_Monday, April eleventh_.
On the afternoon of Easter Monday, the wild geese and Thumbietot were on
the wing. They travelled over Gottland.
The large island lay smooth and even beneath them. The ground was
checked just as it was in Skåne and there were many churches and farms.
But there was this difference, however, that there were more leafy
meadows between the fields here, and then the farms were not built up
with small houses. And there were no large manors with ancient
tower-ornamented castles.
The wild geese had taken the route over Gottland on account of
Thumbietot. He had been altogether unlike himself for two days, and
hadn't spoken a cheerful word. This was because he had thought of
nothing but that city which had appeared to him in such a strange way.
He had never seen anything so magnificent and royal, and he could not be
reconciled with himself for having failed to save it. Usually he was not
chicken-hearted, but now he actually grieved for the beautiful buildings
and the stately people.
Both Akka and the goosey-gander tried to convince Thumbietot that he had
been the victim of a dream, or an hallucination, but the boy wouldn't
listen to anything of that sort. He was so positive that he had really
seen what he had seen, that no one could move him from this conviction.
He went about so disconsolate that his travelling companions became
uneasy for him.
Just as the boy was the most depressed, old Kaksi came back to the
flock. She had been blown toward Gottland, and had been compelled to
travel over the whole island before she had learned through some crows
that her comrades were on Little Karl's Island. When Kaksi found out
what was wrong with Thumbietot, she said impulsively:
"If Thumbietot is grieving over an old city, we'll soon be able to
comfort him. Just come along, and I'll take you to a place that I saw
yesterday! You will not need to be distressed very long."
Thereupon the geese had taken farewell of the sheep, and were on their
way to the place which Kaksi wished to show Thumbietot. As blue as he
was, he couldn't keep from looking at the land over which he travelled,
as usual.
He thought it looked as though the whole island had in the beginning
been just such a high, steep cliff as Karl's Island--though much bigger
of course. But afterward, it had in some way been flattened out. Someone
had taken a big rolling-pin and rolled over it, as if it had been a lump
of dough. Not that the island had become altogether flat and even, like
a bread-cake, for it wasn't like that. While they had travelled along
the coast, he had seen white lime walls with grottoes and crags, in
several directions; but in most of the places they were levelled, and
sank inconspicuously down toward the sea.
In Gottland they had a pleasant and peaceful holiday afternoon. It
turned out to be mild spring weather; the trees had large buds; spring
blossoms dressed the ground in the leafy meadows; the poplars' long,
thin pendants swayed; and in the little gardens, which one finds around
every cottage, the gooseberry bushes were green.
The warmth and the spring-budding had tempted the people out into the
gardens and roads, and wherever a number of them were gathered together
they were playing. It was not the children alone who played, but the
grown-ups also. They were throwing stones at a given point, and they
threw balls in the air with such exact aim that they almost touched the
wild geese. It looked cheerful and pleasant to see big folks at play;
and the boy certainly would have enjoyed it, if he had been able to
forget his grief because he had failed to save the city.
Anyway, he had to admit that this was a lovely trip. There was so much
singing and sound in the air. Little children played ring games, and
sang as they played. The Salvation Army was out. He saw a lot of people
dressed in black and red--sitting upon a wooded hill, playing on guitars
and brass instruments. On one road came a great crowd of people. They
were Good Templars who had been on a pleasure trip. He recognized them
by the big banners with the gold inscriptions which waved above them.
They sang song after song as long as he could hear them.
After that the boy could never think of Gottland without thinking of the
games and songs at the same time.
He had been sitting and looking down for a long while; but now he
happened to raise his eyes. No one can describe his amazement. Before he
was aware of it, the wild geese had left the interior of the island and
gone westward--toward the sea-coast. Now the wide, blue sea lay before
him. However, it was not the sea that was remarkable, but a city which
appeared on the sea-shore.
The boy came from the east, and the sun had just begun to go down in the
west. When he came nearer the city, its walls and towers and high,
gabled houses and churches stood there, perfectly black, against the
light evening sky. He couldn't see therefore what it really looked like,
and for a couple of moments he believed that this city was just as
beautiful as the one he had seen on Easter night.
When he got right up to it, he saw that it was both like and unlike that
city from the bottom of the sea. There was the same contrast between
them, as there is between a man whom one sees arrayed in purple and
jewels one day, and on another day one sees him dressed in rags.
Yes, this city had probably, once upon a time, been like the one which
he sat and thought about. This one, also, was enclosed by a wall with
towers and gates. But the towers in this city, which had been allowed to
remain on land, were roofless, hollow and empty. The gates were without
doors; sentinels and warriors had disappeared. All the glittering
splendour was gone. There was nothing left but the naked, gray stone
skeleton.
When the boy came farther into the city, he saw that the larger part of
it was made up of small, low houses; but here and there were still a few
high gabled houses and a few cathedrals, which were from the olden time.
The walls of the gabled houses were whitewashed, and entirely without
ornamentation; but because the boy had so lately seen the buried city,
he seemed to understand how they had been decorated: some with statues,
and others with black and white marble. And it was the same with the old
cathedrals; the majority of them were roofless with bare interiors. The
window openings were empty, the floors were grass-grown, and ivy
clambered along the walls. But now he knew how they had looked at one
time; that they had been covered with images and paintings; that the
chancel had had trimmed altars and gilded crosses, and that their
priests had moved about, arrayed in gold vestments.
The boy saw also the narrow streets, which were almost deserted on
holiday afternoons. He knew, he did, what a stream of stately people had
once upon a time sauntered about on them. He knew that they had been
like large workshops--filled with all sorts of workmen.
But that which Nils Holgersson did not see was, that the city--even
to-day--was both beautiful and remarkable. He saw neither the cheery
cottages on the side streets, with their black walls, and white bows and
red pelargoniums behind the shining window-panes, nor the many pretty
gardens and avenues, nor the beauty in the weed-clad ruins. His eyes
were so filled with the preceding glory, that he could not see anything
good in the present.
The wild geese flew back and forth over the city a couple of times, so
that Thumbietot might see everything. Finally they sank down on the
grass-grown floor of a cathedral ruin to spend the night.
When they had arranged themselves for sleep, Thumbietot was still awake
and looked up through the open arches, to the pale pink evening sky.
When he had been sitting there a while, he thought he didn't want to
grieve any more because he couldn't save the buried city.
No, that he didn't want to do, now that he had seen this one. If that
city, which he had seen, had not sunk into the sea again, then it would
perhaps become as dilapidated as this one in a little while. Perhaps it
could not have withstood time and decay, but would have stood there with
roofless churches and bare houses and desolate, empty streets--just like
this one. Then it was better that it should remain in all its glory down
in the deep.
"It was best that it happened as it happened," thought he. "If I had the
power to save the city, I don't believe that I should care to do it."
Then he no longer grieved over that matter.
And there are probably many among the young who think in the same way.
But when people are old, and have become accustomed to being satisfied
with little, then they are more happy over the Visby that exists, than
over a magnificent Vineta at the bottom of the sea.