The spring that Hellqvist’s great picture “Valdemar Atterdag levies a
Contribution on Visby” was exhibited at the Art League, I went in there
one quiet morning not knowing that that work of art was there. The big,
richly colored canvas with its many figures made at the first glance an
extraordinary impression. I could not look at any other picture, but
went straight to that one, took a chair and sank into silent
contemplation. For half an hour I lived in the Middle Ages.
Soon I was within the scene that was passing in the Visby market-place.
I saw the beer vats which began to be filled with the golden brew that
King Valdemar had ordered, and the groups which gathered around them. I
saw the rich merchant with his page bending under his gold and silver
dishes; the young burgher who shakes his fist at the king; the monk
with the sharp face who closely watches His Majesty; the ragged beggar
who offers his copper; the woman who has sunk down beside one of the
vats; the king on his throne; the soldiers who come swarming out of the
narrow streets; the high gables, and the scattered groups of insolent
guards and refractory people.
But suddenly I noticed that the chief figure of the picture is not the
king, nor any of the burghers, but one of the king’s steel-clad
shield-bearers, the one with the closed vizor.
Into that figure the artist has put a strange force. There is not a
hair of him to be seen; he is steel and iron, the whole man, and yet he
gives the impression of being the rightful master of the situation.
“I am Violence; I am Rapacity,” he says. “It is I who am levying
contribution on Visby. I am not a human being; I am merely steel and
iron. My pleasure is in suffering and evil. Let them go on and torture
one another. To-day it is I who am lord of Visby.”
“Look,” he says to the beholder, “can you see that it is I who am
master? As far as your eye can reach, there is nothing here but people
who are torturing one another. Groaning the conquered come and leave
their gold. They hate and threaten, but they obey. And the desires of
the victors grow wilder the more gold they can extort. What are
Denmark’s king and his soldiers but my servants, at least for this one
day? To-morrow they will go to church, or sit in peaceful mirth in
their inns, or also perhaps be good fathers in their own homes, but
to-day they serve me; to-day they are evil-doers and ravishers.”
The longer one listens to him, the better one understands what the
picture is; nothing but an illustration of the old story of how people
can torture one another. There is not one redeeming feature, only cruel
violence and defiant hate and hopeless suffering.
Those three beer vats were to be filled that Visby should not be
plundered and burned. Why do they not come, those Hanseaters, with
glowing enthusiasm? Why do the women not hasten with their jewels; the
revellers with their cups, the priest with his relics, eager, burning
with enthusiasm for the sacrifice? “For thee, for thee, our beloved
town! It is needless to send soldiers for us when it concerns thee! Oh,
Visby, our mother, our honor! Take back what thou hast given us!”
But the painter has not wished to see them so, and it was not so
either. No enthusiasm, only constraint, only suppressed defiance, only
bewailings. Gold is everything to them, women and men sigh over that
gold which they have to give.
“Look at them!” says the power that stands on the steps of the throne.
“It goes to their very hearts to offer it. May he who will feel
sympathy for them! They are mean, avaricious, arrogant. They are no
better than the covetous brigand whom I have sent against them.”
A woman has sunk down on the ground by the vats. Does it cost her so
much pain to give her gold? Or is she perhaps the guilty one? Is she
the cause of the laments? Is it she who has betrayed the town? Yes, it
is she who has been King Valdemar’s mistress. It is Ung-Hanse’s
daughter.
She knows well that she need give no gold. Her father’s house will not
be plundered, but she has collected what she possesses and brings it.
In the market-place she has been overcome by all the misery she has
seen and has sunk down in infinite despair.
He had been active and merry, the young goldsmith’s apprentice who
served the year before in her father’s house. It had been glorious to
stroll at his side through this same market-place, when the moon rose
from behind the gables and illumined the beauties of Visby. She had
been proud of him, proud of her father, proud of her town. And now she
is lying there, broken with grief. Innocent and yet guilty! He who is
sitting cold and cruel on the throne and who has brought all this
devastation on the town, is he the same as the one who whispered sweet
words to her? Was it to meet him that she crept, when the night before
she stole her father’s keys and opened the town-gate? And when she
found her goldsmith’s apprentice a knight with sword in hand and a
steel clad host behind him, what did she think? Did she go mad at the
sight of that stream of steel surging in through the gate which she had
opened? Too late to bemoan, maiden! Why did you love the enemy of your
town? Visby is fallen, its glory shall pass away. Why did you not throw
yourself down before the gate and let the steel-shod heels trample you
to death? Did you wish to live in order to see heaven’s thunder-bolts
strike the transgressor?
Oh maiden, at his side stands Violence and protects him. He has
violated holier things than a trusting maiden. He does not even spare
God’s own temple. He breaks away the shining carbuncles from the church
walls to fill the last vat.
The bearing of all the figures in the picture changes. Blind terror
fills everything living. The wildest soldier grows pale; the burghers
turn their eyes towards heaven; all await God’s punishment; all tremble
except Violence on the steps of the throne and the king who is his
servant.
I wish that the artist had lived long enough to take me down to the
harbor of Visby and let me see those same burghers, when they followed
the departing fleet with their eyes. They cry curses out over the
waves. “Destroy them!” they cry. “Destroy them! Oh sea, our friend,
take back our treasures! Open thy choking depths under the ungodly,
under the faithless!”
And the sea murmurs a faint assent, and Violence, who stands on the
royal ship, nods approvingly. “That is right,” he says. “To persecute
and to be persecuted, that is my law. May storm and sea destroy the
pirate fleet and take to itself the treasures of my royal servant! So
much the sooner it will be our lot to set out on new devastating
expeditions.”
The burghers on the shore turn and look up at their town. Fire has
raged there; plunder has passed through it; behind broken panes gape
pillaged dwellings. They see emptied streets, desecrated churches;
bloody corpses are lying in the narrow courts, and women crazed by
fright flee through the town. Shall they stand impotent before such
things? Is there no one whom their vengeance can reach, no one whom
they in their turn can torture and destroy?
God in Heaven, see! The goldsmith’s house is not plundered nor burned.
What does it mean? Was he in league with the enemy? Had he not the key
to one of the town gates in his keeping? Oh, you daughter of Ung-Hanse,
answer, what does it mean?
Far away on the royal ship Violence stands and watches his royal
servant, smiling behind his vizor. “Listen to the storm, Sire, listen
to the storm! The gold that you have ravished will soon lie on the
bottom of the sea, inaccessible to you. And look back at Visby, my
noble lord! The woman whom you deceived is being led between the clergy
and the soldiers to the town-wall. Can you hear the crowd following
her, cursing, insulting? Look, the masons come with mortar and trowel!
Look, the women come with stones! They are all bringing stones, all,
all!
Oh king, if you cannot see what is passing in Visby, may you yet hear
and know what is happening there. You are not of steel and iron, like
Violence at your side. When the gloomy days of old age come, and you
live under the shadow of death, the image of Ung-Hanse’s daughter will
rise in your memory.
You shall see her pale as death sink under the contempt and scorn of
her people. You shall see her dragged along between the priests and the
soldiers to the ringing of bells and the singing of hymns. She is
already dead in the eyes of the people. She feels herself dead in her
heart, killed by what she has loved. You shall see her mount in the
tower, see how the stones are inserted, hear the scraping of the
trowels and hear the people who hurry forward with their stones. “Oh
mason, take mine, take mine! Use my stone for the work of vengeance!
Let my stone help to shut Ung-Hanse’s daughter in from light and air!
Visby is fallen, the glorious Visby! God bless your hands, oh masons!
Let me help to complete the vengeance!”
Hymns sound and bells ring as for a burial.
Oh Valdemar, King of Denmark, it will be your fate to meet death also.
Then you will lie on your bed, hear and see much and suffer great
pains. You shall hear that scraping of the trowels, those cries for
vengeance. Where are the consecrated bells that drown the martyrdom of
the soul? Where are they, with their wide, bronze throats, whose
tongues cry out to God for grace for you? Where is that air trembling
with harmony, which bears the soul up to God’s space?
Oh help Esrom, help Soró, and you big bells of Lund!
What a gloomy story that picture told! It seemed curious and strange to
come out into the park, in glowing sunshine, among living human beings.