+SEPTEMBER SPRING+
Laura lay awake the whole night reading a novel, and at breakfast she
only played with her food. Then she stole out into the pantry and took
her usual draught of vinegar.
It was a day in the late summer, warm and still. Down the slope the
August pears were tempting, the hammock and the lazy lapping of the
water against the shutters of the bathing box were also a standing
temptation. But Laura resisted them. For a whole fortnight she had
struggled to get rid of her sunburn and to become pale and thin. Slowly
she went back to her room and tried to think at each step that she was
rather weak and feeble.
Laura’s room was small and shady. It lay on the ground floor overlooking
the avenue. She walked up to the mirror and scrutinized herself
carefully from head to foot. She was no longer a plump little
bright-eyed imp with plaits of fair hair dangling behind, and fat legs.
No, it was a pale, interesting-looking young lady who stood there with a
curled fringe, neat waist and a tired and dreamy look in her eyes.
When Laura had gazed at herself for a long while, with mixed feelings of
complete approval and vague pity, she stole to the window and sat down
very carefully as if she had been made of some very brittle material. It
was a narrow and rather dismal window in the thick walls of Selambshof.
A spray of the sparse and dying vine on the north side of the house
flapped against the window-sill. It bore a small bunch of grapes, green
and no bigger than pin-heads. What sweet doll’s grapes they are, she
thought suddenly, and she had a vision of a doll’s party in the nursery
with grapes for dessert, but she punished herself immediately for this
childishness. She had indeed other things to think of. Piously she laid
her hands one over the other and settled down comfortably in the chair
and with her newfound refinement of melancholy, she dreamed that she was
in very weak health and very sad—a really seductive little dream!
Then Herman came walking towards the house, straight, smart, and
correct. He was wearing a student’s cap, for by dint of hard work and an
ambitious spirit he had come so far. And in spite of the heat he did not
wear it tipped back, but on top of his head as if it were a part of the
uniform of manhood and knowledge. And he did not look around him so
nervously under an affected unconcern. No, now he looked just a little
haughty as he came straight up to Laura’s window, climbed up on the seat
and shook hands with her.
“Why do you never come to Ekbacken nowadays? It’s a fortnight since you
were there.”
Laura half-closed her eyes and smiled a wan smile. Her hand dropped out
of his and lay like a tired little bird on the window-sill:
“My dear Herman, we have been there too much already.”
“What nonsense!”
Laura was vexed at his clumsiness in not noticing her haggard
appearance:
“Besides, I don’t feel very well, you know, Herman.”
That was too much, even for Herman. He could not help laughing.
“You ill, Laura! don’t talk such rubbish!”
What unfeeling, hard-hearted laughter. After all her efforts. At that
moment she thoroughly detested him. But she did not answer sharply, she
only looked deeply grieved and pained:
“Good-bye,” she murmured, “I am too tired to talk to you any longer. I
must lie down for a while.”
Thereupon she closed the window in Herman’s face and pulled down the
blind. Then she lay down on her bed and thought how unseeing and
cold-hearted people were. Did they want to make her drink more vinegar?
Well she was not frightened, although she had heard that it might make
her really ill.
For another week Laura continued the darkness and vinegar treatment and
then walked resolutely down to old Hermansson.
At Ekbacken the saws were humming as smoothly as ever in the red shed.
The sailors were still there caulking the old smacks and old Lundbom was
still casting up not unfavourable balances. Nothing had changed at
Ekbacken except that it had grown a little older and more peaceful. But
now and then a certain ill-disposed rival would rub his hands and think
that Ekbacken would prove too good for this world.
Old Hermansson was not in the office. He did not often appear there
nowadays. He sat in his dressing gown and smoking cap in the big easy
chair in the drawing room, reading a newspaper that he held far from his
eyes as if not to come into close contact with the restlessness and
misery of the world.
Old Hermansson had aged considerably of late. He was almost always
poorly now. But he did not complain. He protested with more and more
marked dignity against his weakness. Unconsciously the Brundin case had
dealt a nasty blow to his assurance and comfort. In consequence, his
tone had become more self-satisfied and domineering than ever. The old
man was really quite tender-hearted beneath his hard exterior and
Stellan and Laura had at once perceived this, with the cruel insight of
youth. They did not hesitate to exploit their guardian’s weakness for
their own comfort.
Laura said “Good-morning,” and sank with a sigh into a chair, and looked
worse than ever.
“What’s the matter with you, dear child? At your age one should not go
about looking ill. Look at me, I shall soon be seventy and I am as well
as ever.”
And saying this, he relapsed into the soft upholstery of his chair, his
face twitching from rheumatism. But this had no effect on Laura:
“I can’t help it, I cough and have no appetite. I think I need a change
of air.”
“Change of air! When do you think I have ever had a change of air in my
life? And yet I have never been ill more than three days together in all
my life!”
“Everybody can’t be as well as you, Uncle. And I am only a girl. Oh! if
only Mother were alive so that I might have somebody to talk to.”
Laura’s voice trembled and the tears were already in her eyes. Her
guardian grew alarmed:
“What’s the matter? What do you want to do, then, my dear child?”
Then Laura could restrain her desire no longer:
“I ... I want to go to a boarding school ... in Switzerland. You get
such an appetite there. It would do my chest good. Elvira Lähnfeldt at
Trefvinge is going to Neuchatel. Stellan told me so, for he was invited.
Neuchatel is said to be so very suitable. And fancy to be able to talk
French properly—and then the air,—”
Old Hermansson’s horizon did not stretch beyond the frontiers of his own
country. He was dumbfounded by the audacity of the proposal:
“Impossible, my dear child, impossible!”
After the first attack Laura collected her forces for a more systematic
siege:
“Oh, Uncle, you should live at Selambshof,” she wailed. “You would be
ill in a week. Yes, it is so unpleasant at home since that dreadful
business with Brundin.”
Laura glanced at her guardian; she seemed satisfied with the effect and
continued:
“It is worst with Peter. He curses like a farm labourer and he swears at
table. He is really no company for a young girl!”
That also had a good effect. Old Hermansson could not bear Peter since
he had exposed Brundin. Laura already knew so much about the human
heart. The old man nodded pensively:
“I admit that your brother Peter is not all that he ought to be. But if
it is not always pleasant at home, you know that you are always welcome
at Ekbacken.”
“Thank you. You are so awfully kind, both you and Herman. But ...”
(Laura flushed beneath her self-induced pallor and glanced archly at her
guardian) “but ... it looks strange for me to be always here. I don’t
know if it is right any longer and then I thought that both you and
Herman would like me to have some sort of education.”
Here she was interrupted by an attack of coughing, and she put her hand
to her chest with an anxious and sudden air of distraction.
Her guardian looked very perplexed. As a matter of fact he looked upon
the affection of the young pair for each other with some pleasure. He
himself had originally been a poor clerk who had risen to his present
position by marrying the daughter of his employer. To him Selambshof and
the Selambs still seemed an old distinguished place and family. Yes!
secretly he was even flattered by Laura’s walks with Herman. The thought
of his future daughter-in-law being in a Swiss boarding school like the
young lady at Trefvinge was also pleasant. So he slowly assumed an
expression which was more of anxiety than of opposition.
“Well, my dear child, we must think it over.”
Laura had to control herself not to dance for joy so long as she was
within sight of Ekbacken. But when she reached home she ate for the
first time for a whole month till she was satisfied.
The following weeks were for Laura a time of glowing expectation,
blissful faithlessness, touching farewells and a feeling almost
approaching love.
On one of the first days of September, when the air had all the coolness
and clearness of autumn, she and Herman were walking through the garden
of Selambshof. The garden was situated on the southern slope, between
the avenue and the lake, screened by a row of tall ash trees from the
dismal, brooding, heaviness of the house. It was much neglected but it
was a pleasant sort of neglect and this was after all a little corner of
Selambshof where something of an idyll still lingered.
Laura and Herman were strolling slowly along the wet, half choked paths
between currant bushes smothered in weeds and scraggy old apple trees
covered with grey moss which still as if by a miracle bore beautiful
shining apples. Here a tumbled-down fence lay with an appearance of
infinite fatigue, and there the pestweed had pushed up into the light
out of a half smothered ditch, and with its dense growth of enormous
leaves had vanquished a row of raspberry bushes, where dry branches
stretched up helplessly out of the green sea. Then there was a row of
frames with broken glass and a bed of cabbages looking quite blue in the
shade. Then came the long beds with a few asters and dahlias in front of
the gardener’s dilapidated old cottage.
“It is very beautiful here,” whispered Laura. There was a note of
surprise in her voice. It had evidently never occurred to her that it
might be beautiful here. She glanced sideways at Herman who looked at
once shy and hurt.
“If it is beautiful here why are you going away?”
The sun was not less bright because Herman turned away from her and
grumbled. Laura pressed his hand encouragingly:
“I’ll soon be back,” she whispered softly.
She felt very superior to Selambshof and Herman and all the other
everyday things which remained where they were put and never moved. But
all the same there was a strange tenderness in her feeling of
superiority. Sometimes she did not quite know if it was gay or sad.
Old Johannes, the gardener, sat in his porch and looked tranquilly at
the neglect around him. He had been a sailor in his youth and divided
his day into watches, four hours he smoked his pipe and four hours he
rested. But during the day watch he slept. But somehow he managed to pay
his rent so that he was not driven out. Until today Laura had only
thought of the old man as something unkempt and dirty. She had never
given him a further thought as she munched his apples. But now he
suddenly appeared quite nice to her, sitting there in the sunshine. A
bumble bee buzzed lazily round the patches on his trouser-knees. His
hands seemed as if made of bark. His whole face was smothered with hair,
just as the garden was with weeds. When he scratched his beard with his
coarse nail there was a grating sound. But his eyes were wonderfully
calm. It was as if in a quiet, still, protected corner the sun were
shining down on a barrel of rainwater.
Laura suddenly realised why Tord spent so much time with the gardener.
“How is Tord’s fox?” she wondered.
She referred to a fox that had been caught in a trap and which Tord had
been allowed to keep. It lived in a shed.
“Tord has got him on the leash,” smiled the old fellow, pleased at the
interest in their common pet.
The door of a big grateless room stood open. The floor was covered with
fruit. Laura dived in with the gardener and came out with her hat filled
with the rosiest apples that ever woman tempted man with. Herman sighed
and ate. It was all “sour grapes” to him. He pulled at Laura’s arm. He
wanted to be alone with her. He was jealous of the garden, of the
gardener, of the Swiss Alps, and of everything.
They moved on.
On the other side there was a hillock with terraces and ledges and some
tumbled-down summer cottages. Here everything was silent, mysterious,
and abandoned. Laura and Herman walked about in the small devastated
gardens and peeped into the empty rooms where the winter seemed already
to have thrown its shadow. Squeezed in between the lake and the hill lay
a rambling old house given over to the rooks. It was a high house with
three balconies, built over the water and embellished with some
extraordinary extensions on the land side. Here the water splashed
against the piles, covered with a green ooze, and the aspens, burnt red
by the autumn, rustled, and the whole was illuminated by a strange light
reflected from the paths covered with yellow leaves.
Herman succeeded in opening the door. Past empty cupboards, garden
furniture and old gate-legged tables covered with marks left by glasses
they penetrated to the highest balcony. Here the last flies of autumn
buzzed against the window panes and tendrils of Virginia Creeper pushed
in through the chinks and cracks.
They sank down on a garden seat strangely moved by this sunny brightness
and forlorn melancholy. Herman dug his stick into the floor-boards and
then he suddenly threw it aside and kissed her. He kissed her
passionately and violently with bitter sealed lips. But she pulled him
towards her and opened her lips softly. And she loved to feel how he
tried to resist her but was not able to do so. No, humbly and helplessly
he clung to her lips. This was their first real kiss. Everything before
had been play. And she was going to leave all this behind. She felt so
tenderly, so blissfully, so lovingly faithless. The tears came into her
eyes and she smiled like a real little angel.
At this moment Laura happened to look out through one of the side
windows. Who was that standing far away on the hill, almost on the same
level as they were, if not Hedvig. She pretended to be interested in
something out on the lake. But the expression of offended loneliness and
stern disapproval in her pinched face was not to be mistaken. She had a
disagreeable way of stealing upon you, had Hedvig. Of course she had
seen everything. Of course she was green with envy because Laura had
caught Herman and was going to Switzerland and was not as silly as
Hedvig herself.
“So now we shall have her haunting this place,” muttered Laura. “Now
this jolly place is spoilt for us.”
They pulled an old curtain before the window so that Hedvig should see
nothing and then they stole away from “The Rookery” as silently as
Indians. Now they were out in the wood on the other side of the avenue
and they kissed each other again, but without lingering. A restless
longing drove them on. They walked all the way to Träskängen and when
they got there it was almost evening. A cold breeze met them as they
jumped about from one dry spot to another.
In the deepest hollow there lay a white mist over banks of reeds and
pools. But when they came up again on the other side of the hill towards
the quarries it was so hot that they had to stop. In the twilight the
scene around them seemed ragged and gloomy and deserted.
It was old Enoch who had started blasting here once upon a time. It
seemed as if an evil spirit had ruled the forest, or some barren
destructive fiend. Everywhere there were ravines, caves, treacherous
holes and screes of clattering stones and loose boulders ready to slip
away beneath your feet, and everything was enveloped in an almost
impenetrable growth of young golden aspen.
And then the autumn moon rose above the forest in the west.
“It really is wonderfully fine,” whispered Herman, fascinated by the
romance of this desolate wilderness.
“Yes, it is almost like the Alps,” answered Laura, and groped for him
that she might feel him tremble with jealous love. But as soon as she
had said it she trembled herself. Yes, she was playing a dangerous game
up there among the rough boulders of Old Hök’s overgrown stony
wilderness. Laura suddenly felt love clutching her heart with burning
fingers. For a moment she gave herself up to this new and painful
sensation, but then she became frightened, with the violent fear of a
threatened egoism. She jumped up and pushed him away from her:
“No, now I must go home.”
But Herman insisted:
“No, we must go up to Enoch’s gorge,” he panted. “It is haunted, and up
to the old quarrymen’s shed.”
His voice had never sounded so near her, so strangely near. She followed
him against her will.
Enoch’s gorge was a perpendicular precipitous gully, blasted out of the
rock. They held each others’ hands and crept up to the edge with their
heads swimming. It was dark down below. Fancy if he pulls me down! the
thought flashed through Laura’s head, and she suddenly tore her hand out
of his.
Then they came to the shed. There were stones in front of the door, but
Herman rolled them away. Inside something lay on a couple of overturned
empty boxes. In the light of a match they saw a few books, a heap of
strange stones, shells and horses’ teeth, a dried-up lizard and a broken
bottle with fish spawn, by the side of a half-eaten piece of bread and
butter.
Then somebody stood in the doorway. It was Tord. He looked unusually
tall in the twilight. In spite of his sixteen years he was dressed in
breeches and an outgrown sailor blouse, his long wrists sticking out
from the sleeves. He stood quite still and stared at the invaders with
an expression of fear and anger. And between his legs the fox thrust out
his pointed nose and his bright eyes and sniffed. He had only three
legs, poor thing, the fourth had been caught in the trap.
“What are you doing here?” growled Tord at last in a thick voice.
Herman and Laura were embarrassed to have been taken unawares and in
their haste resorted to jeers.
Laura pushed some beetles on to Tord’s bread and butter.
“Here you are! a beetle sandwich!”
Tord turned pale. This was his refuge, his peaceful retreat. Here he had
all his trophies from Träskängen, his lonely and glorious hunting ground
for frog spawn, lizards, divers, birds’ eggs and bats—and now his poor
secrets were captured by intruders. He stood there swinging his long
bare arms. He gave one the impression of a dumb captive creature like
the fox beside him. It was as if he could only express his feelings by a
shriek. But now he clenched his fist and his face twitched with sudden
and violent anger.
“Go away,” he cried. “Get away. This is my place.”
“All right, we are going.”
Laura dragged Herman with her. In the bushes beside them they heard the
flop of a stone that Tord had cast after them. And then he called out
something coarse after them, one of those impossible, foul expressions
of impotent boyhood. Herman wanted to rush back and thrash him, but
Laura stamped her foot on the ground and commanded him to take her home
at once. She was suddenly short, cold, and offended, just as if Herman
had injured her.
“You are silly,” she snapped. “What business had we up in that stupid
quarry? Tell me what business we had there!”
In reality Laura was not in the least angry. She was afraid, and she
sought relief for her fear in scolding him. Love had touched the egoism
of her heart with a burning finger, and she felt restless in the
twilight. That was the reason why she was so anxious to get home.
Poor Herman got no benefit from his kiss that evening. And there were no
more kisses before her departure. Laura had suddenly grown careful, prim
and full of moral qualms. Only at the very last, when her ticket was
bought and the retreat clear did she recover some of her old amiability
and mischief, and deigned graciously to cajole his heart out of his
breast so as to have something to show to the other schoolgirls.
Now she was already standing on the step of the railway carriage with
Elvira Lähnfeldt and Manne and his mother who were also travelling
south. Cheerfully and with perfect ease she chatted to everybody. She
was radiantly happy and her happiness made her beautiful. How could she
be so happy when Herman was standing there with a void in his breast?
The train started. Her handkerchief was lost in the enveloping white
steam.
On the way back to Ekbacken, Herman instinctively joined Stellan. With
him the air seemed less oppressive and it seemed that something of Laura
remained after all.
Stellan had not been very often at Ekbacken lately. And if he came it
was to scold Laura, who was always there. Sisters are a doubtful
blessing when they begin to take your friends away from you.
No, nowadays, Stellan went mostly to Manne at Kolsnäs. He had nobody
else to turn to, because Percy was away in Jämtland for the summer on
account of his chest. And Stonehill had been sold. Lake Mälare was
beginning to be unfashionable and nice people moved out to sea. And then
the town was creeping nearer, and it seemed to make the whole landscape
look poor and ugly. They were already laying the foundation of a factory
close to Stonehill. In those few years the fine place had already begun
to look insignificant and neglected. Stellan avoided looking that way
when he rowed over to Manne. He had to think of the footman and the
horses at Kolsnäs in order not to feel sick of the old lake.
Manne had had a horse given to him in the spring, when he had at last
succeeded in squeezing through his matriculation examination. The whole
summer had been spent in wild riding. Every second day Manne lent
Stellan his black horse, “Sultan,” for Manne was always a good friend.
He had a kind, open smile and blue, somewhat misty eyes. He had already
begun to lose the hair on the top of his head, but that did not prevent
him from looking as boyish as ever. Nobody could look so splendidly
unaware of the fact that necks can be broken. But his wild careering
about was not restlessness. He did not worry about what he was going to
be. That was quite superfluous, for his future was written on his face
and the shape of his legs. He was a born Cavalry officer!
For Stellan the matter was not quite so simple—he was poor and besides,
confound it, he had brains.
Anyhow, he enlarged his horizon. In company with Manne he sometimes rode
across to Trefvinge, the great and magnificent Trefvinge. Stellan had
always a strange cold sensation, a mixture of voluptuous ease and of
hatred when his horse carried him across the grand stretch of gravel in
front of its great white façade. Trefvinge was a real castle, a famous,
historic castle of the seventeenth century. It impressed everybody
against their wills, except the owner, Count Lähnfeldt, who had not been
born a count. The lord of the castle himself scarcely ever appeared, but
Elvira rode out with them. She was a slender girl with a shrill
commanding voice, especially when she was excited. There was nothing shy
about her and she had no particularly girlish manners, so she did not
spoil sport. None of the young men were in love with her. Stellan used
to tease her in a way that was sometimes cold and biting. It was as if
he wanted to take his revenge because the castle in which she lived was
so shockingly big and aristocratic.
In this way, then, the summer passed, and then Manne got the silly idea
of going to Germany with his mother. That Elvira and Laura should go, of
course, made no difference to Stellan, but Manne! That was a
blow—because of “Sultan.”
Stellan had nothing but Herman and the sailing boat to fall back upon.
And so after all the wild riding began sailing just as wild. Stellan
could not remain still. In the autumn he felt that the cessation of the
constraint of school had left a certain emptiness and restlessness. The
future worried him.
Herman was with him in the boat. His future was Laura. He had thought of
going to an English shipbuilding school in the autumn. But he could not
make up his mind. He was caught in the memory of their kisses. He clung
to Stellan, her brother. Yes, it was only for Stellan’s sake he took
part in those chilly autumn sailing trips. He sat there huddled up in
the spray and hugged Laura’s solitary little letter in his pocket and
hoped that her brother would talk of her.
Stellan saw very well that Herman was not living in the same world as
himself and that irritated him. He shrugged his shoulders with a
contemptuous pity which perhaps at bottom was nothing more than the
secret envy of the poor. He smiled grim little smiles when he saw
Herman’s eyes directed towards him with the same expression of
supplication. He pressed the helm and conspired with the autumn, the
wind and the lake against this obstinate love. He was happiest when
Herman was fully occupied in bailing out the water.
Herman sat by the fore-sheet, and slackened and made fast. Now and then
he looked astern at Stellan. There was a mixture of admiration, anxiety
and something akin to secret pity in his look. Stellan wore the same
expression now as at school when things were at their hottest—bold,
independent, and scoffing. Oh! how Herman had envied him that he never
allowed himself to be impressed by his teachers, that, in spite of his
laziness, he always knew how to answer. Ugh! the water dashed in from
the lee! But Stellan never condescended to luff up. It was almost
terrible to see how indifferent he was. He was quite capable of sinking
them. Herman was not afraid for himself. But he felt a pang in his
heart. Was there not something strangely forlorn about Stellan. Did he
not sit there alone with the wind and the grey lake. It seemed as if
poor Stellan had been locked out from something. And he did not even
know that he could knock at the door.
These were Herman’s thoughts as he clung wet and cold to the weather
gunwale and received the worst spray over his back. For he had a little
letter in his pocket to hug furtively.
One day something happened. But this time Herman sat at the helm and not
Stellan.
There was a dash of fitful April weather at the beginning of October.
The hot sun shone between big clouds and below were black squalls. It
was not rough, but there came treacherous gusts of wind by the dips of
the land. And into the bargain it was Saturday.
Old Hermansson’s trim little “Ellida” lay for the moment to lee as on a
mirror. The sails hung slack, the boat lay over to windward and the sun
was deliciously warm. Slowly they overhauled an absurd little overrigged
boat, a real caricature of a boat. It was painted white, and on the
stern was painted “Kalla,” in big black letters. Aboard were three
workingmen from the new factory under construction. Their half-drunk
bass voices rolled out over the water. One of them stood with his foot
on the gunwale, gripping the stays with one hand and flourishing a
bottle in the other. Never had the sun shone on such recklessness.
Stellan’s eyes flashed:
“This will be interesting,” he muttered.
“Ellida” was now in the shadow of a racing cloud. They stared back at
the man with the bottle. They had a sudden horrid sensation of cold in
the pit of the stomach. Heigh Ho! Then the dark squall came sweeping
along. It first struck the small boat. She instantly went round as if by
a single turn of the hand of Fate. The three workingmen had not even
time to utter a curse before they were in the water and the boat had
sunk.
On the “Ellida” as I have said before, Herman sat at the tiller. Not for
a moment did he think of their own danger. He only wanted to rush to
help the drowning men. But in his flurry he put the tiller over to
windward instead of to leeward. And in an instant the “Ellida” had the
same fate. The whole thing had not taken more than five seconds.
The water was ice cold. The boat disappeared quickly under them. Herman
saw Stellan appear beside him. He did not say anything, but began to
swim towards land. Herman followed. It was a fair distance, but at last
they crawled up amongst the boulders along the shore, stiff and tired
out.
“How idiotic,” gasped Stellan. “You don’t sail a boat to capsize it!”
But Herman stared, as if suddenly turned to stone, across the lake. It
was empty and silent. The water shone green again, with little white
crests, in the sun. Only a few floating bulkheads and oars bore witness
to the catastrophe. Ashore nobody seemed to have noticed anything.
Herman ran out into the water again up to his waist:
“Help!” he cried, “Help! They are drowning! Help!”
The echo came back from the nearest cliff: “Help! Help!”
Stellan pulled him by the arm:
“There is no use calling. They are where they are. Now let us run home!”
“Drowned! All three. It’s dreadful,” moaned Herman.
Then they began to run. At the corner of the avenue where they must
separate to reach their respective homes, Stellan caught hold of his
friend’s arm again. There were blue and yellow streaks on his face from
the soaked lining of his cap, but his expression was both tense and
elated:
“Don’t forget that we capsized in trying to rescue them,” he muttered.
“It looks beastly bad otherwise.”
That same evening they were sitting out on the long landing stage by the
yard. It was quite calm now. The atmosphere twinkled coldly between the
black fleets of cloud. Over the oak trees out on the spit of land the
lights of Stockholm lit the sky. There is always something both of
exhortation and menace in the pale radiance in the sky over an invisible
city. Now the crescent moon peeped out over the serried edge of the
forest behind Stonehill and threw a few shafts of light over the dark
water—the dark water holding the three dead.
Herman was talking of the accident. He could not let the subject drop.
He returned time after time to certain points, in order to prove that
they could have done absolutely nothing to save the drowning men. There
was a note of supplication in his voice as if nevertheless he felt
remorse. He also shivered secretly. The world seemed to him
gruesome—gruesome but still blessed, because Laura was in it. Her smile
was there and so were the cold stars, over the black water. He was
sitting beside her brother. Again Herman felt that burning desire to
talk of her. But he did not dare, there was something in Stellan’s tone
that kept him back, that made him vaguely uneasy. And he was too young
too, thought Herman, to understand how different people can be.
Stellan walked up and down the landing stage. He talked in short, jerky
sentences about sailing and riding and sport. He seemed strangely
excited. He was one of those who are stimulated by the icy blasts of
life. It was as if the dead out there helped him to come to a decision.
With complete detachment from all this talk he suddenly came to reflect
coolly, clearly and swiftly on his own future. Life is short and
uncertain, he thought. Life is a gamble. It is silly to take it too
seriously. I shall be an officer. I shall have a smart uniform. I shall
spend my time amidst arms, horses and smart people. I want to be on top.
I shall have excitement, adventures, be in danger, and perhaps go to
war. But the money? It is expensive to be an officer. Well, there will
always be a way out. I suppose I shall have to use Laura as a lure. Poor
Herman has surrendered unconditionally. I can get him to do what I like.
He just goes about begging me to trample on him for Laura’s sake. He
will do the hard work for me with the old man. Anyhow he can’t say “no”
to anything, poor old fellow. I’ll be an officer all right if I play my
cards properly.
Thus it happened that Stellan Selamb found his guiding star one autumn
evening. It was a bright, frosty star twinkling keenly over there in the
pale light halo over the town, the town that lay thus waiting on the
confines of his childhood’s kingdom, the town with the cross lightning
of fate and a merciless consuming fire.
* * * * *
That same evening Laura stood with a bag of sweets in her hand and
looked out through a small half-opened ground glass window. She was,
with due respect, in the smallest room in the school, a room with a bolt
on the inside. She had withdrawn there in order to eat her sweets in
peace. If you were to share with all the other girls there would be
nothing left for yourself.
Whilst Laura munched sweets her glance strayed up the sloping expanse of
roofs and treetops of the town and out over the calm Neuchatel Lake,
which seemed to her as large as a sea, and on to the towering Alps in
the distance, whose snow covered tops soared out of the shadow and
silence into the light of a crescent moon of the palest silver.
Laura stared, ate, and dreamed. How perfectly lovely, she thought. And
she was right. Not even a poster could be more beautiful.
What was Laura dreaming about now in the glow of this eternal snow? Not
about silence, the infinite withdrawal from the world, oh no! Laura was
dreaming about a long honeymoon, a long, long honeymoon. She was walking
on wonderfully soft hotel carpets, she was eating seven course dinners
in luxurious dining-rooms, she was furtively kissing in dark rumbling
tunnels, she was saved by strong arms on the edge of dizzy precipices.
And it was of course Herman who kissed her in the tunnels, and saved her
with his strong arms. Of course it was Herman. She never thought of
anybody else. It was not at all disagreeable to dream of a long wedding
trip with Herman.
But of a home with him she did not dream.
The bag was suddenly empty, and her throat was burning after all the
strong-flavoured sweets she had eaten. Laura had to run down and drink a
whole bottle of water and somehow she did not write any letters as she
had intended.
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