I
I can see before me the little town, friendly as a home. It is so small
that I know its every hole and corner, am friends with all the children
and know the name of every one of its dogs. Who ever walked up the
street knew to which window he must raise his eyes to see a lovely face
behind the panes, and who ever strolled through the town park knew well
whither he should turn his steps to meet the one he wished to meet.
One was as proud of the beautiful roses in the garden of a neighbor, as
if they had grown in one’s own. If anything mean or vulgar was done, it
was as great a shame as if it had happened in one’s own family; but at
the smallest adventure, at a fire or a fight in the market-place, one
swelled with pride and said: “Only see what a community! Do such things
ever happen anywhere else? What a wonderful town!”
In my beloved town nothing ever changes. If I ever come there again, I
shall find the same houses and shops that I knew of old; the same holes
in the pavements will cause my downfall; the same stiff hedges of
lindens, the same clipped lilac bushes will captivate my fascinated
gaze. Again shall I see the old Mayor who rules the whole town walking
down the street with elephantine tread. What a feeling of security
there is in knowing that you are walking there! And deaf old Halfvorson
will still be digging in his garden, while his eyes, clear as water,
stare and wander as if they would say: “We have investigated
everything, everything; now, earth, we will bore down to your very
centre.”
But one who will not still be there is little, round Petter Nord: the
little fellow from Värmland, you know, who was in Halfvorson’s shop; he
who amused the customers with his small mechanical inventions and his
white mice. There is a long story about him. There are stories to be
told about everything and everybody in the town. Nowhere else do such
wonderful things happen.
He was a peasant boy, little Petter Nord. He was short and round; he
was brown-eyed and smiling. His hair was paler than birch leaves in the
autumn; his cheeks were red and downy. And he was from Värmland. No
one, seeing him, could imagine that he was from any other place. His
native land had equipped him with its excellent qualities. He was quick
at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready with his tongue, clear in
his thoughts. And, moreover, full of fun, good-natured and brave, kind
and quarrelsome, inquisitive and a chatterbox. A madcap, he never could
show more respect to a burgomaster than to a beggar! But he had a
heart; he fell in love every other day, and confided in the whole town.
This child of rich gifts attended to the work in the shop in rather an
extraordinary manner. The customers were waited on while he fed the
white mice. Money was changed and counted while he put wheels on his
little automatic wagons. And while he told the customers of his very
last love-affair, he kept his eye on the quart measure, into which the
brown molasses was slowly curling. It delighted his admiring listeners
to see him suddenly leap over the counter and rush out into the street
to have a brush with a passing street-boy; also to see him calmly
return to tie the string on a package or to finish measuring a piece of
cloth.
Was it not quite natural that he should be the favorite of the whole
town? We all felt obliged to trade with Halfvorson, after Petter Nord
came there. Even the old Mayor himself was proud when Petter Nord took
him apart into a dark corner and showed him the cages of the white
mice. It was nervous work to show the mice, for Halfvorson had
forbidden him to have them in the shop.
But then in the brightening February there came a few days of warm,
misty weather. Petter Nord became suddenly serious and silent. He let
the white mice nibble the steel bars of their cages without feeding
them. He attended to his duties in the most irreproachable way. He
fought with no more street boys. Could Petter Nord not bear the change
in the weather?
Oh no, the matter was that he had found a fifty-crown note on one of
the shelves. He believed that it had got caught in a piece of cloth,
and without any one’s seeing him he had pushed it under a roll of
striped cotton which was out of fashion and was never taken down from
the shelf.
The boy was cherishing great anger in his heart against Halfvorson. The
latter had destroyed a whole family of mice for him, and now he meant
to be revenged. Before his eyes he still saw the white mother with her
helpless offspring. She had not made the slightest attempt to escape;
she had remained in her place with steadfast heroism, staring with red,
burning eyes on the heartless murderer. Did he not deserve a short time
of anxiety? Petter Nord wished to see him come out pale as death from
his office and begin to look for the fifty crowns. He wished to see the
same despair in his watery eyes as he had seen in the ruby red ones of
the white mouse. The shopkeeper should search, he should turn the whole
shop upside down before Petter Nord would let him find the bank-note.
But the fifty crowns lay in its hiding-place all day without any one’s
asking about it. It was a new note, many-colored and bright, and had
big numbers in all the corners. When Petter Nord was alone in the shop,
he put a step-ladder against the shelves and climbed up to the roll of
cotton. Then he took out the fifty crowns, unfolded it and admired its
beauties.
In the midst of the most eager trade he would grow anxious lest
something should have happened to the fifty crowns. Then he pretended
to look for something on the shelf, and groped about under the roll of
cotton till he felt the smooth bank-note rustle under his fingers.
The note had suddenly acquired a supernatural power over him. Might
there not be something living in it? The figures surrounded by wide
rings were like magnetic eyes. The boy kissed them all and whispered:
“I should like to have many, very many like you.”
He began to have all sorts of thoughts about the note, and why
Halfvorson did not inquire for it. Perhaps it was not Halfvorson’s?
Perhaps it had lain in the shop for a long time? Perhaps it no longer
had any owner?
Thoughts are contagious.—At supper Halfvorson had begun to speak of
money and moneyed-men. He told Petter Nord about all the poor boys who
had amassed riches. He began with Whittington and ended with Astor and
Jay Gould. Halfvorson knew all their histories; he knew how they had
striven and denied themselves; what they had discovered and ventured.
He grew eloquent when he began on such tales. He lived through the
sufferings of those young people; he followed them in their successes;
he rejoiced in their victories. Petter Nord listened quite fascinated.
Halfvorson was stone deaf, but that was no obstacle to conversation,
for he read by the lips everything that was said. On the other hand, he
could not hear his own voice. It rolled out as strangely monotonous as
the roar of a distant waterfall. But his peculiar way of speaking made
everything he said sink in, so that one could not escape from it for
many days. Poor Petter Nord!
“What is most needed to become rich,” said Halfvorson, “is the
foundation. But it cannot be earned. Take note that they all have found
it in the street or discovered it between the lining and cloth of a
coat which they had bought at a pawnbroker’s sale; or that it had been
won at cards, or had been given to them in alms by a beautiful and
charitable lady. After they had once found that blessed coin,
everything had gone well with them. The stream of gold welled from it
as from a fountain. The first thing that is necessary, Petter Nord, is
the foundation.”
Halfvorson’s voice sounded ever fainter and fainter. Young Petter Nord
sat in a kind of trance and saw endless vistas of gold before him. On
the dining table rose great piles of ducats; the floor heaved white
with silver, and the indistinct patterns on the dirty wall-paper
changed into banknotes, big as handkerchiefs. But directly before his
eyes fluttered the fifty-crown note, surrounded by wide rings, luring
him like the most beautiful eyes. “Who can know,” smiled the eyes,
“perhaps the fifty crowns up on the shelf is just such a foundation?”
“Mark my words,” said Halfvorson, “that, after the foundation, two
things are necessary for those who wish to reach the heights. Work,
untiring work, Petter Nord, is one; and the other is renunciation.
Renunciation of play and love, of talk and laughter, of morning sleep
and evening strolls. In truth, in truth, two things are necessary for
him who would win fortune. One is called work, and the other
renunciation.”
Petter Nord looked as if he would like to weep. Of course he wished to
be rich, naturally he wished to be fortunate, but fortune should not be
so anxiously and sadly won. Fortune ought to come of herself. Just as
Petter Nord was fighting with the street boys, the noble lady should
stop her coach at the shop-door, and invite the Värmland boy to the
place at her side. But now Halfvorson’s voice still rolled in his ears.
His brain was full of it. He thought of nothing else, knew nothing
else. Work and renunciation, work and renunciation, that was life and
the object of life. He asked nothing else, dared not think that he had
ever wished anything else.
The next day he did not dare to kiss the fifty-crown note, did not dare
even to look at it. He was silent and low-spirited, orderly and
industrious. He attended to all his duties so irreproachably that any
one could see that there was something wrong with him. The old Mayor
was troubled about the boy and did what he could to cheer him.
“Did you think of going to the Mid-Lent ball this evening?” asked the
old man. “So, you did not. Well, then I invite you. And be sure that
you come, or I will tell Halfvorson where you keep your mouse-cages.”
Petter Nord sighed and promised to go to the ball.
The Mid-Lent ball, fancy Petter Nord at the Mid-Lent ball! Petter Nord
would see all the beautiful ladies of the town, delicate, dressed in
white, adorned with flowers. But of course Petter Nord would not be
allowed to dance with a single one of them. Well, it did not matter. He
was not in the mood to dance.
At the ball he stood in a doorway and made no attempt to dance. Several
people had asked him to take part, but he had been firm and said no. He
could not dance any of those dances. Neither would any of those fine
ladies be willing to dance with him. He was much too humble for them.
But as he stood there, his eyes began to kindle and shine, and he felt
joy creeping through his limbs. It came from the dance music; it came
from the fragrance of the flowers; it came from all the beautiful faces
about him. After a little while he was so sparklingly happy that, if
joy had been fire, he would have been surrounded by bursting flames.
And if love were it, as many say it is, it would have been the same. He
was always in love with some pretty girl, but hitherto with only one at
a time. But when he now saw all those beautiful ladies together, it was
no longer a single fire, which laid waste his sixteen-year-old heart;
it was a whole conflagration.
Sometimes he looked down at his boots, which were by no means dancing
shoes. But how he could have marked the time with the broad heels and
spun round on the thick soles! Something was dragging and pulling him
and trying to hurl him out on the floor like a whipped ball. He could
still resist it, although his excitement grew stronger as the hours
advanced. He grew delirious and hot. Heigh ho, he was no longer poor
Petter Nord! He was the young whirlwind, that raises the seas and
overthrows the forests.
Just then a hambo-polska[1] struck up. The peasant boy was quite beside
himself. He thought it sounded like the polska, like the Värmland
polska.
[1] A Swedish national dance of a very lively character
Suddenly Petter Nord was out on the floor. All his fine manners dropped
off him. He was no longer at the town-hall ball; he was at home in the
barn at the midsummer dance. He came forward, his knees bent, his head
drawn down between his shoulders. Without stopping to ask, he threw his
arms round a lady’s waist and drew her with him. And then he began to
dance the polska.
The girl followed him, half unwillingly, almost dragged. She was not in
time; she did not know what kind of a dance it was, but suddenly it
went quite of itself. The mystery of the dance was revealed to her. The
polska bore her, lifted her; her feet had wings; she felt as light as
air. She thought that she was flying.
For the Värmland polska is the most wonderful dance. It transforms the
heavy-footed sons of earth. Without a sound soles an inch thick float
over the unplaned barn floor. They whirl about, light as leaves in an
autumn wind. It is supple, quick, silent, gliding. Its noble, measured
movements set the body free and let it feel itself light, elastic,
floating.
While Petter Nord danced the dance of his native land, there was
silence in the ball-room. At first people laughed, but then they all
recognized that this was dancing. It floated away in even, rapid
whirls; it was dancing indeed, if anything.
In the midst of his delirium Petter Nord perceived that round about him
reigned a strange silence. He stopped short and passed his hand over
his forehead. There was no black barn floor, no leafy walls, no light
blue summer night, no merry peasant maiden in the reality he gazed
upon. He was ashamed and wished to steal away.
But he was already surrounded, besieged. The young ladies crowded about
the shop-boy and cried: “Dance with us; dance with us!”
They wished to learn the polska. They all wished to learn to dance the
polska. The ball was turned from its course and became a
dancing-school. All said that they had never known before what it was
to dance. And Petter Nord was a great man for that evening. He had to
dance with all the fine ladies, and they were exceedingly kind to him.
He was only a boy, and such a madcap besides. No one could help making
a pet of him.
Petter Nord felt that this was happiness. To be the favorite of the
ladies, to dare to talk to them, to be in the midst of lights, of
movement, to be made much of, to be petted, surely this was happiness.
When the ball was over, he was too happy to think about it. He needed
to come home to be able to think over quietly what had happened to him
that evening.
Halfvorson was not married, but he had in his house a niece who worked
in the office. She was poor and dependent on Halfvorson, but she was
quite haughty towards both him and Petter Nord. She had many friends
among the more important people of the town and was invited to families
where Halfvorson could never come. She and Petter Nord went home from
the ball together.
“Do you know, Nord,” asked Edith Halfvorson, “that a suit is soon to be
brought against Halfvorson for illicit trading in brandy? You might
tell me how it really is.”
“There is nothing worth making a fuss about,” said Petter Nord.
Edith sighed. “Of course there is nothing. But there will be a lawsuit
and fines and shame without end. I wish that I really knew how it is.”
“Perhaps it is best not to know anything,” said Petter Nord.
“I wish to rise in the world, do you see,” continued Edith, “and I wish
to drag Halfvorson up with me, but he always drops back again. And then
he does something so that I become impossible too. He is scheming
something now. Do you not know what it is? It would be good to know.”
“No,” said Petter Nord, and not another word would he say. It was
inhuman to talk to him of such things on the way home from his first
ball.
Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy. There
sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with Petter Nord
of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked. Now he heard what
he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know the seventh
commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes. That was what he
deserved.
God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and get a
new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but now it was
quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing conscience and the
soul’s freedom for their sake! As if they were worth as much as a white
mouse, if the heart could not be glad at the same time! He clapped his
hands and cried out in joy—that he was free, free, free! There was not
even a longing to possess the fifty crowns in his heart. How good it
was to be happy!
When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson the
fifty crowns early the next morning. Then he became uneasy that the
tradesman might come into the shop before him the next morning, search
for the note and find it. He might easily think that Petter Nord had
hidden it to keep it. The thought gave him no peace. He tried to shake
it off, but he could not succeed. He could not sleep. So he rose, crept
into the shop and felt about till he found the fifty crowns. Then he
fell asleep with the note under his pillow.
An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand was
fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and
swearing.
Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his hand
and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to his room.
“You see that I was right,” said Halfvorson. “You see that it was well
worth while for me to drag you up to bear witness against him! You see
that he is a thief!”
“No, no, no,” screamed poor Petter Nord. “I did not wish to steal. I
only hid the note.”
Halfvorson heard nothing. Both the women stood with their backs turned
to the room, as if determined to neither hear nor see.
Petter Nord sat up in bed. He looked all of a sudden pitifully weak and
small. His tears were streaming. He wailed aloud.
“Uncle,” said Edith, “he is weeping.”
“Let him weep,” said Halfvorson, “let him weep!” And he walked forward
and looked at the boy. “You can weep all you like,” he said, “but that
does not take me in.”
“Oh, oh,” cried Petter Nord, “I am no thief. I hid the note as a
joke—to make you angry. I wanted to pay you back for the mice. I am not
a thief. Will no one listen to me. I am not a thief.”
“Uncle,” said Edith, “if you have tortured him enough now, perhaps we
may go back to bed?”
“I know, of course, that it sounds terrible,” said Halfvorson, “but it
cannot be helped.” He was gay, in very high spirits. “I have had my eye
on you for a long time,” he said to the boy. “You have always something
you are tucking away when I come into the shop. But now I have caught
you. Now I leave witnesses, and now I am going for the police.”
The boy gave a piercing scream. “Will no one help me, will no one help
me?” he cried. Halfvorson was gone, and the old woman who managed his
house came up to him.
“Get up and dress yourself, Petter Nord! Halforson has gone for the
police, and while he is away you can escape. The young lady can go out
into the kitchen and get you a little food. I will pack your things.”
The terrible weeping instantly ceased. After a short time of hurry the
boy was ready. He kissed both the women on the hand, humbly, like a
whipped dog. And then off he ran.
They stood in the door and looked after him. When he was gone, they
drew a sigh of relief.
“What will Halfvorson say?” said Edith.
“He will be glad,” answered the housekeeper.
“He put the money there for the boy, I think. I guess that he wanted to
be rid of him.”
“But why? The boy was the best one we have had in the shop for many
years.”
“He probably did not want him to give testimony in the affair with the
brandy.”
Edith stood silent and breathed quickly. “It is so base, so base,” she
murmured. She clenched her fist towards the office and towards the
little pane in the door, through which Halfvorson could see into the
shop. She would have liked, she too, to have fled out into the world,
away from all this meanness. She heard a sound far in, in the shop. She
listened, went nearer, followed the noise, and at last found behind a
keg of herring the cage of Petter Nord’s white mice.
She took it up, put it on the counter, and opened the cage door. Mouse
after mouse scampered out and disappeared behind boxes and barrels.
“May you flourish and increase,” said Edith. “May you do injury and
revenge your master!”