern’s light without -herself knowing what was going on.</p> - -<p>“I’m hungry,” she said.</p> - -<p>He laid aside the lantern and went a couple of paces up and down through -the door with hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> crossed behind his back. There came then into his -frigid expression a sly and merrily vibrating life, and unnoticed he -took some August apples and thrust them into the casket. Thereupon he -began to give commands.</p> - -<p>“Come here, boys! Let eight men take the casket to General Ogilvy, -salute him and say that this is a small gift from his humble servant, -Ivan Alexievitch. Eight of you others who have just come from working on -the walls go after it and roll up your leather aprons like trumpets, in -which you are to blow the regimental march. But in front of all two men -are to go with rushlights. Forward, march!”</p> - -<p>The savage soldiers looked open-mouth at one another and obeyed. -Laughing, they lifted the casket on their muskets. Two long stalks, -tarred and twisted about with straw, were brought forward from a corner -of the gateway and lighted at the lantern; and as the procession set -itself in motion into the field toward the camp, the musicians tooted -the march in their aprons:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O you, who have chosen a gun to bear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You care not for lodging or bed, lad,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You feed like a prince on the finest fare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of girls and of lice you’ve enough and to spare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But when will you ever be paid, lad?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>When they came to the camp, the soldiers rushed together around them in -the torch-light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> General Ogilvy, who was sitting at table, came out of -his tent.</p> - -<p>“Beloved little father,” said one of the bearers, “Lieutenant Ivan -Alexievitch humbly sends you this gift.”</p> - -<p>Ogilvy grew pale and bit his lips under his bushy gray mustaches. His -face, wrinkled and strained to harshness, was at bottom good-natured and -friendly.</p> - -<p>“Is he out of his right mind?” he thundered with pretended wrath, though -in reality he was as frightened as a boy. “Put down the casket and break -off the lid!”</p> - -<p>The soldiers pried it open with their blades, and the dark lid rattled -to one side.</p> - -<p>Ogilvy stared. With that he burst out laughing. He guffawed so that he -had to sit down on an earthen bench. And the soldiers laughed too. They -laughed down through the whole lane of tents, so that they reeled and -tottered and had to support themselves one against another like -drunkards. Lina Andersdotter lay there in the casket with a half-eaten -apple in her hand and made great eyes. She had now become warm again and -was as blooming of cheek as a doll.</p> - -<p>“By all the saints,” Ogilvy burst out. “Not ever in the catacombs of St. -Anthony has man seen such a miracle. This is a corpse that ought to be -sent to the Czar himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“By no means,” answered one of his officers. “I sent him two little -fair-haired baggages day before yesterday, but he only cares for thin -brunettes.”</p> - -<p>“So it is,” answered Ogilvy, and turned himself bending toward Narva. -“Salute Ivan Alexievitch and say that, when the casket is returned, -there shall lie in the bottom of it a captain’s commission.—Hey, -sweetheart!”</p> - -<p>He went forward and stroked Lina Andersdotter under the chin.</p> - -<p>But at that she sat up, took hold of his hair, and gave him a resounding -box on the ear, and after that another.</p> - -<p>He did not let it affect him in the least, but continued to laugh.</p> - -<p>“That’s the way I like them,” he said, “that’s the way I like them. I -will make you queen of the marauders, my chick, and as token thereof I -give you here a bracelet with a turquoise in the clasp. A band of our -worst rabble stole it just now from the casket of Countess Horn in -Narva.”</p> - -<p>He shook the chain from his wrist and she caught it eagerly to her.</p> - -<p>When later in the evening the cloth was laid in the tent, Lina -Andersdotter sat at the table beside Ogilvy. She had now got French -clothes of flowered brocade and wore a head-dress with blonde-lace. But -what hands! She managed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> eat with gloves, but under them swelled the -big, broad fingers and the red shone between the buttons.</p> - -<p>“Hoho! hoho!” shouted the generals. “Those hands make a man merrier than -he would get with a whole flask of Hungary. Help! Loosen our belts! Hold -us under the arms! It will be the death of us.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile she helped herself, munched sweetmeats, and sat with her spoon -in the air. If anything tasted bad, she made a face. Eat she could. -Drink, on the contrary, she would not but only took a swallow in her -mouth and then spurted the wine over the generals. But all their curses -and worst expressions she picked up while she sat ever alike blooming -and gay.</p> - -<p>“Help, help!” shrieked the generals, choked with laughter. “Blow out the -light so they can slip her away! Hold our foreheads! Help! Will you have -a little pull of a tobacco pipe, mademoiselle?”</p> - -<p>“Go to the deuce! Can’t I sit in peace!” answered Lina Andersdotter.</p> - -<p>There was one thing, though, that Ogilvy skillfully concealed so that -the laughers should not turn to him and nudge him in the ribs and pull -his coat-tails and say: “Oho, little father, you’ve got into water too -deep for your bald head. Bless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> you, little father, bless you and your -little mishap!”</p> - -<p>He pretended always to treat her with slightly indifferent familiarity, -but he never sat so near her that his dog could not jump up between -them. He never took hold of her so that anyone saw it, and never either -when no one saw it, for then he knew that her hand would catch him on -the face so that the glove would split and the red shine out in all its -strength. It was enough that, notwithstanding, she now and then gave him -a slap in the middle of the face, and no one did she snub worse than -him. But at all that he only laughed with the others, so that never -before had there been in the camp such a clamor and bedlam.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he thought of knouting her, but he was ashamed before the -others, because everything could be heard through the tent, and he -feared that they then would the more easily guess how things stood and -how little he got along with the girl. Wait, he thought, we shall be -sitting alone sometime under lock and key. Just wait! Till then things -may go on as they do.</p> - -<p>“Help, help!” shouted the generals. “That’s how she carries her train. -We must take hold of it. Lord, lord, no; but just look!”</p> - -<p>“Take it up, you,” said she. “Take it up, you. That’s what you are -for.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>And so the generals were cuffed and bore her train, both when she came -to the table and when she went.</p> - -<p>Then it happened one evening when she sat among the drinking old men -that an adjutant stepped in, hesitating and embarrassed. He turned to -Ogilvy.</p> - -<p>“Dare I be frank?”</p> - -<p>“Naturally, my lad.”</p> - -<p>“And whatever I say will be forgiven?”</p> - -<p>“By my honor. Only speak out!”</p> - -<p>“The czar is on his way out to the camp.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, he is my gracious lord.”</p> - -<p>The adjutant pointed at Lina Andersdotter.</p> - -<p>“The czar has a fancy for tall brunettes,” said Ogilvy.</p> - -<p>“Your Excellency, in these last days he has changed his taste.”</p> - -<p>“God! Call the troops to arms—and forward with the three-horse wagon!”</p> - -<p>Now the alarm was struck. Drums rolled, trumpets shattered, weapons -clattered, and shouts and trampling filled the night. The drinking party -was broken up, and Lina Andersdotter was set in a baggage-wagon.</p> - -<p>Beside the peasant who was driving, a soldier sprang up with a lighted -lantern, and she heard the peasant softly inquire of him the purpose of -the flight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The czar,” answered the soldier in a monotone and pointed with his -thumb over his shoulder at the girl.</p> - -<p>At that the peasant shrunk together as at a frost-cold breeze and -whipped the small, shaggy horses more and more wildly. He hallooed and -beat and urged them into a thundering gallop. The lantern-light fell -caressingly on the fir bushes and the burnt homesteads; the wagon banged -and tottered among the stones, and creaked in its joints.</p> - -<p>Lina Andersdotter lay on her back in the hay and looked at the stars. -Whither was she carried? What fate awaited her? She wondered and -wondered. On her wrist hung the bracelet as a talisman, a pledge for the -accomplishing of Ogilvy’s wonderful prediction. Queen of the Marauders! -It sounded so grand, though at first she had so gradually discovered -what the word really betokened. She stroked and plucked at the small -silver rings. Then she sat up and scanned the stony road in the -lantern’s light. Cautiously she moved further and further out. -Unnoticed, she climbed slowly over the wagon-sill and lowered her feet -to the ground. Would she be crushed and left lying? For a few steps she -dragged along. Then she lost her hold, stumbled, and fell lacerated -among the bushes.</p> - -<p>On thundered the baggage-wagon with its three<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> galloping horses, and the -lantern-light vanished. Then she got up and wiped off the blood from her -cheeks while she wandered forth into the trackless woods.</p> - -<p>When she met barbarous-looking fugitives and they saw her pretty face, -they at once picked berries and mushrooms for her and followed along. -She got a whole court of ragamuffins and she treated them so ill that -they scarcely dared to touch her dress, but sometimes they stabbed each -other. Finally she took service with a skipper’s wife, who was to sail -with her husband to Danzig. Scarcely had it begun to grow dark when the -ragamuffins came out one after another and took service for nothing. The -skipper sat on his cabin in the moonlight, blew his shepherd’s pipe, and -congratulated himself on having got such a willing crew. And never had -an old woman seen a stronger serving-maid. But hardly had they put to -sea when Lina Andersdotter sat herself beside the skipper with her arms -crossed, and all the ragamuffins lay on their backs and sang in tune -with the pipe.</p> - -<p>“Do you think I’ll scour your bunks?” said she.</p> - -<p>“Beat her, beat her,” cried the old woman, but the skipper only moved -nearer and blew and blew on his pipe. Night and day the vessel rocked on -the bright waves with slack sail, and the skipper played for Lina -Andersdotter, who danced with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> her ragamuffins, but down in the cabin -sat the old woman crying and lamenting.</p> - -<p>When they came to Danzig the skipper stuck the pipe under his arm and -slunk off the vessel at night with Lina Andersdotter and her -ragamuffins. They guessed now that she thought of going to the Swedish -troops in Poland and compelling the king himself to give her his hand.</p> - -<p>When she with her followers stepped humming in among the Swedish women -of the camp, there was uproar and alarm, because for two days they had -sat by their wagons without food. The last provisions had been delivered -to the sutlers and divided among the soldiers. Then she stepped forward -to the first corporal she happened on and set her hands on her hips.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you ashamed,” said she, “to let my women starve, when in spite -of all you can’t get along without them?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Your</i> women? Who are you?”</p> - -<p>She pointed to her bracelet. “I am Lina Andersdotter, the Queen of the -Marauders, and now take five men and follow us!”</p> - -<p>He looked toward his captain, the reckless Jacob Elfsberg, he looked at -her pretty face and at his men. How the line surrounded her with their -muskets, and the women armed themselves with whip-handles and pokers! At -night when the light of the camp-fire tinged the heavens, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> king, -inquisitive, got into his saddle. As the wild throng came back with -well-laden wagons and oxen and sheep, the troops cheered louder than -ever: “Hurrah for King Charles! Hurrah for Queen Caroline!”</p> - -<p>The women thronged about the king’s horse so that the lackeys had to -hold them back, and Lina Andersdotter went to him to shake hands with -him. But he thereupon rose in his stirrups and shouted over the women’s -heads to the corporal and the five soldiers: “That’s well maraudered, -boys!”</p> - -<p>From that moment she would never hear the king named, and whenever she -met a man, she flung her sharpest abuse right in his face, whether he -was plain private or general. When Malcomb Bjorkman, the young -guardsman—who, however, was already famous for his exploits and -wounds—held out his hand to her, she scornfully laid in it her ragged, -empty purse; and she was never angrier than when she heard General -Meyerfelt whistling as he rode before his dragoons, or recognized -Colonel Grothusen’s yellow-brown cheeks and raven-black wig. But if a -wounded wretch lay beside the road, she offered him the last drops from -her tin flask and lifted him into her wagon. Frost and scratches soon -calloused her cheeks. High on the baggage-wagon she sat with the butt of -a whip and commanded all the wild camp-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span>followers, loose women, lawful -wives, and thievish fellows that streamed to them from east and West. -When at night the flare of a fire arose toward heaven, the soldiers knew -that Queen Caroline was out on a plundering raid.</p> - -<p>Days and years went by. Then, after the jolly winter-quarters in Saxony, -when the troops were marching toward the Ukraine, the king commanded -that all women should leave the army.</p> - -<p>“Teach him to mind his own affairs!” muttered Lina Andersdotter, and she -very tranquilly drove on.</p> - -<p>But when the army came to the Beresina, there was murmuring and -lamenting among the women. They gathered around Lina Andersdotter’s cart -and wrung their hands and lifted their babies on high.</p> - -<p>“See what you have to answer for! The troops have already crossed the -river and broken all the bridges behind them. They have left us as prey -to the Cossacks.”</p> - -<p>She sat with her whip on her knee with her high boots, but on her wrist -gleamed the silver chain with its turquoise. All the more violently did -the terrified women sob and moan around her, and from the closed -baggage-wagons, which were like boxes, crept out painted and powdered -Saxon hussies. Some of them, none the less, had satin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> gowns and gold -necklaces. From all sides came women she had never seen before.</p> - -<p>“Dirty wenches!” muttered she. “Now at last I have a chance to see the -smuggled goods that the captains and lieutenants brought along in their -wagons. What have you to do among my poor baggage-crones? But now we all -come to know what a man amounts to when his haversack is getting light.”</p> - -<p>Then they caught hold of her clothes and called upon her as if she alone -could seal their fate.</p> - -<p>“Is there no one,” she asked, “who knows the psalm: ‘When I am borne -through the Vale of Death’? Sing it, sing it!”</p> - -<p>Some of the women struck up the psalm with choked and nearly whispering -voices, but the others rushed down to the river, hunted out boats and -wreckage from the bridges, and rowed themselves across. Each and every -one who had a husband or a beloved in the army had hoped even at the -last she would be taken along and hidden; but all the worst women of the -rabble, who belonged neither to this man nor to that, stood with their -rags or their tasteless, ridiculous gowns in a ring around Lina -Andersdotter. Meanwhile swarms of Cossacks, who had crossed the river to -snap up any straggling marauders, were sneaking up through the bushes on -their hands and knees.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span></p> - -<p>Then her heart failed her and she stepped down from the wagon.</p> - -<p>“Poor children!” she said, and patted the hussies on the cheek. “Poor -children, I will not desert you. But now,—devil take me!—do you pray -to God that he will make your blood-red sins white, for I have nothing -else to offer you than to shame the men and die a hero’s death.”</p> - -<p>She opened the wagon-chest and hunted out from among her plunder some -pikes and Polish sabres, which she put into the hands of the -softly-singing women. Thereupon she herself grasped a musket without -powder or shot and set herself among the others around the cart to wait. -So they stood in the sunset light on the highest part of the shore.</p> - -<p>Then the women on the river saw the Cossacks rush forward to the cart -and cut down one after another of them with the idea that they were men -in disguise. They wanted to turn their boats, and soldiers sprang down -from their ranks to the water and opened fire.</p> - -<p>“Hurrah for King Charles,” they cried with a thousand intermingled -voices; “and hurrah—No, it’s too late. Look, look! There is Queen -Caroline who in the midst of the harlots is dying a virgin with a musket -in her hand!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span>”</p> - -<h3><a name="CAPTURED" id="CAPTURED"></a>CAPTURED</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>AR out in the wastes of Småland and Finnved wondrous prodigies appeared -in the air and after that work lost all worth and the morrow all hope. -People either went hungry or ate and drank with riot and revel amid -half-stifled curses. At every farm sat a mother or a widow in mourning. -During the day’s occupation she talked of the fallen or the captives, -and at night she started from her sleep and thought she was still -hearing the thunder of the hideous wagons on which teamsters in black -oil-cloth cloaks carried away those who had died of the plague.</p> - -<p>In the church of Riddarsholm the body of the Princess Hedwig Sofia had -lain unburied for seven years from lack of money, and now a new coffin -had been laid out for the old Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora, Charles’s -mother. Several sleepy ladies-in-waiting were keeping the death-watch, -and wax-lights burned mistily around the dead, who lay wrapped in a -simple covering of linen.</p> - -<p>The youngest lady-in-waiting arose yawning, went to the window, and drew -back the black broad-cloth to see if dawn had not appeared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span></p> - -<p>Limping steps were heard from the ante-room, and a little man of a -gnarled and rugged figure, who in every way tried to subdue the thump of -his wooden leg, advanced to the coffin and with signs of deep reverence -lifted aside the drapery. His fair, almost white hair lay close along -his head and extended down his neck as far as his collar. From a flask -he poured embalming liquid into a funnel, which was set in the royal -corpse between the kirtle and the bodice. But the liquid was absorbed -very slowly, and, waiting, he set down the flask on the funeral carpet -and went to the lady at the window.</p> - -<p>“Is it not seven o’clock yet, Blomberg?” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“It has just struck six. It’s an awful weather outside, and I feel in -the stump of my leg that we’re going to have a snow-storm. But then it’s -a long while since one could foretell anything good in Sweden. Trust me, -not this time either will there be enough money for a decent funeral. It -was only the beginning when the sainted Ekerot prophesied misery and -conflagration. And perhaps the fire didn’t go on over the island in -front of the castle! Over the plain of Upsala it threw its light from -cathedral and citadel. In Vasterås and Linköping the tempest sweeps the -ashes around the blackened wastes—and now there’s burning in all -quarters of the kingdom. Forgive<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> my freedom, gracious mistress, but to -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. That’s my -old maxim that saved my life once down there by the Dnieper River.”</p> - -<p>“Saved your life? You were then a surgeon in your regiment. You must sit -down by me here and tell the story. The time is so long.”</p> - -<p>Blomberg spoke resignedly and a trifle like a priest, from time to time -lifting his dexter and middle fingers with the other fingers closed.</p> - -<p>Both cast a glance at the corpse, which slept in its coffin with -gracefully disposed locks, and wax and rouge in the deepest of the -wrinkles. Thereupon they sat themselves on a bench in the window nook -outside the hanging broad-cloth, and Blomberg began whispering his -narrative.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>I was lying unconscious in the marshy wilderness at Poltava. I had -stumped along on my wooden leg and got a blow from a horse’s hoof, and -when I came to, it was night. I felt a cold, strange hand fumble under -my coat and pull at the buttons. An abomination before the Lord are the -devices of the wicked, I thought; but gentle words are pure. Without -becoming frightened, I seized the corpse-plunderer very silently by the -breast, and by his stammered words of terror I perceived that he was one -of the Zaporogeans who had made an alliance with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span> Swedes and -followed the army. As surgeon I had tended many of these men, as well as -captured Poles and Muscovites, and could make myself tolerably -understood in their various languages.</p> - -<p>“Many devices are in the heart of man,” said I meekly; “but the counsel -of the Lord, that shall abide. No evil can befall the righteous, but the -ungodly shall be filled with misfortunes.”</p> - -<p>“Forgive me, pious sir,” whispered the Zaporogean. “The Swedish czar has -left us poor Zaporogeans to our fate, and the Muscovite czar, whom we -faithlessly deserted, is coming to maim and slay us. I only wanted to -get me a Swedish coat so that in a moment of need I could give myself -out as one of you. Do not be angry, godly sir!”</p> - -<p>To see if he had any knife, I searched out flint and steel while he was -speaking and made a fire with dry thistles and twigs which lay at my -feet. I noted then that I had before me a little frightened old man with -a sly face and two empty hands. He raised himself as vehemently as a -hungry animal that has found its prey and bent in the light over a -Swedish ensign who lay dead in the grass. Thinking that a dead man might -willingly grant a helpless ally his coat, I did nothing to hinder the -Zaporogean; but as he drew the coat from the fallen one, a letter -slipped<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> from the pocket. I saw by the address that Falkenburg was the -name of the boy who had bled to death. He lay now as fairly and -peacefully stretched out as if he had slept in the meadow by the house -where he was born. The letter was from his sister, and I had only time -to spell out the words which from that hour became my favorite maxim: To -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. At that -moment the Zaporogean put out my light.</p> - -<p>“With your wise consent, sir,” he whispered, “do not draw the -corpse-plunderers hither.”</p> - -<p>I paid little attention to his talk, but repeated time after time: “To -tell the truth is in the long run less dangerous than to lie. That is a -big saying my old fellow, and you shall see that I get along further -with it than you do with your disguise.”</p> - -<p>“We may try it,” answered the Zaporogean, “but we must promise this, -that the one of us who survives the other shall offer a prayer for the -other’s soul.”</p> - -<p>“That is agreed,” I said, and gave him my hand, for it seemed as if -through misfortune I had found in this shaggy-bearded barbarian a friend -and a brother.</p> - -<p>He helped me up and at daybreak we fell into the long line of stragglers -and wounded that silently tottered into Poltava to give themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> up -as prisoners. They willingly tried to conceal the Zaporogean among the -rest. His big boots with their flaps reached up to his hips and his -coat-tails hung down to his spurs. As soon as a Cossack looked at him, -he turned to one of us and cried with raised voice the only Swedish -words he had come to learn in the campaign: “I Shwede, Devil-damn!”</p> - -<p>My Zaporogean and I with eight of my comrades were assigned quarters in -the upper story of a big stone house. As we two had come up there first, -we picked out for ourselves a little separate cubby-hole with a window -on an alley. There was nothing else there than a little straw to lie on, -but I had in my coat a tin flute, which I had from a fallen Kalmuck at -Starodub, and on which I had taught myself to play a few pretty psalms. -With that I shortened the time, and soon we noticed that, as often as I -played, a young woman came to the window on the other side of the alley. -Possibly for that reason I played more than I should have otherwise -cared to and I know not rightly whether she was fairer and more seemly -than all other women, or whether long sojourn among men had made my eye -less accustomed, but I had great joy in beholding her. However, I never -looked at her when she turned her face toward our window, because I have -always been bashful before women-folk and have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> never rightly understood -how to conduct myself in that which pertains to them. Never, too, have I -sought fellowship with men who go with their heads full of wenches and -do nothing but hanker after gallant intrigues. “Let everyone keep his -vessel in holiness,” Paul saith, “and not in the lust of desire as do -the heathen, which know not God; also let no one in this matter dishonor -and wrong his brother, because the Lord is a powerful avenger in all -such things.”</p> - -<p>I recognized, however, that a man should at all times bear himself -courteously and fittingly, and as one arm of my coat was in tatters, I -always turned that side inward when I played.</p> - -<p>She usually sat with arms crossed above the window-sill, and her hands -were round and white, though large. She had a scarlet-colored bodice -with silver buttons and many chains. An old witch who often stood -beneath her window with a wheel-barrow and sold bread covered with jam -called her Feodosova.</p> - -<p>When it grew dusk, she lighted a lamp, and since neither she nor we had -any shutters, we could follow her with our glance when she blew on the -fire, but I found it more proper that we should turn away and I -therefore set myself with my Zaporogean on the straw in the corner.</p> - -<p>Besides the prayer-book, I had a few torn-out leaves of Müller’s -“Sermons,” and I read and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span> translated many passages for my Zaporogean. -But when I noticed that he did not listen, I gave it over for more -worldly objects and asked him of our neighbor on the other side of the -alley. He said that she was not unmarried, because maidens in that -country always wore a long plait tied with ribbons and a little red tuft -of silk. More likely she was a widow because her hair hung loose as a -token of sorrow.</p> - -<p>When it became wholly dark and we lay down on the straw, I discovered -that the Zaporogean had stolen my silver snuff-spoon, but after I had -taken it back and reproached him for his fault, we slept beside each -other as friends.</p> - -<p>I was almost bashful, when it was morning again, at feeling myself -happier than for a long time, but as soon as I had held prayers with the -Zaporogean and had washed and arranged myself sufficiently, I went to -the window and played one of my most beautiful psalms.</p> - -<p>Feodosova was already sitting in the sunlight. To show her how different -the Swedes were from her fellow-countrymen I instructed my Zaporogean to -clean our room, and after a couple of hours the white-washed walls were -shining white and free from cobwebs. All this helped me to drive away my -thoughts, but as soon as I set myself again at rest, my torments of -conscience awakened, that I could be happy in such misery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> In the hall -outside, my comrades sat on floor and benches, sighing heavily and -whispering about their dear ones at home. In due turn two of us every -day were allowed to go out into the open air to the ramparts, but when I -laid myself on my straw in the evening, I was ashamed to pray God that -the lot next morning should fall upon me. I knew very well within myself -that, if I longed for an hour’s freedom, it was only to invent an errand -to the house opposite. And yet I felt that, if the lot really fell upon -me without my prayer, I should still never venture to go up there.</p> - -<p>When I came to the window in the morning, Feodosova lay sleeping in her -clothes on the floor with a cushion under her neck. It was still early -and cool, and I did not have the heart to set the tin flute to my mouth. -But as I stood there and waited, she may have apprehended in her sleep -that I was gazing at her, for she looked up and laughed and stretched -her arms out, and all that so suddenly that I did not manage to draw -back unnoticed. My brow became hot, I laid aside my flute, and behaved -myself in every way so clumsily and unskilfully that I never was so -displeased with myself. I pulled and straightened my belt, took my flute -again from the window, inspected it, and pretended I was blowing dust -out of it. When finally the Russian subaltern who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> charge over us -unfortunates informed my Zaporogean that he was one of the two who were -to go out into the city that day, I drew the Zaporogean aside into a -corner and enjoined him with many words to pick a bunch of yellow -stellaria such as I had seen around the burned houses by the ramparts. -At a suitable opportunity we should then give them to Feodosova I said. -She appeared to be a good and worthy woman, who perchance in return -might give us poor fellows some fruit or nuts, I said. The miserable -bite of bread that the czar allowed us daily did not even quiet our -worst hunger, I said.</p> - -<p>He was afraid to show himself out in the sunlight, but neither did he -dare to arouse mistrust by staying in, and therefore he obeyed and went.</p> - -<p>Scarcely was he out of the door, though, when I began to regret that I -had not held him back, because now in solitude my embarrassment grew -much greater. I sat down on the bed in the corner, where I was -invisible, and stayed there obstinately.</p> - -<p>Still the time was long, for thoughts were many. After a while I heard -the Zaporogean’s voice. Without reflecting, I went to the window and saw -him standing by Feodosova with a great, splendid bouquet of stellaria, -which reminded one of irises. First she didn’t want to take them but -answered that they were impure, since they had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> been given by a heathen. -He pretended that he understood nothing and that he only knew a few -words of her speech but with winkings and gestures and nods he made it -intelligible that I had sent the flowers, and then at last she took -them.</p> - -<p>Beside myself with bashfulness, I went back into the corner, and when -the Zaporogean returned, I seized him behind the shoulders, shook him, -and stood him against the wall.</p> - -<p>But scarcely had I let go my grasp when he with his thoughtless vivacity -stood at the window again, made signs with his hands and threw kisses on -all five of his fingers. Then I came forward, pushed him aside, and -bowed. Feodosova sat picking the flowers apart, pulling off the leaves -and letting them fall one by one to the ground. Vehemence helped me so -that I took courage and began to speak, while I was still considering -how it would be most polite to begin a conversation.</p> - -<p>“The lady will not take amiss my comrade’s pranks and unseemly -gestures,” I stammered.</p> - -<p>She plucked still more eagerly at the flowers and answered after a time, -“My husband, when he was alive, often used to say that from heel to head -such well-made soldiers as the Swedes were not to be found. He had seen -Swedish prisoners undressed and whipped by women and had seen that the -women at the last were so moved because of their beauty, that they stuck -the rods<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> under their arms and sobbed themselves, instead of those they -tormented. Therefore have I become very curious these days.... And the -love songs which you play sound so wonderful!”</p> - -<p>Her speech pleased me not altogether, and I found it little seemly to -answer in the same spirit by praising her figure and white arms. Instead -I took my flute and played my favorite psalm: “E’en from the bottom of -my heart I call Thee in my need.”</p> - -<p>After that we conversed of many things, and though my store of words was -small, we soon understood each other so well that never did any day seem -to me shorter.</p> - -<p>At mid-day, after she had clattered about with jugs and plates and swung -a palm-leaf fan over the embers in the fire-place, she lifted down from -the ceiling a landing-net with which formerly her husband had caught -small fish in the river. Into the net she put a pan with steaming -cabbage and a wooden flask with kvass, and the net was so long that she -could hand us the meal across the street. When I drank to her, she -nodded and smiled and said that she did not regard it as wrong to feel -pity for captured heathens. Toward evening she moved her spinning-wheel -to the window, and we kept on conversing when it was dusk. I no longer -felt it as a sin to be happy in the midst of the sorrow that surrounded -us, be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span>cause my intent was innocent and pure. Just as I had seen the -stellaria shining over heaps of ashes among the burned and desolate -houses by the ramparts as a song of praise to God’s goodness, so seemed -to me now the joy of my heart.</p> - -<p>When it became night and I had held prayer with my Zaporogean and yet -once more reproached him that he had stolen my snuff-spoon, the -garrulous man began to talk to me in an undertone and say: “I see -clearly, little father, that you are in love with Feodosova, and in -truth she is a good and pure woman whom you may take to wife. That you -never would enter upon any love-dealing of another sort I have -understood from the first.”</p> - -<p>“Such stuff!” answered I, “such stuff!”</p> - -<p>“Truth is in the long run less dangerous than lying, you used to say.”</p> - -<p>When he struck me with my own maxim-staff, I became confounded, and he -proceeded.</p> - -<p>“The czar has promised good employment and wages to everyone of you -Swedes who will become his subject and be converted to the true faith.”</p> - -<p>“You are out of your wits. But if I could get off and take her home with -me on horseback, I would do it.”</p> - -<p>Next morning, when I had played my psalm, I learned that today it was my -turn to go out under the open heavens.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span></p> - -<p>I became warm and restless. I combed and fixed myself up even more -carefully than at other times, and changed to the Zaporogean’s ensign -coat so as not to wear my torn one. Meanwhile I deliberated with myself. -Should I go up to her? What should I say then? Perhaps, though, that -would be the only time in my life when I could get to speak with her, -and how should I not repent thereafter even to my gray old age, if out -of awkwardness I had missed that one chance! My heart beat more -violently than at any affair with the enemy, when I stood with my -bandages among the bullets and the fallen. I stuck the flute into my -pocket and went out.</p> - -<p>When I came down on the street she sat at the window without seeing me. -I would not go to her without first asking leave, and I did not know -rightly how I should conduct myself. Pondering, I took a couple of steps -forward.</p> - -<p>Then she heard me and looked out.</p> - -<p>I lifted my hand to my hat, but with a long ringing burst of laughter -she sprang up and cried, “Haha! Look, look, he has a wooden leg!”</p> - -<p>I stood with my hand raised, and stared and stared, and I had neither -thought nor feeling. It was as if my heart had swelled out and filled -all my breast, so that it was near to bursting. I believe I stammered -something. I only remember that I did not know whither I should turn, -that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> heard her still laughing, that everything in the world was -indifferent to me, that freedom would have frightened me as much as my -captivity and my wretchedness, that of a sudden I had become a broken -man.</p> - -<p>I remember vaguely a long and steep lane without stone pavement, where I -was accosted by other Swedish prisoners. Perhaps, even, I answered them, -asked after their health, and took some puffs out of the tobacco pipes -they lent me.</p> - -<p>I believe I disturbed myself over the fact that it was so long till -night, so that I had to return the same way and pass her window in -brightest daylight. By every means I prolonged the time, speaking now to -one man, now to another, but shortly the Russian dragoons came and -ordered me to turn about to my place.</p> - -<p>As I went up the lane, I persuaded myself that I should not betray -myself, but should salute in a quite friendly manner before the window. -Was it her fault that so many of the Swedish soldiers of whom she had -had such fine dreams were now pitiful cripples on wooden legs?</p> - -<p>“Hurry up there!” thundered the dragoons, and I hastened my steps so -that the thumping of my wooden leg echoed between the walls of the -houses.</p> - -<p>“Dear Heavenly Father,” I muttered, “faithfully have I served my earthly -master. Is this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> the reward Thou givest me, that Thou makest of me in my -youth a defenseless captive, at whom women laugh? Yes, this is Thy -recompense, and Thou wilt abase me into yet deeper humiliation, that -thereby I may at length become worthy of the crown of blessedness.”</p> - -<p>When I came under the window and carried my hand to my hat, I saw that -Feodosova was away. That gave me no longer any relief. I stumbled up to -my prison and at every step heard the thumping of my wooden leg.</p> - -<p>“I have talked with Feodosova,” whispered the Zaporogean.</p> - -<p>I gave him no reply. My happiness, my flower, that had grown up over the -heaps of ashes, lay consumed; and if it had again shone out, I myself, -in alarm, would have trampled it to death with my wooden leg. What -signified to me the Zaporogean’s whisperings?</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he went on, “when you were gone, I reproached Feodosova and said -to her that you were fonder of her than she realized, and that, if you -were not a stranger and a heathen, you would ask her to be your wife.”</p> - -<p>In silence I clenched my hands and bit my lips together to lock up my -vexation and embarrassment, and I thanked God that he abased me every -moment more deeply in shame and ridicule before men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span></p> - -<p>I opened the door to the outer hall and began to talk to the other -prisoners:</p> - -<p>“As wild asses in the desert we go painfully to seek our food. On a -field that we do not own we must go as husbandmen, and harvest in the -vineyard of the ungodly. We lie naked the whole night from lack of -garments, and are without covering against the cold. We are overwhelmed -by the deluge from the mountains, and from lack of shelter we embrace -the cliffs. But we beg Thee not for mitigation Almighty God. We pray -only: Lead us, be nigh unto us! Behold, Thou hast turned away Thy -countenance from our people and stuck thorns in our shoes, that we may -become Thy servants and Thy children. In the mould of the battle-field -our brothers sleep, and a fairer song of victory than that of the -conquerors by the sword Thou dost offer to Thy chosen ones.”</p> - -<p>“Yea, Lord lead us, be nigh unto us!” echoed all the prisoners -murmuringly.</p> - -<p>Then out of the darkest corner rose a lonely, trembling voice, which -cried: “Oh, that I were as in former months, as in the days when God -protected me, when His lamp shone upon my head, when with His light I -went into the darkness! As I was in my autumn days, when God’s -friendship was over my tent, while yet the Almighty was with me, and my -children were about me! Thus my heart cries out with Job,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> but I hear it -no longer and I stammer forth no longer: Take away my trials! With the -ear I have heard tell of Thee, O God, but now hath mine eye beheld -Thee.”</p> - -<p>“Quiet, quiet!” whispered the Zaporogean, taking hold of me, and his -hands were cold and trembling. “It can be no one else than the czar who -is coming below in the lane.”</p> - -<p>The lane had become filled with people, with beggars and boys and old -women and soldiers. In the middle of the throng the czar, tall and lean, -walked very calmly, without a guard. A swarm of hopping and shrieking -dwarfs were his only retinue. Now and then, turning, he embraced and -kissed the smallest dwarf on the forehead in a fatherly way. Here and -there he stood still before a house and was offered a glass of brandy, -which he jestingly emptied at a single gulp. It could be nobody but the -czar, because one saw directly that he alone ruled over both people and -city. He came so close under my window that I could have touched his -green cloth cap and the half-torn brass buttons on his brown coat. On -the skirt he had a great silver button with an artificial stone and on -his legs rough woolen stockings. His brown eyes gleamed and flashed, and -the small black mustaches stood straight up from his shining lips.</p> - -<p>When he caught sight of Feodosova, he became<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> as if smitten with -madness. When she came down on the street and knelt with a cup, he -pinched her ear, then took her under the chin and lifted up her head so -that he could look her in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, child,” he inquired, “where is there a comfortable room where -I can eat? May there be one at your house?”</p> - -<p>The czar had seldom with him on his excursions any master of ceremonies -or other courtier. He took along neither bed nor bed-clothes nor cooking -utensils; no, not even a cooking or eating vessel; but everything had to -be provided in a turn of the hand wherever it occurred to him to take -lodging. It was for this reason that there was now running and clatter -at all the gates and stairs. From this direction came a man with a pan, -from that another with an earthen platter, from yonder a third with a -ladle and drinking utensils. Up in Feodosova’s room the floor was strewn -deeply with straw. The czar helped with the work like a common servant, -and the chief direction was carried on by a hunchbacked dwarf, who was -called the Patriarch. The dwarf every once in a while put his thumb to -his nose and blew it in the air straight in front of the czar’s face, or -invented rascal tricks of which I cannot relate before a lady of -quality.</p> - -<p>Once when the czar turned with crossed arms to the window, he noticed me -and the Zaporo<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span>gean, and nodded like a comrade. The Zaporogean threw -himself prostrate on the floor and stammered his “I Schwede. -Devil-damn!” But I pushed him aside with my foot and told him once for -all to be silent and get up, because no Swede conducted himself in that -fashion. To cover him as much as possible, I stepped in front of him and -took my position there.</p> - -<p>“Dat is nit übel,” said the czar, but at once fell back into his mother -speech and asked who I was.</p> - -<p>“Blomberg, surgeon with the Uppland regiment,” I answered.</p> - -<p>The czar scanned me with a narrowing gaze that was so penetrating I have -never seen a more all-discerning look.</p> - -<p>“Your regiment exists no longer,” he said, “and here you see -Rehnskiöld’s sword.” He lifted the sword with its scabbard from his belt -and threw it on the table so that the plates hopped. “But for certain -you are a rogue, for you wear a captain’s or ensign’s uniform.”</p> - -<p>I answered, “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>That is a hard saying,’ saith John the Evangelist. The -coat I borrowed, after my own fell in rags, and if that be ill done, I -will yet hope for grace, because this is my maxim: To tell the truth is -in the long run less dangerous than to lie.”</p> - -<p>“Good. If that is your motto, you shall take<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span> your servant with you and -come over here so that we may prove it.”</p> - -<p>The Zaporogean trembled and tottered as he followed behind me, but as -soon as we entered, the czar pointed me to a chair among the others at -the table as if I had been his equal and said: “Sit, Wooden-Leg!”</p> - -<p>He had Feodosova on his knee, without the least consideration of what -could be said about it, and round them stamped and whistled the dwarfs -and a crowd of Boyars who now began to collect. A dwarf who was called -Judas, because he carried a likeness of that arch-villain on the chain -around his neck seized a handful of shrimps from the nearest plate and -threw them to the ceiling, so that they fell in a rain over dishes and -people. When in that way he had made the others turn toward him, he -pointed at the czar with many grimaces and called cold-bloodedly to him: -“You amuse yourself, you Peter Alexievitch. Even outside of the city I -have heard tell of the pretty Feodosova of Poltava, I have; but you -always scrape together the best things for yourself, you little father.”</p> - -<p>“That you do,” chimed in the other dwarfs in a ring around the czar. -“You are an arch-thief, you Peter Alexievitch.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes the czar laughed or answered, sometimes he did not hear them, -but sat serious<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> and meditative, and his eyes moved meanwhile like two -green-glinting insects in the sunlight.</p> - -<p>I called to mind how I had once seen the most blessed Charles the -Eleventh converse with Rudbeck, and how it then came over me that -Rudbeck, for all his bowings, amounted to far more than the king. Here -it was the other way about. Although the czar himself went around and -did the waiting and let himself be treated worse than a knave, I saw -only him—and Feodosova. I read his thoughts in the smallest things. I -recognized him in the forcibly curtailed caftans and shaven chins at the -city gate.</p> - -<p>There was a buzzing in my head, and I knelt humbly on the straw and -stammered: “Imperial Majesty! To tell the truth is in the long run less -dangerous than to lie, and the Lord said to Moses: ‘Thou shalt not hold -with the great ones in that which is evil.’ Therefore I beseech that I -may forego further eating. For behold I am soon done with the game, and -my gracious lord—who is both like and unlike Your Imperial Majesty—has -in the last year turned me to drinking filtered marsh water.”</p> - -<p>A twitching and trembling began in the czar’s right cheek near the eye. -“Yes, by Saint Andreas!” said he. “I am unlike my brother Charles, for -he hates women like a woman, and wine like a woman, and offers up his -peopl<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span>e’s riches as a woman her husband’s, and abuses me like a woman; -but I respect him like a man. His health, Wooden Leg! Drink, drink!”</p> - -<p>The czar sprang forward, seized me by the hair, and held the goblet to -my mouth, so that the Astrakan ale foamed over my chin and collar. As we -drank the prescribed health, two soldiers entered in brownish-yellow -uniforms with blue collars and discharged their pistols, so that the hot -room, which was already filled with tobacco clouds and onion smell, was -now also enveloped in powder smoke.</p> - -<p>The czar sat down again at the table. Even in all that noise he wanted -to sit and think, but he never allowed anyone else to shirk the duty of -drinking and become serious like himself. He drew Feodosova afresh to -his knee. Poor, poor Feodosova! She sat there, a bit sunk together, with -arms hanging and mouth impotently half-open, as if she awaited cuff and -blow amid the caresses. Why had she not courage to pull the sword to her -from the table, press her wrist against the edge and save her honor, -before it was too late? Over and over she might have laughed at my -wooden leg and my disgrace, if with my life I could have preserved her -honor. Nor had I ever before been so near her and seen so clearly to -what a wondrous work she had been formed in the Heavenly Creator’s -hands. Poor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span> poor Feodosova, if you had but felt in your heart with -what a pure intent a friend regarded you in your humiliation and how he -prayed for your well-being!</p> - -<p>Hour after hour the banquet continued. Those of the Boyars and dwarfs -who were most completely overcome already lay relaxed in the straw and -vomited or made water, but the czar himself always rose up and leaned -out through the window. “Drink, Wooden Leg, drink!” he commanded, and -hunted me around the room with the glass, making the Boyars hold me till -I had emptied every drop. The twitching in his face became ever more -uncanny, and when we were finally together at the table again, he moved -three brimful earthen bowls in front of me and said: “Now, Wooden Leg, -you shall propose a health to be drunk all round and teach us to -understand its meaning with your maxim.”</p> - -<p>I raised myself again as well as I could.</p> - -<p>“Your health, czar!” I shouted, “for you are assuredly born to command.”</p> - -<p>“Why,” he asked, “should the soldiers present arms and salute me if any -other was worthier to command? Where is there anything more pitiful than -an incompetent ruler? The day I find my own son unworthy to inherit my -great, beloved realm, that day shall he die. Your first truth, Wooden -Leg, requires no bowl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The pistols cracked, and all drank but the czar.</p> - -<p>Then I gathered the fragments of my understanding as a miser his coins, -for I believed that, if I could catch the czar in a gracious and mild -humour, I might perhaps save my Feodosova.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, Imperial Majesty,” I continued, therefore, lifting one of -the bowls on high “this is Astrakan ale, brewed of mead and brandy with -pepper and tobacco. It burns much before it delights, and when it -delights it puts one to sleep.”</p> - -<p>With that I threw the bowl to the ground so that it broke in a thousand -pieces. Then I lifted the next bowl.</p> - -<p>“This is Hungarian wine. ‘Drink no more only water,’ writes the Apostle -Paul to Timothy, ‘but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and -because thou art so often sick.’ So speaks a holy one to weakly men and -stay-at-homes. But go out on the battle-field amid frost and wailing and -tell me: To how many of the groaning would this bowl of sweetish wine -give relief from pain and a softer death?”</p> - -<p>Therewith I threw that bowl also to the ground so that it broke. Then I -lifted the third bowl.</p> - -<p>“This is brandy. It is despised by the fortunate and the rich, because -they thirst not after refreshment as the desert for coolness, but would -only gibe at the pleasure it gives. But brandy assumes power in the very -moment it swims over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span> the tongue, like a despot in the moment he steps -across a threshold, and the bleeding and dying draw comfort from a few -drops.”</p> - -<p>“Right, right!” acclaimed the czar, and took the bowl and drank it, at -the same time that he handed me two gold-pieces, while the pistols -cracked. “You shall have a pass and a horse to go your way, and wherever -you come, you shall tell about Poltava.”</p> - -<p>Then I knelt yet again in the straw and stammered: “Imperial Majesty—in -my pettiness and weakness—beside you sits a—a pure and good woman.”</p> - -<p>“Haha!” screamed the dwarfs and Boyars and tottered to their feet. -“Haha! haha!”</p> - -<p>The czar got up and carried Feodosova toward me.</p> - -<p>“I understand. He who limps on a wooden leg may fall in love, too. Good. -I present her to you as she goes and stands, and you shall have a good -situation with me. I have promised every Swede who enters into my -service and is baptized in our faith that he shall become one of our -people.”</p> - -<p>Feodosova stood like a sleep-walker and stretched her hands toward me. -What did it matter that she had laughed at me. I should soon have -forgotten that and she would soon not have seen my wooden leg, for I -should have cared for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> her and worked for her and prayed with her and -made her home bright and tranquil. I should have lifted her up to my -bosom as a child and asked her if an honest and faithful heart could not -make another heart throb. Mayhap she already bore the answer on her -tongue, for slowly she beamed up and became flushed, and her whole face -became transfigured. Far away in a corner house on Priest Street in -Stockholm a lonely old woman sat with her sermon-book and listened and -wondered whether a letter would not be left for her through the door, -whether no disabled man would step in with a greeting from the remote -wilderness, whether I never should come or whether I lay already dead -and buried. I had prayed for her every night. I had thought of her in -the tumult in the midst of stretchers and wailing wounded. But at that -moment I thought of her no longer; I saw and heard nothing else but -Feodosova. And yet I was angry and strove against something heavy which -weighed upon my heart and which I did not understand, but was only -slowly and gradually able to make out.</p> - -<p>I bent to Feodosova to kiss her hand, but she whispered, “The czar’s -hand, the czar’s hand.”</p> - -<p>Then I stretched myself toward the czar and kissed his hand.</p> - -<p>“My faith,” I whispered equally softly, “and my royal lord I may not -desert.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The czar’s cheek still twitched, and the dwarfs in their terror pulled -forth the Zaporogean from his nook to make the czar laugh at his -ridiculous figure. But then the czar’s arms began to move convulsively. -His face grew gray and he trembled in one of his dreaded fits. He went -toward the Zaporogean and struck him in the face with clenched fist so -that the blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and with such a hoarse -and altered voice that it could no longer be recognized he hissed: “I -have seen through you, liar, from the moment you came into the room. You -are a Zaporogean, a renegade, who have hidden yourself in Swedish -clothes.—To the wheel with him, to the wheel!”</p> - -<p>All, even the drunken men, began to tremble and feel toward the doors, -and in his terror one of the Boyars whispered: “Bring forward the woman! -Shove her forward! As soon as he gets to see pretty faces and woman’s -limbs, he grows quiet.”</p> - -<p>They seized her, her bodice was cut over the bosom, and, softly wailing, -she was supported forward step by step to the czar.</p> - -<p>It grew black around me, and I staggered backward out of the room. I -remained standing on the street under the stars and I heard the clamor -grow muffled and the dwarfs began to sing.</p> - -<p>Then I clenched my hands and remembered a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> promise on the field of -battle to pray for a poor sinner’s soul. But the more fervently I spoke -with my God, the further went my thoughts, and my invocation became a -prayer for a yet greater sinner who with his last faithful followers -wandered about on the desolate steppes.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The surgeon ceased with an anxious glance toward the coffin, and the -lady-in-waiting followed him forward to the catafalque.</p> - -<p>“Amen!” said she, and the two again spread the covering over the -wax-pale Queen Dowager, Charles’ mother.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span></p> - -<h2> -STORIES BY<br /> -PER HALLSTRÖM<br /> -</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> </p> - -<h3><a name="THE_FALCON" id="THE_FALCON"></a>THE FALCON</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">R</span>ENAUD’S eyes took the color of the day: dim, lustreless and dark at -twilight; gleaming molten gold when the sunshine flitted across his hair -and outstretched neck, so that they sparkled with widening and -contracting flames as they looked out over the fields toward the blue -haze against the slanting red of the dawn, or toward the rustling of -hares in the thicket, of frightened birds and swaying branches.</p> - -<p>Indolent and proud was his glance, the reflection of gilded steel on a -sheathed dagger, of the luck-piece on the brown bosom of a gipsy girl; -indolent and proud, too, the rhythmic motion of his naked feet, and the -line of his arms as he laid himself down at full-length in the passion -of the moment with his hands under his head and heard the horns -jubilating in the distance and the earth quivering with the thud of the -huntsmen.</p> - -<p>But when it grew quiet—a quiet wonderfully intense, as if spread out in -a domed vault of restless waiting, with two black huddled specks that -rose in circles at the top—then Renaud raised his glance, as he leaned -on his elbow, his eyes wide<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> and lips half-parted. And when the specks -came together and fell,—one subsiding in broken curves, the other -dropping always above it in a line straight as a spear,—and the blue -welkin rang again with voices, and the riders galloped forward to see -the falcon and the heron finish their fight, the boy ran up close. He -screamed with delight when the falcon, still trembling with ardor, was -lifted on his master’s glove, its wings drooped and its eyes blinded -under the hood.</p> - -<p>He often followed along to Sir Enguerrand’s stable yard and saw the -falconers bathe the yellow feet of the hunting birds in metal bowls, -drying them carefully as if they were princes’ children each with its -crested cloth, and caressing their necks till they shut their naked -eyelids and dreamed against the shoulders of the attendants.</p> - -<p>Renaud would have given ten years of his life or one of his ten fingers -to be allowed to hold them like that, the proud, silent creatures; but -they might not be touched by everybody, they were noble. They had each -its glove ornamented according to its rank, each its hood with -embroidered pattern, each its special food, and people talked to them in -a strange, archaic speech with elaborate etiquette. Renaud almost -blushed when he met their great eyes filled with languid repose, -especially before Sir Enguerrand’s white Iceland<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span> falcon, which had a -crimson hood, a gold and crimson glove, a jess with silver bells on its -foot, and a glance full of proud disdain and the yellow sunlight of -heroic story.</p> - -<p>The young birds, which still quivered with rage over their captivity and -dreamed under the night of their hoods of hunting free and of lifting -their necks to scream, birds that were being tamed by hunger and -darkness,—them he might sometimes lift out of their cages. He might -show them the light and see them first totter with blinded eyes and -claws clasped about his wrist, then grow more calm, as their pupils -contracted, almost gentle indeed when he gave them a bit of warm, bloody -meat. But them he cared not for, them he soon wearied of, and he quickly -learned to perceive that none had the Iceland falcon’s breast-muscles of -steel, its long wide wings and quiescent strength. But it was the most -delightful thing possible to see how the young falcons were trained to -hunt according to the wise rules of King Modus, when they had reached -the time that their memory of freedom wore off and they sat, heavy and -blind, dozing on their perches.</p> - -<p>The first thing was to accustom them again to fly, but with a cord on -the foot, till they had learned at the falconer’s cry to swoop down upon -the red cloth dummy fitted with a pair of large heron wings, which he -swung in the air on a string<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> in oddly deliberate circles—that was fine -to see!—and to which he had tied the breast of a quail or a piece of -chicken. This the falcons afterwards devoured, the rage at their -confinement being dulled by thirst of blood. Soon they grew so -accustomed to this procedure that they never strained at their cord, no -gleam of wildness remained in their eyes; they at once looked about -calmly for the decoy and only rose according to rule, ascending in a -curve at the proper time to swoop down indolently and playfully in a -wide circle; and when the cord was taken off, they hardly seemed to -notice.</p> - -<p>The time had now come to train them for hunting, each for its particular -quarry; the smaller for quail, partridge or sparrows, the larger for -hare or heron or kites, the ignoble kites which had the nature of crows -along with their powerful talons and beaks and which could never be -tamed to eat at a knightly board.</p> - -<p>First they were given decoys like their quarry, with a piece of their -favorite food inside for them to search out; then disabled birds, which -they could strike their claws into at once and tear to pieces in -half-roused fury; and so on to prey that was harder to catch, until they -learned to enjoy the intoxication of the hunt. Their old wild instincts -awoke once more in full strength, but controlled and ennobled, so that -they calmly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> dropped their dying quarry after a short mad drink of blood -and ate only from their ornamented dishes, without greediness, as is -fitting for the birds of a knight.</p> - -<p>Their eyes grew indolent and proud and took on the color of the day, -black when their hood was lifted off, brightening to molten gold when -they rose in the sunlight, burning with flakes of fire above the shriek -of their prey. They bent caressingly toward Renaud’s brown hand, but -none of them was like the Iceland falcon with the weary, kinglike -disdain in its glance, and he grew disgusted with them all, pressed -their beaks harshly shut when they tried to play, and threw them from -him carelessly, and mimicked the shriek of the kite so that they -trembled with disquietude and left the aviary with men’s curses behind -them and the wide brown plain before them.</p> - -<p>Sir Enguerrand rode out hunting every day, nearly always wearing his -red, gold-embroidered glove, for only the bell-tinkling flight of the -Iceland falcon could awaken song within him and cause him to breathe the -sharp, volatile morning air with delight as if he drank living wine. One -day the falcon had struck a heron, bleeding, into a swamp behind a -thicket, where the huntsman found it and cracked its neck; but the -falcon itself was gone, either lured after a new quarry or recoiling -from the brown water or capriciously let<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span>ting itself be lifted and -carried along by the wind. In vain they searched, in vain they called it -by the prettiest names, in vain they made the notes of the horn rebound -from every hill. Sir Enguerrand smote the mouth of the head falconer -bloody with his red glove and rode straight home across the tussocks of -the swamp with his lips shut more sharply and his eyelids sunk over the -listless pupils more gloomily than ever. The falcon they did not find.</p> - -<p>But Renaud found it, its jess caught in a wild rose bush, awaiting death -by starvation with its grip fast on a branch, one wing drooping, the -other lifted defiantly, its narrow head stretched threateningly forward -with the eyes fixed and beak sharp—a splendid sight it was among the -blood-red berries. Renaud’s hand trembled with eagerness as he loosed -the jess from the thorns, as the bells tinkled around his fingers and -the ring with Sir Enguerrand’s crest, and he cried aloud with joy when -the sharp claws cut into his sinewy arm and he felt that it was his, the -falcon of broadest breast and longest wings and proudest eyes of burning -gold.</p> - -<p>It was the more his in that he never would be able to show it to anyone, -for he knew that strict laws protected the sport of the nobles. In the -woods he would have to build a cage for it, early in the morning he -would steal thither before the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> bird had shaken off its chill, they -would go together across the open with searching looks directed at the -whitish heavens, they would grow fond of each other as they let the -sunlight rise and fall over their heads and the wind carry their silent -thoughts along, and the falcon would never miss its red glove or the -constraint of its pearl-sewn hood. He tied it again and ran down to the -pond, returning shortly with a duck which he had killed with a stone. -The falcon took it, and Renaud’s brain grew numb with intoxication, for -that was a sign that it did not despise him, that it was willing to be -his.</p> - -<p>It became his; it bent its head forward, listening, with tranquil -wide-open eyes when the frosty branches cracked under his step in the -stillness of morning; it hopped lightly down from its cage and stretched -out toward his hand, beating its wings as for flight, but it did not -fly—that was only a reminder—and therewith they hurried out to the -softly glowing expanse of the moor.</p> - -<p>Their eyes glanced searchingly toward the dark-red welkin. Black lay the -hills and thinning thickets, and the trees slept, their boughs heavy -with silent birds. But the heavens grew brighter, flaming with gold and -red and the lines of the plain turned to blue, and the owl sped close to -the ground, seeking its covert, and the day birds stretched their wings -and chirped softly because<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> of the cold, and dark their flight cut -through the gleaming air. But Renaud and his falcon went quickly on, for -these were sparrows and thrushes, no prey fit for them. Down toward the -marshes sounded already the drawling cry of the herons and wide-circling -beat of their long wings, yonder was the quarry they sought. Then the -falcon was cast with breast already expanded and wings prepared to beat, -and Renaud saw it gilded by the sun as he stood with blinded eyes and -dizzy head while the bird crouched against the deep blue, and heard how -the clang of its bells mocked the shout of the herons.</p> - -<p>They whirred like wheels in their terror; now they tended to shoot down -to the shore and hide their long necks and stupid frightened heads with -backward-pointing tufts under the dark wooded banks, now they tried in -wavering uncertainty to rise up in a spiral, thrusting in their broad -wings to attain higher than the enemy could follow, and they swerved -like reeds in the terror of their pale hearts.</p> - -<p>But the falcon singled out at the start one of the strongest, one of -those that flew immediately aloft, because it loved to prove its -strength and to feel sharp, light air under its wings, and it rose as -fast and straight as if circling around a sunbeam. Soon it was -uppermost; smaller than a sparrow it looked, but something in the poise -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span> the wings, in the gathered strength of the body, made one divine the -sparkling savagery of its eye, its outspread talons. Of a sudden it -fell, heavy as steel, on the defenseless upturned neck of the quarry, -and they dropped like a single stone, hardly once eddying aside by a -wing’s breadth. Then Renaud ran and swam and waded so as to arrive -before the heron, which had been stunned by the stroke, could gather -itself together and in the wildness of its desperation make use of its -pointed bill. The falcon gave it the death blow sharply and swiftly, -turning its great eyes, already tranquil, on its master, for it did not -care to soil its feathers with blood, and waiting to have the warm heart -given to it.</p> - -<p>Afterwards it did not fly any more that day; when Renaud cast it and ran -ahead with a shout, it only took a couple of wingstrokes and lighted -again on the lad’s shoulder close to his laughing face with proud -composure. It seemed to despise all play and Renaud soon made an end, -his expression taking on the far-gazing seriousness of the falcon. He -grew more fond of it than he had ever been of anything; it seemed to him -that it was his own soul, his longing, with its broad wings and its -glance confident of victory. But there was suffering in his love, the -dismal premonition of a misfortune. Sometimes he was afraid that the -bird would fly away from him in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> fit of indifference; would vanish in -a mocking sound of bells, and that would be his death, such an empty -existence. Or it seemed to him that the falcon was honor, gleaming with -sunlight against the blue, which rested itself on his shoulder for new -exploits; and in the midst of his joy he was oppressed with his own -insignificance, so that he hardly dared to look at it. There was grief -at his heart that the bird would never share his delight, that its -glance would never melt warmly into his, and he fled to the realm of -dreams.</p> - -<p>He laid himself down in the midst of the moor with the red heather under -his head, and the clouds glided past like human destiny, heavy and -light, gathered within a firm outline or scattered on high, with the -winds’ invisible hand ever at their shoulder, while the bushes bent -their rustling golden branches and Renaud told stories to the falcon.</p> - -<p>King Arthur was come again, once more from out the British sea was -handed to him his sword Excalibur, blue as the chill nightly heavens; -his twelve knights lifted their heavy heads from the stone table and -shook off their sleep, the earth resounded with their tread. Gareth was -there, the prince’s son who put on the attire of a scullery boy and -turned Lynette’s ringing scorn into love. Renaud was there, too, was of -noble birth, his horse danced beneath him, and the falcon which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> now -slept with sunken head sat high on his hand and sought his glance with -eyes that gleamed with joy and the yellow sunlight of heroic story.</p> - -<p>But the clouds glided past like human destiny, were driven dark, one -over another into a gigantic vault, from the apertures of which fell -sunbeams pale and sharp as spears, and the falcon dreamed dismal dreams -of impotent wrath and waked with a shriek.</p> - -<p>Before long some roving lads chanced to see Sir Enguerrand’s falcon on -Renaud’s hand, and the knight’s men seized him and bore him to the -castle. His heart froze within him when they took away the falcon, -motionless and proud as ever, without a turn of its bended neck or a -look from its cold, calm eyes. They took it to its master, but he had -not a single caress for the missing favorite that had let itself be -touched by ignoble hands. Sir Enguerrand looked down at Renaud in -silence and more and more clearly in his thoughts took form the memory -of an old hunting law from the time when the nobleman’s foot pressed, -steel shod, on the neck of the common people, and his enjoyments -fluttered unassailable around his shoulders. And Sir Enguerrand’s -eyebrows contracted about the certainty that the old law had never been -repealed. The law commanded that he who stole a falcon with a knight’s -crest on its jess should pay twelve sols of silver<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> or six ounces of -flesh from his ribs under the beak of a hungry bird of prey.</p> - -<p>Sir Enguerrand knew of Renaud’s poverty and, looking at his naked brown -breast, extended his hand and touched it with an experimental, unfeeling -gesture. He then sent a message to the neighboring castle which reared -its pointed roof above the woods, and invited the seneschal and his two -daughters to be his guests three days later and see some falcons fly, -after they by their presence had heightened the solemnity of punishing a -thief—and they were to come before daybreak.</p> - -<p>Renaud’s eyes had widened from the darkness of the prison; they were -black and motionless, and the gleaming pupils contracted but slowly to -mirror the thin-worn clouds and rising sun of the east. Behind Sir -Enguerrand was borne the Iceland falcon, its talons fiercely clasped in -the glove, with the hood over its wakeful and famished glances that had -not seen food for three days.</p> - -<p>But further behind curved a line of color that flamed and burned: six -bright horses, almost blue in the gloaming, were led by pages at a run, -with cloths of red velvet on their bending necks. Red was the wagon -which they drew, and within it gold shone heavy on the tender bosoms and -slender arms of the seneschal’s daughters. Six damsels rode after it -with hair blonde as grain, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> pointed feet playing beneath the hem -of their kirtles; six huntsmen blew calls which seemed to dance and -swing like wheels from the mouths of the crooked horns. The contours of -the plain danced with them and shot past one another in wine-colored -mist, while the clouds above had glittering borders like the wings of -butterflies.</p> - -<p>The party formed into a semi-circle, plume by plume, shoulder by -shoulder, around a bush where the captive was tied. The horsecloths -flapped in the wind; the red taking on depth in the shadow, heavy as -hopeless yearning; the red burning in the light, gay as the clamor of -victory. The maidens’ delicate necks leaned forward out of the wagon, -and their conical hoods flowed into one with the descending line of -their shoulders. They were like herons, thought Renaud, and he almost -expected to hear them add a shrill shriek, when the notes of the horns -fell far away like hurled stones, and all became silent. But when he saw -them more plainly with their thin, straight lips and strange, dreaming -eyes, which were always leveled in a chill ecstasy on something -infinitely distant, and their white, indolent hands in their laps, and -the long folds of their garments—they seemed to him wondrously -beautiful, like the most gorgeous saints’ pictures with a dimming glow -of wax tapers at their feet, and it pained him that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> they should see him -bound. He let his gaze leap further, past the damsels—shy, jaunty birds -that he wanted to frighten with a whistle—past the red faces and -inquisitively gaping mouths of the grooms, past the brown plain, where -he had run himself tired and dreamed himself tired.</p> - -<p>He knew what doom awaited him, but when the Iceland falcon was borne -forward and he realized it was this which was to exact the penalty, he -laughed in his joy, and his heart throbbed with pride, as when he -possessed the bird and the long sunny days and the plain with the -listening winds and the swaying trees of autumn yellow.</p> - -<p>When the falcon beheld the light and turned to look around, it gathered -its strength for flight, expecting to be swung on the arm of the bearer, -while its glances rapidly sought its prey in the air; these glances were -sharp and fierce with hunger, flaming as with sparks, and they had no -memory in their depths, they recognized no one. But Renaud’s eyes were -fixed in anxious searching on those of the bird and were filled with -tears of sorrow at not meeting them. They should have mirrored his -life’s bold longing, his contempt, and his dreams on the red heather, -but they only waited greedily for their prey, grimly and coldly as the -human spirit of curiosity or jesting on the thin lips of Sir Enguerrand. -He felt his sorrow smart more bitterly than before and turned aside<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> his -head to recover himself, his eyelids closed and his thoughts fluttering.</p> - -<p>He lay thus while the herald proclaimed the law—“twelve sols of -silver—six ounces of flesh over the heart—thus does Sir Enguerrand -safeguard the pastime of the nobles.” He did not look up when his skin -was cut so that the scent of blood should attract the falcon, and when -it sank its beak in his breast he gave no cry, merely trembled, so that -the bird’s eyes flamed up in rage and its wings were spread out as if to -beat.</p> - -<p>The seneschal’s daughters leaned their heads forward with a gleam of -interest in their strange dreaming eyes, but they did not raise their -hands from their laps, and their garments lay as before in tranquil -folds. The horses snorted at the smell of blood and stamped on the -frosty ground so that the red horsecloths flapped against the pallor of -the deepening blue, but Renaud lay silent, and the huntsmen stood -needlessly with expanded cheeks and horns to their mouths ready to drown -his cries.</p> - -<p>The first agony had clutched at his finest fibres, it seemed as if his -heart would come out with them; but afterwards he had grown numb almost -to the degree of pleasure, and while the blood flowed warmly from the -wound, and the pointed beak tore at his breast, Renaud dreamed himself -into the high blue heaven of his visions, until he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> understood -everything, death and honor, feeling how it burned and dazzled—the -yellow sunlight of heroic story.</p> - -<p>When Sir Enguerrand thought that the legal six ounces had been paid, he -gave his men a sign to blow, and the falcon was lifted off, sated with -blood, its eyes filled once more with tranquil pride, and the troop set -itself in motion more gaily even than before toward the sedge that -gleamed yellow in the distance. But Renaud could not be wakened, he had -dreamed himself to death, and they merely loosed him and let him lie -with the red heather under his head.</p> - -<p>The Iceland falcon, however, might never sit on its master’s hand, for -Sir Enguerrand did not care to drink of a cup where another’s lips had -pressed a kiss.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="OUT_OF_THE_DARK" id="OUT_OF_THE_DARK"></a>OUT OF THE DARK</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>E had sat in the studio since just after dinner—a couple of us had not -had any dinner either—and had talked, talked the whole time.</p> - -<p>We liked to talk, we had each and every one of us convictions and -opinions so firm that they impressed all the others; yes, even -ourselves, as we thought them over. Some had also a share of scepticism, -which at suitable moments was still more impressive; and a couple simply -kept quiet, which was almost the most impressive of all. To be really -deeply silent under wide puffs of cigar smoke, with a broad back against -the wall, and a large indolent glance out of wide-open eyes, which -during the climax of a speaker are turned away in good-natured -boredom—there is surely nothing in this realm of insolvent currency -that is sounder and gives one longer credit.</p> - -<p>But now we were nearly all talking about nearly everything except -politics and religion, for we had come past the years when one takes -such things earnestly and had not come to the years when one takes them -practically. Furthermore<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span> we had all read at least a couple of French -novels and so had got over all naïveté. But we touched on the subject of -hypnotism, very carefully with a general feeling that “there was -something in it.” Literature we gripped by the throat and said rough -things to her face, thrusting at her a word sharp as a needle, the word -“style.” That was what she lacked, style. It is a splendid word, this; -one can hide as much or as little as one will behind it, and as an -accusation it is almost instantly condemnatory. And so we talked about -pictures and busts and verse, of synthesis and analysis, of symbolism -and realism. We were all idealists and wrapped ourselves in the very -newest imperial robes with genuine spangles of brass.</p> - -<p>I don’t know exactly what we were driving at, the utterances were so -varied, but it came out clearly from the total that we had the deuce -knows what resources within us and were some day going to shake new -artistic tendencies out of our sleeves as easily as the trick man does -rabbits. Among some of us there was a general flair for the joy of -living, which was taken up most seriously and discussed—a bit -tediously—as a settled duty; how one should attain to it was left to -one’s own free discretion and it was assumed that he who went to sleep -over “Hans Alienus” had a satisfactory private reason for his conduct -and might take up gymnastics instead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span></p> - -<p>But above everything we were zealous for “the new”; we held our fingers -on the pulse of the time with the solemnity of one who had universal -pills to sell, and were only afraid that others would get ahead of us in -guessing its complaints, or that these would change, since everything -progresses so fast now.</p> - -<p>Leo had then walked about a while, taken an oblique stand where he cut -diagonals across the room, and snapped his fingers at every æsthetic -dogma that had ever been devised—lively, indefatigable Leo, with his -sharp, somewhat affected painter’s glance from behind his glasses, and -his handsome, exalted countenance as of a patentee of ideas; Leo, who -talked the most of all and made the greatest effect.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the devil take it!” he had cried—his accent was half that of a -Parisian and half that of a mountaineer—“I’ve a pain in the head. I beg -leave to take the air a bit.”</p> - -<p>A moment later the door had slammed, and one might as well have tried to -catch the shadow of a bird as get hold of him. Also, no one else cared -to go, since it was snowing outside, and furthermore the day was so -gray, so strikingly empty and melancholy; the sort of day that stares at -one searchingly, haunting one like a question to which one can find no -answer. But Leo went out in all weathers, distance had no meaning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> -him; he walked so fast that the cold could not bite through his thin -overcoat, and besides he swore himself warm at it, fighting it as if it -was a personal enemy and keeping his brain ready to note every beautiful -composition of lines that he passed.</p> - -<p>We knew that in a short while he might be back with us again after he -had hurried almost around the city, his headache gone and his buoyant -figure full of nervous energy, with fresh air in his clothes, his -glasses damp with cold, and a new theory of chiaroscuro in his head. We -therefore continued meanwhile to discuss along the same line as before. -The question rose of what the soul of a masterpiece consisted, to what -degree it should be manifest, and what share emotion should play. We -agreed that the artist’s feeling should be suppressed and only reveal -its immeasurable power in lines of form; otherwise it might destroy the -proper effect, and a tendency toward declamation could not be tolerated -under any condition. We said a number of very telling things, but -nevertheless felt a bit weary, either from the yellow lamplight or -because the air was a trifle close.</p> - -<p>Thereupon we heard Leo talking outside the front door. He had someone -with him, then. But whom, since we were all here? We turned -inquisitively in the direction of the door. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> opened and over the -threshold stepped a little, dark figure with an ugly black hat on her -head, a summer hat whose brim was bent with age and cast a grotesque -shadow on the wall. She was a little girl, but what sort of girl?</p> - -<p>A strange girl, to be sure. Without hesitating a moment and before -anyone said anything, she came into the middle of the room, stood still -and looked about her with a reposeful movement of the head, her hands in -the pockets of her cape, her whole slender figure wonderfully composed -and firm, her motion somewhat like a figure in a dream, when one all the -while thinks: just so, that’s what she ought to do,—and yet feels with -mysterious uneasiness that every gesture has meaning, every step hides -the significance of coming events.</p> - -<p>While she stood there close to the hanging lamp, which threw a sharp, -dark shadow across her face, Leo explained hurriedly: “I met her by the -street-car line. She was walking and staring up at the snow just as you -see her with her head thrown back, walking slowly in all the cold. I saw -she was pretty with a well-formed head and wanted to find out who she -was. She wasn’t at all afraid to come along.”</p> - -<p>“Take off your hat,” he added eagerly; “I haven’t had a good look at you -yet.”</p> - -<p>She took off her hat, went toward the door, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span> laid it with her cape -on a chair, always with the same remarkable composure of movement. Then -she came forward to the light again, and now we could see her face -clearly.</p> - -<p>It was pale and narrow, but not small in proportion to her figure. The -chin was strong, projecting, especially as she held her head very high, -and her profile ran into it prettily from the rounded cranium. The nose -was straight, the lips straight and pale, the contour of the cheek -uncommonly severe and beautiful, the eyebrows a little sunk towards the -middle; and the eyes, partly shut against the light, looked steadily and -calmly out from under short, dark lashes. Her hair, too, was dark. It -was hard to tell the color of the eyes, which seemed to shift from the -suggestion of gray that violets have at twilight to the glimmer of the -darkest lake. Also their size must have been more variable than usual, -for according to the thought that burned in them they widened with -distended pupils, or closed around the steel blades of her glance;—the -muscles around them were indicated under the skin with uncommon -sharpness.</p> - -<p>Her figure was slim and childish, that of a city girl of fifteen; the -neck slender and supple. Every expression of the face was childish, too, -but her general appearance bore the stamp of firmness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span> of set -character, which comes from living life all the way through.</p> - -<p>She looked at us without letting her glance rest on anyone, looked -beyond us at the studies on the wall, pausing a little longer there, -till at last her gaze met the yellow dials of the clock in the church -tower as it stared in through the dark atmosphere framed by the window, -and her face caught at it in silent recognition. She sat down a little -to one side of us with her thin wrists crossed, her eyes still, -reposeful and dark.</p> - -<p>We did not know what we should say to her, she was so strange, so -different from everything else, as she sat there in her black garments. -It was as if the darkness, the unknown darkness outside which hid the -future, had taken form and pressed in amongst us, grave and enigmatical.</p> - -<p>“What’s your name?” someone asked.</p> - -<p>“Cecilia.”</p> - -<p>The name acted as a stimulus to our imagination. Cecilia, the organ song -that rises through the struggling light of the church vaulting, upward, -ever upward, strong as if it knew its goal, pure through the clarity of -space, freezing under the chill of the stars. But what a strange Cecilia -was this! What song did those eyes dream?</p> - -<p>“And you go around alone on such an evening, Cecilia! Were you going -anywhere?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No, nowhere. I like to feel the snow falling on me.”</p> - -<p>“Were you born here, Cecilia?”</p> - -<p>“No, I was born out there—we lived there then.” She stared into the -distance, with raised eyebrows, and her tone gave us the impression that -“out there” was some great, dark teeming city on the other side of the -ocean, that it was deep with black memories, painfully intriguing to the -thought. “But I’ve been here a long while,” she concluded.</p> - -<p>She was so pretty with her reticent, dark manner; and her brief answers -waked a trembling echo within one, like the commonplace but meaningful -words in a dream. One could have sat there a long while asking questions -at random and could have listened long.</p> - -<p>But Leo grew impatient. He burned with zeal to get at his drawing, for -that was why he had taken up with the girl, and he was not to be put -off. He trusted in his art, did Leo; he was wont to talk of distilling -the quintessence out of a physiognomy—and now he wished to do it with -this subject. Just a few strokes and he would have it all in a -concentrated effect: the tranquillity of chin and eyebrows, the falling -line of the neck—the girl’s whole content should be noted there; but if -so there must be no distraction, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> emotions and associated thoughts to -make one’s glance stray.</p> - -<p>“Let her alone with your prattle,” he said; “she’s prettier when she is -quiet.” And his eyes glanced with restless penetration, as if he was -afraid of losing something, while he and the others chose their places.</p> - -<p>She sat motionless; the whole proceeding appeared to be entirely -indifferent to her and she continued to hold her wrists crossed and to -gaze in front of her without seeing.</p> - -<p>But we who did not draw felt that the silence was oppressive. Was not -this unfair to her, was it not wrong to keep her there as a mere thing -to be measured? Was not every glint of her eye, every ring in her voice -worth more than all these lines? Was it not presumptuous to attempt to -translate the changing deeps of life into the language of the deaf and -dumb? What did she hide in the vault of her brain?—what was this girl -that sat there?</p> - -<p>The sketchers sweated and screwed up their eyes to make them sharp. They -held up their hands against the light—they seemed to have a harder task -than they had realized—and the girl slowly drooped her eyelashes.</p> - -<p>With that we broke in, “You’re tired perhaps, Cecilia? It’s getting on -toward bedtime.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I never sleep at night,” she answered, “I haven’t done it as long as I -can remember.”</p> - -<p>“But what do you do then? Are you up and about?”</p> - -<p>“I think,” she said, and her eyes grew deep, as if night were there -before her—“I lie and think and gaze out into the dark. It’s so silent -then; sometimes I think that everybody is dead, and I, too. It <i>is</i> so -calm, the dark is so weightless and soft and pure.”</p> - -<p>Her face had grown rigidly earnest; now it suddenly glowed with nervous -life, as if a thought had burst into flames within it.</p> - -<p>“But sometimes I can hear. There is someone walking in the street, far -away; the stones ring under his feet, and he is coming nearer. First I -think that there is only one, and I wonder who it can be. I dream that -it’s for me that he is coming, but I don’t get up; I want him to lift me -from just where I am, and take me to him without saying a word, and -carry me far away. Then my heart begins to throb, and there’s a ringing -in my ears, and I hear many steps, a whole flood of trampling and -dancing which fills the street so completely that I think the house will -fall over and be swept away, as when the river breaks up the dirty ice.</p> - -<p>“And I’m so glad that I burst out laughing and stuff the blanket into my -mouth so as not to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> heard. Sometimes I hear myself sing, hear it -actually, and lie and stretch out my arms; and the dark is no longer -still, or black, it is like red whirlpools only. And I lie and wait, and -know that it’s for me they are coming, and that they’ll lift me on high -and rush forward. And I know how the sky will look: black, with great -white lights. And the air will be cold and clear; it will all be as if -it were at the bottom of the sea. Everything we pass falls to pieces -behind us; there’s a sound of broken iron and a roaring and groaning of -the earth, but we hasten forward, only forward; we do not turn our -heads, we say nothing to each other, only scream with joy, as when it -thunders.”</p> - -<p>Her voice had a shrill and brittle ring, jubilant, but nearer to weeping -than laughter. All at once she changed her tone.</p> - -<p>“That’s the sort of thing I think at night,” she said wearily.</p> - -<p>“But when do you sleep? You must surely sleep.”</p> - -<p>She gave a clear, childish laugh.</p> - -<p>“All day if I like. Mamma pulls up the curtains of course, but I can -keep on lying. Then I can sleep, especially if there’s sunshine. One can -dream so finely in the sunshine; one can laugh and run, and then it gets -so warm, and when one gets up one is so deliciously tired!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“But after that? Don’t you go to school, don’t you have any work?”</p> - -<p>“Papa wants”—she uttered the first word with a peculiar intonation. -“Papa (I don’t know whether he is my father,” she added indifferently) -“wants me to go away; no matter where, he says. I went to school, but -they didn’t suit me there. Now I’m left in peace. Mamma talks to them -when they come after me; she has such a proud way with her, mamma has.”</p> - -<p>“And what do your parents do?”</p> - -<p>She looked up with a scornful dismissal of the subject and made no -reply. Suddenly she laughed under her breath.</p> - -<p>“Such a funny word!” she said. “It’s out of the catechism, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“What word?”</p> - -<p>“Parents. Oh, I know it means father and mother,” she drawled the words -out to a comic length. “Mother is slender,” she continued, “but she’s -beginning to get fat and lace herself. You ought to see her when she’s -drunk soda water, oh, you just ought to see her! Her teeth aren’t as -pretty any more either; she envies me mine.”</p> - -<p>“And what does she want you to be?”</p> - -<p>“It’s all the same”—her voice was cuttingly hard—“it’s all the same, -whatever she wants; it’s all the same, what she says. I shan’t do it -anyhow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>It was easy to imagine her home after that; what was worse, it was easy, -too, to imagine her future.</p> - -<p>She seemed to have tired of being examined now, and turned around to one -of the sketchers.</p> - -<p>“Why do you paint girls?” she inquired of the corpulent Hans.</p> - -<p>“Hm! Because they’re pretty.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you paint war, or red clouds like those there?” She pointed -to a landscape opposite her.</p> - -<p>“Because I’ve never seen a war.”</p> - -<p>“But red clouds you’ve seen surely. I’ve seen much handsomer ones than -those; they don’t really burn.”</p> - -<p>It was an impressionistic canvas; darkness creeping along the ground, -darkness leaping up to meet one from the fields, and in the midst of the -fading red off in the distance a lonely shivering poplar, the one thing -that rose above the plain, cutting like a sword against the sky proudly -and tragically. As the girl looked at it her pupils widened, contracted -and widened and trembled; she had understood it at once, and her face -became fixed by the sorrow of the picture.</p> - -<p>“That’s beautiful,” she said. “Is it hard to learn to paint?”</p> - -<p>“That depends. Can you draw?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t do anything but play the piano.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span> Mamma taught me that, but I -can play better than she does, though we have no piano now.”</p> - -<p>“Do you sing, then?”</p> - -<p>“No, I <i>can’t</i> sing”—her voice sounded more mournful than at any time -before, almost despairing—“I can’t sing at all now.”</p> - -<p>“Probably your voice is changing; you’ll have plenty of voice if you’ve -had it before.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” she replied impatiently; “it isn’t the voice I’m thinking of, -but I can never sing any more.”</p> - -<p>She raised her head slowly and regarded us all with a swift, deep, -strangely searching look.</p> - -<p>“What do you do that for?” we asked. “What are you looking for?”</p> - -<p>“I’m looking at your eyes.” Her voice was childish, naïvely frank and so -earnest!</p> - -<p>“Do you often do so?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, among strangers; then I don’t look at them any more.”</p> - -<p>“And how have you found our eyes?”</p> - -<p>“About like other peoples’. There is none of you who can <i>see</i>.”</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say any more, but there is no one that sees, really sees -straight through you.”</p> - -<p>“Hm! Maybe not. Have you met any such person?”</p> - -<p>“No, never, but I keep on searching.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“And if you should see such a person, what would you do?”</p> - -<p>“Just wait, wait for the tide.”</p> - -<p>“The tide you listen for at night?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, for then it will come soon.”</p> - -<p>“Finish me now,” she urged with a look at the sketchers. “Get done with -your drawings.” And she sat as before.</p> - -<p>But no one could draw in his usual style, no one was satisfied with his -beginning. All were seeking for something, expressions changed, flaming -with eagerness or drooping with fatigue. It seemed as if their thoughts -tried to catch something fluttering, shifting, something that -continually fled them.</p> - -<p>Under these looks that were concentrated on her, together with the sharp -yellow light, she grew dazzled, hypnotized, her mouth became tired, her -eyes closed experimentally a couple of times, and then the lashes -remained lowered and she went suddenly to sleep like a child, sinking -back on the arm of the chair.</p> - -<p>All had ceased drawing and had leaned forward with the same thought. -What was she, this remarkable girl? Could all this be true?</p> - -<p>Here she had come out of the dark, had come silently as the dark itself, -enigmatical, disturbing as a dream, impossible to comprehend, impossible -to lay hold of. Was she not just a vision,—not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> sprung from us, oh, no, -but a vision of the slumbering darkness, the uncertain possibility, the -great new chance that might come? But her breathing was audible, light -and easy; her lean hands had the marks of the sempstress, her clothes -were threadbare—an actual girl to be sure, with blood such as ours, a -developing soul! What would ever become of her, what would become of -her?</p> - -<p>As if the question had been put in an audible voice, Jacques took it up, -the silent Jacques who was wont to make an epigram out of every -conviction and who filed every doubt to the point of a needle. But he -now got up to speak, advancing toward the girl with his angular motions -like those of a clasp-knife and his pointed head leaning forward.</p> - -<p>“What will become of her? What will become of her?” he said; “that’s -easy to guess.”</p> - -<p>He bent down toward her, but so as not to overshadow her; his hand -followed his words, but with light, caressing movements, as if he were -touching an invalid. But on the floor his long shadow stood bowed -against hers, and his gestures became pointed, sharp as thrusts, -merciless, threatening to the slumberer in black.</p> - -<p>“What will become of her—you who can wish but not will, you who wear -away your time with comparing and feeling and looking, look here at what -will become of her! First her mouth will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> be transformed—her eyes, too, -of course, but there the change won’t be permanent all at once; her eyes -will go back and forward a long while and kindle and be quenched, but -the mouth will retain inflexibly all that is strong enough to force in a -wrinkle, to bend a line. The lips will come to shut harder when they are -not opened by laughter. Here everything will be constricted together: -the weariness of desire, the suffocation of kisses; hate which congeals -into loathing, shame that is stifled; and then certitude will encompass -them, the certitude that it must be so, that that is the whole.</p> - -<p>“The cheek”—he almost touched it as it shone soft and pale in the -light—“the cheek gets more sharply modeled, more set in contour, sinks -in a little here, as when a flower petal withers. The forehead,—it will -stay the same, only a line straight across as if an invisible knife had -cut into the brain and divided the thoughts; barred in some to pine away -up here, and driven the others to wrestle in nakedness and confinement. -The hair,—it will grow darker with age and disfiguring attention, it -will droop here and lie like a weight. The eyebrows,—you see there is a -bend between them, they sink here, which gives a suggestion of nervous -sensibility, of vibrating thoughts; but this will become no longer -noticeable when she opens her eyes, nothing will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span> noticeable then but -their depth of weariness, their infinity of freezing chill.</p> - -<p>“Imagine the color of the whole harder, more vivid; weigh down all that -is heavy, make sharp all that is light and delicate, harden all that is -strong, banish joy with a cuff and blushes with a sneer, and there you -have her, that is what will become of her. Pretty, eh! prettier than now -because she’ll be even more effective to draw, eh?”</p> - -<p>He stood silent a while and looked at her, his shadow trembling. Then he -went on:</p> - -<p>“That’s what she’ll come to be, and that, too, is all that such as we -have the right to think of. But what she <i>might</i> be, ah! what she might -be. If someone could take her as she lies there and dreams, take her and -carry her far away and lift her on high in his arms. We keep on talking -about art here, about what we intend and what the time is dreaming of. -If there is anyone that has the same dreams that she has and the -strength to will them, if there is anyone who’s a man, she is his. And -what might not become of them both!”</p> - -<p>He looked about him at us others who sat bending forward, gazing with -hypnotized looks at the white gleaming countenance of the girl. At his -last words we started half up; it was as if we waited that some one -should come, that some one should grip us by the hair and hurl us -forward,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span> should lift us to where space was bright around us. Something -should come to birth in us, sharp as a steel blade, unbending, -unsullied, the blue sword of our will and life should be created among -us, true life with warm soil and the sun that impels to growth. In the -heat of the room we felt it already glowing in us by anticipation, -cheeks and foreheads were red, a warm current of blood set in, there -were white sparks in the eyes, and a shiver trembled along the spine.</p> - -<p>Thereupon the girl awoke, as if roused by the clamor of all these -thoughts as they beat their wings and struck together. First her eyes -stared in fright, and then she laughed.</p> - -<p>We all sunk back again.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know where I was,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you weren’t afraid of us, were you?” inquired Jacques. “You saw -that there was no one dangerous here.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, I surely wasn’t afraid.” She laughed more merrily still. “No, -there’s no one dangerous here. But I must have been asleep a long while. -I must go now.”</p> - -<p>We all offered to go with her, but she looked straight at us.</p> - -<p>“Why?” she asked, “is the outside door locked?”</p> - -<p>“No, not yet. But the street, the dark, the snow!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, only that! But I went out alone. No, no, nobody needs to go along -with me. I know my way.”</p> - -<p>Nobody thought of opposing her, her voice was so remarkably firm; almost -scornful, we thought.</p> - -<p>We lighted her to the door and saw her small feet step quickly on the -yellow lamplight, which grew paler along the tile floor and was broken -by the light on the stairway.</p> - -<p>When she was half out of sight we called for the last time, “You’ll come -again, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>She turned her head. From under the ugly old hat her eyes looked out at -us, deep and sombre.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, “I shan’t come again. Why should I?”</p> - -<p>She was gone, and we all rushed forward to the window, opened it and -leaned out, stretching ourselves over the sill. She had not got down -yet. Before us lay the black bulks of the houses, defiantly heavy and -motionless to our gaze. Here and there was a faint yellow gleam from a -street lamp; one could see some large, loose flakes glide through it. -The air was gray, swarmingly alive with darkness and a little farther -out across the roofs the church tower stood with its shining dials -against the black horizon.</p> - -<p>Then she came out of the house door; we could hear her steps resound up -to where we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> through the chilly air. We followed the little black, -indistinct figure out to the corner, where the lamplight took hold of it -and threw it out into tawny, pale relief. With that she was gone, -vanished into the blackness, into the snow and night and threatening -uncertainty from which she had come.</p> - -<p>We fastened the window and sat down. In order to do something we tried -to discuss, as we were used to, about art and its future. We talked -about symbolism and syntheticism, but it all seemed less worth while now -than before, and from time to time a speaker would stop in the midst of -his period in order to examine a line in the half-finished portrait of -Cecilia, and then give it up in despair.</p> - -<p>And there was no warmth in the discussion, only dry and ill-tempered -sallies that cut now at one man’s, now at another’s hobby and caused -them to bolt off into the inane, where comprehension ceases. 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