"If I can be quite sure that it is good; otherwise I don't care about
it, for if I spend money I want to have something really good for it."
Sten ordered a fowl and fresh jugs of beer, and recommenced the
conversation. "I hope you will recommend me to your guild or company."
"I will see what I can do, but one has to proceed warily with those
gentlemen. Congratulate yourself that you have made acquaintance with
the banner-bearer of the guild, for he is a powerful gentleman,
although he goes round with a sack when he is on his journeys."
Sten, who was not accustomed to so much beer, at any rate of the sort
which was served here, began to feel sleepy and rose up in order to go
to his bedroom. But Claus could by no means He induced to agree to this.
"No, stay sitting, my dear," he said, "and drink a glass of wine with
me. It is such a fine evening and you have not far to go to tied. If
you get sleepy, I will carry you up the stairs."
But Sten could not possibly drink any more. Claus was annoyed and asked
if he refused to drink with the guild's banner-bearer. Sten asked to
be excused, but Claus would not consent. He said that Sten was proud,
and should take care, for pride was always punished. Sten was so sleepy
that he could hardly understand what was said, and clambered up the
stairs to the attic where in the darkness he sought for a cushion, on
which he fell asleep at once.
He had, as he thought, slept for quite twenty-four hours when he felt a
burning sensation as though sparks of fire had fallen on his face. He
sat up and found that the whole room was full of the hateful humming
of a swarm of gnats which had gained admission. When he had somewhat
shaken off his sleep, he could distinguish men's voices, and loudest
among them the deep voice of his friend Claus.
"Oh, he is a devilish fine fellow. His father and I are very old
friends. He has been a little spoilt by wearing fine clothes and so
on, but we will soon drive it out of him. Innkeeper, more claret! Yes,
you see his father was in my debt, and I waited. Take what you like,
parish-clerk!"
Sten sprang up and saw through a chink in the wall how Claus sat at the
end of the table and carried on a conversation with the innkeeper and a
stranger, who was probably the parish-clerk. The table was covered with
jugs and pots, and the party did not seem to have suffered from thirst.
The parish-clerk, who thought that the smith had talked long enough,
now led the conversation. "Listen, Claus; you say that he is nothing,
that he has no occupation and no money. Do you know what one calls such
a gentleman?"
"No, no."
"Well, one calls him a tramp. And do you know what the law says about
vagabond tramps?"
"No, no."
"It says that whoever chooses may take such a tramp by the collar
and put him in gaol. And that is right, thoroughly right. God, you
see, from the beginning, has created men to work, do service, and make
themselves useful----"
"Or to be rich," interrupted the innkeeper.
"Hush! Don't interrupt me--to make themselves useful in one way or
another. Suppose," continued he, "that there are men who will not work;
suppose that there are people who prefer to live at the expense of
other people----"
Claus gave him a sharp look and seized his stick. But after taking a
drink, the parish-clerk continued: "Then I ask--what is one to do with
such people? Can anyone answer me?"
The innkeeper was about to answer, but the parish-clerk motioned him
away with his left hand.
"Can anyone answer this? No, I say, for we know in part and prophesy
in part. _Cur tuus benevolentium_." He finished his mug and got up in
order not to spoil the effect of his speech by a bad translation of the
Latin.
Sten lay down again and put his head under his pillow. It seemed to him
that he had slept another four-and-twenty hours when he was aroused
by a foot pushing his bed very emphatically. He sat up and saw by the
light of the dawn, which fell through a crevice in the wall, that
his friend Claus, who apparently did not venture to stoop, stood on
one foot, and laying hold of a beam was feeling in the bed with his
foot for his sleeping friend. He accompanied this search with short
exclamations--"You! you!" When he caught sight of Sten's face in the
dim light he drew his foot back and said: "Do you know what you are,
you? Do you know that you are a tramp? Do you know that you will be put
into gaol if you do not eat someone else's bread, seeing you have none
of your own. I tell you the sheriff is after you, and if you are not
off by sunrise you will be imprisoned. Do you understand?"
Sten understood that there was a very good chance of it, as he had
already overheard their talk; but he did not understand that one could
not go one's own way to seek work, and Claus exerted himself in vain
in order to explain to him that one must have work or be the possessor
of such and such a sum. Sten, who feared imprisonment most of all, let
himself be easily persuaded to take his horse out of the stable and
to hand over some of his gold coins to Claus, who promised to settle
with the innkeeper. The latter was quite willing, for he himself was
liable to no less a punishment for having given lodging to a tramp.
Sten shook the good blacksmith's hand, and promised to look him up in
Stockholm.
Now he rode again on his horse, shaken out of his sleep, chased out of
a casual lodging, flying from the danger of imprisonment, and firmly
resolved to seek no other shelter till he reached the capital.
Two days later, on a Saturday afternoon, Sten reined in his horse on
the top of the Brunkebergsasen ridge, on the side where it descends
towards the Norrstrom River. Beneath him he saw for the first time
the capital, the battle-field whereon struggles for power were waged.
On these little rocky islands between the two water-courses, closely
encircled by towers and walls, lived the population among whom he
wished to enrol himself. The battle between King Karl Knutsson and
Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson was at its height, but to Sten it was
a matter of indifference who won, for his father had fallen into
disfavour with the King, and his family had an old feud with the
Archbishop. As the evening sun cast its horizontal rays on the flag
which waved from the chief tower of the castle, he saw the arms of the
Bondes--the boat against a white background--and knew how the land lay.
Although peace seemed to have been concluded for the time, the
difficulty of entering the city gate was not less than before. He
would in any case be obliged to give his name and to be registered,
and perhaps have to say why he came and where he came from. In his
tired mood he fancied he saw a thousand difficulties rise and the walls
growing in height till they appeared insurmountable. He felt like a
besieger who was thinking of a stratagem by means of which to enter the
city. It was there he hoped to find the only place where he could earn
his bread by means of the book-learning which he had acquired.
As he was sitting on the hill, lost in these serious meditations, he
heard from the foot of it a sound of merry voices mingled with the
music of trumpets and flutes. At the angle of the walls before the
Klara Convent issued forth a gay stream of folk, disappearing and
reappearing from behind the kitchen-gardens on the slope of the Bill.
The procession drew nearer. At its head rode a youth, with a garland
on his brow and a long spear-shaft wreathed with green in his hand. He
was followed by pipers and trumpeters with gooseberry leaves in their
caps; after him came a whole crowd of people with black cloth masks and
red wooden masks, dressed in the most fantastic garb after Greek and
Roman patterns; last of all, riding backwards on a sorry jade, a youth
dressed in fur, with loosely streaming hair and beard, to represent
winter. It was the procession of the "May-lord," greeting the advent of
spring in the Klara district.
Sten seized the opportunity by the forelock, rode down the hill, and
joined the procession. He passed through the gateway without being
interfered with, although he thought he saw a pair of sharp eyes
fastened on him under the archway itself. Meanwhile he could not help
thinking how the guard's over-hasty inference "Cheerful people are not
dangerous"--had been of use to him, who felt anything but cheerful. He
felt easier in mind when he had passed through the gates of both the
bridges.
The procession halted in the great market-place, where it broke up
in order to reassemble in the restaurant of the town hall. This had
received special permission to remain open all night, since the
postponed May festival was being celebrated now because of the late
spring and the King's victory.
Sten took up his quarters at an inn in the Dominicans' street, which
bore an image of St Laurence painted on its signboard. When his horse
had been placed in the stable he was shown up to the sleeping chamber.
There he found a great number of beds without any chairs, and as the
evening seemed too beautiful to remain indoors, he went out into the
city in order to take a bath.
When he came out into the street again, he became somewhat depressed
at seeing the narrow passages, called "streets," in which pale-faced
people walked, breathing unwholesome air and treading in the dirt and
kitchen offal thrown out of the doorways. The crowd kept streaming to
and fro, and he wondered that they never came to an end nor seemed
weary. The street itself, which was paved with rough cobbles, was
difficult to walk on, and he did not understand why men should have
gathered together these instruments of torture to make the way more
stony than it naturally was. Of the sky there was only a grey strip to
be seen between the rows of houses, and the high corbel-step gables
rose like Jacob's-ladders, on which souls sought in vain to rise to the
heights from their dark, evil-smelling dungeons.
He felt confused and astray. At one moment he was jostled by a porter,
at another trod on by a horse; then he knocked his head against a
window-board. All these people had crowded together on a little island
and built on each other like bees in a honeycomb. Why? For mutual aid?
He did not believe it.
After inquiring his way to the public baths in the Allmännings Gata,
he felt a keen desire to free himself by a bath from the sensation of
uncleanness which even the air he breathed oppressed him with. In the
undressing-room which was shared by all, he found a great number of
people of all classes, for it was Saturday evening. In the uncertain
light he could not see them distinctly, but the pungent odour of
perspiration exhaling from their bodies after severe physical labour,
made him shudder. He undressed, put on bathing-drawers, and entered the
bathroom.
In the midst of it stood an enormous walled fire-place in which a great
fire was burning; round it, up to the roof, ran wooden galleries where
men sat--some beating each other with rods, others drinking beer.
Great stalwart women with tucked-up skirts poured jugs of water on the
fire-place, which at once sent out clouds of steam. These the bathers
allowed to envelop them, amid loud shrieks and laughter. One caught
glimpses of naked bodies, matted beards and shining eyes. And what
bodies! They seemed to Sten like a number of wild beasts with hairy
breasts and limbs who did not need clothing, and those who, while
they waited for their bath, danced before the fire reminded him of
fairy-tales of distant lands where men walked with their heads under
their arms and with one eye in their foreheads. He could not make up
his mind to address any of them, though they were human beings like
himself, but with a difference. They did not talk like him; they did
not laugh like him; they were not shaped like him. The bones of their
backs looked like the letter X, and their feet were turned inwards
so that the toes met; nightwork and heat had rendered their faces
emaciated. Was it through willing sacrifice for their fellow-men that
they made themselves cripples, or were they compelled by necessity to
do so? These smiths with shoulder-blades like knapsacks, with arms as
long as the helve of a sledge-hammer, with the soles of their feet
flattened and distorted; these tailors with thin chests, crooked legs
as slender as sticks, and bent backs--were they conscious that their
deformity set off the handsome appearance of others?
For a moment his aesthetic Sense was offended and he wished to go,
but he was restrained by the thought that he must also soon perhaps
undergo some similar deformity in order to perform his duty in this
society into which he was now forced to enter as a retribution for his
ancestors' mistake in withdrawing him from the lot which all were born
to share. But the peasants, fishermen, and huntsmen he had formerly
known, did not look like these! The former were like the trees of
the wood, straight though knotted. Here in the working life of the
town some mistake had been made, but he could not say what. He shyly
approached one of the giantesses and asked if he could have a water
bath.
The old woman looked at his white skin and his small hands and pushed
him into a smaller room, where some empty bath-tubs stood on the ground.
"He is certainly a fine gentleman's son," she said, regarding him
critically. "He has evidently come to the wrong place, but that does
not matter." She laid the youth in the bath as though he were a child,
and began to rub his skin with a horsehair brush.
"No! that will make holes in his skin, one can see. Yes, men are so
different from each other. A foot like a girl's; one can see how the
blood runs in the veins. I am sure that these fine folk have not the
same blood as we. And such hands! Pure as those of St John which they
have made of wax in Our Lady's chapel. They are not made to lay hold of
with."
When the bath was ended, the old woman set Sten on a stool and dried
him carefully, as though she were afraid of breaking one of his limbs.
Then she took a comb and began to do his fair hair, talking to herself
the while. "Pure silk and gold! One might weave a mass-robe for the
Bishop from this hair!"
Then a gnat flew in through the window-opening and settled on Sten's
bare shoulder; it had not long to look in order to find a place into
which to sink its sting, for his skin was milk-white and soft after the
warm bath.
The old woman stopped in her task, and observed almost with alarm how
the uninvited parasite bled the fine gentleman; she saw how the gnat's
transparent body filled itself with clear red blood, and how it lifted
its front leg as if to seize its prey firmly. Then the giantess seized
with the tips of her nails the little blood-letter by its wings and
held it against the light.
"What is that?" asked Sten, and made a movement.
The old woman was too deep in her contemplation to answer at once. At
last she said, "Ob, it was a gnat!"
"Which has got noble blood in its vein," broke in Sten. "Now do you
think, old woman, that it is better than the other gnats?"
"That one cannot exactly know," said the giantess, still examining her
captive. "Blood is thicker than water. I have seen many gnats in my
time, but this one is something unusual. I should like to let it live."
"And to see how it would give itself airs over the other gnats. You
would like to see it propagate young lord and lady gnats who would sit
on silk and let themselves be fed by others. No, you shall see that it
is just as plebeian as all the others, and that it has the same blood
as you and can die as easily as its companion gnats outside."
He struck the old woman's finger with his hand, and there appeared only
a bright red spot of blood upon it.
"Now was it not as I said?" she exclaimed. "It is as bright as red
gold."
"That is because it is thinner," said Sten, "therefore it will soon
be like pure water; and therefore you see the nobles will die and the
serfs will live."
The conversation was over and Sten rose up, thanked his attendant, and
went into the great bathroom where the noise was deafening owing to
the beer and the heat combined. He hastened by the bathers into the
undressing-room, where he found his clothes with difficulty under piles
of leather trousers, smocks, and vests.
When he came out into the street he directed his steps through the
Merchants' Gate to the Great Market. There he saw the town hall lit up;
the great door which led to the underground restaurant was decorated
with fir branches, weapons and flags. He descended the broad staircase,
attracted by the music of violins, flutes, and trumpets. Although he
did not think it reasonable that men should collect to enjoy themselves
underground, when the earth itself was so spacious and beautiful, yet
he felt bound to confess that the restaurant of the town hall presented
an imposing appearance with its huge pillars which this evening were
decked with garlands of fir twigs and bunches of liver-wort, anemones
and cowslips. Enormous beer and wine barrels, arranged in rows, formed
three great alleys running from the tap-room, which was adorned by a
huge figure of Bacchus riding on a cask. In tubs filled with sand stood
young firs and junipers, and the ground was strewn with cut fir twigs.
The musicians sat on a gigantic barrel, and from the vaulted roof
hung barrel-hoops with oil-lamps and wax-lights. An enormous number
of people, half in disguise, half in their holiday clothes, stood in
groups round the tables or walked down the tub-lined alleys. The joy
seemed universal and genuine, for it had a natural cause--the arrival
of spring, and a less natural one--the return of the King for the third
time.
Sten wandered lonely among the festive groups, without the hope of
meeting a friend. He felt thirsty after his bath but was ashamed to ask
for anything, for he did want to drink alone. But as he walked he grew
suddenly conscious that someone was looking at him. He turned round
and saw a little yellow, dried-up, narrow-chested man who for want of
a table had sat down by an upturned barrel and taken a smaller one for
a seat. He had before him a stone jug filled with Rhenish wine and two
small green wine-glasses. He was alone and only drank out of one glass.
"Will the young gentleman sit down?" he asked in a weak, sibilant
voice, beginning at once to cough. "I see the young gentleman is alone,
and so am I."
Sten looked interrogatively at the empty glass, but the coughing man
answered his question by bringing an unoccupied barrel which he offered
him to sit on.
"I have a terrible cough," said the yellow man, "but don't let that
disturb you. The spring-time is always trying for those with weak
chests. It is now spring again," he added in the melancholy voice with
which one might say "It is now autumn again."
Sten felt obliged to say something. "You should drink sweet wine
instead of sour."
"My chest complaint is not of that kind," he answered, and began to
cough again by way of demonstrating the fact. "I am a clerk in the
cloth factory of the town, and there one gets this kind of cough. The
dust of the wool affects the lungs and the workers do not live beyond
thirty-six. I am now thirty-five," he added with caustic humour, and
emptied his glass.
"Why don't you choose another occupation?" asked Sten in a friendly
and child-like way.
"Choose? One doesn't choose, young sir. Society in the city is a
building in which each man is a stone fitted into its place; if he
moves, he disturbs the whole edifice. But society has committed an
oversight by not forbidding men in my position to marry. For if the
fathers cannot marry till they are thirty and die at thirty-six, the
children must go under." He pointed to the ground and continued: "You
see, it is a human instinct to climb up; by 'up' one means freedom
from work. That is what we climb and struggle for. There are two
methods of getting up--an honourable and a dishonourable. The latter is
the easier but may end with a crash. I have always been honest."
The drummer standing on the great barrel beat a roll-call on his drum,
which signified that someone was about to make a speech.
A heavily built man now mounted a decorated cask. He wore a tunic edged
with fur, with a red cloth lining and a round fur cap--a garb which was
more adapted for outward appearance than for warmth. It was the mayor.
"Now the King's health will be proposed," explained the factory clerk.
"This is the third time that he proposes it, and three times already
he has cursed the King and drunk to the health of the Archbishop and
the Danish King. A true citizen, you see, drinks to whichever power
is in the ascendant, for that power always protects trade, and a city
consists of tradesmen; the others do not count."
Sten caught isolated words of the mayor's speech while the clerk
continued to whisper in his ear:
"A middleman sits in a comfortable room. He has a letter written to
the seller and asks the price. Then he has a letter written to the
buyer and asks what he will give. And so the bargain is concluded
through him. If the buyer and seller could meet and do their business
directly, no middlemen would be necessary, but that they cannot,
for then there would be no so-called privileges. And privileges are
bestowed by the ruling power."
Outbursts of applause interrupted both the speech of the mayor and the
whisperings of the clerk. When the speech was ended all raised their
glasses and cried "Long live the King!"--all except the clerk, who
stood up and flung his glass against the barrel on which the speaker
stood.
An outcry, like a sudden outbreak of fire, rose from the whole company,
and in a few seconds the rebellious clerk was carried backwards
by strong arms towards the restaurant stairs. There Sten saw him
disappear, coughing violently the while. The shrill sound of his cough
pierced through the uproar and the roll of the drums which had struck
up.
The mayor again desired permission to speak, this time through the city
trumpeter, and announced that on this joyous occasion of the King's
return, the town and the council would give wine freely. A barrel of
wine was rolled along, and placed on a seat amid universal approval.
But now there came a new diversion. From one of the many side-rooms
which were generally hired for marriages and other private festivities,
came a marriage procession with violin-players and torch-bearers at its
head, intending to pass through the great hall and accompany the newly
wedded pair home. But that was not possible. The excitement was too
great to allow such an opportunity to pass unchallenged.
"Dance the bride's crown off!" was the cry, and the next moment all the
young men had formed a circle round the bride, separating her from the
bridegroom. The bride was a blooming girl of twenty and the bridegroom
was a withered-looking man of thirty with the same sickly pallor as the
factory clerk, whom he otherwise somewhat resembled.
Sten's curiosity was directed towards the deserted bridegroom, and he
did not understand why he felt a certain sympathy with him, though it
was his happiest day. Meanwhile the bride had been blindfolded. Sten
was drawn into the ring of dancers, which at one moment circled with
dizzying rapidity and at another stood still. The bride stretched
out her arms and caught Sten round the neck; he fell on one knee,
blushing, kissed her hand, and entered the ring with a garland on his
head to dance with the bride, who seemed flattered by such unusual
attention. Then he stepped up to the bridegroom, paid him some
compliments about his bride, and asked permission to drink to his
prosperity. Although it was annoying to the latter to be stopped in
this way, he could not refuse, and briefly informed Sten that he also
was a clerk in the cloth factory. Sten could not resist giving a start
of sympathetic surprise, but had no time to observe the bridegroom more
closely, for the latter was now drawn into the ring and had to dance
with the bride. Sten underwent a strange sensation and thought of the
death-dance depicted on the walls of the chapel of his father's castle.
"Poor bridegroom!" he thought, "and poor girl!"
But the joy this evening was quite beyond all bounds, and now tables
and seats were cleared away, for the bride's-maids were about to dance
the torch-dance, which had been specially called for and which was
customary at weddings. The girls received the torches from the bride's
escort and invited their cavaliers to dance by handing the torches to
them.
Sten had drawn back in order to rest after his exertions, and stood
with his back against the cold wall regarding the bridegroom in a
melancholy way, as the latter with wine-flushed cheeks fluttered
uneasily about the bride, who was surrounded by a number of young men.
He felt himself again so lonely among the excited crowd; the various
impressions he had undergone during the last twenty-four hours rose up
like shadows, and his tired senses began to give way. He closed his
eyes and it became dark; the ground seemed to sink under his feet,
and he felt a singing in his ears as though he were drowning. He made
a supreme effort to hold himself up, and opened his eyes, but saw at
first only a dark moving mass in front of him; gradually this was
reduced to order and a point of light was kindled against the dark
background. It broadened, came nearer, assumed a shape, and then, as
when a curtain is quickly drawn back from a picture, a radiant woman's
form appeared before him. She was pure light; her eyes were like the
Virgin Mary's, her hair resembled silver or gold--it was difficult
to say which, her small face was warm and white like newly washed wool.
In one hand she held a torch, which she reached to Sten, who took it
mechanically, while at the same time he took her free hand which she
extended to him. It was all like a vision. As he looked at her small
while hand, which lay so confidingly in his, the latter seemed to him,
in comparison, like that of the giantess in the bathroom.
Sten had to open the dance. Room was made for them, and he and his
partner began to thread the swaying crowd. At one moment they parted
from one another, then they met again; one instant he put his arm round
her and pressed her to his heart, then another cavalier came and took
her from him; but whatever happened, they always met again, and he
lighted her way with his uplifted torch. Every time they met again he
wished to say something complimentary, but he was dumb and could not
utter a word when he looked into her eyes. He was lost in wonder at the
whiteness of her hand and the smallness of her foot; the latter peeped
forth from under her looped-up dress, and with the well-arched instep
was so clearly visible throughout the thin silk shoe that her toes
might have been counted. A princess accustomed to walk on roses might
have envied the middle-class maiden her foot.
When the dance ceased and Sten had laid down his torch, his partner
hesitated for a moment, as though she wished to say something or to ask
Sten to speak. Sten, however, felt as though his tongue were paralysed;
but quick as lightning and without considering what he was doing, he
embraced her neck and kissed her on both cheeks as one kisses a sister.
There at once arose an uproar among the wedding-guests, and Sten found
himself surrounded by threatening hands and angry looks. But the other
guests thought the pair so handsome, and Sten looked so innocent as he
stood there blushing at his boldness, that they intervened and made
peace. The others insisted on a punishment. Then an elderly man, a
town-councillor of a cheerful disposition, stepped forward and declared
that the offender should be punished on the spot, but that, because of
the freedom allowed on this particular day, the law was willing to wink
at his offence. On the other hand the insulted maiden, the daughter of
a respectable clerk in the public weighing-house, should, if, he added
jestingly, she had really been so much insulted, herself adjudicate
in the matter. His proposal was accepted with unanimous applause; but
Sten felt discomposed to see his princess metamorphosed into a clerk's
daughter.
The young girl was embarrassed to the verge of tears, and could not
utter a word. At last one of her young friends pressed forward and
whispered something in her ear. This advice, whispered at the moment
of need, seemed to revive the spirits of the despairing umpire, and
with almost inaudible voice she pronounced her verdict "The young
gentleman must sing!"
"A song! A song!" shouted the emotional throng, and Sten was condemned
to do so. He was lifted by strong arms on to the table and was handed
a tortoise-shell lute, which one of the Italian painters, who at that
time resided in the city, had brought with him. No one inquired whether
the victim could sing, for all assumed that a young man of good family
could do so.
Sten first played a prelude on the strings while he recovered himself
from his embarrassment and the crowd at his feet heaved like a troubled
sea. What should he sing? The smells of beer, wine and fir twigs,
mingled with fumes from the oil-lamps and wax-lights, filled the air
and made him half unconscious. Before his eyes loomed a chaos of red
faces, lamps, casks, instruments and flowers. His fingers wandered over
the chords but his ear could not find the tune he wanted. There was
silence at last, but the many-headed beast which was now looking up to
him so expectantly might, the next moment stir, lose patience, and tear
him in pieces. Then he saw the blue eyes and white cheeks which still
bore the red marks of his kisses; the strings of the lute sounded, and
he felt chorda in his breast which responded. After striking some loud
notes, he began, in a weak voice which grew stronger as he went on, a
song in the style of the old Minnesingers, and when he had concluded
it he was fully acquitted by the audience. Then the good-natured
councillor stepped up to him, thanked him, put his arm round his neck,
and walked with him into one of the side-rooms. Here he placed him on a
seat, and standing before him with folded arms, he assumed a judicial
tone and said: "That was the song, young gentleman; now let us have the
words! You have some trouble on your mind, you are not on the right
road, and you steal into the town without a pass--you see, we watch our
people and they are not too many to be counted."
Sten was beside himself with alarm, but the councillor quieted him,
asked him to relate his story, and promised to be his friend. When
Sten perceived that the facts must come out in any case, he chose the
present favourable opportunity to narrate them privately to a friendly
person, knowing that perhaps to-morrow, when the effects of wine had
ceased to work, his friendliness might have evaporated. Accordingly he
frankly told the councillor everything.
When he had ended, the latter said, "Well, you are looking for an
occupation which is suited to your strength and capacity. You can
write, and, as it happens, the city just needs a clerk, for a place
will be vacant this evening."
"In the cloth factory?" asked Sten, with a gloomy foreboding that the
answer would be in the affirmative.
"Yes."
"The unfortunate man has then been dismissed for his imprudence?"
"Naturally! The city is the key of the kingdom; those who guard the
key-cupboard must not be surrounded by traitors."
"I cannot accept the post," declared Sten, remembering the kindness
which the unfortunate man had shown him. "'One man dead gives another
man bread!'"
"You are ashamed of walking over corpses? But what is our pilgrimage
here but a fight for life or death, or a lyke-wake where one sits and
waits till the body is carried out. How did I become a councillor? By
waiting for the deaths of six others. How shall I become mayor? By
waiting for the present mayor's death. And that may be a long time,"
he added with a sigh. "As regards the dismissed man, I am very sorry
for him, but am glad at the same time that you will be saved from going
under."
"But he has wife and children."
"Very sad for them! But when a man has renounced his place, as he
has done, it is vacant; if you refuse to take it, you will be doing
neither him nor yourself a service. Between ourselves, we all thought
somewhat as he did, but, look you! one must not say so. I am an old
man, sir, and have seen life. It is a perverse and mad business, and
Satan himself cannot help one. At present your velvet jacket is white,
but to-morrow it will be dirty; the day after, it will be torn, and
then, do you know what you are? No longer a young gentleman, but an
adventurer and a tramp. Hear my advice, young man. Get bread for your
mouth so long as your velvet jacket lasts, and hold your tongue. Sleep
over the matter and come on Monday morning to the town hall. I wish you
good night and common sense."
Sten rose and returned to the great hall. But it seemed to him empty
and desolate now that the bridal procession had vanished. Tired and
exhausted by the various emotions he had undergone during the evening
and the past twenty-four hours, he resolved to go home.
When he came to the inn and entered his room, he took off his velvet
jacket and inspected it. Stained with wine, dirty with the dust of
the high road, browned with sweat under the arm-pits, it looked
wretched enough. He lay down and went to sleep wondering where the
weighing-house might be; he dreamt of death-dances and factory clerks,
fought with corpses, and awoke. Then he went to sleep again thinking of
the weighing-house and of a tender farewell to the velvet jacket, with
a firm resolve to earn bread, first for one month, and then for two.
* * * * *
The beautiful month of May did not keep its promises; snow fell while
the apple trees were in blossom, and the sun did not appear for
fourteen days. For fourteen dreadful days had Sten, the last scion of
the family of Ulffot at Wäringe, Hofsta and Löfsala, stood at his post
in the draughty, unwarmed factory by the harbour. From morning till
late in the evening he had stood there, with a pen in his half-frozen
fingers, registering the names of the kinds of cloth which had been
brought by the incoming vessels. He did not really understand why they
should be registered any more than if they had been so many stones of
the street, flakes of snow, or drops of water; but he obeyed the old
councillor's advice, and held his tongue whenever he felt tempted to
ask.
The room where he worked was continually being entered by porters and
merchants who left snow and dirt on the floor, and let the cold air
blow in freely. One bale of cloth after another was thrown upon an
enormous table and filled the air with a choking dust. He had not yet
begun to cough, but he felt that he breathed with more difficulty; and
to add to his troubles, the intense cold had burnt holes in his white
hands and made them quite red.
One day he went to a barber's and looked at himself in a mirror. He
thought it was another person he was looking at when he saw a lean
yellow face full of spots and fringed with an untidy beard. His feet
had become so swollen that he could not wear his ordinary boots, but
had to use Lapland shoes. He had changed his white jacket for a brown
frock-coat and his cap for a slouched hat. His scanty pay obliged him
to take his meals in third-rate restaurants where he only got salted
food, and the unaccustomed diet had brought on an attack of scurvy.
When he once ventured to complain to one of his senior fellow-workers,
the latter took him to task and said there were many who worked more
than Sten and got no food at all; he himself had had no fresh food
since Christmas. This man was the bridegroom whom Sten had met in the
restaurant of the town hall; he was envious of Sten because the latter,
while still so young, had obtained a post for which he had been waiting
for ten years.
"Many get everything given them in this life, and yet are not
satisfied," he often remarked when consoling Sten. The latter envied
hint because of his comparatively good health, his uninjured hands and
feet, and the indifference with which he took things. He on his part
declared that Sten suffered because he had been spoilt and had not
learned to work, and from this opinion he would not budge.
Sten felt that his bodily health was giving way under the struggle;
his friend said that it was a fall in an honourable battle of which no
knight need be ashamed. Sten thought that his soul was being injured by
the murderous work of perpetually writing figures; however, his friend
asserted it was not the fault of the work but because he had been badly
educated.
Badly educated! He who had had two nurses and a governess, he who
had had tutors in Greek and Latin, could play the lute, and make
fine verses! That he would not acknowledge. But he knew that he was
unhappy. He also knew now where the weighing-house was. But what was
the use of that? He had seen the young girl at a Mass in the city
church, but she had been shocked at his appearance; and his friend in
the cloth factory told him that she thought Sten looked degenerated.
His friend also told him that her father had some money, gave his
daughter an education, and hoped to get her well married, so that it
was not worth while for Sten to wear out his boots by going there, he
added.
One day Sten, weary of copying figures, felt he had had enough of the
dark room. Better, he thought, any physical exertion than this eternal
writing in which there was no progress and no end. He resigned his
post. It was in the middle of a hot summer. He wandered up and down
the streets without object and without hope. Lost in thoughts, he
contemplated the houses and their signboards as though he expected to
find there the answer to the riddle of his life. His gaze was arrested
by a large horseshoe which hung on a pole; memories of a nag and a
highway began to stir in his brain. Then he heard the blows of a
hammer in the courtyard. He entered in and saw a giant who was forging
horseshoes. The work proceeded slowly and the giant panted and sweated
at each blow.
It brightened Sten up to see the sparks dancing round the anvil, and
the forge also diffused a cheerful glow. But the smith did not seem in
a cheerful mood, for he broke off his work, sat down on a log of wood,
and watched with gloomy looks the iron growing cold. Then as though
stung by an evil conscience he went into the smithy and came out again
with a piece of red-hot iron, but seemed to be still more depressed,
for he laid the iron on the anvil, and then sat down and watched it
as though he expected it to turn into horseshoes. Presently he turned
round, and Sten, seeing his face, recognised Claus. He went up to him
and greeted him as an old acquaintance. Claus at first regarded him
with astonishment, and after he had been obliged to recognise him,
maintained an air of severe coldness. Suddenly his face brightened, as
though a thought had struck him.
"Listen!" he said. "Are you free at present?"
Sten replied that he certainly was.
"By Saint Anschar, you shall become a smith! Now I see that you were
really born to be one. Strange what mistakes one may make sometimes!
You have developed a pair of fists since we last met, and one soon
learns how to grasp a hammer!"
"It is certainly too hard for me, since I did not begin it when I was
young," objected Sten.
"Hard? What the dickens! It is not harder than anything else--I mean
for one who has the capacity. Listen! We will be good friends and have
a fine time. The master sits the whole day in the beer-shop, and only
you and I will be here."
Sten thought the proposal as good as any he was likely to meet with,
and believed he would find a support in Claus. Accordingly he consented.
"Then we will go at once to the master of the guild of smiths at the
journeymen's inn," said Claus.
Sten reminded him that he had said he occupied this office of master,
but Claus replied he had given it up owing to having too much to do.
They went therefore to the master, whose reception of Claus was so
obviously disdainful that Sten on the spot lost a considerable amount
of the respect he had felt for him. Meanwhile he was enrolled as an
apprentice of the guild, and this new dignity of his was sealed by
their drinking a number of mugs of beer in a public-house, and in the
evening was ratified by Claus's master, who was the worse for drink.
Sten slept that night at the smithy.
The next morning, while the matin-bell was ringing in the Ave Maria
Convent, Sten was aroused by being violently shaken by Claus, who said:
"Light the fire in the forge and tell me when it burns. I am going to
doze a little longer."
Sten blew the fire and worked the bellows for half an hour. When at
last it burnt up brightly, he woke Claus.
"Now put the iron in, and tell me when it gets red, I want still to
have a wink or two," said Claus, turning to the wall.
When the iron was glowing as red as blood, Sten woke him again.
"Now hammer out the iron till it is as slender as a finger, while I
shake off my sleepiness," said Claus, yawning.
Sten went back to the smithy, but now the iron had become black. He
worked the bellows and made it red again. Then he took it up with the
tongs and carried it out to the anvil, but before he had seized the
sledge-hammer, it was once more black. This process was repeated till
Sten became tired. Then he returned to Claus, who was snoring loud, and
had drawn his leather apron over his head in order not to be disturbed
by the daylight.
Claus became impatient. "Well, you stupid, can't you take the hammer in
one hand and the tongs in the other?"
Sten replied he could not.
"Then you can go for a jug of beer."
Sten felt ashamed of going into the street with a tin can, but as Claus
began to search in a tool-chest for a hammer, he hurried out.
The morning was fine; the sun shone on the gable-roofs of the houses,
and women and girls were proceeding to market. When Sten came out of
the public-house with the beer, and was about to cross the street, he
suddenly stopped, as though riveted, before someone who gazed at him
in astonishment and sorrow. He wished to turn round, but the crowd
prevented him; he wanted to raise his cap, but the beer-jug required
both his black hands to hold it.
The girl went on her way, and Sten hastened, weeping, back to the
smithy.
"What are you whimpering for?" said Claus, who had shaken off his sleep
and come out into the sunshine, where he drank his morning draught.
Sten did not answer. Claus took out a plank which he laid on the wooden
log against the wall of the house so that he had a support for his
back.
"Now we will work," he said, crossing his arms and making himself as
comfortable as possible. "You will begin with the cold iron first, so
that you learn how to handle the hammer."
Sten lifted the hammer, which was very heavy for him. He struck on the
anvil while Claus counted "One and two! and one and two! and one and
two!"
"Yes, yes; now you see what a workman has to do. One and two! and one
and two! and---- That is something different from lying on eider-down
and eating roast-veal! And two and---- You think one gets accustomed
to have the sun on one's neck, the forge in one's face, and the smoke
in one's nose? No, look you, one never does. And what do you think a
pretty girl says when a smith comes with his black hands and wants to
put his arm round her waist? 'Let me alone, lout!' she says. A smith
can certainly marry when he has saved some money, but he must take
an ugly girl whom no one else will have. And two! and one!---- Are
you listening? Do you remember when you sat in the inn and ate fowl
with sage stuffing, and, I had a salted herring in my bag? And he had
a horse, the young devil, and a velvet jacket. Where is the horse
now? Perhaps he is standing in the stable in the Knacker's House, or
whatever your father's castle was called. Do you remember that I made
you believe that Sir Vulcan was councillor to the Emperor of Rome. Ha!
ha! No, a smith is a smith, that is all."
Sten was growing tired.
"Are you lazy, you devil?" said Claus.
"Stop calling me devil," said Sten, "I am not accustomed to it."
"Perhaps his Grace is used to being called 'angel'?" said Claus
scornfully.
Sten _had_ been once used to it, but he refrained from saying so. He
went on with his hammer strokes.
"One and two! and one and two! and one---- No," said Claus, "you can
do that now. Beat out the iron rod now; it is harder to do when it is
cold, but still it can be done. I must go now to some business in the
town, and when the old man comes, tell him that I met my brother-in-law
from the country. But if you have not beaten out the iron rod by the
time I come back, I will weld your hind legs together, so that you will
be like a herring."
Sten felt quite exhausted and declared that he could not finish the
work alone. He also said openly that he had not come here to do
Claus's work while the latter sat in the ale-house.
Claus became furious. "Yes, you have, my young man," he shouted. "That
is just what you have come for. Look you! I have worked for thirty-five
years, and you have done nothing; now I am the nobleman and let you
work for me! Is it not so with the aristocracy?" Claus leant himself
against the plank with his arms folded and continued: "Yes, I am a
devilish fine nobleman, you can believe me! And you will see how I
shall flourish. I shall not be rich, but I shall be fat. You look
disapproving. You don't agree with my plan, nor understand it. The
upper class have invented it themselves, and a very excellent one it
is."
Sten replied that in his opinion Claus was a bumpkin.
"Go and fetch the big hammer. You will do some extra work by way of
punishment," Claus replied haughtily.
Sten's blood boiled over and he raised the iron rod against Claus.
At the same moment he felt something give way in his body, and fell
senseless to the ground.
* * * * *
When Sten awoke to consciousness he was lying in a bed at the hospital,
and was condemned to inaction for several months, for he had broken a
blood-vessel, and his recovery was doubtful. In the large ward one bed
stood close to another, and as soon as it was empty there was always
someone waiting to occupy it. Here he saw every day instances how
those who did physical labour were exposed to accidents which other
classes escaped. At one time it was a carpenter who had cut his foot;
at another a mason who had fallen from a scaffolding. One day came
a breweress who had scalded herself when boiling wort; on another a
pewterer who had burnt his knee at the smelting oven.
Hitherto he had had no idea how widely spread human sufferings were,
and when he contrasted his past with his present, he began to guess how
the legend of the rich man, who could not enter heaven, had arisen.
Thus he lay the whole summer, without fresh air or seeing anything
green. He felt bitterly how the best time of the year was passing,
and imagined how it looked in the country, and what people were doing
every day. Numbers of monks came to the ward, and almost every day the
crucifix was lifted by some bed-side to comfort a sufferer.
Sten often talked with the monks and he could not help sharing their
view that the earth was a vale of tears. When his pains became severe
he felt relief in contemplating the Crucified Who writhed on the cross,
and he understood now why the Christian creed had been able to gain so
many disciples. One day, when he was especially suffering, he had a
visit from Claus, who had heard a report that Sten was dying. He felt
now compelled to see and speak with the sick man, and, if possible, to
comfort him; but in order to strengthen himself he went first into an
ale-shop, with the result that he reached the hospital in a somewhat
hilarious condition.
When he again met Sten, whose face had recovered its fair complexion
and his hands their delicacy, his former respect for him awoke, and
he confessed to himself that there were a finer and a coarser kind of
men. He called Sten "sir," and advised him to think about his soul
and to repent of his sins; he should not, he said, be sorry that he
had to die, for the smiths' company would carry him to the grave, and
afterwards hold such a funeral feast as had never been seen in the
city. Then he threw out some delicate hints that it was a pity for the
hospital to get Sten's clothes when he was dead, and at the same time
expressed his admiration of the excellent wool of which Sten's coat was
made; for the rest, he believed that old trousers could be altered,
and told Sten above all things to take care that nothing was left in
the pockets. Life, he said, was very troublesome, and parents who did
not teach their children to work with their hands were worse than
murderers, and to give children an education was to spoil them. Sten
would have made a good smith, if he had learnt to wield the hammer from
his childhood, and he might by this time have married the maiden from
the weighing-house. As it was, she had engaged herself to one of the
yeomen of the guard. Sten, however, should not be sad about that, for
he had not much longer to live, but Claus would carry the flag at his
funeral procession as a token that he had forgiven the young gentleman
all the wrong he had done him. As he uttered these last words, Claus
was so overcome by his noble sentiments that he wept as only a drunken
man can.
But Claus never carried the flag, because he was not the guild's
flag-bearer, and because Sten recovered. One fine autumn day he was
dismissed from the hospital and told that he was no longer ill, but
that he would never be strong enough to work. Now he realised the whole
terrible truth of what Claus had said: his education had robbed him of
the means of earning a livelihood. It was in vain that he went about
and sought a place in an already organised society; there was no place
for drones in this hive. The only thing remaining was to flee from this
hive and seek another where the working-bees supported the drones.
He thought of the convents where men did not work but lived very
comfortably and could devote their leisure to such refined enjoyments
as arts and sciences, and he wondered that he had not before this
enlisted in the armies of the Church.
With a light step he walked down to the convent of the Dominican monks
in the Osterlang-gata, and rang the bell. The little window in the gate
was opened and a monk asked Sten his name and address. He gave his name
and asked to speak to the prior with a view to entering the convent.
The gate was opened and Sten was admitted into the garden, where he was
told to wait.
Meanwhile the prior sat in the hall of the chapter going through the
estate and rent books with the steward. Various deficits in these
showed a serious diminution in the income of the convent. They were
just consulting how this might be increased to its highest possible
point again, as the General Chapter of the Dominican Order was
constantly demanding support for the war against the heretics, when
the gate-keeper's assistant announced Sten Ulffot's arrival, name, and
business.
"Ulffot of Wäringe, Hofsta and Löfsala," the prior said to himself, and
made the sign of the cross. "He comes as opportunely as though he were
sent by St Dominic himself. I know Löfsala thoroughly; it is a splendid
estate--twelve hundred acres of open ground, besides saleable meadows
and woods, water-mills, saw-mills and a splendid eel-fishery. Let him
in! Let him in by all means! Bid the gentleman welcome in the name of
the Lord."
"Your Reverence," interposed the steward, "wait a minute. Löfsala is a
fine estate certainly, but sad to say the present owner has no taste
for the spiritual life."
"The present owner?"
"Yes, the Ulffot family," continued the steward, "has been obliged
to give up everything, and the last member of it is said to be an
adventurer who has tried a little of everything but carried nothing
out, and is quite come down in the world."
"What do you say? What do you say? H'm! Well, what shall we do with
him?"
"From him we shall get neither profit nor honour," said the steward.
"We have monks enough who eat our provisions, and this is not a
poorhouse."
"Quite right!" said the prior. "Quite right! But who is to tell him
that? One of St Dominic's wisest and best rules is, never to send
anyone unsatisfied away. Will Brother Francis go into the garden and
speak a little with the young man? Speak a little with him, explain it
to him, you understand! Let us go on with our work, steward."
Brother Francis was a tall man, of alarming appearance, with a bearish
temper, who was employed to scare away such applicants as were not
"edible," in the phraseology of the industrious brotherhood; for the
Dominican Order was a powerful political corporation, which lived in
perpetual strife with princes, for power and property, and was by no
means an institution for exercising benevolence.
When Brother Francis saw Sten's insignificant appearance he thought he
could make short work with him. "What do you want in the convent?" he
asked without any preliminary remarks.
"I seek for the peace which the world cannot give," answered Sten.
"Then you have come to the wrong place," said Francis. "This is the
armoury of the Church Militant, and there is never peace here."
"Peace follows fighting," Sten ventured to object; but this irritated
the monk, who wished to get done with a thankless task.
"Say what you want and speak the truth--something like this: 'I cannot
dig and to beg I am ashamed; therefore I will come here and eat.' If
you say that, you will not be lying."
Sten felt that the monk had to a certain extent hit the mark, and
answered simply, "Alas, you are right!"
Surprised at this unexpected admission, and touched by Sten's
childlikeness, the monk took him farther into the garden and continued
his talk. "I know your history and understand the riddle of your
life. When Nature is left to herself, she produces masterpieces; but
when man interferes with her work, he makes a bungle of it. Look at
this pear tree; it is a descendant from a pear tree at Santa Lucia in
Spain, where it was cultivated for five hundred years. You think it
is an excellent thing that it can bring forth fine fruits to please
our palates? Nature does not think so, for she has produced the fruit
for the sake of the pipe which continue the species. Look at this pear
when I cat it in two! Do you see any pips? No! Over-cultivation has
done away with them. Look at this apple which glows so magnificently
with red and gold! It is an English pearmain. It has pips, but if I sow
them they produce crab-apples. When, however, a severe winter comes,
the pearmain trees are killed by frost, but the crab-apple trees are
not. Therefore one ought to give up over-cultivating people, especially
when it is done at the expense of others. Such cultivation is unsuited
to our country and our severe climate. Have I expressed myself
clearly? I am sorry for you, young man, but I cannot help you. _Beati
possidentes_--blessed are those who have succeeded. Your ancestors won
success, but they had not the skill to maintain it!"
He went on to talk of indifferent matters while he conducted Sten to
the gate. "There will be an early winter this year, if we may judge
by the ash-berries." Then he opened the gate, bowed politely and said
"Good-bye, sir."
When the gate closed, Sten felt that he was shut out from society
once for all, and he rallied the small remainder of bodily and mental
strength which he possessed, to form a resolution. But his will and
thinking power bed collapsed. The twilight had fallen. He followed the
descent of the steep street which led to the sea, as though he were
obeying the law of gravitation. His feet led him into a narrow alley
which was quite dark and filled with an overpowering stench from the
offal which had been thrown away there; but he went on and on, guided
by a faint light which appeared at the bottom of the alley. Presently
he stood before a water-gate which had been left ajar and through which
a moonbeam pierced the darkness. He opened the gate and before him lay
the surface of the water lit by the moon which was rising over the
island of Sikla. The little waves danced and played in the path of the
moonlight and the sea breeze blew freshly shore-wards.
Sten stepped over the narrow threshold and let the gate close behind
him, without exactly thinking what he was doing. At the same moment
all the bells in the city began to ring for vespers, and the drummers
on the city walls beat the tattoo as a signal for the citizens to go
to bed. Sten took off his cap, fell on his knees, and said a prayer.
Then he stood up, turned his back towards the sea, folded his arms over
his breast, looked up at the stars and let himself fall backwards, as
though he were going to rest. The silvery water mirror opened like
a dark grave, which closed again at once, and a great ring, like a
halo, appeared on the surface; it widened into many more circles, which
dispersed and died away. Soon the little waves reappeared and danced
and played in the moonlight as though they had never been frightened.
"UNWELCOME"
The baptism service was over, and the family party had got into the
boats and hoisted sail. The little fleet now glided out of the green
bay below the island chapel. In the first boat sat the god-parents with
the newly baptised infant.
"It was a strange idea to call the boy 'Christian,'" said the mother's
sister to the father's sister, as she put the child's feeding-bottle to
its mouth.
"Oh, it doesn't matter what one is called, and if he has the same name
as the Danish King it is good enough," said the other.
"Yes, but the poor boy will have no name-day if he has no patron saint."
"That is all right, for then no one will have the trouble of
celebrating it. He was not wished for and he was hardly welcome," said
the father's sister.
In the second boat sat the father and mother and the two elder
children, a boy and a girl aged seven and eight respectively.
"We could have done very well without another one," said the father as
he ported the helm.
"It is all very well talking now," said his wife as she counter-braced
the sail.
"Yes, I know," he replied.
"But you will be kind to him?" she said.
"I must be, I suppose," was his answer. He pushed his boy down from the
boat-side on which he had clambered, saying, "Keep still in the boat,
children, or the devil will have you."
In the third boat sat the pastor and the grand-parents.
"How is the fishing?" asked the former.
"So-so," answered the grandfather. "The Lord knows where the fish go
now. When I was young, one caught enough herrings in two nights to last
the winter, and now it is doubtful whether one catches any at all."
"Yes, it is strange; I had three standing nets out there on Wednesday
night and did not catch a fin," said the pastor. "Winter will bring
hard times, and one ought to look forward before producing more mouths
than one can fill."
"I told him so," said the grandfather assentingly. "The house is
big enough for one brood, not for two. Better one farmer than two
cottagers. I don't think, however, he will divide the farm, but this
last child must go out into service like others."
"That is certainly as good as starving at home," said the pastor.
The July sun blazed hotly upon the fjord, the sky was perfectly blue,
and the newly baptised child screamed, whether from joy or grief it
was difficult to say. Soon the thatched roofs of the farm were visible
among the alders, and the boats halted at the bridge. The occupants
disembarked and were regaled with a good meal spread under the oak
trees. Afterwards the pastor thanked God for the happiness with which
he had blessed the house, and bade the guests raise their glasses to
welcome the new citizen of the world into the congregation.
* * * * *
Christian grew up among the calves and pigs, for his brother and sister
were too old to play with him. He seemed born with two characteristics
which never left him: one was to be always in the way, the other was to
be never welcome. Wherever he appeared, behind a bush, on a haystack,
under a boat, in a loft, or in the cottage, the cry always was, "Is
it you, young scoundrel?" Wherever he happened to be, and anyone
approached, they said, "You always have to be in the way."
His parents, who for eight years had been unaccustomed to the crying
of a baby, and were now a good deal older so that they enjoyed a
good sleep, found it somewhat difficult to reconcile themselves to
his crying at night, and they soon came to regard it as a failing
which was peculiar to their youngest born. It was in vain that the
grandmother asserted that all children cried, and that Hans the eldest
had really cried much more when he was little. His father said he could
not remember that at all; all he remembered was that Hans had been
an uncommonly good child, who had always been a source of joy to his
parents. There was such a great difference, he added, between children.
Meanwhile Christian, who was intelligent enough to see that he was in
the way, acquired the habit of keeping out of the way; when he saw
anyone he hid himself, ran out to the woods and fields, and was up to
all kinds of mischief.
As he became older and was strong enough to do some useful work,
attempts were made to tame him, but in vain. When put in charge of
cattle, he ran away from them and let them go into the fields; he laid
the fishing-nets so deep that they could not be got up again, and when
sought for, he was not to be found. In short he seemed half a savage.
Once, at his elder brother's suggestion, he was beaten, but then he
remained away eight whole days, and when he reappeared he was as stout
and strong as before; no one knew what he had eaten or where he had
slept.
But Christian himself knew well enough. The scanty diet of his home
consisted chiefly of salt fish, turnips and bread. Christian, who often
had to satisfy himself with what fell from the table, or was left
over, often felt a longing for more nourishing food, especially as he
grew older and approached manhood. He was hungry the whole day, and
went to the wood and the seashore to get food. Fish did not attract
him, for he had chewed them till he was tired and they gave him no
strength; he looked for warm-blooded creatures, and when he caught
some young birds he ate them raw. Then he felt stronger as the blood
diffused an intoxicating warmth throughout his body. Eggs had the same
effect; these he took ruthlessly from the nests of the sea-birds on the
shore. In this way he procured for himself a diet which was much more
nourishing than his parents and brother and sister could contrive to
obtain.
So he grew, and became strong, but could not make up his mind to work.
In a rude boat which he had managed to construct himself, he cruised
about the islands and hunted for eggs. His parents, who did not exactly
miss his presence, soon began to regard him as having flown from the
nest.
One fine spring day, when the eider-geese were flying over the
outermost islands, Christian sailed out with his bow and his nooses,
more for the sake of amusement and passing the time than for
practical purposes, for he never killed anything except for immediate
consumption. He landed with his boat on one of those skerries which
form the last breakwater against the open sea, and which only sea-birds
and fishermen frequent during the summer. The skerry was uninhabited,
but a rude shed had been built on it to serve as a sleeping-place for
fishermen in the fishing season, and as a shelter for travellers and
those who might be driven ashore. It consisted of a single room with
the bare earth for its floor; along the wall were arranged berths like
shelves furnished with sheep-skins for sleeping under. Two stones on
the ground marked where a fire might be lit, and flint and steel were
kept in a place well known to all between the beams above the door.
The door was always closed but could be opened with a bent wooden
peg. Everyone had a right to enter if they only closed the door after
them and put back the flint and steel in its place. If any-body wished
to show benevolence or gratitude, they placed an armful of grass or
juniper twigs near the fire-place, for there was not a tree on the
skerry. It was in these shelters that Christian generally slept, and
there he took his simple meals; he knew each one of them for miles
around, and where the best sheep-skins were to be found. The fleas
which infested them generally left him alone.
Meanwhile the spring evening was beautiful, and the sea lay there
serene in blue tranquillity. Christian, who had learnt not to trust it,
drew his boat up and hid it behind some great stones. He had rowed far
and clambered about on the rocks, so that he went into the rest-house
and got into the topmost berth to sleep. He lay there for a time and
thought about various things--about the day which had just passed,
about his life and its purposes, and the life which should follow this.
He had opened the sky-light and saw the steel-grey heaven above him,
and a star or two which palely glimmered in the lingering sunlight. Has
religious instincts had not been educated either by parents, pastors
or teachers, nor had he been confirmed, but he knew that behind
nature and the events of life were guiding powers of which one had no
nearer knowledge. He had arrived at no certainty regarding the object
of his existence. Together with the gift of life, he had received the
instinct to preserve it, and obeyed this instinct. What more was there
to do? He ate in order to be able to work, and worked in order to get
something to eat. Yes, but in the intervals, he thought, or, rather,
he wondered. He wondered whether perhaps these very thoughts of his
constituted the higher aim of life of which he dreamt; he remembered
that his mother had said that the earth was a vale of tears through
which we must wander in order to become better and thereby worthier
of the Kingdom of Heaven. He found, on closer reflection, that he
neither grew better nor worse from one day to another, and he did
not understand how he was to improve. Perhaps he was an exception?
Possibly. All others took the oath of loyalty to the King; all others
paid taxes, went to church, paid tithes to the clergy, paid rent, swept
the snow away for one another, bought and sold, summoned each other
before the law-courts, but could do nothing without asking permission
and payment. They asked permission to be able to marry, to be received
into the community where they were born, to be buried in the earth; and
on each occasion there were fees to pay. They paid the King for ruling
them, they paid the judge for judging them, the pastor for saving them,
and the executioner for hanging them; they paid in the town for the
right to sell their fish, and they paid for the bridges on which the
town's existence depended. Christian, who did nothing of all this, was
therefore an exception, and the reason he escaped all these payments
was, that he possessed nothing. That was the difference between him and
them: he possessed nothing. In earlier times he had heard those who had
nothing sailed out on the sea and took from those who had. This was
now not permitted, and rightly so, for Christian could not think it
permissible that anyone should come and take his boat or his axe from
him.
While these half-developed thoughts came and went in the
half-consciousness of a tired brain, sleep overcame him. After some
hours he awoke with a choking feeling in his chest and a terrible
smarting in his eyes. He sat up in his berth and saw that a fire
had been made on the ground below. By it sat two men--one in the
half-barbaric costume of the inhabitants of Dägo, the other in the
everyday garb of a Swedish fisherman. They were roasting some herrings
before the fire. Christian, who did not feel inclined to move, as he
did not know how the strangers might be disposed, protected himself
from the smoke as well as he could by creeping as far as possible
under the coverlet; he did not blame himself for listening to their
conversation, but, as we shall see afterwards, turned it to profit.
"They are a stupid lot, these Swedes!" said the man from Dägo, who
believed that his superior bodily strength gave him the right to say
what he liked.
"Oh, you mustn't talk ill of the Swedes," said the other, who in such a
nocturnal _tête-à-tête_ did not venture to use a more impolite form of
speech.
"Well, can one imagine less enterprising people than these fishermen?
If they knew what the eider-birds' down was worth in Russia, they would
be able to make a pile of money."
"Yes, but you see the Swedes think it wrong to deprive the birds of the
down which they need for hatching their eggs."
"That is just their stupidity; for if they don't take it, foreigners
will, like they take everything else."
"No, it is not stupidity, it is consideration to think of our
successors, who also should derive profit from the birds which would
disappear, if disturbed."
"That is not true; but if foreigners came, they would take both eggs
and down together."
"They can do that if they have no conscience; Swedes would rather be
poor than behave so badly."
"That is why I call them stupid. But now, to speak of another matter.
Why don't you hunt ermines and squirrels here as they do inland?"
"Because we have enough to do with the fish and prefer the certain to
the uncertain."
"That is right; but I should prefer a sure income from skins and down
to an insecure one from the sea. If I had nothing else to do, it
wouldn't be long before I had enough money to buy a piece of ground to
build upon and fish too."
The Swede dropped the subject and shared his food with the stranger,
who had anchored before the skerry because the wind had fallen. When it
rose again at sunrise they both left the rest-house, little guessing
what seeds they had sown in Christian's uncultured brain.
No sooner had the sound of their footsteps died away than he sprang up
and went out. The rifling sun illumined the open sea which was ruffled
by the morning breeze, and over whose surface sea-birds were circling.
To Christian this scene was not new, but to-day the sun seemed to shine
more brightly and his horizon was enlarged. His eye, which had often
swept the surface of the water without finding an object behind the
blue line which bound the horizon, fancied it perceived, hidden by the
clouds in the east, a distant land where the deliverer dwelt who would
come and make him like other men; he would cease to be in the way; he
would be welcome somewhere, would rest upon his own roof, and perhaps
possess a small spot on this earth where he hitherto was hunted about
like a trespassing dog. Hope awoke in his soul, and when he saw the
strange boat hoist sail and enter the golden path traced on the waves
by the sun, he fancied himself standing by the helm and steering to the
distant land behind the blue horizon with his precious cargo, and now
he determined to begin a new life.
* * * * *
Far out in the Fjallang Fjord, almost in the open sea, lies a skerry
which is called Trollhattorna or the "Goblin's Cap." It consists of a
round crag with four flat sides which have a certain resemblance to
the cape which the goblins of fairy-tales are supposed to wear. Between
these faces of the crag are deep clefts where guillemots build their
nests, and where they are completely protected from rain and wind.
After sundry combats with the fearless owners Christian had succeeded
in obtaining undisturbed possession of that cleft which faced the land,
into which the wind from the sea never blew. Here he had contrived
a storehouse for his collected treasures by stretching a rain-proof
sealskin, which he occasionally smeared with train-oil, between the
walls of the cleft. He spent two years in amassing these treasures,
and employed in doing so all his long-trained capacities. He could
imitate all creatures' voices; he could whistle like the weasel, make
a smacking noise like the squirrel, and grumble like the eider-duck.
He knew how to approach one of the latter when sitting on her nest of
seaweed on the open beach, and he could look at her so that she quietly
let him stroke her back while he plucked the down. He never took more
than one of the six eggs, and if the nestlings were already hatched
he left them in peace; the ermine he sometimes caught with traps and
sometimes shot them with blunted arrows so that the fur should not be
injured. Squirrels he watched for from behind an oak, and could entice
them to come so near that he could seize them with his hands; in the
winter he dragged them by the help of a willow branch from their nests,
and obtained their entire store of hazel-nuts besides.
His senses had grown so fine by practice that he could hear a mile
off what sort of bird was approaching, and even in the twilight he
could distinguish at an incredible distance between a black water-hen
and a merganser. Among his worst rivals, the crows, who hunted the
eider-ducks in order to devour their eggs, he did great execution. By
exposing the bodies of weasels and squirrels which he had skinned, he
allured whole swarms of these uninvited plunderers, which he then shot
down. Such was his skill and so completely undisturbed was he, that
within two years he had accumulated in his grotto a store which seemed
to him sufficient to bring him to the foreign land where the sun rose,
and where people would know how to appreciate his treasures. Now again
the spring was approaching, and the thought how he should construct a
vessel sufficiently large and sea-worthy began to disquiet him.
He knew that he could get out to the open sea very easily with a large
fishing-boat such as was used for catching herrings, and that it was
not more than two days' journey to the land on the other side, but he
saw small prospect of being able to build such a boat and of procuring
the expensive sails. His natural instinct, which revolted against the
idea of anyone coming and taking from him what he had earned by his own
work, forbade his procuring such a boat in any unlawful way.
The spring came nearer and nearer, and his disquietude increased.
One afternoon he was sitting on the highest point of Trollhattorna,
looking out over the sea where sails appeared and disappeared. A
red-brown eider-duck came swimming with its young ones after it; the
sea-gulls flew past his ears screaming, and the mergansers answered
them. Christian felt like a mountain king as he sat there above his
treasure-chamber, but at the same time he seemed to himself to have
been bewitched by the mountain spirits, for he saw no prospect of
getting away. Just then he heard the measured stroke of oars behind
him, and saw a boat with four men in it being rowed towards the place
where he sat. As it came nearer, he recognised his father and brother,
but did not know the two others, one of whom shouted to him: "Come
down, you pirate!"
Christian remained where he was.
"Obey, when the King's sheriff orders you," said his father.
High up on the skerry stood a pile of stones which the fishermen had
set there as a mark. Christian was prepared to defend himself. "I am
not a pirate," he said.
"Ah, do you contradict the King's sheriff," said his father. "Beware!
and do not make us all miserable."
"I make no one miserable," answered Christian, "but I defend myself
when I see that people wish me ill. What do you want from me?"
"You have here a hiding-place for goods which you have stolen from
peaceful traders," said the sheriff. "We have seen all."
"I have stolen nothing from anyone," said Christian. "All that is here
I have earned by hard work."
"Nonsense! Do you think we shall believe that one can collect so many
skins and all this down here in these bare skerries. Come down, for the
last time, or we will take you."
They began to climb the cliff, but then Christian began to hurl down
blocks of stone, which bounded over the heads of his assailants,
knocked splinters out of the rocks, and plumped into the water,
without however striking anyone.
"Wretched boy!" cried his father. "You were born for my ruin!"
"Who begot me?" answered Christian, and threw the last stone.
Now the besiegers had a prospect of success, and soon Christian felt
his legs caught in a noose; and he was soon wound up like a ball,
rolled down the hill, and laid in the bottom of the boat.
"Do not hurt him unnecessarily," said his father. "I will be security
for him."
Then he began in a comparatively friendly tone to tell Christian how
badly he had treated his parents, who had produced him, clothed him,
and been kind to him; with what sorrow and shame he had requited them
since their name would now become notorious and dishonoured in the
neighbourhood. He adjured him by the Cross of Christ and all the saints
that he should confess his sin, since by his doing so the offence would
be half pardoned and might be atoned for by a fine. He pointed to his
grey hairs and begged Christian not to bring dishonour on them; he bade
him to think of his brother who would soon take his father's place
and uphold the good name and prosperity of the family; he concluded
by declaring that one must not live for oneself but for others also,
because society was built up of families, and if families did not hold
together, society would fall. Christian should therefore acknowledge
his crime.
But Christian had committed no crime, and therefore could not save
society. His father's unwonted mildness moved him and he wished for a
moment that he had done what he was accused of.
Their talk continued till they reached home. Christian was taken to the
barn and locked up there. The others went to the cottage, where they
ate their supper and talked over the matter. Presently, as Christian
lay reflecting on the floor of the barn, the door opened, and his
mother stepped in.
"Son," she said, "think of your old mother, and tell the truth."
"Then mother would rather have a thief for her son than an honourable
boy?"
"I want you to confess; then your father will pay a fine for your
offence, and our good name will be saved."
"That is strange," said Christian, whose brain could not follow this
line of thought. "If I make myself a criminal, then the crime can be
pardoned, but if I continue to be honourable, it cannot. What crime?
One which has never been committed? For I have not stolen; I have only
gone where anyone can go, and for a long time have collected skins and
eggs as I have leave to do."
But his mother replied that that had nothing to do with it; the one
thing necessary was that he should confess, since; the King's sheriff
desired it.
His mother departed sadly. Then came his sister, and said that
Christian should not plunge her too into misery; for if the family were
disgraced, her fiancé, Peter, could not marry her. Christian had only
to confess, then he would be free and his father would pay the fine.