I shall almost be compelled to leave reality, and turn to the world of
saga and extravagance to be able to relate what now happened. If young
Petter Nord had been Per, the Swineherd, with a gold crown under his
hat, it would all have seemed simple and natural. But no one, of
course, will believe me if I say that Petter Nord also wore a royal
crown on his tow hair. No one can ever know how many wonderful things
happen in that little town. No one can guess how many enchanted
princesses are waiting there for the shepherd boy of adventure.
At first it looked as if there were to be no more adventures. For when
Petter Nord had been set free by the old Mayor, and for the second time
had to flee in shame and disgrace from the town, the same thoughts came
over him as when he fled the first time. The polska tunes rang again
suddenly in his ears, and loudest among them all sounded the old
ring-dance.
Christmas time has come,
Christmas time has come,
And after Christmas time comes Easter.
That is not true at all,
That is not true at all,
For Lent comes after Christmas feasting.
And he saw distinctly the pallid Spirit of Fasting stealing about over
the earth with her bundle of twigs on her arm. And she called to him:
“Spendthrift, spendthrift! You have wished to celebrate the festival of
revenge and reparation during the time of fasting, that is called life.
Can you afford such extravagances, foolish one?”
Thereupon he had again sworn obedience and become the quiet and thrifty
workman. He again stood peaceful and sensible at his work. No one could
believe that it was he who had roared with rage and flung about the
people in the street, as an elk at bay shakes off the dogs.
A few weeks later Halfvorson came to him at the machine-shop. He looked
him up, at his niece’s desire. She wished, if possible, to speak to him
that same day.
Petter Nord began to shake and tremble when he saw Halfvorson. It was
as if he had seen a slippery snake. He did not know which he wished
most—to strike him or to run away from him; but he soon perceived that
Halfvorson looked much troubled.
The tradesman looked as one does after having been out in a strong
wind. The muscles of his face were drawn; his mouth was compressed; his
eyes red and full of tears. He struggled visibly with some sorrow. The
only thing in him that was the same was his voice. It was as inhumanly
expressionless as ever.
“You need not be afraid of the old story nor of the new one either,”
said Halfvorson. “It is known that you were with those men who made all
the trouble with us the other day. And as we supposed that they came
from here, I could learn where you were. Edith is going to die soon,”
he continued, and his whole face twitched as if it would fall to
pieces. “She wishes to speak to you before she dies. But we wish you no
harm.”
“Of course I shall come,” said Petter Nord.
Soon they were both on board the steamer. Petter Nord was decked out in
his fine Sunday clothes. Under his hat played and smiled all the dreams
of his boyhood in a veritable kingly crown; they encircled his light
hair. Edith’s message made him quite dizzy. Had he not always thought
that fine ladies would love him? And now here was one who wished to see
him before she died. Most wonderful of all things wonderful!—He sat and
thought of her as she had been formerly. How proud, how alive! And now
she was going to die. He was in such sorrow for her sake. But that she
had been thinking of him all these years! A warm, sweet melancholy came
over him.
He was really there again, the old, mad Petter Nord. As soon as he
approached the village the Spirit of Fasting went away from him with
disgust and contempt.
Halfvorson could not keep still for a moment. The heavy gale, which he
alone perceived, swept him forward and back on the deck. As he passed
Petter, he murmured a few words, so that the latter could know by what
paths his despairing thoughts wandered.
“They found her on the ground, half dead—blood everywhere about her,”
he said once. And another time: “Was she not good? Was she not
beautiful? How could such things come to her?” And again: “She has made
me good too. Could not see her sitting in sorrow all day long and
ruining the account-book with her tears.” Then this came: “A clever
child, besides. Won her way with me. Made my home pleasant. Got me
acquaintances among fine people. Understood what she was after, but
could not resist her.” He wandered away to the bow of the boat. When he
came back he said: “I cannot bear to have her die.”
He said it all with that helpless voice, which he could not subdue or
control. Petter Nord had a proud feeling that such a man as he who wore
a royal crown on his brow had no right to be angry with Halfvorson. The
latter was separated from men by his infirmity, and could not win their
love. Therefore he had to treat them all as enemies. He was not to be
measured by the same standard as other people.
Petter Nord sank again into his dreams. _She_ had remembered him all
these years, and now she could not die before she had seen him. Oh,
fancy that a young girl for all these years had been thinking of him,
loving him, missing him!
As soon as they landed and reached the tradesman’s house, he was taken
to Edith, who was waiting for him in the arbor.
The happy Petter Nord woke from his dreams when he saw her. She was a
fair vision, this girl, withering away in emulation with the rootless
birches around her. Her big eyes had darkened and grown clearer. Her
hands were so thin and transparent that one feared to touch them for
their fragility.
And it was she who loved him. Of course he had to love her instantly in
return, deeply, dearly, ardently! It was bliss, after so many years, to
feel his heart glow at the sight of a fellow-being.
He had stopped motionless at the entrance of the arbor, while eyes,
heart and brain worked most eagerly. When she saw how he stood and
stared at her, she began to smile with that most despairing smile in
the world, the smile of the very ill, that says: “See, this is what I
have become, but do not count on me! I cannot be beautiful and charming
any longer. I must die soon.”
It brought him back to reality. He saw that he had to do not with a
vision, but with a spirit which was about to spread its wings, and
therefore had made the walls of its prison so delicate and transparent.
It now showed so plainly in his face and in the way he took Edith’s
hand, that he all at once suffered with her suffering,— that he had
forgotten everything but grief, that she was going to die. The sick
girl felt the same pity for herself, and her eyes filled with tears.
Oh, what sympathy he felt for her from the first moment. He understood
instantly that she would not wish to show her emotion. Of course it was
agitating for her to see him, whom she had longed for so long, but it
was her weakness that had made her betray herself. She naturally would
not like him to pay any attention to it. And so he began on an innocent
subject of conversation.
“Do you know what happened to my white mice?” he said.
She looked at him with admiration. He seemed to wish to make the way
easier for her. “I let them loose in the shop,” she said. “They have
thriven well.”
“No, really! Are there any of them left?”
“Halfvorson says that he will never be rid of Petter Nord’s mice. They
have revenged you, you understand,” she said with meaning.
“It was a very good race,” answered Petter Nord, proudly.
The conversation lagged for a while. Edith closed her eyes, as if to
rest, and he kept a respectful silence. His last answer she had not
understood. He had not responded to what she had said about revenge.
When he began to talk of the mice, she believed that he understood what
she wished to say to him. She knew that he had come to the town a few
weeks before to be revenged. Poor Petter Nord! Many a time she had
wondered what had become of him. Many a night had the cries of the
frightened boy come to her in dreams. It was partly for his sake that
she should never again have to live through such a night, that she had
begun to reform her uncle, had made his house a home for him, had let
the lonely man feel the value of having a sympathetic friend near him.
Her lot was now again bound together with that of Petter Nord. His
attempt at revenge had frightened her to death. As soon as she had
regained her strength after that severe attack, she had begged
Halfvorson to look him up.
And Petter Nord sat there and believed that it was for love she had
called him. He could not know that she believed him vindictive, coarse,
degraded, a drunkard and a bully. He who was an example to all his
comrades in the working quarter, he could not guess that she had
summoned him, in order to preach virtue and good habits to him, in
order to say to him, if nothing else helped: “Look at me, Petter Nord!
It is your want of judgment, your vindictiveness, that is the cause of
my death. Think of it, and begin another life!”
He had come filled with love of life and dreams to celebrate love’s
festival, and she lay there and thought of plunging him into the black
depths of remorse.
There must have been something of the glory of the kingly crown shining
on her, which made her hesitate so that she decided to question him
first.
“But, Petter Nord, was it really you who were here with those three
terrible men?”
He flushed and looked on the ground. Then he had to tell her the whole
story of the day with all its shame. In the first place, what
unmanliness he had shown in not sooner demanding justice, and how he
had only gone because he was forced to it, and then how he had been
beaten and whipped instead of beating some one himself. He did not dare
to look up while he was speaking; he did expect that even those gentle
eyes would judge him with forbearance. He felt that he was robbing
himself of all the glory with which she must have surrounded him in her
dreams.
“But Petter Nord, what would have happened if you had met Halfvorson?”
asked Edith, when he had finished.
He hung his head even lower. “I saw him well enough,” he said. “He had
not gone away. He was working in his garden outside the gates. The boy
in the shop told me everything.”
“Well, why did you not avenge yourself?” said Edith.
He was spared nothing.—But he felt the inquiring glance of her eyes on
him and he began obediently: “When the men lay down to sleep on a
slope, I went alone to find Halfvorson, for I wished to have him to
myself. He was working there, staking his peas. It must have rained in
torrents the day before, for the peas had been broken down to the
ground; some of the leaves were whipped to ribbons, others covered with
earth. It was like a hospital, and Halfvorson was the doctor. He raised
them up so gently, brushed away the earth and helped the poor little
things to cling to the twigs. I stood and looked on. He did not hear
me, and he had no time to look up. I tried to retain my anger by force.
But what could I do? I could not fly at him while he was busy with the
peas. My time will come afterwards, I thought.
“But then he started up, struck himself on the forehead and rushed away
to the hotbed. He lifted the glass and looked in, and I looked too, for
he seemed to be in the depths of despair. Yes, it was dreadful, of
course. He had forgotten to shade it from the sun, and it must have
been terribly hot under the glass. The cucumbers lay there half-dead
and gasped for breath; some of the leaves were burnt, and others were
drooping. I was so overcome, I too, that I never thought what I was
doing, and Halfvorson caught sight of my shadow. ‘Look here, take the
watering-pot that is standing in the asparagus bed and run down to the
river for water,’ he said, without looking up. I suppose he thought it
was the gardener’s boy. And I ran.”
“Did you, Petter Nord?”
“Yes; you see, the cucumbers ought not to suffer on account of our
enmity. I thought myself that it showed lack of character and so on,
but I could not help it. I wanted to see if they would come to life.
When I came back, he had lifted the glass off and still stood and
stared despairingly. I thrust the watering-pot into his hand, and he
began to pour over them. Yes, it was almost visible what good it did in
the hotbed. I thought almost that they raised themselves, and he must
have thought so too, for he began to laugh. Then I ran away.”
“You ran away, Petter Nord, you ran away?”
Edith had raised herself in the arm-chair.
“I could not strike him,” said Petter Nord.
Edith felt an ever stronger impression of the glory round poor Petter
Nord’s head. So it was not necessary to plunge him into the depths of
remorse with the heavy burden of sin around his neck. Was he such a
man? Such a tender-hearted, sensitive man! She sank back, closed her
eyes and thought. She did not need to say it to him. She was astonished
that she felt such a relief not to have to cause him pain.
“I am so glad that you have given up your plans for revenge, Petter
Nord,” she began in friendly tones. “It was about that that I wished to
talk to you. Now I can die in peace.”
He drew along breath. She was not unfriendly.
She did not look as if she had been mistaken in him. She must love him
very much when she could excuse such cowardice.—For when she said that
she had sent for him to ask him to give up his thoughts of revenge, it
must have been from bashfulness not to have to acknowledge the real
reason of the summons. She was so right in it. He who was the man ought
to say the first word.
“How can they let you die?” he burst out. “Halfvorson and all the
others, how can they? If I were here, I would refuse to let you die. I
would give you all my strength. I would take all your suffering.”
“I have no pain,” she said, smiling at such bold promises.
“I am thinking that I would like to carry you away like a frozen bird,
lay you under my vest like a young squirrel. Fancy what it would be to
work if something so warm and soft was waiting for one at home! But if
you were well, there would be so many—”
She looked at him with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in his
proper place. But she must have seen again something of the magic crown
about the boy’s head, for she had patience with him. He meant nothing.
He had to talk as he did. He was not like others.
“Ah,” she said, indifferently, “there are not so many, Petter Nord.
There has hardly been any one in earnest.”
But now there came another turn to his advantage. In her suddenly awoke
the eager hunger of a sick person for compassion. She longed for the
tenderness, the pity that the poor workman could give her. She felt the
need of being near that deep, disinterested sympathy. The sick cannot
have enough of it. She wished to read it in his glance and his whole
being. Words meant nothing to her.
“I like to see you here,” she said. “Sit here for a while, and tell me
what you have been doing these six years!”
While he talked, she lay and drew in the indescribable something which
passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But by some
strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened and vivified.
Nevertheless she did get one impression from his story. It took her
into the workman’s quarter, into a new world, full of tumultuous hopes
and strength. How they longed and trusted! How they hated and suffered!
“How happy the oppressed are,” she said.
It occurred to her, with a longing for life, that there might be
something for her there, she who always needed oppression and
compulsion to make life worth living.
“If I were well,” she said, “perhaps I would have gone there with you.
I should enjoy working my way up with some one I liked.”
Petter Nord started. Here was the confession that he had been waiting
for the whole time. “Oh, can you not live!” he prayed. And he beamed
with happiness.
She became observant. “That is love,” she said to herself. “And now he
believes that I am also in love. What madness, that Värmland boy!”
She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in
Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her. She had not the
heart to spoil his happy mood. She felt compassion for his foolishness
and let him live in it. “It does not matter, as I am to die so soon,”
she said to herself.
But she sent him away soon after, and when he asked if he might not
come again, she forbade him absolutely. “But,” she said, “do you
remember our graveyard up on the hill, Petter Nord. You can come there
in a few weeks and thank death for that day.”
As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson. He was
walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the
thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer.
To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he
sought him out. But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith
had not told him everything. He was serious, but at the same time he
certainly was madly happy.
“Has Edith told you why she is dying?” said Halfvorson.
“No,” answered Petter Nord.
Halfvorson laid his hand on his shoulder as if to keep him from
escaping.
“She is dying because of you, because of your damned pranks. She was
slightly ill before, but it was nothing. No one thought that she would
die; but then you came with those three wretched tramps, and they
frightened her while you were in my shop. They chased her, and she ran
away from them, ran till she got a hemorrhage. But that is what you
wanted; you wished to be revenged on me by killing her, wished to leave
me lonely and unhappy without a soul near me who cares for me. All my
joy you wished to take from me, all my joy.”
He would have gone on forever, overwhelmed Petter Nord with reproaches,
killed him with curses; but the latter tore himself away and ran, as if
an earthquake had shaken the town and all the houses were tumbling
down.