PICTURES OF SWEDEN
By
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Author of
"The Improvisatore," &c.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1851.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
TROLLHÄTTA
THE BIRD PHOENIX
KINNAKULLA
GRANDMOTHER
THE PRISON-CELLS
BEGGAR-BOYS
VADSTENE
THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN
THE "SKJÄRGAARDS"
STOCKHOLM
DIURGAERDEN
A STORY
UPSALA
SALA
THE MUTE BOOK
THE ZÄTHER DALE
THE MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL IN LACKSAND
FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE
IN THE FOREST
FAHLUN
WHAT THE STRAWS SAID
THE POET'S SYMBOL
THE DAL-ELV
DANEMORA
THE SWINE
POETRY'S CALIFORNIA
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION.
We Travel.
* * * * *
It is a delightful spring: the birds warble, but you do not understand
their song? Well, hear it in a free translation.
"Get on my back," says the stork, our green island's sacred bird, "and
I will carry thee over the Sound. Sweden also has fresh and fragrant
beech woods, green meadows and corn-fields. In Scania, with the
flowering apple-trees behind the peasant's house, you will think that
you are still in Denmark."
"Fly with me," says the swallow; "I fly over Holland's mountain ridge,
where the beech-trees cease to grow; I fly further towards the north
than the stork. You shall see the vegetable mould pass over into rocky
ground; see snug, neat towns, old churches and mansions, where all is
good and comfortable, where the family stand in a circle around the
table and say grace at meals, where the least of the children says a
prayer, and, morning and evening, sings a psalm. I have heard it, I
have seen it, when little, from my nest under the eaves."
"Come with me! come with me!" screams the restless sea-gull, and flies
in an expecting circle. "Come with me to the Skjärgaards, where rocky
isles by thousands, with fir and pine, lie like flower-beds along the
coast; where the fishermen draw the well-filled nets!"
"Rest thee between our extended wings," sing the wild swans. "Let us
bear thee up to the great lakes, the perpetually roaring elvs
(rivers), that rush on with arrowy swiftness; where the oak forest has
long ceased, and the birch-tree becomes stunted. Rest thee between our
extended wings: we fly up to Sulitelma, the island's eye, as the
mountain is called; we fly from the vernal green valley, up over the
snow-drifts, to the mountain's top, whence thou canst see the North
Sea, on yonder side of Norway.
"We fly to Jemteland, where the rocky mountains are high and blue;
where the Foss roars and rushes; where the torches are lighted as
_budstikke_[A] to announce that the ferryman is expected. Up to the
deep, cold-running waters, where the midsummer sun does not set; where
the rosy hue of eve is that of morn."
[Footnote A: A chip of wood in the form of a halberd, circulated for
the purpose of convening the inhabitants of a district in Sweden and
Norway.]
That is the birds' song. Shall we lay it to heart? Shall we accompany
them?--at least a part of the way. We will not sit upon the stork's
back, or between the swans' wings. We will go forward with steam, and
with horses--yes, also on our own legs, and glance now and then from
reality, over the fence into the region of thought, which is always
our near neighbour-land; pluck a flower or a leaf, to be placed in the
note-book--for it sprung out during our journey's flight: we fly and
we sing. Sweden, thou glorious land! Sweden, where, in ancient times,
the sacred gods came from Asia's mountains! land that still retains
rays of their lustre, which streams from the flowers in the name of
"Linnaeus;" which beams for thy chivalrous men from Charles the
Twelfth's banner; which sounds from the obelisk on the field of
Lutzen! Sweden, thou land of deep feeling, of heart-felt songs! home
of the limpid elvs, where the wild swans sing in the gleam of the
Northern Lights! Thou land, on whose deep, still lakes Scandinavia's
fairy builds her colonnades, and leads her battling, shadowy host over
the icy mirror! Glorious Sweden! with thy fragrant Linnaeus, with
Jenny's soul-enlivening songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and
the swallow, with the restless sea-gull and the wild swans. Thy
birch-woods exhale refreshing fragrance under their sober, bending
branches; on the tree's white stem the harp shall hang: the North's
summer wind shall whistle therein!
TROLLHÄTTA.
* * * * *
Who did we meet at Trollhätta? It is a strange story, and we will
relate it.
We landed at the first sluice, and stood as it were in a garden laid
out in the English style. The broad walks are covered with gravel, and
rise in short terraces between the sunlit greensward: it is charming,
delightful here, but by no means imposing. If one desires to be
excited in this manner, one must go a little higher up to the older
sluices, which deep and narrow have burst through the hard rock. It
looks magnificent, and the water in its dark bed far below is lashed
into foam. Up here one overlooks both elv and valley; the bank of the
river on the other side, rises in green undulating hills, grouped with
leafy trees and red-painted wooden houses, which are bounded by rocks
and pine forests. Steam-boats and sailing vessels ascend through the
sluices; the water itself is the attendant spirit that must bear them
up above the rock, and from the forest itself it buzzes, roars and
rattles. The din of Trollhätta Falls mingles with the noise from the
saw-mills and smithies.
"In three hours we shall be through the sluices," said the Captain:
"in that time you will see the Falls. We shall meet again at the inn
up here."
We went from the path through the forest: a whole flock of bare-headed
boys surrounded us. They would all be our guides; the one screamed
longer than the other, and every one gave his contradictory
explanation, how high the water stood, and how high it did not stand,
or could stand. There was also a great difference of opinion amongst
the learned.
We soon stopped on a ling-covered rock, a dizzying terrace. Before us,
but far below, was the roaring water, the Hell Fall, and over this
again, fall after fall, the rich, rapid, rushing elv--the outlet of
the largest lake in Sweden. What a sight! what a foaming and roaring,
above--below! It is like the waves of the sea, but of effervescing
champagne--of boiling milk. The water rushes round two rocky islands
at the top so that the spray rises like meadow dew. Below, the water
is more compressed, then hurries down again, shoots forward and
returns in circles like smooth water, and then rolls darting its long
sea-like fall into the Hell Fall. What a tempest rages in the
deep--what a sight! Words cannot express it!
Nor could our screaming little guides. They stood mute; and when they
again began with their explanations and stories, they did not come
far, for an old gentleman whom none of us had noticed (but he was now
amongst us), made himself heard above the noise, with his singularly
sounding voice. He knew all the particulars about the place, and about
former days, as if they had been of yesterday.
"Here, on the rocky holms," said he, "it was that the warriors in the
heathen times, as they are called, decided their disputes. The warrior
Stärkodder dwelt in this district, and liked the pretty girl Ogn right
well; but she was fonder of Hergrimmer, and therefore he was
challenged by Stärkodder to combat here by the falls, and met his
death; but Ogn sprung towards them, took her bridegroom's bloody
sword, and thrust it into her own heart. Thus Stärkodder did not gain
her. Then there passed a hundred years, and again a hundred years: the
forests were then thick and closely grown; wolves and bears prowled
here summer and winter; the place was infested with malignant robbers,
whose hiding-place no one could find. It was yonder, by the fall
before Top Island, on the Norwegian side--there was their cave: now it
has fallen in! The cliff there overhangs it!"
"Yes, the Tailor's Cliff!" shouted all the boys. "It fell in the year
1755!"
"Fell!" said the old man, as if in astonishment that any one but
himself could know it. "Everything will fall once, and the tailor
directly." The robbers had placed him upon the cliff and demanded that
if he would be liberated from them, his ransom should be that he
should sew a suit of clothes up there; and he tried it; but at the
first stitch, as he drew the thread out, he became giddy and fell down
into the gushing water, and thus the rock got the name of 'The
Tailor's Cliff.' One day the robbers caught a young girl, and she
betrayed them, for she kindled a fire in the cavern. The smoke was
seen, the caverns discovered, and the robbers imprisoned and executed.
That outside there is called 'The Thieves' Fall,' and down there under
the water is another cave, the elv rushes in there and returns
boiling; one can see it well up here, one hears it too, but it can be
heard better under the bergman's loft.
And we went on and on, along the Fall, towards Top Island,
continuously on smooth paths covered with saw-dust, to Polham's
Sluice. A cleft had been made in the rock for the first intended
sluice-work, which was not finished, but whereby art has created the
most imposing of all Trollhätta's Falls; the hurrying water falling
here perpendicularly into the black deep. The side of the rock is here
placed in connection with Top Island by means of a light iron bridge,
which appears as if thrown over the abyss. We venture on to the
rocking bridge over the streaming, whirling water, and then stand on
the little cliff island, between firs and pines, that shoot forth from
the crevices. Before us darts a sea of waves, which are broken by the
rebound against the stone block where we stand, bathing us with the
fine spray. The torrent flows on each side, as if shot out from a
gigantic cannon, fall after fall: we look out over them all, and are
filled with the harmonic sound, which since time began, has ever been
the same.
"No one can ever get to the island there," said one of our party,
pointing to the large island above the topmost fall.
"I however know one!" said the old man, and nodded with a peculiar
smile.
"Yes, my grandfather could!" said one of the boys, "scarcely any one
besides has crossed during a hundred years. The cross that is set up
over there was placed there by my grandfather. It had been a severe
winter, the whole of Lake Venern was frozen; the ice dammed up the
outlet, and for many hours there was a dry bottom. Grandfather has
told about it: he went over with two others, placed the cross up, and
returned. But then there was such a thundering and cracking noise,
just as if it were cannons. The ice broke up and the elv came over the
fields and forest. It is true, every word I say!"
One of the travellers cited Tegner:
"Vildt Göta stortade från Fjallen,
Hemsk Trollet från sat Toppfall röt!
Men Snillet kom och sprängt stod Hallen,
Med Skeppen i sitt sköt!"
"Poor mountain sprite," he continued, "thy power and glory recede! Man
flies over thee--thou mayst go and learn of him."
The garrulous old man made a grimace, and muttered something to
himself--but we were just by the bridge before the inn. The steam-boat
glided through the opened way, every one hastened to get on board, and
it directly shot away above the Fall, just as if no Fall existed.
"And that can be done!" said the old man. He knew nothing at all about
steam-boats, had never before that day seen such a thing, and
accordingly he was sometimes up and sometimes down, and stood by the
machinery and stared at the whole construction, as if he were counting
all the pins and screws. The course of the canal appeared to him to be
something quite new; the plan of it and the guide-books were quite
foreign objects to him: he turned them and turned them--for read I do
not think he could. But he knew all the particulars about the
country--that is to say, from olden times.
I heard that he did not sleep at all the whole night. He studied the
passage of the steam-boat; and when we in the morning ascended the
sluice terraces from Lake Venern, higher and higher from lake to lake,
away over the high-plain--higher, continually higher--he was in such
activity that it appeared as if it could not be greater--and then we
reached Motala.
The Swedish author Tjörnerös relates of himself, that when a child he
once asked what it was that ticked in the clock, and they answered him
that it was one named "_Bloodless_." What brought the child's pulse to
beat with feverish throbs and the hair on his head to rise, also
exercised its power in Motala, over the old man from Trollhätta.
We now went through the great manufactory in Motala. What ticks in the
clock, beats here with strong strokes of the hammer. It is
_Bloodless_, who drank life from human thought and thereby got limbs
of metals, stone and wood; it is _Bloodless_, who by human thought
gained strength, which man himself does not physically possess.
_Bloodless_ reigns in Motala, and through the large foundries and
factories he extends his hard limbs, whose joints and parts consist of
wheel within wheel, chains, bars, and thick iron wires. Enter, and see
how the glowing iron masses are formed into long bars. _Bloodless_
spins the glowing bar! see how the shears cut into the heavy metal
plates; they cut as quietly and as softly as if the plates were paper.
Here where he hammers, the sparks fly from the anvil. See how he
breaks the thick iron bars; he breaks them into lengths; it is as if
it were a stick of sealing-wax that is broken. The long iron bars
rattle before your feet; iron plates are planed into shavings; before
you rolls the large wheel, and above your head runs living wire--long
heavy wire! There is a hammering and buzzing, and if you look around
in the large open yard, amongst great up-turned copper boilers, for
steam-boats and locomotives, _Bloodless_ also here stretches out one
of his fathom-long fingers, and hauls away. Everything is living; man
alone stands and is silenced by--_stop!_
The perspiration oozes out of one's fingers'-ends: one turns and
turns, bows, and knows not one's self, from pure respect for the human
thought which here has iron limbs. And yet the large iron hammer goes
on continually with its heavy strokes: it is as if it said: "Banco,
Banco! many thousand dollars; Banco, pure gain! Banco! Banco!"--Hear
it, as I heard it; see, as I saw!
The old gentleman from Trollhätta walked up and down in full
contemplation; bent and swung himself about; crept on his knees, and
stuck his head into corners and between the machines, for he would
know everything so exactly; he would see the screw in the propelling
vessels, understand their mechanism and effect under water--and the
water itself poured like hail-drops down his forehead. He fell
unconscious, backwards into my arms, or else he would have been drawn
into the machinery, and been crushed: he looked at me, and pressed my
hand.
"And all this goes on naturally," said he; "simply and comprehensibly.
Ships go against the wind, and against the stream, sail higher than
forests and mountains. The water must raise, steam must drive them!"
"Yes," said I.
"Yes," said he, and again _yes_, with a sigh which I did not then
understand; but, months after, I understood it, and I will at once
make a spring to that time, and we are again at Trollhätta.
I came here in the autumn, on my return home; stayed some days in this
mighty piece of nature, where busy human life forces its way more and
more in, and, by degrees, transforms the picturesque to the useful
manufactory. Trollhätta must do her work; saw beams, drive mills,
hammer and break to pieces: one building grows up by the side of the
other, and in half a century hence here will be a city. But that was
not the story.
I came, as I have said, here again in the autumn. I found the same
rushing and roaring, the same din, the same rising and sinking in the
sluices, the same chattering boys who conducted fresh travellers to
the Hell Fall, to the iron-bridge island, and to the inn. I sat here,
and turned over the leaves of books, collected here through a series
of years, in which travellers have inscribed their names, feelings and
thoughts at Trollhätta--almost always the same astonishment, expressed
in different languages, though generally in Latin: _veni, vidi,
obstupui_.
One has written: "I have seen nature's master-piece pervade that of
art;" another cannot say what he saw, and what he saw he cannot say. A
mine owner and manufacturer, full of the doctrine of utility, has
written: "Seen with the greatest pleasure this useful work for us in
Värmeland, Trollhätta." The wife of a dean from Scania expresses
herself thus. She has kept to the family, and only signed in the
remembrance book, as to the effect of her feelings at Trollhätta. "God
grant my brother-in-law fortune, for he has understanding!" Some few
have added witticisms to the others' feelings; yet as a pearl on this
heap of writing shines Tegner's poem, written by himself in the book
on the 28th of June, 1804:
"Gotha kom i dans från Seves fjallar, &c."
I looked up from the book and who should stand before me, just about
to depart again, but the old man from Trollhätta! Whilst I had
wandered about, right up to the shores of Siljan, he had continually
made voyages on the canal; seen the sluices and manufactories, studied
steam in all its possible powers of service, and spoke about a
projected railway in Sweden, between the Hjalmar and Venern. He had,
however, never yet seen a railway, and I described to him these
extended roads, which sometimes rise like ramparts, sometimes like
towering bridges, and at times like halls of miles in length, cut
through rocks. I also spoke of America and England.
"One takes breakfast in London, and the same day one drinks tea in
Edinburgh."
"That I can do!" said the man, and in as cool a tone as if no one but
himself could do it, "I can also," said I; "and I have done it."
"And who are you, then?" he asked.
"A common traveller," I replied; "a traveller who pays for his
conveyance. And who are you?"
The man sighed.
"You do not know me: my time is past; my power is nothing! _Bloodless_
is stronger than I!" and he was gone.
I then understood who he was. Well, in what humour must a poor
mountain sprite be, who only comes up every hundred years to see how
things go forward here on the earth!
It was the mountain sprite and no other, for in our time every
intelligent person is considerably wiser; and I looked with a sort of
proud feeling on the present generation, on the gushing, rushing,
whirling wheel, the heavy blows of the hammer, the shears that cut so
softly through the metal plates, the thick iron bars that were broken
like sticks of sealing-wax, and the music to which the heart's
pulsations vibrate: "Banco, Banco, a hundred thousand Banco!" and all
by steam--by mind and spirit.
It was evening. I stood on the heights of Trollhätta's old sluices,
and saw the ships with outspread sails glide away through the meadows
like spectres, large and white. The sluice gates were opened with a
ponderous and crashing sound, like that related of the copper gates of
the secret council in Germany. The evening was so still that
Trollhätta's Fall was as audible in the deep stillness, as if it were
a chorus from a hundred water-mills--ever one and the same tone. In
one, however, there sounded a mightier crash that seemed to pass sheer
through the earth; and yet with all this the endless silence of nature
was felt. Suddenly a large bird flew out from the trees, far in the
forest, down towards the Falls. Was it the mountain sprite?--We will
imagine so, for it is the most interesting fancy.
THE BIRD PHOENIX.
* * * * *
In the garden of Paradise, under the tree of knowledge, stood a hedge
of roses. In the first rose a bird was hatched; its flight was like
that of light, its colours beautiful, its song magnificent.
But when Eve plucked the fruit of knowledge, when she and Adam were
driven from the garden of Paradise, a spark from the avenging angel's
flaming sword fell into the bird's nest and kindled it. The bird died
in the flames, but from the red egg there flew a new one--the only
one--the ever only bird Phoenix. The legend states that it takes up
its abode in Arabia; that every hundred years it burns itself up in
its nest, and that a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, flies out
from the red egg.
The bird hovers around us, rapid as the light, beautiful in colour,
glorious in song. When the mother sits by the child's cradle, it is by
the pillow, and with its wings flutters a glory around the child's
head. It flies through the chamber of contentment, and there is the
sun's radiance within:--the poor chest of drawers is odoriferous with
violets.
But the bird Phoenix is not alone Arabia's bird: it flutters in the
rays of the Northern Lights on Lapland's icy plains; it hops amongst
the yellow flowers in Greenland's short summer. Under Fahlun's copper
rocks, in England's coal mines, it flies like a powdered moth over the
hymn-book in the pious workman's hands. It sails on the lotus-leaf
down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eyes of the Hindoo girl
glisten on seeing it.
The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? The bird of Paradise, song's
sacred swan! It sat on the car of Thespis, like a croaking raven, and
flapped its black, dregs-besmeared wings; over Iceland's minstrel-harp
glided the swan's red, sounding bill. It sat on Shakspeare's shoulder
like Odin's raven, and whispered in his ear: "Immortality!" It flew at
the minstrel competition, through Wartzburg's knightly halls.
The bird Phoenix! Dost thou not know it? It sang the Marseillaise for
thee, and thou didst kiss the plume that fell from its wing: it came
in the lustre of Paradise, and thou perhaps didst turn thyself away to
some poor sparrow that sat with merest tinsel on its wings.
The bird of Paradise! regenerated every century, bred in flames, dead
in flames; thy image set in gold hangs in the saloons of the rich,
even though thou fliest often astray and alone. "The bird Phoenix in
Arabia"--is but a legend.
In the garden of Paradise, when thou wast bred under the tree of
knowledge, in the first rose, our Lord kissed thee and gave thee thy
proper name--Poetry.
KINNAKULLA.
* * * * *
Kinnakulla, Sweden's hanging gardens! Thee will we visit. We stand by
the lowest terrace in a plenitude of flowers and verdure; the ancient
village church leans its grey pointed wooden tower, as if it would
fall; it produces an effect in the landscape: we would not even be
without that large flock of birds, which just now chance to fly away
over the mountain forest.
The high road leads up the mountain with short palings on either side,
between which we see extensive plains with hops, wild roses,
corn-fields, and delightful beech woods, such as are not to be found
in any other place in Sweden. The ivy winds itself around old trees
and stones--even to the withered trunk green leaves are lent. We look
out over the flat, extended woody plain, to the sunlit church-tower of
Maristad, which shines like a white sail on the dark green sea: we
look out over the Venern Lake, but cannot see its further shore.
Skjärgaardens' wood-crowned rocks lie like a wreath down in the lake;
the steam-boat comes--see! down by the cliff under the red-roofed
mansions, where the beech and walnut trees grow in the garden.
The travellers land; they wander under shady trees away over that
pretty light green meadow, which is enwreathed by gardens and woods:
no English park has a finer verdure than the meadows near Hellekis.
They go up to "the grottos," as they call the projecting masses of red
stone higher up, which, being thoroughly kneaded with petrifactions,
project from the declivity of the earth, and remind one of the
mouldering colossal tombs in the Campagna of Rome. Some are smooth and
rounded off by the streaming of the water, others bear the moss of
ages, grass and flowers, nay, even tall trees.
The travellers go from the forest road up to the top of Kinnakulla,
where a stone is raised as the goal of their wanderings. The traveller
reads in his guide-book about the rocky strata of Kinnakulla: "At the
bottom is found sandstone, then alum-stone, then limestone, and above
this red-stone, higher still slate, and lastly, trap." And, now that
he has seen this, he descends again, and goes on board. He has seen
Kinnakulla:--yes, the stony rock here, amidst the swelling verdure,
showed him one heavy, thick stone finger, and most of the travellers
think that they are like the devil, if they lay hold upon one finger,
they have the body--but it is not always so. The least visited side of
Kinnakulla is just the most characteristic, and thither will we go.
The road still leads us a long way on this side of the mountain, step
by step downwards, in long terraces of rich fields: further down, the
slate-stone peers forth in flat layers, a green moss upon it, and it
looks like threadbare patches in the green velvet carpet. The high
road leads over an extent of ground where the slate-stone lies like a
firm floor. In the Campagna of Rome, one would say it is a piece of
_via appia_, or antique road; but it is Kinnakulla's naked skin and
bones that we pass over. The peasant's house is composed of large
slate-stones, and the roof is covered with them; one sees nothing of
wood except that of the door, and above it, of the large painted
shield, which states to what regiment the soldier belongs who got this
house and plot of ground in lieu of pay.
We cast another glance over Venern, to Lockö's old palace, to the town
of Lendkjobing, and are again near verdant fields and noble trees,
that cast their shadows over Blomberg, where, in the garden, the poet
Geier's spirit seeks the flower of Kinnakulla in his grand-daughter,
little Anna.
The plain expands here behind Kinnakulla; it extends for miles around,
towards the horizon. A shower stands in the heavens; the wind has
increased: see how the rain falls to the ground like a darkening veil.
The branches of the trees lash one another like penitential dryades.
Old Husaby church lies near us, yonder; though the shower lashes the
high walls, which alone stand, of the old Catholic Bishop's palace.
Crows and ravens fly through the long glass-less windows, which time
has made larger; the rain pours down the crevices in the old grey
walls, as if they were now to be loosened stone from stone: but the
church stands--old Husaby church--so grey and venerable, with its
thick walls, its small windows, and its three spires stuck against
each other, and standing, like nuts, in a cluster.
The old trees in the churchyard cast their shade over ancient graves.
Where is the district's "Old Mortality," who weeds the grass, and
explains the ancient memorials? Large granite stones are laid here in
the form of coffins, ornamented with rude carvings from the times of
Catholicism. The old church-door creaks in the hinges. We stand within
its walls, where the vaulted roof was filled for centuries with the
fragrance of incense, with monks, and with the song of the choristers.
Now it is still and mute here: the old men in their monastic dresses
have passed into their graves; the blooming boys that swung the censer
are in their graves; the congregation--many generations--all in their
graves; but the church still stands the same. The moth-eaten, dusty
cowls, and the bishops' mantle, from the days of the cloister, hang in
the old oak presses; and old manuscripts, half eaten up by the rats,
lie strewed about on the shelves in the sacristy.
In the left aisle of the church there still stands, and has stood time
out of mind, a carved image of wood, painted in various colours which
are still strong: it is the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus. Fresh
flower wreaths are hung around hers and the child's head; fragrant
garlands are twined around the pedestal, as festive as on Madonna's
birthday feast in the times of Popery. The young folks who have been
confirmed, have this day, on receiving the sacrament for the first
time, ornamented this old image--nay, even set the priest's name in
flowers upon the altar; and he has, to our astonishment, let it remain
there.
The image of Madonna seems to have become young by the fresh wreaths:
the fragrant flowers here have a power like that of poetry--they bring
back the days of past centuries to our own times. It is as if the
extinguished glory around the head shone again; the flowers exhale
perfume: it is as if incense again streamed through the aisles of the
church--it shines around the altar as if the consecrated tapers were
lighted--it is a sunbeam through the window.
The sky without has become clear: we drive again in under Cleven, the
barren side of Kinnakulla: it is a rocky wall, different from almost
all the others. The red stone blocks lie, strata on strata, forming
fortifications with embrasures, projecting wings and round towers; but
shaken, split and fallen in ruins--it is an architectural fantastic
freak of nature. A brook falls gushing down from one of the highest
points of the Cleven, and drives a little mill. It looks like a
plaything which the mountain sprite had placed there and forgotten.
Large masses of fallen stone blocks lie dispersed round about; nature
has spread them in the forms of carved cornices. The most significant
way of describing Kinnakulla's rocky wall is to call it the ruins of a
mile-long Hindostanee temple: these rocks might be easily transformed
by the hammer into sacred places like the Ghaut mountains at Ellara.
If a Brahmin were to come to Kinnakulla's rocky wall, he would
recognise the temple of Cailasa, and find in the clefts and crevices
whole representations from Ramagena and Mahabharata. If one should
then speak to him in a sort of gibberish--no matter what, only that,
by the help of Brockhaus's "Conversation-Lexicon" one might mingle
therein the names of some of the Indian spectacles:--Sakantala,
Vikramerivati, Uttaram Ramatscheritram, &c.--the Brahmin would be
completely mystified, and write in his note-book: "Kinnakulla is the
remains of a temple, like those we have in Ellara; and the inhabitants
themselves know the most considerable works in our oldest Sanscrit
literature, and speak in an extremely spiritual manner about them."
But no Brahmin comes to the high rocky walls--not to speak of the
company from the steam-boat, who are already far over the lake Venern.
They have seen wood-crowned Kinnakulla, Sweden's hanging gardens--and
we also have now seen them.
GRANDMOTHER.
* * * * *
Grandmother is so old, she has so many wrinkles, and her hair is quite
white; but her eyes! they shine like two stars, nay, they are much
finer--they are so mild, so blissful to look into. And then she knows
the most amusing stories, and she has a gown with large, large flowers
on it, and it is of such thick silk that it actually rustles.
Grandmother knows so much, for she has lived long before father and
mother--that is quite sure.
Grandmother has a psalm-book with thick silver clasps, and in that
book she often reads. In the middle of it lies a rose, which is quite
flat and dry; but it is not so pretty as the roses she has in the
glass, yet she smiles the kindliest to it, nay, even tears come into
her eyes!
Why does Grandmother look thus on the withered flower in the old book?
Do you know why?
Every time that Grandmother's tears fall on the withered flower the
colours become fresher; the rose then swells and the whole room is
filled with fragrance; the walls sink as if they were but mists; and
round about, it is the green, the delightful grove, where the sun
shines between the leaves. And Grandmother--yes, she is quite young;
she is a beautiful girl, with yellow hair, with round red cheeks,
pretty and charming--no rose is fresher. Yet the eyes, the mild,
blissful eyes,--yes, they are still Grandmother's! By her side sits a
man, young and strong: he presents the rose to her and she smiles. Yet
grandmother does not smile so,--yes; the smile comes,--he is
gone.--Many thoughts and many forms go past! That handsome man is
gone; the rose lies in the psalm-book, and grandmother,--yes, she
again sits like an old woman, and looks on the withered rose that lies
in the book.
Now grandmother is dead!
She sat in the arm-chair, and told a long, long, sweet story. "And now
it is ended!" said she, "and I am quite tired: let me now sleep a
little!" And so she laid her head back to rest. She drew her breath,
she slept, but it became more and more still; and her face was so full
of peace and happiness--it was as if the sun's rays passed over it.
She smiled, and then they said that she was dead.
She was laid in the black coffin; she lay swathed in the white linen:
she was so pretty, and yet the eyes were closed--but all the wrinkles
were gone. She lay with a smile around her mouth: her hair was so
silvery white, so venerable, one was not at all afraid to look on the
dead, for it was the sweet, benign grandmother. And the psalm-book was
laid in the coffin under her head (she herself had requested it), and
the rose lay in the old book--and then they buried grandmother.
On the grave, close under the church-wall, they planted a rose-tree,
and it became full of roses, and the nightingale sang over it, and the
organ in the church played the finest psalms that were in the book
under the dead one's head. And the moon shone straight down on the
grave--but the dead was not there: every child could go quietly in the
night-time and pluck a rose there by the churchyard-wall. The dead
know more than all we living know--the dead know the awe we should
feel at something so strange as their coming to us. The dead are
better than us all, and therefore they do not come.
There is earth over the coffin, there is earth within it; the
psalm-book with its leaves is dust the rose with all its recollections
has gone to dust. But above it bloom new roses, above is sings the
nightingale, and the organ plays:--we think of the old grandmother
with the mild, eternally young eyes. Eyes can never die! Ours shall
once again see her young, and beautiful, as when she for the first
time kissed the fresh red rose which is now dust in the grave.
THE PRISON-CELLS.
* * * * *
By separation from other men, by solitary confinement, in continual
silence, the criminal is to be punished and amended; therefore were
prison-cells contrived. In Sweden there were several, and new ones
have been built. I visited one for the first time in Mariestad. This
building lies close outside the town, by a running water, and in a
beautiful landscape. It resembles a large white-washed summer
residence, window above window.
But we soon discover that the stillness of the grave rests over it. It
is as if no one dwelt here, or like a deserted mansion in the time of
the plague. The gates in the walls are locked: one of them is opened
for us: the gaoler stands with his bunch of keys: the yard is empty,
but clean--even the grass weeded away between the stone paving. We
enter the waiting-room, where the prisoner is received: we are shown
the bathing-room, into which he is first led. We now ascend a flight
of stairs, and are in a large hall, extending the whole length and
breadth of the building. Galleries run along the floors, and between
these the priest has his pulpit, where he preaches on Sundays to an
invisible congregation. All the doors facing the gallery are half
opened: the prisoners hear the priest, but cannot see him, nor he
them. The whole is a well-built machine--a nightmare for the spirit.
In the door of every cell there is fixed a glass, about the size of
the eye: a slide covers it, and the gaoler can, unobserved by the
prisoner, see everything he does; but he must come gently,
noiselessly, for the prisoner's ear is wonderfully quickened by
solitude. I turned the slide quite softly, and looked into the closed
space, when the prisoner's eye immediately met mine. It is airy,
clean, and light within the cell, but the window is placed so high
that it is impossible to look out of it. A high stool, made fast to a
sort of table, and a hammock, which can be hung upon hooks under the
ceiling, and covered with a quilt, compose the whole furniture.
Several cells were opened for us. In one of these was a young, and
extremely pretty girl. She had lain down in her hammock, but sprang
out directly the door was opened, and her first employment was to lift
her hammock down, and roll it together. On the little table stood a
pitcher with water, and by it lay the remains of some oatmeal cakes,
besides the Bible and some psalms.
In the cell close by sat a child's murderess. I saw her only through
the little glass in the door. She had had heard our footsteps; heard
us speak; but she sat still, squeezed up into the corner by the door,
as if she would hide herself as much as possible: her back was bent,
her head almost on a level with her lap, and her hands folded over it.
They said this unfortunate creature was very young. Two brothers sat
here in two different cells: they were punished for horse stealing;
the one was still quite a boy.
In one cell was a poor servant girl. They said: "She has no place of
resort, and without a situation, and therefore she is placed here." I
thought I had not heard rightly, and repeated my question, "why she
was here," but got the same answer. Still I would rather believe that
I had misunderstood what was said--it would otherwise be abominable.
Outside, in the free sunshine, it is the busy day; in here it is
always midnight's stillness. The spider that weaves its web down the
wall, the swallow which perhaps flies a single time close under the
panes there high up in the wall--even the stranger's footstep in the
gallery, as he passes the cell-doors, is an event in that mute,
solitary life, where the prisoners' thoughts are wrapped up in
themselves. One must read of the martyr-filled prisons of the
Inquisition, of the crowds chained together in the Bagnes, of the hot,
lead chambers of Venice, and the black, wet gulf of the wells--be
thoroughly shaken by these pictures of misery, that we may with a
quieter pulsation of the heart wander through the gallery of the
prison-cells. Here is light, here is air;--here it is more humane.
Where the sunbeam shines mildly in on the prisoner, there also will
the radiance of God shine into the heart.
BEGGAR-BOYS.
* * * * *
The painter Callot--who does not know the name, at least from
Hoffmann's "in Callot's manner?"--has given a few excellent pictures
of Italian beggars. One of these is a fellow, on whom the one rag
lashes the other: he carries his huge bundle and a large flag with the
inscription, "Capitano de Baroni." One does not think that there can
in reality be found such a wandering rag-shop, and we confess that in
Italy itself we have not seen any such; for the beggar-boy there,
whose whole clothing often consists only of a waistcoat, has in it not
sufficient costume for such rags.
But we see it in the North. By the canal road between the Venern and
Vigen, on the bare, dry rocky plain there stood, like beauty's
thistles in that poor landscape, a couple of beggar-boys, so ragged,
so tattered, so picturesquely dirty, that we thought we had Callot's
originals before us, or that it was an arrangement of some industrious
parents, who would awaken the traveller's attention and benevolence.
Nature does not form such things: there was something so bold in the
hanging on of the rags, that each boy instantly became a Capitano de
Baroni.
The younger of the two had something round him that had certainly once
been the jacket of a very corpulent man, for it reached almost to the
boy's ancles; the whole hung fast by a piece of the sleeve and a
single brace, made from the seam of what was now the rest of the
lining. It was very difficult to see the transition from jacket to
trowsers, the rags glided so into one another. The whole clothing was
arranged so as to give him an air-bath: there were draught holes on
all sides and ends; a yellow linen clout fastened to the nethermost
regions seemed as if it were to signify a shirt. A very large straw
hat, that had certainly been driven over several times, was stuck
sideways on his head, and allowed the boy's wiry, flaxen hair to grow
freely through the opening where the crown should have been: the naked
brown shoulder and upper part of the arm, which was just as brown,
were the prettiest of the whole.
The other boy had only a pair of trowsers on. They were also ragged,
but the rags were bound fast into the pockets with packthread; one
string round the ancles, one under the knee, and another round about
the waist. He, however, kept together what he had, and that is always
respectable.
"Be off!" shouted the Captain, from the vessel; and the boy with the
tied-up rags turned round, and we--yes, we saw nothing but packthread,
in bows, genteel bows. The front part of the boy only was covered: he
had only the foreparts of trowsers--the rest was packthread, the bare,
naked packthread.
VADSTENE.
* * * * *
In Sweden, it is not only in the country, but even in several of the
provincial towns, that one sees whole houses of grass turf or with
roofs of grass turf; and some are so low that one might easily spring
up to the roof, and sit on the fresh greensward. In the early spring,
whilst the fields are still covered with snow, but which is melted on
the roof, the latter affords the first announcement of spring, with
the young sprouting grass where the sparrow twitters: "Spring comes!"
Between Motala and Vadstene, close by the high road, stands a
grass-turf house--one of the most picturesque. It has but one window,
broader than it is high, and a wild rose branch forms the curtain
outside.
We see it in the spring. The roof is so delightfully fresh with grass,
it has quite the tint of velvet; and close to it is the chimney, nay,
even a cherry-tree grows out of its side, now full of flowers: the
wind shakes the leaves down on a little lamb that is tethered to the
chimney. It is the only lamb of the family. The old dame who lives
here, lifts it up to its place herself in the morning and lifts it
down again in the evening, to give it a place in the room. The roof
can just bear the little lamb, but not more--this is an experience and
a certainty. Last autumn--and at that time the grass turf roofs are
covered with flowers, mostly blue and yellow, the Swedish
colours--there grew here a flower of a rare kind. It shone in the eyes
of the old Professor, who on his botanical tour came past here. The
Professor was quickly up on the roof, and just as quick was one of his
booted legs through it, and so was the other leg, and then half of the
Professor himself--that part where the head does not sit; and as the
house had no ceiling, his legs hovered right over the old dame's head,
and that in very close contact. But now the roof is again whole; the
fresh grass grows where learning sank; the little lamb bleats up
there, and the old dame stands beneath, in the low doorway, with
folded hands, with a smile on her mouth, rich in remembrances, legends
and songs, rich in her only lamb on which the cherry-tree strews its
flower-blossoms in the warm spring sun.
As a background to this picture lies the Vettern--the bottomless lake
as the commonalty believe--with its transparent water, its sea-like
waves, and in calm, with "Hegring," or fata morgana on its steel-like
surface. We see Vadstene palace and town, "the city of the dead," as a
Swedish author has called it--Sweden's Herculaneum, reminiscence's
city. The grass-turf house must be our box, whence we see the rich
mementos pass before us--memorials from the chronicle of saints, the
chronicle of kings and the love songs that still live with the old
dame, who stands in her low house there, where the lamb crops the
grass on the roof. We hear her, and we see with her eyes; we go from
the grass-turf house up to the town, to the other grass-turf houses,
where poor women sit and make lace, once the celebrated work of the
rich nuns here in the cloister's wealthy time.
How still, solitary and grass-grown are these streets! We stop by an
old wall, mouldy-green for centuries already. Within it stood the
cloister; now there is but one of its wings remaining. There, within
that now poor garden still bloom Saint Bridget's leek, and once ran
flowers. King John and the Abbess, Ana Gylte, wandered one evening
there, and the King cunningly asked: "If the maidens in the cloister
were never tempted by love?" and the Abbess answered, as she pointed
to a bird that just then flew over them: "It may happen! One cannot
prevent the bird from flying over the garden; but one may surely
prevent it from building its nest there!"
Thus thought the pious Abbess, and there have been sisters who thought
and acted like her. But it is quite as sure that in the same garden
there stood a pear-tree, called the tree of death; and the legend says
of it, that whoever approached and plucked its fruit would soon die.
Red and yellow pears weighed down its branches to the ground. The
trunk was unusually large; the grass grew high around it, and many a
morning hour was it seen trodden down. Who had been here during the
night?
A storm arose one evening from the lake, and the next morning the
large tree was found thrown down; the trunk was broken, and out from
it there rolled infants' bones--the white bones of murdered children
lay shining in the grass.
The pious but love-sick sister Ingrid, this Vadstene's Heloise, writes
to her heart's beloved, Axel Nilsun--for the chronicles have preserved
it for us:--
"Broderne og Systarne leka paa Spil, drikke Vin och dansa med
hvarandra i Tradgården!"
(The brothers and sisters amuse themselves in play, drink wine and
dance with one another in the garden).
These words may explain to us the history of the pear-tree: one is led
to think of the orgies of the nun-phantoms in "Robert le Diable," the
daughters of sin on consecrated ground. But "judge not, lest ye be
judged," said the purest and best of men that was born of woman. We
will read Sister Ingrid's letter, sent secretly to him she truly
loved. In it lies the history of many, clear and human to us:--
"Jag djerfues for ingen utan for dig allena bekänna, att jag formår
ilia ånda mit Ave Maria eller läsa mit Paternoster, utan du kommer mig
ichågen. Ja i sjelfa messen kommer mig fore dit täckleliga Ansigte och
vart kårliga omgange. Jag tycker jag kan icke skifta mig for n genann
an Menniska, jungfru Maria, St. Birgitta och himmelens Härskaror
skalla kanske straffe mig hårfar? Men du vet det val, hjertans käraste
att jag med fri vilja och uppsät aldrig dissa reglar samtykt. Mine
foräldrer hafva väl min kropp i dette fangelset insatt, men hjertät
kan intet så snart från verlden ater kalles!"
(I dare not confess to any other than to thee, that I am not able to
repeat my Ave Maria or read my Paternoster, without calling thee to
mind. Nay, even in the mass itself thy comely face appears, and our
affectionate intercourse recurs to me. It seems to me that I cannot
confess to any other human being--the Virgin Mary, St. Bridget, and
the whole host of heaven will perhaps punish me for it. But thou
knowest well, my heart's beloved, that I have never consented with my
free-will to these rules. My parents, it is true, have placed my body
in this prison, but the heart cannot so soon be weaned from the
world).
How touching is the distress of young hearts! It offers itself to us
from the mouldy parchment, it resounds in old songs. Beg the
grey-haired old dame in the grass turf-house to sing to thee of the
young, heavy sorrow, of the saving angel--and the angel came in many
shapes. You will hear the song of the cloister robbery; of Herr Carl
who was sick to death; when the young nun entered the corpse chamber,
sat down by his feet and whispered how sincerely she had loved him,
and the knight rose from his bier and bore her away to marriage and
pleasure in Copenhagen. And all the nuns of the cloister sang: "Christ
grant that such an angel were to come, and take both me and thee!"