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+Project Gutenberg's In Midsummer Days and Other Tales, by August Strindberg
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: In Midsummer Days and Other Tales
+
+Author: August Strindberg
+
+Translator: Ellie Schleussner
+
+Posting Date: March 20, 2009
+Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6694]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN MIDSUMMER DAYS AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nicole Apostola
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+
+AND OTHER TALES.
+
+By August Strindberg
+
+Translated By Ellie Schleussner
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+     THE BIG GRAVEL-SIFTER
+     THE SLUGGARD
+     THE PILOT'S TROUBLES
+     PHOTOGRAPHER AND PHILOSOPHER
+     HALF A SHEET OF FOOLSCAP
+     CONQUERING HERO AND FOOL
+     WHAT THE TREE-SWALLOW SANG IN THE BUCKTHORN TREE
+     THE MYSTERY OF THE TOBACCO SHED
+     THE STORY OF THE ST. GOTTHARD
+     THE STORY OF JUBAL WHO HAD NO "I"
+     THE GOLDEN HELMETS IN THE ALLEBERG
+     LITTLE BLUEWING FINDS THE GOLDPOWDER
+
+
+
+
+IN MIDSUMMER DAYS
+
+In Midsummer days when in the countries of the North the earth is a
+bride, when the ground is full of gladness, when the brooks are still
+running, the flowers in the meadows still untouched by the scythe, and
+all the birds singing, a dove flew out of the wood and sat down before
+the cottage in which the ninety-year-old granny lay in her bed.
+
+The old woman had been bedridden for twenty years, but she could see
+through her window everything that happened in the farmyard which was
+managed by her two sons. But she saw the world and the people in her own
+peculiar manner, for time and the weather had painted her window-panes
+with all the colours of the rainbow; she need but turn her head a little
+and things appeared successively red, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
+If she happened to look out on a cold winter's day when the trees were
+covered with hoar-frost and the white foliage looked as if it were made
+of silver, she had but to turn her head a little on the pillow, and
+all the trees were green; it was summer-time, the ploughed fields were
+yellow, and the sky looked blue even if a moment before it had been
+ever so grey. And therefore the old granny imagined that she could work
+magic, and was never bored.
+
+But the magical window-panes possessed another quality; they bulged a
+little and consequently they magnified or reduced every object which
+came into their field of vision. Whenever, therefore, her grown-up son
+came home in a bad temper and scolded everybody, granny had but to wish
+him to be a good little boy again, and straightway she saw him quite
+small. Or, when she watched her grandchildren playing in the yard, and
+thought of their future--one, two, three--she changed her position ever
+so slightly, and they became grown-up men and women, as tall as giants.
+
+All during the summer the window stood open, for then the window-panes
+could not show her anything so beautiful as the reality. And now, on
+Midsummer Eve, the most beautiful time of all the year, she lay there
+and looked at the meadows and towards the wood, where the dove was
+singing its song. It sang most beautifully of the Lord Jesus, and the
+joy and splendour of the Kingdom of Heaven, where all are welcome who
+are weary and heavy laden.
+
+The old woman listened to the song for a little while, and then she laid
+that she was much obliged, but that Heaven could be no more beautiful
+than the earth itself, and she wanted nothing better.
+
+Thereupon the dove flew away over the meadow into the mountain glen,
+where the farmer stood digging a well. He stood in a deep hole which
+he had dug, three yards below the surface; it was just as if he were
+standing in his grave.
+
+The dove settled on a fir tree and sung of the joy of Heaven, quite
+convinced that the man in the hole, who could see neither sky, nor sea,
+nor meadow, must be longing for Heaven.
+
+"No," said the farmer, "I must first dig a well; otherwise my summer
+guest will have no water, and the unhappy little mother will take her
+child and go and live elsewhere."
+
+The dove flew down to the strand, when the farmer's brother was busy
+hauling in the fishing-nets; it sat among the rushes and began to sing.
+
+"No," said the farmer's brother, "I must provide food for my family,
+otherwise my children will cry with hunger. Later on! Later on, I tell
+you! Let's live first and die afterwards."
+
+
+***
+
+And the dove flew to the pretty cottage, where the unhappy little mother
+had taken rooms for the summer. She sat on the verandah, working at a
+sewing machine; her face was as white as a lily, and her red felt hat
+looked like a huge poppy on her hair, which was as black as a mourning
+veil. She was busy making a pinafore which her little girl was to wear
+on Midsummer Eve, and the child sat at her feet on the floor, cutting up
+little pieces of material which were not wanted.
+
+"Why isn't daddy coming home?" asked the little girl, looking up.
+
+That was a very difficult question, so difficult that the young mother
+could not answer it; and very possibly daddy could not have answered it
+either, for he was far away in a foreign country with his grief, which
+was twice as great as mammy's.
+
+The sewing machine was not in good order, but it stitched and stitched;
+it made as many pricks as a human heart can bear before it breaks, but
+every prick only served to pull the thread tighter--it was curious!
+
+"I want to go to the village, mammy," said the little girl. "I want to
+see the sun, for it is so dark here."
+
+
+"You shall go and play in the sunshine this afternoon, darling."
+
+I must tell you that it was very dark between the high cliffs on this
+side of the island; the cottage stood in a gloomy pine-grove, which
+completely hid the view of the sea.
+
+"And I want you to buy me a lot of toys, mammy."
+
+"Darling, we have so little money to buy toys with," answered the
+mother, bending her head still lower over their work.
+
+And that was the truth; for their comfort had changed into penury. They
+had no servant, and the mother had to do the whole house-work herself.
+
+But when she saw the sad face of the little girl, she took her on her
+knees.
+
+"Put your little arms round mammy's neck," she said.
+
+The little one obeyed.
+
+"Now give mammy a kiss!"
+
+The rosy little half-open mouth, which looked like the mouth of a little
+bird, was pressed against her lips; and when the blue eyes, blue as the
+flower of the flax, smiled into hers, her beautiful face reflected the
+sweet innocence of the little one, and made her look like a happy child
+herself, playing in the sunshine.
+
+"No use my singing to them of the Kingdom of Heaven," thought the dove,
+"but if I can in any way serve them, I will."
+
+And then it flew away towards the sunny village, for it had work to do
+there.
+
+***
+
+It was afternoon now; the little mother took a basket on one arm and the
+child's little hand into hers, and they left the cottage. She had never
+been to the village, but she knew that it was situated somewhere towards
+sunset, on the other side of the island, and the farmer had told her
+that she would have to get over six stiles and walk through six latticed
+gates before she could get there.
+
+And on they went.
+
+Their way lay along a footpath, full of stones and old tree-roots, so
+that she was obliged to carry the little girl, and that was very hard
+work. The doctor had told her that the child must not strain her left
+foot, because it was so weak that it might easily have grown deformed.
+
+The young mother staggered along, under her beloved burden, and large
+beads of perspiration stood like pearls on her forehead, for it was very
+hot in the wood.
+
+"I am so thirsty, mammy," whispered the little, complaining voice.
+
+"Have patience, darling, there will be plenty of water when we get
+there."
+
+And she kissed the little parched mouth, and the child smiled and
+forgot all about her thirst.
+
+But the scorching rays of the sun burned their skin and there was not a
+breath of air in the wood.
+
+"Try and walk a little, darling," said the mother, putting the child
+down.
+
+But the little foot gave way and the child could not walk a step.
+
+"I am so tired, mammy," she laid, sitting down and beginning to cry.
+
+But the prettiest little flowers, which looked like rose-coloured
+bells and smelt of sweet almonds, grew all over the spot where she was
+sitting. She smiled when she saw them, for she had never seen anything
+half as lovely, and her smile strengthened the heart of the mother so
+that she could continue her walk with the child in her arms.
+
+Now they had arrived at the first gate. They passed through it and
+carefully re-fastened the latch.
+
+All of a sudden they heard a noise like a loud neighing; a horse
+galloped towards them, blocked the path and neighed again; its neighing
+was answered on the right and the left and from all sides of the wood;
+the ground trembled, the branches of the trees cracked, and the stones
+were scattered in all directions by the approaching hoofs. In less than
+no time the poor, frightened travellers were surrounded on all sides by
+a herd of savage horses.
+
+The child hid her face on her mother's shoulder, and her little heart
+ticked with fear like a watch.
+
+"I am so frightened!" she whispered.
+
+"Oh! Father in Heaven, help us!" prayed the mother.
+
+At the same moment a blackbird, sitting on a fir tree, began to sing;
+the horses scudded away as fast as they could, and there was once more
+silence in the wood.
+
+They came to the second gate, walked through and re-fastened the latch.
+
+They were on fallow ground now, and the sun scorched them even worse
+than it had done before. They saw before them rows and rows of dull
+clods of earth, but in a steep place the clods suddenly began to move,
+and then they knew that what they had taken for clods of earth were
+really the backs of a flock of sheep.
+
+Sheep are quite gentle and inoffensive, especially the little lambs, but
+that is a good deal more than can be said of the ram, who is a savage
+brute and often takes a delight in attacking those who have never done
+him any harm. There he was already, jumping over a ditch right into
+the middle of their path. He lowered his head and walked a few steps
+backwards.
+
+"I am so frightened, mammy," said the little girl, and her heart began
+to beat fast.
+
+"Oh! Merciful Father in Heaven, help us!" sighed the mother, with an
+imploring look upwards.
+
+And high up, in the blue vault of the sky, fluttering its wings like
+a butterfly, a little lark began to sing. And as it sang the ram
+disappeared among the grey clods.
+
+They stood before the third gate. They were on a slope now; the ground
+was swampy and before long they came to a crevice. The hillocks looked
+like little graves, overgrown with vetch or white cotton-flowers and
+they had to be careful to avoid sinking into the swamp. Black berries of
+a poisonous kind grew in abundance everywhere; the little girl wanted
+to gather them, and because her mother would not permit it, she began to
+cry, for she did not understand what poisonous meant.
+
+And as they walked on, they noticed a white sheet, which looked as if it
+had been drawn in and out through the trees; the sun disappeared behind
+a bank of clouds and a white darkness, which was very went towards them,
+hoping to find some water in the place whence they came.
+
+On their way they passed a white cottage, behind a green fence with
+a white gate; the gate stood hospitably open. They entered and found
+themselves in a garden where peonies and colombines grew. The mother
+noticed that the curtains in the lower storey were all drawn before
+the windows, and that all the curtains were white. But one of the
+attic windows stood open and a white hand appeared above the pots of
+touch-me-nots. It waved a little white handkerchief, as if it were
+waving a last farewell to one who was going on a long journey.
+
+They walked as far as the cottage; in the high grass lay a wreath of
+myrtle and white roses. But it was too big for a bridal wreath.
+
+They went through the front door and the mother called out if anybody
+were in? As there was no reply they went into the parlour. On the floor,
+surrounded by a whole forest of flowers, stood a black coffin with
+silver feet and in the coffin lay a young girl with a bridal crown on
+her head.
+
+The walls of the room were made of new pinewood and only varnished with
+oil, so that all the knots were visible. And the knots in the knot-holes
+looked for all the world like so many eyes.
+
+"Oh! Just look at all the eyes, mammy," exclaimed the little girl.
+
+Yes, there were eyes of every description; big eyes, eloquent eyes,
+grave eyes; little shining baby eyes, with a lurking smile in the
+corner; wicked eyes, which showed too much white; frank and candid eyes,
+which looked one straight into the heart; and, over there, a big, gentle
+mother's eye, which regarded the dead girl lovingly; and a transparent
+tear of resin trembled on the lid, and sparkled in the setting sun like
+a green and red diamond.
+
+"Is she asleep?" asked the child, looking into the face of the dead
+girl.
+
+"Yes, she is asleep."
+
+"Is she a bride, mammy?"
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+The mother had recognised her. It was the girl who was to be a bride on
+Midsummer day, when her sailor lover would return home; but the sailor
+had written to say that he would not be home until the autumn, and his
+letter had broken her heart; for she could not bear to wait until the
+autumn, when the leaves would drop dead from the trees and the winter
+wind have a rough game with them in the lanes and alleys.
+
+She had heard the song of the dove and taken it to heart.
+
+The young mother left the cottage; now she knew where she would go. She
+put the heavy basket down outside the gate and took the child into her
+arms; and so she walked across the meadow which separated her from the
+shore.
+
+The meadow was a perfect sea of flowers, waving and whispering round her
+ankles, and the pollen water was calm and blue; and presently it was
+not water through which they sailed, but the blue blossoms of the flax,
+which she gathered in her outstretched hands.
+
+And the flowers bent down and rose up again, whispering, lapping against
+the sides of the boat like little waves. The flax-field before them
+appeared to be infinite, but presently a white mist enveloped them, and
+they heard the plashing of real waves, but above the mist they heard a
+lark singing.
+
+"How does the lark come to sing on the sea?" asked the child.
+
+"The sea is so green that the lark takes it for a meadow," answered the
+mother.
+
+The mist had dispersed again. The sky was blue and the lark was still
+singing.
+
+Then they saw, straight before them, in the middle of the sea, a green
+island with a white, sandy beach, and people, dressed all in pure white,
+walking hand in hand. The setting sun shone on the golden roof of a
+colonnade, where white fires burnt in sacred sacrificial vessels; and
+the green island was spanned by a rainbow, the colour of which was
+rose-red and sedge-green.
+
+"What is it, mammy?"
+
+The mother could make no reply.
+
+"Is it the Kingdom of Heaven of which the dove sang? What is the Kingdom
+of Heaven, mammy?"
+
+"A place, darling, where all people love one another," answered the
+mother, "where there is neither grief nor strife."
+
+"Then let us go there," said the child.
+
+"Yes, we will go," said the tired, forsaken little mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BIG GRAVEL-SIFTER
+
+An eel-mother and her son were lying at the bottom of the sea, close to
+the landing-stage, watching a young fisherman getting ready his line.
+
+"Just look at him!" said the eel-mother, "there you have an example of
+the malice and cunning of the world.... Watch him! He is holding a whip
+in his hand; he throws out the whip-lash--there it is! attached to it is
+a weight which makes it sink--there's the weight! and below the weight
+is the hook with the worm. Don't take it in your mouth, whatever you
+do, for if you do, you are caught. As a rule only the silly bass and
+red-eyes take the bait. There! Now you know all about it."
+
+The forest of seaweed with its shells and snails began to rock; a
+plashing and drumming could be heard and a huge red whale passed like
+a flash over their heads; he had a tail-fin like a cork-screw, and that
+was what he worked with.
+
+"That's a steamer," said the eel-mother; "make room!"
+
+She had hardly spoken these words when a furious uproar arose above.
+There was a tramping and stamping as if the people overhead were intent
+on building a bridge between the shore and the boat in two seconds. But
+it was difficult to see anything on account of the oil and soot which
+were making the water thick and muddy.
+
+There was something very heavy on the bridge now, so heavy that it made
+it creak, and men's voices were shouting:
+
+"Lift it up!--Ho, there!--Up!--Hold tight!--Up with it!--Up!--Push it
+along!--Lift it up!"
+
+Then something indescribable happened. First it sounded as if sixty
+piles of wood were all being sawn at the same time; then a cleft opened
+in the water which went down to the bottom of the sea, and there, wedged
+between three stones, stood a black box, which sang and played and
+tinkled and jingled, close to the eel-mother and her son, who hastily
+disappeared in the lowest depths of the ocean.
+
+Then a voice up above shouted:--
+
+"Three fathoms deep! Impossible! Leave it alone. It isn't worth while
+hauling the old lumber up again; it would cost more to repair than it's
+worth."
+
+The voice belonged to the master of the mine, whose piano had fallen
+into the sea.
+
+Silence followed; the huge fish with a fin like a screw swam away, and
+the silence deepened.
+
+After sunset a breeze arose; the black box in the forest of seaweed
+rocked and knocked against the stones, and at every knock it played,
+so that the fishes came swimming from all directions to watch and to
+listen.
+
+The eel-mother was the first to put in an appearance. And when she saw
+herself reflected in the polished surface, she said: "It's a wardrobe
+with a plate-glass door."
+
+There was logic in her remark, and therefore all the others said: "It is
+a wardrobe with a plate-glass door."
+
+Next a rock-fish arrived and smelt at the candlesticks, which had
+not yet come off. Tiny bits of candle ends were still sticking in the
+sockets. "That's something to eat," it said, "if only it weren't for the
+whipcord!"
+
+Then a great bass came and lay flat on the pedal; but immediately there
+arose such a rumbling in the box that all the fishes hastily swam away.
+
+They got no further on that day.
+
+At night it blew half a gale, and the musical box went thump, thump,
+thump, like a pavier's beetle, until sunrise. When the eel-mother
+and all the rest of them returned, they found that it had undergone a
+change.
+
+The lid stood open like a shark's mouth; they saw a row of teeth, bigger
+than they had ever seen before, but every other tooth was black. The
+whole machine was swollen at the sides like a seed-fish; the boards were
+bent, and the pedal pointed upwards like a foot in the act of walking;
+the arms of the candlesticks looked like clenched fists. It was a
+dreadful sight!
+
+"It's falling to pieces," screamed the bass, and spread out a fin, ready
+to turn.
+
+And now the boards fell off, the box was open, and one could see what it
+was like inside; and that was the prettiest sight of all.
+
+"It's a trap! Don't go too near!" said the eel-mother.
+
+"It's a hand-loom!" said the stickleback, who builds a nest for itself
+and understands the art of weaving.
+
+"It's a gravel-sifter," said a red-eye, who lived below the lime-quarry.
+
+It may have been a gravel-sifter. But there were a great many fallals
+and odds and ends which were not in the least like the sifter which they
+use for riddling sand. There were little manichords which resembled toes
+in white woollen stockings, and when they moved it was just as if a foot
+with two hundred skeleton toes were walking; and it walked and walked
+and yet never left the spot.
+
+It was a strange thing. But the game was up, for the skeleton no longer
+touched the strings; it played on the water as if it were knocking at a
+door with its fingers, asking whether it might come in.
+
+The game was up. A school of sticklebacks came and swam right through
+the box, and when they trailed their spikes over the strings, the
+strings sounded again; but they played in a new way, for now they were
+tuned to another pitch.
+
+***
+
+On a rosy summer evening soon afterwards two children, a boy and a girl,
+were sitting on the landing-bridge. They were not thinking of anything
+in particular, unless it was a tiny piece of mischief, when all at once
+they heard soft music from the bottom of the sea, which startled them.
+
+"Do you hear it?"
+
+"Yes, what is it? It sounds like scales."
+
+"No, it's the song of the gnats."
+
+"No, it's a mermaid!"
+
+"There are no mermaids. The schoolmaster said so."
+
+"The schoolmaster doesn't know."
+
+"Oh! do listen!"
+
+They listened for a long time, and then they went away, home.
+
+Presently two newly arrived summer guests sat down on the bridge; he
+looked into her eyes, which reflected the golden sunset and the green
+shores. Then they heard the sounds of music; it sounded as if somebody
+were playing on musical glasses, but in a strange new key, only heard in
+the dreams of those who dream of giving a new message to the world. But
+they never thought of looking for any outside source, they believed that
+it was the song which their own hearts were singing.
+
+Next a couple of annual visitors came sauntering along; they knew the
+trick and took a delight in saying in a loud voice:
+
+"It is the submerged piano of the master of the mine."
+
+But whenever there were only new arrivals present, who did not know
+anything about it, they were puzzled and enjoyed the music, until some
+of the older ones came and enlightened them. And then they enjoyed it no
+longer.
+
+The musical box lay there all the summer. The sticklebacks taught their
+art to the bass, who became much more expert. And the piano became a
+regular fishing-ground for the summer guests, where they could always be
+sure to catch bass; the pilots spread out their nets round about it, and
+once a waiter fished there for red-eyes. But when his line with the old
+bell weight had run out, and he tried to wind it up again, he heard a
+run in X minor, and then the hook was caught. He pulled and pulled, and
+in the end he brought up five fingers with wool at the fingertips, and
+the bones cracked like the bones of a skeleton. Then he was frightened
+and flung his catch back into the sea, although he knew quite well what
+it was.
+
+In the dog days, when the water is warm and all the fish retire to the
+greater depths to enjoy the coolness, the music ceased. But on a moonlit
+night in August, the summer guests held a regatta. The master of the
+mine and his wife were present. They sat in a white boat and were slowly
+rowed about by their sons. And as their boat was gliding over the black
+water, the surface of which was like silver and gold in the moonlight,
+they heard a sound of music just below their boat.
+
+"Ha ha!" laughed the master of the mine, "listen to our old piano! Ha
+ha!"
+
+But he was silent when he saw that his wife hung her head, in the way
+pelicans do in pictures; it looked as if she wanted to bite her own neck
+and hide her face.
+
+The old piano and its long history had awakened memories in her of the
+first dining-room they furnished together, the first of their children
+which had had music lessons, the boredom of the long evenings, only
+to be chased away by the crashing volumes of sound which overcame the
+dulness of everyday life, changed bad temper into cheerfulness, and
+lent new beauty even to the old furniture .... But that is a story which
+belongs elsewhere.
+
+When it was autumn and the winter wind began to blow, the pilchards
+came in their thousands and swam through the musical box. It was like a
+farewell concert, and nothing else, and the seagulls and stormy petrels
+came in crowds to listen to it. And in the night the musical box was
+carried out to sea; that was the end of the matter.
+
+
+
+
+THE SLUGGARD
+
+Conductor Crossberg was fond of lying in bed in the morning, firstly,
+because he had to conduct the orchestra in the evening, and secondly,
+because he drank more than one glass of beer before he went home and to
+bed. He had tried once or twice to get up early, but had found no sense
+in it. He had called on a friend, but had found him asleep; he had
+wanted to pay money into the bank, but had found it still closed; he
+had gone to the library to borrow music, but it was not yet open; he had
+wanted to use the electric trams, but they had not yet started running.
+It was impossible to get a cab at this hour of the morning; he could not
+even buy a pinch of his favourite snuff; there was nothing at all for
+him to do. And so he had eventually formed the habit of staying in bed
+until late; and after all, he had no one to please but himself.
+
+He loved the sun and flowers and children; but he could not live on the
+sunny side of the street on account of his delicate instruments, which
+were out of tune almost as soon as they were put into a sunny room.
+
+Therefore, on the 1st of April, he took rooms which faced north. He
+was quite sure that there was no mistake about this, for he carried
+a compass on his watch-chain, and he could find the Great Bear in the
+evening sky.
+
+So far, so good; but then the spring came, and it was so warm that it
+was really pleasant to live in rooms with a northern aspect. His bedroom
+joined the sitting-room; he always kept his bedroom in pitch-black
+darkness by letting down the Venetian blinds; there were no Venetian
+blinds in the sitting-room, because they were not wanted there.
+
+And the early summer came and everything grew green. The conductor had
+dined at the restaurant "Hazelmount," and had drunk a bottle of Burgundy
+with his dinner, and therefore he slept long and soundly, especially as
+the theatre was closed on that day.
+
+He slept well, but while he slept it grew so warm in the room that he
+woke up two or three times, or, at any rate, he thought he did. Once
+he fancied that his wall-paper was on fire, but that was probably the
+effect of the Burgundy; another time he felt as if something hot had
+touched his face, but that was certainly the Burgundy; and so he turned
+over and fell asleep again.
+
+At half-past nine he got up, dressed, and went into the sitting-room to
+refresh himself with a glass of milk which always stood ready for him in
+the morning.
+
+It was anything but cool in the sitting-room this morning; it was
+almost warm, too warm. And the cold milk was not cold; it was lukewarm,
+unpleasantly lukewarm.
+
+The conductor was not a hot-tempered man, but he liked order and method
+in everything. Therefore he rang for old Louisa, and since he made his
+first fifty remonstrances always in a very mild tone, he spoke kindly
+but firmly to her, as she put her head through the door.
+
+"Louisa," he said, "you have given me lukewarm milk."
+
+"Oh! no, sir," replied Louisa, "it was quite cold, it must have got warm
+in standing."
+
+"Then you must have had a fire in the room; it's very warm here this
+morning."
+
+No, Louisa had not had a fire; and she retired into the kitchen, very
+much hurt.
+
+He forgave her for the milk. But a look round the sitting-room made him
+feel very depressed. I must tell you that he had built a little private
+altar in a corner, near the piano, which consisted of a small table
+with two silver candlesticks, a large photograph of a young woman, and
+a tall, gold-edged champagne glass. This glass--it was the glass he had
+used on his wedding-day, and he was a widower now--always contained a
+red rose in memory of and as an offering to her who once had been the
+sunshine of his life. Whether it was summer or winter, there was always
+a rose; and in the winter time it lasted a whole week, that is to say if
+he trimmed the stem occasionally and put a little salt into the water.
+Now, he had put a fresh rose into the glass only last night, and to-day
+it was faded, shrivelled up, dead, with its head drooping. This was a
+bad omen. He knew what sensitive creatures flowers are, and had noticed
+that they thrive with some people and not with others. He remembered how
+sometimes, in his wife's lifetime, her rose, which always stood on her
+little work-table, had faded and died quite unexpectedly. And he had
+also noticed that this always happened when _his sun_ was hiding behind
+a cloud, which after a while would dissolve in large drops to the
+accompaniment of a low rumbling. Roses must have peace and kind words;
+they can't bear harsh voices. They love music, and sometimes he would
+play to the roses and they opened their buds and smiled.
+
+Now Louisa was a hard woman, and often muttered and growled to herself
+when she turned out the room. There were days when she was in a very bad
+temper, so that the milk curdled in the kitchen, and the whole dinner
+tasted of discord, which the conductor noticed at once; for he was
+himself like a delicate instrument, whose soul responded to moods and
+influences which other people did not feel.
+
+He concluded that Louisa had killed the rose; perhaps if she had scolded
+the poor thing, or knocked the glass, or breathed on the flower angrily,
+a treatment which it could not bear. Therefore he rang again; and when
+Louisa put in her head, he said, not unkindly, but more firmly than
+before:
+
+"What have you done to my rose, Louisa?"
+
+"Nothing, sir!"
+
+"Nothing? Do you think the flower died without a very good reason? You
+can see for yourself that there is no water in the glass! You must have
+poured it away!"
+
+As Louisa had done no such thing, she went into the kitchen and began to
+cry, for it is disagreeable to be blamed when one is innocent.
+
+Conductor Crossberg, who could not bear to see people crying, said no
+more, but in the evening he bought a new rose, one which had only just
+been cut, and, of course, was not wired, for his wife had always had an
+objection to wired flowers.
+
+And then he went to bed and fell asleep. And again he fancied in his
+sleep that the wall-paper was on fire, and that his pillow was very hot;
+but he went on sleeping.
+
+On the following morning, when he came into the sitting-room, to say his
+morning prayers before the little altar--alas! there lay his rose,
+all the pink petals scattered by the side of the stem. He was just
+stretching out his hand to touch the bell, when he saw the photograph of
+his beloved, half rolled up, lying by the side of the champagne glass.
+Louisa could not have done that!
+
+"She, who was my all, my conscience and my muse," he thought in his
+childlike mind, "she is dissatisfied and angry with me; what have I
+done?"
+
+Well, when he put this question to his conscience, he found, as usual,
+more than one little fault, and he resolved to eradicate his faults,
+gradually, of course.
+
+Then he had the portrait framed and a glass shade put over the rose,
+hoping that now things would be all right, but secretly fearing that
+they would not.
+
+After that he went on a week's journey; he returned home late at night
+and went straight to bed. He woke up once, imagining that the hanging
+lamp was burning.
+
+When he entered the sitting-room late on the following morning, it
+was downright hot there, and everything looked frightfully shabby. The
+blinds were faded; the cover on the piano had lost its bright colours;
+the bound volumes of music looked as if they were deformed; the oil in
+the hanging-lame had evaporated and hung in a trembling drop under the
+ornament, where the flies used to dance; the water in the water-bottle
+was warm.
+
+But the saddest thing of all was that her portrait, too, was faded, as
+faded as autumn leaves. He was very unhappy, and whenever he was very
+unhappy he went to the piano, or took up his violin, as the case might
+be....
+
+This time he sat down at the piano, with a vague notion of playing the
+sonata in E minor, Grieg's, of course, which had been her favourite, and
+was the best and finest, in his opinion, after Beethoven's sonata in D
+minor; not because E comes after D, but because it was so.
+
+But the piano was very refractory to-day. It was out of tune, and made
+all sorts of difficulties, so that he began to believe that his eyes
+and fingers were in a bad temper. But it was not their fault. The piano,
+quite simply, was out of tune, although a very clever tuner had only
+just tuned it. It was like a piano bewitched, enchanted.
+
+He seized his violin; he had to tune it, of course. But when he wanted
+to tighten the E string, the screw refused to work. It had dried up; and
+when the conductor tried to use force, the string snapped with a sharp
+sound, and rolled itself up like a dried eel-skin.
+
+It was bewitched!
+
+But the fact that her photograph had faded was really the worst blow,
+and therefore he threw a veil over the altar.
+
+In doing this, he threw a veil over all that was most beautiful in his
+life; and he became depressed, began to mope, and stopped going out in
+the evening.
+
+It would be Midsummer soon. The nights were shorter than the days, but
+since the Venetian blinds kept his bedroom dark, the conductor did not
+notice it.
+
+At last, one night--it was Midsummer night--he awoke, because the clock
+in the sitting-room struck thirteen. There was something uncanny about
+this, firstly, because thirteen is an unlucky number, and secondly,
+because no well-behaved clock can strike thirteen. He did not fall
+asleep again, but he lay in his bed, listening. There was a peculiar
+ticking noise in the sitting-room, and then a loud bang, as if a
+piece of furniture had cracked. Directly afterwards he heard stealthy
+footsteps, and then the clock began to strike again; and it struck and
+struck, fifty times--a hundred times. It really was uncanny!
+
+And now a luminous tuft shot into his bedroom and threw a figure on the
+wall, a strange figure, something like a fylfot, and it came from the
+sitting-room. There was a light, then, in the sitting-room? But who
+had lit it? And there was a tinkling of glasses, just as if guests were
+there; champagne glasses of cut-crystal; but not a word was uttered.
+And now he heard more sounds, sounds of canvas being furled, or clothes
+passed through a mangle, or something of that sort.
+
+The conductor felt compelled to get up and look, and he went, commending
+his soul into the hands of the Almighty.
+
+Well, first of all he saw Louisa's print-dress disappearing through the
+kitchen door; then he saw blinds, but blinds which had been pulled up;
+he saw the dining-table covered with flowers, arranged in glasses; as
+many flowers as there had been on his wedding-day when he had brought
+his bride home.
+
+And behold! The sun, the sun shone right into his face, shone on blue
+fjords and distant woods; it was the sun which had illuminated the
+sitting-room and played all the little tricks. He blessed the sun which
+had been up so early in the morning and made a game of the sluggard. And
+he blessed the memory of her whom he called the sun of his life. It was
+not a new name, but he could not think of a better one, and as it was,
+it was good enough.
+
+And on his altar stood a rose, quite fresh, as fresh as _she_ had been
+before the never-ending work had tired her. Tired her! Yes, she had not
+been one of the strong ones; and life with its blows and knocks had been
+too brutal for her! He had not forgotten how, after a day's cleaning or
+ironing, she would throw herself on the sofa and say in a complaining
+little voice, "I am so tired!" Poor little thing, this earth had not
+been her home, she had only played once, on tour, as it were, and then
+had gone far away.
+
+"She lacked sunshine," the doctor had said, for at that time they
+couldn't afford sun, because rooms on the sunny side are so expensive.
+
+But now he had sun without having known it; he stood right in the
+sunlight, but it was too late. Midsummer was past, and soon the sun
+would disappear again, stay away for a year and then come back. Things
+are very strange in this world!
+
+
+
+
+THE PILOT'S TROUBLES
+
+The pilot cutter lay outside, beyond the last beacon fire on the
+headland; the winter sun had set long ago and the sea ran high; it was
+the real sea with real huge breakers. Suddenly the first mate signalled:
+"Sailing ship to windward."
+
+Far out at sea, a long way off the harbour, a brig was visible; she
+had backed her sails and hoisted the pilot's flag; she was asking to be
+taken into port.
+
+"Look out!" shouted the master-pilot, who was standing at the helm.
+"We'll have a job in this sea, but we must try and get hold of her in
+tacking, and you, Victor, throw yourself into her rigging as soon as you
+get the chance... bring the boat round! Now! Clear!"
+
+The cutter turned and steered a course to the brig which lay outside,
+pitching.
+
+"Queer that she should have furled all her canvas. ... Can any one see
+a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either! Look out,
+Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood waiting on the
+gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of a big wave, he leapt
+into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter sheered off, tacked, and
+made for the harbour.
+
+Victor sat in the rigging, half-way between deck and cross-trees, trying
+to recover his breath before descending on deck. As soon as he came
+down he went to the helm, which was quite the right thing for him to
+do. Imagine how shocked he was when he found it deserted! He shouted "Ho
+there!" but received no reply.
+
+"They're all inside, drinking," he thought, peering through the cabin
+windows. No, not a soul! He crossed over to the kitchen, examined the
+quarterdeck,--not a living being anywhere. Then he realised that he
+was on a deserted ship; he concluded that she had sprung a leak and was
+sinking.
+
+He tried to discover the whereabouts of the cutter, but she had
+disappeared in the darkness.
+
+It was quite impossible for him to make port. To set the sails, haul
+in the brails and bowlines, and at the same time stand at the helm, was
+more than any sailor could manage.
+
+There was nothing to bee done, then, but let the vessel drift, although
+he was aware of the fact that she was drifting out to sea.
+
+It would not be true to say that he was pleased, but a pilot is prepared
+for anything, and the thought that he might possibly meet a sailing
+ship by and by, reassured him. But it was necessary to show a light and
+signal.
+
+He made his way towards the kitchen, intending to look for matches and
+a lantern. Although the sea was very rough, he noticed that the ship did
+not move, a fact which astonished him very much. But when he came to
+the mainmast, he was even more astonished to find himself walking on a
+parqueted floor, partly covered by a strip of carpet of a small blue
+and white checked pattern. He walked and walked, but still the carpet
+stretched before him, and still he came no nearer to the kitchen. It was
+certainly uncanny, but it was also amusing, for it was a new experience.
+
+He was a long way off the end of the carpet yet, when he found himself
+at the entrance to a passage with brilliantly illuminated shops on
+either side. On his right stood a weighing machine and an automatic
+figure. Without a moment's hesitation he jumped on the little platform
+of the weighing machine and slipped a penny in the slot. As he was quite
+sure that he weighed eleven stone, he could not help smiling when the
+indicator registered only one. Either the machine has gone wrong, he
+thought, or I have been transported to some other planet, ten times
+larger, or ten times smaller than the earth; he had been a pupil at the
+School of Navigation, you see, and knew something of astronomy.
+
+He jumped off and turned to the automatic figure, eager to find out what
+it contained; his penny had hardly dropped when a little flap opened
+and a large, white envelope, sealed with a big, red seal, fell out. He
+couldn't make out the letters on the seal, but that was neither here nor
+there, as he did not know who his correspondent was.
+
+He tore open the envelope and read... first of all the signature, just
+as everybody else does. The letter began... but I'll tell you that later
+on; it's sufficient for you to know now that he read it three times and
+then put it into his breast-pocket with a very thoughtful mien; a very
+thoughtful mien.
+
+Then he penetrated into the heart of the passage, all the time keeping
+carefully in the centre of the carpet. There were all sorts of shops,
+but not a single human being, either before or behind the counters. When
+he had walked a little way, he stopped before a big shop window, behind
+which a great number of shells and snails were exhibited. As the door
+stood open, he went in. The walls of the shop were lined with shelves
+from floor to ceiling and filled with snails collected from all the
+oceans of the world. Nobody was in the shop, but a ring of tobacco smoke
+hung in the air, which looked as if somebody had only just blown it.
+Victor, who was a bright lad, put his finger through it. "Hurrah!" he
+laughed, "now I'm engaged to Miss Tobacco!"
+
+A queer sound, like the ticking of a clock, fell on his ear, but there
+was no clock anywhere, and presently he discovered that the sound came
+from a bunch of keys. One of the keys had apparently just been put
+into the cash-box, and the other keys swung to and fro with the regular
+movement of a pendulum. This went on for quite a little while. Then
+there was silence once more, and when it was as still as still could be,
+a low whistling sound, like the wind blowing through the rigging of a
+ship, or steam escaping through a narrow tube, could be heard. The sound
+was made by the snails; but as they were of different sizes, each one of
+them whistled in a different key; it sounded like a whole orchestra of
+whistlers. Victor, who was born on a Thursday, and therefore understood
+the birds' language, pricked up his ears and tried to catch what they
+were whistling. It was not long before he understood what they were
+saying.
+
+"I have the prettiest name," said one of them, "for I am called Strombus
+pespelicanus!"
+
+"I'm much the best looking," said the purple-snail, whose name was Murex
+and something else quaint.
+
+"But I've the best voice," said the tiger-shell; it is called
+tiger-shell because it looks like a panther.
+
+"Oh! tut, tut!" said the common garden-snail, "I'm more in demand than
+any other snail in the world; you'll find me all over the flower-beds in
+the summer, and in the winter I lie in the wood-shed in a cabbage tub.
+They call me uninteresting, but they can't do without me."
+
+"What dreadful creatures they are," thought Victor, "they think of
+nothing but blowing their own trumpets"; and to while away the time he
+took up a book which lay on the counter. As he had learned to use his
+eyes, he saw at a glance that it opened at page 240 and that chapter
+51 began at the top of the left-hand side, and had for a motto a verse
+written by Coleridge, the gist of which struck him like a flash of
+lightning. With burning cheeks and bated breath he read... I'll tell
+you what he read later on, but I may admit at once that it had nothing
+whatever to do with snails.
+
+Victor liked the shop and sat down at a little distance from the
+cash-box, the immediate vicinity of which is never without a certain
+risk. He began to ponder over all the queer animals which went down to
+the sea as he did; he was sure that they could not find it too warm
+at the bottom of the sea and yet they perspired; and whenever they
+perspired chalk, it immediately became a new house. They wriggled like
+worms, some to the right and some to the left; it was clear that they
+had to wriggle in some direction and, of course, they could not all turn
+to the same side.
+
+All at once a voice came from the other side of the green curtain which
+separated the shop from the back parlour.
+
+"Yes, we know all that," shouted the voice, "but what we don't know is
+this: the cockle of the ear belongs to the species of the Helix, and
+the little bones near the drum are exactly like the animal in Limnaeus
+stagnalis, and that's printed in a book."
+
+Victor, who realised at once that the voice belonged to a
+thought-reader, shouted back brutally, but without showing the least
+surprise:--
+
+"We know all that, but why we should have a Helix in our ears is as
+unknown to the book as to the dealer in snails--"
+
+"I'm not a dealer in snails," bellowed the voice behind the curtain.
+
+"What are you, then?" Victor bellowed back.
+
+"I'm... a troll!"
+
+At the same moment the curtains were drawn aside a little, and a head
+appeared in the opening of so terrifying an aspect, that anybody but
+Victor would have taken to his heels. But he, who knew exactly how to
+treat a troll, looked steadily at the glowing pipe-bowl; for that is
+exactly what the troll looked like as he stood blowing rings through the
+parted curtains. When the smoke rings had floated within his reach, he
+caught them with his fingers and threw them back.
+
+"I see you can play quoits," snarled the troll.
+
+"A little bit," answered Victor.
+
+"And you aren't afraid?"
+
+"A sailor must never be afraid of anything; if he is, the girls won't
+like him."
+
+And as he was tired of the snails, Victor seized the opportunity to
+beat a retreat without appearing to run away. He left the shop, walking
+backwards, for he knew that a man must never show his back to the enemy,
+because his back is far more sensitive than ever his face could be.
+
+And on he went on the blue and white carpet. The passage was not a
+straight one, but wound and curved so that it was impossible to see the
+end of it; and still there were new shops, and still no people and no
+shop proprietors. But Victor, taught by his experience, understood that
+they were all in the back parlours.
+
+At last he came to a scent shop, which smelt of all the flowers of wood
+and meadow; he thought of his sweetheart and decided to go in and buy
+her a bottle of Eau-de-Cologne.
+
+No sooner thought than done. The shop was very much like the snail shop,
+but the scent of the flowers was so overpowering that it made his head
+ache, and he had to sit down on a chair. A strong smell of almonds
+caused a buzzing in his cars, but left a pleasant taste in his mouth,
+like cherry-wine. Victor, never at a loss, felt in his pocket for his
+little brass box, that had a tiny mirror on the inside of the lid, and
+put a piece of chewing tobacco in his mouth; this cleared his brain and
+cured his headache. Then he rapped on the counter and shouted:--
+
+"Hallo! Any one there?"
+
+There was no answer. "I'd better go into the back parlour," he thought,
+"and do my shopping there." He took a little run, put his right hand on
+the counter and cleared it at a bound. Then he pushed the curtains aside
+and peeped into the room. A sight met his eyes which completely dazzled
+him. An orange tree, laden with blossoms and fruit, stood on a long
+table covered with a Persian rug, and its shining leaves looked like the
+leaves of a camellia. There were rows of cut-crystal glasses filled
+with all the most beautiful scented flowers of the whole world, such as
+jasmine, tuberoses, violets, lilies of the valley, roses, and lavender.
+On one end of the table, half hidden by the orange tree, he saw two
+delicate white hands and a pair of slender wrists under turned-up
+sleeves, busy with a small distilling apparatus, made of silver. He did
+not see the lady's face, and she, too, did not appear to see him. But
+when he noticed that her dress was green and yellow, he knew at once
+that she was a sorceress, for the caterpillar of the hawk-moth is green
+and yellow, and it, too, knows how to bewitch the eye. The lower end of
+its body looks as if it were its head and has a horn like a unicorn, so
+that it frightens away its enemies with its mock face, while it feeds in
+peace with that part of its body which looks like its hind quarter.
+
+"I know that I'll have a bit of a tussle with her," thought Victor, "but
+I'd better let her begin!" He was quite right, because if one wants to
+make people talk, one has but to remain silent oneself.
+
+"Are you the gentleman who is looking for a summer resort?" asked the
+lady, coming towards him.
+
+"That's me!" said Victor, merely in order to say something, for he had
+never thought of looking for a summer resort in the winter time.
+
+The lady seemed embarrassed, but she was as beautiful as sin, and cast a
+bewitching glance at the pilot.
+
+"It's no use trying to bewitch me, for I am engaged to a very nice
+girl," he said, staring between her second and third finger in the
+manner of a witch, when she wants to charm the judge.
+
+The lady was young and beautiful from the waist upwards, but below
+the waist she seemed very old; it was just as if she had been patched
+together of two pieces which didn't match.
+
+"Well, show me the summer resort," said the pilot.
+
+"If you please, sir," replied the lady, opening a door in the
+background.
+
+They went out and at once found themselves in a wood, consisting
+entirely of oak trees.
+
+"We'll only just have to cross the wood, and we'll be there," said the
+lady, beckoning to the pilot to go on, for she did not want to show him
+her back.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if there were a bull somewhere about," said the
+pilot, who had all his wits about him.
+
+"Surely you aren't afraid of a bull?" replied the lady.
+
+"We'll see," answered the pilot.
+
+They walked across stony hillocks, tree-roots, moors and fells,
+clearings and deep recesses, but Victor could not help turning round
+every now and then to see whether she was following him, for he could
+not hear her footsteps. And even when he had turned round and had her
+right before his eyes he had to look very hard, for her green and yellow
+dress made her almost invisible.
+
+At last they came to an open space, and when Victor had reached the
+centre of the clearing, there was the bull; it was just as if it had
+stood there all the time waiting for him. It was jet black, with a white
+star in the middle of its forehead, and the corners of its eyes were
+blood-red.
+
+Escape was impossible; there was nothing for it but to fight. Victor
+glanced at the ground and behold! there lay a stout cudgel, newly cut.
+He seized it and took up his position.
+
+"You or I!" he shouted. "Come on! One--two--three!" The fight began. The
+bull backed like a steam-boat, smoke came through its nostrils, it moved
+its tail like a propeller, and then came on at full speed.
+
+The cudgel flashed through the air and with a sound like a shot hit the
+bull right between the eyes. Victor sprang aside, and the bull dashed
+past him. Then everything seemed to change, and Victor, terrified, saw
+the monster make for the border of the wood, from whence his sweetheart,
+in a light summer dress, emerged to meet him.
+
+"Climb up the tree, Anna," he shouted. "The bull's coming!" It was a cry
+of anguish from the very bottom of his soul.
+
+And he ran after the monster and hit it on the slenderest part of
+its hind-legs in the hope of breaking its shin-bone. With superhuman
+strength he felled the giant. Anna was saved, and the pilot held her in
+his arms.
+
+"Where shall we go?" he asked. "Home, of course?"
+
+It did not occur to him to ask her whence she had come, for reasons
+which we shall learn hereafter.
+
+They walked along the footpath, hand in hand, happy at their unexpected
+meeting. When they had gone a little way, Victor suddenly stood still.
+
+"Just wait a moment," he said. "I must go and have a look at the bull;
+I'm sorry for it, poor brute!"
+
+The expression of Anna's face changed, and the corners of her eyes grew
+bloodshot. "All right! I'll wait," she said, with a savage and malicious
+glance at the pilot.
+
+Victor gazed at her sadly, for he knew that she had told him an untruth.
+But he followed her. There was something extraordinary about her walk,
+and all at once the whole of his left side grew as cold as ice.
+
+When they had proceeded a little further, Victor stopped again.
+
+"Give me your hand," he said. "No, the left one." He saw that she was
+not wearing her engagement ring.
+
+"Where's your ring?" he asked.
+
+"I've lost it," she replied.
+
+"You are my Anna, and yet you are not," he exclaimed. "A stranger has
+taken possession of you."
+
+As he said these words, she looked at him with a side-long glance, and
+all at once he realised that her eyes were not human, but the blood-shot
+eyes of a bull; and then he understood.
+
+"Begone, witch!" he cried, and breathed into her face.
+
+If you could only have seen what happened now! The would-be Anna was
+immediately transformed, her face grew green and yellow like gall, and
+she burst with rage; at the next moment a black rabbit jumped over the
+bilberry bushes and disappeared in the wood.
+
+Victor stood alone in the perplexing, bewildering forest, but he was
+not afraid. "I will go on," he thought, "and if I should meet the devil
+himself, I will not be afraid; I shall say the Lord's Prayer, and that
+will go a long way towards protecting me."
+
+He trudged on and presently he came to a cottage. He knocked; the door
+was opened by an old woman; he inquired whether he could stay the night.
+He could stay, if he liked, but the old dame had nothing to offer him
+but a small attic, which was only so so.
+
+Victor did not mind what it was like, as long as it was a place where he
+could sleep.
+
+When they were agreed about the price, he followed her upstairs to the
+attic. A huge wasp's nest hung right over the bed, and the old dame
+began to make excuses for harbouring such guests.
+
+"It doesn't matter in the least," interrupted the pilot, "wasps are like
+human beings, quite inoffensive until you irritate them. Perhaps you
+keep snakes, too?"
+
+"Well, there are some, of course."
+
+"I thought so; they like the warmth of the bed, so we shall get on. Are
+they adders or vipers? I don't very much mind which, but on the whole I
+prefer vipers."
+
+The old dame watched him breathlessly while he arranged his bed, and
+in every way betrayed his firm resolution to spend the night in her
+cottage.
+
+All at once an excited buzzing could be heard outside the closed window,
+and a huge hornet bumped against the glass.
+
+"Let the poor thing come in," said the pilot, opening the window.
+
+"No, no, not that one, kill it!" yelled the old dame.
+
+"Why should I? Perhaps its young ones are in this room, and would
+starve. Am I to lie here and listen to the screaming of hungry babies?
+No, thank you! Come in, little wasp!"
+
+"It will sting you!" shrieked the old dame.
+
+"No, indeed it won't. It only stings the wicked."
+
+The window was open now. A big hornet, as large as a pigeon's egg, flew
+in; buzzing like a bass string, it flew at once to the nest. And then it
+was still.
+
+The old dame left the attic, and the pilot got between the sheets.
+
+When he came downstairs into the parlour on the following morning, the
+old dame was not there. A black cat sat on the only chair and purred;
+cats have been condemned to purr, because they are such lazy beasts, and
+they must do something.
+
+"Get up, pussy," said the pilot, "and let me sit down."
+
+And he took the cat and put it on the hearth. But it was no ordinary
+cat, for immediately sparks began to fly from its fur, and the chips
+caught file.
+
+"If you can light a fire, you can make me some coffee," said the pilot.
+
+But the cat is so constituted that it never wants to do what it is told,
+and so it began at once to swear and spit until the fire was out.
+
+In the meantime the pilot had heard somebody leaning a spade against the
+wall of the cottage. He looked out of the window and saw the old dame
+standing in a pit which she had dug in the garden.
+
+"I see you are digging a grave for me, old woman," he said.
+
+The old dame came in. When she saw Victor safe and sound, she was beside
+herself with amazement; she confessed that up to now nobody had ever
+left the attic alive, and that therefore she had dug his grave in
+anticipation.
+
+She was a little short-sighted, but it seemed to her that the pilot was
+wearing a strange handkerchief round his neck.
+
+"Ha ha! Have you ever seen such a handkerchief in all your life?"
+laughed Victor, putting his hand up to his throat.
+
+Wound round his neck was a snake which had tied itself in front into a
+knot with two bright yellow spots; the spots were its ears, and its eyes
+shone like diamonds.
+
+"Show auntie your scarfpins, little pet," said the pilot, gently
+scratching its head, and the snake opened its mouth and disclosed two
+sharp, pointed teeth right in the middle of it.
+
+At the sight of them the old dame fell on her knees and said, "Now I see
+that you have received my letter and understood its meaning. You are a
+brave lad!"
+
+"So the letter I got out of the automatic machine was from you," said
+the pilot, taking it from his breast pocket. "I shall have it framed
+when I get home."
+
+Would you like to know what was written in the letter? Just these few
+words in plain English, "Don't be bluffed," which might be translated,
+"Fortune favours the Brave."
+
+***
+
+"Yes, but how was it that the pilot could walk from the ship down the
+passage?" asked Annie-Mary, when her mama had finished the story. "And
+did he come back, or had he dreamed the whole story?"
+
+"I'll tell you another time, little Miss Curiosity," said her mama.
+
+"And then there was a verse in the book--"
+
+"What verse? Oh, I see... in the snail shop.... Well, I'm afraid I've
+forgotten it. But you mustn't ask too many details, for it's only a
+fairy tale, little girlie."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PHOTOGRAPHER AND PHILOSOPHER
+
+Once upon a time there was a photographer. He was a splendid
+photographer; he did profiles and full-faces, three-quarter and
+full-length portraits; he could develop and fix, tone and print them. He
+was the deuce of a fellow! But he was always discontented, for he was a
+philosopher, a great philosopher and a discoverer. His theory was that
+the world was upside down. It was plainly proved by the plate in the
+developer. Everything that was on the right side of the original, now
+appeared on the left; everything that was dark, became light; light
+became shade; blue turned into white, and silver buttons looked as dark
+as iron. The world was upside down.
+
+He had a partner, quite an ordinary man, full of petty characteristics.
+For instance, he smoked cigars all day long; he never shut a door; he
+put his knife into his mouth, instead of using his fork; he wore his hat
+in the room; he cleaned his nails in the studio, and in the evening he
+drank three glasses of beer.
+
+He was full of faults!
+
+The philosopher, on the other hand, was perfect, and therefore he
+nursed resentment against his imperfect brother; he would have liked to
+dissolve the partnership, but he could not, because their business held
+them together; and because they were bound to remain in partnership, the
+resentment of the philosopher turned into an unreasonable hatred. It was
+dreadful!
+
+When the spring came they decided to take a lodging in a summer resort,
+and the partner was despatched to find one. He did find one. And one
+Saturday they departed together on a steamer.
+
+The philosopher sat all day long on deck and drank punch. He was a very
+stout man and suffered from several things; his liver was out of order,
+and there was something wrong with his feet, perhaps rheumatism, or some
+similar disease. When they arrived, they crossed the bridge and went
+ashore.
+
+"Is this the place?" asked the philosopher.
+
+"A very little walk will take us there," answered the partner.
+
+They went along a footpath, full of roots, and the path ended abruptly
+before a stile. They had to climb over it. Then the road became stony,
+and the philosopher complained of his feet, but he forgot all about his
+pains when they came to another stile. After that, all trace of the road
+disappeared; they walked on the bare rock through shrubs and bilberry
+bushes.
+
+Behind the third fence stood a bull, who chased the philosopher to the
+fourth stile, where he arrived in a bath of perspiration, which opened
+all the pores of his skin. When they had crossed the sixth stile, they
+could see the house. The philosopher went in and immediately stepped on
+to the verandah.
+
+"Why are there so many trees?" he asked. "They interrupt the view."
+
+"But they shelter the house from the strong sea-breezes," answered the
+partner.
+
+"And the place looks like a churchyard; why, the house stands in the
+centre of a pine-wood."
+
+"A very healthy spot," replied the partner.
+
+Then they wanted to go and bathe. But there was no proper bathing-place,
+in the philosophical sense of the word. There was nothing but the stony
+ground and mud.
+
+After they had bathed the philosopher felt thirsty, and wanted to drink
+a glass of water at the spring. It was of a reddish-brown colour, and
+had a peculiar, strong taste. It was no good. Nothing was any good. And
+meat was unobtainable, there was nothing to be had but fish.
+
+The philosopher grew gloomy and sat down under a pumpkin to deplore
+his fate. But there was no help for it. He had to stay, and his partner
+returned to town to look after the business during his friend's absence.
+
+Six weeks passed and then the partner returned to his philosopher.
+
+He was met on the bridge by a slender youth with red cheeks and a
+sunburnt neck. It was the philosopher, rejuvenated and full of high
+spirits.
+
+He jumped over the six stiles and chased the bull.
+
+When they were sitting on the verandah, the partner said to him:--
+
+"You are looking very well, what sort of a time have you had?"
+
+"Oh! an excellent time!" said the philosopher. "The fences have taken
+off my fat; the stones have massaged my feet; the mud-baths have
+cured me of my rheumatism; the plain food has cured my liver, and the
+pine-trees my lungs; and, could you believe it, the brown spring-water
+contained iron, just what I wanted!"
+
+"Well, you old philosopher," said the partner, "don't you understand
+that from the negative you get a positive, where all the shade becomes
+light again? If you would only take such a positive picture of me and
+try and find out what faults I do _not_ possess, you would not dislike
+me so much. Only think: I don't drink, and therefore I am able to manage
+the business; I don't steal; I never talk evil of you behind your back;
+I never complain; I never make white appear black; I am never rude to
+the customers; I rise early in the morning; I clean my nails so as to
+keep the developer clean; I leave my hat on so that no hairs shall fall
+on the plates; I smoke so as to purify the air of poisonous gases; I
+keep the door ajar so as not to make a noise in the studio; I drink beer
+in the evening so as to escape the temptation of drinking whisky; and I
+put the knife into my mouth because I am afraid of pricking myself with
+the fork."
+
+"You really are a great philosopher," said the photographer, "henceforth
+we will be friends! Then we shall get on in life!"
+
+
+
+
+HALF A SHEET OF FOOLSCAP
+
+The last furniture van had left; the tenant, a young man with a crape
+band round his hat, walked for the last time through the empty rooms
+to make sure that nothing had been left behind. No, nothing had been
+forgotten, nothing at all. He went out into the front hall, firmly
+determined never to think again of all that had happened to him in these
+rooms. And all at once his eyes fell on half a sheet of foolscap, which
+somehow had got wedged between the wall and the telephone; the paper was
+covered with writing, evidently the writing of more persons than one.
+Some of the entries were written quite legibly with pen and ink, while
+others were scribbled with a lead-pencil; here and there even a red
+pencil had been used. It was a record of everything that had happened
+to him in the short period of two years; all these things, which he had
+made up his mind to forget, were noted down. It was a slice of a human
+life on half a sheet of foolscap.
+
+He detached the paper; it was a piece of scribbling paper, yellow and
+shining like the sun. He put it on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room
+and glanced at it. Heading the list was a woman's name: "Alice," the
+most beautiful name in the world, as it had seemed to him then, for it
+was the name of his fiancee. Next to the name was a number, "15,11."
+It looked like the number of a hymn, on the hymn-board. Underneath was
+written "Bank." That was where his work lay, his sacred work to which he
+owed bread, home, and wife--the foundations of life. But a pen had been
+drawn through the word, for the Bank had failed, and although he had
+eventually found another berth, it was not until after a short period of
+anxiety and uneasiness.
+
+The next entries were: "Flower-shop and livery-stable." They related to
+his betrothal, when he had plenty of money in his pockets.
+
+Then came "furniture dealer and paper-hanger "--they were furnishing
+their house. "Forwarding agents"--they were moving into it. The
+"Box-office of the Opera-house, No. 50,50"--they were newly married, and
+went to the opera on Sunday evenings; the most enjoyable hours of their
+lives were spent there, for they had to sit quite still, while their
+souls met in the beauty and harmony of the fairyland on the other side
+of the curtain.
+
+Then followed the name of a man, crossed out. He had been a friend of
+his youth, a man who had risen high in the social scale, but who fell,
+spoilt by success, fell irremediably, and had to leave the country.
+
+So unstable was fortune!
+
+Now, something new entered the lives of husband and wife. The next entry
+was in a lady's hand: "Nurse." What nurse? Well, of course, the kindly
+woman with the big cloak and the sympathetic face, who walked with a
+soft footfall, and never went into the drawing-room, but walked straight
+down the passage to the bedroom.
+
+Underneath her name was written "Dr. L."
+
+And now, for the first time, a relative appeared on the list: "Mama."
+That was his mother-in-law, who had kept away discreetly, so as not to
+disturb their newly found happiness, but was glad to come now, when she
+was needed.
+
+A great number of entries in red and blue pencil followed: "Servants'
+Registry Office"--the maid had left and a new one had to be engaged.
+"The chemist's"--hm! life was growing dark. "The dairy"--milk had been
+ordered--sterilised milk!
+
+"Butcher, grocer, etc." The affairs of the house were being conducted
+by telephone; it argued that the mistress was not at her post. No, she
+wasn't, for she was laid up.
+
+He could not read what followed, for it grew dark before his eyes; he
+might have been a drowning man trying to see through salt water. And
+yet, there it was written, plainly enough: "undertaker--a large coffin
+and a small one." And the word "dust" was added in parenthesis.
+
+It was the last word of the whole record. It ended with "dust"! and that
+is exactly what happens in life.
+
+He took the yellow paper, kissed it, folded it carefully, and put it in
+his pocket.
+
+In two minutes he had lived again through two years of his life.
+
+But he was not bowed down as he left the house. On the contrary, he
+carried his head high, like a happy and proud man, for he knew that the
+best things life has to bestow had been given to him. And he pitied all
+those from whom they are withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CONQUERING HERO AND FOOL
+
+It was on the evening of a spring day in 1880 (a day which will never
+be forgotten in Sweden, because it is the day of commemoration of
+a national event), when an old couple, simple country people, were
+standing on the headland at the entrance to the harbour of Stockholm,
+looking at the dark watercourse under the dim stars, and watching a man
+who was busy with a dark, undefinable object on the landing bridge. They
+stood there for a long, long time, now gazing at the dark watercourse,
+now looking at the brilliant lights of the town.
+
+At last a light appeared on the fjord, then another, then many lights.
+The old man seized the woman's hand and pressed it, and in silence,
+under the stars, they thanked God for having safely brought home their
+son whom they had mourned as dead for a whole year.
+
+It is true, he had not been the leader of the expedition, but he had
+been one of the crew. And now he was to dine with the long, receive
+an order, and, in addition to a sum of money from the nation, which
+Parliament had voted for the purpose, an appointment which would mean
+bread and butter for the rest of his life.
+
+The lights grew in size as they approached; a small steamer was towing a
+big dark craft, which, seen close by, looked as plain and simple as most
+great things do.
+
+And now the man on the bridge, who had been very busy about the dark
+object, struck a match.
+
+"Whatever is it?" said the old man, much puzzled. "It looks like huge
+wax candles."
+
+They went nearer to examine it more closely.
+
+"It looks like a frame for drying fishes," said the old woman, who had
+been born on the coast.
+
+Ratsh! It-sh! Si-si-si-si! it said, and the old people were instantly
+surrounded by fire and flames.
+
+Great fiery globes rose up to the skies and, bursting, lit up the night
+with a shower of stars; an astronomer, observing the heavens with a
+telescope, might have come to the conclusion that new stars had been
+born. And he would not have been altogether wrong, for in the year
+1880 new thoughts were kindled in new hearts, and new light and new
+discoveries vouchsafed to mankind. Doubtless, there were weeds, too,
+growing up together with the splendid wheat; but weeds have their uses,
+also; shade and moisture depend on their presence, and they will be
+separated from the wheat at harvest time. But there must be weeds, they
+are as inseparable from wheat as chaff is from corn.
+
+What had puzzled the old couple, however, was a rocket frame, and when
+all the smoke had cleared away--for there is no fire without smoke--not
+a trace of all the magnificence was left.
+
+"It would have been jolly to have been in town with them to-night," said
+the old woman.
+
+"Oh, no!" replied the man. "We should have been in the way, poor people
+like we ought never to push themselves to the front. And there's plenty
+of time to-morrow for seeing the boy, after he has left his sweetheart,
+who is dearer to him than we are."
+
+It was a very sensible speech for the old man to make; but who in the
+world is to have sense, if old people have not?
+
+And then they continued their way to the town.
+
+***
+
+Now, let us see what happened to the son.
+
+He was the leadsman, that is to say, it was his business to sound the
+depths of the sea; he had plumbed the profound abysses of the ocean,
+calculated the elevation of the land and the apparent motion of the sky;
+he knew the exact time by looking at the sun, and he could tell from
+the stars how far they had travelled. He was a man of importance; he
+believed that he held heaven and earth in his hand, measured time and
+regulated the clock of eternity. And after he had been the king's guest
+and received an order to wear on his breast, he fancied that he was made
+of finer stuff than most men; he was not exactly haughty when he met his
+poor parents and his sweetheart, but, although they said nothing, they
+felt that he thought himself their superior. Possibly he was a little
+stiff, he was built that way.
+
+Well, the official ceremonies were over, but the students also had
+decided to pay homage to the heroes, who had returned home after a
+prolonged absence. And they went to the capital in full force.
+
+Students are queer people, who read books and study under Dr. Know-all;
+consequently they imagine that they know more than other people. They
+are also young, and therefore they are thoughtless and cruel.
+
+The respectful and sensible speeches which the old professors had been
+making all the afternoon in honour of the explorers had come to an end,
+and the procession of the students had started.
+
+The leadsman and his sweetheart were sitting on a balcony in the company
+of the other great men. The ringing of the church bells and the booming
+of the guns mingled with the sound of the bugles and the rolling of
+the drums; flags were waving and fluttering in the breeze. And then the
+procession marched by.
+
+It was headed by a ship, with sailors and everything else belonging to
+it; next walruses came and polar bears, and all the rest of it; then
+students in disguise, representing the heroes; the Great Man himself was
+represented in his fur coat and goggles. It wasn't quite respectful, of
+course; it wasn't a very great honour to be impersonated in this way;
+but there it was! It was well meant, no doubt. And gradually every
+member of the expedition passed by, one after the other, all represented
+by the students.
+
+Last of all came the leadsman. It was true, nobody could ever have
+dreamt of calling him handsome, but there is no need for a man to be
+handsome, as long as he is an able leadsman, or anything else able.
+The students had chosen a hideous old grumbler to impersonate him.
+That alone would not have mattered; but nature had made one of his arms
+shorter than the other, and his representative had made a feature of
+this defect. And that was too bad; for a defect is something for which
+one ought not to be blamed.
+
+But when the fool who played the leadsman approached the balcony, he
+said a few words with a provincial accent, intended to cast ridicule on
+the leadsman, who was born in one of the provinces. It was a silly thing
+to do, for every man speaks the dialect which his mother has taught him;
+and it is nothing at all to be ashamed of.
+
+Everybody laughed, more from politeness than anything else, for the
+entertainment was gratuitous, but the girl was hurt, for she hated to
+see her future husband laughed at. The leadsman frowned and grew silent.
+He no longer enjoyed the festivities. But he carefully hid his real
+feelings, for otherwise he would have been laughed at for a fool
+unable to appreciate a joke. But still worse things happened, for his
+impersonator danced and cut all sorts of ridiculous antics, in the
+endeavour to act the leadsman's name in dumb charade; first his surname,
+which he had inherited from his father, and then his Christian name,
+which his mother had chosen for him at his baptism. These names were
+sacred to him, and although there may have been a little boastful sound
+about them, he had always scorned to change them.
+
+He wanted to rise from his chair and leave, but his sweetheart caught
+hold of his hand, and he stayed where he was.
+
+When, the procession was over and everybody who had been sitting on
+the balcony had risen, the great man laid a friendly hand on the girl's
+shoulder, and said, with his kindly smile:--
+
+"They have a strange way here of celebrating their heroes, one mustn't
+mind it!"
+
+In the evening there was a garden party and the leadsman was present,
+but his pleasure was gone; he had been laughed at, and he had grown
+small in his own estimation, smaller than the fool, who had made quite a
+hit as a jester. Therefore he was despondent, felt uneasy at the thought
+of the future and doubtful of his own capability. And wherever he went
+he met the fool who was caricaturing him. He saw his faults enlarged,
+especially his pride and his boastfulness; all his secret thoughts and
+weaknesses were made public.
+
+For three painful hours he examined the account book of his conscience;
+what no man had dared to tell him before, the fool had told him. Perfect
+knowledge of oneself is a splendid thing, Socrates calls it the highest
+of all goods. Towards the end of the evening the leadsman had conquered
+himself, admitted his faults, and resolved to turn over a new leaf.
+
+As he was passing a group of people he heard a voice behind a hedge
+saying:--
+
+"It's extraordinary, how the leadsman has improved. He's really quite a
+delightful fellow!"
+
+These words did him good; but what pleased him more than anything else
+were a few whispered words from his sweetheart.
+
+"You are so nice to-night," she said, "that you look quite handsome."
+
+He handsome? It must have been a miracle then, and miracles don't happen
+nowadays. Yet he had to believe in a miracle, for he knew himself to be
+a very plain man.
+
+Finally the Great Man touched his glass with his knife, and immediately
+there was silence, for every body wanted to hear what he had to say.
+
+"When a Roman conqueror was granted a triumphal procession," he began,
+"a slave always stood behind him in the chariot and incessantly called
+out, 'Remember that you are but a man!' while senate and people paid him
+homage. And at the side of the triumphal car, which was drawn by four
+horses, walked a fool, whose business it was to dim the splendour of
+his triumph by shouting insults, and casting suspicion on the hero's
+character by singing libellous songs. This was a good old custom, for
+there is nothing so fatal to a man than to believe that he is a god, and
+there is nothing the gods dislike so much as the pride of men. My dear
+young friends! The success which we, who have just returned home, have
+achieved, has perhaps been overrated, our triumph went to our heads, and
+therefore it was good for us to watch your antics to-day! I don't envy
+the jester his part--far from it; but I thank you for the somewhat
+strange homage which you have done us. It has taught me that I have
+still a good deal to learn, and whenever my head is in danger of being
+turned by flattery, it will remind me that I am nothing but an ordinary
+man!"
+
+"Hear! Hear!" exclaimed the leadsman, and the festivities continued,
+undisturbed even by the fool, who had felt a little ashamed of himself
+and had quietly withdrawn from the scene.
+
+So much for the Great Man and the leadsman. Now let us see what happened
+to the fool.
+
+As he was standing close to the table during the Great Man's speech, he
+received a glance from the leadsman, which, like a small fiery arrow,
+was capable of setting a fortress aflame. And as he went out into the
+night, he felt beside himself, like a man who is clothed in sheets of
+fire. He was not a nice man. True, fools and jailers are human beings,
+like the rest of us, but they are not the very nicest specimen. Like
+everybody else he had many faults and weaknesses, but he knew how
+to cloak them. Now something extraordinary happened. Through having
+mimicked the leadsman all day long, and also, perhaps, owing to all
+the drink he had consumed, he had become so much the part which he had
+played that he was unable to shake it off; and since he had brought
+into prominence the faults and weaknesses of the leadsman, he had, as it
+were, acquired them, and that flash from the leadsman's eye had rammed
+them down to the very bottom of his soul, just as a ramrod pushes the
+powder into the barrel of a gun. He was charged with the leadsman, so to
+speak, and therefore, as he stepped out into the street he at once began
+to shout and boast. But this time luck was against him. A policeman
+ordered him to be quiet. The fool said something funny, imitating the
+leadsman's provincial accent. But the policeman, who happened to be a
+native of the same province, was annoyed and wanted to arrest the fool.
+Now it is just as difficult for a fool to take a thing seriously as it
+is for a policeman to understand a joke; therefore the fool resisted
+and created such a disturbance that the policeman struck him with his
+truncheon.
+
+He received a sound beating, and then the policeman let him go.
+
+You would think that he had had enough trouble now--far from it!
+
+The chastisement which he had received had only embittered him, and he
+went on the warpath, like a red Indian, to see on whom he might avenge
+his wrongs.
+
+Accident, or some other power, guided his footsteps to a locality mainly
+frequented by peasants and labourers. He entered a brewery and found a
+number of millers and farmer's labourers sitting round a table, drinking
+the health of the explorers. When they saw the fool they took him for
+the leadsman, and were highly delighted when he condescended to take a
+glass in their company.
+
+Now the demon of pride entered into the soul of the fool. He boasted
+of his great achievements; he told them that it was he who had led the
+expedition, for would they not have foundered if he had not sounded the
+depth of the sea? Would they ever have returned home if he had not read
+the stars?
+
+Smack! an egg hit him between the eyebrows.
+
+"Leadsman, you're a braggart!" said the miller. "We've known that for a
+long time; we knew it when you wrote to the paper saying the Great Man
+was another Humboldt!"
+
+Now another of the leadsman's weaknesses gained the upper hand.
+
+"The Great Man is a humbug!" he exclaimed, which was not true.
+
+This was too much for the assembly. They rose from their seats like one
+man, seized the fool, and with a leather strap bound him to a sack of
+flour. They covered him with flour until he was white from top to toe,
+and blackened his face with the wick from one of the lanterns. The
+millers' apprentice sewed him to the sack; they lifted him, sack and
+lantern, on to the cart, and amid shouting and laughter proceeded to the
+market-place.
+
+There he was exhibited to the passers-by, and everybody laughed at him.
+
+When they let him go at last, he went and sat on some stone stairs and
+cried. The big fellow sobbed like a little child; one might almost have
+felt sorry for him.
+
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THE TREE-SWALLOW SANG IN THE BUCKTHORN TREE
+
+If you are standing at the harbour where all the steamers call, and look
+out towards the sea, you will see a mountain on your left, covered with
+green trees, and behind the trees a large house built in the shape of a
+spider. For in the centre there is a round building from which radiate
+eight wings, that look very much like the eight legs on the round body
+of a spider. The people who enter the house do not leave it again at
+will, and some of them stay there for the rest of their life, for the
+house is a prison.
+
+In the days of King Oscar I, the mountain was not green. On the
+contrary, it was grey and cold, for neither moss nor heart's-ease would
+grow there, although these plants generally thrive on the bare rock.
+There was nothing but grey stone and grey people, who looked as if they
+had been turned into stone, and who quarried stone, broke stone, and
+carried stone. And among these people there was one who looked stonier
+than all the others.
+
+He was still a youth when, in the reign of King Oscar I., he was shut up
+in this prison because he had killed a man.
+
+He was a prisoner for life, and sewn on his grey prison garb was a large
+black "L."
+
+He was always on the mountain, in winter days and summer time, breaking
+stones. In the winter he had only the empty and deserted harbour to
+look at; the semicircular bridge with its poles had the appearance of a
+yawning row of teeth, and he could see the wood-shed, the riding-school,
+and the two gigantic, denuded lime trees. Sometimes an ice-yacht
+would sail past the islet; sometimes a few boys would pass on skates;
+otherwise it was quiet and forsaken.
+
+In the summer time it was much jollier. For then the harbour was full of
+smart boats, newly painted and decorated with flags. And the lime trees,
+in the shade of which he had sat when he was a child, waiting for his
+father, who was an engineer on one of the finest boats, were green.
+
+It was many years now since he had heard the rustling of the breeze
+in the trees, for nothing grew on his cliff, and the only thing in the
+world he longed for was to hear once again the whispering of the wind in
+the branches of the lime trees at Knightsholm.
+
+Sometimes, on a summer's day, a steamer would pass the islet; then he
+heard the plashing of the waves, or, perhaps, snatches of music; and he
+saw bright faces which grew dark as soon as their eyes fell on the grey
+stone men on the mountain.
+
+And then he cursed heaven and earth, his fate and the cruelty of men.
+He cursed, year in, year out. And he and his companions tormented and
+cursed each other day and night; for crime isolates, but misfortune
+draws men together.
+
+In the beginning his fate was unnecessarily cruel, for the keepers
+ill-treated the prisoners, mercilessly and at their pleasure.
+
+But one day there was a change; the food was better, the treatment was
+less harsh, and every prisoner was given a cell of his own to sleep in.
+The king himself had loosened the chains of the prisoners a little; but
+since hopelessness had petrified the hearts of these unfortunate men,
+they were unable to feel anything like gratitude, and so they continued
+to curse; and now they came to the conclusion that it was more pleasant
+to sleep together in one room, for then they could talk all night. And
+they continued to complain of the food, the clothes, and the treatment,
+just as before.
+
+One fine day all the bells of the town were ringing, and those of
+Knightsholm rang louder than any of the others. King Oscar was dead, and
+the prisoners had a holiday. Since they could talk to one another now,
+they talked of murdering the guards and escaping from prison; and they
+also talked of the dead king, and they spoke evil of him.
+
+"If he had been a just man, he would have set us free," said one of the
+prisoners.
+
+"Or else he would have imprisoned all the criminals who are at large."
+
+"Then he himself would have had to be Governor of the Prison, for the
+whole nation are criminals."
+
+It is the way of prisoners to regard all men as criminals, and to
+maintain that they themselves were only caught because they were
+unlucky.
+
+But it was a hot summer's day, and the stone man walked along the shore,
+listening to the tolling of the bells for Oscar the king. He raised the
+stones and looked for tadpoles and sticklebacks, but could find none;
+not a fish was visible in the water, and consequently there was not a
+sign of a sea-gull or a tern. Then he felt that a curse rested on the
+mountain, a curse so strong that it kept even the fishes and the birds
+away. He fell to considering the life he was leading. He had lost his
+name, both Christian and surname, and was no more now than No. 65, a
+name written in figures, instead of in letters. He was no longer obliged
+to pay taxes. He had forgotten his age. He had ceased to be a man,
+ceased to be a living being, but neither was he dead. He was nothing but
+something grey moving on the mountain and being terribly scorched by the
+sun. It burned on his prison garb and on his head with the close-cropped
+hair, which in days long passed had been curly, and was combed with
+a tooth-comb every Saturday by his mother's gentle hand. He was not
+allowed to wear a cap to-day, because it would have facilitated an
+attempt at escape. And as the sun scorched his head, he remembered the
+story of the prophet Jonah, to whom the Lord gave a gourd so that he
+might sit in its shade.
+
+"A nice gift, that!" he sneered, for he did not believe in anything
+good; in fact, he did not believe in anything at all.
+
+All at once he saw a huge birch branch tossed about in the surf. It was
+quite green and fresh and had a white stem; possibly it had fallen off a
+pleasure-boat. He dragged it ashore, shook the water off and carried it
+to a gully where he put it up, wedged firmly between three stones. Then
+he sat down and listened to the wind rustling through its leaves, which
+smelt of the finest resin.
+
+When he had sat for a little while in the shade of the birch he fell
+asleep.
+
+And he dreamed a dream.
+
+The whole mountain was a green wood with lovely trees and odorous
+flowers. Birds were singing, bees and humble-bees buzzing, and
+butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. But all by itself and a
+little aside stood a tree which he did not know; it was more beautiful
+than all the rest; it had several stems, like a shrub, and the branches
+looked like lacework. And on one of its branches, half hidden by its
+foliage, sat a little black-and-white bird which looked like a swallow,
+but wasn't one.
+
+In his dream he could interpret the language of the birds, and therefore
+he understood to some extent what the bird was singing. And it sang:
+
+Mud, mud, mud, mud here! We'll throw, throw, throw here! In mud, mud,
+mud you died, From mud, mud, mud you'll rise.
+
+It sang of mud, death, and resurrection; that much he could make out.
+
+But that was not all. He was standing alone on the cliff in the
+scorching heat of the sun. All his fellows-in-misfortune had forsaken
+him and threatened his life, because he had refused to be a party to
+their setting the prison on fire. They followed him in a crowd, threw
+stones at him and chased him up the mountain as far as he could go.
+
+And finally he was stopped by a stone wall.
+
+There was no possibility of climbing over it, and in his despair he
+resolved to kill himself by dashing his head against the stones. He
+rushed down the mountain, and behold! a gate was opened at the same
+moment--a green garden gate... and... he woke up.
+
+When he thought of his life and realised that the green wood was nothing
+but the branch of a birch tree, he grew very discontented in his heart.
+
+"If at least it had been a lime tree," he grumbled. And as he listened
+he found that it was the birch which had sung so loudly; it sounded as
+if some one were sifting sand or gravel, and again he thought of the
+lime trees, which make the soft velvety sounds that touch the heart.
+
+On the following day his birch was faded and gave little shade.
+
+On the day after that the foliage was as dry as paper and rattled like
+teeth. And finally there was nothing left but a huge birch rod, which
+reminded him of his childhood.
+
+He remembered the gourd of the prophet Jonah, and he cursed when the sun
+scorched his head.
+
+***
+
+A new king had come to the throne, and he brought fresh life into the
+government of the country. The town was to have a new watercourse, and
+therefore all the prisoners were commanded to dredge.
+
+It was for the first time after many years that he was allowed to leave
+his cliff. He was in the boat, swimming on the water, and saw much
+in his native town that was new to him; he saw the railway and the
+locomotive. And they began dredging just below the railway station.
+
+And gradually they brought up all the corruption which lay buried at
+the bottom of the sea. Drowned cats, old shoes, decomposed fat from the
+candle factory, the refuse from the dye works called "The Blue Hand,"
+tanners' bark from the tannery, and all the human misery which the
+laundresses had batted off the clothes for the last hundred years.
+And there was such a terrible smell of sulphur and ammonia that only a
+prisoner could be expected to bear it.
+
+When the boat was full, the prisoners wondered what was going to be
+done with their cargo of dirt? The riddle was solved when the overseer
+steered for their own cliff.
+
+All the mud was unloaded there and thrown on the mountain, and soon
+the air was filled with the foulest of smells. They waded ankle-deep in
+filth, and their clothes, hands, and faces were covered with it.
+
+"This is like the infernal regions!" said the prisoners.
+
+They dredged and unloaded on the cliff for several years, and ultimately
+the cliff disappeared altogether.
+
+And the white snow fell winter after winter on all the corruption and
+threw a pure white cover over it.
+
+And when the spring came once again and all the snow had melted, the
+evil smell had disappeared, and the mud looked like mould. There was no
+more dredging after this spring, and our stone man was sent to work at
+the forge and never came near the cliff. Only once, in the autumn, he
+went there secretly, and then he saw something wonderful.
+
+The ground was covered with green plants. Ugly sappy plants, it was
+true, mostly bur-marigolds, that look like a nettle with brown flowers,
+which is ugly because flowers should be white, yellow, blue or red. And
+there were true nettles with green blossoms, and burs, sorrel, thistles,
+and notch-weed; all the ugliest, burning, stinging, evil-smelling
+plants, which nobody likes, and which grow on dust-heaps, waste land,
+and mud.
+
+"We cleaned the bottom of the sea, and now we have all the dirt here;
+this is all the thanks we get!" said the prisoner.
+
+Then he was transferred to another cliff, where a fort was to be built,
+and again he worked in stone; stone, stone, stone!
+
+Then he lost one of his eyes, and sometimes he was flogged. And he
+remained a very long time there, so long that the new king died and was
+followed by his successor. On coronation day one of the prisoners was
+to be released. And it was to be the one who had behaved best during all
+the time and had arrived at a clear understanding that he had sinned.
+And that was he! But the other prisoners considered that it would be a
+wrong towards them, for in their circles a man who repents is considered
+a fool, "because he has done what he couldn't help doing."
+
+And so the years passed. Our stone man had grown very old, and because
+he was now unable to do hard work, he was sent back to his cliff and set
+to sew sacks.
+
+One day the chaplain on his round paused before the stone man, who sat
+and sewed.
+
+"Well," said the clergyman, "and are you never to leave this cliff?"
+
+"How would that be possible?" replied the stone man.
+
+"You will go as soon as you come to see that you did wrong."
+
+"If ever I find a human being who does not only do right, but more than
+is right, I will believe that I did wrong! But I don't believe that
+there is such a being."
+
+"To do more than that which is right is to have compassion. May it
+please God that you will soon come to know it!"
+
+One day the stone man was sent to repair the road on the cliff, which he
+had not seen for, perhaps, twenty years.
+
+It was again a warm summer's day, and from the passing steamers, bright
+and beautiful as butterflies, came the sounds of music and gay laughter.
+
+When he arrived at the headland he found that the cliff had disappeared
+under a lovely green wood, whose millions of leaves glittered and
+sparkled in the breeze like small waves. There were tall, white birch
+trees and trembling aspens, and ash trees grew on the shore.
+
+Everything was just as it had been in his dream. At the foot of the
+trees tall grasses nodded, butterflies played in the sunshine, and
+humble-bees buzzed from flower to flower. The birds were singing, but he
+could not understand what they said, and therefore he knew that it was
+not a dream.
+
+The cursed mountain had been transformed into a mountain of bliss, and
+he could not help thinking of the prophet and the gourd.
+
+"This is mercy and compassion," whispered a voice in his heart, or
+perhaps it was a warning.
+
+And when a steamer passed, the faces of the passengers did not grow
+gloomy, but brightened at the sight of the beautiful scenery; he even
+fancied that he saw some one wave a handkerchief, as people on a steamer
+do when they pass a summer resort.
+
+He walked along a path beneath waving trees. It is true, there was not
+one lime tree; but he did not dare to wish for one, for fear the birches
+might turn into rods. He had learnt that much.
+
+As he walked through a leafy avenue, he saw in the distance a white wall
+with a green gate. And somebody was playing on an instrument which was
+not an organ, for the movement was much jollier and livelier. Above the
+wall the pretty roof of a villa was visible, and a yellow and blue flag
+fluttered in the wind.
+
+And he saw a gaily coloured ball rise and fall on the other side of the
+wall; he heard the chattering of children's voices, and the clinking of
+plates and glasses told him that a table was being laid.
+
+He went and looked through the gate. The syringa was in full flower, and
+the table stood under the flowering shrubs; children were running about,
+the piano was being played and somebody sang a song.
+
+"This is Paradise," said the voice within him.
+
+The old man stood a long time and watched, so long that in the end he
+broke down, overcome by fatigue, hunger, and thirst, and all the misery
+of life.
+
+Then the gate was opened and a little girl in a white dress came out.
+She carried a silver tray in her hand, and on the tray stood a glass
+filled with wine, the reddest wine which the old man had ever seen. And
+the child went up to the old man and said:
+
+"Come now, daddy, you must drink this!"
+
+The old man took the glass and drank. It was the rich man's wine, which
+had grown a long way off in the sunny South; and it tasted like the
+sweetness of a good life when it is at its very best.
+
+"This is compassion," said his own old broken voice. "But you, child, in
+your ignorance, you wouldn't have brought me this wine if you had known
+who I am. Do you know what I am?"
+
+"Yes, you are a prisoner, I know that," replied the little girl.
+
+When the old stone man went back, he was no longer a man of stone, for
+something in him had begun to quicken.
+
+And as he passed a steep incline, he saw a tree with many trunks, which
+looked like a shrub. It was more beautiful than the others; it was a
+buckthorn tree, but the old man did not know it. A restless little bird,
+black and white like a swallow, fluttered from branch to branch. The
+peasants call it tree-swallow, but its name is something else. And it
+sat in the foliage and sang a sweet sad song:
+
+In mud, in mud, in mud you died, From mud, from mud, from mud you rose.
+
+It was exactly as it had been in his dream. And now the old man
+understood what the tree-swallow meant.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE TOBACCO SHED
+
+Listen to the story of a young opera-singer who was so beautiful that
+the people in the street turned round to stare at her when she passed.
+And she was not only very beautiful, but she had a better voice than
+most singers.
+
+The conductor of the orchestra, who was also a composer, came and laid
+his heart and all his possessions at her feet. She took his possessions,
+but left his heart lying in the dust.
+
+Now she was famous, more famous than any other singer; she drove through
+the streets in her elegant victoria, and nodded to her portrait, which
+greeted her from all the stationers' and booksellers' shop windows.
+
+And as her fame grew, her picture appeared on post-cards, soap and cigar
+boxes. Finally her portrait was hung up in the foyer of the theatre,
+amongst all the dead immortals; and as a result her head began to swell.
+
+One day she was standing on a pier, the sea was very rough and there
+was a strong current. The conductor, of course, stood by her side, and
+a great many young men were present, paying her court. The beauty was
+playing with a rose; all the cavaliers coveted the flower, but she said
+that it should become the property of him who knew how to earn it,
+and she flung it far out into the sea. The cavaliers looked at it
+with longing glances, but the conductor jumped off the pier without a
+moment's hesitation, swam like a sea-gull on the crests of the waves and
+soon held the flower between his lips.
+
+The cavaliers cheered, and the swimmer could read the promise of love in
+his lady's eyes. But when he struck out for the shore, he found that
+he could not move from the spot. He had been caught in the current. The
+singer on the pier did not realise his danger, but merely thought he
+was fooling, and therefore she laughed. But the conductor, who saw death
+staring him in the face, misunderstood her laughter; a bitter pang shot
+through his heart, and then his love for her was dead.
+
+However, he came ashore at last, with bleeding hands, for he had cut
+them at the pier in many places.
+
+"I will marry you," said the beauty.
+
+"No, thank you," replied the conductor; turned, and walked away.
+
+This was an offence for which she swore that she would be revenged.
+
+Only the people connected with the theatre, who understand these things,
+know how it happened that the conductor lost his post. He had been
+firmly established, and it took two years to get rid of him.
+
+But he was got rid of; she watched the downfall of her benefactor and
+triumphed, and her head swelled still more, in fact it swelled so much
+that everybody noticed it. The public, who realised that the heart
+underneath the beautiful form was wicked, ceased to be touched by her
+singing, and no longer believed in her smiles and tears.
+
+She soon became aware of it, and it embittered her. But she continued
+ruling at the theatre, suppressed all young talents, and used her
+influence with the press to ruin their careers.
+
+She lost the love and respect of her audiences, but she did not
+mind that as long as she remained in power; and as she was wealthy,
+influential, and contented, she throve and prospered.
+
+Now, when people are prosperous, they do not lose flesh; on the
+contrary, they are inclined to grow stout; and she really began to grow
+corpulent. It came so gradually that she had no idea of it until it was
+too late. Bang! The downhill journey is ever a fast journey, and in
+her case it was accomplished with startling rapidity. She tried every
+remedy--in vain! She kept the best table in the whole town, but she
+starved herself, and the more she starved, the stouter she grew.
+
+One more year, and she was no longer a great star, and her pay was
+reduced. Two more years and she was half forgotten, and her place was
+filled by others. After the third year she was not re-engaged, and she
+went and rented an attic.
+
+"She is suffering from an unnatural corpulency," said the stage-manager
+to the prompter.
+
+"It's not corpulency at all," replied the prompter, "she's just puffed
+up with pride."
+
+***
+
+Now she lived in the attic and looked out on a large plantation. In
+the middle of this plantation stood a tobacco shed, which pleased her,
+because it had no windows behind which curious people could sit and
+stare at her. Sparrows had built their nests under the eaves, but the
+shed was no longer used for drying or storing tobacco, which was not,
+now, grown on the plantation.
+
+There she lived during the summer, looking at the shed and wondering
+what purpose it could possibly serve, for the doors were locked with
+large padlocks, padlocks, and nobody ever went in or out.
+
+She knew that it contained secrets, and what these secrets were, she was
+to learn sooner than she expected.
+
+A few little shreds of her great reputation, to which she clung
+desperately, and which helped her to bear her life, were still left: the
+memory of her best parts, Carmen and Aida, for which no successor had
+yet been found; the public still remembered her impersonation of these
+parts, which had been beyond praise.
+
+Very well, August came; the street lamps were again lighted in the
+evenings, and the theatres were reopened.
+
+The singer sat at her window and looked at the tobacco shed, which
+had been painted a bright red, and, moreover, had just received a new
+red-tiled roof.
+
+A man walked across the potato field; he carried a large rusty key, with
+which he opened the shed and went in.
+
+Then two other men arrived; two men whom she thought she had seen
+before; and they, too, disappeared in the shed.
+
+It began to be interesting.
+
+After a while the three men reappeared, carrying large, strange objects,
+which looked like the bottom of a bed or a big screen.
+
+When they had passed the gate, they turned the screens round and leaned
+them against the wall; one of them represented a badly painted tiled
+stove, another the door of a country cottage, perhaps a forester's
+cottage. Others a wood, a window, and a library.
+
+She understood. It was the scenery of a play. And after a while she
+recognised the rose tree from Faust.
+
+The shed was used by the theatre for storing scenes and stage
+properties; she herself had more than once stood by the side of the rose
+tree, singing "Gentle flowers in the dew."
+
+The thought that they were going to play Faust wrung her heart, but she
+had one little comfort: she had never sung the principal part in it, for
+the principal part is Margaret's.
+
+"I don't mind Faust; but I shall die if they play Carmen or Aida."
+
+And she sat and watched the change in the repertoire. She knew a
+fortnight before the papers what was going to be played next. It was
+amusing in a way. She knew when the Freischuetz was going to be played,
+for she saw the wolves' den being brought out; she knew when they were
+going to put on the Flying Dutchman, for the ship and the sea came out
+of the shed; and Tannhaeuser, and Lohengrin, and many others.
+
+But the inevitable day dawned--for the inevitable must happen. The men
+had again gone into the shed (she remembered that the name of one of
+them was Lindquist, and that it was his business to look after the
+pulleys), and presently reappeared with a Spanish market-place. The
+scene was not standing straight up, so that she could not see at once
+what it was, but one of the men turned it slowly over, and when he stood
+it up on its side she could see the back, which is always very ugly. And
+one after the other, slowly, as if they warded to prolong the torture,
+huge, black letters appeared: CARMEN. It was Carmen!
+
+"I shall die," said the singer.
+
+But she did not die, not even when they played Aida. But her name was
+blotted out from the memory of the public, her picture disappeared from
+the stationers' windows, and from the post-cards; finally her portrait
+was removed from the foyer of the theatre by an unknown hand.
+
+She could not understand how men could forget so quickly. It was quite
+inexplicable! But she mourned for herself as if she were mourning a
+friend who had died; and wasn't it true, that the singer, the famous
+singer, was dead?
+
+One evening she was strolling through a deserted street. At one end of
+the street was a rubbish shoot. Without knowing why, she stood still,
+and then she had an object lesson on the futility of all earthly things.
+For on the rubbish heap lay a post-card, and on the post-card was her
+picture in the part of Carmen.
+
+She walked away quickly, suppressing her tears. She came to a little
+side street, and stopped before a stationer's shop. It had been her
+custom to look at the shop windows to see whether her portrait was
+exhibited. But it was not exhibited here; instead of that her eyes fell
+on a text and she read it, unconsciously:
+
+"The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the
+remembrance of them from the earth."
+
+Them that do evil! That was the reason why her memory was blotted out.
+That was the explanation of the forgetfulness of men.
+
+"But is it not possible to undo the wrong I have done?" she moaned.
+"Have I not been sufficiently punished?"
+
+And she wandered in the direction of the wood, where she was not likely
+to meet anybody. And as she was walking along, crushed, humiliated, her
+heart full of despair, she met another lonely being, who stopped her as
+she was going to pass him. His eyes begged permission to speak to her.
+
+It was the conductor. But his eyes did not reproach her, nor did they
+pity her, they only expressed admiration, admiration and tenderness.
+
+"How beautiful and slender you have grown, Hannah," he said.
+
+She looked at herself, and she could not help admitting that he
+was right. Grief had burnt all her superfluous fat and she was more
+beautiful than she had ever been.
+
+"And you look as young as ever! Younger!"
+
+It was the first kind word which she had heard for many a day; and since
+it had been spoken by him whom she had wronged, she realised what a
+splendid character he had, and said so.
+
+"I hope you haven't lost your voice?" asked the conductor, who could not
+bear flattery.
+
+"I don't know," she sobbed.
+
+"Come to me to-morrow... yes, come to the Opera-house, and then we shall
+see. I am conducting there...."
+
+The singer went, not once or twice, but many times, and regained her
+former position.
+
+The public had forgiven and forgotten all the evil she had done. And she
+became greater and more famous than she had been before.
+
+Isn't that an edifying story?
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE ST. GOTTHARD
+
+It was Saturday night in Goeschenen, in the canton of Uri, that part of
+Switzerland which William Tell and Walter Fuerst have made famous.
+The pretty green village on the northern side of the St. Gotthard is
+situated on a little stream which drives a mill-wheel and contains
+trout. Quiet, kindly people live there, who speak the German language
+and have home rule, and the "sacred wood" protects their homes from
+avalanche and landslip.
+
+On the Saturday night I am speaking of, all the folks were gathering
+round the village pump, underneath the great walnut tree, at the hour
+when the church bells were ringing the Angelus. The postmaster, the
+magistrate, and the colonel were there, all in their shirt-sleeves and
+carrying scythes. They had been mowing all day long, and had come to the
+pump to wash their scythes, for in the little village work was sacred
+and every man was his own servant. Then the young men came trooping
+through the village street, carrying scythes too, and the maids with
+their milk-pails; finally the cows, a gigantic breed, every cow as big
+as a bull. The country is rich and fertile, but it bears neither wine
+nor olives, neither the mulberry tree nor the luxurious maize. Nothing
+but green grass and golden corn, the walnut tree and the luscious
+beet-root grow there.
+
+At the foot of the steep wall of the St. Gotthard, close to the pump,
+stood the inn, "The Golden Horse." All the tired men, regardless of rank
+or position, were sitting at a long table in the garden, not one of
+them was missing: the magistrate, the postmaster, the colonel and the
+farmers' labourers; the straw-hat manufacturer and his workmen, the
+little village shoemaker, and the schoolmaster, they were all there.
+
+They talked of cattle breeding and harvest time; they sang songs,
+reminiscent in their simplicity of cowbells and the shepherd's flute.
+They sang of the spring and its pure joys, of its promise and its hope.
+And they drank the golden beer.
+
+After a while the young men rose to play, to wrestle and to jump, for on
+the following day was the annual festival of the Rifle Club, and
+there would be trials of strength, and competitions; it was important
+therefore that their limbs should be supple.
+
+And at an early hour that night the whole village was in bed, for no man
+must be late on the morning of the festival, and no one must be sleepy
+or dull. The honour of the village was involved.
+
+***
+
+It was Sunday morning; the sun was shining brightly and the church bells
+were ringing. Men and women from the neighbouring villages, in their
+best Sunday clothes, were gathering on the village green, and all of
+them looked happy and very wide awake. Nearly every man carried a gun
+instead of the scythe; and matrons and maids looked at the men with
+scrutinising and encouraging eyes, for it was for the defence of their
+country and their homes that they had learned to handle a gun; and
+to-night the best shot would have the honour of opening the dance with
+the prettiest girl of the village.
+
+A large waggon, drawn by four horses, gaily decorated with flowers and
+ribbons, drew up; the whole waggon had been transformed into a summer
+arbour; one could not see the people inside, but one could hear their
+songs. They sang of Switzerland and the Swiss people, the most beautiful
+country and the bravest people in the world.
+
+Behind the waggon walked the children's procession. They went by twos,
+hand in hand, like good friends or little brides and bridegrooms.
+
+And with the pealing of bells the procession slowly wound up the
+mountain to the church.
+
+After divine service the festivities began, and very soon shots were
+fired on the rifle-range, which was built against the rocky wall of the
+St. Gotthard.
+
+The postmaster's son was the best shot in the village, and nobody
+doubted that he would win the prize. He hit the bull's-eye four times
+out of six.
+
+From the summit of the mountain came a hallooing and a crashing; stones
+and gravel rolled down the precipice, and the fir trees in the sacred
+wood rocked as if a gale were blowing. On the top of a cliff, his rifle
+slung across his shoulders, frantically waving his hat, appeared the
+wild chamois hunter Andrea of Airolo, an Italian village on the other
+side of the mountain.
+
+"Don't go into the wood!" screamed the riflemen.
+
+Andrea did not understand.
+
+"Don't go into the sacred wood," shouted the magistrate, "or the
+mountain will fall on us!"
+
+"Let it fall, then," shouted Andrea, running down the cliff with
+incredible rapidity.
+
+"Here I am!"
+
+"You're too late!" exclaimed the magistrate.
+
+"I have never been too late yet!" replied Andrea; went to the
+shooting-range, raised his rifle six times to his cheek, and each time
+hit the bull's-eye.
+
+Now, he really was the best shot, but the club had its regulations,
+and, moreover, the dark-skinned men from the other side of the mountain,
+where the wine grew and the silk was spun, were not very popular. An old
+feud raged between them and the men of Goeschenen, and the newcomer was
+disqualified.
+
+But Andrea approached the prettiest girl in the grounds, who happened
+to be the magistrate's own daughter, and politely asked her to open the
+dance with him.
+
+Pretty Gertrude blushed, for she was fond of Andrea, but she was obliged
+to refuse his request.
+
+Andrea frowned, bowed and whispered words into her ear, which covered
+her face with crimson.
+
+"You shall be my wife," he said, "even if I have to wait ten years for
+you. I have walked eight hours across the mountain to meet you; that is
+why I am so late; next time I shall be in good time, even if I should
+have to walk right through the mountain itself."
+
+The festivities were over. All the riflemen were sitting in "The Golden
+Horse," Andrea in the midst of them. Rudi, the son of the postmaster,
+sat at the head of the table, because he was the prize-winner according
+to the regulations, even if Andrea was the best shot in reality.
+
+Rudi was in a teasing mood.
+
+"Well, Andrea," he said, "we all know you for a mighty hunter; but, you
+know, it's easier to shoot a chamois than to carry it home."
+
+"If I shoot a chamois I carry it home," replied Andrea.
+
+"Maybe you do! But everybody here has had a shot at Barbarossa's ring,
+although nobody has won it yet!" answered Rudi.
+
+"What is that about Barbarossa's ring?" asked a stranger who had never
+been in Goeschenen.
+
+"That's Barbarossa's ring, over there," said Rudi.
+
+He pointed to the side of the mountain, where a large copper ring hung
+on a hook, and went on:
+
+"This is the road by which King Frederick Barbarossa used to travel to
+Italy; he travelled over it six times, and was crowned both in Milan and
+in Rome. And as this made him German-Roman emperor, he caused this
+ring to be hung up on the mountain, in remembrance of his having wedded
+Germany to Italy. And if this ring, so goes the saying, can be lifted
+off its hook, then the marriage, which was not a happy one, will be
+annulled."
+
+"Then I will annul it," said Andrea. "I will break the bonds as my
+fathers broke the bonds which bound my poor country to the tyrants of
+Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden."
+
+"Are you not a Swiss, yourself?" asked the magistrate severely.
+
+"No, I am an Italian of the Swiss Confederation."
+
+He slipped an iron bullet into his gun, took aim and shot.
+
+The ring was lifted from below and jerked off the hook. Barbarossa's
+ring lay at their feet.
+
+"Long live Italy!" shouted Andrea. throwing his hat into the air.
+
+Nobody said a word.
+
+Andrea picked up the ring, handed it to the magistrate and said:
+
+"Keep this ring in memory of me and this day, on which you did me a
+wrong."
+
+He seized Gertrude's hand and kissed it; climbed up the mountain and
+disappeared; was seen again and vanished in a cloud. After a while he
+reappeared, high above them; but this time it was merely his gigantic
+shadow thrown on a cloud. And there he stood, shaking a threatening fist
+at the village.
+
+"That was Satan himself," said the colonel.
+
+"No, it was an Italian," said the postmaster.
+
+"Since it is late in the evening," said the magistrate, "I'll tell you
+an official secret, which will be read in all the papers to-morrow."
+
+"Hear! hear!"
+
+"We have received information that when it became known that the Emperor
+of France was made a prisoner at Sedan, the Italians drove the French
+troops out of Rome, and that Victor Emanuel is at this moment on his way
+to the capital."
+
+"This is great news. It puts an end to Germany's dreams of promenades to
+Rome. Andrea must have known about it when he boasted so much."
+
+"He must have known more," said the magistrate.
+
+"What? What?"
+
+"Wait, and you'll see."
+
+And they saw.
+
+***
+
+One day strangers came and carefully examined the mountain through
+their field-glasses. It looked as if they were gazing at the place where
+Barbarossa's ring had hung, for that was the spot at which they directed
+their glasses. And then they consulted the compass, as if they did not
+know which was the North and which was the South.
+
+There was a big dinner at "The Golden Horse," at which the magistrate
+was present. At dessert they talked of millions and millions of money.
+
+A short time after "The Golden Horse" was pulled down; next came the
+church, which was taken down piece by piece and built up again on
+another spot; half the village was razed to the ground; barracks were
+built, the course of the stream deflected, the mill-wheel taken away,
+the factory closed, the cattle sold.
+
+And then three thousand Italian-speaking labourers with dark hair and
+olive skins arrived on the scene.
+
+The beautiful old songs of Switzerland and the pure joys of spring were
+heard no more.
+
+Instead of that, the sound of hammering could be heard day and night. A
+jumper was driven into the mountain at the exact spot where Barbarossa's
+ring had hung; and then the blasting began.
+
+It would not have been so very difficult (as everybody knew) to make a
+hole through the mountain, but it was intended to make two holes, one on
+each side, and the two holes were to meet in the middle; nobody believed
+that this was possible, for the tunnel was to be nearly nine miles long.
+Nearly nine miles!
+
+And what would happen if they did not meet? Well, they would have to
+begin again at the beginning.
+
+But the engineer-in-chief had assured them that they would meet.
+
+Andrea, on the Italian side, had faith in the engineer-in-chief, and
+since he was himself a very capable fellow, as we know, he applied for
+work under him and soon was made a foreman.
+
+Andrea liked his work. He no longer saw daylight, the green fields and
+snow-clad Alps. But he fancied that he was cutting a way for himself
+through the mountain to Gertrude, the way which he had boasted he would
+come.
+
+For eight years he stood in darkness, living the life of a dog, stripped
+to the waist, for he was working in a temperature of a hundred degrees.
+Now the way was blocked by a spring, and he had to work standing in the
+water; now by a deposit of loam, and he stood almost knee-deep in
+the mire; the atmosphere was nearly always foul, and many of his
+fellow-labourers succumbed to it; but new ones were ever ready to take
+their place. Finally Andrea, too, succumbed, and was taken into the
+hospital. He was tortured by the idea that the two tunnels would never
+meet. Supposing they never met!
+
+There were also men from the other side in the hospital; and at
+times, when they were not delirious, they would ask one another the
+all-absorbing question: "Would they meet?"
+
+The people from the South had never before been so anxious to meet the
+people from the North as they were now, deep down in the heart of the
+mountain. They knew that if they met, their feud of over a thousand
+years' standing would be over, and they would fall into each other's
+arms, reconciled.
+
+Andrea recovered and returned to work; he was in the strike of 1875,
+threw a stone, and underwent a term of imprisonment.
+
+In the year 1877 his native village, Airolo, was destroyed by fire.
+
+"Now I have burnt my boats behind me," he said, "there is no going
+back--I must go on."
+
+The 19th of July 1879 was a day of mourning. The engineer-in-chief had
+gone into the mountain to measure and to calculate; and, all absorbed
+in his work, he had had a stroke and died. Died with his race only half
+run! He ought to have been buried where he fell, in a more gigantic
+stone pyramid than any of the Egyptian Pharaohs had built for tees, and
+his name, Favre, should have been carved into the stone.
+
+However, time passed, Andrea gained money, experience, and strength. He
+never went to Goeschenen, but once a year he went to the "sacred wood" to
+contemplate the devastation, as he said.
+
+He never saw Gertrude, never sent her a letter; there was no need for
+it, he was always with her is his thoughts, and he felt that her will
+was his.
+
+In the seventh year the magistrate died, in poverty.
+
+"What a lucky thing that he died a poor man," thought Andrea; and there
+are not many sons-in-law who would think like that.
+
+In the eighth year something extraordinary happened; Andrea, foremost
+man on the Italian side of the tunnel, was hard at work, beating on his
+jumper. There was scarcely any air; he felt suffocated, and suffered
+from a disagreeable buzzing in his ears. Suddenly he heard a ticking,
+which sounded like the ticking of a wood-worm, whom people call "the
+death-watch."
+
+"Has my last hour come?" he said, thinking aloud.
+
+"Your last hour!" replied a voice; he did not know whether it was within
+or without him, but he felt afraid.
+
+On the next day he again heard the ticking, but more distinctly, so that
+he came to the conclusion that it must be his watch.
+
+But on the third day, which was a holiday, he heard nothing; and now he
+believed that it must have been something supernatural; he was afraid
+and went to mass, and in his heart he deplored the futility of life. He
+would never see the great day, never win the prize offered to the man
+who would first walk through the dividing wall, never win Gertrude.
+
+On the Monday, however, he was again the foremost of the men in the
+tunnel, but he felt despondent, for he no longer believed that they
+would meet the Germans in the mountain.
+
+He beat and hammered, but without enthusiasm, slowly, as his weakened
+heart was beating after the tunnel-sickness. All of a sudden he heard
+something like a shot and a tremendous crashing noise inside the
+mountain on the other side.
+
+And now a light burst on him; they had met.
+
+He fell on his knees and thanked God. And then he arose and began to
+work. He worked during breakfast, during dinner, during recreation time,
+and during supper. When his right arm was lame with exertion, he worked
+with the left one. He thought of the engineer-in-chief, who had been
+struck down before the wall of rock; he sang the song of the three men
+in the fiery furnace, for it seemed to him that the air around him was
+red-hot, while the perspiration dropped from his forehead, and his feet
+stood in the mire.
+
+On the stroke of seven, on the 28th of January, he fell forward on his
+jumper, which pierced the wall right through. Loud cheering from the
+other side roused him, and he understood; he realised that they had met,
+that his troubles were over, and that he was the winner of ten thousand
+lire.
+
+After a sigh of thanksgiving to the All-Merciful God, he pressed his
+lips to the bore-hole and whispered the name, of Gertrude; and then he
+called for three times three cheers for the Germans.
+
+At eleven o'clock at night, there were shouts of "attention!" on the
+Italian side, and with a thunderous crash, a noise like the booming of
+cannon at a siege, the wall fell down. Germans and Italians embraced
+one another and wept, and all fell on their knees and sang the "Te Deum
+laudamus."
+
+It was a great moment; it was in 1880, the year in which Stanley's work
+in Africa was done, and Nordenskoeld had accomplished his task.
+
+When they had sung the "Te Deum" a German workman stepped forward and
+handed to the Italians a beautifully got-up parchment. It was a record
+and an appreciation of the services of the engineer-in-chief, Louis
+Favre.
+
+He was to be the first man to pass through the tunnel, and Andrea was
+appointed to carry the memorial and his name by the little workmen's
+train to Airolo.
+
+And Andrea accomplished his mission faithfully, sitting before the
+locomotive on a barrow.
+
+Yes, it was a great day, and the night was no less great.
+
+They drank wine in Airolo, Italian wine, and let off fireworks. They
+made speeches on Louis Favre, Stanley, and Nordenskoeld; they made a
+speech on the St. Gotthard, which, for thousands of years had been a
+barrier between Germany and Italy, between the North and the South. A
+barrier it had been, and at the same time a uniter, honestly dividing
+its waters between the German Rhine, the French Rhone, the North Sea and
+the Mediterranean....
+
+"And the Adriatic," interrupted a man from Tessin. "Don't forget the
+Ticino, which is a tributary to the largest river of Italy, the mighty
+Po...."
+
+"Bravo! That's better still! Three cheers for the St. Gotthard, the
+great Germany, the free Italy, and the new France!"
+
+It was a great night, following a great day.
+
+***
+
+On the following morning Andrea called at the Engineering Offices. He
+wore his Italian shooting-dress; an eagle's feather ornamented his hat,
+and a gun and a knapsack were slung across his shoulder. His face and
+his hands were white.
+
+"So you have done with the tunnel," said the cashier, or the "moneyman,"
+as they called him. "Well, nobody can blame you for it, for what remains
+to be done is mason's work. To your account, then!"
+
+The moneyman opened a book, wrote something on a piece of paper, and
+handed Andrea ten thousand lire in gold.
+
+Andrea signed his name, put the gold into his knapsack and went.
+
+He jumped into a workman's train, and in ten minutes he had arrived
+at the fallen barrier. There were fires burning in the mountain, the
+workmen cheered when they saw him and waved their caps. It was splendid!
+
+Ten more minutes and he was at the Swiss side. When he saw the daylight
+shining through the entrance to the tunnel, the train stopped and he got
+out.
+
+He walked towards the green light, and came to the village and the
+green world, bathed in sunlight; the village had been rebuilt and looked
+prettier than before. And when the workmen saw him they saluted their
+first man.
+
+He went straight up to a little house, and there, under a walnut tree,
+by the side of the bee-hives, stood Gertrude, calm, and a hundred times
+more beautiful and gentle. It looked as if she had stood there for eight
+years, waiting for him.
+
+"Now I have come," he said, "as I intended to come! Will you follow me
+to my country?"
+
+"I will follow you wherever you go!"
+
+"I gave you a ring long ago; have you still got it?"
+
+"I have it still!"
+
+"Then let us go at once! No, don't turn back! Don't take anything with
+you!"
+
+And they went away, hand in hand, but not through the tunnel.
+
+"On to the mountain!" said Andrea, turning in the direction of the old
+pass; "through darkness I came to you, but in light I will live with you
+and for you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF JUBAL WHO HAD NO "I"
+
+Once upon a time there was a king whose name was John Lackland, and it
+is not difficult to imagine the reason why.
+
+But another time there lived a great singer who was called "Jubal, who
+had no I," and I am now going to tell you the reason.
+
+The name which he had inherited from his father, a soldier, was Peal,
+and undeniably there was music in the name. But nature had also given
+him a strong will, which stiffened his back like an iron bar, and that
+is a splendid gift, quite invaluable in the struggle for an existence.
+When he was still a baby, only just able to stammer a few words, he
+would never refer to his own little person as "he," as other babies do,
+but from the very first he spoke of himself as "I." You have no "I,"
+said his parents. When he grew older, he expressed every little want or
+desire by "I will." But then his father said to him, "You have no will,"
+and "Your will grows in the wood."
+
+It was very foolish of the soldier, but he knew no better; he had
+learned to will only what he was ordered to do.
+
+Young Peal thought it strange that he should be supposed to have no will
+when he had such a very strong one, but he let it pass.
+
+When he had grown into a fine, strong youth, his father said to him one
+day, "What trade will you learn?"
+
+The boy did not know; he had ceased to will anything, because he was
+forbidden to do so. It is true, he had a leaning towards music, but he
+did not dare to say so, for he was convinced that his parents would not
+allow him to become a musician. Therefore, being an obedient son, he
+replied, "I don't will anything."
+
+"Then you shall be a tapster," said the father.
+
+Whether it was because the father knew a tapster, or because wine had
+a peculiar attraction for him, is a matter of indifference. It is quite
+enough to know that young Peal was sent to the wine vaults, and he might
+have fared a good deal worse.
+
+There was a lovely smell of sealing-wax and French wine in the cellars,
+and they were large and had vaulted roofs, like churches. When he sat at
+the casks and tapped the red wine, his heart was filled with gladness,
+and he sang, in an undertone at first, all sorts of tunes which he had
+picked up.
+
+His master, to whom wine spelt life, loved song and gaiety, and never
+dreamed of stopping his singing; it sounded so well in the vaults, and,
+moreover, it attracted customers, which was a splendid thing from the
+master's point of view.
+
+One day a commercial traveller dropped in; he had started life as an
+opera-singer, and when he heard Peal, he was so delighted with him that
+he invited him to dinner.
+
+They played nine-pins, ate crabs with dill, drank punch, and, above
+everything, sang songs. Between two songs, and after they had sworn
+eternal friendship, the commercial traveller said:
+
+"Why don't you go on the stage?"
+
+"I?" answered Peal, "how could I do that?"
+
+"All you have to do is to say 'I will.'"
+
+This was a new doctrine, for since his third year young Peal had not
+used the words "I" and "will." He had trained himself to neither wish
+nor will, and he begged his friend not to lead him into temptation.
+
+But the commercial traveller came again; he came many times, and once
+he was accompanied by a famous singer; and one evening Peal, after much
+applause from a professor of singing, took his fate into his own hands.
+
+He said good-bye to his master, and over a glass of wine heartily
+thanked his friend, the commercial traveller, for having given him
+self-confidence and will,--"will, that iron bar, which keeps a man's
+back erect and prevents him from grovelling on all fours." And he swore
+a solemn oath never to forget his friend, who had taught him to have
+faith in himself.
+
+Then he went to say good-bye to his parents.
+
+"I will be a singer," he said in a loud voice, which echoed through the
+room.
+
+The father glanced at the horse-whip, and the mother cried; but it was
+no use.
+
+"Don't lose yourself, my darling boy," were the mother's last words.
+
+***
+
+Young Peal managed to raise enough money to enable him to go abroad.
+There he learned singing according to all the rules of the art, and in a
+few years' time he was a very great singer indeed. He earned much money
+and travelled with his own impresario.
+
+Peal was prospering now and found no difficulty in saying "I will," or
+even "I command." His "I" grew to gigantic proportions, and he suffered
+no other "I's" near him. He denied himself nothing, and did not put
+his light under a bushel. But now, as he was about to return to his own
+country, his impresario told him that no man could be a great singer and
+at the same time be called Peal; he advised him to adopt a more elegant
+name, a foreign name by preference, for that was the fashion.
+
+The great man fought an inward struggle, for it is not a very nice thing
+to change one's name; it looks as if one were ashamed of one's father
+and mother, and is apt to create a bad impression.
+
+But hearing that it was the fashion, he let it pass.
+
+He opened his Bible to look for a name, for the Bible is the very best
+book for the purpose.
+
+And when he came to Jubal, "who was the son of Lamech, and the father of
+all such as handle the harp and organ," he considered that he could
+not do better. The impresario, who was an Englishman, suggested that he
+should call himself Mr. Jubal, and Peal agreed. Henceforth he was Mr.
+Jubal.
+
+It was all quite harmless, of course, since it was the fashion, but it
+was nevertheless a strange thing with the new name Peal had changed his
+nature. His past was blotted out. Mr. Jubal looked upon himself as
+an Englishman born and bred, spoke with a foreign accent, grew
+side-whiskers and wore very high collars; a checked suit grew round him
+as the bark grows round a tree, apparently without any effort on his
+part. He carried himself stiffly, and when he met a friend in the street
+he acknowledged his friendly bow with the flicker of an eyelid. He never
+turned round if anybody called after him, and he always stood right in
+the middle of a street car.
+
+He hardly knew himself.
+
+He was now at home again, in his own country, and engaged to sing at the
+Opera-house. He played kings and prophets, heroes and demons, and he was
+so good an actor that whenever he rehearsed a part, he instantly became
+the part he impersonated.
+
+One day he was strolling along the street. He was playing some sort of
+a demon, but he was also Mr. Jubal. Suddenly he heard a voice calling
+after him, "Peal!" He did not turn round, for no Englishman would do
+such a thing, and, moreover, his name was no longer Peal.
+
+But the voice called again, "Peal!" and his friend, the commercial
+traveller, stood before him, looking at him searchingly, and yet with an
+expression of shy kindliness.
+
+"Dear old Peal, it _is_ you!" he said.
+
+Mr. Jubal felt that a demon was taking possession of him; he opened his
+mouth so wide that he showed all his teeth, and bellowed a curt "No!"
+
+Then his friend felt quite convinced that it was he and went away. He
+was an enlightened man, who knew men, the world and himself inside out,
+and therefore he was neither sorry nor astonished.
+
+But Mr. Jubal thought he was; he heard a voice within him saying,
+"Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice," and he did what St.
+Peter had done, he went away and wept bitterly. That is to say, he wept
+in imagination, but the demon in his heart laughed.
+
+Henceforth he was always laughing; he laughed at good and evil, sorrow
+and disgrace, at everything and everybody.
+
+His father and mother knew, from the papers, who Mr. Jubal really
+was, but they never went to the Opera-house, for they fancied it had
+something to do with hoops and horses, and they objected to seeing their
+son in such surroundings.
+
+Mr. Jubal was now the greatest living singer; he had lost a lot of his
+"I," but he still had his will.
+
+Then his day came. There was a little ballet-dancer who could bewitch
+men, and she bewitched Jubal. She bewitched him to such an extent that
+he asked her whether he might be hers. (He meant, of course, whether she
+would be his, but the other is a more polite way of expressing it.)
+
+"You shall be mine," said the sorceress, "if I may take you."
+
+"You may do anything you like," replied Jubal.
+
+The girl took him at his word and they married. First of all he taught
+her to sing and play, and then he gave her everything she asked for.
+But since was a sorceress, she always wanted the things which he most
+objected to giving to her, and so, gradually, she wrested his will from
+him and made him her slave.
+
+One fine day Mrs. Jubal had become a great singer, so great that when
+the audience called "Jubal!" it was not Mr. but Mrs. Jubal who took the
+call.
+
+Jubal, of course, longed to regain his former position, but he scorned
+to do it at his wife's expense.
+
+The world began to forget him.
+
+The brilliant circle of friends who had surrounded Mr. Jubal in his
+bachelor chambers now surrounded his wife, for it was she who was
+"Jubal."
+
+Nobody wanted to talk to him or drink with him, and when he attempted to
+join in the conversation, nobody listened to his remarks; it was just
+as if he were not present, and his wife was treated as if she were an
+unmarried woman.
+
+Then Mr. Jubal grew very lonely, and in his loneliness he began to
+frequent the cafes.
+
+One evening he was at a restaurant, trying to find somebody to talk to,
+and ready to talk to anybody willing to listen to him. All at once he
+caught sight of his old friend the commercial traveller, sitting at a
+table by himself, evidently very bored. "Thank goodness," he thought,
+"here's somebody to spend an hour with--it's old Lundberg."
+
+He went to Mr. Lundberg's table and said "good evening." But no sooner
+had he done so than his friend's face changed in so extraordinary a
+manner that Jubal wondered whether he had made a mistake.
+
+"Aren't you Lundberg?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Don't you know me? I'm Jubal!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Don't you know your old friend Peal?"
+
+"Peal died a long time ago."
+
+Then Jubal understood that he was, from a certain point of view, dead,
+and he went away.
+
+On the following day he left the stage for ever and opened a school for
+singing, with the title of a professor.
+
+Then he went to foreign countries, and remained abroad for many years.
+
+Sadness, for he mourned for himself as for a dead friend, and sorrow
+were fast making an old man of him. But he was glad that it should be
+so, for, he thought, if I'm old, it won't last much longer. But as he
+did not age quite as fast as he would have liked, he bought himself a
+wig with long white curls. He felt better after that, for it disguised
+him completely, so completely that he did not know himself.
+
+With long strides, his hands crossed on his back, he walked up and down
+the pavements, lost in a brown study; he seemed to be looking for some
+one, or expecting some one. If his eyes met the glance of other eyes,
+he did not respond to the question in them; if anybody tried to make his
+acquaintance, he would never talk of anything but things and objects.
+And he never said "I" or "I find," but always "it seems." He had lost
+himself, as he did one day just as he was going to shave. He was sitting
+before his looking-glass, his chin covered with a lather of soap; he
+raised the hand which held the razor and looked into the glass; then he
+beheld the room behind his back, but he could not see his face, and
+all at once he realised how matters stood. Now he was filled with a
+passionate yearning to find himself again. He had given the best part of
+himself to his wife, for she had his will, and so he decided to go and
+see her.
+
+When he was back in his native country and walked through the streets in
+his white wig, not a soul recognised him. But a musician who had been in
+Italy, meeting him in town one day, said in a loud voice, "There goes a
+maestro!"
+
+Immediately Jubal imagined that he was a great composer. He bought some
+music paper and started to write a score; that is to say, he wrote a
+number of long and short notes on the lines, some for the violins,
+of course, others for the wood-wind, and the remainder for the brass
+instruments. He sent his work to the Conservatoire. But nobody could
+play the music, because it was not music, but only notes.
+
+A little later on he was met by an artist who had been in Paris. "There
+goes a model!" said the artist. Jubal heard it, and at once believed
+that he was a model, for he believed everything that was said of him,
+because he did not know who or what he was.
+
+Presently he remembered his wife, and he resolved to go and see her. He
+did go, but she had married again, and she and her second husband, who
+was a baron, had gone abroad.
+
+At last he grew tired of his quest, and, like all tired men, he felt a
+great yearning for his mother. He knew that she was a widow and lived in
+a cottage in the mountains, so one day he went to see her.
+
+"Don't you know me?" he asked.
+
+"What is your name?" asked the mother.
+
+"My name is your son's name. Don't you know it?"
+
+"My son's name was Peal, but yours is Jubal, and I don't know Jubal."
+
+"You disown me?"
+
+"As you disowned yourself and your mother."
+
+"Why did you rob me of my will when I was a little child?"
+
+"You gave your will to a woman."
+
+"I had to, because it was the only way of winning her. But why did you
+tell me I had no will?"
+
+"Well, your father told you that, my boy, and he knew no better;
+you must forgive him, for he is dead now. Children, you see, are not
+supposed to have a will of their own, but grown-up people are."
+
+"How well you explain it all, mother! Children are not supposed to have
+a will, but grown-up people are."
+
+"Now, listen to me, Gustav," said his mother, "Gustav Peal...."
+
+These were his two real names, and when he heard them from her lips, he
+became himself again. All the parts he had played--kings and demons,
+the maestro and the model--cut and ran, and he was but the son of his
+mother.
+
+He put his head on her knees and said, "Now, let me die here, for at
+last I am at home."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN HELMETS IN THE ALLEBERG
+
+Anders was the son of poor people, and in his youth he had wandered
+through many kingdoms, with a bale of cloth and a yard-measure on his
+back. But as he grew older he came to the conclusion that it would be
+better to wear the king's uniform and carry a rifle on his shoulder, and
+therefore he went and enlisted in the Vaestgotadal regiment. And one day
+it happened that he was sent to Stockholm on sentry duty.
+
+Friend Cask, as he was now called, was on leave one day, and he made
+up his mind to spend it at the "Fort." But when he came to the gate
+he found that he had not a sixpence, and consequently he had to remain
+outside.
+
+For a long time he stood staring at the railings, and then he thought,
+"I'll just walk round; perhaps I'll come across a stile; if the worst
+comes to the worst, I'll climb over."
+
+The sun was setting; he walked along the shore, at the foot of the
+mountain, and the railings were high above him; he could hear the sound
+of music and singing. Cask went round and round, but found no stile, and
+at last the railings disappeared in a forest of nut trees. When he was
+tired he sat down on a hillock and began to crack nuts.
+
+Suddenly a squirrel appeared before him and put up its tail.
+
+"Leave my nuts alone!" it said.
+
+"I will, if you'll take me to a stile," said Cask.
+
+"Part of the way, then," said the squirrel. It hopped along and the
+soldier followed, until all at once it had vanished.
+
+Then a hedgehog came rustling along.
+
+"Come with me and I'll show you the stile," it said.
+
+"Go with you? not if I know it."
+
+But in spite of his remark the hedgehog followed him.
+
+Next an adder joined them. It was very genteel; it lisped and could
+twist itself into a knot.
+
+"Follow me," it said, "_I_ will show you the stile."
+
+"I follow," said Cask.
+
+"But you mutht be genteel; you muthtn't t stread as me. I like nithe
+people."
+
+"Well, a soldier isn't exactly genteel," said Cask, "but I'm not so
+terribly uncouth."
+
+"Tread on it," said the hedgehog, "else it will bite you, ever so
+genteely."
+
+The adder reared its neck and rustled away.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the hedgehog, attacking the snake. "I am not as genteel
+as you are, but I show my bristles openly, I do!"
+
+And then it killed the snake and disappeared.
+
+Now the soldier was alone in the wood and very sorry he felt that he had
+rejected the society of the prickly hedgehog.
+
+It had grown dark, but the crescent of the moon shone between the birch
+leaves, and it was quite still.
+
+The soldier fancied that he could see a big yellow hand moving backwards
+and forwards. He went close up to it, and then he saw that it was a
+yellow leaf, which seemed to gesticulate with its fingers, although
+nobody could possibly understand what it wanted to say.
+
+As he stood there, watching it, he heard an asp trembling:
+
+"Huh! I'm so cold," said the asp, "for my feet are wet, and I _am_ so
+frightened."
+
+"What are you frightened of?" asked the soldier.
+
+"Well, of the dwarf who is sitting in the mountain."
+
+Now the soldier realised what the maple leaf meant, and there was
+no doubt about it, he saw a dwarf sitting in the mountain, cooking
+porridge.
+
+"Who are you?" asked the dwarf.
+
+"I belong to the Vaestgotadal regiment; where do you come from?"
+
+"I," said the dwarf, "I am in the Alleberg."
+
+"The Alleberg is in the Vaestgota country," answered the soldier.
+
+"We have removed it to this place," replied the dwarf.
+
+"You lie!" exclaimed the soldier, seized the pot by its handle and threw
+the porridge into the fire.
+
+"Now we'll have a look at the mouse-hole," he said, and went right into
+the mountain.
+
+There he found a giant sitting by a huge fire, making an iron bar
+red-hot.
+
+"Good day, good day," said the soldier, stretching out his hand.
+
+"Good day to you," said the giant, giving him the red-hot iron bar.
+
+Cask took the iron and pressed it so hard that it hissed.
+
+"You have got very warm hands, I must say," he said. "What's your name?"
+
+"I'm the giant Swede," said the troll.
+
+"That was a Swedish hand-shake of yours, anyhow, and now I realise that
+I am in the Alleberg. Are the golden helmets still asleep?"
+
+"Will you be quiet!" exclaimed the giant, threatening him with the
+red-hot bar.
+
+"You shall see them, because you belong to the Vaestgotadal regiment, but
+first of all you must solve my riddle," he continued.
+
+"If you want to fight one of your own countrymen, well and good. But
+first of all, put that fiery thing away!"
+
+"Very well, Cask, you shall recite the history of Sweden while I smoke
+my pipe. Then I will show you the golden helmets. The whole history of
+Sweden, please."
+
+"I can easily do that, although I was not one of the top dogs at the
+military school. Let me try and recall it to memory."
+
+"There is one condition: you must not mention the name of a single king;
+for if you do, those inside will get angry; and when they get angry,
+then, you know...."
+
+"It will be awfully difficult. But light your pipe and I'll begin.
+Here's a match!"
+
+The soldier scratched his head and began:
+
+"One--two--three! In the year 1161, or thereabouts, Sweden first came
+into existence; a kingdom, a king, and an archbishop--is that enough?"
+
+"No," said Swede, "not at all. Begin again."
+
+"Very well, then! In the year 1359 the Swedish people became a nation,
+for then the Parliament of the four estates first met, and it continued
+to meet, with interruptions, until 1866."
+
+"Well, but you're a soldier," said Swede, "surely you'll have a few
+words to say about wars."
+
+"There are only two wars of any importance, and they ended, the first
+with the peace of Broemsebro in 1645, when we got Herjedalen, Jaemtland,
+and Gottland, and the second with the peace of Roeskilde in 1658, when we
+got Schonen, Halland, Blekinge, and Bohuslaen. And that is all there is
+of the history of Sweden."
+
+"But you forget the constitutions?"
+
+"Well, we had an autocracy from 1680 to 1718 then there followed
+a period of freedom until 1789, and this was followed again by an
+autocracy. Then came Adlersparre's revolution in 1809, and he got Hans
+Jaerke to draw up the constitution which is still surviving. That is all
+you need know. Haven't you finished your pipe yet?"
+
+"There!" said the giant. "It wasn't so bad on the whole! And now you
+shall see the golden helmets."
+
+The troll arose with difficulty and went into the inferior of the
+mountain; the soldier followed at his heels.
+
+"Tread softly!" said the giant, pointing to a light with a golden helmet
+who was leaning against a door, made of rock, apparently fast asleep.
+But before the words had been out of his mouth, Cask stumbled and the
+iron on the heel of his shoe struck a stone so forcibly that it emitted
+sparks. The golden helmet awoke at once, just as if he had been a
+sleeping sentry, and called:
+
+"Is it time?"
+
+"Not yet!" answered the giant.
+
+The knight with the golden helmet sat down again and instantly fell
+asleep.
+
+The giant opened a mountain wall and the soldier looked into a huge
+hall. A table, that seemed to have no end, ran through the centre of the
+hall, and in the twilight the soldier could see a brilliant gathering
+of knights with golden helmets sitting in arm-chairs, the backs of which
+were decorated with golden crowns. At the head of the table sat a man
+who seemed head and shoulders taller than the rest; his beard reached to
+his waist, like the beard of Moses or Joshua, and he held a hammer all
+his hand.
+
+All of them seemed fast asleep, although it was neither the sleep which
+restores strength, nor the sleep which is called eternal sleep.
+
+"Now, pay attention," said the giant, "to-day is the great commemoration
+day."
+
+He pressed a finger on a lark garnet in the mountain rock, and a
+thousand flames shot up.
+
+The golden helmets awoke.
+
+"Who goes there?" asked the man with the prophet's beard.
+
+"Swede," answered the giant.
+
+"A good name!" replied Gustav Eriksson Wasa, for it was he. "How much
+time has passed away?"
+
+"In years, after the birth of Christ, one thousand nine hundred and
+three."
+
+"Time flies. But have you made arty progress? Are you still a country
+and a nation?"
+
+"We are. But since Gustavus I, the country has grown. Jaemtland,
+Herjedalen, and Gottland have been added."
+
+"Who conquered them?"
+
+"Well, it was in the time of Queen Christina; but her guardians really
+conquered them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then we got Schonen, Halland, Blekinge, and Bohuslaen."
+
+"The deuce you did! Who won them?"
+
+"Charles X."
+
+"Well, and then?"
+
+"Nothing else."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+Somebody knocked on the table.
+
+"Erich the saint wishes to speak," said Gustav Wasa.
+
+"My name is Erich Jedvardson, and I never was a saint. May I be allowed
+to ask Swede what became of my Finland?"
+
+"Finland belongs to Russia, by its own wish, after the peace of
+Fredrikshamn in 1809, when the Finnish nation sore allegiance to the
+Czar."
+
+Gustavus II., Adolfus, asked permission to speak.
+
+"Where are the Baltic provinces?" he asked.
+
+"Reclaimed by their rightful owner," answered Swede.
+
+"And the emperor? Is there still an emperor?"
+
+"There are two; one in Berlin. and one in Vienna."
+
+"Two of the House of Habsburg?"
+
+"No, one of the House of Habsburg and the other of the House of
+Hohenzollern."
+
+"Incredible! And the Catholics in North Germany--are they converted?"
+
+"No, the Catholics form the majority in the German Parliament, and the
+emperor at Berlin is trying to put pressure on the College of Cardinals,
+with a view to influencing the choice of the next Pope."
+
+"There is still a Pope, then?"
+
+"Oh! yes, although one of them has just died."
+
+"And what does the Hohenzollern want in Rome?"
+
+"No one knows; some say that it is his ambition to become Roman-German
+emperor of the Evangelical Confession."
+
+"A syncretistic emperor dreamt of by John George of Saxony! I don't want
+to hear anymore. The ways of Providence are strange, and we mortals,
+what are we? Dust and ashes!"
+
+Charles XII. asked permission to speak.
+
+"Can Swede tell me what has become of Poland?"
+
+"Poland is no more. It has been split up."
+
+"Split up? And Russia?"
+
+"Russia recently celebrated the foundation of Petersburg, and the Lord
+Mavor of Stockholm walked in the procession."
+
+"As a prisoner?"
+
+"No, as a guest. All nations are on friendly terms now, and not very
+long ago a French army, commanded by a German field-marshall, invaded
+China."
+
+"Delicious! Are people now the friends of their enemies?"
+
+"Yes, they are all penetrated by a Christian spirit, and there is a
+permanent Committee for the Preservation of Peace established at the
+Hague."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A permanent Committee for the Preservation of Peace."
+
+"Then my time is over! God's will be done!"
+
+The king closed his visor and remained silent.
+
+Charles, XI. claimed attention.
+
+"Well, Swede, what about the finances of the old country?"
+
+"It's difficult to answer your question, for I'm afraid they know
+nothing of keeping accounts. But one or two things are certain: that
+quite half kingdom has been pledged to the foreigner for about three
+hundred millions."
+
+"Oh! Lord!"
+
+"And the municipal debts amount to about two hundred millions."
+
+"Two hundred!"
+
+"And in the years 1881 to 1885 one hundred and forty-six thousand Swedes
+emigrated."
+
+"Enough! I don't want to hear any more!"
+
+Gustav Wasa knocked on the table with his hammer.
+
+"As far as I can understand the matter, the country is in a bad way.
+Sluggards you are, lazy, envious, irresponsible sluggards; too idle to
+bestir yourselves, but quick enough to prevent anybody else from doing
+anything. But tell me, Swede, what about my church and my priests?"
+
+"The priests of the church are farmers and dairy-keepers. The bishops
+have an income of thirty thousand crowns, and collect money, exactly as
+they did before the Recess of Vesteraes; moreover, nearly all of
+them are heretics, or free-thinkers, as they call themselves. Men are
+beginning to expect some sort of a Reformation."
+
+"Indeed?... And what is the meaning of this music and singing up here?"
+
+"This is the 'Fort.' That is, a mountain, where they have a collection
+of all the national keepsakes, just as if the nation were anticipating
+its end and making its last will and testament, gathering together all
+the mementoes of the past. It shows reverence for the ancestors, but
+nothing else."
+
+"What we have heard on this commemoration day seems to prove that the
+deeds of our forefathers have been engulfed in the ocean of time. One
+thing swims on the surface, another sinks to the bottom. Here we are
+sitting like the shadows of our former selves, and to you, who are
+alive, we must remain shadows.... Put out the lights!"
+
+The giant Swede extinguished the lights and went out; the soldier
+followed close behind him and climbed into something which looked like a
+cage.
+
+"If you say a word to anybody of what you have seen and heard," said the
+giant, "you will be sorry for it."
+
+"I can quite believe that," answered Cask, "but shall always remember
+it. That they should have squandered the old country in drink and pledge
+to the foreigner! It's too bad--if it's true."
+
+"Click" went the turbine; and the lift with soldier shot upwards to the
+"Fort." And there stood, in the sunset, and the country looked just as
+it had looked when the chimes in the belfry Haesjoer chimed, and Gustav
+Wasa entered Stockholm, surrounded by his generals.
+
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BLUEWING FINDS THE GOLDPOWDER
+
+The rich man had visited the poor island and fallen in love with it.
+He could not have said why, but he was charmed; probably the island
+resembled some memory of his childhood, or, perhaps, a beautiful dream.
+
+He bought the island, built a villa, and planted all sorts of lovely
+trees, shrubs, and flowers. And all around was the sea; he had his own
+landing-stage, with a flag-staff and white boats; oak trees, as tall
+as a church, shaded his house, and cool breezes gently swept the green
+meadows. He had a wife, children, servants, cattle; he had everything,
+except one thing: it was but a trifle, but it was more important than
+anything else in the world, and yet he had forgotten it until the very
+last: he had no spring water. Wells were sunk and rocks were blasted,
+but all he got was brown, brackish water; it was filtered until it
+looked as clear as crystal, but it remained brackish. And that was where
+the shoe pinched.
+
+Then there came to the island a man endowed with great gifts; he had
+been lucky in all his enterprises, and was one of the most famous men
+in the world. Everybody remembered how he struck the mountain with his
+diamond staff and produced water from the rock, like Moses. Now he was
+to bore or the island and see whether the mountain would yield water,
+as other mountains had done. They spent a hundred, a thousand, several
+thousand crowns, but found none but brackish water. There was no
+blessing on their undertaking. And it was brought home to the rich man
+that money will not buy everything, not even, when the worst comes to
+the worst, a drink of fresh water. Thereupon he grew despondent and life
+seemed to hold no more happiness in store for him.
+
+The schoolmaster searched the old books, and then sent for a venerable
+old man, who came and brought his divining rod; but it was no use.
+
+But the clergyman was a great deal wiser. He assembled all the school
+children one day, and offered a prize to the one who could bring him a
+plant called "goldpowder," in Latin Chrysosplenium, which will only grow
+near a spring.
+
+"It has a flower," he said, "like the bird's-eye and leaves like the
+saxifrage, and it looks as if it had gold dust on its top leaves.
+Remember that!"
+
+"A flower like the bird's-eye and leaves like the saxifrage," repeated
+the children; and they ran into the wood and the fields to look for the
+goldpowder.
+
+Not one of the children found it; a little boy, it is true, came home
+with some milk-weed, which have a tiny bit of gold dust on the points of
+its leaves; but the milk-weed is poisonous, and it was not at all what
+was wanted. And finally the children grew tired of looking for it and
+gave it up.
+
+But there lived on the island a little girl, too small yet to go to
+school. Her father had served in the dragoons, and owned a little farm,
+but he was rather poor than rich. His only treasure was his little
+daughter, whom everybody in the village called "Little Bluewing,"
+because she always wore a ski blue dress with wide sleeves, which
+fluttered like wings when she moved. There is, by the bye, a little blue
+butterfly whom the people call bluewing; you can see it in the summer
+sitting on the tall blades of the grass, and its wings resemble a flax
+blossom; a fluttering flax blossom with antenna instead of filaments.
+
+Little Bluewing, the dragoon's little bluewing, that is, was not like
+other children; she always talked very sensibly, but she often said
+queer things, and everybody was puzzled to know where she got them from.
+All living things loved her, even the animals; fowls and calves ran up
+to her when they saw her, and she even dared to stroke the bull. She
+frequently went out by herself and stayed away a long time, but when
+anybody asked her where she had been, she could not tell. But she had
+had the most wonderful adventures; she had seen strange things; she had
+met venerable old men and women, who ha told her no end of wonderful
+stories. The dragoon let her do as she liked, for he knew that a
+guardian spirit was watching over her.
+
+***
+
+One morning Little Bluewing went out for a walk. She ran through fields
+and meadows, singing songs which nobody had ever heard, and which came
+into her heart from nowhere. The morning sun shone brightly and seemed
+so young, as if it had only just been born; the air was fresh and sweet,
+and the evaporating dew cooled her little face.
+
+When she came to the wood, she met an old man in a green dress.
+
+"Good morning, Little Bluewing," said the old man, "I am the gardener at
+Sunnyglade; come and look at my flowers."
+
+"Too much honour for me," answered Little Bluewing.
+
+"Not at all, for you have never ill-used flowers."
+
+They walked together to the strand and crossed a little bridge, which
+led to an islet.
+
+On the islet was a wonderful garden. Every flower, large and small, grew
+there, and everything was in order, just as if the garden had been a
+book.
+
+The old man lived in a house which was built of growing ever-green
+trees-pines, fir trees, and junipers; the floor consisted of growing
+ever-green shrubs. Moss and lichen grew in the crevices and held them
+together. The roof was made entirely of creepers, Virginia creeper,
+Caprifolium, and ivy, and it was so thick that not a drop of rain
+could come through. A number of bee-hives stood before the door, but
+butterflies lived in them instead of bees; just think of the lovely
+sight when they swarmed!
+
+"I don't like torturing bees," explained the old man. "And, moreover, I
+consider them not at all pretty; they look like hairy coffee-beans and
+sting like adders."
+
+And then they went into the garden.
+
+"Now, you may read in the book of nature and learn the secrets and
+sensibilities of the plants. But you must not ask questions, only listen
+to what I say and answer me.... Now, look here, little one, on this
+grey stone something is growing which looks like grey paper. This is the
+first thing which grows when the rock becomes damp. It grows mouldy, you
+see, and the mould is called lichen. Here are two kinds: one looks like
+the horns of a reindeer, it is called reindeer-moss, and the reindeer
+feeds on it; and the other is called Iceland-moss, and looks like...
+now, what does it look like?"
+
+"It looks like lungs, anyhow it says so in the natural history book."
+
+"Quite right; looked at through a magnifying glass, it has exactly that
+appearance, and that is how people came to think of using it as a remedy
+for all sorts of diseases of the chest. Later, when the lichen has
+gathered enough vegetable soil, the mosses appear; they have quite
+simple flowers and grow seed. They are not unlike ice-flowers, but they
+are also like heather and fir trees and all sorts of other things, for
+all plants are related. The wall-moss here looks like a fir tree, but
+it has seed cases, like a poppy, only rather more simple. Once moss has
+begun to grow an a spot, heather is not very long in coming. And if you
+examine heather through a strong magnifying-glass, it is like milk-wort,
+Epilobium in Latin or a rhododendron, or like an elm tree, which is
+nothing more nor less than a huge nettle.
+
+"Now, we have a perfect covering for the rocks, and in this mould
+everything will grow. Man has domesticated a number of plants, but
+nature herself has directed him which to take and how to use their is
+so extraordinary as the colour and ornaments which the flowers have
+acquired to tell the bees where the honey is. You have often seen an ear
+of rye, which shows a baker's implements like a signboard. And if you
+look at the flax, the most useful of all the plants, you will have to
+admit that it is the plant itself which has taught man to spin. Look
+right into the heart of the flower and you will find the filaments wound
+round the style like flax round a spindle. And to make her meaning even
+more plain, nature has planted a parasite, the bind-weed by its side,
+which winds itself round and round the plant up and down, to and fro,
+like a weaver's shuttle. And isn't it wonderful that not a man, but
+a butterfly, first thought of spinning the flax? People call it
+'flax-spinner,' for with its own silk and the leaves of the plant it
+weaves little sheets and blankets for its young ones. And so cunning it
+is that when flax began to be cultivated, it completely adapted itself
+to the new conditions, so that the young ones should be hatched before
+the flax was harvested. And now, look at the medicinal herbs! Look at
+the large poppy, for instance, fiery red it is, like fever and insanity!
+But in the heart of the blossom is a black cross, just like the cross on
+the chemist's label which he puts on his poisons. In the middle of
+the cross is a Roman vase with little grooves. When these grooves are
+pricked the drug runs out, the powerful drug, which will call either
+death, or death's gentle brother, sleep. Yes, now you can form an idea
+of the generosity and wisdom of nature.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder."
+
+He paused to see whether Little Bluewing was at all curious. But she was
+not.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder," he repeated.
+
+Another pause! No, Little Bluewing could hold her tongue, although she
+was as not much more than a baby.
+
+"And now, let's see about the goldpowder," he said for the third time,
+"which has flowers like the bird's-eye and leaves like the saxifrage.
+That's its distinctive mark, and tells you where water can be found.
+The bird's-eye collects dew and water in its leaves, and is in itself a
+tiny, clear rivulet; but the saxifrage can break mountain rocks. There
+is no spring without a mountain, be the mountain never so distant. This
+is what the goldpowder tells all those who can understand its message.
+It grows here, on this island, and you shall know the spot, because your
+heart is pure. The rich man shall receive water for his parched soul
+from your tiny hand, and through you all the island shall be blessed. Go
+in peace, my child, and when you come to the wood where the nuts grow,
+you will find a silver-linden on your right; at its foot lies a copper
+coloured slow-worm, which is not dangerous. It show you the way to the
+goldpowder. But before you go, you must give the old man a kiss, that is
+to say, if you want to."
+
+Little Bluewing held up her lips and kissed the old man, and immediately
+his face changed and he looked fifty years younger.
+
+"I have kissed a child, I have grown young again," said the gardener.
+"You owe me no thanks. Farewell!"
+
+Little Bluewing went to the wood where the nuts grew. The silver-linden
+was rustling in the breeze, and the humble-bees hummed and buzzed round
+its blossoms. The slow-worm was really there, although its copper looked
+a bit rusty.
+
+"Hallo! There is Little Bluewing, who is to have the goldpowder," said
+the copper snake. "Well, you shall have it on three conditions: no to
+talk, not to be led astray, not to be inquisitive. Now go straight ahead
+and you will find the goldpowder."
+
+Little Bluewing went straight ahead. On her way she met a woman.
+
+"Good morning, child," said the woman. "Have you been to see the
+gardener at Sunnyglade?"
+
+"Good morning, woman," said Little Bluewing without stopping.
+
+"Well, you aren't a gossip," said the woman.
+
+Next she met a gipsy.
+
+"Where are you going to?" asked the gipsy.
+
+"Straight ahead," answered Little Bluewing.
+
+"Then you won't be led astray," said the gipsy.
+
+Then she met a milkman. But she could not understand why the horse was
+inside the cart and the milkman harnessed to the shafts.
+
+"Now I shall shy and run away," said the milkman, and gave such a start
+that the horse fell out of the cart into the ditch.... "Now I shall
+water the rye," he went on, and took the lid off one of his milk cans.
+
+Little Bluewing thought it strange, but continued her way without giving
+him as much as a look.
+
+"And you aren't curious, either," said the milkman.
+
+And now Little Bluewing was standing at the foot of the mountain;
+the sunbeams fell through the hazel bushes on the green leaves of a
+luxurious plant which shone like gold.
+
+It was the goldpowder. Little Bluewing noticed how it followed the vein
+of the spring down the mountain side into the rich man's meadow.
+
+She belt down and gathered three flowers, put them carefully into her
+pinafore and took them home to her father.
+
+The dragoon put on sword, helmet, and uniform, and went with his little
+daughter to the clergyman. And all three went to the rich man.
+
+"Little Bluewzng has found the goldpowder!" said the clergyman, as soon
+as he entered the drawing-room. "And now the whole village will be rich
+before long, because it is sure to become a summer resort."
+
+And it became a summer resort before long; steamers and shop people
+arrived; an inn and a post-office were built; a doctor settled on the
+island, and a chemist. Gold poured into the village all during the
+summer, and that is the story of the goldpowder, which can transform
+poverty into wealth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Midsummer Days and Other Tales, by
+August Strindberg
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