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I
+THE CRY+
To tell the story of a child as you would tell the story of a grown-up
would be to commit forgery, for once you are wide awake it costs you a
great effort to describe a dream exactly as it occurred.
The tide of events flows remote from the child. Only occasionally do its
eddies touch upon the consciousness of the child, and then the latter is
unaware of their significance. It is precisely this inability to
understand the connection between events which makes the realities of
children so dream-like.
In the long dream of childhood there reigns a capricious, mysterious and
yet irresistible Fate, beneficent like the fairy with its wand beside
the princess’s cradle, or cruel like the wolf in Red Riding Hood. The
shadow of that Fate still casts itself over our riper years. It haunts
us, ghostlike, even when we have begun consciously to order our lives.
Only a few chosen spirits are able to cast off the spell of these
fairies and trolls.
This is a tale of people whose childhood was passed in the shadow of the
wolf—and who never could escape from their childhood.
First let me tell you about that evening, many years ago, when Peter and
Hedvig heard a strange cry coming from the window of their parents’
bedroom. The whole of that day it had been evident that something was in
the air. The children were not allowed to go into the bedroom at all,
nor even to play on the stairs. After lunch there arrived an old lady
with a bag. And then an old man in spectacles drove up in a small
carriage. It was the doctor. Little Laura ran away immediately and hid
herself, so that she should not have to show her tongue. But this time
the doctor had not come to see her, for he went straight up to Mother,
and beds were prepared for the children in the green room downstairs.
Stellan, Laura, and Tord had to go to bed at once, as they were so
young. But Peter and Hedvig went out onto the kitchen steps. There old
Kristin sat and told stories of former days at Selambshof when “Old Hök”
was alive.
The most remarkable thing about Kristin was that she alone survived from
the days of the old owner. She was grey, bent, tough, the incarnation of
the everlasting ill-humoured peasant soul. Even if she only talked of a
pair of grey stockings it still sounded like a fairy tale. And since,
moreover, the fatalism of age is closely related to the helplessness of
childhood, we can well understand that she had two attentive listeners
in Peter and Hedvig. Just now the great and serious event that was about
to occur plunged her into a gloomy, solemn mood. And just as her
ancestors for hundreds of grey generations before her had huddled
together by the hearth on dark stormy nights and had told tales of
dangers past, so also she now sat in the autumn twilight on the kitchen
stairs at Selambshof and told ghost stories to the maids and the cowherd
about the old master. She still looked frightened as she talked of him.
It really sounded as if she were talking of some great and notorious
criminal.
Hedvig had slipped out as silently as a mouse. Her small face with its
dark, hungry eyes was pale. Peter leaned sulkily in an awkward posture
against the doorpost. But it is not to be supposed that the presence of
the children disturbed Kristin in the very least. She just went on. She
was talking now about the old pensioned couple down by the Hökar
meadow:—You see the master, Old Hök, had made up his mind to starve out
such encumbrances on the estate. They received only some thin whey and a
little dust that the miller swept up from the floor. But it is strange
how little an old woman can live on. So the old master had to turn to
vermin. He put a sofa that was crawling into old Kerstin’s cottage. But
Kerstin thought, “If I must die, I shall at least die on his front
step”—so one winter morning she trailed herself up to his house and
began to take off her rags before the front door. And you may imagine
she was not beautiful, because she had smeared tar over her whole body
as a protection against lice. It was so awful that even Old Hök had to
hurry to his cupboard and take a drop of something strong.
Here Kristin stopped suddenly and caught hold of Hedvig’s hand as it lay
anxiously clenched in her lap. Yes, indeed, it clenched a sticky lump of
sugar. The temptation had proven too strong as she stole through the
empty kitchen. Kristin’s tone now became still more sinister and solemn:
“Well, well, that’s what heredity does,” she mumbled. “Keep your fingers
out of the sugar jar, Hedvig, otherwise the sugar knife will fall and
cut off your hand. Or maybe the Bogey Man will come and take you.”
Hedvig turned quite white. A spasm passed over her face—but she did not
cry. She cowered and went on listening to Kristin, who continued in her
sombre manner: “Yes, as I always say, everything goes wrong here at
Selambshof, both with human beings and with animals, since the old
master drove away the good house spirits. And there are strange things
both in the forest and in the lake. Would any of you like to be alone at
night time in Enoch’s cave? And don’t bubbles rise even today by the big
stone beyond the reeds? The master said that Matts fell in whilst he was
trying to catch hold of an oar that he had lost. But I know what I know.
They didn’t find Matts. But afterwards Old Hök always dropped his hooks
just at that spot and caught lots of eels, and beat the young master
because he wouldn’t eat them. Yes, he was like that. And he has not gone
from this place yet. Tell me, Andres, don’t the horses still jib down
there by the grey stone at the corner of the avenue? They have done so
ever since Old Hök died there. He sat quite straight with his hands on
the knob of his stick and frowned, though he was stone dead. They had to
bring four men to straighten him out and lay him in his coffin, so
obstinate was he even after death. But he left lots of money.”
At this point, old Kristin lowered her voice and became humble in spite
of herself. That was of course the people’s admiration for wealth. It
was the unconditional surrender of the old peasant woman to the fact of
possession. And both Andres and the maid, who had been peacefully dozing
during this recital of well-known horrors, now leant forward with
listening eyes as Kristin sat there and spun out her story of all the
gold in the chest and all the corn in the barns— “Yes, he did look after
the farm, did the old master. In those days there was something like a
manure heap for a cock to stand on and crow. And nobody dared to steal
even a potato then. Do you hear that, Andres? No, those were different
days—for now you do nothing but idle about and steal. Well, I suppose
everything will lie waste soon. Yes, yes, we have not seen the end
yet—we have not seen the end. And there are lots of children to share it
too—and more are coming. It is a real pity. Poor Peter, who is the
eldest and will inherit it. Poor Peter, that’s what I say! Are you
loafing about there with your hands in your pockets again? Take your
hands out of your pockets—otherwise you will lose both house and land.
You wait and see if I don’t speak the truth. And don’t climb on the rail
and wear out your stockings.”
Kristin had come to this point when they heard a scream from the bedroom
upstairs. The silence beneath the bare elms was suddenly and harshly
torn asunder. Perhaps it sounded to Peter and Hedvig like one of those
strange, petrified screeches which sometimes fill the sleep of grown-ups
with horror.
The little group dissolved instantly. The maid ran into the kitchen for
the kettles. Anders strolled hesitatingly towards the lake, and Kristin
pushed the children into the dining-room and turned the key. Peter and
Hedvig were locked in with Old Hök, whose portrait hung there in the
twilight over the leather-covered sofa. They were standing in the middle
of the room and dared not look at the picture. They were expecting
another scream that would make their hair stand on end again. They
supposed it must come since they had been driven in here. But they heard
no scream—for many long, long minutes all was still. By and by their
eyes were irresistibly drawn to Old Hök. There he stood in a long, black
coat. And his nose looked like a bird’s beak, and his fingers were
clenched round his stick handle and looked like claws. But worst of all
were his eyes, for wherever you stood they stared straight down at you,
so that you felt that your blood ran cold. It had, of course, been
horrid to listen to Kristin, but then, it was not altogether uncanny,
for there was mixed with it a curiously pleasant sensation as when you
step into a pool and the cold water oozes into your stockings. But this!
Oh this was ever so much worse! Their childish fear, awakened out of its
semi-sleep, now fluttered wildly round Old Hök—and Kristin’s
superstition and her prophecies of woe hovered over them in new and
terrifying shapes.
Peter was perhaps not so sensitive to the more remote horrors. His fears
fastened on what was nearest to hand. Very small as he was, he stood
there staring at the grey and tattered ghost of poverty. His anxiety was
centred on a big signet ring that Old Hök was wearing on his finger. He
wore it, of course, because he was awfully rich. But where was the ring
now? Old Hök’s eyes pursued him with the question: Where is my ring now?
Peter knew nothing of it. His father had not worn it, and it was not in
his mother’s jewel box. Supposing Anders had stolen it! Or fat Lotten in
the kitchen? Fancy if they should steal everything at Selambshof, so
that he, Peter, had to sit without any clothes in the forest and starve
and shiver. Fancy if that was why Mamma lay up there and screamed so
terribly. Yes, he knew it was Mamma who had screamed.
That was Peter’s fear. But Hedvig’s fear was different, deeper, vaguer.
She was afraid of the Bogey Man with whom Kristin used to frighten her.
And now he had suddenly assumed Old Hök’s features. Yes the Bogey Man
was there in the room, just in front of her. But it never occurred to
her to take Peter’s hand. Hedvig was not like that. She was alone from
the beginning, alone in her fear and helpless with that complete and
profound helplessness that grown-ups only experience in the dangers and
horrors of a nightmare.
And now they heard another scream, fainter but just as dreadful. It came
from all sides at once—from the stairs, from the door, from the walls
themselves. Hedvig suddenly understood, the Bogey Man had come! He was
taking somebody as he passed on his way. Because it was, of course,
herself, Hedvig, that he really wanted. She shrank and closed her eyes.
Then she looked up again, just for a second. He was no longer there
above the sofa. He had climbed down—he was coming towards her! He was
stretching out his claws!!
Hedvig dug her nails into the edge of the table and screamed, screamed
wildly. She could not bear it. Peter also started screaming. He saw
himself standing starving and naked in a big dark forest full of wolves.
It is not to be wondered at then that they screamed. But that was not
all. The younger children, who slept in the adjoining room, awoke in a
fright and started to scream too. So the whole chorus of children’s
voices joined with the mother’s groans above.
Kristin suddenly appeared in the door with a candle: “Good gracious—you
dreadful children to make such a noise when the mistress is ill!”
She packed Peter and Hedvig into the green room. Oh, what a wonderful,
pleasant relief it was to feel Kristin’s bony hands in your back. They
undressed with feverish haste, afraid lest she should go before they had
had time to pull the bedclothes over their heads.
“Dearest Kristin, please leave the light burning.”—“Nonsense, go to
sleep now.”
And the light was gone.
They lay huddled up in terrible darkness like two poor little orphans.
Fear kept them long awake and pursued them ever in their dreams, when at
last they had fallen asleep. The night of the earth is but a passing
shadow, but the night of fear in the heart is evil and long. And for
many it seems as if there will be no morning.
The following day the children at Selambshof lost their mother. Both she
and the newborn baby died before their father reached home. He had been
kept late during a shoot at Kolsnäs.
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