III

_Old_ AGNETE

_Old_ AGNETE

An old woman went up the mountain-path with short, tripping steps. She

was little and thin. Her face was pale and wizened, but neither hard nor

furrowed. She wore a long cloak and a quilled cap. She had a Prayer-Book

in her hand and a sprig of lavender in her handkerchief.

She lived in a hut far up the high mountain where no trees could grow.

It was lying quite close to the edge of a broad glacier, which sent its

river of ice from the snow-clad mountain peak into the depths of the

valley. There she lived quite alone. All those who had belonged to her

were dead.

It was Sunday, and she had been to church. But whatever might be the

cause, her going there had not made her happy, but sorrowful. The

clergyman had spoken about death and the doomed, and that had affected

her. She had suddenly begun to think of how she had heard in her

childhood that many of the doomed were tormented in the region of

eternal cold on the mountain right above her dwelling. She could

remember many tales about these wanderers of the glaciers--these

indefatigable shadows which were hunted from place to place by the icy

mountain winds.

All at once she felt a great terror of the mountain, and thought that

her hut was dreadfully high up. Supposing those who moved about

invisibly there wandered down the glaciers! And she who was quite alone!

The word 'alone' gave to her thoughts a still sadder turn. She again

felt the full burden of that sorrow which never left her. She thought

how hard it was to be so far away from human beings.

'Old Agnete,' she said aloud to herself, as she had got into the habit

of doing in the lonely waste, 'you sit in your hut and spin, and spin.

You work and toil all the hours of the day so as not to perish from

hunger. But is there anyone to whom you give any pleasure by being

alive? Is there anyone, old Agnete? If any of your own were

living----Yes, then, perhaps, if you lived nearer the village, you might

be of some use to somebody. Poor as you are, you could neither take dog

nor cat home to you, but you could probably now and then give a beggar

shelter. You ought not to live so far away from the highroad, old

Agnete. If you could only once in a while give a thirsty wayfarer a

drink, then you would know that it was of some use your being alive.'

She sighed, and said to herself that not even the peasant women who gave

her flax to spin would mourn her death. She had certainly striven to do

her work honestly and well, but no doubt there were many who could have

done it better. She began to cry bitterly, when the thought struck her

that his reverence, who had seen her sitting in the same place in church

for so many, many years, would perhaps think it a matter of perfect

indifference whether she was dead or not.

'It is as if I were dead,' she said. 'No one asks after me. I would just

as well lie down and die. I am already frozen to death from cold and

loneliness. I am frozen to the core of the heart, I am indeed. Ah me! ah

me!' she said, now she had been set a-thinking; 'if there were only

someone who really needed me, there might still be a little warmth left

in old Agnete. But I cannot knit stockings for the mountain goats, or

make the beds for the marmots, can I? I tell Thee,' she said, stretching

our her hands towards heaven, 'something Thou must give me to do, or I

shall lay me down and die.'

At the same moment a tall, stern monk came towards her. He walked by her

side because he saw that she was sorrowful, and she told him about her

troubles. She said that her heart was nearly frozen to death, and that

she would become like one of the wanderers on the glacier if God did not

give her something to live for.

'God will assuredly do that,' said the monk.

'Do you not see that God is powerless here?' old Agnete said. 'Here

there is nothing but an empty, barren waste.'

They went higher and higher towards the snow mountains. The moss spread

itself softly over the stones; the Alpine herbs, with their velvety

leaves, grew along the pathway; the mountain, with its rifts and

precipices, its glaciers and snow-drifts, towered above them, weighing

them down. Then the monk discovered old Agnete's hut, right below the

glacier.

'Oh,' he said, 'is it there you live? Then you are not alone there; you

have company enough. Only look!'

The monk put his thumb and first finger together, held them before old

Agnete's left eye, and bade her look through them towards the mountain.

But old Agnete shuddered and closed her eyes.

'If there is anything to see up there, then I will not look on any

account,' she said. 'The Lord preserve us! it is bad enough without

that.'

'Good-bye, then,' said the monk; 'it is not certain that you will be

permitted to see such a thing a second time.'

Old Agnete grew curious; she opened her eyes and looked towards the

glacier. At first she saw nothing remarkable, but soon she began to

discern things moving about. What she had taken to be mist and vapour,

or bluish-white shadows on the ice, were multitudes of doomed souls,

tormented in the eternal cold.

Poor old Agnete trembled like an aspen leaf. Everything was just as she

had heard it described in days gone by. The dead wandered about there in

endless anguish and pain. Most of them were shrouded in something long

and white, but all had their faces and their hands bared.

They could not be counted, there was such a multitude. The longer she

looked, the more there appeared. Some walked proud and erect, others

seemed to dance over the glacier; but she saw that they all cut their

feet on the sharp and jagged edges of the ice.

It was just as she had been told. She saw how they constantly huddled

close together, as if to warm themselves, but immediately drew back

again, terrified by the deathly cold which emanated from their bodies.

It was as if the cold of the mountain came from them, as if it were they

who prevented the snow from melting and made the mist so piercingly

cold.

They were not all moving; some stood in icy stoniness, and it looked as

if they had been standing thus for years, for ice and snow had gathered

around them so that only the upper portion of their bodies could be

seen.

The longer the little old woman gazed the quieter she grew. Fear left

her, and she was only filled with sorrow for all these tormented beings.

There was no abatement in their pain, no rest for their torn feet,

hurrying over ice sharp as edged steel. And how cold they were! how they

shivered! how their teeth chattered from cold! Those who were petrified

and those who could move, all suffered alike from the snarling, biting,

unbearable cold.

There were many young men and women; but there was no youth in their

faces, blue with cold. It looked as if they were playing, but all joy

was dead. They shivered, and were huddled up like old people.

But those who made the deepest impression on her were those frozen fast

in the hard glacier, and those who were hanging from the mountain-side

like great icicles.

Then the monk removed his hand, and old Agnete saw only the barren,

empty glaciers. Here and there were ice-mounds, but they did not

surround any petrified ghosts. The blue light on the glacier did not

proceed from frozen bodies; the wind chased the snowflakes before it,

but not any ghosts.

Still old Agnete was certain that she had really seen all this, and she

asked the monk:

'Is it permitted to do anything for these poor doomed ones?'

He answered:

'When has God forbidden Love to do good or Mercy to solace?'

Then the monk went his way, and old Agnete went to her hut and thought

it all over. The whole evening she pondered how she could help the

doomed who were wandering on the glaciers. For the first time in many

years she had been too busy to think of her loneliness.

Next morning she again went down to the village. She smiled, and was

well content. Old age was no longer so heavy a burden. 'The dead,' she

said to herself, 'do not care so much about red cheeks and light steps.

They only want one to think of them with a little warmth. But young

people do not trouble to do that. Oh no, oh no. How should the dead

protect themselves from the terrible coldness of death did not old

people open their hearts to them?

When she came to the village shop she bought a large package of candles,

and from a peasant she ordered a great load of firewood; but in order to

pay for it she had to take in twice as much spinning as usual.

Towards evening, when she got home again, she said many prayers, and

tried to keep up her courage by singing hymns. But her courage sank more

and more. All the same, she did what she had made up her mind to do.

She moved her bed into the inner room of her hut. In the front room she

made a big fire and lighted it. In the window she placed two candles,

and left the outer door wide open. Then she went to bed.

She lay in the darkness and listened.

Yes, there certainly was a step. It was as if someone had come gliding

down the glacier. It came heavily, moaning. It crept round the hut as if

it dared not come in. Close to the wall it stood and shivered.

Old Agnete could not bear it any longer. She sprang out of bed, went

into the outer room and closed the door. It was too much; flesh and

blood could not stand it.

Outside the hut she heard deep sighs and dragging steps, as of sore,

wounded feet. They dragged themselves away further and further up the

icy glacier. Now and again she also heard sobs; but soon everything was

quiet.

Then old Agnete was beside herself with anxiety. 'You are a coward, you

silly old thing,' she said. 'Both the fire and the lights, which cost so

much, are burning out. Shall it all have been done in vain because you

are such a miserable coward?' And when she had said this she got out of

bed again, crying from fear, with chattering teeth, and shivering all

over; but into the other room she went, and the door she opened.

Again she lay and waited. Now she was no longer frightened that they

should come. She was only afraid lest she had scared them away, and that

they dared not come back.

And as she lay there in the darkness she began to call just as she used

to do in her young days when she was tending the sheep.

'My little white lambs, my lambs in the mountains, come, come! Come down

from rift and precipice, my little white lambs!'

Then it seemed as if a cold wind from the mountain came rushing into the

room. She heard neither step nor sob, only gusts of wind that came

rushing along the walls of the hut into the room. And it sounded as if

someone were continually saying:

'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her! don't frighten

her!'

She had a feeling as if the outside room was so overcrowded that they

were being crushed against the walls, and that the walls were giving

way. Sometimes it seemed as if they would lift the roof in order to gain

more room. But the whole time there were whispers:

'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her!'

Then old Agnete felt happy and peaceful. She folded her hands and fell

asleep. In the morning it seemed as if the whole had been a dream.

Everything looked as usual in the outer room; the fire had burnt out,

and so had the candles. There was not a vestige of tallow left in the

candlesticks.

As long as old Agnete lived she continued to do this. She spun and

worked so that she could keep her fire burning every night. And she was

happy because someone needed her.

Then one Sunday she was not in her usual seat in the church. Two

peasants went up to her hut to see if there was anything the matter. She

was already dead, and they carried her body down to the village to bury

it.

When, the following Sunday, her funeral took place, just before Mass,

there were but few who followed, neither did one see grief on any face.

But suddenly, just as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, a

tall, stern monk came into the churchyard, and he stood still and

pointed to the snow-clad mountains. Then they saw the whole

mountain-ridge shining in a red light as if lighted with joy, and round

it wound a procession of small yellow flames, looking like burning

candles. And these flames numbered as many as the candles which old

Agnete had burned for the doomed. Then people said: 'Praise the Lord!

She whom no one mourns here below has all the same found friends in the

solitude above.'

_From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD