THE BEREAVED
IT WAS Sigrun's mother, the old Dean's wife from Stenbroträsk. Early in
May, 1916, she was on a visit to some relatives in Bohuslän, and, being
so near, thought she ought to go over to her son-in-law at Algeröd and
see how he was.
On arriving at the humble little vicarage, she found that Pastor Rhånge
had brought his mother over to keep house for him. A simple and
straightforward soul, this mother, who, as the widow of a pilot, and in
straitened circumstances, had pinched and saved to get her son into the
priesthood. The visitor noticed that she was proud and happy at being
able to live with her son and look after him, as was reasonable enough.
Nothing to take offence at in that.
But the income arising from the living was so pitifully small that the
old lady had likewise found herself obliged to eke out the money by
taking paying guests. She had staying with her now two young girls, in
delicate health, who had been sent there in the hope of benefiting by
the fresh mountain air.
At first the two girls had been a little afraid of the dark and gloomy
master of the house, who was in mourning for his wife, but when Sigrun's
mother came to Algeröd they had got over their fear. It was a great
surprise to her. Instead of a house full of sorrow and mourning, she
found a place full of laughter and play and merriment.
The afternoon seemed long to her; she was in dread of losing her
patience before it ended. Wherever she went, the vision of her daughter
was before her eyes, and she could not but wonder how Rhånge ever could
endure these two young girls about the place, showing off as they did,
and courting his attention, so evidently that it must have annoyed and
incensed him had he been as he was before.
But he was changed--that was evident in every way. He was a different
man altogether.
His voice, his laugh, had grown loud and shrill, and he had, too, a
strange way of boasting about his own excellence.
Before, his manner had always been marked by great dignity and
seriousness. No one could be in his company for two minutes without
discovering the priest in him. But now, all that had disappeared.
Before, he had seemed to leave it to others to find out that he was a
gifted and distinguished man; now, he took it upon himself to tell them
so.
He spoke of how clever he had been at school, how easily and well he had
passed his examination, of the great and wonderful things he had done
among his congregations; kept on with story after story, as if he would
never end.
And the two girls clapped their hands in evident admiration.
It seemed, indeed, as if he were pleased to show his mother-in-law how
they looked up to him, and how completely he could do as he pleased with
them. He was like a man who has made one great failure, and seeks
desperately in every way to reinstate himself.
He was not in any way pleasant or obliging toward the two young girls,
and there was contempt in every word he gave them. But he could not keep
away from them. He spoke of work he had to do, but he did not leave the
company. Sigrun's mother was hurt at first, thinking that her daughter
was already forgotten. But in the course of the evening, another idea
came into her mind. She began to think he felt the loss of his wife so
keenly that it was driving him to ruin.
She was to stay the night, and when it was late enough for her to
retire, she could not refrain from saying a few words to him: that she
understood he would have to marry again soon, but she sincerely hoped he
would be careful in his choice, and not take the first that came to
hand.
At this he asked her to go with him into his room, but said nothing to
the others.
And there he showed her how he had collected all Sigrun's
belongings--things she had brought with her from her own home, as well
as those from after her marriage.
Portraits of her in all sizes were spread about the room, and her books
were foremost on the bookshelf.
One book there was which her mother recognized particularly; a little
book of devotion which had been given her before her confirmation. It
lay on the table beside the bed.
"I read in it every evening," said the Pastor--"that book and no other."
He opened the middle compartment in a large cabinet. Here he had put
away a couple of little ivory boxes, which Sigrun had had as a little
gill. And, taking them out, he laid them caressingly against his cheek.
"She was fond of them," he said, "and they are never touched by any hand
but mine. Those others out there are never allowed to see anything of
all this."
He showed her the little picture of the home at Stenbroträsk, which had
comforted Sigrun so many times. It was wrapped in several layers of
tissue paper, rolled up in a cloth, and packed away at the back of a
drawer, as if it had been something precious.
"You don't think I would ever let any one else look at this?" he said.
He brought out a little cloth which Sigrun had worked for him.
"It is always on that table," he said, "because Sigrun herself put it
there. But I have another that I put over it when the sun shines in--you
can see it is not faded."
Sigrun had made a cushion for his rocking-chair, and the fringe at the
bottom had come loose in one or two places. He had tried to mend it
himself, sewing with coarse thread and big stitches. He held it up now
to show--clumsily done it was, but he could not entrust the work to any
other hand.
Sigrun's mother offered to take it up with her to her room and mend it
properly. He allowed her to do so, but held the cushion long in his
hands, turning it over and over, before he could let it go.
The dearest treasures of all, Sigrun's two plain rings and one other
ring, and one or two little gold trinkets, he had put away in a little
leather bag.
"I carry that about with me all day in my waistcoat pocket," he said.
"And at night it is under my pillow. It never leaves me night or day."
Sigrun's mother was moved to deep sympathy. She saw how his sorrow was
tearing at him, threatening to rend him asunder. And she understood that
he strove against it in the presence of others, tried to be as he had
been, but could not, and that it was this which made such discord in his
being.
She sat down on a sofa and beckoned him to her.
"Come and sit down by me," she said in a gentle, motherly voice. "And
tell me all your trouble."
At this he broke out into violent weeping.
"I don't know," he cried--"I don't know what is to become of me. I can
find nothing in life, now that Sigrun is gone.
"She is gone," he said again, "and yet I cannot feel that she is dead.
To me it seems as if she had gone from me because she was afraid of me.
"I could not make her happy, but it was only because I loved her so,
beyond all bounds or reason. I wanted her all to myself. And I hemmed
her in and shut her off from everything. And now it tortures me beyond
measure that I let her suffer. If I had known she was going to leave me
so soon, I would have kept myself in check. What would it have mattered
if I had perished, as long as she was happy in her brief earthly life?
"I know they say she died of the smallpox. But I dare not believe that
was it. And I dare not ask how it was that she went. I dread to hear
that she died because I had made her so unhappy that she could not stay
with me."
Sigrun's mother sat still and let him give vent to his feelings. She was
not surprised at anything he said, for she knew, being old, that no
human being ever stood beside the grave of a loved one without being
torn by remorse and the pangs of conscience.
A LETTER
A FEW days later, Lotta Hedman came in to the Pastor in his study in the
middle of the day.
She had a letter in her hand, and stared straight before her; her hair
was as smooth as Lotta's hair could ever be, and her brow was clear as
if Heaven had opened above her and shed over her something of its glory.
The Pastor was somewhat surprised himself to see that she came in so
calmly and coolly to speak to him, for Lotta Hedman had been strange and
confused in her manner ever since the night when Sigrun had gone. She
was restless always, and often talked aloud to herself. It was supposed
that she saw visions, and those who heard anything of what she said
noticed that it was always about the great destruction and a horseman on
a red horse, and the great beast, the dreadful end of the world.
She avoided everyone as far as she could, and most of all her master. He
had often noticed how she would go a long way round to keep out of his
way.
Her hair stood up, as a rule, all about her head, her eyes rolled about,
her clothes were ill-cared-for, and her work was done as best might be.
Whenever she encountered the two young ladies, she would call to them
with stern words from the Scriptures, that sounded like threats.
They had tried to persuade the Pastor to send Lotta back to her own
country, but he understood that it was her sorrow for Sigrun that
troubled her, and so he had protected her and retained her in his
service.
To-day, noticing the change in her appearance, he said to himself: "I
see, now, that her mourning is over. There is no one but myself in the
home that remembers Sigrun now."
But Lotta begged him to listen to her with patience, for she had much to
say.
And to his great surprise, for she was in the highest degree solemn and
earnest, she began by telling him a saga.
"There was once a homestead," she said, "where honest peasant folk
lived, but close by was a mountain, and there were trollfolk there. And
the peasant's wife had once been into the dwelling of the trollfolk, to
help one of their wives in childbirth. And as she bathed the child, it
splashed a drop of the water into her eye, and that drop of water gave
her the gift of sight in that eye, so that ever after she could see all
that the trollfolk were doing about her own place. She came on them many
a time when they were stealing things, or laying traps for man and beast
to their hurt.
"Then one day it chanced that the peasant's wife was going out to the
fair at harvest-time, and walking there among the booths she met the
troll from her home. And she forgot herself, and passed the time of day
with him. 'Good-day to you, gaffer,' she said, shaking hands with him;
'that's a fine piece of cloth you've bought there.'
"'Ay,' said the troll, 'and cheap too. There were two peasants
quarrelling about the piece, and while they fought, I took up the parcel
and made off.'
"After that they stood a bit talking easily together, but then suddenly
the troll said: 'But how is this, old lady--how is it you can see me at
all?'
"'Why, it's this way,' said she, 'I got a drop of water in my eye last
time I came to your place, and ever since I can see you, whether you
like it or not.'
"'Well, now, to be sure. And which eye was it, then?'
"'In the left,'" said the woman. And quick as light he raised his hand
and struck out her left eye. Took the eye clean out, never leaving a bit
of it. And after that she could never all her life see anything out of
ordinary.
"And that was what Pastor did to me the first time we met," said Lotta
in a high, shrill voice. "Pastor struck out my eye with the gift of
sight out of my face, and ever since, my life's been all confusion. I
can see, but only darkly; I can hear, but indistinctly, and I get no
further, and find no one to listen to me. I'm poor and homeless, and I
shall never be more than a poor working girl."
The Pastor sat quietly listening, and when Lotta stopped a moment for
breath, he said, without a trace of anger:
"Go on with what you have to say, Lotta. I am sure you did not come to
me to-day only to speak of these old things."
"No," said Lotta, "but I want Pastor to remember that, because I have
wronged you greatly afterward, in my turn. It may be well now and then
to know that there are old debts owing, so one can ask for payment. And
I have great need of mercy and forgiveness, as you will see."
The Pastor shook his head.
"Now I cannot see what you are thinking of."
But Lotta answered steadily:
"I know what it is I have to say, and it is no easy thing to confess,
but before I come to that, there is one thing more I must tell you
first.
"I am not one to go tale-bearing about," she said, "and I have never
said a word to Sigrun about it, but I know there is a place called
Hånger. And I have heard the whole story of the priest who was murdered
there, and the gatepost and the old woman at the window and the curse
that lies on the men of Hånger. And it seems to me that a man who knows
he is come of a strong, wild race, that has always been hard to get on
with, and who knows, too, what manner of death awaits him--I think that
man must have asked himself at times if he did right in taking for his
wife a girl innocent and delicate as a newly opened leaf, and knowing
nothing of all the dark within him."
"Lotta Hedman!"
The Pastor's voice was still calm enough; he was but warning Lotta not
to go too far.
"Let me go on, Pastor," she begged. "For I do not say this in any
reproach, but only to remind you that there are faults on both sides,
though the fault on ours, on Sigrun's and mine, is so much the greater
that it will need much mercy and forgiveness in your scale to balance
it.
"And now I have only to tell you how it was Sigrun left us. And it is by
her own wish that I tell you this. I have had a letter from her to-day,
telling me to do it, and it has loosed me from my abasement and lifted
me up out of my deceit, so that I can once more look my fellows in the
face."
The fact that it was Lotta Hedman speaking, rendered her words less
surprising to the Pastor than if it had been another. He thought she was
about to tell him that Sigrun had not died of the smallpox, but had
taken her own life, and that Lotta fancied she had received some sort of
permission to tell him about it now.
And Lotta began her story.
But as she went on, her courage faded, for she saw how the man before
her grew darker in mind, as the sky darkens before the coming of a great
storm. Clouds drew up from every side. A terrible cold and a terrible
darkness spread abroad. And at last she could hardly utter a word.
Nevertheless, she managed to relate, without any circumspection, that
she had had several messages from Sigrun, and that the latter, after her
arrival at Hånger, had been ill with the smallpox. It had not been
dangerous, but a long illness.
And all through her illness, and ever since, she had stayed with the good
folk at Hånger. She had been out into the world on her own resources
for a single day, and the things she had met with then had so terrified
her that nothing could persuade her now to leave her friends and her
sheltered life to go out among strange things and people.
But the eloquent words with which Lotta had intended to describe her own
misery and shame, and her joy that Sigrun had changed her mind and would
return to her home, all this remained for the most part unsaid.
All she did was to lay before the Pastor the letter she had that day
received, dated from Hånger, the 15th of May, 1916, and with these few
lines:
"Lotta, you must go to Edward and tell him everything. And ask him to
come here to Hånger and fetch me, if he considers me worthy to be his
wife again."
Inside was a small envelope addressed to the Pastor himself. He tore it
open, and found the one word:
"Forgive!"
When he had seen it, he broke out into a bitter, heartrending laugh. It
was like the first gust of the storm bursting through the clouds and
Hinging them aside to commence its fierce play.
"You can telephone to Hånger and tell Sigrun I will come and fetch her
to-morrow," said the Pastor. "To-day I have to go to an examination at
the school."
Lotta did as she was asked. And just after noon the Pastor drove off
alone. He had a long journey before him to a distant school. But on
coming to the cross-roads, he did not turn off along the way that led to
the school. He turned eastward, up toward the Dalsland boundary, in the
direction of Hånger.
THE TROLLFOLK OF HÅNGER
AH, THERE is surely no need to believe that any supernatural influence
was at work. But for one who has heard close to his ear the low-toned
whispering of the beloved dead, or marked, with an unrest so great that
the heart seems ready to break under it, how a soft tide of gentle
thoughts comes sweeping through the soul; has felt the softest hands
guiding the weary pen to its end--such an one finds it hard to believe
that there were not invisible hosts this day gathered about the
unfortunate man who drove along over the broad, desolate mountain
tracts.
For however hurt and betrayed, however deceived and humiliated he felt,
however his thoughts turned toward vengeance and punishment, they were
yet led again and again toward something else that seemed to draw them
with even greater power.
And the thing that drew them so was Hånger, the home of his fathers,
that he had never seen, with its red buildings set far up among the
pine-woods, looking out over a landscape with ten long ridges, ten high
peaks, ten glittering lakes, ten parishes--and hardly ten homesteads in
all.
To him, the vision had never yet appeared--the vision of the old house
at Hånger, with gatepost and orchard and cellar, as he knew it had
appeared to others of his race. But over him, too, lay its secret power.
And his thoughts turned now to his childhood, when he had dreamed that
it should fall to his lot to lift the curse that rested on Hånger and
the race of Hånger. He recalled his argument of the old days, that
since the curse had come upon them through the murder of a priest, so it
might be lifted from their heads if one of the Hånger folk became a
priest and a holy man of God.
Later, in youth and manhood, he had lost those thoughts, it is true;
yet, after all, it was that original idea which had determined the
direction of his life.
When he had commenced his studies, and all had gone well in what he
touched, he had ceased to believe that any ill-fate especially
threatened the men of his race. It was all nothing but a wayward, unruly
character, and a gloomy inability to keep what was their own. If a man
were but wise, and knew how to control himself, the thought of suicide
would surely disappear. "And I shall be the one to show them that a
Rhånge from Hånger can die as others do," he had sometimes thought.
"And so, after all, it may be my lot to make an end of the old
superstition."
And indeed he had succeeded in resisting all the temptations common to
youth, and in leading an orderly and blameless life, in all save his
relations with his wife.
He started in his seat as if suddenly awakening. For a moment or two he
had been freed from the consciousness of his misfortune, but now, at the
thought of his wife, it came back to him in all its horror. The very
fact that he was a priest, and should live blamelessly, made the coming
shame more intolerable; the gossip and scandal cut him like the lash of
ironbound thongs. "Better if she had never, never returned," he thought
in his bitterness of heart. "She has made life impossible for me at home
here. We shall have to go and live abroad."
Strangely enough, however, his thoughts soon turned from his wife, and
settled again on the old homestead with its uncanny story.
It was his father who had told him of Hånger, and there was much
besides the murder and the curse in what he said.
He had told how none knew where the Hånger folk had come from. Five
brothers had suddenly appeared in the parish, all big, handsome, strong
men, but of unknown family, from an unknown land, speaking an unknown
tongue. It was generally believed that they were the offspring of
trollfolk, by some woman who had fallen into their power, and, in truth,
their wildness and violent character, their courage and sharpness, their
strange ways and obstinate will, and, more than all, their extraordinary
success in acquiring goods and property, gave further credence to the
legend.
These men, who had come into the district as poor labourers, had in the
course of a few years made themselves, first, masters of Hånger, where
the eldest brother had settled down, and afterward, of four other
estates.
It was comforting to think of those forefathers of his. They had never
been like the other peasants round them. They had dressed grandly, and
walked proudly; they might have been gentry themselves, but had never
cared about it. He felt to-day the need of something to increase his
self-respect, and he found a certain dignity in belonging to a richly
gifted and famous race.
And all things considered, he was perhaps not so very unlike them after
all. Lotta Hedman had herself compared him to a troll, and reminded him
that he came of a race of wild men.
If only he had not been a priest, and forced to hold his own powerful
nature constantly in check!
He called to mind the night when he had gone in pursuit of the
frightened Bailie--it must have been the old trollfolk blood breaking
out in him.
And this again brought him back to his home and his wife, and an
agonizing pain wrung his soul anew. He remembered how he had suffered
all that spring from sorrow and pangs of conscience. But bitter as this
suffering had been, it was yet even more bitter to know that Sigrun had
condemned him to it in cold blood, without any compelling reason. No,
the bitterest and worst of all was that she had lowered herself to
deceit, that she had freed herself in such a ghastly manner; had taken a
miserable vagabond into her confidence, and fallen at last into the
hands of such a man as Sven Elversson--a man whom he had himself driven
forth from among his congregation. This it was that filled his cup of
shame to overflowing.
"She came to the right man at last," he thought. "She is dead, and he is
an outcast, who dare not show himself among his fellows."
But again he was led from the agony of his thoughts by the recollection
of his forefathers and their home.
Over the treeless wastes where he now drove, the west wind, the strong
wind from the sea, whined sharp and biting. "It is very cold up here,"
he thought. "It must be better on the other side of the range. Hånger
lies in shelter of the eastern slopes; it would be warm and spring-like
on such an evening as this."
Once again he was thinking of his race.
All of them had been marked by some trait which distinguished them from
those around them.
One of them had had a horse which he loved beyond all else, and he was
rarely seen except in the saddle. He went to his work and to his
pleasures on horseback, and had even one Sunday ridden into the church
and demanded to receive the Holy Sacrament without dismounting.
A faint smile passed over the priest's face at the thought of that
remarkable scene. It had often amused him in former days to imagine it
to himself. But he had never thought such a thing could be true; he had
always regarded it as invention and fable.
That same horseman had once had a quarrel with his wife. "Folks should
use their wits at times," she had said, "and not trust only to their
strength." But this had angered him, and he had hoisted her up and set
her to ride astride of the roof-beam. "Now I've set you there by
strength," he said. "Let's see if you can get down again by your wits."
It must have been no easy matter at times to be the wife of one of those
Hånger folk. They had been violent, jealous, and obstinate. Strong and
able men, indeed, hospitable and magnificent, but given to coarse
jesting that might well prove more trying than many other faults.
One of them once took it into his head to have everything he owned in
pairs. It was not sufficient to have one bell in his room; he must have
two. One window was never enough for a room; there must be two or four
or six. Two chimneys, two doors, two barns, two haylofts. Never one lad
or girl, but always two or four of them. It might seem an innocent whim
enough, but he had nearly brought Hånger to ruin with his alterations
and rebuilding.
Among the cattle, too, he would have as many bulls as cows, and he
ordered his wife to bear him a boy and a girl, a boy and a girl, and so
on in regular succession. And when she did not obey him, he was not to
be trifled with.
Again the Pastor smiled. No, clearly it was no light matter at times to
be mistress of Hånger.
One of the men there had been who was always singing. He came to church
singing, and went away singing; he sang when he answered any who spoke
to him; sang when he went to bed and when he got up.
But for all his singing, he had been a hard and unreasonable man, and it
was with him that the misfortune had come. He had once tried to cheat
his brother over some inheritance, but his own wife had discovered the
fraud, and asked their priest to come to Hånger to talk over the matter
with him. But the Master of Hånger thought there was something more
behind the visit, and, inflamed with jealousy, had lain in wait for the
priest on the way home and killed him.
Yes, it was true, as he had just said: no easy matter to be wife to one
of the ancient race of Hånger.
And yet, none of their womenfolk had ever given themselves out for dead
in order to escape.
He laughed a short, harsh laugh. It might seem as if he had been the
worst of them all. Otherwise, his wife would hardly have had recourse to
such desperate means.
And what had she to reproach him for after all? Nothing but having loved
her too much. He had asked nothing of her but the one thing, that she
should be his alone, entirely and without reserve.
But suppose that had been in itself too much to ask? If it had been
harder to fulfil than that of the mad demands of those wild forefathers
of his? Can one human being demand of another such utter and complete
surrender of self? Not only in love, but in all else?
Pastor Rhånge remembered how he had often thought Sigrun was a being of
a different sort, unlike all others; that she had seemed to have a
nature of her own, though she could never find expression for it.
And that nature of hers, he knew now, was pity. To do good, to sacrifice
herself for others, to care for the sick, that had been all her natural
craving, but he had set himself against it. He could not endure it. He
would have her all to himself, and not share her with any besides.
And the thing that had happened, that had seemed so abominable to him
before, was there, after all, anything in it but what must necessarily
come? It was the steel spring, long compressed, which had unfolded as
soon as the pressure was released.
"Sigrun is pity itself," he thought. "Mercy is her aim, her task. I
should have realized it."
The sudden acknowledgment of his own fault comforted him now. Sigrun no
longer appeared to have sunk so low, to be so unspeakably hard and
without feeling.
He turned the thought over in his mind. "Yes," he said to himself. "That
must be why we were never happy together. I hindered her from being
what her nature commanded her to be."
Then, suddenly, the old agony returned. "This fellow, Sven Elversson, he
cares for her better than I. He too is given up to works of charity. And
that is why she stays with him."
He had not thought of Sven Elversson with any jealousy before. "Sigrun
knows what he has done," he had said to himself. "She could never love
him."
But now, the whole thing seemed more than suspicious. Why had Sven
Elversson not told him at once that Sigrun had come to Hånger? Was he
in love with her, and had he thought to keep her for himself?
But in the midst of his anger came one of those thoughts that seemed to
hover in the air above that desolate land, and refreshed the soul of the
unhappy man like cool summer rain.
"Have you any right to expect service and aid from Sven Elversson?" said
the thought.
And the priest remembered how he had sinned against Sven Elversson, and
ruined his life, and condemned him to nameless misery.
But this consciousness of his own guilt brought a strange soothing calm
in the midst of his anger--at the wrong he had suffered from others. It
was like a cooling drink to one in fever.
And a new humility, a self-knowledge, woke in his mind.
He no longer felt himself as the punishing avenger with all right on his
side.
He was prepared now, not to forgive, but to search and examine with care
before passing his final judgment.
THE LIFTING OF THE CURSE
THE priest checked his horse. There below him, in the glow of the
evening sun, was Hånger itself.
For a moment he doubted whether it could be right. He had always heard
the place described as consisting of large buildings. Here, the main
part was certainly of decent size, but all the rest seemed small and
insignificant.
But the orchard was there. On the slope between the small houses grew
tall, century-old apple trees, now in their finest bloom, making a roof
of delicate white and pink above the lawn.
And the old oak was there, not yet in full leaf, but well on the way to
clothe its wrinkled, knotty branches with soft, leafy green.
And the view was there, too. A view out over a marvellously fine and
light and softly drawn landscape, where the ten mountain ridges and the
ten lakes lay now, at the hour of sunset, decked in every imaginable
hue, one height a brilliant white, and another threateningly dark; one
lake like a sheet of polished steel, and its fellow behind the next hill
glittering all in gold.
It was impossible to think that men who had lived all their lives within
sight of such beauty could remain harsh, rough, and wild; without any
thought beyond gaining riches and lands. Here, in the wonder of these
surroundings, he seemed to find the explanation of all that joyous
delight in splendour and magnificence that had marked his forefathers.
He sat for a long while looking at it all; at last, however, he jumped
down from his seat and walked into the wood close by. Here he tied up
his horse to a tree, spread out some fodder before it, and set off
quietly and thoughtfully toward the house.
When he was near enough to see in between the buildings, he noticed a
man and a woman sitting in the soft, bright spring evening under the
great oak, on either side of a garden table. The man was reading aloud,
the woman sewing. Neither had noticed him as yet.
He stopped, and walked round behind one of the outbuildings, approaching
them from another direction. Close by where the two were sitting, there
grew a hedge of fir trees, thick and tall. He stole along under shelter
of this, coming up noiselessly and unseen. When he was near enough to
hear distinctly the voice of the man reading, he lay down quietly on the
ground, and moved a few twigs cautiously aside, so as to see all he
wished.
He had not the slightest qualm of conscience in listening thus.
"Sigrun's whole future and my own are at stake," he thought. "I must
know the truth, by whatever means."
At first, however, he found himself listening to nothing more than a
little poem by Snoilsky. It was the story of the prisoner of war, who,
when released at last, after a toilsome journey over unknown ways, finds
himself one dark evening outside the poor cottage where years ago he had
left his wife. Then, looking in through the window, he sees another man
by her side. He understands that she has believed him dead, and he goes
away into the night, preferring to disappear rather than cause her
suffering. And before he goes, he fastens to the door a small leather
pouch containing all the little money he has, as a gift to the poor
home.
Sven Elversson read this story of love and resignation very beautifully,
but the Pastor heard the words without properly grasping their meaning.
His whole soul was concentrated on his wife.
Sigrun was sitting so that he could not see her face. But it was at
least herself, he saw. He recognized her hair, the pretty curve of the
neck; every movement of hand and arm as she sat at her work was familiar
to him.
"She lives!" he said to himself, folding his hands. "It is true--it is
true that she is alive."
His heart melted with emotion. He had seen her again, but it was not as
he had thought it would be. He felt no anger, no wish to call her to
account for all she had made him suffer; he would not speak to her of
the shame she had brought upon herself; he could only thank God with
tears that she was alive, and wished to return to him.
He laid one hand over his eyes, and thought what would have become of
him if Sigrun had really been dead. A bitter misanthrope, dragging
through life without hope, with no interest beyond guarding his
memories; a man who sought the society of other women only to deride
them for not being as she, the only one in the world for him. He could
see no bottom to the depth into which he must have sunk.
On the way here, he had wished in his despair that Sigrun had never made
herself known. A cruel and senseless thought--how could he ever have
entertained it for a moment?
All this passed through his soul now like a storm. And the voice of the
reader was lost in its fury.
In the first transport of joy he had been almost on the point of
springing up and hurrying forward to his wife. But he restrained
himself. "No," he thought; "there must be no trace of doubt or suspicion
between us. For the sake of our happiness, I must stay here now."
"We will not read any more this evening," said Sigrun, when Sven
Elversson had finished the poem. "I have something to say to you."
And her voice reached the listener behind the trees, full of the ring of
life. Sweet as before, low and touching, with the faint little lisp.
Sven Elversson raised his head from the book and turned toward her. The
Pastor saw at once that he was greatly changed. He carried his head as
high as any other, and had the easy, untroubled bearing of an educated
man. The slight stamp of the lay preacher, the exaggerated humility that
had marked him before, were gone now.
"Yes, it is almost a pity to sit over a book on such an evening as
this," said Sven Elversson. "Better to talk."
Sigrun hesitated a little before beginning what she had to say. She
folded up her work, and put it away carefully. Then in a firm and
resolute voice she said:
"It is done now, Herr Elversson."
"What is done?" he asked carelessly. "Your work, you mean?"
"No. The thing you have asked me to do every day since I have lived
under your roof. I have done it now."
"You have ..."
He had risen, greatly moved, and did not complete his sentence.
But Sigrun's voice answered him firmly and clearly, without a tremor:
"I have written to Lotta Hedman and asked her to tell Edward the whole
story. At this moment he knows I am alive. And to-morrow he is coming
here to fetch me."
"He is coming here?" Sven Elversson repeated. His voice was not firm
and clear. It was faint and troubled.
"Yes," she answered. "I have asked him to come here to Hånger. I will
tell you why later on. But, first of all, I want you to tell me now if
you are pleased."
To the watcher it seemed as if the man before him changed his form and
appearance before his eyes. He seemed to shrink, and the patient smile
showed full and distinctly about his mouth. His eyes, that had shone so
cheerfully a moment before, looked down at the ground; his arms hung
loosely at his sides. And as he spoke, in answer to Sigrun's question,
his voice had the old ring of painful humility.
"Surely I am pleased, Fru Rhånge," he said. "But it is overkind of you
to speak of this as if it were my doing. I know--or I should say, I have
always believed, that after the first excitement had passed over, there
had not been a day but you have repented, and longed to go back. But you
are thinking, perhaps, of your fear of your husband's anger, and the
harsh judgment of the world, and how I have tried to give you courage to
face it all. That is all I can claim credit for."
The listener heard and understood now, not with his ears alone, but with
his whole soul. "What is true, and what is false in this?" he wondered.
"God help me to find out the truth!"
Sigrun's face he could not see, but he fancied she shrugged her
shoulders a little.
"Yes, of course," she said. "What else could there be for you to help me
with?"
"It is good to remember that it is so," said Sven Elversson, in his
gentle voice. "You realized, almost at once, the great wrong you had
done your husband. It was impossible that you could condemn one who
loved you to a whole life of solitude and longing. I am sure, I am
convinced, that you would have taken this step months before, if it had
not been for your illness. You have not, until now, had strength to face
the gossip and scandal it would mean. And I should be the last to blame
you for the delay. I know what it is to be an outcast and disowned by
one's equals."
There was something in Sigrun's manner suggestive of impatience. Her
voice had a touch of mischief as she answered:
"Oh, yes, I knew, Herr Elversson, that you would be pleased. But since
this is the last time we shall speak together alone, I should like to
tell you that it was not you alone who persuaded me to go back to my
home. Your wife, too, has helped me very greatly--more, perhaps, than
you yourself. I think she must have loved unspeakably," Sigrun continued
in a gentle voice; "and I have tried to learn from her how one should
love."
Sven Elversson's face darkened.
"She was a good woman," he said, simply, without his usual wealth of
words. "We were very fond of her while she lived here among us."
"Mor Thala has told me a great deal about her," said Sigrun. "She went
out to Grimön, it seems, the day after the schoolhouse was burnt down.
She wanted to tell you that both she and the schoolmaster had done their
best to make the children comfortable there. And she begged you not to
take the misfortune too much to heart. You had already gained friends
through that work; people had begun to realize what sort of man you
were."
Sven Elversson made a gesture as if to indicate that he would rather
hear no more of this. But Sigrun went on:
"I saw your wife at Applum, and I remember she was very plain to look
at. Perhaps it was this, or perhaps something else that annoyed you, for
Mor Thala says you spoke to her unkindly; more so than you had ever done
to anyone else. 'If I came to you and asked you to be my wife,' you said
scornfully, 'then we should see how much you respected me yourself.' And
she neither blushed nor paled, but her face went ashen gray, and she
stood up. 'You say that to me in jest and without meaning,' she said.
'But if ever you asked me in earnest, it would be the happiest day of my
life.' And that seemed to touch you, and a couple of years after, you
married her in reality, because her answer then had shown you she was a
good and noble woman."
"True, she was good and noble," said Sven Elversson. "I must do her
justice. It was strange that she should be willing to marry a man like
me."
"Mor Thala has told me," went on Sigrun, "that it was she who advised
you to move out here to Hånger. She knew the place, and knew it was all
going to ruin, so you could buy it for next to nothing. She made peace
about you, looked after your business, sold timber, I think it was, so
that you should have money enough to live on, arranged all things in
your home so as to answer more or less to the habits and needs of your
upbringing, and she took in all those in need whenever you found them,
and looked after them until you could find them work elsewhere. Do you
not think that woman loved you?"
"No," said Sven Elversson. "I think she was trying to love me. She
fought against all that she disliked in me, but at last it was beyond
her power to go on, and then she went off with Gustavsson."
"It was not so," said Sigrun--"not that way at all. That was not why she
went. But she knew you loved someone else. You had betrayed it somehow
or other. There is a book of poems that is always on your table. Mor
Thala says you often read in it, but only one of them all, an Icelandic
love song, by Bjarni Thorarensen."
Sven Elversson sprang to his feet, and clutched at his breast. "What do
you mean?" he cried, almost threateningly.
Sigrun lifted her hand. "I wanted to talk to you about your wife," she
said. "I shall be gone to-morrow," she added appealingly.
He sat down once more, humble and resigned. But his eyes had lost their
wonted brightness; they looked at Sigrun solemnly and sternly.
The listener bent forward in tense eagerness. He recognized Sigrun's
voice, but there was much in her manner that was strange to him. There
was something about her now, a calm self-possession, a mature
womanliness, that she had not had before. "She has gone through much
since I last saw her," he thought. "She never had that power of control
over one who spoke with her before. No one can resist her now."
"Let us say," went on Sigrun again, "that your wife noticed last autumn,
more distinctly than before, that you did not love her. Perhaps you read
that poem oftener--how can I tell? And so she went away, but she did it
in such a manner that you should not think she had gone for love of you,
to make life easier for you. That was why she went with Gustavsson. I
have spoken of this with your mother, and she agrees with me entirely.
And Gustavsson himself told me so. 'She came to me because Sven
Elversson did not care for her'--that was what he said."
Sven Elversson raised his hands deprecatingly.
"Why must I hear all this?" he said. "How can you think it will make me
happier to know it?"
"Yes," said Sigrun; "it is always good to know that one has been loved
by one who was good. And well, too, that you need not now suspect her of
deceit or fickleness. You see what it was: she was made of the same
stuff as that soldier we have just read of, who came home from the wars.
And so you see," Sigrun went on, "it was she who taught me how to love.
How love can pass all understanding, how it can fill one's soul to such
a degree that it lets its own body be destroyed."
She rose up, and stood behind Sven Elversson's chair. And in so doing,
she turned so that her husband, from where he was, could see her face.
At sight of it, he almost started back, before the supernatural beauty
that shone in her lovely features.
She spoke quickly now, following up her thoughts without waiting for
reply.
"The poem in that book of yours, Herr Elversson, that you are always
reading, is called 'A Song to Sigrun.' And whether it were because of
the name, or for some other reason, your wife believed she knew who it
was you loved."
Sven Elversson would have spoken, made some protest, or assurance, but
she stopped him.
"Let me finish, that you may know how your wife could love in death as
in life. Try to imagine her as a soul that is nothing but love, right
down to the most unconscious depths, nothing but love, and that this
soul determines to sacrifice itself for the one she loves. Finds ways
and means that another would never have thought of, takes possession of
another human being's will, leads, guides, accomplishes, whispering
thoughts, dictating speech, compelling all things to her wish."
Sven Elversson shook his head. Very gently, but immovably, he said:
"Now you are talking like Lotta Hedman."
"Yes," said Sigrun, "I am talking like Lotta Hedman. I know it. And I
will not deny that it was Lotta Hedman who taught me to believe in the
power of the dead. But how do you know she is not right? What star was
it that led the dying woman to me of all others? And whence came the
thought that so compelled me? You know how timid and sensitive I am. It
is true that I had been lying there thinking of flight, but what made me
do it in such a way? There were other means I could have chosen. But
from the moment your wife lay there dead in my bed, I could not think of
any other. And why was Lotta Hedman unable to resist? Why did Gustavsson
come after I had gone, and not before? What made him so quiet and
submissive all that day? Why were we not discovered? Why was my money
stolen? Why was nothing found out after? I had certainly no deep-laid
plans of my own. How did all this come about, Herr Elversson, unless it
were that the woman who loved you, in the power of her endless love, had
resolved to lead the woman you loved to you?"
She had spoken eagerly, as one inspired, overwhelmed by the miracle she
felt she had shared. But there was no trace of passion in her voice. The
listener behind the trees marked that well. Sigrun was speaking to the
man who loved her in the firm assurance that he understood she did not
love him.
Sven Elversson felt the same. His voice was thick with emotion, but it
never changed into the tone of passion.
"Be it so then! Let us talk like Lotta Hedman, if you wish. But if the
dead woman's soul sent you here, might it not be as well for torture and
punishment? She knew that my love could only increase, just as she knew
that you could never come to love me in return."
"Yes," said Sigrun, with the same strange note of lofty inspiration,
almost as if she were speaking to one from another world, "she knew
that, yes. And she knew, too, that, if there had not been something in
you that protected you against all love but hers, you would not have
allowed me to stay here at Hånger. But she believed, perhaps, that some
sweetness might come into your life by your teaching me how life should
be lived. Might not that have been her aim? Afterward, when you are old,
when all that flames and burns now is cooled, then you will think of
this winter at Hånger as a time of happiness."
He shook his head.
"Not now," she said, "but after, and to your last hour. For I believe,
as I said just now, that it was all to this one end, that you might
teach me how life should be lived. What was I, a few months back, before
I came here? I was not wicked; I meant well to all, but I was timid; I
tried to do well, but mostly it went as best might be. There was no plan
in my life. I did not know that one could be good and true, faithful and
kind, under whatever circumstances. And that is what I have learned here
with you; to detest all that pollutes the soul. That is what I take with
me now, back to my home and my husband. He shall see that I am changed,
and he will have more trust in me than before. We shall be happy now,
and we have you to thank for our happiness. And you must think of us and
be glad."
He took one of her hands in his, bent over it, and wept.
"To-morrow, when Edward comes," she said, "I will tell him all this, and
he will understand and thank you."
Sven Elversson started up in dismay.
"Is he to know ..."
"Yes," she said. "I shall tell him that you love me, and he shall learn
how she who is dead loved you. I will tell him all. You must see that
there can be no more darkness, no more secrets between us. He shall know
how it was I learned the secret of love. I will tell him that it does
not care for promises and commandments, but knows its own law only. It
cares for nothing, thinks of nothing, but the beloved. And it goes away
when it is best; when it would bring suffering to stay. And I will tell
Edward of all this here, at Hånger, where his fathers lived, in a place
where nature itself is at once gentle and great. For he can be so,
too--gentle and great."
The listener moved in his place. He felt shame at spying thus upon these
two. He would have stepped forward and spoken openly and freely with
Sigrun and the man who loved her, whom she tried to comfort and give
courage now she was about to leave him.
But as he looked about for a way to go, he noticed something he had not
seen before; out of a heap of stones immediately before him stood an old
gatepost.
There was no gate, and no post on the other side. The thing stood there
alone, so rotten and decayed that it needed all the struts and supports
about it to keep it standing.
Pastor Rhånge started. He had not seen the thing before, but he had not
been looking that way. At first, he was convinced that it must be
hallucination; that there was no gatepost there in reality; then it
occurred to him that it might have been left standing as a curiosity.
But while he was looking at the post, the opportunity for declaring
himself had passed.
The two had gone on speaking; he perceived now that Sigrun was talking
of another subject altogether.
"But is it possible," she was saying, "that you do not know how it all
happened? Mor Thala told me once that you were ill with fever at the
time, and delirious; that you could remember nothing of it all."
Sven Elversson made no answer.
"I understand you do not wish me to speak of this at all," said Sigrun,
"but I do so want to speak to you about it. Remember, to-morrow I shall
not be here."
"I took my part in it, of course," said Sven Elversson, "but I was so
ill I remember nothing. Afterward, I heard the others talking about it,
and I reproached them. But then they said I had no call to say anything,
for I had been in it, too. And then I remembered, that they had forced
me to ..."
He had spoken with the greatest effort, the words seeming to force
themselves painfully through his lips. And he could not finish.
"You fancied you remembered," said Sigrun. "You know well enough it is
impossible that you should have done it really. You would rather have
died."
"I did it," he said. "Do not try to think otherwise."
"But I do think otherwise," said Sigrun, "and I want you to know that.
All the time I have been here under your roof, I have felt convinced
that it was not true. No one who knows you could believe it."
Sven Elversson bent forward and grasped her hand. And very earnestly and
simply he said:
"You have been very good to me this evening. I can never thank you
enough for this hour."
She understood his meaning, and refrained from pursuing the subject
further.
"But at least you must let me thank you for these months at Hånger. I
shall always think of this as the true home of charity. And I will try
to make my own home like yours."
"You can leave that till to-morrow," he said.
She rose to her feet.
"Do not go yet. It is the last evening."
"Then read a little of Snoilsky."
He opened the book, but closed it again.
"It is too dark to read."
"Then say something you know without the book. Let me hear Bjarni
Thorarensen's 'Song to Sigrun.' I have often wanted to ask you, but I
never dared."
Sven Elversson made a gesture as if to refuse.
"I shall not be here to-morrow," she said again, with a note in her
voice impossible to resist.
And he began to recite the Icelandic poet's passionate prayer to his
love not to forsake him even though she should die and go to dwell in
the mansions of heaven. "'Do not think I could not kiss a dead bride, or
that I could not lay my arm about the waist of one pale in death and
wrapped for burial.'"
He sat with his face turned away from her, his head bowed forward, his
eyes resting on some point in the far distance.
But all that he had kept in check so well while they had been speaking,
all that the soft enchantment of the evening, and the presence of the
woman he loved, had not availed to loose, was freed in him now by the
wild and powerful fervour of love that glowed through the poet's word.
All his pent-up feeling poured out now in his voice.
"'Does not the summer sun kiss with like warmth the ice-clad mountain
peak and the reddest rose? Are not white lilies loveliest of all
flowers?'" Sven Elversson's voice trembled in the rush of the storm of
love that raged within him.
Sigrun listened tensely for a few moments. Then suddenly she turned
away, so that he should not see her face.
It was turned now toward the listener behind the trees. And he saw how,
with features convulsed with passion, she, too, gave way to an outburst
of feeling. Her eyes closed in pain, her hands were clenched together
and her lips moved in silent plaint. Her husband could not hear the
words, but from the movement of her lips he fancied he could read what
she said.
"And I can never tell him--never!"
"'Come to me in autumn, when the winds rage over black waters,'" Sven
Elversson went on, his voice one impassioned cry. "'At midnight, when
the moon is hidden in stormy clouds.'"
The listener in his hiding-place shuddered with chilly dread. He saw
Sigrun lift her arms with a gesture of intense longing. He saw how the
whispering lips again and again shaped their cry of agony:
"And I can never tell him--never!"
"'Sink with thy snow-cold breast to my heart,'" murmured Sven Elversson,
in a breaking voice, "'and rest there, maiden from the grave, till thou
hast loosed my soul from the fetters of life.'"
The Pastor glanced away from his wife, and looked toward the post. It
seemed as if it had stood there till this hour for a single purpose--to
remind him that he came of a race never known to endure a wrong--a race
that knew how to take vengeance.
The two by the table said no word after the poem was finished. Sigrun
rose hurriedly and went into the house. Sven Elversson walked the
opposite way, through the trees, and past the gatepost, down to a little
quiet pool, where he stood, looking down into the water. He had passed
within a few steps of the listener, but without noticing him.
And Rhånge felt that this man who loved Sigrun must die.
It would be easy enough. Just creep up behind him and throw him into the
water. He felt, too, that this man would not even attempt to defend
himself. He would greet death as a welcome friend.
It was a perilous moment. Then to the mind of the excited man came a
thought which saved him. It had lain, no doubt, all ready in the depths
of his soul for long, but only now did it rise up to his consciousness.
"Once you drove out that man from your church because of what he had
done to the dead; what is this you would do yourself to the living?"
This thought it was that restrained him in that difficult hour. Was not
life a thousand times more sacred than death? How could he, who had
refused to admit Sven Elversson into his church, be now so savage as to
entertain the thought of ending a fellow creature's life, of separating
soul from body, to commit an act which held more than any could
understand, and the consequences of which might go on through an
eternity of eternities?
When he looked again toward the pool where Sven Elversson had stood, he
was gone.
And something more was gone--the gatepost. Afterward, he thought that,
in the struggle with temptation, he must have gone over to it himself,
and flung it down with its supports; that it had fallen, and had been so
utterly rotten and decayed that it had dropped with out a sound, leaving
nothing but crumbling dust behind.
But he was not sure that it was so. He thought also that the thing had
stood in his own soul; that it was his own violent, reckless, savage
nature, with its supports of inherited habit and ingrown prejudice and
sense of rights long held, that had fallen.
For that it had fallen, he felt now with wonder and relief. He knew it,
from the mighty train of gentle thoughts that flowed through his soul.
He knew it, from the power of self-sacrificing love that filled him now.
He realized it from the joy he now felt in being a priest. He thought of
his life, how he was at once a husbandman tending the fruits of the
earth, and a shepherd of souls, head of a household and leader of a
congregation, master and ruler and the helping minister of all--and now,
for the first time, he felt that he truly loved his work, as the noblest
and greatest and happiest of all.
He was happy, on this lovely evening in spring, as he drove back alone
over the desolate, barren, unbeautiful mountain tract, toward his own
poor home.
And he looked back, marvelling, at the thing which had saved him; for it
was not his love, nor his priestly office, but the thought of the
sacredness and majesty of life. A thought that had grown up slowly out
of Sven Elversson's ill-fate and now stood firm and clear in its
maturity.
* * * * * * *
When Sigrun came out next morning into the garden, she saw that the book
of poems had been left on the table, and went to fetch it in.
But, on taking it up, she found something between the leaves. And,
looking to see, she found a small purse of yellow leather.
It was thrust in just at the page where stood the verses of the prisoner
returned from the wars, and it contained her two plain rings, one other
ring, also her husband's gift, and a few small trinkets.
She wondered at this, trying to think what it could mean. And then at
last she understood. And, trembling with emotion, she began to weep.
So it was Sven Elversson found her.
At first she could make no answer to his anxious questioning. Then at
last she sobbed out:
"Edward was here last night, and heard all we said. He saw that I loved
you, and he left this for me."
"Love me!" cried Sven Elversson. "You love me?"
"Yes," said Sigrun. "And Edward saw it, but he is not angry with me. My
love, he will not come to fetch me now. He tells me to stay here and be
yours now."
* * * * * * *
Later in the day, Lotta Hedman came over to Hånger with a message from
the Pastor, asking Sigrun how she wished matters now to be arranged.
And she had much to tell, and among other things this: that, on the
previous night, she had seen the old homestead of Hånger for the first
time rise up in all its ancient grandeur. She had seen the old woman
sitting at the window, and the gatepost, and all the rest.
Then, suddenly, she saw the old woman lift her hands to Heaven, and her
face shone with joy.
And a voice was heard declaring:
"The trollfolk of Hånger are loosed from the curse."
And at the same moment, the old woman who had watched so long sank into
dust and vanished, and the gatepost fell, and house after house
collapsed, and Lotta Hedman knew that deliverance had come at last, and
that she would never see that vision again.
UNG-JOEL
EVERYONE knows how strange thoughts can be. It is as if they were sown
about the earth by an unseen hand. And one can go about fancying one has
found something rare and fine, and be glad and proud of it, until one
day it appears that the same had grown up in hundreds of other minds as
well.
So it was with Pastor Rhånge's thought of the sacredness of life. He
was by no means the only one who had found it....
It was in the month of June, the time of year when people in Bohuslän,
or, rather, in the coast tract of Bohuslän and on the islands near,
made ready for the coming of visitors.
There had been a great to-do everywhere in making preparations. Houses
and boats were newly painted, rooms swept out, gardens tidied up,
bathing-huts warmed, and refuse cleared away. And now the trains began
to come in, laden with visitors from all parts of the country. Invalids
and the overworked, loads of children and loads of aged folk, those
seeking rest and those in search of amusement. It seemed as if all
Sweden were on the road to the cool reef-belts and the boisterous sea.
But the visitors for whose sake all this was done were to come from the
eastward, from up inland. From the west, from the sea, no visitors were
looked for. No preparations had been made for any coming from there; No
orders, no instructions, had come regarding visitors from the sea.
And so, when visitors did come from the sea, naturally enough, their
reception could not be the same as in the case of those from inland.
Also, they brought with them horror and confusion and gloom, but no
pleasure at all.
One week of the month of June, 1916, had passed when Sven Elversson was
constrained to make a journey to Applum, all for the sake of those same
visitors. His brother, Ung-Joel, who had been at sea the last few years,
sailing between Holland and the Swedish ports, had come home to
Knapefiord, sick and strange in mind after having met with some of those
strangers out at sea, while they were yet on their way. And he had told
his young wife she must send for his brother to come and see him.
When Sven Elversson came to Ung-Joel he found him walking up and down
the little room behind the kitchen, where the young couple had set all
their best furniture, and which they never used as a rule. He was pale
and weary, but not exactly ill. His eyes were bloodshot, and looked as
if ready to close at any moment for lack of sleep, but he gave himself
no rest, to sit or lie down.
"How is all with you, Ung-Joel?" asked Sven Elversson.
Ung-Joel made no answer to the question, nor did he seem in any way
aware of his brother's presence. He walked up and down as before,
beating the air now and again with both arms.
"The seagulls--that is the worst, you know," he said.
"If we could only do something to make him sleep," whispered his wife.
"But he is afraid to lie down; he is afraid to close his eyes. Just
walks up and down, up and down...."
"The seagulls--that is the worst," said Ung-Joel again, and waved his
arms as before.
"Ung-Joel," said Sven Elversson, trying to bring up some old memory to
turn his brother's mind from his trouble. "Do you remember when you and
the fellows from the _Naiad_ came over to Grimön that day with a snake
for me to eat?"
And at that Ung-Joel stopped in his walk.
"Is that you, Sven?" he said. And the tears began to flow from his tired
eyes. "It's a good thing you came. So I can ask you to forgive me,
before I go mad."
"No need to talk like that," said Sven Elversson.
But now Ung-Joel began to tell how one day, after the great fight in the
North Sea, he had come sailing round the Skaw, and had seen the hosts of
the dead floating on the surface of the sea.
They did not lie flat on the water, but were held upright by their
lifebelts, with heads above water, so their features could be seen.
And Ung-Joel told how the vessel had sailed for hours among the
dead--thousands and thousands of dead. The sea was covered with them.
He described many terrible sights he had seen, but what seemed most
terrible of all to him was that all those dead men had their eyes torn
out by the innumerable seagulls that hovered about their heads.
"And I'll tell you what happened to the second mate," said Joel. "He'd
been standing looking at all this ghastliness a while, and then suddenly
he shut his eyes and jumped overboard. We never saw him again. He knew
he would never be able to live in peace after what he had seen. And I
wish now I had done the same."
"Do not think so, Joel," said Sven Elversson.
"I've got those horrors fixed in my eyes now," said Joel--"fixed there
so I can see it all if I shut them only for a moment. I daren't lie
down; I must be on my feet day and night, to keep my eyes from closing."
"You must think of other things," said Sven Elversson. "You've a wife
and children."
"I'll tell you what we did," said Ung-Joel. "We got out a couple of guns
we had on board, and started firing at the gulls. It was a sort of
relief: something to vent our rage on. And I think it was that that
saved us.
"But it was a silly thing to do, all the same. For it was no fault of
the gulls. And they did no more than harm the dead--what's that against
what was done to the living? And it was that I wanted to say to you,
Sven. When I think how men deal so with men, that thousands of young
lives are strewn about the sea, I can only cry for shame.
"And, Sven, I know I used to look down on you before and reckon myself
better than you. But I want to ask your forgiveness for that. I used to
think how you and your comrades up there had done a wrong to the dead,
and I myself--I've never done a single thing to help the living."
"That you have, Joel," said his brother.
"No," said Joel, weeping, and threw himself on his knees beside an
upholstered armchair, covered with pieces of embroidery, where his
brother was sitting. "I've never helped a single soul, not even father
or mother, or any one. And that's why the world's so cruel as it is."
"It could be better, Joel," said Sven, stroking his brother's hair. "And
you can help to make it so."
"It's too late now," said Ung-Joel. "Now that I've got that sight in my
eyes. I'm going mad now."
Sven Elversson laid one hand gently over his brother's eyes.
"Try now, Joel," he said. "You cannot see anything cruel now, with my
hand over your eyes."
"That's true," said Ung-Joel. "There's blessing in your hand, Sven, from
all the good you've done for others."
"Close your eyes now, Joel," said Sven Elversson. "And just think of how
we can work together and help each other from now on."
And Ung-Joel closed his eyes, and in a moment he had fallen forward
against his brother's knees, asleep.
It was a strange day, indeed, for Sven Elversson, that day in
Knapefiord. It seemed as if every living soul in the place had hit on
the same thought as Ung-Joel.
When his brother had been put to bed, and was quietly and healthily
asleep, Sven Elversson went for a walk through the fishing village. He
had gone but a little way down the smooth rocky slope when he met a
woman. It was the wife of that Hjelmfeldt who had been one of the crew
of the _Naiad_.
As soon as she saw who it was, she came up and shook hands with him, and
begged him to go in and speak to her husband. Hjelmfeldt had been one of
a party that fished up a mine at the beginning of the war, with the
result that he had now but one arm and two half-legs remaining.
"And I said to myself," said his wife, "that if ever I came across you
again, I'd ask your forgiveness for what we'd done to you. I've been
thinking of them that sit making those mines and things. And if one of
them heard about you, I dare say he'd think he was a fine fellow
compared to you."
"That may be," said Sven Elversson.
"But I say no!" cried Hjelmfeldt's wife, with loud-voiced eagerness. "If
he thinks it's wrong to harm the dead, then let him think how it's a
thousand times worse to make up such devil's tools to cripple the
living, and leave a man helpless and miserable all his life. You've
never done that. You only tried all you could to help us."
Sven Elversson went into the house to see her husband, and sat with him
for a good while, listening to his troubles. Then he went on his way
again.
The next he met of those he knew before was Julia Lamprecht. She, too,
came up and spoke to him.
"You offered to marry me once," she said. "And I said I would never
marry such a one as you. I have thought of that many a time since this
war began. And I'd like you now to know I've been sorry for it. For what
right had I to judge you for how you've acted by the dead? But those
whose doings have left all the quarries in Bohuslän empty, and the
workers idle, and their wives and children starving--they've wronged the
living, and that's worse."
Sven Elversson went on, and after a little while a young man whom he did
not remember having seen before came up to him.
"You won't know me, I dare say," said he. "I was only a boy when you
left Grimön. But I was one of those that called after you in the street
that time. And I'd like to ask your pardon for that now, for I've come
to see how it's worse to wrong the living than to wrong the dead. I've
been a pilot in the war, and been torpedoed three times, and each time
some lives were lost. And I thought of you, and wondered why we that
used to be so hard on you are so patient now. Seems as if it was only
right for human beings to turn on one another like savages. And yet it
can't be right, somehow...."
On leaving the pilot, Sven Elversson climbed up to the top of a hill
behind the village and stood for a long time looking out over the sea.
"If the trouble of my life," he said, "could bring people to remember
that life should be inviolable; that a living man should not be robbed
of his life or hindered in its use, then, after all, some good would
have grown up out of the bitter seed of my misery."
IN THE NETS
SOME days later, when Ung-Joel had slept his fill and was nearly
recovered, Sven Elversson came down in the afternoon to Knapefiord
harbour, and found the _Naiad_ lying in its usual place. Olaus from
Fårön and Corfitzson and the others whom he knew were on board, making
ready, like the rest of the fishing fleet, to put to sea. They were
going out with the drift nets, far into the Kattegat. And Sven Elversson
felt a sudden desire to go with them, and spend a night at sea.
Olaus looked as if he were minded to refuse, but finding no good reason,
he agreed. And as soon as a suit of oilskins had been found for Sven
Elversson, they put off. The weather was better than they had had most
of that summer, and they might hope to make a good haul. But Sven
Elversson soon noticed that all on board were in ill-humour. They spoke
unkindly to one another and to him. When he asked about the yield of the
mackerel fishery early in the summer, they answered with oaths that a
fisherman's life was the poorest that could be.
They reached the fishing grounds, and got the huge nets out, without a
single pleasant word being spoken; the same gloom was noticeable later,
when they had their meal. That night, Sven Elversson sat up on deck; the
watches relieved each other in turn, but none took the opportunity of
having a chat with him. The men walked up and down, silent, bitter, and
sullen, all of them.
Sven Elversson felt depressed and unhappy over all this unfriendliness,
but hoped the spirits of those on board would improve when the morning
came and it was time to haul in the catch. Something approaching
cheerfulness was also apparent when the motor was started, and the two
ends of the net were brought on board ready to haul.
Olaus and Corfitzson were hauling, the others stood ready to disengage
the fish from the meshes as the net came in. And as the fish appeared, a
full catch of splendid mackerel, glistening all colours of the rainbow,
their faces brightened.
"You see, they won't have troubled us the night," said Corfitzson.
"Keep quiet, can't you!" snapped out Olaus, with an oath. "Want to tell
them we're here? They'll find us soon enough without that. Feel here!"
He hoisted the net a little out of water, and all saw, among the
glittering fish, something big and dark. There was dead silence on
board, and next moment the body of a man came on deck with the net.
One young fellow, who had taken Hjelmfeldt's place on board, tried to
get the corpse free of the net, but the skipper's voice called to him
sharply:
"Leave it alone. There's another of them here." And a moment later a new
command:
"Let them alone. There's more of them coming."
Just then Corfitzson and Olaus lifted on board a dreadful mass: two
bodies twined together.
And when the last of the net was hauled in, there lay a huge mound of
dead men, brown meshes, and fish in one confusion. The fish, still
living, flapped and slithered about, making the whole horrible mass seem
alive.
When the bodies were lifted on board, Sven Elversson was so affected
that he wept. He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand, but
could not stop them. He stamped his foot, but the tears still came. He
was forced to leave his work at the net and walk away far astern.
There he stood until the net was in and the motor started for the
homeward run. The silent crew, sullen, unwilling, and gloomy as before,
had begun once more the work of clearing fish and mussels from the net,
and getting loose the rest.
"All in the net to be thrown over," commanded Olaus.
When Sven Elversson heard the order, he went up to the rest. The tears
still flowed from his eyes, but he did not heed them. He took his place
with the crew, and set to work, helping with their dreadful task.
They came to one of the dead. Sven Elversson lifted him up, and loosened
some of the meshes that had caught in the buttons of his uniform. It was
an elderly man with a sailor's beard under his chin. Someone suggested
that he was an Englishman. When he had got the body loose, Sven
Elversson began hoisting it to the deck.
"All that's in the net to go overboard," said the skipper, bending down
toward the corpse.
But Sven Elversson restrained him.
"Will you not let this be laid to rest in holy ground, Olaus?" he said.
Olaus did not answer directly.
"Best to get these horrors away from the ship," he said.
Sven Elversson clenched his teeth in the endeavour to keep back his
tears, and said as firmly as he could:
"If you throw this overboard, you will have to throw me, too."
He was astonished to hear himself speaking so, but he could not help it.
He felt that he would stand by his word.
The others, too, saw that he meant what he said, and would never let the
dead man go while he himself lived.
The skipper swore, and turned away, but made no direct refusal, and the
others understood that he agreed.
Sven Elversson tried to lift the body, but it was too heavy for him.
Then the young fellow newly joined came to his help, and together they
laid the dead man by the bulwarks.
The next body was loosed from the net, and laid beside the first without
question. Two men carried it up to where Sven Elversson stood. "This
one's a German," they said.
To his surprise, Sven Elversson noted that the men on board had suddenly
changed to a different expression, a different humour. They swore no
longer, but spoke calmly and quietly. They no longer felt hatred toward
these hosts of dead, that came and stole away their livelihood. They
were accustomed to show respect and reverence to the dead, and something
in their nature was more at ease to know that these drowned men of war
were to be given decent burial.
Sven Elversson, too, felt strangely easier in mind. His soul felt more
at rest now than ever since the first day of his misfortune.
He seemed to hear voices about him, thanking him for his charity to the
bodies that once had been the dwellings of immortal souls.
"Now you are loosed from the burden that was Lid upon you," said the
voices. "Thus it was to come about. Your guilt is taken from you. You
have risked your life to save the dead, and you have atoned for all."
His heart beat lightly and strongly, and he thought: "Let others condemn
me now if they will, it will not matter, for in myself I know that I
have fulfilled my penance and conquered."
THE SERMON OF THE SACREDNESS OF LIFE
SVEN ELVERSSON, his mother Thala, his brother Ung-Joel, and Ung-Joel's
wife, stood among the crowd in the little burial ground outside the
church at Applum.
It was the day when the dead sailors brought into Applum after the great
fight in the North Sea were to be laid to rest. A great grave had been
dug, to receive no less than seventeen coffins. So great a funeral had
never before been seen in the little parish, and it might safely be said
that never before had so many people been gathered in the little
churchyard.
Not for eight years had Sven Elversson been so near a church as now. He
had even hesitated a little about going to the funeral now, but his
mother, who had come down to Applum to see to Ung-Joel, had persuaded
him to go with them.
"Look you, Sven," said she, "I'd not set my foot in Applum church any
more than you, but to-day's a week-day, so there's no question of that.
And after all you've done to have those poor dead bodies laid in
Christian ground, you'd not be leaving them the last of the way?"
It was as she said. All that last week, ever since the day he had been
out with the _Naiad_, Sven Elversson and his brother Joel had sailed
about among the reefs and islands in a light craft, looking for stranded
bodies. Some had also been brought in from other parts, but the two
brothers themselves had collected no less than eight and ferried in to
the stone quay at Applum.
"Besides," said Mor Thala, "you can see yourself that folk look at you
differently now to what they did."
This was, perhaps, what weighed most. The war, its horrors, all the
misfortunes that had come upon the fisherfolk, had made them look more
gently at Sven Elversson and his offence. They were more inclined now to
notice his striving to help and restore.
"He must be a good man, anyway," they said. "He tries to help any one
that's hard put. And, after all, helping the living's the greatest
thing."
When it was then seen that Sven Elversson himself was doing more than
all the rest to secure proper burial for the poor sailors, there were
some who fancied they understood what made him do so, but most felt
that, after all, it was not needed so.
It was otherwise with Sven Elversson himself. Each day he went to this
new task of his with a strange delight. Every hour of it gave him more
peace, more calm of mind. He felt a lightness of heart, a happiness,
that he could not express, but the reflection of it shone in his face.
Not the joy of love, not the noblest deed, no word of praise could have
given him the inner security he felt now, since he had taken the body of
a dead English seaman on the _Naiad_ under his protection.
He could not understand how it had come about, for it was no great
heroic deed he had done. The risk, the chance that Olaus would throw him
overboard together with the dead, had not been great. Nevertheless, he
felt that the great change had come, and that after this he could once
more dare to feel happy. Now for the first time he began to think of a
future that might hold days and years of happiness for him.
There was a strength in him now that he had not suspected before. He
hardly needed sleep. His heart beat so easily, so untroubled; he felt it
a joy to be alive.
"Oh, but I was miserable indeed before," he thought. "Every breath was
an effort to me then. I did not know what life was."
That he found himself regarded more kindly by his fellows than before
was, of course, an added satisfaction; but he thought at the same time
that even if they had continued to hate him, it could not have made him
feel unhappy now. He was freed, he had atoned.
The day after the burial he was to go back to Hånger. "I shall go back
to Sigrun as a new man," he thought. For her sake more than all else his
deliverance was a joy to him. What a glorious fullness of happiness
awaited them now!
Standing there in the churchyard, following the service, he thought with
emotion of these men who had given their lives for their country, but
his joy was not lost for that. He saw that the former Pastor of Applum,
Edward Rhånge, had also come to be present at this celebration for the
dead. For a moment he felt anxious and uneasy, but it passed off at
once, and his heart beat again with the same wonderful lightness as
before.
"That man is my friend," he thought. "Who could have given me so great a
gift as he has?"
When the burial was over, and the last hymn had been sung, Rhånge
stepped forward to the grave to speak.
At sight of him standing thus above the crowd, Sven Elversson felt an
indescribable sympathy for this man, whom he had so disliked before. The
fine head was indeed the same, but the features were thinner, giving a
more spiritual appearance. "A splendid man," thought Sven Elversson. "He
bears the mark of self-sacrifice upon his face."
As Pastor Rhånge, in a few introductory words, was greeting his former
parishioners, someone pulled Sven Elversson by the sleeve.
He turned, and perceived Lotta Hedman standing beside him. She was pale,
with glowing eyes, and her hair so unruly and wild that it seemed as if
it would lift the hat from her head.
"No, I did not come with him," whispered Lotta, in answer to Sven's
question. "He has been here some days already. I came alone. I was
'called.'"
Just then the speaker by the grave said a few words which claimed Sven
Elversson's attention.
"Here, on the verge of this wide grave," he was saying, "I would speak
to you, my friends, of the sacredness of death and of life.
"And I venture to say that there is none here among us who has not from
youth up realized the sacredness of death. If any sinned against the
inviolable holiness of death, he should be visited with the severest
punishment.
"There was once a man here in Applum named Sven Elversson. His sin was
that he had violated the sacredness of death. And we felt that he was
more to be contemned than any amongst us. There may perhaps be some now
present who were in the church that day when his sin was declared from
the pulpit; some who remember how he looked as he stole away, humiliated
and wretched. Some may, perhaps, have been among those who sent him on
his way with words of scorn. He was a man who almost seemed to invite
such treatment. Seeing how he smiled with the same patience whatever was
done to him, how he moved aside and humbled himself in every way, one
felt perhaps it was almost a duty to add a little to his shame.
"And so it was that at last we made him leave the place. And I do not
think anyone missed him greatly when he went. For there was something
about him that was always asking our respect. Whenever anything
difficult had to be done, and none of us were very willing to undertake
it, that man stepped forward. He was trying to persuade us to give him
back his honour as a man. And we could not do it, for we felt he was
under the judgment of God.
"And so he went on his way through life, as a man under the judgment of
God. Always with the same humility, always fearing to stand in the way
of others. And he kept apart from us, choosing rather those who were
less hard to please--the vagabonds of the roads, and children, who had
less knowledge of right and wrong. We found nothing strange in this; it
was natural that the man should wish for some company of his fellows.
And when we heard time after time how some poor child from the streets
had been placed in a good home through his help, or that vagabonds and
tramps had begun to seek honest work, we found nothing very strange in
that, thinking only that the man had no doubt his own end in view all
the time. He was always trying to win back some honour and respect for
himself. And we were growing almost tired of his constant endeavours.
"For what could we do for him after all? He had not sinned against any
of us. He had not sinned in such a way that his crime could be atoned
for by punishment. He had sinned against a sacred custom, and we had no
power to grant him absolution. Moreover, we seemed to feel that God had
condemned him as we ourselves had done.
"And so, while he was striving to help his fellow men upward in life, I
can imagine Death standing behind his chair, leering scornfully at him,
knowing the man was in his power, was his prisoner and could not escape.
Who was there in all the world that could deliver him?"
Sven Elversson noticed that Mor Thala was crying. He himself felt, as he
listened to the preacher's words, as if he were living over again all
his past efforts to regain the goodwill of his fellows, but he did not
weep. He stood there with untroubled eyes and easy bearing, and looked
the speaker in the face.
"But now, of late," went on the Pastor, "we have seen that Death has
gained more power in the world even than before. He rules over us and
oppresses us. He reaps his harvest before the time. He takes violence
and cruelty to his aid. He lets loose crime and evildoing. There is no
misdeed he does not suffer on earth, and we can see no end to his power.
"And now that we are suffering under the harsh tyranny of Death, we begin
to ask: Is there, then, nothing on earth strong enough to take up arms
against Death?
"And we know that there is but one thing on earth that dares to resist
the power of Death--the constant, unflinching enemy of Death--and that
is Life.
"And in the midst of this war, when dreadful things are done, such as
the shipwreck of tens of thousands at sea as if it were a trifle, the
sending of tens of thousands into captivity as if it were nothing to
speak of, the slaughter of tens of thousands at the cannon's mouth as if
it were a praiseworthy deed, the driving forth of tens of thousands from
their homes as if it were but a natural and customary thing--in the
midst of all this, I still believe that there is growing up amongst us a
greater love of life than we had known before.
"For Life, Life has been only the poor handmaiden at the service of all,
asking nothing for itself. Life has been just the daily bread that was
eaten, as it were, without a thought. There was nothing solemn about
Life, to be painted in pictures and hovering as a ghost in the gloom.
Life has not even any form or figure of its own whereby we may know it.
"Now you may think," the speaker broke off, turning more directly to his
listeners, "that I am speaking empty words, seeing that all of us well
know Life is the thing we love most of all. But, my friends, it is not
enough that we love Life. Life, I would say, is like a child ill-cared
for. It may be brought up with more love than understanding, to be a
shame and a thorn in the flesh, until we hardly know how to bear with
it.
"Or, my friends, we may liken Life to a young bride, whom we take into
our house and give all our love. But this is not enough. We must
surround her also with peace and holiness, and give her her due and show
her kindliness; if not, then the young wife will forsake us, and leave
us to loneliness and despair, because the ways whereby we would have led
her were not the true ways.
"But of this I might go on speaking to you all day and night until
another day, without coming to an end. I must not let this lead me from
the thing I am charged to tell you now.
"I will only take it, as I have said, that, during these last years,
Life has begun to be a thing more sacred and precious to us than before.
And for every day of all this misery, we feel this the more.
"And so it is that we are beginning to look with greater kindliness
toward those who are the true servants of Life; who seek to keep Life a
good and noble thing, and render aid and protection to the living.
"I have heard many here in Applum say that they repent of the
unkindliness and scorn they showed toward Sven Elversson. And I believe
it is because they have begun to understand the greatness and holiness
of Life. They realize that to save the children of the streets and the
vagabonds of the road is a noble work. They see that Life is greater
than Death.
"And to you, Sven Elversson, faithful servant of Life, I can now say
that we, your former neighbours, no longer look on you as one stamped
with a shameful mark. And we repent of ever having done so. We repent of
the suffering we have caused you."
The speaker waved a hand toward the listening crowd.
"Is it not true that I speak for all here present?"
No voice was raised in protest. Many of the listeners had tears in their
eyes.
Sven Elversson stood calmly, with the same inward happiness glowing in
his mind. "It is good that this should come," he said to himself. "But
it is not the greatest thing, after all. The greatest is that I have
been freed from guilt in myself, in my heart."
"I am glad that you suffer me to say this in your name," the Pastor went
on. "I am glad that you have declared Sven Elversson innocent in your
hearts, before his innocence is established by other means."
And then the Pastor went on to tell how several of the bodies of the
seamen brought to land had on them letters and papers still legible.
These had, of course, been taken charge of, to be returned where
possible to the relatives of the dead. But in one case, that of the
English sailor first brought on board the _Naiad_, a letter had been
found consisting only of some few lines, without address, and
unfinished, yet of such remarkable content that he, the vicar of
Algeröd, had been called in to give his opinion on it. This letter he
would now read, translating it into Swedish, to those present.
And this was the letter.
"They say we are going into action to-morrow. And this is to ask you,
Mary dear, to go to Springfields at Handley Park and tell them something
about their foster-son. He took no part in the wicked thing we others
did: He was delirious before. Then we thought he was dead, and nobody
troubled about him. Then when we found he was alive, we made him believe
he had been in it, so he could not give evidence against us after. I
must write this now; I shall have no peace until...."
"Now, since we know," said the Pastor, very quietly and earnestly, "that
Springfield is the name of the people who adopted Sven Elversson as a
child--and also that he himself never had any clear recollection of what
happened, but only trusted to the word of his companions, we must say
that his innocence is clearly proved by this message from the dead."
The speaker's voice trembled a moment, but rose again to its full power.
He turned now directly to Sven Elversson.
"We did not wish to tell you of this, Sven Elversson," he said, "until
now, when we could at the same time make it known to all. But now I,
your parish priest in former days, who once laid you under the ban of
contempt and abhorrence, I have come to declare your innocence at the
door of that church from which I once drove you forth. And I count it
the greatest mercy of God that I myself am suffered to say these words.
You are known to all now as an innocent man, and the disgrace that clung
to your name is gone for ever. You can walk with uplifted head among
your fellows."
A wave of emotion swept through the crowd. The listeners turned to ask
one another what it was they had heard. Many wept for joy that a man's
innocence should have come to light after so many years of suffering.
"You will have no need to hide yourself away and humble yourself any
more," said the Pastor. "No need to receive ill words with a patient
smile. No need to fear that even those who love you must shudder at what
you have done. You will be greeted as one of the best among us, and
those who are near to you likewise."
"He is thinking of Sigrun," said Sven Elversson to himself. "Thinking of
her joy in this. And it is right. It will make her very happy."
When the Pastor had spoken these last words, he turned from the side
where Sven Elversson stood, and addressed the crowd on the other hand.
"All that this man has suffered has been suffered for no crime," he
said. Sven Elversson felt his heart beat faster, with increasing
violence. "My poor heart is better used to bearing sorrow than joy," he
thought.
"But since this is so," the Pastor went on, "you will all ask now, I
know, 'Why, then, has God dealt so hardly with him, and why were we so
misled?' I have asked myself the same. And I believe I have found the
answer.
"As for the man himself, I will say no more than this, that I believe it
is through his very misfortunes that God has given him such joy that he
would not be without it now."
At these words Sven Elversson thought once more of Sigrun and all the
joy that waited him. He felt his heart leap in his breast with delight,
but at the same moment, something seemed to break. He could no longer
stand upright, but sank to his knees.
"And I believe, too, that Sven Elversson has been sent us as a sign. For
God speaks to us in these days not by words, but by the actions of men,
and in the deeds of every human being we should read a thought of God."
The speaker drew a deep breath and looked out over the crowd. He saw
that all were looking anxiously, expectantly, to him for some word of
hope and deliverance from the great distress that weighed them down.
"And when I remember how this man has come to us in this time, I think
it is that God had tried through him to show us how we can find a way
out of our misery, if not at once, still within a span of time that
human thought can embrace."
Sven Elversson slipped to the ground. He had made no cry or moan. His
mother, standing near, thought he had sat down to avoid the curious
glances of those round him. And he might well need to rest after the
excitement of the day.
"For I have learned," said the Pastor, "that this man made to himself a
weapon and an instrument of that which troubled him most of all. He had
often noticed, in trying to help some creature aside from evil ways,
that good words were of little avail, and little could be done by noble
example or the prospect of winning praise and living an orderly and
respected life. The first thing, he found, was to give the vicious man a
hatred and horror of vice, to make him loathe it so that the loathing
sank into his soul and body and made it unendurable.
"And now that I have said this, I ask you all here gathered about the
grave of these dead seamen to follow me in thought out to sea, beyond
the reef belt, yet not so very far, for those whom I wish you to meet
are very near us now.
"I went out myself yesterday to see them; those who have made the voyage
from Horns Reef up to our very shores, held up by their lifebelts that
would not let them sink, those thousands flung into the sea like refuse
that none would touch.
"And I ask you now, all of you, to follow me in thought at least, and
try to see that sight. You shall see the black holes in place of eyes in
the gray faces of the dead. You shall see the sunken cheeks, the hands
held up in some strange way, beckoning and waving with the movement of
the water; you shall see those that float about lying with swollen
bellies; those that lie feet uppermost, and turn over now and again to
thrust up their heads, like acrobats turning somersaults. You shall see
those who were thrown into the water torn apart and shot to pieces
already.
"There are heads that turn from side to side, as if they had something
to tell you. And a shrieking, greedy flock of birds about them, and
fishes leaping joyfully in the water. All this you shall see, and fix
the vision in your minds so that it never can fade.
"But now you ask me: 'Why should we see all this?
"'We are quiet and decent folk, living peaceably among ourselves, and we
have no share in the guilt: that caused this war; we can do nothing to
hinder what is done by either side.'
"But I say to you, that you should see these messengers of dread--should
see them and never forget it. For surely it was not without some purpose
that they have been cast up on our shores. All the thoughts of sorrow
and pity which that sight could wake in you, those thoughts you should
not thrust aside; no, nor the bodily horror and disgust of things left
to perish.
"Let the horror and hatred of it fix itself in every fibre of your
bodies, and give birth to an abhorrence of war that nothing ever can
overcome.
"For remember, that though we here are not responsible for the war, yet
we have read of it every day in the papers. We may perhaps have found it
interesting that such great events should happen in our time. We have
stood aghast, perhaps, in admiration of the great deeds. We have had our
sympathies with one side or the other, and rejoiced at their success.
"But now these dead are come to us, that we may see how abominable a
thing is war.
"And some of you have profited by the war, and some have believed that
it would lead to great and beneficial changes, and some think that
nations are strengthened and exalted by war. And none can hold their own
or their children's thoughts away from the war.
"But now these dead are come, to show us what we could not see and
realize so inwardly before; that war is an abominable thing, a ghastly
thing.
"These bodies floating in our waters, they are no ghostly vision, no
story of imagination, but reality and truth. And the same may come again
after a time, in reality and truth as now.
"And therefore I ask you in thought at least to follow me out to sea,
and learn to know these dreadful things, and fix them in your minds and
never forget.
"And you shall bring the knowledge of these things to others, so that
they, too, may feel unconquerable abhorrence at the very mention of war;
so that the word 'war' shall never more be uttered, but become a sound
so intolerable to human ears that none dare speak it.
"There are others, perhaps, who have seen even more dreadful things than
this. And they, too, shall speak and write of war, until there is woven
about it a ghostly fear and shuddering, a dread that nothing can
overcome.
"For how can we know what else may come?
"In a few years the memory of this war's sorrow and agony and
destruction may be forgotten, and a new generation may once more set out
to war with the joy of battle in their hearts. It lies with us now to
fix in the minds of all humanity so great a horror of war that no talk
of glory and brave deeds can ever take its place.
"For though great words have been spoken against war, and great examples
have been set by men of peace, and the wisest calculations proved its
madness, still the war is yet alive.
"But out of the very horror and gruesomeness of war itself we can make
ourselves weapons and armour and cure, and leave these as a legacy to
our children, that they may overcome the greatest enemy of all mankind.
"And now at last I would say some words of the holiness of Life in the
time when war shall no longer exist on earth...."
But the words were never spoken. Someone pulled the speaker by the
sleeve.
"Sven Elversson is ill. He is dying. It has been too much for him."
The Pastor stepped down from his place and made his way through the
crowd to where Sven Elversson had stood. He lay now on the grass, with
his head on his mother's knee, not dead, but very ill. His breast
trembled with the violent beating of his heart.
When the sick man saw the Pastor approaching, he greeted him with an
indescribable smile, full of love and free from fear, as he might have
greeted the one dearest to him of all. He tried to reach out his hand
toward him, and murmured something either in thanks or asking pardon.
The Pastor knelt beside him; he, too, was filled with a great tenderness
now, and anxiety at the thought of losing such a friend as Sven
Elversson had now become.
"Sven Elversson, brother," he said. "Live! You must live now for her
sake."
They carried the sick man in to the vicarage. A doctor who was present
hastened to him. He examined the patient, and declared that he might
live a little while--a day, a week, perhaps a year, but that was all.
Meanwhile, the crowd stood round the grave, waiting. They knew that
Pastor Rhånge had had more to say; that he wished to tell them
something that would give them peace and comfort at parting. They could
not do without it now.
A messenger was sent in to the vicarage, and returned with the answer
that the Pastor could not leave Sven Elversson now. He was sitting with
his arm round the sick man, and nothing else could give him strength to
live, or hinder the spark of life from dying out.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
WHILE the crowd still waited for the conclusion of the sermon, a voice
was heard, not from the graveside, but from somewhere farther out. A
woman's voice, thin and shrill, yet strangely audible and distinct.
They gathered round the speaker, and saw a young woman on her knees,
with arms outstretched, head thrown back, and eyes closed. She seemed
unconscious of herself, and spoke as in a trance.
"I see the dead," she said--"I see those whom we have buried here. I see
them move toward the land of Death, and enter in. And now, after they
have gone a little way, I see them coming toward a building, like a
schoolhouse, and asking admittance there.
"'We are souls that have passed through the school of earth,' they say
to the keeper at the gate, 'and we have come hither to show what we have
learned of knowledge there.'
"But the keeper of the gate shakes his head. He tells them that they
have ended their schooling too quickly. But all the same he opens the
gate and lets them in.
"And I see them go into a great hall. I can see their fear. They are
afraid and trembling, like all who are to be questioned so.
"Then a man comes forward to meet them. He wears a long robe, and his
hair lies in smooth locks about his head.
"'Ye souls that have passed through the school of earth,' says the man
to them, 'can you say my Ten Commandments as they are said on earth
to-day?'
"I see the souls of the dead rejoicing that no harder question is asked
than this. And all together answer:
"'Thou shalt not worship false gods.
"'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
"'Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day.
"'Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother.'
"I hear them say this, but haltingly, and with great difficulty. And
they are wondering in their minds why it should be so hard to say the
words. They do not know themselves what makes them stammer and speak so
faintly.
"'You have learned this in some manner, albeit with faults and errors,'
says the teacher. 'Now say the rest!'
"And then the souls of the dead speak out clearly and without
difficulty:
"'Thou shalt kill!
"'Thou shalt commit adultery.
"'Thou shalt steal.
"'Thou shalt bear false witness.
"'Thou shalt covet they neighbour's house.
"'Thou shalt lay waste they neighbour's field, and his wife and his
servant, his goods and all that is his.'
"And when all this is said, I can see that the dead are glad to have
passed the test so well.
"But the teacher asks them:
"'Who has taught you so to misread my law, that I had set to be a guard
about the sacredness of human life?'
"And they answer him:
"'We are soldiers. We are the subjects and servants of Death.'
"Then the teacher cries to them:
"'Wake up, ye dead, and see who is this that ye honour, and who is your
master!'
"And I see them waken up out of the error of earthly life as from a long
dream. And they see then with dread that they are immortal souls, whose
place is in heaven, and they begin to sorrow for all that they have done
on earth, and to fear for the punishment to come.
"But then the teacher speaks to them again:
"'I am he that is Lord of Death and of Life.
"'And I sent Death upon earth to be the servant of Life.
"'I let the withered leaves fall to the ground, that new fresh leaves
may grow again next year.
"'I let the stars in the firmament burn out and die that new stars may
arise in their stead.
"'I let the bodies of those who have lived their life be laid in the
grave, that new life may bloom upon earth.
"'But since Death has made himself master instead of servant, I will
pursue him.
"'For it is not my will that the harvest should be reaped before its
time, nor the young fowl bird be taken by the fowler before it has built
its nest and brought forth its young.
"'And I will set a boundary and a landmark between the time that is now
and the time that is to come; in a few years I will mark it. And this
time shall be called the time of darkness.
"'But ye souls, go back again to earth, and teach mankind to keep my
Fifth Commandment, which is the Commandment to love thy neighbour, and
is the key to all the rest.
"'Tell them that my Millennium hangs in the east like a dawn. But how
shall it rise in the sky and give light to the world, as long as ye let
Death take the Great Beast in his service?
"'For the Great Beast is War.'"...
Lotta Hedman came to herself. She looked round and saw a close circle of
people. Many faces shone with a great content.
"Where have I been?" she said. "What have I said? Has God at last spoken
through my mouth?"
Tears of joy and thankfulness flowed from her eyes.
CONCLUSION
NEARLY a year had passed when, one day, a woman in mourning came driving
to the vicarage at Algeröd.
Her coming occasioned no great surprise, for though it had never become
generally known that she still lived, there were yet a few of those
visiting Hånger who had seen and recognized her, and the rumour had
spread.
She had never been separated from her husband by any legal act. Sven
Elversson's illness had forced him to live quietly, without any
excitement, and the others had done all they could to spare him.
Now that she had come, she went very quietly up to one of the small
rooms and made herself at home there.
She did not force herself into the place of the old lady who had been
mistress in her absence, but her nature was such that no one could
resist her, and by the power of affection she began to rule over her and
the servants and brought back peace and content to the home.
Her husband let her come and go as she pleased, and live her own life,
as he did his.
But after a few months had passed, she came into his room one day with a
letter in her hand.
And, looking round, she saw that the room was full of pictures of
herself, and all the things she had worked and embroidered during her
marriage were collected there.
Her books were on the bookshelf and her prayer-book lay on the table
beside the bed. She seemed to feel herself in an atmosphere warm with
love.
"You did not know, perhaps, that Sven Elversson has left a considerable
sum of money," said Sigrun to her husband. "When his adopted father in
England heard the news of his innocence, he kept his promise and made
him his heir. He died at the beginning of the year, and now the legacy
is due. It all goes to Sven Elversson's old parents."
"That man left a great happiness behind him," said the Pastor.
"And now they write to me, Joel and Thala, to ask if we will accept
Hånger as a gift from them. It was their idea that we should carry on
Sven Elversson's charitable work. The means would be at our
disposal...."
She noticed that her husband's face darkened.
"It would be a much greater field of work for you," she added.
Pastor Rhånge rose to his feet and walked up and down.
"If you wish to move to Hånger," he said, "I will not try to keep you
here."
She answered quickly: "No, I will never leave your house again."
"But, Sigrun," he said, "you understand what I mean. I am glad to have
you living in my house--but that is not enough for me."
"You are my first love, Edward," she said quickly.
She broke off, took his hand, and led him to the window.
"Look out on the lawn," she said. "There was a corner over there that
was covered with pansies when we first came. They were at home there,
and grew up every year by themselves. Once I had a proper flowerbed made
there, and planted other flowers, and they grew and throve too. But now
the bed with the strange flowers is gone, and look--the pansies are
beginning to grow up again in their old place."
THE END