VI

White winter came with sleigh bells and snow and ice-flowers on the windowpane. “They are the dead summer flowers come back again,” said Martin’s mother. Evergreen forests out in the country came from the darkness and solitude into the city streets and squares, and when the Christmas bells rang in the holy day, there stood in Martin’s home a dark and timid fir which smelt of the woods, till evening came and it stood aglitter with candles, white candles and colored candles, and was covered with winter apples and sugarplums with mottoes which were so stupid that even Martin and Maria could see how stupid they were. All the glory of Christmas passed⁠—it was like turning the page of a picture-book⁠—and the star of New Year’s Eve was burning across the white roofs, and people said to each other, “Good night, and thanks for the year!” With a shivering sensation Martin thought of the line of gray winter days that were waiting, to which he could see no ending, for it was interminably long till summer, and still longer till next Christmas.

New Year’s morning he was waked while it was still dark to go to early service. Half asleep he scrambled through the snow by the side of his parents, and as they came around the corner, there stood the church like a giant lantern shining out across the white square where people were crawling in across the snow from all directions. Within the church was the organ’s roar and singing and many shining candles, and Martin felt happy and good and thought this was just the right way to begin the new year; and when the minister began to preach, he went straight to sleep. But when he woke up, the pale hue of dawn was shining in through the windows in the cupola and his mother roused him with, “Now we’ll go home and drink our coffee.”

So then they went home, their hearts full of the most beautiful intentions, for Martin understood without telling that it was this sort of thing the minister had preached about. Later in the morning Martin and Maria were sent around on the New Year’s visits to Uncle Jan and Aunt Louisa and other uncles and aunts, where they were given cakes and wine and sugarplums from the Christmas trees. But at Uncle Abraham’s there was no Christmas tree, for he was a widower and had no children but lived alone with an old housekeeper. Uncle Abraham was a doctor and had often cured Martin and Maria of measles and scarlatina and pains in the chest. He had a black beard and a long crooked nose, for he was a Jew. He had also a parrot that could swear in French, and a black tomcat. The cat was named Kolmodin and he was the cleverest cat in the world, for when he was outside the office door and wanted to get in, he didn’t mew as other cats do, but got up on his hind feet, caught his claws in the bell-cord, and pulled it hard. This year when Martin and Maria came to wish Uncle Abraham a Happy New Year, he was sitting alone with his bottle of wine on the table playing chess with himself.

The room was large and half dark and full of books. Outside the snow was falling in great flakes. Uncle Abraham stuffed their pockets full of goodies, made the parrot swear in French, and was very cordial; but he didn’t say much, and in front of the fire which glowed in the porcelain stove sat the cat Kolmodin staring gloomily at his master. Martin and Maria stood silent and looked at each other with a feeling of oppression. For they had more than once heard their parents say that Uncle Abraham was not a happy man and that he never was really cheerful.