Short Fiction

The Spirit of Fasting and Petter Nord

The Legend of the Bird’s Nest

Hatto the hermit stood in the wilderness and prayed to God. A storm was raging, and his long beard and matted hair waved about him like weather-beaten tufts of grass on the summit of an old ruin. But he did not push his hair out of his eyes, nor did he tuck his beard into his belt, for his arms were uplifted in prayer. Ever since sunrise he had raised his gnarled, hairy arms towards heaven, as untiringly as a tree stretches up its branches, and he meant to remain standing so till night. He had a great boon to pray for.

He was a man who had suffered much of the world’s anger. He had himself persecuted and tortured, and persecutions and torture from others had fallen to his share, more than his heart could bear. So he went out on the great heath, dug himself a hole in the river bank and became a holy man, whose prayers were heard at God’s throne.

Hatto the hermit stood there on the river bank by his hole and prayed the great prayer of his life. He prayed God that He should appoint the day of doom for this wicked world. He called on the trumpet-blowing angels, who were to proclaim the end of the reign of sin. He cried out to the waves of the sea of blood, which were to drown the unrighteous. He called on the pestilence, which should fill the churchyards with heaps of dead.

Round about stretched a desert plain. But a little higher up on the river bank stood an old willow with a short trunk, which swelled out at the top in a great knob like a head, from which new, light-green shoots grew out. Every autumn it was robbed of these strong, young branches by the inhabitants of that fuel-less heath. Every spring the tree put forth new, soft shoots, and in stormy weather these waved and fluttered about it, just as hair and beard fluttered about Hatto the hermit.

A pair of wagtails, which used to make their nest in the top of the willow’s trunk among the sprouting branches, had intended to begin their building that very day. But among the whipping shoots the birds found no quiet. They came flying with straws and root fibres and dried sedges, but they had to turn back with their errand unaccomplished. Just then they noticed old Hatto, who called upon God to make the storm seven times more violent, so that the nests of the little birds might be swept away and the eagle’s eyrie destroyed.

Of course no one now living can conceive how mossy and dried-up and gnarled and black and unlike a human being such an old plain-dweller could be. The skin was so drawn over brow and cheeks, that he looked almost like a death’s-head, and one saw only by a faint gleam in the hollows of the eye sockets that he was alive. And the dried-up muscles of the body gave it no roundness, and the upstretched, naked arms consisted only of shapeless bones, covered with shrivelled, hardened, bark-like skin. He wore an old, close-fitting, black robe. He was tanned by the sun and black with dirt. His hair and beard alone were light, bleached by the rain and sun, until they had become the same green-gray color as the under side of the willow leaves.

The birds, flying about, looking for a place to build, took Hatto the hermit for another old willow-tree, checked in its struggle towards the sky by axe and saw like the first one. They circled about him many times, flew away and came again, took their landmarks, considered his position in regard to birds of prey and winds, found him rather unsatisfactory, but nevertheless decided in his favor, because he stood so near to the river and to the tufts of sedge, their larder and storehouse. One of them shot swift as an arrow down into his upstretched hand and laid his root fibre there.

There was a lull in the storm, so that the root-fibre was not torn instantly away from the hand; but in the hermit’s prayers there was no pause: “May the Lord come soon to destroy this world of corruption, so that man may not have time to heap more sin upon himself! May he save the unborn from life! For the living there is no salvation.”

Then the storm began again, and the little root-fibre fluttered away out of the hermit’s big gnarled hand. But the birds came again and tried to wedge the foundation of the new home in between the fingers. Suddenly a shapeless and dirty thumb laid itself on the straws and held them fast, and four fingers arched themselves so that there was a quiet niche to build in. The hermit continued his prayers.

“Oh Lord, where are the clouds of fire which laid Sodom waste? When wilt Thou let loose the floods which lifted the ark to Ararat’s top? Are not the cups of Thy patience emptied and the vials of Thy grace exhausted? Oh Lord, when wilt Thou rend the heavens and come?”

And feverish visions of the Day of Doom appeared to Hatto the hermit. The ground trembled, the heavens glowed. Across the flaming sky he saw black clouds of flying birds, a horde of panic-stricken beasts rushed, roaring and bellowing, past him. But while his soul was occupied with these fiery visions, his eyes began to follow the flight of the little birds, as they flashed to and fro and with a cheery peep of satisfaction wove a new straw into the nest.

The old man had no thought of moving. He had made a vow to pray without moving with uplifted hands all day in order to force the Lord to grant his request. The more exhausted his body became, the more vivid visions filled his brain. He heard the walls of cities fall and the houses crack. Shrieking, terrified crowds rushed by him, pursued by the angels of vengeance and destruction, mighty forms with stern, beautiful faces, wearing silver coats of mail, riding black horses and swinging scourges, woven of white lightning.

The little wagtails built and shaped busily all day, and the work progressed rapidly. On the tufted heath with its stiff sedges and by the river with its reeds and rushes, there was no lack of building material. They had no time for noon siesta nor for evening rest. Glowing with eagerness and delight, they flew to and fro, and before night came they had almost reached the roof.

But before night came, the hermit had begun to watch them more and more. He followed them on their journeys; he scolded them when they built foolishly; he was furious when the wind disturbed their work; and least of all could he endure that they should take any rest.

Then the sun set, and the birds went to their old sleeping place in among the rushes.

Let him who crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings skim over the ground, invisible to anyone standing upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water-rats flee before preying beasts, and a fox bounds after a bat, which is chasing mosquitos by the river. It seems as if every tuft has come to life. But through it all the little birds sleep on the waving rushes, secure from all harm in that resting-place which no enemy can approach, without the water splashing or the reeds shaking and waking them.

When the morning came, the wagtails believed at first that the events of the day before had been a beautiful dream.

They had taken their landmarks and flew straight to their nest, but it was gone. They flew searching over the heath and rose up into the air to spy about. There was not a trace of nest or tree. At last they lighted on a couple of stones by the river bank and considered. They wagged their long tails and cocked their heads on one side. Where had the tree and nest gone?

But hardly had the sun risen a handsbreadth over the belt of trees on the other bank, before their tree came walking and placed itself on the same spot where it had been the day before. It was just as black and gnarled as ever and bore their nest on the top of something, which must be a dry, upright branch.

Then the wagtails began to build again, without troubling themselves any more about nature’s many wonders.

Hatto the hermit, who drove the little children away from his hole telling them that it had been best for them if they had never been born, he who rushed out into the mud to hurl curses after the joyous young people who rowed up the stream in pleasure-boats, he from whose angry eyes the shepherds on the heath guarded their flocks, did not return to his place by the river for the sake of the little birds. He knew that not only has every letter in the holy books its hidden, mysterious meaning, but so also has everything which God allows to take place in nature. He had thought out the meaning of the wagtails building in his hand. God wished him to remain standing with uplifted arms until the birds had raised their brood; and if he should have the power to do that, he would be heard.

But during that day he did not see so many visions of the Day of Doom. Instead, he watched the birds more and more eagerly. He saw the nest soon finished. The little builders fluttered about it and inspected it. They went after a few bits of lichen from the real willow-tree and fastened them on the outside, to fill the place of plaster and paint. They brought the finest cotton-grass, and the female wagtail took feathers from her own breast and lined the nest.

The peasants, who feared the baleful power that the hermit’s prayers might have at the throne of God, used to bring him bread and milk to mitigate his wrath. They came now too and found him standing motionless, with the bird’s nest in his hand. “See how the holy man loves the little creatures,” they said, and were no longer afraid of him, but lifted the bowl of milk to his mouth and put the bread between his lips. When he had eaten and drunk, he drove away the people with angry words, but they only smiled at his curses.

His body had long since become the slave of his will. By hunger and blows, by praying all day, by waking a week at a time, he had taught it obedience. Now the steel-like muscles held his arms uplifted for days and weeks, and when the female wagtail began to sit on her eggs and never left the nest, he did not return to his hole even at night. He learned to sleep sitting, with upstretched arms. Among the dwellers in the wilderness there are many who have done greater things.

He grew accustomed to the two little, motionless bird-eyes which stared down at him over the edge of the nest. He watched for hail and rain, and sheltered the nest as well as he could.

At last one day the female is freed from her duties. Both the birds sit on the edge of the nest, wag their tails and consult and look delighted, although the whole nest seems to be full of an anxious peeping. After a while they set out on the wildest hunt for midges.

Midge after midge is caught and brought to whatever it is that is peeping up there in his hand. And when the food comes, the peeping is at its very loudest. The holy man is disturbed in his prayers by that peeping.

And gently, gently he bends his arm, which has almost lost the power of moving, and his little fiery eyes stare down into the nest.

Never had he seen anything so helplessly ugly and miserable: small, naked bodies, with a little thin down, no eyes, no power of flight, nothing really but six big, gaping mouths.

It seemed very strange to him, but he liked them just as they were. Their father and mother he had never spared in the general destruction, but when hereafter he called to God to ask of Him the salvation of the world through its annihilation, he made a silent exception of those six helpless ones.

When the peasant women now brought him food, he no longer thanked them by wishing their destruction. Since he was necessary to the little creatures up there, he was glad that they did not let him starve to death.

Soon six round heads were to be seen the whole day long stretching over the edge of the nest. Old Hatto’s arm sank more and more often to the level of his eyes. He saw the feathers push out through the red skin, the eyes open, the bodies round out. Happy inheritors of the beauty nature has given to flying creatures, they developed quickly in their loveliness.

And during all this time prayers for the great destruction rose more and more hesitatingly to old Hatto’s lips. He thought that he had God’s promise, that it should come when the little birds were fledged. Now he seemed to be searching for a loophole for God the Father. For these six little creatures, whom he had sheltered and cherished, he could not sacrifice.

It was another matter before, when he had not had anything that was his own. The love for the small and weak, which it has been every little child’s mission to teach big, dangerous people, came over him and made him doubtful.

He sometimes wanted to hurl the whole nest into the river, for he thought that they who die without sorrow or sin are the happy ones. Should he not save them from beasts of prey and cold, from hunger, and from life’s manifold visitations? But just as he thought this, a sparrow-hawk came swooping down on the nest. Then Hatto seized the marauder with his left hand, swung him about his head and hurled him with the strength of wrath out into the stream.

The day came at last when the little birds were ready to fly. One of the wagtails was working inside the nest to push the young ones out to the edge, while the other flew about, showing them how easy it was, if they only dared to try. And when the young ones were obstinate and afraid, both the parents flew about, showing them all their most beautiful feats of flight. Beating with their wings, they flew in swooping curves, or rose right up like larks or hung motionless in the air with vibrating wings.

But as the young ones still persist in their obstinacy, Hatto the hermit cannot keep from mixing himself up in the matter. He gives them a cautious shove with his finger and then it is done. Out they go, fluttering and uncertain, beating the air like bats, sink, but rise again, grasp what the art is and make use of it to reach the nest again as quickly as possible. Proud and rejoicing, the parents come to them again and old Hatto smiles.

It was he who gave the final touch after all.

He now considered seriously if there could not be any way out of it for our Lord.

Perhaps, when all was said, God the Father held this earth in His right hand like a big bird’s nest, and perhaps He had come to cherish love for all those who build and dwell there, for all earth’s defenceless children. Perhaps He felt pity for those whom He had promised to destroy, just as the hermit felt pity for the little birds.

Of course the hermit’s birds were much better than our Lord’s people, but he could quite understand that God the Father nevertheless had love for them.

The next day the bird’s nest stood empty, and the bitterness of loneliness filled the heart of the hermit. Slowly his arm sank down to his side, and it seemed to him as if all nature held its breath to listen for the thunder of the trumpet of Doom. But just then all the wagtails came again and lighted on his head and shoulders, for they were not at all afraid of him. Then a ray of light shot through old Hatto’s confused brain. He had lowered his arm, lowered it every day to look at the birds.

And standing there with all the six young ones fluttering and playing about him, he nodded contentedly to someone whom he did not see. “I let you off,” he said, “I let you off. I have not kept my word, so you need not keep yours.”

And it seemed to him as if the mountains ceased to tremble and as if the river laid itself down in easy calm in its bed.

The King’s Grave

It was at the time of year when the heather is red. It grew over the sand-hills in thick clumps. From low treelike stems close-growing green branches raised their hardy evergreen leaves and unfading flowers. They seemed not to be made of ordinary, juicy flower substance, but of dry, hard scales. They were very insignificant in size and shape; nor was their fragrance of much account. Children of the open moors, they had not unfolded in the still air where lilies open their alabaster petals; nor did they grow in the rich soil from which roses draw nourishment for their swelling crowns. What made them flowers was really their color, for they were glowing red. They had received the color-giving sunshine in plenty. They were no pallid cellar growth; the blessed gaiety and strength of health lay over all the blossoming heath.

The heather covered the bare fields with its red mantle up to the edge of the wood. There, on a gently sloping ridge, stood some ancient, half ruined stone cairns; and however closely the heather tried to creep to these, there were always rents in its web, through which were visible great, flat rocks, folds in the mountain’s own rough skin. Under the biggest of these piles rested an old king, Atle by name. Under the others slumbered those of his warriors who had fallen when the great battle raged on the moor. They had lain there now so long that the fear and respect of death had departed from their graves. The path ran between their resting-places. The wanderer by night never thought to look whether forms wrapped in mist sat at midnight on the tops of the cairns staring in silent longing at the stars.

It was a glittering morning, dewy and warm. The hunter who had been out since daybreak had thrown himself down in the heather behind King Atle’s pile. He lay on his back and slept. He had dragged his hat down over his eyes; and under his head lay his leather game-bag, out of which protruded a hare’s long ears and the bent tail-feathers of a blackcock. His bow and arrows lay beside him.

From out of the wood came a girl with a bundle in her hand. When she reached the flat rock between the piles of stones, she thought what a good place it would be to dance. She was seized with an ardent desire to try. She laid her bundle on the heather and began to dance quite alone. She had no idea that a man lay asleep behind the king’s cairn.

The hunter still slept. The heather showed burning red against the deep blue of the sky. An anthill stood close beside the sleeper. On it lay a piece of quartz, which sparkled as if it had wished to set fire to all the old stubble of the heath. Above the hunter’s head the blackcock feathers spread out like a plume, and their iridescence shifted from deep purple to steely blue. On the unshaded part of his face the burning sunshine glowed. But he did not open his eyes to look at the glory of the morning.

In the meanwhile the girl continued to dance, and whirled about so eagerly that the blackened moss which had collected in the unevennesses of the rocks flew about her. An old, dry fir root, smooth and gray with age, lay upturned among the heather. She took it and whirled about with it. Chips flew out from the mouldering wood. Centipedes and earwigs that had lived in the crevices scurried out head over heels into the luminous air and bored down among the roots of the heather.

When the swinging skirts grazed the heather, clouds of small grey butterflies fluttered up from it. The under side of their wings was white and silvery and they whirled like dry leaves in a squall. They then seemed quite white, and it was as if a red sea threw up white foam. The butterflies remained for a short time in the air. Their fragile wings fluttered so violently that the down loosened and fell like thin silver white feathers. The air seemed to be filled with a glorified mist.

On the heath grasshoppers sat and scraped their back legs against their wings, so that they sounded like harp strings. They kept good time and played so well together, that to anyone passing over the moor it sounded like the same grasshopper during the whole walk, although it seemed to be first on the right, then on the left; now in front, now behind. But the dancer was not content with their playing and began after a little while to hum the measure of a dance tune. Her voice was shrill and harsh. The hunter was waked by the song. He turned on his side, raised himself to his elbow, and looked over the pile of stones at the dancing girl.

He had dreamt that the hare which he had just killed had leaped out of the bag and had taken his own arrows to shoot at him. He now stared at the girl half awake, dizzy with his dream, his head burning from sleeping in the sun.

She was tall and coarsely built, not fair of face, nor light in the dance, nor tuneful in her song. She had broad cheeks, thick lips and a flat nose. She had very red cheeks, very dark hair. She was exuberant in figure, moving with vigor and life. Her clothes were shabby but bright in color. Red bands edged the striped skirt and bright colored worsted fringes outlined the seams of her bodice. Other young maidens resemble roses and lilies, but she was like the heather, strong, gay and glowing.

The hunter watched with pleasure as the big, splendid woman danced on the red heath among the playing grasshoppers and the fluttering butterflies. While he looked at her he laughed so that his mouth was drawn up towards his ears. But then she suddenly caught sight of him and stood motionless.

“I suppose you think I am mad,” was the first thing that occurred to her to say. At the same time she wondered how she would get him to hold his tongue about what he had seen. She did not care to hear it told down in the village that she had danced with a fir root.

He was a man poor in words. Not a syllable could he utter. He was so shy that he could think of nothing better than to run away, although he longed to stay. Hastily he got his hat on his head and his leather bag on his back. Then he ran away through the clumps of heather.

She snatched up her bundle and ran after him. He was small, stiff in his movements and evidently had very little strength. She soon caught up with him and knocked his hat off to induce him to stop. He really wished to do so, but he was confused with shyness and fled with still greater speed. She ran after him and began to pull at his game-bag. Then he had to stop to defend it. She fell upon him with all her strength. They fought, and she threw him to the ground. “Now he will not speak of it to anyone,” she thought, and rejoiced.

At the same moment, however, she grew sick with fright, for the man who lay on the ground turned livid and his eyes rolled inwards in his head. He was not hurt in any way, however. He could not bear emotion. Never before had so strong and conflicting feelings stirred within that lonely forest dweller. He rejoiced over the girl and was angry and ashamed and yet proud that she was so strong. He was quite out of his head with it all.

The big, strong girl put her arm under his back and lifted him up. She broke the heather and whipped his face with the stiff twigs until the blood came back to it. When his little eyes again turned towards the light of day, they shone with pleasure at the sight of her. He was still silent; but he drew forward the hand which she had placed about his waist and caressed it gently.

He was a child of starvation and early toil. He was dry and pallid, thin and anaemic. She was touched by his faintheartedness; he who nevertheless seemed to be about thirty years old. She thought that he must live quite alone in the forest since he was so pitiful and so meanly dressed. He could have no one to look after him, neither mother nor sister nor sweetheart.

The great compassionate forest spread over the wilderness. Concealing and protecting, it took to its heart everything which sought its help. With its lofty trunks it kept watch by the lair of the fox and the bear, and in the twilight of the thick bushes it hid the egg-filled nests of little birds.

At the time when people still had slaves, many of them escaped to the woods and found shelter behind its green walls. It became a great prison for them which they did not dare to leave. The forest held its prisoners in strict discipline. It forced the dull ones to use their wits and educated those ruined by slavery to order and honor. Only to the industrious did it give the right to live.

The two who met on the heath were descendants of such prisoners of the forest. They sometimes went down to the inhabited, cultivated valleys, for they no longer feared to be reduced to the slavery from which their forefathers had fled, but they were happiest in the dimness of the forest. The hunter’s name was Tönne. His real work was to cultivate the earth, but he also could do other things. He collected herbs, boiled tar, dried punk, and often went hunting. The dancer was called Jofrid. Her father was a charcoal burner. She tied brooms, picked juniper berries and brewed ale of the white-flowering myrtle. They were both very poor.

They had never met before in the big wood, but now they thought that all its paths wound into a net, in which they ran forward and back and could not possibly escape one another. They never knew how to choose a way where they did not meet.

Tönne had once had a great sorrow. He had lived with his mother for a long while in a miserable, wattled hut, but as soon as he was grown up he was seized with the idea to build her a warm cabin. During all his leisure moments he went into the clearing, cut down trees and hewed them into squared pieces. Then he hid the timber in dark crannies under moss and branches. It was his intention that his mother should not know anything of all this work before he was ready to build the house. But his mother died before he could show her what he had collected; before he had time to tell her what he had wished to do. He, who had worked with the same zeal as David, King of Israel, when he gathered treasures for the temple of God, grieved most bitterly over it. He lost all interest in the building. For him the brushwood shelter was good enough. Yet he was hardly better off in his home than an animal in its hole.

When he, who had always heretofore crept about alone, was now seized with the desire to seek Jofrid’s company, it certainly meant that he would like to have her for his sweetheart and his bride. Jofrid also waited daily for him to speak to her father or to herself about the matter. But Tönne could not. This showed that he was of a race of slaves. The thoughts that came into his head moved as slowly as the sun when he travels across the sky. And it was more difficult for him to shape those thoughts to connected speech than for a smith to forge a bracelet out of rolling grains of sand.

One day Tönne took Jofrid to one of the clefts, where he had hidden his timber. He pulled aside the branches and moss and showed her the squared beams. “That was to have been mother’s house,” he said. The young girl was strangely slow in understanding a young man’s thoughts. When he showed her his mother’s logs she ought to have understood, but she did not understand.

Then he decided to make his meaning even plainer. A few days later he began to drag the logs up to the place between the cairns, where he had seen Jofrid for the first time. She came as usual along the path and saw him at work. Nevertheless she went on without saying anything. Since they had become friends she had often given him a good handshake, but she did not seem to want to help him with the heavy work. Tönne still thought that she ought to have understood that it was now her house which he meant to build.

She understood it very well, but she had no desire to give herself to such a man as Tönne. She wished to have a strong and healthy husband. She thought it would be a poor livelihood to marry anyone who was weak and dull. Still, there was much which drew her to that silent, shy man. She thought how hard he had worked to gladden his mother and had not enjoyed the happiness of being ready in time. She could weep for his sake. And now he was building the house just where he had seen her dance. He had a good heart. And that interested her and fixed her thoughts on him, but she did not at all wish to marry him.

Every day she went over the heather field and saw the log cabin grow, miserable and without windows, with the sunlight filtering in through the leaky walls.

Tönne’s work progressed very quickly, but not with care. His timbers were not bent square, the lark was scarcely taken off. He laid the floor with split young trees. It was uneven and shaky. The heather, which grew and blossomed under it⁠—for at year had passed since the day when Tönne had lain aleep behind King Atle’s pile⁠—pushed up bold red clusters through the cracks, and ants without number wandered out and in, inspecting the fragile work of man.

Wherever Jofrid went during those days, the thought never left her that a house was being built for her there. A home was being prepared for her upon the heath. And she knew that if she did not enter there as mistress, the bear and the fox would make it their home. For she knew Tönne well enough to understand that if he found he had worked in vain, he would never move into the new house. He would weep, poor man, when he heard that she would not live there. It would be a new sorrow for him, as deep as when his mother died. But he had himself to blame, because he had not asked her in time.

She thought that she gave him a sufficient hint in not helping him with the house. She often felt impelled to do so. Every time she saw any soft, white moss, she wanted to pick it to fill in the leaky walls. She longed, too, to help Tönne to build the chimney. As he was making it, all the smoke would gather in the house. But it did not matter how it was. No food would ever be cooked there, no ale brewed. Still it was odious that the house would never leave her thoughts.

Tönne worked, glowing with eagerness, certain that Jofrid would understand his meaning, if only the house were ready. He did not wonder much about her; he had enough to do to hew and shape. The days went quickly for him.

One afternoon, when Jofrid came over the moor, she saw that there was a door in the cottage and a slab of stone for a threshold. Then she understood that everything must now be ready, and she was much agitated. Tönne had covered the roof with tufts of flowering heather, and she was seized by an intense longing to enter under that red roof. He was not at the new house and she decided to go in. The house was built for her. It was her home. It was not possible to resist the desire to see it.

Within it was more attractive than she had expected. Rushes were strewed over the floor. It was full of the fresh fragrance of pine and resin. The sunshine that played through the windows and cracks made bands of light through the air. It looked as if she had been expected; in the crannies of the wall green branches were stuck, and in the fireplace stood a newly cut fir-tree. Tönne had not moved in his old furniture. There was nothing but a new table and a bench, over which an elk skin was thrown.

As soon as Jofrid had crossed the threshold, she felt the pleasant cosiness of home surrounding her. She was happy and content while she stood there, but to leave it seemed to her as hard as to go away and serve strangers. It happened that Jofrid had expended much hard work in procuring a kind of dower for herself. With skilful hands she had woven bright colored fabrics, such as are used to adorn a room, and she wanted to put them up in her own home, when she got one. Now she wondered how those cloths would look here. She wished she could try them in the new house.

She hurried quickly home, fetched her roll of weavings and began to fasten the bright-colored pieces of cloth up under the roof. She threw open the door to let the big setting sun shine on her and her work. She moved eagerly about the cottage, brisk, gay, bumming a merry tune. She was perfectly happy. It looked so fine. The woven roses and stars shone as never before.

While she worked she kept a good lookout over the moor and the graves, for it seemed to her as if Tönne might now too be lying hidden behind one of the cairns and laughing at her. The king’s grave lay opposite the door and behind it she saw the sun setting. Time after time she looked out. She felt as if someone was sitting there and watching her.

Just as the sun was so low that only a few blood-red beams filtered over the old stone heap, she saw who it was who was watching her. The whole pile of stones was no longer stones, but a mighty, old warrior, who was sitting there, scarred and gray, and staring at her. Round about his head the rays of the sun made a crown, and his red mantle was so wide that it spread over the whole moor. His head was big and heavy, his face gray as stone. His clothes and weapons were also stone-colored, and repeated so exactly the shadings and mossiness of the rock, that one had to look closely to see that it was a warrior and not a pile of stones. It was like those insects which resemble tree-twigs. One can go by them twenty times before one sees that it is a soft animal body one has taken for hard wood.

But Jofrid could no longer be mistaken. It was the old King Atle himself sitting there. She stood in the doorway, shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked right into his stony face. He had very small, oblique eyes under a dome-like brow, a broad nose and a long beard. And he was alive, that man of stone. He smiled and winked at her. She was afraid, and what terrified her most of all were his thick, muscular arms and hairy hands. The longer she looked at him the broader grew his smile, and at last he lifted one of his mighty arms to beckon her to him. Then Jofrid took flight towards home.

But when Tönne came home and saw the housc adorned with starry weavings, he found courage to send a friend to Jofrid’s father. The latter asked Jofrid what she thought about it and she gave her consent. She was well pleased with the way it had turned out, even if she had been half forced to give her hand. She could not say no to the man, to whose house she had already carried her dower. Still she looked first to see that old King Atle had again become a pile of stones.

Tönne and Jofrid lived happily for many years. They earned a good reputation. “They are good,” people said. “See how they stand by one another, see how they work together, see how one cannot live apart from the other!”

Tönne grew stronger, more enduring and less heavy-witted every day. Jofrid seemed to have made a whole man of him. Almost always he let her rule, but he also understood how to carry out his own will with tenacious obstinacy.

Jests and merriment followed Jofrid wherever she went. Her clothes became more vivid the older she grew. Her whole face was bright red. But in Tönne’s eyes she was beautiful.

They were not so poor as many others of their class. They ate butter with their porridge and mixed neither bran nor bark in their bread. Myrtle ale foamed in their tankards. Their flocks of sheep and goats increased so quickly that they could allow themselves meat.

Tönne once worked for a peasant in the valley. The latter, who saw how he and his wife worked together with great gaiety, thought like many another: “See, these are good people.”

The peasant had lately lost his wife, and she had left behind her a child six months old. He asked Tönne and Jofrid to take his son as a foster-child.

“The child is very dear to me,” he said, “therefore I give it to you, for you are good people.”

They had no children of their own, so that it seemed very fitting for them to take it. They accepted it too without hesitation. They thought it would be to their advantage to bring up a peasant’s child, besides which they expected to be cheered in their old age by their foster-son.

But the child did not live to grow up with them. Before the year was out it was dead. It was said by many that it was the fault of the foster-parents, for the child had been unusually strong before it came to them. By that no one meant, however, that they had killed it intentionally, but rather that they had undertaken something beyond their powers. They had not had sense or love enough to give it the care it needed. They were accustomed only to think of themselves and to look out for themselves. They had no time to care for a child. They wished to go together to their work every day and to sleep a quiet sleep at night. They thought that the child drank too much of their good milk and did not allow him as much as themselves. They had no idea that they were treating the boy badly. They thought that they were just as tender to him as parents generally are. It seemed more to them as if their foster-son had been a punishment and a torment. They did not mourn him when he died.

Women usually enjoy nothing better than to take care of a child; but Jofrid had a husband, whom she often had to care for like a mother, so that she desired no one else. They also love to see their children’s quick growth; but Jofrid had pleasure enough in watching Tönne develop sense and manliness, in adorning and taking care of her house, in the increase of their flocks, and in the crops which they were raising below on the moor.

Jofrid went to the peasant’s farm and told him that the child was dead. Then the man said: “I am like the man who puts cushions in his bed so soft that he sinks down to the hard bottom. I wished to care too well for my son, and look, now he is dead!” And he was heartbroken.

At his words Jofrid began to weep bitterly. “Would to God that you had not left your son with us!” she said. “We were too poor. He could not get what he needed with us.”

“That is not what I meant,” answered the peasant. “I believe that you have overindulged the child. But I will not accuse anyone, for over life and death God alone rules. Now I mean to celebrate the funeral of my only son with the same expense as if he had been full grown, and to the feast I invite both Tönne and you. By that you may know that I bear you no grudge.”

So Tönne and Jofrid went to the funeral banquet. They were well treated, and no one said anything unfriendly to them. The women who had dressed the child’s body had related that it had been miserably thin and had borne marks of great neglect. But that could easily come from sickness. No one wished to believe anything bad about the foster-parents, for it was known that they were good people.

Jofrid wept a great deal during those days, especially when she heard the women tell how they had to wake and toil for their little children. She noticed, too, that the women at the funeral were continually talking of their children. Some rejoiced so in them that they never could stop telling of their questions and games. Jofrid would have liked to have talked about Tönne, but most of them never spoke of their husbands.

Late one evening Jofrid and Tönne came home from the festivities. They went straight to bed. But hardly had they fallen asleep before they were waked by a feeble crying. “It is the child,” they thought, still half asleep, and were angry at being disturbed. But suddenly both of them sat right up in the bed. The child was dead. Where did that crying come from? When they were quite awake, they heard nothing, but as soon as they began to drop off to sleep they heard it. Little, tottering feet sounded on the stone threshold outside the house, a little hand groped for the door, and when it could not open it, the child crept crying and feeling along the wall, until it stopped just outside where they were sleeping. As soon as they spoke or sat up, they perceived nothing; but when they tried to sleep, they distinctly heard the uncertain steps and the suppressed sobbings.

That which they had not wished to believe, but which seemed a possibility during these last days, now became a certainty. They felt that they had killed the child. Why otherwise should it have the power to haunt them?

From that night all happiness left them. They lived in constant fear of the ghost. By day they had some peace, but at night they were so disturbed by the child’s weeping and choking sobs, that they did not dare to sleep alone. Jofrid often went long distances to get someone to stop over night in their house. If there was any stranger there, it was quiet, but as soon as they were alone, they heard the child.

One night, when they had found no one to keep them company and could not sleep for the child, Jofrid got up from her bed.

“You sleep, Tönne,” she said. “If I keep awake, we will not hear anything.”

She went out and sat down on the doorstep, thinking of what they ought to do to get peace, for they could not go on living as things were. She wondered if confession and penance and mortification and repentance could relieve them from this heavy punishment.

Then it happened that she raised her eyes and saw the same vision as once before from this place. The pile of stones had changed to a warrior. The night was quite dark, but still she could plainly see that old King Atle sat there and watched her. She saw him so well that she could distinguish the moss-grown bracelets on his wrists and could see how his legs were bound with crossed bands, between which his calf muscles swelled.

This time she was not afraid of the old man. He seemed to be a friend and consoler in her unhappiness. He looked at her with pity, as if he wished to give her courage. Then she thought that the mighty warrior had once had his day, when he had overthrown hundreds of enemies there on the heath and waded through the streams of blood that had poured between the clumps. What had he thought of one dead man more or less? How much would the sight of children, whose fathers he had killed, have moved his heart of stone? Light as air would the burden of a child’s death have rested on his conscience.

And she heard his whisper, the same which the old stone-cold heathenism had whispered through all time. “Why repent? The gods rule us. The fates spin the threads of life. Why shall the children of earth mourn because they have done what the immortal gods have forced them to do?”

Then Jofrid took courage and said to herself: “How am I to blame because the child died? It is God alone who decides. Nothing takes place without his will.” And she thought that she could lay the ghost by putting all repentance from her.

But now the door opened and Tönne came out to her. “Jofrid,” he said, “it is in the house now. It came up and knocked on the edge of the bed and woke me. What shall we do, Jofrid?”

“The child is dead,” said Jofrid. “You know that it is lying deep under ground. All this is only dreams and imagination.” She spoke hardly and coldly, for she feared that Tönne would do something reckless, and thereby cause them misfortune.

“We must put an end to it,” said Tönne.

Jofrid laughed dismally. “What do you wish to do? God has sent this to us. Could He not have kept the child alive if He had chosen? He did not wish it, and now He persecutes us for its death. Tell me by what right He persecutes us?”

She got her words from the old stone warrior, who sat dark and high on his pile. It seemed as if he suggested to her everything she answered Tönne.

“We must acknowledge that we have neglected the child, and do penance,” said Tönne.

“Never will I suffer for what is not my fault,” said Jofrid. “Who wanted the child to die? Not I, not I. What kind of a penance will you do? You need all your strength for work.”

“I have already tried with scourging,” said Tönne. “It is of no avail.”

“You see,” she said, and laughed again.

“We must try something else,” Tönne went on with persistent determination. “We must confess.”

“What do you want to tell God, that He does not know?” mocked Jofrid. “Does He not guide your thoughts, Tönne? What will you tell Him?” She thought that Tönne was stupid and obstinate. She had found him so in the beginning of their acquaintance, but since then she had not thought of it, but had loved him for his good heart.

“We will confess to the father, Jofrid, and offer him compensation.”

“What will you offer him?” she asked.

“The house and the goats.”

“He will certainly demand an enormous compensation for his only son. All that we possess would not be enough.”

“We will give ourselves as slaves into his power, if he is not content with less.”

At these words Jofrid was seized by cold despair, and she hated Tönne from the depths of her soul. Everything she would lose appeared so plainly to her⁠—freedom, for which her ancestors had ventured their lives, the house, her comforts, honor and happiness.

“Mark my words, Tönne,” she said hoarsely, half choked with pain, “that the day you do that thing will be the day of my death.”

After that no more words were exchanged between them, but they remained sitting on the doorstep until the day came. Neither found a word to appease or to conciliate; each felt fear and scorn of the other. The one measured the other by the standard of his own anger, and they found each other narrow-minded and bad-tempered.

After that night Jofrid could not refrain from letting Tönne feel that he was her inferior. She let him understand in the presence of others that he was stupid, and helped him with his work so that he had to think how much stronger she was. She evidently wished to take away from him all rights as master of the house. Sometimes she pretended to be very lively, to distract him and to prevent him from brooding. He had not done anything to carry out his plan, but she did not believe that he had given it up.

During this time Tönne became more and more as he was before his marriage. He grew thin and pale, silent and slow-witted. Jofrid’s despair increased each day, for it seemed as if everything was to be taken from her. Her love for Tönne came back, however, when she saw him unhappy. “What is any of it worth to me if Tönne is ruined?” she thought. “It is better to go into slavery with him than to see him die in freedom.”

Jofrid, however, could not at once decide to obey Tönne. She fought a long and severe fight. But one morning she awoke in an unusually calm and gentle mood. Then she thought that she could now do what he demanded. And she waked him, saying that it should be as he wished. Only that one day he should grant her to say farewell to everything.

The whole forenoon she went about strangely gentle. Tears rose easily to her eyes. The heath was beautiful that day for her sake, she thought. Frost had passed over it, the flowers were gone, and the whole moor had turned brown. But when it was lighted by the slanting rays of the autumn sun, it looked as if the heather glowed red once more. And she remembered the day when she saw Tönne for the first time.

She wished that she might see the old king once more, for he had helped her to find her happiness. She had been seriously afraid of him of late. She felt as if he were lying in wait to seize her. But now she thought he could no longer have any power over her. She would remember to look for him towards night when the moon rose.

It happened that a couple of wandering musicians came by about noon. Jofrid had the idea to ask them to stop at her house the whole afternoon, for she wished to have a dance. Tönne had to hasten to her parents and ask them to come. And her small brothers and sisters ran down to the village for the other guests. Soon many people had collected.

There was great gaiety. Tönne kept apart in a corner of the house, as was his habit when they had guests, but Jofrid was quite wild in her fun. With shrill voice she led the dance and was eager in offering her guests the foaming ale. There was not much room in the cottage, but the fiddlers were untiring, and the dance went on with life and spirit. It grew suffocatingly warm. The door was thrown open, and all at once Jofrid saw that night had come and that the moon had risen. Then she went to the door and looked out into the white world of the moonlight.

A heavy dew had fallen. The whole heath was white, as the moon was reflected in all the little drops, which had collected on every twig. There Tönne and she would go tomorrow hand in hand to meet the most terrible dishonor. For, however the meeting with the peasant should turn out, whatever he might take or whatever he might let them keep, dishonor would certainly be their lot. They, who that evening possessed a good cottage and many friends, tomorrow would be despised and detested by all, perhaps they would also be robbed of everything they had earned, perhaps, too, be dishonored slaves. She said to herself: “It is the way of death.” And now she could not understand how she would ever have the strength to walk in it. It seemed to her as if she were of stone, a heavy stone image like old King Atle. Although she was alive, she felt as if she would not be able to lift her heavy stone limbs to walk that way.

She turned her eyes towards the king’s grave and distinctly saw the old warrior sitting there. But now he was adorned as for a feast. He no longer wore the gray, moss-grown stone attire, but white, glittering silver. Now again he wore a crown of beams, as when she first saw him, but this one was white. And white shone his breastplate and armlets, shining white were sword, hilt, and shield. He sat and watched her with silent indifference. The unfathomable mystery which great stone faces wear had now sunk down over him. There he sat dark and mighty, and Jofrid had a faint, indistinct idea that he was an image of something which was in herself and in all men, of something which was buried in faraway centuries, covered by many stones, and still not dead. She saw him, the old king, sitting deep in the human heart. Over its barren field he spread his wide king’s mantle. There pleasure danced, there love of display flaunted. He was the great stone warrior who saw famine and poverty pass by without his stone heart being moved. “It is the will of the gods,” he said. He was the strong man of stone, who could bear unatoned-for sin without yielding. He always said: “Why grieve for what you have done, compelled by the immortal gods?”

Jofrid’s breast was shaken by a sigh deep as a sob. She had a feeling which she could not explain, a feeling that she ought to struggle with the man of stone, if she was to be happy. But at the same time she felt helplessly weak.

Her impenitence and the struggle out on the heath seemed to her to be one and the same thing, and if she could not conquer the first by some means or other, the last would gain power over her.

She looked back towards the cottage, where the weavings glowed under the roof timbers, where the musicians spread merriment, and where everything she loved was, then she felt that she could not go into slavery. Not even for Tönne’s sake could she do it. She saw his pale face within in the house, and she asked herself with a contraction of the heart if he was worth the sacrifice of everything for his sake.

In the cottage the people had started a new dance. They arranged themselves in a long line, took each other by the hand, and with a wild, strong young man at the head, they rushed forward at dizzy speed. The leader drew them through the open door out cm to the moonlit heath. They stormed by Jofrid, panting and wild, stumbling against stones, falling into the heather, making wide rings round the house, circling about the heaps of stones. The last of the line called to Jofrid and stretched out his hand to her. She seized it and ran too.

It was not a dance, only a mad rush; but there was pleasure in it, audacity and the joy of living. The rings became bolder, the cries sounded louder, the laughter more boisterous. From cairn to cairn, as they lay scattered over the heath, wound the line of dancers. If anyone fell in the wild swinging, he was dragged up, the slow ones were driven onward; the musicians stood in the doorway and played the faster. There was no time to rest, to think, nor to look about. The dance went on at always madder speed over the yielding moss and slippery rocks.

During all this Jofrid felt more and more clearly that she wished to keep her freedom, that she would rather die than lose it. She saw that she could not follow Tönne. She thought of running away, of hurrying into the wood and never coming back.

They had circled about all the cairns except that of King Atle. Jofrid saw that they were now turning towards it and she kept her eyes fixed on the stone man. Then she saw how his giant arms were stretched towards the rushing dancers. She screamed aloud, but she was answered by loud laughter. She wished to stop, but a strong grasp drew her on. She saw him snatch at those hurrying by, but they were so quick that the heavy arms could not reach any of them. It was incomprehensible to her that no one saw him. The agony of death came over her. She thought that he would reach her. It was for her that he had lain in wait for many years. With the others it was only play. It was she whom he would seize at last.

Her turn came to rush by King Atle. She saw how he raised himself and bent for a spring to be sure of the matter and catch her. In her extreme need she felt that if she only could decide to give in the next day, he would not have the power to catch her, but she could not.⁠—She came last, and she was swung so violently that she was more dragged and jerked forward than running herself, and it was hard for her to keep from falling. And although she passed at lightning speed, the old warrior was too quick for her. The heavy arms sank down over her, the stone hands seized her, she was drawn into the silvery harness of that breast. The agony of death took more and more hold of her, but she knew to the very last that it was because she had not been able to conquer the stone king in her own heart that Atle had power over her.

It was the end of the dancing and merriment. Jofrid lay dying. In the violence of their mad rout, she had been thrown against the king’s cairn and received her deathblow on its stones.

The Outlaws

A peasant who had murdered a monk took to the woods and was made an outlaw. He found there before him in the wilderness another outlaw, a fisherman from the outermost islands, who had been accused of stealing a herring net. They joined together, lived in a cave, set snares, sharpened darts, baked bread on a granite rock and guarded one another’s lives. The peasant never left the woods, but the fisherman, who had not committed such an abominable crime, sometimes loaded game on his shoulders and stole down among men. There he got in exchange for blackcocks, for long-eared hares and fine-limbed red deer, milk and butter, arrowheads and clothes. These helped the outlaws to sustain life.

The cave where they lived was dug in the side of a hill. Broad stones and thorny sloe-bushes hid the entrance. Above it stood a thick growing pine-tree. At its roots was the vent-hole of the cave. The rising smoke filtered through the tree’s thick branches and vanished into space. The men used to go to and from their dwelling-place, wading in the mountain stream, which ran down the hill. No-one looked for their tracks under the merry, bubbling water.

At first they were hunted like wild beasts. The peasants gathered as if for a chase of bear or wolf. The wood was surrounded by men with bows and arrows. Men with spears went through it and left no dark crevice, no bushy thicket unexplored. While the noisy battue hunted through the wood, the outlaws lay in their dark hole, listening breathlessly, panting with terror. The fisherman held out a whole day, but he who had murdered was driven by unbearable fear out into the open, where he could see his enemy. He was seen and hunted, but it seemed to him seven times better than to lie still in helpless inactivity. He fled from his pursuers, slid down precipices, sprang over streams, climbed up perpendicular mountain walls. All latent strength and dexterity in him was called forth by the excitement of danger. His body became elastic like a steel spring, his foot made no false step, his hand never lost its hold, eye and ear were twice as sharp as usual. He understood what the leaves whispered and the rocks warned. When he had climbed up a precipice, he turned towards his pursuers, sending them gibes in biting rhyme. When the whistling darts whizzed by him, he caught them, swift as lightning, and hurled them down on his enemies. As he forced his way through whipping branches, something within him sang a song of triumph.

The bald mountain ridge ran through the wood and alone on its summit stood a lofty fir. The red-brown trunk was bare, but in the branching top rocked an eagle’s nest. The fugitive was now so audaciously bold that he climbed up there, while his pursuers looked for him on the wooded slopes. There he sat twisting the young eaglets’ necks, while the hunt passed by far below him. The male and female eagle, longing for revenge, swooped down on the ravisher. They fluttered before his face, they struck with their beaks at his eyes, they beat him with their wings and tore with their claws bleeding weals in his weather-beaten skin. Laughing, he fought with them. Standing upright in the shaking nest, he cut at them with his sharp knife and forgot in the pleasure of the play his danger and his pursuers. When he found time to look for them, they had gone by to some other part of the forest. No one had thought to look for their prey on the bald mountain-ridge. No one had raised his eyes to the clouds to see him practising boyish tricks and sleepwalking feats while his life was in the greatest danger.

The man trembled when he found that he was saved. With shaking hands he caught at a support, giddy he measured the height to which he had climbed. And moaning with the fear of falling, afraid of the birds, afraid of being seen, afraid of everything, he slid down the trunk. He laid himself down on the ground, so as not to be seen, and dragged himself forward over the rocks until the underbrush covered him. There he hid himself under the young pine-tree’s tangled branches. Weak and powerless, he sank down on the moss. A single man could have captured him.

Tord was the fisherman’s name. He was not more than sixteen years old, but strong and bold. He had already lived a year in the woods.

The peasant’s name was Berg, with the surname Rese. He was the tallest and the strongest man in the whole district, and moreover handsome and well-built. He was broad in the shoulders and slender in the waist. His hands were as well shaped as if he had never done any hard work. His hair was brown and his skin fair. After he had been some time in the woods he acquired in all ways a more formidable appearance. His eyes became piercing, his eyebrows grew bushy, and the muscles which knitted them lay finger thick above his nose. It showed now more plainly than before how the upper part of his athlete’s brow projected over the lower. His lips closed more firmly than of old, his whole face was thinner, the hollows at the temples grew very deep, and his powerful jaw was much more prominent. His body was less well filled out but his muscles were as hard as steel. His hair grew suddenly gray.

Young Tord could never weary of looking at this man. He had never before seen anything so beautiful and powerful. In his imagination he stood high as the forest, strong as the sea. He served him as a master and worshipped him as a god. It was a matter of course that Tord should carry the hunting spears, drag home the game, fetch the water and build the fire. Berg Rese accepted all his services, but almost never gave him a friendly word. He despised him because he was a thief.

The outlaws did not lead a robber’s or brigand’s life; they supported themselves by hunting and fishing. If Berg Rese had not murdered a holy man, the peasants would soon have ceased to pursue him and have left him in peace in the mountains. But they feared great disaster to the district, because he who had raised his hand against the servant of God was still unpunished. When Tord came down to the valley with game, they offered him riches and pardon for his own crime if he would show them the way to Berg Rese’s hole, so that they might take him while he slept. But the boy always refused; and if anyone tried to sneak after him up to the wood, he led him so cleverly astray that he gave up the pursuit.

Once Berg asked him if the peasants had not tried to tempt him to betray him, and when he heard what they had offered him as a reward, he said scornfully that Tord had been foolish not to accept such a proposal.

Then Tord looked at him with a glance, the like of which Berg Rese had never before seen. Never had any beautiful woman in his youth, never had his wife or child looked so at him. “You are my lord, my elected master,” said the glance. “Know that you may strike me and abuse me as you will, I am faithful notwithstanding.”

After that Berg Rese paid more attention to the boy and noticed that he was bold to act but timid to speak. He had no fear of death. When the ponds were first frozen, or when the bogs were most dangerous in the spring, when the quagmires were hidden under richly flowering grasses and cloudberry, he took his way over them by choice. He seemed to feel the need of exposing himself to danger as a compensation for the storms and terrors of the ocean, which he had no longer to meet. At night he was afraid in the woods, and even in the middle of the day the darkest thickets or the wide-stretching roots of a fallen pine could frighten him. But when Berg Rese asked him about it, he was too shy to even answer.

Tord did not sleep near the fire, far in in the cave, on the bed which was made soft with moss and warm with skins, but every night, when Berg had fallen asleep, he crept out to the entrance and lay there on a rock. Berg discovered this, and although he well understood the reason, he asked what it meant. Tord would not explain. To escape any more questions, he did not lie at the door for two nights, but then he returned to his post.

One night, when the drifting snow whirled about the forest tops and drove into the thickest underbrush, the driving snowflakes found their way into the outlaws’ cave. Tord, who lay just inside the entrance, was, when he waked in the morning, covered by a melting snowdrift. A few days later he fell ill. His lungs wheezed, and when they were expanded to take in air, he felt excruciating pain. He kept up as long as his strength held out, but when one evening he leaned down to blow the fire, he fell over and remained lying.

Berg Rese came to him and told him to go to his bed. Tord moaned with pain and could not raise himself. Berg then thrust his arms under him and carried him there. But he felt as if he had got hold of a slimy snake; he had a taste in the mouth as if he had eaten the unholy horseflesh, it was so odious to him to touch the miserable thief.

He laid his own big bearskin over him and gave him water, more he could not do. Nor was it anything dangerous. Tord was soon well again. But through Berg’s being obliged to do his tasks and to be his servant, they had come nearer to one another. Tord dared to talk to him when he sat in the cave in the evening and cut arrow shafts.

“You are of a good race, Berg,” said Tord. “Your kinsmen are the richest in the valley. Your ancestors have served with kings and fought in their castles.”

“They have oftener fought with bands of rebels and done the kings great injury,” replied Berg Rese.

“Your ancestors gave great feasts at Christmas, and so did you, when you were at home. Hundreds of men and women could find a place to sit in your big house, which was already built before Saint Olof first gave the baptism here in Viken. You owned old silver vessels and great drinking-horns, which passed from man to man, filled with mead.”

Again Berg Rese had to look at the boy. He sat up with his legs hanging out of the bed and his head resting on his hands, with which he at the same time held back the wild masses of hair which would fall over his eyes. His face had become pale and delicate from the ravages of sickness. In his eyes fever still burned. He smiled at the pictures he conjured up: at the adorned house, at the silver vessels, at the guests in gala array and at Berg Rese, sitting in the seat of honor in the hall of his ancestors. The peasant thought that no one had ever looked at him with such shining, admiring eyes, or thought him so magnificent, arrayed in his festival clothes, as that boy thought him in the torn skin dress.

He was both touched and provoked. That miserable thief had no right to admire him.

“Were there no feasts in your house?” he asked.

Tord laughed. “Out there on the rocks with father and mother! Father is a wrecker and mother is a witch. No one will come to us.”

“Is your mother a witch?”

“She is,” answered Tord, quite untroubled. “In stormy weather she rides out on a seal to meet the ships over which the waves are washing, and those who are carried overboard are hers.”

“What does she do with them?” asked Berg.

“Oh, a witch always needs corpses. She makes ointments out of them, or perhaps she eats them. On moonlight nights she sits in the surf, where it is whitest, and the spray dashes over her. They say that she sits and searches for shipwrecked children’s fingers and eyes.”

“That is awful,” said Berg.

The boy answered with infinite assurance: “That would be awful in others, but not in witches. They have to do so.”

Berg Rese found that he had here come upon a new way of regarding the world and things.

“Do thieves have to steal, as witches have to use witchcraft?” he asked sharply.

“Yes, of course,” answered the boy; “everyone has to do what he is destined to do.” But then he added, with a cautious smile: “There are thieves also who have never stolen.”

“Say out what you mean,” said Berg.

The boy continued with his mysterious smile, proud at being an unsolvable riddle: “It is like speaking of birds who do not fly, to talk of thieves who do not steal.”

Berg Rese pretended to be stupid in order to find out what he wanted. “No one can be called a thief without having stolen,” he said.

“No; but,” said the boy, and pressed his lips together as if to keep in the words, “but if someone had a father who stole,” he hinted after a while.

“One inherits money and lands,” replied Berg Rese, “but no one bears the name of thief if he has not himself earned it.”

Tord laughed quietly. “But if somebody has a mother who begs and prays him to take his father’s crime on him. But if such a one cheats the hangman and escapes to the woods. But if someone is made an outlaw for a fishnet which he has never seen.”

Berg Rese struck the stone table with his clenched fist. He was angry. This fair young man had thrown away his whole life. He could never win love, nor riches, nor esteem after that. The wretched striving for food and clothes was all which was left him. And the fool had let him, Berg Rese, go on despising one who was innocent. He rebuked him with stern words, but Tord was not even as afraid as a sick child is of its mother, when she chides it because it has caught cold by wading in the spring brooks.

On one of the broad, wooded mountains lay a dark tarn. It was square, with as straight shores and as sharp corners as if it had been cut by the hand of man. On three sides it was surrounded by steep cliffs, on which pines clung with roots as thick as a man’s arm. Down by the pool, where the earth had been gradually washed away, their roots stood up out of the water, bare and crooked and wonderfully twisted about one another. It was like an infinite number of serpents which had wanted all at the same time to crawl up out of the pool but had got entangled in one another and been held fast. Or it was like a mass of blackened skeletons of drowned giants which the pool wanted to throw up on the land. Arms and legs writhed about one another, the long fingers dug deep into the very cliff to get a hold, the mighty ribs formed arches, which held up primeval trees. It had happened, however, that the iron arms, the steel-like fingers with which the pines held themselves fast, had given way, and a pine had been borne by a mighty north wind from the top of the cliff down into the pool. It had burrowed deep down into the muddy bottom with its top and now stood there. The smaller fish had a good place of refuge among its branches, but the roots stuck up above the water like a many-armed monster and contributed to make the pool awful and terrifying.

On the tarn’s fourth side the cliff sank down. There a little foaming stream carried away its waters. Before this stream could find the only possible way, it had tried to get out between stones and tufts, and had by so doing made a little world of islands, some no bigger than a little hillock, others covered with trees.

Here where the encircling cliffs did not shut out all the sun, leafy trees flourished. Here stood thirsty, gray-green alders and smooth-leaved willows. The birch-tree grew there as it does everywhere where it is trying to crowd out the pine woods, and the wild cherry and the mountain ash, those two which edge the forest pastures, filling them with fragrance and adorning them with beauty. Here at the outlet there was a forest of reeds as high as a man, which made the sunlight fall green on the water just as it falls on the moss in the real forest. Among the reeds there were open places; small, round pools, and water-lilies were floating there. The tall stalks looked down with mild seriousness on those sensitive beauties, who discontentedly shut their white petals and yellow stamens in a hard, leather-like sheath as soon as the sun ceased to show itself.

One sunshiny day the outlaws came to this tarn to fish. They waded out to a couple of big stones in the midst of the reed forest and sat there and threw out bait for the big, green-striped pickerel that lay and slept near the surface of the water.

These men, who were always wandering in the woods and the mountains, had, without their knowing it themselves, come under nature’s rule as much as the plants and the animals. When the sun shone, they were openhearted and brave, but in the evening, as soon as the sun had disappeared, they became silent; and the night, which seemed to them much greater and more powerful than the day, made them anxious and helpless. Now the green light, which slanted in between the rushes and colored the water with brown and dark-green streaked with gold, affected their mood until they were ready for any miracle. Every outlook was shut off. Sometimes the reeds rocked in an imperceptible wind, their stalks rustled, and the long, ribbon-like leaves fluttered against their faces. They sat in gray skins on the gray stones. The shadows in the skins repeated the shadows of the weather-beaten, mossy stone. Each saw his companion in his silence and immovability change into a stone image. But in among the rushes swam mighty fishes with rainbow-colored backs. When the men threw out their hooks and saw the circles spreading among the reeds, it seemed as if the motion grew stronger and stronger, until they perceived that it was not caused only by their cast. A sea-nymph, half human, half a shining fish, lay and slept on the surface of the water. She lay on her back with her whole body under water. The waves so nearly covered her that they had not noticed her before. It was her breathing that caused the motion of the waves. But there was nothing strange in her lying there, and when the next instant she was gone, they were not sure that she had not been only an illusion.

The green light entered through the eyes into the brain like a gentle intoxication. The men sat and stared with dulled thoughts, seeing visions among the reeds, of which they did not dare to tell one another. Their catch was poor. The day was devoted to dreams and apparitions.

The stroke of oars was heard among the rushes, and they started up as from sleep. The next moment a flat-bottomed boat appeared, heavy, hollowed out with no skill and with oars as small as sticks. A young girl, who had been picking water-lilies, rowed it. She had dark-brown hair, gathered in great braids, and big dark eyes; otherwise she was strangely pale. But her paleness toned to pink and not to gray. Her cheeks had no higher color than the rest of her face, the lips had hardly enough. She wore a white linen shirt and a leather belt with a gold buckle. Her skirt was blue with a red hem. She rowed by the outlaws without seeing them. They kept breathlessly still, but not for fear of being seen, but only to be able to really see her. As soon as she had gone they were as if changed from stone images to living beings. Smiling, they looked at one another.

“She was white like the water-lilies,” said one. “Her eyes were as dark as the water there under the pine-roots.”

They were so excited that they wanted to laugh, really laugh as no one had ever laughed by that pool, till the cliffs thundered with echoes and the roots of the pines loosened with fright.

“Did you think she was pretty?” asked Berg Rese.

“Oh, I do not know, I saw her for such a short time. Perhaps she was.”

“I do not believe you dared to look at her. You thought that it was a mermaid.”

And they were again shaken by the same extravagant merriment.

Tord had once as a child seen a drowned man. He had found the body on the shore on a summer day and had not been at all afraid, but at night he had dreamed terrible dreams. He saw a sea, where every wave rolled a dead man to his feet. He saw, too, that all the islands were covered with drowned men, who were dead and belonged to the sea, but who still could speak and move and threaten him with withered white hands.

It was so with him now. The girl whom he had seen among the rushes came back in his dreams. He met her out in the open pool, where the sunlight fell even greener than among the rushes, and he had time to see that she was beautiful. He dreamed that he had crept up on the big pine root in the middle of the dark tarn, but the pine swayed and rocked so that sometimes he was quite under water. Then she came forward on the little islands. She stood under the red mountain ashes and laughed at him. In the last dream-vision he had come so far that she kissed him. It was already morning, and he heard that Berg Rese had got up, but he obstinately shut his eyes to be able to go on with his dream. When he awoke, he was as though dizzy and stunned by what had happened to him in the night. He thought much more now of the girl than he had done the day before.

Towards night he happened to ask Berg Rese if he knew her name.

Berg looked at him inquiringly. “Perhaps it is best for you to hear it,” he said. “She is Unn. We are cousins.”

Tord then knew that it was for that pale girl’s sake Berg Rese wandered an outlaw in forest and mountain. Tord tried to remember what he knew of her. Unn was the daughter of a rich peasant. Her mother was dead, so that she managed her father’s house. This she liked, for she was fond of her own way and she had no wish to be married.

Unn and Berg Rese were the children of brothers, and it had long been said that Berg preferred to sit with Unn and her maids and jest with them than to work on his own lands. When the great Christmas feast was celebrated at his house, his wife had invited a monk from Draksmark, for she wanted him to remonstrate with Berg, because he was forgetting her for another woman. This monk was hateful to Berg and to many on account of his appearance. He was very fat and quite white. The ring of hair about his bald head, the eyebrows above his watery eyes, his face, his hands and his whole cloak, everything was white. Many found it hard to endure his looks.

At the banquet table, in the hearing of all the guests, this monk now said, for he was fearless and thought that his words would have more effect if they were heard by many, “People are in the habit of saying that the cuckoo is the worst of birds because he does not rear his young in his own nest, but here sits a man who does not provide for his home and his children, but seeks his pleasure with a strange woman. Him will I call the worst of men.”⁠—Unn then rose up. “That, Berg, is said to you and me,” she said. “Never have I been so insulted, and my father is not here either.” She had wished to go, but Berg sprang after her. “Do not move!” she said. “I will never see you again.” He caught up with her in the hall and asked her what he should do to make her stay. She had answered with flashing eyes that he must know that best himself. Then Berg went in and killed the monk.

Berg and Tord were busy with the same thoughts, for after a while Berg said: “You should have seen her, Unn, when the white monk fell. The mistress of the house gathered the small children about her and cursed her. She turned their faces towards her, that they might forever remember her who had made their father a murderer. But Unn stood calm and so beautiful that the men trembled. She thanked me for the deed and told me to fly to the woods. She bade me not to be robber, and not to use the knife until I could do it for an equally just cause.”

“Your deed had been to her honor,” said Tord.

Berg Rese noticed again what had astonished him before in the boy. He was like a heathen, worse than a heathen; he never condemned what was wrong. He felt no responsibility. That which must be, was. He knew of God and Christ and the saints, but only by name, as one knows the gods of foreign lands. The ghosts of the rocks were his gods. His mother, wise in witchcraft, had taught him to believe in the spirits of the dead.

Then Berg Rese undertook a task which was as foolish as to twist a rope about his own neck. He set before those ignorant eyes the great God, the Lord of justice, the Avenger of misdeeds, who casts the wicked into places of everlasting torment. And he taught him to love Christ and his mother and the holy men and women, who with lifted hands kneeled before God’s throne to avert the wrath of the great Avenger from the hosts of sinners. He taught him all that men do to appease God’s wrath. He showed him the crowds of pilgrims making pilgrimages to holy places, the flight of self-torturing penitents and monks from a worldly life.

As he spoke, the boy became more eager and more pale, his eyes grew large as if for terrible visions. Berg Rese wished to stop, but thoughts streamed to him, and he went on speaking. The night sank down over them, the black forest night, when the owls hoot. God came so near to them that they saw his throne darken the stars, and the chastising angels sank down to the tops of the trees. And under them the fires of Hell flamed up to the earth’s crust, eagerly licking that shaking place of refuge for the sorrowing races of men.

The autumn had come with a heavy storm. Tord went alone in the woods to see after the snares and traps. Berg Rese sat at home to mend his clothes. Tord’s way led in a broad path up a wooded height.

Every gust carried the dry leaves in a rustling whirl up the path. Time after time Tord thought that someone went behind him. He often looked round. Sometimes he stopped to listen, but he understood that it was the leaves and the wind, and went on. As soon as he started on again, he heard someone come dancing on silken foot up the slope. Small feet came tripping. Elves and fairies played behind him. When he turned round, there was no one, always no one. He shook his fists at the rustling leaves and went on.

They did not grow silent for that, but they took another tone. They began to hiss and to pant behind him. A big viper came gliding. Its tongue dripping venom hung far out of its mouth, and its bright body shone against the withered leaves. Beside the snake pattered a wolf, a big, gaunt monster, who was ready to seize fast in his throat when the snake had twisted about his feet and bitten him in the heel. Sometimes they were both silent, as if to approach him unperceived, but they soon betrayed themselves by hissing and panting, and sometimes the wolf’s claws rung against a stone. Involuntarily Tord walked quicker and quicker, but the creatures hastened after him. When he felt that they were only two steps distant and were preparing to strike, he turned. There was nothing there, and he had known it the whole time.

He sat down on a stone to rest. Then the dry leaves played about his feet as if to amuse him. All the leaves of the forest were there: small, light yellow birch leaves, red speckled mountain ash, the elm’s dry, dark-brown leaves, the aspen’s tough light red, and the willow’s yellow green. Transformed and withered, scarred and torn were they, and much unlike the downy, light green, delicately shaped leaves, which a few months ago had rolled out of their buds.

“Sinners,” said the boy, “sinners, nothing is pure in God’s eyes. The flame of his wrath has already reached you.”

When he resumed his wandering, he saw the forest under him bend before the storm like a heaving sea, but in the path it was calm. But he heard what he did not feel. The woods were full of voices.

He heard whisperings, wailing songs, coarse threats, thundering oaths. There was laughter and laments, there was the noise of many people. That which hounded and pursued, which rustled and hissed, which seemed to be something and still was nothing, gave him wild thoughts. He felt again the anguish of death, as when he lay on the floor in his den and the peasants hunted him through the wood. He heard again the crashing of branches, the people’s heavy tread, the ring of weapons, the resounding cries, the wild, bloodthirsty noise, which followed the crowd.

But it was not only that which he heard in the storm. There was something else, something still more terrible, voices which he could not interpret, a confusion of voices, which seemed to him to speak in foreign tongues. He had heard mightier storms than this whistle through the rigging, but never before had he heard the wind play on such a many-voiced harp. Each tree had its own voice; the pine did not murmur like the aspen nor the poplar like the mountain ash. Every hole had its note, every cliff’s sounding echo its own ring. And the noise of the brooks and the cry of foxes mingled with the marvellous forest storm. But all that he could interpret; there were other strange sounds. It was those which made him begin to scream and scoff and groan in emulation with the storm.

He had always been afraid when he was alone in the darkness of the forest. He liked the open sea and the bare rocks. Spirits and phantoms crept about among the trees.

Suddenly he heard who it was who spoke in the storm. It was God, the great Avenger, the God of justice. He was hunting him for the sake of his comrade. He demanded that he should deliver up the murderer to His vengeance.

Then Tord began to speak in the midst of the storm. He told God what he had wished to do, but had not been able. He had wished to speak to Berg Rese and to beg him to make his peace with God, but he had been too shy. Bashfulness had made him dumb. “When I heard that the earth was ruled by a just God,” he cried, “I understood that he was a lost man. I have lain and wept for my friend many long nights. I knew that God would find him out, wherever he might hide. But I could not speak, nor teach him to understand. I was speechless, because I loved him so much. Ask not that I shall speak to him, ask not that the sea shall rise up against the mountain.”

He was silent, and in the storm the deep voice, which had been the voice of God for him, ceased. It was suddenly calm, with a sharp sun and a splashing as of oars and a gentle rustle as of stiff rushes. These sounds brought Unn’s image before him.⁠—The outlaw cannot have anything, not riches, nor women, nor the esteem of men.⁠—If he should betray Berg, he would be taken under the protection of the law.⁠—But Unn must love Berg, after what he had done for her. There was no way out of it all.

When the storm increased, he heard again steps behind him and sometimes a breathless panting. Now he did not dare to look back, for he knew that the white monk went behind him. He came from the feast at Berg Rese’s house, drenched with blood, with a gaping axe-wound in his forehead. And he whispered: “Denounce him, betray him, save his soul. Leave his body to the pyre, that his soul may be spared. Leave him to the slow torture of the rack, that his soul may have time to repent.”

Tord ran. All this fright of what was nothing in itself grew, when it so continually played on the soul, to an unspeakable terror. He wished to escape from it all. As he began to run, again thundered that deep, terrible voice, which was God’s. God himself hunted him with alarms, that he should give up the murderer. Berg Rese’s crime seemed more detestable than ever to him. An unarmed man had been murdered, a man of God pierced with shining steel. It was like a defiance of the Lord of the world. And the murderer dared to live! He rejoiced in the sun’s light and in the fruits of the earth as if the Almighty’s arm were too short to reach him.

He stopped, clenched his fists and howled out a threat. Then he ran like a madman from the wood down to the valley.

Tord hardly needed to tell his errand; instantly ten peasants were ready to follow him. It was decided that Tord should go alone up to the cave, so that Berg’s suspicions should not be aroused. But where he went he should scatter peas, so that the peasants could find the way.

When Tord came to the cave, the outlaw sat on the stone bench and sewed. The fire gave hardly any light, and the work seemed to go badly. The boy’s heart swelled with pity. The splendid Berg Rese seemed to him poor and unhappy. And the only thing he possessed, his life, should be taken from him. Tord began to weep.

“What is it?” asked Berg. “Are you ill? Have you been frightened?”

Then for the first time Tord spoke of his fear. “It was terrible in the wood. I heard ghosts and raw spectres. I saw white monks.”

“ ’Sdeath, boy!”

“They crowded round me all the way up Broad mountain. I ran, but they followed after and sang. Can I never be rid of the sound? What have I to do with them? I think that they could go to one who needed it more.”

“Are you mad tonight, Tord?”

Tord talked, hardly knowing what words he used. He was free from all shyness. The words streamed from his lips.

“They are all white monks, white, pale as death. They all have blood on their cloaks. They drag their hoods down over their brows, but still the wound shines from under; the big, red, gaping wound from the blow of the axe.”

“The big, red, gaping wound from the blow of the axe?”

“Is it I who perhaps have struck it? Why shall I see it?”

“The saints only know, Tord,” said Berg Rese, pale and with terrible earnestness, “what it means that you see a wound from an axe. I killed the monk with a couple of knife-thrusts.”

Tord stood trembling before Berg and wrung his hands. “They demand you of me! They want to force me to betray you!”

“Who? The monks?”

“They, yes, the monks. They show me visions. They show me her, Unn. They show me the shining, sunny sea. They show me the fishermen’s camping-ground, where there is dancing and merrymaking. I close my eyes, but still I see. ‘Leave me in peace,’ I say. ‘My friend has murdered, but he is not bad. Let me be, and I will talk to him, so that he repents and atones. He shall confess his sin and go to Christ’s grave. We will both go together to the places which are so holy that all sin is taken away from him who draws near them.’ ”

“What do the monks answer?” asked Berg. “They want to have me saved. They want to have me on the rack and wheel.”

“Shall I betray my dearest friend, I ask them,” continued Tord. “He is my world. He has saved me from the bear that had his paw on my throat. We have been cold together and suffered every want together. He has spread his bearskin over me when I was sick. I have carried wood and water for him; I have watched over him while he slept; I have fooled his enemies. Why do they think that I am one who will betray a friend? My friend will soon of his own accord go to the priest and confess, then we will go together to the land of atonement.”

Berg listened earnestly, his eyes sharply searching Tord’s face. “You shall go to the priest and tell him the truth,” he said. “You need to be among people.”

“Does that help me if I go alone? For your sin, Death and all his spectres follow me. Do you not see how I shudder at you? You have lifted your hand against God himself. No crime is like yours. I think that I must rejoice when I see you on rack and wheel. It is well for him who can receive his punishment in this world and escapes the wrath to come. Why did you tell me of the just God? You compel me to betray you. Save me from that sin. Go to the priest.” And he fell on his knees before Berg.

The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He was measuring his sin against his friend’s anguish, and it grew big and terrible before his soul. He saw himself at variance with the Will which rules the world. Repentance entered his heart.

“Woe to me that I have done what I have done,” he said. “That which awaits me is too hard to meet voluntarily. If I give myself up to the priests, they will torture me for hours; they will roast me with slow fires. And is not this life of misery, which we lead in fear and want, penance enough? Have I not lost lands and home? Do I not live parted from friends and everything which makes a man’s happiness? What more is required?”

When he spoke so, Tord sprang up wild with terror. “Can you repent?” he cried. “Can my words move your heart? Then come instantly! How could I believe that! Let us escape! There is still time.”

Berg Rese sprang up, he too. “You have done it, then⁠—”

“Yes, yes, yes! I have betrayed you! But come quickly! Come, as you can repent! They will let us go. We shall escape them!”

The murderer bent down to the floor, where the battle-axe of his ancestors lay at his feet. “You son of a thief!” he said, hissing out the words, “I have trusted you and loved you.”

But when Tord saw him bend for the axe, he knew that it was now a question of his own life. He snatched his own axe from his belt and struck at Berg before he had time to raise himself. The edge cut through the whistling air and sank in the bent head. Berg Rese fell head foremost to the floor, his body rolled after. Blood and brains spouted out, the axe fell from the wound. In the matted hair Tord saw a big, red, gaping hole from the blow of an axe.

The peasants came rushing in. They rejoiced and praised the deed.

“You will win by this,” they said to Tord.

Tord looked down at his hands as if he saw there the fetters with which he had been dragged forward to kill him he loved. They were forged from nothing. Of the rushes’ green light, of the play of the shadows, of the song of the storm, of the rustling of the leaves, of dreams were they created. And he said aloud: “God is great.”

But again the old thought came to him. He fell on his knees beside the body and put his arm under his head.

“Do him no harm,” he said. “He repents; he is going to the Holy Sepulchre. He is not dead, he is but a prisoner. We were just ready to go when he fell. The white monk did not want him to repent, but God, the God of justice, loves repentance.”

He lay beside the body, talked to it, wept and begged the dead man to awake. The peasants arranged a bier. They wished to carry the peasant’s body down to his house. They had respect for the dead and spoke softly in his presence. When they lifted him up on the bier, Tord rose, shook the hair back from his face, and said with a voice which shook with sobs⁠—

“Say to Unn, who made Berg Rese a murderer, that he was killed by Tord the fisherman, whose father is a wrecker and whose mother is a witch, because he taught him that the foundation of the world is justice.”

The Legend of Reor

There was a man called Reor. He was from Fuglekarr in the parish of Svarteborg, and was considered the best shot in the county. He was baptized when King Olof rooted out the old belief, and was ever afterwards an eager Christian. He was freeborn, but poor; handsome, but not tall; strong, but gentle. He tamed young horses with but a look and a word, and could lure birds to him with a call. He dwelt mostly in the woods, and nature had great power over him. The growing of the plants and the budding of the trees, the play of the hares in the forest’s open places and the fish’s leap in the calm lake at evening, the conflict of the seasons and the changes of the weather, these were the chief events in his life. Sorrow and joy he found in such things and not in that which happened among men.

One day the skilful hunter met deep in the thickest forest an old bear and killed him with a single shot. The great arrow’s sharp point pierced the mighty heart, and he fell dead at the hunter’s feet. It was summer, and the bear’s pelt was neither close nor even, still the archer drew it off, rolled it together into a hard bundle, and went on with the bearskin on his back.

He had not wandered far before he perceived an extraordinarily strong smell of honey. It came from the little flowering plants that covered the ground. They grew on slender stalks, had light-green, shiny leaves, which were beautifully veined, and at the top a little spike, thickly set with white flowers. Their petals were of the tiniest, but from among them pushed up a little brush of stamens, whose pollen-filled heads trembled on white filaments. Reor thought, as he went among them, that those flowers, which stood alone and unnoticed in the darkness of the forest, were sending out message after message, summons upon summons. The strong, sweet fragrance of the honey was their cry; it spread the knowledge of their existence far away among the trees and high up towards the clouds. But there was something melancholy in the heavy perfume. The flowers had filled their cups and spread their table in expectation of their winged guests, but none came. They pined to death in the deep loneliness of the dark, windless forest thicket. They seemed to wish to cry and lament that the beautiful butterflies did not come and visit them. Where the flowers grew thickest, he thought that they sang together a monotonous song. “Come, fair guests, come today, for tomorrow we are dead, tomorrow we lie dead on the dried leaves.”

Reor was permitted to see the joyous close of the flower adventure. He felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white butterfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way. Nor was he alone; butterfly after butterfly glimmered in the darkness, until at last there was a host of white-winged honey seekers. But the first was the leader, and he found the flowers, guided by their fragrance. After him the whole butterfly host came storming. It threw itself down among the longing flowers, as the conqueror throws himself on his booty. Like a snowfall of white wings it sank down over them. And there was feasting and drinking on every flower-cluster. The woods were full of silent rejoicing.

Reor went on, but now the honey-sweet fragrance seemed to follow him wherever he went. And he felt that in the wood was hidden a longing, stronger than that of the flowers, that something there drew him to itself, just as the flowers lured the butterflies. He went forward with a quiet joy in his heart, as if he was expecting a great, unknown happiness. His only fear was lest he should not be able to find the way to that which longed for him.

In front of him, on the narrow path, crawled a white snake. He bent down to pick up the luck-bringing animal, but the snake glided out of his hands and up the path. There it coiled itself and lay still; but when the huntsman again tried to catch it, glided slippery as ice between his fingers.

Reor now grew eager to possess the wisest of beasts. He ran after the snake, but was not able to reach it, and the latter lured him away from the path into the trackless forest.

It was overgrown with pines, and in such places one seldom finds grassy ground. But now the dry moss and brown pine-needles suddenly disappeared, the stiff cranberry bushes vanished, and Reor felt under foot velvet like turf. Over the green carpet trembled flower clusters, light as down, on bending stems, and between the long, narrow leaves could he seen the half-opened blossoms of the red gillyflower. It was only a little spot, and over it spread the gnarled, red-brown branches of the lofty pines, with bunches of close-growing needles. Through these the sun’s rays could find many paths to the ground, and there was suffocating heat.

In the midst of the little meadow a cliff rose perpendicularly out of the ground. It lay in sharp sunshine, and the mossy stones were plainly visible, and in the fresh fractures, where the winter’s frost had last loosened some mighty blocks, the long stalks of ferns clung with their brown roots in the earth-filled cracks, and on the inch-wide projections a grass-green moss lifted on needle-like stems the little, grey caps, which concealed its spores.

The cliff seemed in all ways like every other cliff, but Reor noticed instantly that he had come upon the gable-wall of a giant’s house, and he discovered under moss and lichen the great hinges on which the mountain’s granite door swung.

He now believed that the snake had crept in, in the grass to hide there, until it could come in among the rocks unnoticed, and he gave up all hope of catching it. He perceived now again the honey-sweet fragrance of the longing flowers and noticed that here under the cliff the heat was suffocating. It was also marvellously quiet; not a bird moved, not a leaf played in the wind; it was as if everything held its breath, waiting and listening in unspeakable tension. It was as if he had come into a room where he was not alone, although he saw no one. He thought that someone was watching him, he felt as if he had been expected. He knew no alarm, but was thrilled by a pleasant shiver, as if he were soon to see something above-the-common beautiful.

In that moment he again became aware of the snake. It had not hidden itself, it had instead crawled up on one of the blocks which the frost had broken from the cliff. And just below the white snake he saw the bright body of a girl, who lay asleep in the soft grass. She lay without any other covering than a light, web-like veil, just as if she had thrown herself down there after having taken part the whole night in some elfin dance; but the long blades of grass and the trembling flower-clusters stood high over the sleeper, so that Reor could scarcely catch a glimpse of the soft lines of her body. Nor did he go nearer in order to see better. He drew his good knife from its sheath and threw it between the girl and the cliff, so that the steel-shy daughter of the giants should not be able to flee into the mountain when she awoke.

Then he stood still in deep thought. One thing he knew, that he wished to possess the maiden who lay there; but as yet he had not quite made up his mind how he would behave towards her.

He, who knew the language of nature better than that of man, listened to the great, solemn forest and the stern mountain. “See,” they said, “to you, who love the wilderness, we give our fair daughter. She will suit you better than the daughters of the plain. Reor, are you worthy of this most precious of gifts?”

Then he thanked in his heart the great, kind Nature and decided to make the maiden his wife and not merely a slave. He thought that since she had come to Christendom and human ways, she would be confused at the thought that she had lain so uncovered, so he loosened the bearskin from his back, unfolded the stiff hide, and threw the old bear’s shaggy, grizzled pelt over her.

And as he did so a laugh, which made the ground shake, thundered behind the cliff. It did not sound like derision, but as if someone had sat in great fear and could not help laughing, when suddenly relieved of it. The terrible silence and oppressive heat were also at an end. Over the grass floated a cooling wind, and the pine-branches began their murmuring song. The happy huntsman felt that the whole forest had held its breath, wondering how the daughter of the wilderness would be treated by the son of man.

The snake now glided down into the high grass; but the sleeper lay bound in a magic sleep and did not move. Then Reor wrapped her in the coarse bearskin, so that only her head showed above the shaggy fur. Although she certainly was a daughter of the old giant of the mountain, she was slender and delicately made, and the strong hunter lifted her on his arm and carried her away through the forest.

After a while he felt that someone lifted his broad-brimmed hat. He looked up and found that the giant’s daughter was awake. She sat quiet on his arm, but she wished to see what the man looked like who was carrying her. He let her do as she pleased. He went on with longer strides, but said nothing.

Then she must have noticed how hot the sun burned on his head, since she had taken off his hat. She held it out over his head like a parasol, but she did not put it back, rather held it so, that she could still look down into his face. Then it seemed to him that he did not need to ask or to speak. He carried her silently down to his mother’s hut. But his whole being was filled with happiness, and when he stood on the threshold of his home, he saw the white snake, which gives good fortune, glide in under its foundation.

Valdemar Atterdag

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 marketplace. 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. Today 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? Tomorrow they will go to church, or sit in peaceful mirth in their inns, or also perhaps be good fathers in their own homes, but today they serve me; today they are evildoers 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 marketplace 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 marketplace, 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 thunderbolts 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.

Mamsell Fredrika

It was Christmas night, a real Christmas night.

The goblins raised the mountain roofs on lofty gold pillars and celebrated the midwinter festival. The brownies danced around the Christmas porridge in new red caps. Old gods wandered about the heavens in gray storm cloaks, and in the Österhaninge graveyard stood the horse of Hel.3 He pawed with his hoof on the frozen ground; he was marking out the place for a new grave.

Not very far away, at the old manor of Årsta, Mamsell Fredrika was lying asleep. Årsta is, as everyone knows, an old haunted castle, but Mamsell Fredrika slept a calm, quiet sleep. She was old now and tired out after many weary days of work and many long journeys⁠—she had almost traveled round the world⁠—therefore she had returned to the home of her childhood to find rest.

Outside the castle sounded in the night a bold fanfare. Death mounted on a gray charger had ridden up to the castle gate. His wide scarlet cloak and his hat’s proud plumes fluttered in the night wind. The stern knight sought to win an adoring heart, therefore he appeared in unusual magnificence. It is of no avail, Sir Knight, of no avail! The gate is closed, and the lady of your heart asleep. You must seek a better occasion and a more suitable hour. Watch for her when she goes to early mass, stern Sir Knight, watch for her on the church-road!

Old Mamsell Fredrika sleeps quietly in her beloved home. No one deserves more than she the sweetness of rest. Like a Christmas angel she sat but now in a circle of children, and told them of Jesus and the shepherds, told until her eyes shone, and her withered face became transfigured. Now in her old age no one noticed what Mamsell Fredrika looked like. Those who saw the little, slender figure, the tiny, delicate hands and the kind, clever face, instantly longed to be able to preserve that sight in remembrance as the most beautiful of memories.

In Mamsell Fredrika’s big room, among many relics and souvenirs, there was a little, dry bush. It was a Jericho rose, brought back by Mamsell Fredrika from the far East. Now in the Christmas night it began to blossom quite of itself. The dry twigs were covered with red buds, which shone like sparks of fire and lighted the whole room.

By the light of the sparks one saw that a small and slender but quite elderly lady sat in the big armchair and held her court. It could not be Mamsell Fredrika herself, for she lay sleeping in quiet repose, and yet it was she. She sat there and held a reception for old memories; the room was full of them. People and homes and subjects and thoughts and discussions came flying. Memories of childhood and memories of youth, love and tears, homage and bitter scorn, all came rushing towards the pale form that sat and looked at everything with a friendly smile. She had words of jest or of sympathy for them all.

At night everything takes its right size and shape. And just as then for the first time the stars of heaven are visible, one also sees much on earth that one never sees by day. Now in the light of the red buds of the Jericho rose one could see a crowd of strange figures in Mamsell Fredrika’s drawing-room. The hard ma chère mère was there, the goodnatured Beata Hvardagslag, people from the East and the West, the enthusiastic Nina, the energetic, struggling Hertha in her white dress.

“Can anyone tell me why that person must always be dressed in white?” jested the little figure in the armchair when she caught sight of her.

All the memories spoke to the old woman and said: “You have seen and experienced so much; you have worked and earned so much! Are you not tired? will you not go to rest?”

“Not yet,” answered the shadow in the yellow armchair. “I have still a book to write. I cannot go to rest before it is finished.”

Thereupon the figures vanished. The Jericho rose went out, and the yellow armchair stood empty.

In the Österhaninge church the dead were celebrating midnight mass. One of them climbed up to the bell-tower and rang in Christmas; another went about and lighted the Christmas candles, and a third began with bony fingers to play the organ. Through the open doors others came swarming in out of the night and their graves to the bright, glowing House of the Lord. Just as they had been in life they came, only a little paler. They opened the pew doors with rattling keys and chatted and whispered as they walked up the aisle.

“They are the candles she has given the poor that are now shining in God’s house.”

“We lie warm in our graves as long as she gives clothes and wood to the poor.”

“She has spoken so many noble words that have opened the hearts of men; those words are the keys of our pews.”

“She has thought beautiful thoughts of God’s love. Those thoughts raise us from our graves.”

So they whispered and murmured before they sat down in the pews and bent their pale foreheads in prayer in their shrunken hands.

At Årsta someone came into Mamsell Fredrika’s room and laid her hand gently on the sleeper’s arm.

“Up, my Fredrika! It is time to go to the early mass.”

Old Mamsell Fredrika opened her eyes and saw Agathe, her beloved sister who was dead, standing by the bed with a candle in her hand. She recognized her, for she looked just as she had done on earth. Mamsell Fredrika was not afraid; she rejoiced only at seeing her loved one, at whose side she longed to sleep the everlasting sleep.

She rose and dressed herself with all speed. There was no time for conversation; the carriage stood before the door. The others must have gone already, for no one but Mamsell Fredrika and her dead sister were moving in the house.

“Do you remember, Fredrika,” said the sister, as they sat in the carriage and drove quickly to the church, “do you remember how you always in the old days expected some knight to carry you off on the road to church?”

“I am still expecting it,” said old Mamsell Fredrika, and laughed. “I never ride in this carriage without looking out for my knight.”

Even though they hurried, they came too late. The priest stepped down from the pulpit as they entered the church, and the closing hymn began. Never had Mamsell Fredrika heard such a beautiful song. It was as if both earth and heaven joined in, in the song; as if every bench and stone and board had sung too.

She had never seen the church so crowded: on the communion table and on the pulpit steps sat people; they stood in the aisles, they thronged in the pews, and outside the whole road was packed with people who could not enter. The sisters, however, found places; for them the crowd moved aside.

“Fredrika,” said her sister, “look at the people!”

And Mamsell Fredrika looked and looked.

Then she perceived that she, like the woman in the saga, had come to a mass of the dead. She felt a cold shiver pass down her back, but it happened, as often before, she felt more curious than frightened.

She saw now who were in the church. There were none but women there: grey, bent forms, with circular capes and faded mantillas, with hats of faded splendor and turned or threadbare dresses. She saw an unheard-of number of wrinkled faces, sunken mouths, dim eyes and shrivelled hands, but not a single hand which wore a plain gold ring.

Yes, Mamsell Fredrika understood it now. It was all the old maids who had passed away in the land of Sweden who were keeping midnight mass in the Österhaninge church.

Her dead sister leaned towards her.

“Sister, do you repent of what you have done for these your sisters?”

“No,” said Mamsell Fredrika. “What have I to be glad for if not that it has been bestowed upon me to work for them? I once sacrificed my position as an authoress to them. I am glad that I knew what I sacrificed and yet did it.”

“Then you may stay and hear more,” said the sister.

At the same moment someone was heard to speak far away in the choir, a mild but distinct voice.

“My sisters,” said the voice, “our pitiable race, our ignorant and despised race will soon exist no more. God has willed that we shall die out from the earth.

“Dear friends, we shall soon be only a legend. The old Mamsells’ measure is full. Death rides about on the road to the church to meet the last one of us. Before the next midnight mass she will be dead, the last old Mamsell.

“Sisters, sisters! We are the lonely ones of the earth, the neglected ones at the feast, the unappreciated workers in the homes. We are met with scorn and indifference. Our way is weary and our name is ridicule.

“But God has had mercy upon us.

“To one of us He gave power and genius. To one of us He gave never-failing goodness. To one of us He gave the glorious gift of eloquence. She was everything we ought to have been. She threw light on our dark fate. She was the servant of the homes, as we had been, but she offered her gifts to a thousand homes. She was the caretaker of the sick, as we had been, but she struggled with the terrible epidemic of habits of former days. She told her stories to thousands of children. She lead her poor friends in every land. She gave from fuller hands than we and with a warmer spirit. In her heart dwelt none of our bitterness, for she has loved it away. Her glory has been that of a queen’s. She has been offered the treasures of gratitude by millions of hearts. Her word has weighed heavily in the great questions of mankind. Her name has sounded through the new and the old world. And yet she is only an old Mamsell.

“She has transfigured our dark fate. Blessings on her name!”

The dead joined in, in a thousandfold echo: “Blessings on her name!”

“Sister,” whispered Mamsell Fredrika, “can you not forbid them to make me, poor, sinful being, proud?”

“But, sisters, sisters,” continued the voice, “she has turned against our race with all her great power. At her cry for freedom and work for all, the old, despised livers on charity have died out. She has broken down the tyranny that fenced in childhood. She has stirred young girls towards the wide activity of life. She has put an end to loneliness, to ignorance, to joylessness. No unhappy, despised old Mamsells without aim or purpose in life will ever exist again; none such as we have been.”

Again resounded the echo of the shades, merry as a hunting-song in the wood which is sung by a happy throng of children: “Blessed be her memory!”

Thereupon the dead swarmed out of the church, and Mamsell Fredrika wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.

“I will not go home with you,” said her dead sister. “Will you not stop here now also?”

“I should like to, but I cannot. There is a book which I must make ready first.”

“Well, good night then, and beware of the knight of the church road,” said her dead sister, and smiled roguishly in her old way.

Then Mamsell Fredrika drove home. All Årsta still slept, and she went quietly to her room, lay down and slept again.

A few hours later she drove to the real early mass. She drove in a closed carriage, but she let down the window to look at the stars; it is possible too that she, as of old, was looking for her knight.

And there he was; he sprang forward to the window of the carriage. He sat his prancing charger magnificently. His scarlet cloak fluttered in the wind. His pale face was stern, but beautiful.

“Will you be mine?” he whispered.

She was transported in her old heart by the lofty figure with the waving plumes. She forgot that she needed to live a year yet.

“I am ready,” she whispered.

“Then I will come and fetch you in a week at your father’s house.”

He bent down and kissed her, and then he vanished; she began to shiver and tremble under Death’s kiss.

A little later Mamsell Fredrika sat in the church, in the same place where she had sat as a child. Here she forgot both the knight and the ghosts, and sat smiling in quiet delight at the thought of the revelation of the glory of God.

But either she was tired because she had not slept the whole night, or the warmth and the closeness and the smell of the candles had a soporific effect on her as on many another.

She fell asleep, only for a second; she absolutely could not help it.

Perhaps, too, God wished to open to her the gates of the land of dreams.

In that single second when she slept, she saw her stern father, her lovely, beautifully-dressed mother, and the ugly, little Petrea sitting in the church. And the soul of the child was compressed by an anguish greater than has ever been felt by a grown person. The priest stood in the pulpit and spoke of the stern, avenging God, and the child sat pale and trembling, as if the words had been axe-blows and had gone through its heart.

“Oh, what a God, what a terrible God!”

In the next second she was awake, but she trembled and shuddered, as after the kiss of death on the church-road. Her heart was once more caught in the wild grief of her childhood.

She wished to hurry from the church. She must go home and write her book, her glorious book on the God of peace and love.

Nothing else that can be deemed worth mentioning happened to Mamsell Fredrika before New Year’s night. Life and death, like day and night, reigned in quiet concord over the earth during the last week of the year, but when New Year’s night came, Death took his sceptre and announced that now old Mamsell Fredrika should belong to him.

Had they but known it, all the people of Sweden would certainly have prayed a common prayer to God to be allowed to keep their purest spirit, their warmest heart. Many homes in many lands where she had left loving hearts would have watched with despair and grief. The poor, the sick and the needy would have forgotten their own wants to remember hers, and all the children who had grown up blessing her work would have clasped their hands to pray for one more year for their best friend. One year, that she might make all fully clear and put the finishing-touch on her life’s work.

For Death was too prompt for Mamsell Fredrika.

There was a storm outside on that New Year’s night; there was a storm within her soul. She felt all the agony of life and death coming to a crisis.

“Anguish!” she sighed, “anguish!”

But the anguish gave way, and peace came, and she whispered softly: “The love of Christ⁠—the best love⁠—the peace of God⁠—the everlasting light!”

Yes, that was what she would have written in her book, and perhaps much else as beautiful and wonderful. Who knows? Only one thing we know, that books are forgotten, but such a life as hers never is.

The old prophetess’s eyes closed and she sank into visions.

Her body struggled with death, but she did not know it. Her family sat weeping about her deathbed, but she did not see them. Her spirit had begun its flight.

Dreams became reality to her and reality dreams. Now she stood, as she had already seen herself in the visions of her youth, waiting at the gates of heaven with innumerable hosts of the dead round about her. And heaven opened. He, the only one, the Saviour, stood in its open gates. And his infinite love woke in the waiting spirits and in her a longing to fly to his embrace, and their longing lifted them and her, and they floated as if on wings upwards, upwards.

The next day there was mourning in the land; mourning in wide parts of the earth.

Fredrika Bremer was dead.

The Romance of a Fisherman’s Wife

On the outer edge of the fishing-village stood a little cottage on a low mound of white sea sand. It was not built in line with the even, neat, conventional houses that enclosed the wide green place where the brown fishnets were dried, but seemed as if forced out of the row and pushed on one side to the sand-hills. The poor widow who had erected it had been her own builder, and she had made the walls of her cottage lower than those of all the other cottages and its steep thatched roof higher than any other roof in the fishing-village. The floor lay deep down in the ground. The window was neither high nor wide, but nevertheless it reached from the cornice to the level of the earth. There had been no space for a chimney-breast in the one narrow room and she had been obliged to add a small, square projection. The cottage had not, like the other cottages, its fenced-in garden with gooseberry bushes and twining morning-glories and elder-bushes half suffocated by burdocks. Of all the vegetation of the fishing-village, only the burdocks had followed the cottage to the sand-hill. They were fine enough in summer with their fresh, dark-green leaves and prickly baskets filled with bright, red flowers. But towards the autumn, when the prickles had hardened and the seeds had ripened, they grew careless about their looks, and stood hideously ugly and dry with their torn leaves wrapped in a melancholy shroud of dusty cobwebs.

The cottage never had more than two owners, for it could not hold up that heavy roof on its walls of reeds and clay for more than two generations. But as long as it stood, it was owned by poor widows. The second widow who lived there delighted in watching the burdocks, especially in the autumn, when they were dried and broken. They recalled her who had built the cottage. She too had been shrivelled and dry and had had the power to cling fast and adhere, and all her strength had been used for her child, whom she had needed to help on in the world. She, who now sat there alone, wished both to weep and to laugh at the thought of it. If the old woman had not had a burr-like nature, how different everything would have been! But who knows if it would have been better?

The lonely woman often sat musing on the fate which had brought her to this spot on the coast of Skone, to the narrow inlet and among these quiet people. For she was born in a Norwegian seaport which lay on a narrow strip of land between rushing falls and the open sea, and although her means were small after the death of her father, a merchant, who left his family in poverty, still she was used to life and progress. She used to tell her story to herself over and over again, just as one often reads through an obscure book in order to try to discover its meaning.

The first thing of note which had happened to her was when, one evening on the way home from the dressmaker with whom she worked, she had been attacked by two sailors and rescued by a third. The latter fought for her at peril of his life and afterwards went home with her. She took him in to her mother and sisters, and told them excitedly what he had done. It was as if life had acquired a new value for her, because another had dared so much to defend it. He had been immediately well received by her family and asked to come again as soon and as often as he could.

His name was Börje Nilsson, and he was a sailor on the Swedish lugger Albertina. As long as the boat lay in the harbor, he came almost every day to her home, and they could soon no longer believe that he was only a common sailor. He shone always in a clean, turned-down collar and wore a sailor suit of fine cloth. Natural and frank, he showed himself among them, as if he had been used to move in the same class as they. Without his ever having said it in so many words, they got the impression that he was from a respectable home, the only son of a rich widow, but that his unconquerable love for a sailor’s profession had made him take a place before the mast, so that his mother should see that he was in earnest. When he had passed his examination, she would certainly get him his own ship.

The lonely family who had drawn away from all their former friends, received him without the slightest suspicion. And he described with a light heart and fluent tongue his home with its high, pointed roof, the great open fireplace in the dining-room and the little leaded glass panes. He also painted the silent streets of his native town and the long rows of even houses, built in the same style, against which his home, with its irregular buttresses and terraces, made a pleasant contrast. And his listeners believed that he had come from one of those old burgher houses with carved gables and with overhanging second stories, which give such a strong impression of wealth and venerable age.

Soon enough she saw that he cared for her. And that gave her mother and sisters great joy. The young, rich Swede came as if to raise them all up from their poverty. Even if she had not loved him, which she did, she would never have had a thought of saying no to his proposal. If she had had a father or a grown-up brother, he could have found out about the stranger’s extraction and position, but neither she nor her mother thought of making any inquiries. Afterwards she saw how they had actually forced him to lie. In the beginning, he had let them imagine great ideas about his wealth without any evil intention, but when he understood how glad they were over it, he had not dared to speak the truth for fear of losing her.

Before he left they were betrothed, and when the lugger came again, they were married. It was a disappointment for her that he also on his return appeared as a sailor, but he had been bound by his contract. He had no greetings either from his mother. She had expected him to make another choice, but she would be so glad, he said, if she would once see Astrid.⁠—In spite of all his lies, it would have been an easy matter to see that he was a poor man, if they had only chosen to use their eyes.

The captain offered her his cabin if she would like to make the journey in his vessel, and the offer was accepted with delight. Börje was almost exempt from all work, and sat most of the time on the deck, talking to his wife. And now he gave her the happiness of fancy, such as he himself had lived on all his life. The more he thought of that little house which lay half buried in the sand, so much the higher he raised that palace which he would have liked to offer her. He let her in thought glide into a harbor which was adorned with flags and flowers in honor of Börje Nilsson’s bride. He let her hear the mayor’s speech of greeting. He let her drive under a triumphal arch, while the eyes of men followed her and the women grew pale with envy. And he led her into the stately home, where bowing, silvery-haired servants stood drawn up along the side of the broad stairway and where the table laden for the feast groaned under the old family silver.

When she discovered the truth, she supposed at first that the captain had been in league with Börje to deceive her, but afterwards she found that it was not so. They were accustomed on board the boat to speak of Börje as of a great man. It was their greatest joke to talk quite seriously of his riches and his fine family. They thought that Börje had told her the truth, but that she joked with him, as they all did, when she talked about his big house. So it happened that when the lugger cast anchor in the harbor which lay nearest to Börje’s home, she still did not know but that she was the wife of a rich man.

Börje got a day’s leave to conduct his wife to her future home and to start her in her new life. When they were landed on the quay, where the flags were to have fluttered and the crowds to have rejoiced in honor of the newly-married couple, only emptiness and calm reigned there, and Börje noticed that his wife looked about her with a certain disappointment.

“We have come too soon,” he had said. “The journey was such an unusually quick one in this fine weather. So we have no carriage here either, and we have far to go, for the house lies outside the town.”

“That makes no difference, Börje,” she had answered. “It will do us good to walk, after having been quiet so long on board.”

And so they began their walk, that walk of horror, of which she could not think even in her old age without moaning in agony and wringing her hands in pain. They went along the broad, empty streets, which she instantly recognized from his description. She felt as if she met with old friends both in the dark church and in the even houses of timber and brick; but where were the carved gables and marble steps with the high railing?

Börje had nodded to her as if he had guessed her thoughts. “It is a long way still,” he had said.

If he had only been merciful and at once killed her hope. She loved him so then. If he of his own accord had told her everything, there would never have been any sting in her soul against him. But when he saw her pain at being deceived, and yet went on misleading her, that had hurt her too bitterly. She had never really forgiven him that. She could of course say to herself that he had wanted to take her with him as far as possible so that she would not be able to run away from him, but his deceit created such a deadly coldness in her that no love could entirely thaw it.

They went through the town and came out on the adjoining plain. There stretched several rows of dark moats and high, green ramparts, remains from the time when the town had been fortified, and at the point where they all gathered around a fort, she saw some ancient buildings and big, round towers. She cast a shy look towards them, but Börje turned off to the mounds which followed the shore.

“This is a shorter way,” he said, for she seemed to be surprised that there was only a narrow path to follow.

He had become very taciturn. She understood afterwards that he had not found it so merry as he had fancied, to come with a wife to the miserable little house in the fishing village. It did not seem so fine now to bring home a better man’s child. He was anxious about what she would do when she should know the truth.

“Börje,” she said at last, when they had followed the shelving, sandy hillocks for a long while, “where are we going?”

He lifted his band and pointed towards the fishing-village, where his mother lived in the house on the sand-hill. But she believed that he meant one of the beautiful country-seats which lay on the edge of the plain, and was again glad.

They climbed down into the empty cow-pastures, and there all her uneasiness returned. There, where every tuft, if one can only see it, is clothed with beauty and variety, she saw merely an ugly field. And the wind, which is ever shifting there, swept whistling by them and whispered of misfortune and treachery.

Börje walked faster and faster, and at last they reached the end of the pasture and entered the fishing village. She, who at the last had not dared to ask herself any questions, took courage again. Here again was a uniform row of houses, and this one she recognized even better than that in the town. Perhaps, perhaps he had not lied.

Her expectations were so reduced that she would have been glad from the heart if she could have stopped at any of the neat little houses, where flowers and white curtains showed behind shining windowpanes. She grieved that she had to go by them.

Then she saw suddenly, just at the outer edge of the fishing-village, one of the most wretched of hovels, and it seemed to her as if she had already seen it with her mind’s eye before she actually had a glimpse of it.

“Is it here?” he said, and stopped just at the foot of the little sand-hill.

He bent his head imperceptibly and went on towards the little cottage.

“Wait,” she called after him, “we must talk this over before I go into your home. You have lied,” she went on, threateningly, when he turned to her. “You have deceived me worse than if you were my worst enemy. Why have you done it?”

“I wanted you for my wife,” he answered, with a low, trembling voice.

“If you had only deceived me within bounds! Why did you make everything so fine and rich? What did you have to do with man-servants and triumphal arches and all the other magnificence? Did you think that I was so devoted to money? Did you not see that I cared enough for you to go anywhere with you? That you could believe you needed to deceive me! That you could have the heart to keep up your lies to the very last!”

“Will you not come in and speak to my mother?” he said, helplessly.

“I do not intend to go in there.”

“Are you going home?”

“How can I go home? How could I cause them there at home such sorrow as to return, when they believe me happy and rich? But with you I will not stay either. For one who is willing to work there is always a livelihood.”

“Stop!” he begged. “I did it only to win you.”

“If you had told me the truth, I would have stayed.”

“If I had been a rich man, who had pretended to be poor, then you would have stayed.”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned to go, when the door of the cottage opened and Börje’s mother came out. She was a little, dried-up old woman with few teeth and many wrinkles, but not so old in years or in feelings as in looks.

She had heard a part and guessed a part, for she knew what they were quarrelling about. “Well,” she said, “that is a fine daughter-in-law you have got me, Börje. And you have been deceiving again, I can hear.” But to Astrid she came and patted her kindly on the cheek. “Come in with me, you poor child! I know that you are tired and worn out. This is my house. He is not allowed to come in here. But you come. Now you are my daughter, and I cannot let you go to strangers, do you understand?”

She caressed her daughter-in-law and chatted to her and drew and pushed her quite imperceptibly forward to the door. Step by step she lured her on, and at last got her inside the house; but Börje she shut out. And there, within, the old woman began to ask who she was and how it had all happened. And she wept over her and made her weep over herself. The old woman was merciless about her son. She, Astrid, did right; she could not stay with such a man. It was true that he was in the habit of lying, it was really true.

She told her how it had been with her son. He had been so fair in face and limbs, even when he was small, that she had always marvelled that he was a poor man’s child. He was like a little prince gone astray. And ever after it had always seemed as if he had not been in his right place. He saw everything on such a large scale. He could not see things as they were, when it concerned himself. His mother had wept many a time on that account. But never before had he done any harm with his lies. Here, where he was known, they only laughed at him.⁠—But now he must have been so terribly tempted. Did she really not think, she, Astrid, that it was wonderful how the fisher boy had been able to deceive them? He had always known so much about wealth, as if he had been born to it. It must be that he had come into the world in the wrong place. See, that was another proof⁠—he had never thought of choosing a wife in his own station.

“Where will he sleep tonight?” asked Astrid, suddenly.

“I imagine he will lie outside on the sand. He will be too anxious to go away from here.”

“I suppose it is best for him to come in,” said Astrid.

“Dearest child, you cannot want to see him. He can get along out there if I give him a blanket.”

She let him actually sleep out on the sand that night, thinking it best for Astrid not to see him. And with her she talked and talked, and kept her, not by force, but by cleverness, not by persuasion, but by real goodness.

But when she had at last succeeded in keeping her daughter-in-law for her son, and had got the young people reconciled, and had taught Astrid that her vocation in life was just to be Börje Nilsson’s wife and to make him as happy as she could⁠—and that had not been the work of one evening, but of many days⁠—then the old woman had laid herself down to die.

And in that life, with its faithful solicitude for her son, there was some meaning, thought Börje Nilsson’s wife.

But in her own life she saw no meaning. Her husband was drowned after a few years of married life, and her one child died young. She had not been able to make any change in her husband. She had not been able to teach him earnestness and truth. It was rather in her the change showed, after she had been more and more with the fishing people. She would never see any of her own family, for she was ashamed that she now resembled in everything a fisherman’s wife. If it had only been of any use! If she, who lived by mending the fishermen’s nets, knew why she clung so to life! If she had made anyone happy or had improved anybody!

It never occurred to her to think that she who considers her life a failure because she has done no good to others, perhaps by that thought of humility has saved her own soul.

His Mother’s Portrait

In one of the hundred houses of the fishing-village, where each is exactly like the other in size and shape, where all have just as many windows and as high chimneys, lived old Mattsson, the pilot.

In all the rooms of the fishing-village there is the same sort of furniture, on all the windowsills stand the same kinds of flowers, in all the corner-cupboards are the same collections of seashells and coral, on all the walls hang the same pictures. And it is a fixed old custom that all the inhabitants of the fishing-village live the same life. Since Mattsson, the pilot, had grown old, he had conformed carefully to the conditions and customs; his house, his rooms and his mode of living were like everybody else’s.

On the wall over the bed old Mattsson had a picture of his mother. One night he dreamed that the portrait stepped down from its frame, placed itself in front of him and said with a loud voice: “You must marry, Mattson.”

Old Mattsson then began to make clear to his mother that it was impossible. He was seventy years old.⁠—But his mother’s portrait merely repeated with even greater emphasis: “You must marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson had great respect for his mother’s portrait. It had been his adviser on many debatable occasions, and he had always done well by obeying it. But this time he did not quite understand its behavior. It seemed to him as if the picture was acting in opposition to its already acknowledged opinions. Although he was lying there and dreaming, he remembered distinctly and clearly what had happened the first time he wished to be married. Just as he was dressing as a bridegroom, the nail gave way on which the picture hung and it fell to the floor. He understood then that the portrait wished to warn him against the marriage, but he did not obey it. He soon found that the portrait had been right. His short married life was very unhappy.

The second time he dressed as a bridegroom the same thing happened. The portrait fell to the ground as before, and he did not dare again to disobey it. He ran away from bride and wedding and travelled round the world several times before he dared come home again.⁠—And now the picture stepped down from the wall and commanded him to marry! However good and obedient he was, he allowed himself to think that it was making a fool of him.

But his mother’s portrait, which looked out with the grimmest face that sharp winds and salt sea-foam could carve, stood solemnly as before. And with a voice which had been exercised and strengthened for many years by offering fish in the town marketplace, it repeated: “You must marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson then asked his mother’s portrait to consider what kind of a community it was they lived in.

All the hundred houses of the fishing-village had pointed roofs and whitewashed walls; all the boats of the fishing-village were of the same build and rig. No one there ever did anything unusual. His mother would have been the first to oppose such a marriage if she had been alive. His mother had held by habits and customs. And it was not the habit and custom of the fishing-village for old men of seventy years to marry.

His mother’s picture stretched out her beringed hand and positively commanded him to obey. There had always been something excessively awe-inspiring in his mother when she came in her black silk dress with many flounces. The big, shining gold brooch, the heavy, rattling gold chain had always frightened him. If she had worn her market-clothes, in a striped head-cloth and with an oilcloth apron, covered with fish-scales and fish eyes, he would not have been quite so overawed by her. The end of it was that he promised to get married. And then his mother’s portrait crept up into the frame again.

The next morning old Mattsson woke in great trouble. It never occurred to him to disobey his mother’s portrait; it knew of course what was best for him. But he shuddered nevertheless at the time that was now coming.

The same day he made an offer of marriage to the plainest daughter of the poorest fisherman, a little creature, whose head was drawn down between her shoulders and who had a projecting under-jaw. The parents said yes, and the day when he was to go to the town and publish the bans was appointed.

The road from the fishing-village to the town passes over windy marshes and swampy cow-pastures. It is two miles long, and there is a tradition that the inhabitants of the fishing-village are so rich that they could pave it with shining silver coins. It would give the road a strange attraction. Glimmering like a fish’s belly, it would wind with its white scales through clumps of sedge and pools filled with water-bugs and melancholy bullfrogs. The daisies and almond-blossoms which adorn that forsaken ground would be mirrored in the shining silver coins; thistles would stretch out protecting thorns over them, and the wind would find a ringing sounding-board when it played on the thatched roof of the cow-barns and on telephone-wires.

Perhaps old Mattsson would have found some comfort if he could have set his heavy sea boots on ringing silver, for it is certain that he for a time had to go that way oftener than he liked.

He had not had “clean papers.” The bans could not be published. It came from his having run away from his bride the last time. Some time passed before the clergyman could write to the consistory about him and get permission for him to contract a new marriage.

As long as this time of waiting lasted, old Mattsson came to the town every week. He sat by the door of the pastor’s room and remained there in silent expectation until all had spoken in turn. Then he rose and asked if the clergyman had anything for him. No, he had nothing.

The pastor was amazed at the power that all-conquering love had acquired over that old man. There he sat in a thick, knitted jersey, high sea-boots and weather-beaten sou’wester with a sharp, clever face and long, gray hair, and waited for permission to get married. The clergyman thought it strange that the old fisherman should have been seized by so eager a longing.

“You are in a hurry with this marriage, Mattsson,” said the clergyman.

“Oh yes, it is best to get it done soon.”

“Could you not just as well give up the whole thing? You are no longer young, Mattsson.”

The clergyman must not be too surprised. He knew well enough that he was too old, but he was obliged to be married. There was no help for it.

So he came again week after week for a half year, until at last the permission came.

During all that time old Mattsson was a persecuted man. Round the green drying-place, where the brown fishnets were hung out, along the cemented walls by the harbor, at the fish-tables in the market, where cod and crabs were sold, and far out in the sound among the shoals of herring, raged a storm of wonder and laughter.

“So he is going to be married, he, Mattsson, who ran away from his own wedding!”

Neither bride nor groom were spared.

But the worst thing for him was that no one could laugh more at the whole thing than he himself. No one could find it more ridiculous. His mother’s portrait was driving him mad.

It was the afternoon of the first time of asking. Old Mattsson, still pursued by talk and wonderings, went out on the long breakwater as far as the whitewashed lighthouse, in order to be alone. He found his betrothed there. She sat and wept.

He asked her whether she would have liked someone else better. She sat and pried little bits of mortar from the lighthouse wall and threw them into the water, answering nothing at first.

“Was there nobody you liked?”

“Oh no, of course not.”

It is very beautiful out by the lighthouse. The clear water of the sound laps about it. The low-lying shore, the little uniform houses of the fishing-village, and the distant town are all shining in wonderful beauty. Out of the soft mist that hovers on the western horizon a fishing-boat comes gliding now and again. Tacking boldly, it steers towards the harbor. The water roars gaily past its bow as it shoots in through the narrow harbor entrance. The sail drops silently at the same moment. The fishermen swing their hats in joyous greeting, and on the bottom of the boat lies the glittering spoil.

A boat came into the harbor while old Mattsson stood out by the lighthouse. A young man sitting at the tiller lifted his hat and nodded to the girl. The old man saw that her eyes were shining.

“Well,” he thought, “have you fallen in love with the handsomest young fellow in the fishing-village? Yes, you will never get him. You may just as well marry me as wait for him.”

He saw that he could not escape his mother’s picture. If the girl had cared for anyone whom there was any possibility of getting, he would have had a good motive to be rid of the whole business. But now it was useless to set her free.

A fortnight later was the wedding, and a few days after came the big November gale. One of the boats of the fishing-village was swept out into the sound. It had neither rudder nor masts, so that it was quite unmanageable. Old Mattsson and five others were on board, and they drifted about without food for two days. When they were rescued, they were in a state of exhaustion from hunger and cold. Everything in the boat was covered with ice, and their wet clothes were stiff. Old Mattsson was so chilled that he never was well again. He lay ill for two years; then death came.

Many thought that it was strange that his idea of marrying came just before the unlucky adventure, for the little woman he had got took good care of him. What would he have done if he had been alone when lying so helpless? The whole fishing-village acknowledged that he had never done anything more sensible than marrying, and the little woman won great consideration for the tenderness with which she took care of her husband.

“She will have no trouble in marrying again,” people said.

Old Mattsson told his wife, every day while he lay ill, the story of the portrait.

“You must take it when I am dead, just as you must take everything of mine,” he said.

“Do not speak of such things.”

“And you must listen to my mother’s portrait when the young men propose to you. Truly there is no one in the whole fishing-village who understands getting married better than that picture.”

The wooden shoes clattered in uneasy measure on the pavements. The street boys hurried by. They shouted, they whistled. The houses shook, and from the courts the echo rushed out like a chained dog from his kennel.

Faces appeared behind the windowpanes. Had anything happened? Was anything going on? The noise passed on towards the suburbs. The servant girls hastened after, following the street boys. They clasped their hands and screamed: “Preserve us, preserve us! Is it murder, is it fire?” No one answered. The clattering was heard far away.

After the maids came hurrying wise matrons of the town. They asked: “What is it? What is disturbing the morning calm? Is it a wedding? Is it a funeral? Is it a conflagration? What is the watchman doing? Shall the town burn up before he begins to sound the alarm?”

The whole crowd stopped before the shoemaker’s little house in the suburbs, the little house that had vines climbing about the doors and windows, and in front, between street and house, a yard-wide garden. Summerhouses of straw, arbors fit for a mouse, paths for a kitten. Everything in the best of order! Peas and beans, roses and lavender, a mouthful of grass, three gooseberry bushes and an apple-tree.

The street boys who stood nearest stared and consulted. Through the shining, black windowpanes their glances penetrated no further than to the white lace curtains. One of the boys climbed up on the vines and pressed his face against the pane. “What do you see?” whispered the others. “What do you see?” The shoemaker’s shop and the shoemaker’s bench, grease-pots and bundles of leather, lasts and pegs, rings and straps. “Don’t you see anybody?” He sees the apprentice, who is repairing a shoe. Nobody else, nobody else? Big, black flies crawl over the pane and make his sight uncertain. “Do you see nobody except the apprentice?” Nobody. The master’s chair is empty. He looked once, twice, three times; the master’s chair was empty.

The crowd stood still, guessing and wondering. So it was true; the old shoemaker had absconded. Nobody would believe it. They stood and waited for a sign. The cat came out on the steep roof. He stretched out his claws and slid down to the gutter. Yes, the master was away, the cat could hunt as he pleased. The sparrows fluttered and chirped, quite helpless.

A white chicken looked round the corner of the house. He was almost full-grown. His comb shone red as wine. He peered and spied, crowed and called. The hens came, a row of white hens at full speed, bodies rocking, wings fluttering, yellow legs like drumsticks. The hens hopped among the stacked peas. Battles began. Envy broke out. A hen fled with a full pea-pod. Two cocks pecked her in the neck. The cat left the sparrow nests to look on. Plump, there he fell down in the midst of the flock. The hens fled in a long, scurrying line. The crowd thought: “It must be true that the shoemaker has run away. One can see by the cat and the hens that the master is away.”

The uneven street, muddy from the autumn rains, resounded with talk. Doors stood open, windows swung. Heads were put together in wondering whisperings. “He has run off.” The people whispered, the sparrows chirped, the wooden shoes clattered: “He has run away. The old shoemaker has run away. The owner of the little house, the young wife’s husband, the father of the beautiful child, he has run away. Who can understand it? who can explain it?”

There is an old song: “Old husband in the cottage; young lover in the wood; wife, who runs away, child who cries; home without a mistress.” The song is old. It is often sung. Everybody understands it.

This was a new song. The old man was gone. On the workshop table lay his explanation, that he never meant to come back. Beside it a letter had also lain. The wife had read it, but no one else.

The young wife was in the kitchen. She was doing nothing. The neighbors went backwards and forwards, arranging busily, set out the cups, made up the fire, boiled the coffee, wept a little and wiped away the tears with the dishtowel.

The good women of the quarter sat stiffly about the walls. They knew what was suitable in a house of mourning. They kept silent by force, mourned by force. They celebrated their holiday by supporting the forsaken wife in her grief. Coarse hands lay quiet in their laps, weather-beaten skin lay in deep wrinkles, thin lips were pressed together over toothless jaws.

The wife sat among the bronze-hued women, gently blonde, with a sweet face like a dove. She did not weep, but she trembled. She was so afraid, that the fear was almost killing her. She bit her teeth together, so that no one should hear how they chattered. When steps were heard, when the clattering sounded, when someone spoke to her, she started up.

She sat with her husband’s letter in her pocket. She thought of now one line in it and now another. There stood: “I can bear no longer to see you both.” And in another place: “I know now that you and Erikson mean to elope.” And again: “You shall not do that, for people’s evil talk would make you unhappy. I shall disappear, so that you can get a divorce and be properly married. Erikson is a good workman and can support you well.” Then farther down: “Let people say what they will about me. I am content if only they do not think any evil of you, for you could not bear it.”

She did not understand it. She had not meant to deceive him. Even if she had liked to chat with the young apprentice, what had her husband to do with that? Love is an illness, but it is not mortal. She had meant to bear it through life with patience. How had her husband discovered her most secret thoughts?

She was tortured at the thought of him! He must have grieved and brooded. He had wept over his years. He had raged over the young man’s strength and spirits. He had trembled at the whisperings, at the smiles, at the hand pressures. In burning madness, in glowing jealousy, he had made it into a whole elopement history, of which there was as yet nothing.

She thought how old he must have been that night when he went. His back was bent, his hands shook. The agony of many long nights had made him so. He had gone to escape that existence of passionate doubting.

She remembered other lines in the letter: “It is not my intention to destroy your character. I have always been too old for you.” And then another: “You shall always be respected and honored. Only be silent, and all the shame will fall on me!”

The wife felt deeper and deeper remorse. Was it possible that people would be deceived? Would it do to lie so too before God? Why did she sit in the cottage, pitied like a mourning mother, honored like a bride on her wedding day? Why was it not she who was homeless, friendless, despised? How can such things be? How can God let himself be so deceived?

Over the great dresser hung a little bookcase. On the top shelf stood a big book with brass clasps. Behind those clasps was hidden the story of a man and a woman who lied before God and men. “Who has suggested to you, woman, to do such things? Look, young men stand outside to lead you away.”

The woman stared at the book, listened for the young men’s footsteps. She trembled at every knock, shuddered at every step. She was ready to stand up and confess, ready to fall down and die.

The coffee was ready. The women glided sedately forward to the table. They filled their cups, took a lump of sugar in their mouths and began to sip their boiling coffee, silently and decently, the wives of mechanics first, the scrub-women last. But the wife did not see what was going on. Remorse made her quite beside herself. She had a vision. She sat at night out in a freshly ploughed field. Round about her sat great birds with mighty wings and pointed beaks. They were gray, scarcely perceptible against the gray ground, but they held watch over her. They were passing sentence upon her. Suddenly they flew up and sank down over her head. She saw their sharp claws, their pointed beaks, their beating wings coming nearer and nearer. It was like a deadly rain of steel. She bent her head and knew that she must die. But when they came near, quite near to her, she had to look up. Then she saw that the gray birds were all these old women.

One of them began to speak. She knew what was proper, what was fitting in a house of mourning. They had now been silent long enough. But the wife started up as from a blow. What did the woman mean to say? “You, Matts Wik’s wife, Anna Wik, confess! You have lied long enough before God and before us. We are your judges. We will judge you and rend you to pieces.”

No, the woman began to speak of husbands. And the others chimed in, as the occasion demanded. What was said was not in the husbands’ praise. All the evil husbands had done was dragged forward. It was as consolation for a deserted wife.

Injury was heaped upon injury. Strange beings these husbands! They beat us, they drink up our money, they pawn our furniture. Why on earth had Our Lord created them?

The tongues became like dragons’ fangs; they spat venom, they spouted fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A wife fled from her home before a drunken husband. Wives slaved for idle husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled like whip lashes. The misery of homes was laid bare. Long litanies were read. From the tyranny of the husband deliver us, good Lord!

Illness and poverty, the children’s death, the winter’s cold, trouble with the old people, everything was the husband’s fault. The slaves hissed at their masters. They turned their stings against them, before whose feet they crept.

The deserted wife felt how it cut and stabbed in her ears. She dared to defend the incorrigible ones. “My husband,” she said, “is good.” The women started up, hissed and snorted. “He has run away. He is no better than anybody else. He, who is an old man, ought to know better than to run away from wife and child. Can you believe that he is better than the others?”

The wife trembled; she felt as if she was being dragged through prickly bramble-bushes. Her husband considered a sinner! She flushed with shame, wished to speak, but was silent. She was afraid; she had not the power. But why did God keep silent? Why did God let such things be?

If she should take the letter and read it aloud, then the stream of poison would be turned. The venom would sprinkle upon her. The horror of death came over her. She did not dare. She half wished that an insolent hand had been thrust into her pocket and had drawn out the letter. She could not give herself as a prize. Within the workshop was heard a shoemaker’s hammer. Did no one hear how it hammered in triumph? She had heard that hammering and had been vexed by it the whole day. But none of the women understood it. Omniscient God, hast Thou no servant who could read hearts? She would gladly accept her sentence, if only she did not need to confess. She wished to hear someone say: “Who has given you the idea to lie before God?” She listened for the sound of the young men’s footsteps in order to fall down and die.

Several years after this a divorced woman was married to a shoemaker, who had been apprentice to her husband. She had not wished it, but had been drawn to it, as a pickerel is drawn to the side of a boat when it has been caught on the line. The fisherman lets it play. He lets it rush here and there. He lets it believe it is free. But when it is tired out, when it can do no more, then he drags with a light pull, then he lifts it up and jerks it down into the bottom of the boat before it knows what it is all about.

The wife of the absconded shoemaker had dismissed her apprentice and wished to live alone. She had wished to show her husband that she was innocent. But where was her husband? Did he not care for her faithfulness. She suffered want. Her child went in rags. How long did her husband think that she could wait? She was unhappy when she had no one upon whom she could depend.

Erikson succeeded. He had a shop in the town. His shoes stood on glass shelves behind broad plate-glass windows. His workshop grew. He hired an apartment and put plush furniture in the parlor. Everything waited only for her. When she was too wearied of poverty, she came.

She was very much afraid in the beginning. But no misfortunes befell her. She became more confident as time went on and more happy. She had people’s regard, and knew within herself that she had not deserved it. That kept her conscience awake, so that she became a good woman.

Her first husband, after some years, came back to the house in the suburbs. It was still his, and he settled down again there and wished to begin work. But he got no work, nor would anybody have anything to do with him. He was despised, while his wife enjoyed great honor. It was nevertheless he who had done right, and she who had done wrong.

The husband kept his secret, but it almost suffocated him. He felt how he sank, because everybody considered him bad. No one had any confidence in him, no one would trust any work to him. He took what company he could get, and learned to drink.

While he was going down hill, the Salvation Army came to the town. It hired a big hall and began its work. From the very first evening all the loafers gathered at the meetings to make a disturbance. When it had gone on for about a week, Matts Wik came too to take part in the fun.

There was a crowd in the street, a crowd in the doorway. Sharp elbows and angry tongues were there; street boys and soldiers, maids and scrub-women; peaceable police and stormy rabble. The army was new and the fashion. The well-to-do and the wharf-rats, everybody went to the Salvation Army. Within, the hall was low-studded. At the farthest end was an empty platform; unpainted benches, borrowed chairs, an uneven floor, blotches on the ceiling, lamps that smoked. The iron stove in the middle of the floor gave out warmth and coal gas. All the places were filled in a moment. Nearest the platform sat the women, demure as if in church, and back of them workmen and sewing-women. Farthest away sat the boys on one another’s knees, and in the doorway there was a fight among those who could not get in.

The platform was empty. The clock had not struck, the entertainment had not begun. One whistled, one laughed. The benches were kicked to pieces. “The War-cry” flew like a kite between the groups. The public were enjoying themselves.

A side-door opened. Cold air streamed into the room. The fire flamed up. There was silence. Attentive expectation filled the hall. At last they came, three young women, carrying guitars and with faces almost hidden by broad-brimmed hats. They fell on their knees as soon as they had ascended the steps of the platform.

One of them prayed aloud. She lifted her head, but closed her eyes. Her voice cut like a knife. During the prayer there was silence. The street-boys and loafers had not yet begun. They were waiting for the confessions and the inspiring music.

The women settled down to their work. They sang and prayed, sang and preached. They smiled and spoke of their happiness. In front of them they had an audience of ruffians. They began to rise, they climbed upon the benches. A threatening noise passed through the throng. The women on the platform caught glimpses of dreadful faces through the smoky air. The men had wet, dirty clothes, which smelt badly. They spat tobacco every other second, swore with every word. Those women, who were to struggle with them, spoke of their happiness.

How brave that little army was! Ah, is it not beautiful to be brave? Is it not something to be proud of to have God on one’s side? It was not worth while to laugh at them in their big hats. It was most probable that they would conquer the hard hands, the cruel faces, the blaspheming lips.

“Sing with us!” cried the Salvation Army soldiers; “sing with us! It is good to sing.” They started a well-known melody. They struck their guitars and repeated the same verse over and over. They got one or two of those sitting nearest to join in, but now sounded down by the door a light street song. Notes struggled against notes, words against words, guitar against whistle. The women’s strong, trained voices contested with the boys’ hoarse falsetto, with the men’s growling bass. When the street song was almost conquered, they began to stamp and whistle down by the door. The Salvation Army song sank like a wounded warrior. The noise was terrifying. The women fell on their knees.

They knelt as if powerless. Their eyes were closed. Their bodies rocked in silent pain. The noise died down. The Salvation Army captain began instantly: “Lord, all these Thou wilt make Thine own. We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou wilt lead them all into Thy host! We thank Thee, Lord, that it is granted to us to lead them to Thee!”

The crowd hissed, howled, screamed. It was as if all those throats had been tickled by a sharp knife. It was as if the people had been afraid to be won over, as if they had forgotten that they had come there of their own will.

But the woman continued, and it was her sharp, piercing voice which conquered. They had to hear.

“You shout and scream; the old serpent within you is twisting and raging. But that is just the sign. Blessings on the old serpent’s roarings! It shows that he is tortured, that he is afraid. Laugh at us! Break our windows! Drive us away from the platform! Tomorrow you will belong to us. We shall possess the earth. How can you withstand us? How can you withstand God?”

Then the captain commanded one of her comrades to come forward and make her confession. She came smiling. She stood brave and undaunted and told the story of her sin and her conversion to the mockers. Where had that kitchen-girl learned to stand smiling under all that scorn? Some of those who had come to scoff grew pale. Where had these women found their courage and their strength? Someone stood behind them.

The third woman stepped forward. She was a beautiful child, daughter of rich parents, with a sweet, clear voice. She did not tell of herself. Her testimony was one of the usual songs.

It was like the shadow of a victory. The audience forgot itself and listened. The child was lovely to look at, sweet to hear. But when she ceased, the noise became even more dreadful. Down by the door they built a platform of benches, climbed up and confessed.

It became worse and worse in the hall. The stove became red hot, devoured air and belched heat. The respectable women on the front benches looked about for a way to escape, but there was no possibility of getting out. The soldiers on the platform perspired and wilted. They cried and prayed for strength. Suddenly a breath came through the air, a whisper reached their ear. They knew not from where, but they felt a change. God was with them. He fought for them.

To the struggle again! The captain stepped forward and lifted the Bible over her head. Stop, stop! We feel that God is working among us. A conversion is near. Help us to pray! God will give us a soul.

They fell on their knees in silent prayer. Some in the hall joined in the prayer. All felt an intense expectation. Was it true? Was something great taking place in a fellow-creature’s soul, here, in their midst? Should it be granted to them to see it? Could it be influenced by these women?

For the moment the crowd was won. They were now just as eager for a miracle as lately for blasphemy. No one dared to move. All panted from excitement, but nothing happened. “O God, Thou forsakest us! Thou forsakest us, O God!”

The beautiful salvation soldier began to sing. She chose the mildest of melodies: “Oh, my beloved, wilt Thou not come soon?”

Touching as a praying child, the song entered their souls⁠—like a caress, like a blessing.

The crowd was silent, wrapped in those notes. “Mountains and forests long, heaven and earth languish. Man, everything in the world, thirsts that you shall open your soul to the light. Then glory will spread over the earth, then the beasts will rise up from their degradation.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

“It is not true that thou dost linger in lofty halls. In the dark wood, in miserable hovels thou dwellest. And thou wilt not come. My bright heaven does not tempt thee.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

In the hall more and more began to sing the burden. Voice after voice joined in. They did not rightly know what words they used. The tune was enough. All their longing could sing itself free in those tones. They sang, too, down by the door. Hearts were bursting. Wills were subdued. It no longer sounded like a pitiful lament, but strong, imperative, commanding.

“Oh, my beloved, wilt thou not come soon?”

Down by the door, in the worst of the crowd, stood Matts Wik. He looked much intoxicated, but that evening he had not drunk. He stood and thought. “If I might speak, if I might speak!”

It was the strangest room he had ever seen, the most wonderful chance. A voice seemed to say to him: “These are the rushes to which you can whisper, the waves which will bear your voice.”

The singers started. It was as if they had heard a lion roar in their ears. A mighty, terrible voice spoke dreadful words.

It scoffed at God. Why did men serve God? He forsook all those who served him. He had failed his own son. God helped no one.

The voice grew louder, more like a roar every minute. No one could have believed that human lungs could have such strength. No one had ever heard such ravings burst from bruised heart. All bent their heads like wanderers in the desert, when the storm beats on them.

Terrible, terrible words! They were like thundering hammer strokes against God’s throne. Against Him who had tortured Job, who had let the martyrs suffer, who let those who professed his faith burn at the stake.

A few had at first tried to laugh. Some of them had thought that it was a joke. But now they heard, quaking, that it was in earnest. Already some rose up to flee to the platform. They asked the protection of the Salvation Army from him who drew down upon them the wrath of God.

The voice asked them in hissing tones what rewards they expected for their trouble in serving God. They need not count on heaven. God was not freehanded with His heaven. A man, he said, had done more good than was needed to be blessed. He had brought greater offerings than God demanded. But then he had been tempted to sin. Life is long. He paid out his hard-earned grace already in this world. He would go the way of the damned.

The speech was the terrifying north-wind, which drives the ship into the harbor. While the scoffer spoke, women rushed up to the platform. The Salvation Army soldiers’ hands were embraced and kissed; they were scarcely able to receive them all. The boys and the old men praised God.

He who spoke continued. The words intoxicated him. He said to himself: “I speak, I speak, at last I speak. I tell them my secret, and yet I do not tell them.” For the first time since he made the great sacrifice he was free from care.

It was a Sunday afternoon in the height of the summer. The town looked like a desert of stones, like a moon landscape. There was not a cat to be seen, nor a sparrow, hardly a fly on the sunny wall. Not a chimney smoked. There was not a breath of air in the sultry streets. The whole was only a stony field, out of which grew stone walls.

Where were the dogs and the people? Where were the young ladies in narrow skirts and wide sleeves, long gloves and red sunshades? Where were the soldiers and the fine people, the Salvation Army and the street boys?

Whither had all those gay picnickers gone in the dewy cool of the morning, all the baskets and accordions and bottles, which the steamer landed? And what had happened to the procession of Good Templars? Banners fluttered, drums thundered, boys swarmed, stamped, and hurrahed. Or what had happened to the blue awnings under which the little ones slept while father and mother pushed them solemnly up the street.

All were on their way out to the wood. They complained of the long streets. It seemed as if the stone houses followed them. At last, at last they caught a glimpse of green. And just outside of the town, where the road wound over flat, moist fields, where the song of the lark sounded loudest, where the clover steamed with honey, there lay the first of those left behind; heads in the moss, noses in the grass. Bodies bathed in sunshine and fragrance, souls refreshed with idleness and rest.

On the way to the wood toiled bicyclists and bearers of luncheon baskets. Boys came with trowels and shiny knapsacks. Girls danced in clouds of dust. Sky and banners and children and trumpets. Mechanics and their families and crowds of laborers. The rearing horses of an omnibus waved their forelegs over the crowd. A young man, half drunk, jumped up on the wheel. He was pulled down, and lay kicking on his back in the dust of the road.

In the wood a nightingale trilled and sang, piped and gurgled. The birches were not thriving, their trunks were black. The beeches built high temples, layer upon layer of streaky green. A toad sat and took aim with its tongue. It caught a fly at every shot. A hedgehog trotted about in the dried, rustling beech leaves. Dragonflies darted about with glittering wings. The people sat down around the luncheon-baskets. The piping, chirping crickets tried to make their Sunday a glad one.

Suddenly the hedgehog disappeared, terrified he rolled himself up in his prickles. The crickets crept into the grass, quite silenced. The nightingale sang as if its throat would burst. It was guitars, guitars. The Salvation Army marched forward under the beeches. The people started up from their rest under the trees. The dancing-green and croquet-ground were deserted. The swings and merry-go-rounds had an hour’s rest. Everybody followed to the Salvation Army’s camp. The benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation Army hat. Many a strong man wore the red shirt. There was peace and order in the crowd. Bad words did not venture to pass the lips. Oaths rumbled harmlessly behind teeth. And Matts Wik, the shoemaker, the terrible blasphemer, stood now as standard-bearer by the platform. He, too, was one of the believers. The red flag caressed his gray head.

The Salvation Army soldiers had not forgotten the old man. They had him to thank for their first victory. They had come to him in his loneliness. They washed his floor and mended his clothes. They did not refuse to associate with him. And at their meetings he was allowed to speak.

Ever since he had broken his silence he was happy. He stood no longer as an enemy of God. There was a raging power in him. He was happy when he could let it out. When souls were shaken by his lion voice, he was happy.

He spoke always of himself. He always told his own story. He described the fate of the misjudged. He spoke of sacrifices of life itself, made without a hope of reward, without acknowledgment. He disguised what he related. He told his secret and yet did not tell it.

He became a poet. He had the power of winning hearts. For his sake crowds gathered in front of the Salvation Army platform. He drew them by the fantastic images which filled his diseased brain. He captivated them with the words of affecting lament, which the oppression of his heart had taught him.

Perhaps his spirit in days of old had visited this world of death and change. Perhaps he had then been a mighty skald, skilful in playing on heartstrings. But for some evil deed he had been condemned to begin again his earthly life, to live by the work of his hands, without the knowledge of the strength of his spirit. But now his grief had broken his spirit’s chains. His soul was a newly released bird. Timid and confused, but still rejoicing in its freedom, it flew onward over the old battlefields.

The wild, ignorant singer, the black thrush, which had grown among starlings, listened diffidently to the words which came to his lips. Where did he get the power to compel the crowd to listen in ecstasy to his speech? Where did he get the power to force proud men down upon their knees, wringing their hands? He trembled before he began to speak. Then a quiet confidence came over him. From the inexhaustible depths of his suffering rose ever torrents of agonized words.

Those speeches were never printed. They were hunting-cries, ringing trumpet-notes, rousing, animating, terrifying, urgent; not to capture, not to give again. They were lightning flashes and rolling thunder. They shook hearts with terrible alarms. But they were transient, never could they be caught. The cataract can be measured to its last drop, the dizzy play of foam can be painted, but not the elusive, delirious, swift, growing, mighty stream of those speeches.

That day in the wood he asked the gathering if they knew how they should serve God?⁠—as Uria served his king.

Then he, the man in the pulpit, became Uria. He rode through the desert with the letter of his king. He was alone. The solitude terrified him. His thoughts were gloomy. But he smiled when he thought of his wife. The desert became a flowering meadow when he remembered his wife. Springs gushed up from the ground at the thought of her.

His camel fell. His soul was filled with forebodings of evil. Misfortune, he thought, is a vulture, which loves the desert. He did not turn, but went onward with the king’s letter. He trod upon thorns. He walked among serpents and scorpions. He thirsted and hungered. He saw caravans drag their dark length through the sands. He did not join them. He dared not seek strangers. He, who bears a royal letter, must go alone. He saw at eventide the white tents of shepherds. He was tempted, as if by his wife’s smiling dwelling. He thought he saw white veils waving to him. He turned away from the tents out into solitude. Woe to him if they had stolen the letter of his king!

He hesitates when he sees searching brigands pursuing him. He thinks of the king’s letter. He reads it in order to then destroy it. He reads it, and finds new courage. Stand up, warrior of Judah! He does not destroy the letter. He does not give himself up to the robbers. He fights and conquers. And so onward, onward! He bears his sentence of death through a thousand dangers.⁠ ⁠…

It is so God’s will shall be obeyed through tortures unto death.⁠ ⁠…

While Wik spoke, his divorced wife stood and listened to him. She had gone out to the wood that morning, beaming and contented on her husband’s arm, most matron-like, respectable in every fold. Her daughter and the apprentice carried the luncheon basket. The maid followed with the youngest child. There had been nothing but content, happiness, calm.

There they had lain in a thicket. They had eaten and drunk, played and laughed. Never a thought of the past! Conscience was as silent as a satisfied child. In the beginning, when her first husband had slunk half drunk by her window, she had felt a prick in her soul.

Then she had heard that he had become the idol of the Salvation Army. She was, therefore, quite calm. Now she had come to hear him. And she understood him. He was not speaking of Uria; he was telling about himself. He was writhing at the thought of his own sacrifice. He tore bits from his own heart and threw them out among the people. She knew that rider in the desert, that conqueror of brigands. And that unappeased agony stared at her like an open grave.⁠ ⁠…

Night came. The wood was deserted. Farewell, grass and flowers! Wide heaven, a long farewell! Snakes began to crawl about the tufts of grass. Turtles crept along the paths. The wood was ugly. Everybody longed to be back in the stone desert, the moon landscape. That is the place for men.

Dame Anna Erikson invited all her old friends. The mechanics’ wives from the suburbs and the poorer scrub-women came to her for a cup of coffee. The same were there who had been with her on the day of her desertion. One was new, Maria Anderson, the captain of the Salvation Army.

Anna Erikson had now been many times to the Salvation Army. She had heard her husband. He always told about himself. He disguised his story. She recognized it always. He was Abraham. He was Job. He was Jeremiah, whom the people threw into a well. He was Elisha, whom the children at the wayside reviled.

That pain seemed bottomless to her. His sorrow seemed to her to borrow all voices, to make itself masks of everything it met. She did not understand that her husband talked himself well, that pleasure in his power of fancy played and smiled in him.

She had dragged her daughter with her. The daughter had not wished to go. She was serious, modest, and conscientious. Nothing of youth played in her veins. She was born old.

She had grown up in shame of her father. She walked upright, austere, as if saying: “Look, the daughter of a man who is despised! Look if my dress is soiled! Is there anything to blame in my conduct?” Her mother was proud of her. Yet sometimes she sighed. “Alas! if my daughter’s hands were less white, perhaps her caresses would be warmer!”

The girl sat scornfully smiling. She despised theatricals. When her father rose up to speak, she wished to go. Her mother’s hand seized hers, fast as a vice. The girl sat still. The torrent of words began to roar over her. But that which spoke to her was not so much the words as her mother’s hand.

That hand writhed, convulsions passed through it. It lay in hers limp, as if dead; it caught wildly about, hot with fever. Her mother’s face betrayed nothing; only her hand suffered and struggled.

The old speaker described the martyrdom of silence. The friend of Jesus lay ill. His sisters sent a message to him; but his time had not come. For the sake of God’s kingdom Lazarus must die.

He now let all doubting, all slander be heaped upon Christ. He described his suffering. His own compassion tortured him. He passed through the agony of death, he as well as Lazarus. Still he had to keep silence.

Only one word had he needed to say to win back the respect of his friends. He was silent. He had to hear the lamentations of the sisters. He told them the truth in words which they did not understand. Enemies mocked at him.

And so on always more and more affecting.

Anna Erikson’s hand still lay in that of her daughter. It confessed and acknowledged: “The man there bears the martyr’s crown of silence. He is wrongly accused. With a word he could set himself free.”

The girl followed her mother home. They went in silence. The girl’s face was like stone. She was pondering, searching for everything which memory could tell her. Her mother looked anxiously at her. What did she know?

The next day Anna Erikson had her coffee party. The talk turned on the day’s market, on the price of wooden shoes, on pilfering maids. The women chatted and laughed. They poured their coffee into the saucer. They were mild and unconcerned. Anna Erikson could not understand why she had been afraid of them, why she had always believed that they would judge her.

When they were provided with their second cup, when they sat delighted with the coffee trembling on the edge of their cups, and their saucers were filled with bread, she began to speak. Her words were a little solemn, but her voice was calm.

“Young people are imprudent. A girl who marries without thinking seriously of what she is doing can come to great grief. Who has met with worse than I?”

They all knew it. They had been with her and had mourned with her.

“Young people are imprudent. One holds one’s tongue when one ought to speak, for shame’s sake. One dares not to speak for fear of what people will say. He who has not spoken at the right time may have to repent it a whole lifetime.”

They all believed that this was true.

She had heard Wik yesterday as well as many times before. Now she must tell them all something about him. An aching pain came over her when she thought of what he had suffered for her sake. Still she thought that he, who had been old, ought to have had more sense than to take her, a young girl, for his wife.

“I did not dare to say it in my youth. But he went away from me out of pity, for he thought that I wanted to have Erikson. I have his letter about it.”

She read the letter aloud for them. A tear glided demurely down her cheek.

“He had seen falsely in his jealousy. Between Erikson and me there was nothing then. It was four years before we were married; but I will say it now, for Wik is too good to be misjudged. He did not run away from wife and child from light motives, but with good intention. I want this to be known everywhere. Captain Anderson will perhaps read the letter aloud at the meeting. I wish Wik to be redressed. I know, too, that I have been silent too long, but one does not like to give up everything for a drunkard. Now it is another matter.”

The women sat as if turned to stone. Anna Erikson, her voice trembling a little, said with a faint smile⁠—

“Now perhaps you will never care to come to see me again?”

“Oh, yes indeed! You were so young! It was nothing which you could help.⁠—It was his fault for having such ideas.”

She smiled. These were the hard beaks which would have torn her to pieces. The truth was not dangerous nor lying either. The young men were not waiting outside her door.

Did she know or did she not know that her eldest daughter had that very morning left her home and had gone to her father?

The sacrifice which Matts Wik had made to save his wife’s honor became known. He was admired; he was derided. His letter was read aloud at the meeting. Some of those present wept with emotion. People came and pressed his hands on the street. His daughter moved to his house.

For several evenings after he was silent at the meetings. He felt no inspiration. At last they asked him to speak. He mounted the platform, folded his hands together and began.

When he had said a couple of words he stopped, confused. He did not recognize his own voice. Where was the lion’s roar? Where the raging north wind? And where the torrent of words? He did not understand, could not understand.

He staggered back. “I cannot,” he muttered. “God gives me no strength to speak yet.” He sat down on a bench and buried his head in his hands. He gathered all his powers of thought to discover first what he wanted to talk about. Did he have to consider so in the old days? Could he consider now? His head whirled.

Perhaps it would go if he should stand up again, place himself where he was accustomed to stand, and begin with his usual prayer. He tried. His face turned ashy-gray. All glances were turned towards him. A cold sweat trickled down his forehead. He found not a word on his lips.

He sat down in his place and wept, moaning heavily. The gift was taken from him. He tried to speak, tried silently to himself. What should he talk about. His sorrow was taken from him. He had nothing to say to people which he was not allowed to tell them. He had no secret to disguise. He did not need to romance. Romance left him.

It was the agony of death; it was a struggle for life. He wished to hold fast that which was already gone. He wished to have his grief again in order to be able again to speak. His grief was gone; he could not get it back.

He staggered forward like a drunken man to the platform again and again. He stammered out a few meaningless words. He repeated like a lesson learned by heart what he had heard others say. He tried to imitate himself. He looked for devotion in the glances, for trembling silence, quickening breaths. He perceived nothing. That which had been his joy was taken from him.

He sank back into the darkness. He cursed, that he by his discourse had converted his wife and daughter. He had possessed the most precious of gifts and lost it. His pain was extreme.⁠—But it is not by such grief that genius lives.

He was a painter without hands, a singer who had lost his voice. He had only spoken of his sorrow. What should he speak of now?

He prayed: “O God, when honor is dumb, and misjudgment speaks, give me back misjudgment! When happiness is dumb, but sorrow speaks, give me back sorrow!”

But the crown was taken from him. He sat there, more miserable than the most miserable, for he had been cast down from the heights of life. He was a fallen king.

A Christmas Guest

One of those who had lived the life of a pensioner at Ekeby was little Ruster, who could transpose music and play the flute. He was of low origin and poor, without home and without relations. Hard times came to him when the company of pensioners were dispersed.

He then had no horse nor carriole, no fur coat nor red-painted luncheon-basket. He had to go on foot from house to house and carry his belongings tied in a blue striped cotton handkerchief. He buttoned his coat all the way up to his chin, so that no one should need to know in what condition his shirt and waistcoat were, and in its deep pockets he kept his most precious possessions: his flute taken to pieces, his flat brandy bottle and his music-pen.

His profession was to copy music, and if it had been as in the old days, there would have been no lack of work for him. But with every passing year music was less practised in Värmland. The guitar, with its mouldy, silken ribbon and its worn screws, and the dented horn, with faded tassels and cord were put away in the lumber-room in the attic, and the dust settled inches deep on the long, iron-bound violin boxes. Yet the less little Ruster had to do with flute and music-pen, so much the more must he turn to the brandy flask, and at last he became quite a drunkard. It was a great pity.

He was still received at the manor-houses as an old friend, but there were complaints when he came and joy when he went. There was an odor of dirt and brandy about him, and if he had only a couple of glasses of wine or one toddy, he grew confused and told unpleasant stories. He was the torment of the hospitable houses.

One Christmas he came to Löfdala, where Liljekrona, the great violinist, had his home. Liljekrona had also been one of the pensioners of Ekeby, but after the death of the major’s wife, he returned to his quiet farm and remained there. Ruster came to him a few days before Christmas, in the midst of all the preparations, and asked for work. Liljekrona gave him a little copying to keep him busy.

“You ought to have let him go immediately,” said his wife; “now he will certainly take so long with that that we will be obliged to keep him over Christmas.”

“He must be somewhere,” answered Liljekrona.

And he offered Ruster toddy and brandy, sat with him, and lived over again with him the whole Ekeby time. But he was out of spirits and disgusted by him, like everyone else, although he would not let it be seen, for old friendship and hospitality were sacred to him.

In Liljekrona’s house for three weeks now they had been preparing to receive Christmas. They had been living in discomfort and bustle, had sat up with dip-lights and torches till their eyes grew red, had been frozen in the outhouse with the salting of meat and in the brew-house with the brewing of the beer. But both the mistress and the servants gave themselves up to it all without grumbling.

When all the preparations were done and the holy evening come, a sweet enchantment would sink down over them. Christmas would loosen all tongues, so that jokes and jests, rhymes and merriment would flow of themselves without effort. Everyone’s feet would wish to twirl in the dance, and from memory’s dark corners words and melodies would rise, although no one could believe that they were there. And then everyone was so good, so good!

Now when Ruster came the whole household at Löfdala thought that Christmas was spoiled. The mistress and the older children and the old servants were all of the same opinion. Ruster caused them a suffocating disgust. They were moreover afraid that when he and Liljekrona began to rake up the old memories, the artist’s blood would flame up in the great violinist and his home would lose him. Formerly he had not been able to remain long sit home.

No one can describe how they loved their master on the farm, since they had had him with them a couple of years. And what he had to give! How much he was to his home, especially at Christmas! He did not take his place on any sofa or rocking-stool, but on a high, narrow wooden bench in the corner of the fireplace. When he was settled there he started off on adventures. He travelled about the earth, climbed up to the stars, and even higher. He played and talked by turns, and the whole household gathered about him and listened. Life grew proud and beautiful when the richness of that one soul shone on it.

Therefore they loved him as they loved Christmas time, pleasure, the spring sun. And when little Ruster came, their Christmas peace was destroyed. They had worked in vain if he was coming to tempt away their master. It was unjust that the drunkard should sit at the Christmas table in a happy house and spoil the Christmas pleasure.

On the forenoon of Christmas Eve little Ruster had his music written out, and he said something about going, although of course he meant to stay.

Liljekrona had been influenced by the general feeling, and therefore said quite lukewarmly and indifferently that Ruster had better stay where he was over Christmas.

Little Ruster was inflammable and proud. He twirled his moustache and shook back the black artist’s hair that stood like a dark cloud over his head. What did Liljekrona mean? Should he stay because he had nowhere else to go? Oh, only think how they stood and waited for him in the big ironworks in the parish of Bro! The guestroom was in order, the glass of welcome filled. He was in great haste. He only did not know to which he ought to go first.

“Very well,” answered Liljekrona, “you may go if you will.”

After dinner little Ruster borrowed horse and sleigh, coat and furs. The stable-boy from Löfdala was to take him to some place in Bro and drive quickly back, for it threatened snow.

No one believed that he was expected, or that there was a single place in the neighborhood where he was welcome. But they were so anxious to be rid of him that they put the thought aside and let him depart. “He wished it himself,” they said; and then they thought that now they would be glad.

But when they gathered in the dining room at five o’clock to drink tea and to dance round the Christmas-tree, Liljekrona was silent and out of spirits. He did not seat himself on the bench; he touched neither tea nor punch; he could not remember any polka; the violin was out of order. Those who could play and dance had to do it without him.

Then his wife grew uneasy; the children were discontented, everything in the house went wrong. It was the most lamentable Christmas Eve.

The porridge turned sour; the candles sputtered; the wood smoked; the wind stirred up the snow and blew bitter cold into the rooms. The stable-boy who had driven Ruster did not come home. The cook wept; the maids scolded.

Finally Liljekrona remembered that no sheaves had been put out for the sparrows, and he complained aloud of all the women about him who abandoned old customs and were newfangled and heartless. They understood well enough that what tormented him was remorse that he had let little Ruster go away from his home on Christmas Eve.

After a while he went to his room, shut the door and began to play as he had not played since he had ceased roaming. It was full of hate and scorn, full of longing and revolt. You thought to bind me, but you must forge new fetters. You thought to make me as small-minded as yourselves, but I turn to larger things, to the open. Commonplace people, slaves of the home, hold me prisoner if it is in your power!

When his wife heard the music, she said: “Tomorrow he is gone, if God does not work a miracle in the night. Our inhospitableness has brought on just what we thought we could avoid.”

In the meantime little Ruster drove about in the snowstorm. He went from one house to the other and asked if there was any work for him to do, but he was not received anywhere. They did not even ask him to get out of the sledge. Some had their houses full of guests, others were going away on Christmas Day. “Drive to the next neighbor,” they all said.

He could come and spoil the pleasure of an ordinary day, but not of Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve came but once a year, and the children had been rejoicing in the thought of it all the autumn. They could not put that man at a table where there were children. Formerly they had been glad to see him, but not since he had become a drunkard. Where should they put the fellow, moreover? The servants’ room was too plain and the guestroom too fine.

So little Ruster had to drive from house to house in the blinding snow. His wet moustache hung limply down over his mouth; his eyes were bloodshot and blurred, but the brandy was blown out of his brain. He began to wonder and to be amazed. Was it possible, was it possible that no one wished to receive him?

Then all at once he saw himself. He saw how miserable and degraded he was, and he understood that he was odious to people. “It is the end of me,” he thought. “No more copying of music, no more flute-playing. No one on earth needs me; no one has compassion on me.”

The storm whirled and played, tore apart the drifts and piled them up again, took a pillar of snow in its arms and danced out into the plain, lifted one flake up to the clouds and chased another down into a ditch. “It is so, it is so,” said little Ruster; “while one dances and whirls it is play, but when one must be buried in the drift and forgotten, it is sorrow and grief.” But down they all have to go, and now it was his turn. To think that he had now come to the end!

He no longer asked where the man was driving him; he thought that he was driving in the land of death.

Little Ruster made no offerings to the gods that night. He did not curse flute-playing or the life of a pensioner; he did not think that it had been better for him if he had ploughed the earth or sewn shoes. But he mourned that he was now a worn-out instrument, which pleasure could no longer use. He complained of no one, for he knew that when the horn is cracked and the guitar will not stay in tune, they must go. He became all at once a very humble man. He understood that it was the end of him, on this Christmas Eve. Hunger and cold would destroy him, for he understood nothing, was good for nothing and had no friends.

The sledge stops, and suddenly it is light about him, and he hears friendly voices, and there is someone who is helping him into a warm room, and someone who is pouring warm tea into him. His coat is pulled off him, and several people cry that he is welcome, and warm hands rub life into his benumbed fingers.

He was so confused by it all that he did not come to his senses for nearly a quarter of an hour. He could not possibly comprehend that he had come back to Löfdala. He had not been at all conscious that the stable-boy had grown tired of driving about in the storm and had turned home.

Nor did he understand why he was now so well received in Liljekrona’s house. He could not know that Liljekrona’s wife understood what a weary journey he had made that Christmas Eve, when he had been turned away from every door where he had knocked. She felt such compassion on him that she forgot her own troubles.

Liljekrona went on with the wild playing up in his room; he did not know that Ruster had come. The latter sat meanwhile in the dining-room with the wife and the children. The servants, who used also to be there on Christmas Eve, had moved out into the kitchen away from their mistress’s trouble.

The mistress of the house lost no time in setting Ruster to work. “You hear, I suppose,” she said, “that Liljekrona does nothing but play all the evening, and I must attend to setting the table and the food. The children are quite forsaken. You must look after these two smallest.”

Children were the kind of people with whom little Ruster had had least intercourse. He had met them neither in the bachelor’s wing nor in the campaign tent, neither in wayside inns nor on the highways. He was almost shy of them, and did not know what he ought to say that was fine enough for them.

He took out his flute and taught them how to finger the stops and holes. There was one of four years and one of six. They had a lesson on the flute and were deeply interested in it. “This is A,” he said, “and this is C,” and then he blew the notes. Then the young people wished to know what kind of an A and C it was that was to be played.

Ruster took out his score and made a few notes.

“No,” they said, “that is not right.” And they ran away for an A.B.C. book.

Little Ruster began to hear their alphabet. They knew it and they did not know it. What they knew was not very much. Ruster grew eager; he lifted the little boys up, each on one of his knees, and began to teach them. Liljekrona’s wife went out and in and listened quite in amazement. It sounded like a game, and the children were laughing the whole time, but they learned.

Ruster kept on for a while, but he was absent from what he was doing. He was turning over the old thoughts from out in the storm. It was good and pleasant, but nevertheless it was the end of him. He was worn out. He ought to be thrown away. And all of a sudden he put his hands before his face and began to weep.

Liljekrona’s wife came quickly up to him.

“Ruster,” she said, “I can understand that you think that all is over for you. You cannot make a living with your music, and you are destroying yourself with brandy. But it is not the end, Ruster.”

“Yes,” sobbed the little flute-player.

“Do you see that to sit as tonight with the children, that would be something for you? If you would teach children to read and write, you would be welcomed everywhere. That is no less important an instrument on which to play, Ruster, than flute and violin. Look at them, Ruster!”

She placed the two children in front of him, and he looked up, blinking as if he had looked at the sun. It seemed as if his little, blurred eyes could not meet those of the children, which were big, clear and innocent.

“Look at them, Ruster!” repeated Liljekrona’s wife.

“I dare not,” said Ruster, for it was like a purgatory to look through the beautiful child eyes to the unspotted beauty of their souls.

Liljekrona’s wife laughed loud and joyously. “Then you must accustom yourself to them, Ruster. You can stay in my house as schoolmaster this year.”

Liljekrona heard his wife laugh and came out of his room.

“What is it?” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she answered, “but that Ruster has come again, and that I have engaged him as schoolmaster for our little boys.”

Liljekrona was quite amazed. “Do you dare?” he said, “do you dare? Has he promised to give up⁠—”

“No,” said the wife; “Ruster has promised nothing. But there is much about which he must be careful when he has to look little children in the eyes every day. If it had not been Christmas, perhaps I would not have ventured; but when our Lord dared to place a little child who was his own son among us sinners, so can I also dare to let my little children try to save a human soul.”

Liljekrona could not speak, but every feature and wrinkle in his face twitched and twisted as always when he heard anything noble.

Then he kissed his wife’s hand as gently as a child who asks for forgiveness and cried aloud: “All the children must come and kiss their mother’s hand.”

They did so, and then they had a happy Christmas in Liljekrona’s house.

Uncle Reuben

There was once, nearly eighty years ago, a little boy who went out into the marketplace to spin his top. The little boy’s name was Reuben. He was not more than three years old, but he swung his little whip as bravely as anybody and made the top spin so that it was a pleasure to see it.

On that day, eighty years ago, it was beautiful spring weather. It was in the month of March, and the town was divided into two worlds; one white and warm, where the sun shone, and one cold and dark, where it was in shadow. The whole marketplace was in the sun except a narrow edge along one row of houses.

Now it happened that the little boy, brave as he was, grew tired of spinning his top and looked about for some place to rest. It was not hard to find. There were no benches or seats, but every house was supplied with stone steps. Little Reuben could not imagine anything better.

He was a conscientious little fellow. He had a vague feeling that his mother did not like to have him sit on strange people’s steps. His mother was poor, but just on that account it must never look as if they wanted to take anything of anybody. So he went and sat on their own stone steps, for they also lived on the marketplace.

The steps lay in the shadow, and it was very cold there. The little fellow leaned his head against the railing, drew up his legs and made himself comfortable. For a little while he watched the sunlight dance out in the marketplace and the boys running and spinning tops⁠—then he shut his eyes and went to sleep.

He must have slept an hour. When he awoke he did not feel so well as when he fell asleep; everything felt so dreadfully uncomfortable. He went in to his mother crying, and his mother saw that he was ill and put him to bed. And in a couple of days the boy was dead.

But that is not the end of his story. It happened that his mother mourned for him from the depths of her heart with a sorrow which defies years and death. His mother had several other children, many cares occupied her time and thoughts, but there was always a corner in her heart where her son Reuben dwelt undisturbed. He was ever alive to her. When she saw a group of children playing in the marketplace, he too was running there, and when she went about her house, she believed fully and firmly that the little boy was still sitting and sleeping out on those dangerous stone steps. Certainly none of her living children were so constantly in her thoughts as her dead one.

Some years after his death little Reuben had a sister, and when she grew to be old enough to run out on the marketplace and spin tops, it happened that she too sat down on the stone steps to rest. But her mother felt instantly as if someone had pulled her skirt. She came out and seized the little sister so roughly, when she lifted her up, that she remembered it as long as she lived.

And as little did she forget how strange her mother’s face was and how her voice trembled, when she said: “Do you know that you once had a little brother, whose name was Reuben, and he died because he sat on these stone steps and caught cold? You do not want to die and leave your mother, Berta?”

Brother Reuben soon became just as living to his brothers and sisters as to his mother. She was able to make them see with her eyes and they too soon saw him sitting out on the stone steps. And it naturally never occurred to them to sit down there. Yes, whenever they saw anyone sitting on stone steps, or on a stone railing, or on a stone by the roadside, they felt a prick in their heart and thought of Brother Reuben.

Besides, Brother Reuben was always placed highest of all the children when they spoke of him among themselves. For they all knew that they were a troublesome and fatiguing family, who only gave their mother care and inconvenience. They could not believe that she would grieve much at losing any of them. But as she really mourned for Brother Reuben, it was certain that he must have been much better than they were.

They would often think: “Oh, if we could only give mother as much joy as Brother Reuben!” And yet no one knew anything more about him than that he had played top and caught cold on the stone steps. But he must have been something wonderful, as their mother had such a love for him.

He was wonderful too; he was more of a joy to his mother than any of the children. Her husband died and she worked in care and want. But the children had so strong a faith in their mother’s grief for the little three-year-old boy, that they were convinced that if he had lived she would not have mourned over her misfortunes. And every time they saw their mother weep, they thought that it was because Brother Reuben was dead, or because they were not like Brother Reuben. Soon enough an ever-growing desire was born in them to rival their little dead brother in their mother’s affection. There was nothing that they would not have done for her, if she had only cared as much for them as for him. And it was on account of that longing, I think, that Brother Reuben did more good than any of the other children.

Fancy that when the eldest brother had earned his first money by rowing a stranger over the river, he came and gave it to his mother without reserving a penny! Then his mother looked so happy that he swelled with pride, and could not help betraying how ambitious beyond measure he had been.

“Mother, am I not now as good as Brother Reuben?” His mother looked at him questioningly. She seemed as if she was comparing his fresh, glowing face with the little pale boy out on the stone steps. And she would have liked to have answered yes, if she had been able, but she could not.

“I am very fond of you, Ivan, but you will never be like Reuben.”

It was beyond their powers; all the children realized it, and yet they could not help trying.

They grew up strong and capable; they worked their way up to wealth and consideration, while Brother Reuben only sat still on his stone steps. But he still had a start; he could not be overtaken.

And at every success, every improvement, as they by degrees were able to offer their mother a good home and comfort, it had to be reward enough for them for their mother to say: “Ah, if my little Reuben could have seen that!”

Brother Reuben followed his mother through the whole of her life, even to her deathbed. It was he who robbed the death pangs of their sting, since she knew that they bore her to him. In the midst of her greatest suffering the mother could smile at the thought that she was going to meet little Reuben.

And so died one whose faithful love had exalted and deified a poor little three-year-old boy.

But neither was that the end of little Reuben’s story. To all the brothers and sisters he had become a symbol of their life of endeavor, of their love for their mother, of all the touching memories from the years of struggle and failure. There was always something rich and warm in their voices when they spoke of him.

So he also glided into the lives of the children of his brothers and sisters. His mother’s love had raised him to greatness, and the great influence generation after generation.

Sister Berta had a son, who had much to do with Uncle Reuben.

He was four years old the day he sat on the curbstone and stared down into the gutter. It was full of rain water. Sticks and straws were carried past in wild swirlings down to the sea. The little boy sat and looked on with that pleasant calm that people feel in following the adventurous existence of others, when they themselves are in safety.

But his peaceful philosophizing was interrupted by his mother, who, the moment she saw him, thought of the stone steps at home and of her brother.

“Oh, my dear little boy,” she said, “do not sit there! Do you know that your mamma had a little brother whose name was Reuben, and he was four years old just like you? He died because he sat on just such a curbstone and caught cold.”

The little boy did not like being disturbed in his pleasant thoughts. He sat still and philosophized, while his yellow, curly hair fell down into his eyes.

Berta would not have done it for anyone else, but for her dear brother’s sake she shook her little boy quite roughly. And so he learned respect for Uncle Reuben.

Another time this little yellow-haired man had fallen on the ice; he had been thrown down out of sheer spite by a big, naughty boy, and there he sat and cried to show how badly he had been treated, especially as his mother could not be very far off.

But he had forgotten that his mother was first and last Uncle Reuben’s sister. When she caught sight of Axel sitting on the ice, she did not come with anything soothing or consoling, but only with that everlasting:

“Do not sit so, my little boy! Think of Uncle Reuben, who died when he was five years old, just as you are now, because he sat down in a snowdrift.”

The boy stood up instantly when he heard her speak of Uncle Reuben, but he felt a chill in his very heart. How could mamma talk about Uncle Reuben when her little boy was in such distress! Axel had no objection to his sitting and dying wherever he pleased, but now it seemed as if he wished to take his own mamma away from him, and that Axel could not bear. So he learned to hate Uncle Reuben.

High up on the stairway in Axel’s home was a stone railing, which was dizzily beautiful to sit on. Far below lay the stone floor of the hall, and he who sat astride up there could dream that he was being borne along over abysses. Axel called the balustrade the good steed Grane. On his back he bounded over burning ramparts into an enchanted castle. There he sat proud and bold with his long curls waving, and fought Saint George’s fight with the dragon. And as yet it had not occurred to Uncle Reuben to want to ride there.

But of course he came. Just as the dragon was writhing in the agony of death and Axel sat in lofty consciousness of victory, he heard his nurse call: “Little Axel, do not sit there! Think of Uncle Reuben, who died when he was eight years old, just as you are now, because he sat and rode on a stone railing. You must never sit there again.”

Such a jealous old pudding-head, that Uncle Reuben! He could not bear it, of course, because Axel was killing dragons and rescuing princesses. If he did not look out, he, Axel, would show that he could win glory too. If he should jump down to that stone floor and dash his brains out, he would feel himself thrown into the shade, that big liar.

Poor Uncle Reuben! The poor, good little boy who went to play top out in the sunny marketplace! Now he was to learn what it was to be a great man.

It was in the country at Uncle Ivan’s. A number of the cousins had gathered in the beautiful garden. Axel was there, filled with his hatred of his Uncle Reuben. He was longing to know if he was tormenting any other besides himself, but there was something which made him afraid to ask. It was as if he was going to commit some sacrilege.

At last the children were left to themselves. No big people were present. Then Axel asked if they had ever heard of Uncle Reuben.

He saw how all the eyes flashed and that many small fists were clenched, but it seemed as if the little mouths had been taught respect for Uncle Reuben. “Hush!” said the whole crowd.

“No!” said Axel; “I want to know if there is anyone else whom he tortures, for I think he is the most troublesome of all uncles.”

That one brave word broke the dam which had held in the indignation of those tormented child-hearts. There was a great murmuring and shouting. So must a crowd of nihilists look when they revile an autocrat.

The poor, great man’s register of sins was unrolled. Uncle Reuben persecuted the children of all his brothers and sisters. Uncle Reuben died wherever he chose. Uncle Reuben was always the same age as the child whose peace he wished to disturb.

And they had to show respect to him, although he was quite plainly a liar. They might hate him in the most silent depths of their heart, but overlook him or show him disrespect, no, then they were stopped.

What an air the old people put on when they spoke of him! Had he ever really done anything so wonderful? To sit down and die was nothing so surprising. And whatever great thing he may have done, it was certain that he was now abusing his power. He opposed the children in everything that they wanted to do, the old scarecrow. He drove them from a noonday nap in the grass. He had discovered their best hiding places in the park and forbidden them to go there. His last performance was to ride on barebacked horses and to drive in the hay-rigging.

They were all sure that the poor thing had never been more than three years old. And now he fell upon the big children of fourteen and insisted that he was their age. It was the most provoking thing.

It was perfectly incredible what came to light about him. He had fished from the dam; he had rowed in the little flat-bottomed boat; he had climbed up in the willow which hangs over the water, and in which it was so nice to sit; yes, he had even slept on the powder-horn.

But they were all certain that there was no escape from his tyranny. It was a relief to have spoken out, but not a remedy. They could not rebel against Uncle Reuben.

You never would have believed it, but when these children grew to be big and had children of their own, they immediately began to make use of Uncle Reuben, just as their parents had done before them.

And their children again, the young people who are growing up now, have learned their lesson so well, that it happened one summer out in the country that a five-year-old boy came up to his old grandmother Berta, who had sat down on the steps while waiting for the carriage:⁠—

“Grandmother once had a brother whose name was Reuben.”

“You are quite right, my little boy,” grandmother said, and stood up instantly.

That was as much of a sign to the young people as if they had seen an old Royalist bow before King Charles’s portrait. It made them understand that Uncle Reuben always must remain great, however he abused his position, only because he had been so deeply loved.

In these days, when all greatness is so carefully examined, he has to be used with greater moderation than formerly. The limit for his age is lower; trees, boats and powder-horns are safe from him, but nothing of stone which can be sat upon can escape him.

And the children, the children of the day, treat him quite otherwise than their parents did. They criticise him openly and frankly. Their parents no longer understand how to inspire blind, terrified obedience. Little boarding-school girls discuss Uncle Reuben and wonder if he is anything but a myth. A six-year-old child proposes that he should prove by experiment that it is impossible to catch a mortal cold on stone steps.

But that is only a passing mood. That generation in their heart of hearts is just as convinced of Uncle Reuben’s greatness as the preceding one and obey him just as they did. The day will come when those scoffers will go down to the home of their ancestors, try to find the old stone steps, and raise on it a tablet with a golden inscription.

They joke about Uncle Reuben for a few years, but as soon as they are grown and have children to bring up, they will become convinced of the use and need of the great man.

“Oh, my little child, do not sit on those stone steps! Your mother’s mother had an uncle whose name was Reuben. He died when he was your age, because he sat down to rest on just such steps.”

So will it be as long as the world lasts.

Downie

Among the Climbing Roses

I could wish that the people with whom I have spent my summer would let their glance fall on these lines. Now when the cold, dark nights have come, I should like to carry their thoughts back to that bright, warm season.

Above all, I should like to remind them of the climbing-roses that enclosed the veranda, of the delicate, somewhat thin foliage of the clematis, which in the sunlight as well as in the moonlight was drawn in dark gray shadows on the light gray stone floor and threw a light lace-like veil over everything, and of its big, bright blossoms with their ragged edges.

Other summers remind me of fields of clover, or of birch-woods, or of apple-trees and berry bushes, but that summer took its character from the climbing-roses. The bright, delicate buds, that could resist neither wind nor rain, the light, waving, pale-green shoots, the soft, bending stems, the exuberant richness of blossoms, the gaily humming hosts of insects, all follow me and rise up before me in their glory, when I think of that summer, that rosy, delicate, dainty summer.

Now, when the time for work has come, people often ask me how I passed my summer. Then everything glides from my memory, and it seems to me as if I had sat day in and day out on the veranda behind the climbing roses and breathed in fragrance and sunshine. What did I do? Oh, I watched others work.

There was a little upholsterer bee which worked from morning till night, from night till morning. From the soft, green leaves it sawed out a neat little oval with its sharp jaws, rolled it together as one rolls up a real carpet, and with the precious burden pressed to it, it fluttered away to the park and lighted on an old tree stump. There it burrowed down through dark passageways and mysterious galleries, until at last it reached the bottom of a perpendicular shaft. In its unknown depths, where neither ant nor centipede ever had ventured, it spread out the green leaf roll and covered the uneven floor with the most beautiful carpet. And when the floor was covered, the bee came back for new leaves to cover the walls of the shaft, and worked so quickly and eagerly, that there was soon not a leaf in the rose hedge that did not have an oval hole which bore testimony that it had been forced to assist in the adorning of the old tree-stump.

One fine day the little bee changed its occupation. It bored deep in among the ragged petals of the full-blown roses, sucked and drank all it could in those beautiful larders, and when it had got its fill, it flew quickly away to the old stump to fill the freshly-papered chambers with brightest honey.

The little upholsterer bee was not the only one who worked in the rosebushes. There was also a spider, a quite unparalleled spider. It was bigger than any spider I have ever seen; it was bright orange with a clearly marked cross on its back, and it had eight long, red-and-white striped legs, all equally well marked. You ought to have seen it spin! Every thread was drawn out with the greatest precision from the first ones that were only for supports to the last fine connecting thread. And you should have seen it balance its way along the slender threads to seize a fly or to take its place in the middle of the web, motionless, patient, waiting for hours.

That big, orange spider won my heart; he was so patient and so wise. Every day he had his little encounter with the upholsterer bee, and he always came out of the affair with the same unfailing tact. The bee who took his way close by him caught time and time again in his net. Instantly it began to buzz and tear; it dragged at the fine web and behaved like a mad thing, which naturally resulted in its being more and more entangled and getting both legs and wings wound up in the sticky net.

As soon as the bee was exhausted and weakened, the spider came creeping out to it. It kept always at a respectful distance, but with the extreme end of one of the beautiful, red striped legs it gave the bee a little push, so that it swung round in the web. When the bee had again buzzed and raged itself tired, it received another gentle shove, and then another and yet another, until it spun round like a top and did not know what it was doing in its fury, and became so confused that it could not defend itself. But during the whirling the threads that held it fast twisted ever more tightly, till the tension became so great that they broke, and the bee fell to the ground. Yes, that was what the spider had wished, of course.

And that performance could they repeat, those two, day after day as long as the bee had work in the rosebushes. Never could the little bee learn to look out for the spiderweb, and never did the spider show anger or impatience. I liked them both; the little, eager, furry worker, as well as the big, crafty, old hunter.

Very few great events happened in the garden of the climbing roses. Between the espaliers one could see the little lake lying and twinkling in the sunlight. And it was a lake which was too little and too shut in to be able to heave in real waves, but at every little ripple on the gray surface thousands of small sparkles that glistened and played on the waves flew up; it seemed as if its depths had been full of fire that could not get out. And it was the same with the summer life there; it was usually so quiet, but if there came the slightest, little ripple⁠—oh, how it could shine and glitter!

We needed nothing great to make us happy. A flower or a bird could make us merry for several hours, not to speak of the upholsterer bee. I shall never forget what pleasure I had once on his account.

The bee had been in the spiderweb as usual, and the spider had as usual helped him out; but it had been fastened so securely that it had had to buzz a dreadfully long time and had been very tamed and subdued when it had flown away. I bent forward to see if the spiderweb had suffered much damage. Fortunately it had not; but on the other hand a little yellow larva was caught in the web, a little threadlike monster, which consisted of only jaws and claws, and I was agitated, really agitated, at the sight of it.

I knew them, those May-bug larvae, that in thousands crawl up on the flowers and hide themselves under their petals. Did I not know them and yet admire them, those bold, cunning parasites, that sit hidden and wait, only wait, even if it is for weeks, until a bee comes, in whose yellow and black down they can hide. And did I not know their hateful skill just when the little cell-builder has filled a room with honey and on its surface laid the egg from which the rightful owner of the cell and the honey will come forth, just then to creep down on the egg and with careful balancing sit on it as on a boat; for if they should come down into the honey, they would drown. And while the bee covers the thimble-like cell with a green roof and carefully shuts in its young one, the yellow larva tears open the egg with its sharp jaws and devours its contents, while the eggshell has still to serve as craft on the dangerous honey-sea.

But gradually the little yellow larva grows flat and big and can swim by itself on the honey and drink of it, and in the course of time a fat, black beetle comes out of the bee-cell. It is certain that this is not what the little bee wished to effect by its work, and however cunningly and cleverly the beetle may have behaved, it is nevertheless nothing but a lazy parasite, who deserves no sympathy.

And my bee, my own little, industrious bee, bad flown about with such a yellow hanger-on in its down. But while the spider had spun round with it, the larva had loosened and fallen down on the spiderweb, and now the big, orange spider came and gave it a bite and transformed it in a second into a skeleton without life or substance.

When the little bee came again, its humming was like a hymn to life.

“Oh, thou beauteous life,” it said. “I thank thee that happy work among roses and sunshine has fallen to my lot. I thank thee that I can enjoy thee without anxiety or fear.

“Well I know that spiders lie in wait and beetles steal, but happy work is mine, and brave freedom from care. Oh, thou beauteous life, thou glorious existence!”

The Story of a Country House

Queens at Kungahälla

Old Agnete

An old woman went up the mountain-path with short, tripping steps. She was little and thin. Her face was pale and wizened, but neither hard nor furrowed. She wore a long cloak and a quilled cap. She had a Prayerbook in her hand and a sprig of lavender in her handkerchief.

She lived in a hut far up the high mountain where no trees could grow. It was lying quite close to the edge of a broad glacier, which sent its river of ice from the snow-clad mountain peak into the depths of the valley. There she lived quite alone. All those who had belonged to her were dead.

It was Sunday, and she had been to church. But whatever might be the cause, her going there had not made her happy, but sorrowful. The clergyman had spoken about death and the doomed, and that had affected her. She had suddenly begun to think of how she had heard in her childhood that many of the doomed were tormented in the region of eternal cold on the mountain right above her dwelling. She could remember many tales about these wanderers of the glaciers⁠—these indefatigable shadows which were hunted from place to place by the icy mountain winds.

All at once she felt a great terror of the mountain, and thought that her hut was dreadfully high up. Supposing those who moved about invisibly there wandered down the glaciers! And she who was quite alone! The word “alone” gave to her thoughts a still sadder turn. She again felt the full burden of that sorrow which never left her. She thought how hard it was to be so far away from human beings.

“Old Agnete,” she said aloud to herself, as she had got into the habit of doing in the lonely waste, “you sit in your hut and spin, and spin. You work and toil all the hours of the day so as not to perish from hunger. But is there anyone to whom you give any pleasure by being alive? Is there anyone, old Agnete? If any of your own were living⁠—Yes, then, perhaps, if you lived nearer the village, you might be of some use to somebody. Poor as you are, you could neither take dog nor cat home to you, but you could probably now and then give a beggar shelter. You ought not to live so far away from the high road, old Agnete. If you could only once in a while give a thirsty wayfarer a drink, then you would know that it was of some use your being alive.”

She sighed, and said to herself that not even the peasant women who gave her flax to spin would mourn her death. She had certainly striven to do her work honestly and well, but no doubt there were many who could have done it better. She began to cry bitterly, when the thought struck her that his reverence, who had seen her sitting in the same place in church for so many, many years, would perhaps think it a matter of perfect indifference whether she was dead or not.

“It is as if I were dead,” she said. “No one asks after me. I would just as well lie down and die. I am already frozen to death from cold and loneliness. I am frozen to the core of the heart, I am indeed. Ah me! ah me!” she said, now she had been set a-thinking; “if there were only someone who really needed me, there might still be a little warmth left in old Agnete. But I cannot knit stockings for the mountain goats, or make the beds for the marmots, can I? I tell Thee,” she said, stretching our her hands towards heaven, “something Thou must give me to do, or I shall lay me down and die.”

At the same moment a tall, stern monk came towards her. He walked by her side because he saw that she was sorrowful, and she told him about her troubles. She said that her heart was nearly frozen to death, and that she would become like one of the wanderers on the glacier if God did not give her something to live for.

“God will assuredly do that,” said the monk.

“Do you not see that God is powerless here?” old Agnete said. “Here there is nothing but an empty, barren waste.”

They went higher and higher towards the snow mountains. The moss spread itself softly over the stones; the Alpine herbs, with their velvety leaves, grew along the pathway; the mountain, with its rifts and precipices, its glaciers and snowdrifts, towered above them, weighing them down. Then the monk discovered old Agnete’s hut, right below the glacier.

“Oh,” he said, “is it there you live? Then you are not alone there; you have company enough. Only look!”

The monk put his thumb and first finger together, held them before old Agnete’s left eye, and bade her look through them towards the mountain. But old Agnete shuddered and closed her eyes.

“If there is anything to see up there, then I will not look on any account,” she said. “The Lord preserve us! it is bad enough without that.”

“Goodbye, then,” said the monk; “it is not certain that you will be permitted to see such a thing a second time.”

Old Agnete grew curious; she opened her eyes and looked towards the glacier. At first she saw nothing remarkable, but soon she began to discern things moving about. What she had taken to be mist and vapour, or bluish-white shadows on the ice, were multitudes of doomed souls, tormented in the eternal cold.

Poor old Agnete trembled like an aspen leaf. Everything was just as she had heard it described in days gone by. The dead wandered about there in endless anguish and pain. Most of them were shrouded in something long and white, but all had their faces and their hands bared.

They could not be counted, there was such a multitude. The longer she looked, the more there appeared. Some walked proud and erect, others seemed to dance over the glacier; but she saw that they all cut their feet on the sharp and jagged edges of the ice.

It was just as she had been told. She saw how they constantly huddled close together, as if to warm themselves, but immediately drew back again, terrified by the deathly cold which emanated from their bodies.

It was as if the cold of the mountain came from them, as if it were they who prevented the snow from melting and made the mist so piercingly cold.

They were not all moving; some stood in icy stoniness, and it looked as if they had been standing thus for years, for ice and snow had gathered around them so that only the upper portion of their bodies could be seen.

The longer the little old woman gazed the quieter she grew. Fear left her, and she was only filled with sorrow for all these tormented beings. There was no abatement in their pain, no rest for their torn feet, hurrying over ice sharp as edged steel. And how cold they were! how they shivered! how their teeth chattered from cold! Those who were petrified and those who could move, all suffered alike from the snarling, biting, unbearable cold.

There were many young men and women; but there was no youth in their faces, blue with cold. It looked as if they were playing, but all joy was dead. They shivered, and were huddled up like old people.

But those who made the deepest impression on her were those frozen fast in the hard glacier, and those who were hanging from the mountainside like great icicles.

Then the monk removed his hand, and old Agnete saw only the barren, empty glaciers. Here and there were ice-mounds, but they did not surround any petrified ghosts. The blue light on the glacier did not proceed from frozen bodies; the wind chased the snowflakes before it, but not any ghosts.

Still old Agnete was certain that she had really seen all this, and she asked the monk:

“Is it permitted to do anything for these poor doomed ones?”

He answered:

“When has God forbidden Love to do good or Mercy to solace?”

Then the monk went his way, and old Agnete went to her hut and thought it all over. The whole evening she pondered how she could help the doomed who were wandering on the glaciers. For the first time in many years she had been too busy to think of her loneliness.

Next morning she again went down to the village. She smiled, and was well content. Old age was no longer so heavy a burden. “The dead,” she said to herself, “do not care so much about red cheeks and light steps. They only want one to think of them with a little warmth. But young people do not trouble to do that. Oh no, oh no. How should the dead protect themselves from the terrible coldness of death did not old people open their hearts to them?”

When she came to the village shop she bought a large package of candles, and from a peasant she ordered a great load of firewood; but in order to pay for it she had to take in twice as much spinning as usual.

Towards evening, when she got home again, she said many prayers, and tried to keep up her courage by singing hymns. But her courage sank more and more. All the same, she did what she had made up her mind to do.

She moved her bed into the inner room of her hut. In the front room she made a big fire and lighted it. In the window she placed two candles, and left the outer door wide open. Then she went to bed.

She lay in the darkness and listened.

Yes, there certainly was a step. It was as if someone had come gliding down the glacier. It came heavily, moaning. It crept round the hut as if it dared not come in. Close to the wall it stood and shivered.

Old Agnete could not bear it any longer. She sprang out of bed, went into the outer room and closed the door. It was too much; flesh and blood could not stand it.

Outside the hut she heard deep sighs and dragging steps, as of sore, wounded feet. They dragged themselves away further and further up the icy glacier. Now and again she also heard sobs; but soon everything was quiet.

Then old Agnete was beside herself with anxiety. “You are a coward, you silly old thing,” she said. “Both the fire and the lights, which cost so much, are burning out. Shall it all have been done in vain because you are such a miserable coward?” And when she had said this she got out of bed again, crying from fear, with chattering teeth, and shivering all over; but into the other room she went, and the door she opened.

Again she lay and waited. Now she was no longer frightened that they should come. She was only afraid lest she had scared them away, and that they dared not come back.

And as she lay there in the darkness she began to call just as she used to do in her young days when she was tending the sheep.

“My little white lambs, my lambs in the mountains, come, come! Come down from rift and precipice, my little white lambs!”

Then it seemed as if a cold wind from the mountain came rushing into the room. She heard neither step nor sob, only gusts of wind that came rushing along the walls of the hut into the room. And it sounded as if someone were continually saying:

“Hush, hush! Don’t frighten her! don’t frighten her! don’t frighten her!”

She had a feeling as if the outside room was so overcrowded that they were being crushed against the walls, and that the walls were giving way. Sometimes it seemed as if they would lift the roof in order to gain more room. But the whole time there were whispers:

“Hush, hush! Don’t frighten her! don’t frighten her!”

Then old Agnete felt happy and peaceful. She folded her hands and fell asleep. In the morning it seemed as if the whole had been a dream. Everything looked as usual in the outer room; the fire had burnt out, and so had the candles. There was not a vestige of tallow left in the candlesticks.

As long as old Agnete lived she continued to do this. She spun and worked so that she could keep her fire burning every night. And she was happy because someone needed her.

Then one Sunday she was not in her usual seat in the church. Two peasants went up to her hut to see if there was anything the matter. She was already dead, and they carried her body down to the village to bury it.

When, the following Sunday, her funeral took place, just before Mass, there were but few who followed, neither did one see grief on any face. But suddenly, just as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, a tall, stern monk came into the churchyard, and he stood still and pointed to the snow-clad mountains. Then they saw the whole mountain-ridge shining in a red light as if lighted with joy, and round it wound a procession of small yellow flames, looking like burning candles. And these flames numbered as many as the candles which old Agnete had burned for the doomed. Then people said: “Praise the Lord! She whom no one mourns here below has all the same found friends in the solitude above.”

The Fisherman’s Ring

During the reign of the Doge Gradenigos there lived in Venice an old fisherman, Cecco by name. He had been an unusually strong man, and was still very strong for his age, but lately he had given up work and left it to his two sons to provide for him. He was very proud of his sons, and he loved them⁠—ah, signor, how he loved them!

Fate had so ordered it that their bringing up had been almost entirely left to him. Their mother had died early, and so Cecco had to take care of them. He had looked after their clothes and cooked their food; he had sat in the boat with needle and cotton and mended and darned. He had not cared in the least that people had laughed at him on that account. He had also, quite alone, taught them all it was necessary for them to know. He had made a couple of able fishermen of them, and taught them to honour God and San Marco.

“Always remember,” he said to them, “that Venice will never be able to stand in her own strength. Look at her! Has she not been built on the waves? Look at the low islands close to land, where the sea plays amongst the seaweed. You would not venture to tread upon them, and yet it is upon such foundation that the whole city rests. And do you not know that the north wind has strength enough to throw both churches and palaces into the sea? Do you not know that we have such powerful enemies, that all the princes in Christendom cannot vanquish them? Therefore you must always pray to San Marco, for in his strong hands rests the chains which hold Venice suspended over the depths of the sea.”

And in the evening, when the moon shed its light over Venice, greenish-blue from the sea-mist; when they quietly glided up the Canale Grande and the gondolas they met were full of singers; when the palaces shone in their white splendour, and thousands of lights mirrored themselves in the dark waters⁠—then he always reminded them that they must thank San Marco for life and happiness.

But oh, signor! he did not forget him in the daytime either. When they returned from fishing and glided over the water of the lagoons, light-blue and golden; when the city lay before them, swimming on the waves; when the great ships passed in and out of the harbour, and the palace of the Doges shone like a huge jewel-casket, holding all the world’s treasure⁠—then he never forgot to tell them that all these things were the gift of San Marco, and that they would all vanish if a single Venetian were ungrateful enough to give up believing in and adoring him.

Then, one day, the sons went out fishing on the open sea, outside Lido. They were in company with several others, had a splendid vessel, and intended being away several days. The weather was fine, and they hoped for a goodly haul.

They left the Rialto, the large island where the city proper lies, one early morning, and as they passed through the lagoons they saw all the islands which, like fortifications, protect Venice against the sea, appear through the mist of the morning. There were La Gindecca and San Giorgio on the right, and San Michele, Muracco and San Lazzaro on the left. Then island followed upon island in a large circle, right on to the long Lido lying straight before them, and forming, as it were, the clasp of this string of pearls. And beyond Lido was the wide, infinite sea.

When they were well at sea, some of them got into a small boat and rowed out to set their nets. It was still fine weather, although the waves were higher here than inside the islands. None of them, however, dreamt of any danger. They had a good boat and were experienced men. But soon those left on the vessel saw that the sea and the sky suddenly grew darker in the north. They understood that a storm was coming on, and they at once shouted to their comrades, but they were already too far away to hear them.

The wind first reached the small boat. When the fishermen suddenly saw the waves rise around them, as herds of cattle on a large plain arise in the morning, one of the men in the boat stood up and beckoned to his comrades, but the same moment he fell backwards into the sea. Immediately afterwards a wave came which raised the boat on her bows, and one could see how the men, as it were, were shaken from off their seats and flung into the sea. It only lasted a moment, and everything had disappeared. Then the boat again appeared, keel upwards. The men in the vessel tried to reach the spot, but could not tack against the wind.

It was a terrific storm which came rushing over the sea, and soon the fishermen in the vessel had their work set to save themselves. They succeeded in getting home safely, however, and brought with them the news of the disaster. It was Cecco’s two sons and three others who had perished.

Ah me! how strangely things come about! The same morning Cecco had gone down to the Rialto to the fish-market. He went about amongst the stands and strutted about like a fine gentleman because he had no need to work. He even invited a couple of old Lido fishermen to an asteri and stood them a beaker of wine. He grew very important as he sat there and bragged and boasted about his sons. His spirits rose high, and he took out the zecchine⁠—the one the Doge had given him when he had saved a child from drowning in Canale Grande. He was very proud of this large gold coin, carried it always about him, and showed it to people whenever there was an opportunity.

Suddenly a man entered the asteri and began to tell about the disaster, without noticing that Cecco was sitting there. But he had not been speaking long before Cecco threw himself over him and seized him by the throat.

“You do not dare to tell me that they are dead!” he shrieked⁠—“not my sons!”

The man succeeded in getting away from him, but Cecco for a long time went on as if he were out of his mind. People heard him shout and groan; they crowded into the asteri⁠—as many as it could hold⁠—and stood round him in a circle as if he were a juggler.

Cecco sat on the floor and moaned. He hit the hard stone floor with his fist, and said over and over again:

“It is San Marco, San Marco, San Marco!”

“Cecco, you have taken leave of your senses from grief,” they said to him.

“I knew it would happen on the open sea,” Cecco said; “outside Lido and Malamocco, there, I knew it would happen. There San Marco would take them. He bore them a grudge. I have feared it, boy. Yes,” he said, without hearing what they said to quiet him, “they once laughed at him, once when we were lying outside Lido. He has not forgotten it; he will not stand being laughed at.”

He looked with confused glances at the bystanders, as if to seek help.

“Look here, Beppo from Malamocca,” he said, stretching out his hand towards a big fisherman, “don’t you believe it was San Marco?”

“Don’t imagine any such thing, Cecco.”

“Now you shall hear, Beppo, how it happened. You see, we were lying out at sea, and to while away the time I told them how San Marco had come to Venice. The evangelist San Marco was first buried in a beautiful cathedral at Alexandria in Egypt. But the town got into the possession of unbelievers, and one day the Khalifa ordered that they should build him a magnificent palace at Alexandria, and take some columns from the Christian churches for its decoration. But just at that time there were two Venetian merchants at Alexandria who had ten heavily-laden vessels lying in the harbour. When these men entered the church where San Marco was buried and heard the command of the Khalifa, they said to the sorrowful priests: ‘The precious body which you have in your church may be desecrated by the Saracens. Give it to us; we will honour it, for San Marco was the first to preach on the Lagoon, and the Doge will reward you.’ And the priests gave their consent, and in order that the Christians of Alexandria should not object, the body of another holy man was placed in the Evangelist’s coffin. But to prevent the Saracens from getting any news of the removal of the body, it was placed at the bottom of a large chest, and above it were packed hams and smoked bacon, which the Saracens could not endure. So when the Customhouse officers opened the lid of the chest, they at once hurried away. The two merchants, however, brought San Marco safely to Venice; you know, Beppo, that this is what they say.”

“I do, Cecco.”

“Yes; but just listen now,” and Cecco half arose, and in his fear spoke in a low voice. “Something terrible now happened. When I told the boys that the holy man had been hidden underneath the bacon, they burst out laughing. I tried to hush them, but they only laughed the louder. Giacomo was lying on his stomach in the bows, and Pietro sat with his legs dangling outside the boat, and they both laughed so that it could be heard far out over the sea.”

“But, Cecco, surely two children may be allowed to laugh.”

“But don’t you understand that is where they have perished today⁠—on the very spot? Or can you understand why they should have lost their lives on that spot?”

Now they all began to talk to him and comfort him. It was his grief which made him lose his senses. This was not like San Marco. He would not revenge himself upon two children. Was it not natural that when a boat was caught in a storm this would happen on the open sea and not in the harbour?

Surely his sons had not lived in enmity with San Marco. They had heard them shout, “Eviva San Marco!” as eagerly as all the others, and had he not protected them to this very day. He had never, during the years that had passed, shown any sign of being angry with them.

“But, Cecco,” they said, “you will bring misfortune upon us with your talk about San Marco. You, who are an old man and a wise man, should know better than to raise his anger against the Venetians. What are we without him?”

Cecco sat and looked at them bewildered.

“Then you don’t believe it?”

“No one in his senses would believe such a thing.”

It looked as if they had succeeded in quieting him.

“I will also try not to believe it,” he said. He rose and walked towards the door. “It would be too cruel, would it not?” he said. “They were too handsome and too brave for anyone to hate them; I will not believe it.”

He went home, and in the narrow street outside his door he met an old woman, one of his neighbours.

“They are reading a Mass in the cathedral for the souls of the dead,” she said to Cecco, and hurried away. She was afraid of him; he looked so strange.

Cecco took his boat and made his way through the small canals down to Riva degli Schiavoni. There was a wide view from there; he looked towards Lido and the sea. Yes, it was a hard wind, but not a storm by any means; there were hardly any waves. And his sons had perished in weather like this! It was inconceivable.

He fastened his boat, and went across the Piazetta and the Market Place into San Marco. There were many people in the church, and they were all kneeling and praying in great fear; for it is much more terrible for the Venetians, you know, than any other people when there is a disaster at sea. They do not get their living from vineyards or fields, but they are all, everyone of them, dependent on the sea. Whenever the sea rose against any one of them they were all afraid, and hurried to San Marco to pray to him for protection.

As soon as Cecco entered the cathedral he stopped. He thought of how he had brought his little sons there, and taught them to pray to San Marco. “It is he who carries us over the sea, who opens the gates of Byzance for us and gives us the supremacy over the islands of the East,” he said to them. Out of gratitude for all this the Venetians had built San Marco the most beautiful temple in the world, and no vessel ever returned from a foreign port without bringing a gift for San Marco.

Then they had admired the red marble walls of the cathedral and the golden mosaic ceiling. It was as if no misfortune could befall a city that had such a sanctuary for her patron Saint.

Cecco quickly knelt down and began to pray, the one Paternoster after the other. It came back, he felt. He would send it away by prayers. He would not believe anything bad about San Marco.

But it had been no storm at all. And so much was certain, that even if the Saint had not sent the storm, he had, in any case, not done anything to help Cecco’s sons, but had allowed them to perish as if by accident. When this thought came upon him he began to pray; but the thought would not leave him.

And to think that San Marco had a treasury in this cathedral full of all the glories of fairyland! To think that he had himself prayed to him all his life, and had never rowed past the Piazetta without going into the cathedral to invoke him!

Surely it was not by a mere accident that his sons had today perished on the sea! Oh, it was miserable for the Venetians to have no one better to depend upon! Just fancy a Saint who revenged himself upon two children⁠—a patron Saint who could not protect against a gust of wind!

He stood up, and he shrugged his shoulders, and disparagingly waved his hand when he looked towards the tomb of the Saint in the chancel.

A verger was going about with a large chased silver-gilt dish, collecting gifts for San Marco. He went from the one person to the other, and also came to Cecco.

Cecco drew back as if it were the Evil One himself who handed him the plate. Did San Marco ask for gifts from him? Did he think he deserved gifts from him?

All at once he seized the large golden zecchine he had in his belt, and flung it into the plate with such violence that the ring of it could be heard all over the church. It disturbed those who were praying, and made them turn round. And all who saw Cecco’s face were terrified; he looked as if he were possessed of evil spirits.

Cecco immediately left the church, and at first felt it as a great relief that he had been revenged upon the Saint. He had treated him as one treats a usurer who demands more than he is entitled to. “Take this too,” one says, and throws his last gold piece in the fellow’s face so that the blood runs down over his eyes. But the usurer does not strike again⁠—simply stoops and picks up the zecchine. So, too, had San Marco done. He had accepted Cecco’s zecchine, having first robbed him of his sons. Cecco had made him accept a gift which had been tendered with such bitter hatred. Would an honourable man have put up with such treatment? But San Marco was a coward⁠—both cowardly and revengeful. But he was not likely to revenge himself upon Cecco. He was, no doubt, pleased and thankful he had got the zecchine. He simply accepted it and pretended that it had been given as piously as could be.

When Cecco stood at the entrance, two vergers quickly passed him.

“It rises⁠—it rises terribly!” the one said.

“What rises?” asked Cecco.

“The water in the crypt. It has risen a foot in the last two or three minutes.”

When Cecco went down the steps, he saw a small pool of water on the Market Place close to the bottom step. It was seawater, which had splashed up from the Piazetta. He was surprised that the sea had risen so high, and he hurried down to the Riva, where his boat lay. Everything was as he had left it, only the water had risen considerably. It came rolling in broad waves through the five sea-gates; but the wind was not very strong. At the Riva there were already pools of seawater, and the canals rose so that the doors in the houses facing the water had to be closed. The sky was all gray like the sea.

It never struck Cecco that it might grow into a serious storm. He would not believe any such thing. San Marco had allowed his sons to perish without cause. He felt sure this was no real storm. He would just like to see if it would be a storm, and he sat down beside his boat and waited.

Then suddenly rifts appeared in the dull-gray clouds which covered the sky. The clouds were torn asunder and flung aside, and large storm-clouds came rushing, black like warships, and from them scourging rain and hail fell upon the city. And something like quite a new sea came surging in from Lido. Ah, signor! they were not the swan-necked waves you have seen out there, the waves that bend their transparent necks and hasten towards the shore, and which, when they are pitilessly repulsed, float away again with their white foam-hair dispersed over the surface of the sea. These were dark waves, chasing each other in furious rage, and over their tops the bitter froth of the sea was whipped into mist.

The wind was now so strong that the seagulls could no longer continue their quiet flight, but, shrieking, were thrust from their course. Cecco soon saw them with much trouble making their way towards the sea, so as not to be caught by the storm and flung against the walls. Hundreds of pigeons on San Marco’s square flew up, beating their wings, so that it sounded like a new storm, and hid themselves away in all the nooks and corners of the church roof.

But it was not the birds alone that were frightened by the storm. A couple of gondolas had already got loose, and were thrown against the shore, and were nearly shattered. And now all the gondoliers came rushing to pull their boats into the boathouses, or place them in shelter in the small canals.

The sailors on the ships lying in the harbour worked with the anchor-chains to make the vessels fast, in order to prevent them drifting on to the shore. They took down the clothes hanging up to dry, pulled their long caps well over their foreheads, and began to collect all the loose articles lying about in order to bring them below deck. Outside Canale Grande a whole fishing-fleet came hurrying home. All the people from Lido and Malamocco who had sold their goods at the Rialto were rushing homewards, before the storm grew too violent.

Cecco laughed when he saw the fishermen bending over their oars and straining themselves as if they were fleeing from death itself. Could they not see that it was only a gust of wind? They could very well have remained and given the Venetian women time to buy all their cattle, fish, and crabs.

He was certainly not going to pull his boat into shelter, although the storm was now violent enough for any ordinary man to have taken notice of it. The floating bridges were lifted up high and cast on to the shore, whilst the washerwomen hurried home shrieking. The broad-brimmed hats of the signors were blown off into the canals, from whence the street-boys fished them out with great glee. Sails were torn from the masts, and fluttered in the air with a cracking sound; children were knocked down by the strong wind; and the clothes hanging on the lines in the narrow streets were torn to rags and carried far away.

Cecco laughed at the storm⁠—a storm which drove the birds away, and played all sorts of pranks in the street, like a boy. But, all the same, he pulled his boat under one of the arches of the bridge. One could really not allow what that wind might take it into its head to do.

In the evening Cecco thought that it would have been fun to have been out at sea. It would have been splendid sailing with such a fresh wind. But on shore it was unpleasant. Chimneys were blown down; the roofs of the boathouses were lifted right off; it rained tiles from the houses into the canals; the wind shook the doors and the window-shutters, rushed in under the open loggias of the palaces and tore off the decorations.

Cecco held out bravely, but he did not go home to bed. He could not take the boat home with him, so it was better to remain and look after it. But when anyone went by and said that it was terrible weather he would not admit it. He had experienced very different weather in his young days.

“Storm!” he said to himself⁠—“call this a storm? And they think, perhaps, that it began the same moment I threw the zecchine to San Marco. As if he can command a real storm!”

When night came the wind and the sea grew still more violent, so that Venice trembled in her foundations. Doge Gradenigo and the Gentlemen of the High Council went in the darkness of the night to San Marco to pray for the city. Torchbearers went before them, and the flames were spread out by the wind, so that they lay flat, like pennants. The wind tore the Doge’s heavy brocade gown, so that two men were obliged to hold it.

Cecco thought this was the most remarkable thing he had ever seen⁠—Doge Gradenigo going himself to the cathedral on account of this bit of a wind! What would those people have done if there had been a real storm?

The waves beat incessantly against the bulwarks. In the darkness of the night it was as if white-headed wresters sprang up from the deep, and with teeth and claws clung fast to the piles to tear them loose from the shore. Cecco fancied he could hear their angry snorts when they were hurled back again. But he shuddered when he heard them come again and again, and tear in the bulwarks.

It seemed to him that the storm was far more terrible in the night. He heard shouts in the air, and that was not the wind. Sometimes black clouds came drifting like a whole row of heavy galleys, and it seemed as if they advanced to make an assault on the city. Then he heard distinctly someone speaking in one of the riven clouds over his head.

“Things look bad for Venice now,” it said from the one cloud. “Soon our brothers the evil spirits will come and overthrow the city.”

“I am afraid San Marco will not allow it to happen,” came as a response from the other cloud.

“San Marco has been knocked down by a Venetian, so he lies powerless, and cannot help anyone,” said the first.

The storm carried the words down to old Cecco, and from that moment he was on his knees, praying San Marco for grace and forgiveness. For the evil spirits had spoken the truth. It did indeed look bad for Venice. The fair Queen of the Isles was near destruction. A Venetian had mocked San Marco, and therefore Venice was in danger of being carried away by the sea. There would be no more moonlight sails or her sea and in her canals, and no more barcaroles would be heard from her black gondolas. The sea would wash over the golden-haired signoras, over the proud palaces, over San Marco, resplendent with gold.

If there was no one to protect these islands, they were doomed to destruction. Before San Marco came to Venice it had often happened that large portions of them had been washed away by the waves.

At early dawn San Marco’s Church bells began to ring. People crept to the church, their clothes being nearly torn off them.

The storm went on increasing. The priests had resolved to go out and adjure the storm and the sea. The main doors of the cathedral were opened, and the long procession streamed out of the church. Foremost the cross was carried, then came the choirboys with wax candles, and last in the procession were carried the banner of San Marco and the Sacred Host.

But the storm did not allow itself to be cowed; on the contrary, it was as if it wished for nothing better to play with. It upset the choirboys, blew out the wax candles, and flung the baldachin, which was carried over the Host, on to the top of the Doge’s palace. It was with the utmost trouble that they saved San Marco’s banner, with the winged lion, from being carried away.

Cecco saw all this, and stole down to his boat moaning loudly. The whole day he lay near the shore, often wet by the waves and in danger of being washed into the sea. The whole day he was praying incessantly to God and San Marco. He felt that the fate of the whole city depended upon his prayers.

There were not many people about that day, but some few went moaning along the Riva. All spoke about the immeasurable damage the storm had wrought. One could see the houses tumbling down on the Murano. It was as if the whole island were under water. And also on the Rialto one or two houses had fallen.

The storm continued the whole day with unabated violence. In the evening a large multitude of people assembled at the Market Place and the Piazetta, although these were nearly covered with water. People dared not remain in their houses, which shook in their very foundations. And the cries of those who feared disaster mingled with the lamentations of those whom it had already overtaken. Whole dwellings were under water; children were drowned in their cradles. The old and the sick had been swept with the overturned houses into the waves.

Cecco was still lying and praying to San Marco. Oh, how could the crime of a poor fisherman be taken in such earnest? Surely it was not his fault that the saint was so powerless! He would let the demons take him and his boat; he deserved no better fate. But not the whole city!⁠—oh, God in heaven, not the whole city!

“My sons!” Cecco said to San Marco. “What do I care about my sons when Venice is at stake! I would willingly give a son for each tile in danger of being blown into the canal if I could keep them in their place at that price. Oh, San Marco, each little stone of Venice is worth as much as a promising son.”

At times he saw terrible things. There was a large galley which had torn itself from its moorings and now came drifting towards the shore. It went straight against the bulwark, and struck it with the ram’s head in her bows, just as if it had been an enemy’s ship. It gave blow after blow, and the attack was so violent that the vessel immediately sprang a leak. The water rushed in, the leak grew larger, and the proud ship went to pieces. But the whole time one could see the captain and two or three of the crew, who would not leave the vessel, cling to the deck and meet death without attempting to escape it.

The second night came, and Cecco’s prayers continued to knock at the gate of heaven.

“Let me alone suffer!” he cried. “San Marco, it is more than a man can bear, thus to drag others with him to destruction. Only send thy lion and kill me; I shall not attempt to escape. Everything that thou wilt have me give up for the city, that will I willingly sacrifice.”

Just as he had uttered these words he looked towards the Piazetta, and he thought he could no longer see San Marco’s lion on the granite pillar. Had San Marco permitted his lion to be overthrown? old Cecco cried. He was nearly giving up Venice.

Whilst he was lying there he saw visions and heard voices all the time. The demons talked and moved to and fro. He heard them wheeze like wild beasts every time they made their assaults on the bulwarks. He did not mind them much; it was worse about Venice.

Then he heard in the air above him the beating of strong wings; this was surely San Marco’s lion flying overhead. It moved backwards and forwards in the air; he saw and yet he did not see it. Then it seemed to him as if it descended on Riva degli Schiavoni, where he was lying, and prowled about there. He was on the point of jumping into the sea from fear, but he remained sitting where he was. It was no doubt he whom the lion sought. If that could only save Venice, then he was quite willing to let San Marco avenge himself upon him.

Then the lion came crawling along the ground like a cat. He saw it making ready to spring. He noticed that it beat its wings and screwed its large carbuncle eyes together till they were only small fiery slits.

Then old Cecco certainly did think of creeping down to his boat and hiding himself under the arch of the bridge, but he pulled himself together and remained where he was. The same moment a tall, imposing figure stood by his side.

“Good evening, Cecco,” said the man; “take your boat and row me across to San Giorgio Maggiore.”

“Yes, signor,” immediately replied the old fisherman.

It was as if he had awakened from a dream. The lion had disappeared, and the man must be somebody who knew him, although Cecco could not quite remember where he had seen him before. He was glad to have company. The terrible heaviness and anguish that had been over him since he had revolted against the Saint suddenly vanished. As to rowing across to San Giorgio, he did not for a moment think that it could be done.

“I don’t believe we can even get the boat out,” he said to himself.

But there was something about the man at his side that made him feel he must do all he possibly could to serve him; and he did succeed in getting out the boat. He helped the stranger into the boat and took the oars.

Cecco could not help laughing to himself.

“What are you thinking about? Don’t go out further in any case,” he said. “Have you ever seen the like of these waves? Do tell him that it is not within the power of man.”

But he felt as if he could not tell the stranger that it was impossible. He was sitting there as quietly as if he were sailing to the Lido on a summer’s eve. And Cecco began to row to San Giorgio Maggiore.

It was a terrible row. Time after time the waves washed over them.

“Oh, stop him!” Cecco said under his breath; “do stop the man who goes to sea in such weather! Otherwise he is a sensible old fisherman. Do stop him!”

Now the boat was up a steep mountain, and then it went down into a valley. The foam splashed down on Cecco from the waves that rushed past him like runaway horses, but in spite of everything he approached San Giorgio.

“For whom are you doing all this, risking boat and life?” he said. “You don’t even know whether he can pay you. He does not look like a fine gentleman. He is no better dressed than you are.”

But he only said this to keep up his courage, and not to be ashamed of his tractability. He was simply compelled to do everything the man in the boat wanted.

“But in any case not right to San Giorgio, you foolhardy old man,” he said. “The wind is even worse there than at the Rialto.”

But he went there, nevertheless, and made the boat fast whilst the stranger went on shore. He thought the wisest thing he could do would be to slip away and leave his boat, but he did not do it. He would rather die than deceive the stranger. He saw the latter go into the Church of San Giorgio. Soon afterwards he returned, accompanied by a knight in full armour.

“Row us now to San Nicolo in Lido,” said the stranger.

“Ay, ay,” Cecco thought; “why not to Lido?” They had already, in constant anguish and death, rowed to San Giorgio; why should they not set out for Lido?

And Cecco was shocked at himself that he obeyed the stranger even unto death, for he now actually steered for the Lido.

Being now three in the boat, it was still heavier work. He had no idea how he should be able to do it. “You might have lived many years yet,” he said sorrowfully to himself. But the strange thing was that he was not sorrowful, all the same. He was so glad that he could have laughed aloud. And then he was proud that he could make headway. “He knows how to use his oars, does old Cecco,” he said.

They laid-to at Lido, and the two strangers went on shore. They walked towards San Nicolo in Lido, and soon returned accompanied by an old Bishop, with robe and stole, crosier in hand, and mitre on head.

“Now row out to the open sea,” said the first stranger.

Old Cecco shuddered. Should he row out to the sea, where his sons perished? Now he had not a single cheerful word to say to himself. He did not think so much of the storm, but of the terror it was to have to go out to the graves of his sons. If he rowed out there, he felt that he gave the stranger more than his life.

The three men sat silently in the boat as if they were on watch. Cecco saw them bend forward and gaze into the night. They had reached the gate of the sea at Lido, and the great storm-ridden sea lay before them.

Cecco sobbed within himself. He thought of two dead bodies rolling about in these waves. He gazed into the water for two familiar faces. But onward the boat went. Cecco did not give in.

Then suddenly the three men rose up in the boat; and Cecco fell upon his knees, although he still went on holding the oars. A big ship steered straight against them.

Cecco could not quite tell whether it was a ship or only drifting mist. The sails were large, spread out, as it were, towards the four corners of heaven; and the hull was gigantic, but it looked as if it were built of the lightest sea-mist. He thought he saw men on board and heard shouting; but the crew were like deep darkness, and the shouting was like the roar of the storm.

However it was, it was far too terrible to see the ship steer straight upon them, and Cecco closed his eyes.

But the three men in the boat must have averted the collision, for the boat was not upset. When Cecco looked up the ship had fled out to sea, and loud wailings pierced the night.

He rose, trembling to row further. He felt so tired that he could hardly hold the oars. But now there was no longer any danger. The storm had gone down, and the waves speedily laid themselves to rest.

“Now row us back to Venice,” said the stranger to the fisherman.

Cecco rowed the boat to Lido, where the Bishop went on shore, and to San Giorgio, where the knight left them. The first powerful stranger went with him all the way to the Rialto.

When they had landed at Riva degli Schiavoni he said to the fisherman:

“When it is daylight thou shalt go to the Doge and tell him what thou hast seen this night. Tell him that San Marco and San Giorgio and San Nicolo have tonight fought the evil spirits that would destroy Venice, and have put them to flight.”

“Yes, signor,” the fisherman answered, “I will tell everything. But how shall I speak so that the Doge will believe me?”

Then San Marco handed him a ring with a precious stone possessed of a wonderful lustre.

“Show this to the Doge,” he said, “then he will understand that it brings a message from me. He knows my ring, which is kept in San Marco’s treasury in the cathedral.”

The fisherman took the ring, and kissed it reverently.

“Further, thou shalt tell the Doge,” said the holy man, “that this is a sign that I shall never forsake Venice. Even when the last Doge has left Palazzo Ducali I will live and preserve Venice. Even if Venice lose her islands in the East and the supremacy of the sea, and no Doge ever again sets out on the Bucintoro, even then I will preserve the city beautiful and resplendent. It shall always be rich and beloved, always be lauded and its praises sung, always a place of joy for men to live in. Say this, Cecco, and the Doge will not forsake thee in thine old age.”

Then he disappeared; and soon the sun rose above the gate of the sea at Torcello. With its first beautiful rays it shed a rosy light over the white city and over the sea that shone in many colours. A red glow lay over San Giorgio and San Marco, and over the whole shore, studded with palaces. And in the lovely morning radiant Venetian ladies came out on to the loggias and greeted with smiles the rising day.

Venice was once again the beautiful goddess, rising from the sea in her shell of rose-coloured pearl. Beautiful as never before, she combed her golden hair, and threw the purple robe around her, to begin one of her happiest days. For a transport of bliss filled her when the old fisherman brought San Marco’s ring to the Doge, and she heard how the Saint, now, and until the end of time, would hold his protecting hand over her.

Santa Caterina of Siena

At Santa Caterina’s house in Siena, on a day towards the end of April, in the week when her fête is being celebrated, people come to the old house in the Street of the Dyers, to the house with the pretty loggia and with the many small chambers, which have now been converted into chapels and sanctuaries, bringing bouquets of white lilies; and the rooms are fragrant with incense and violets.

Walking through these rooms, one cannot help thinking that it is just as if she were dead yesterday, as if all those who go in and out of her home today had seen and known her.

But, on the other hand, no one could really think that she had died recently, for then there would be more grief and tears, and not only a quiet sense of loss. It is more as if a beloved daughter had been recently married, and had left the parental home.

Look only at the nearest houses. The old walls are still decorated as if for a fête. And in her own home garlands of flowers are still hanging beneath the portico and loggia, green leaves are strewn on the staircase and the doorstep, and large bouquets of flowers fill the rooms with their scent.

She cannot possibly have been dead five hundred years. It looks much more as if she had celebrated her marriage, and had gone away to a country from which she would not return for many years, perhaps never. Are not the houses decorated with nothing but red tablecloths, red trappings, and red silken banners, and are there not stuck red-paper roses in the dark garlands of oak-leaves? and the hangings over the doors and the windows, are they not red with golden fringes? Can one imagine anything more cheerful?

And notice how the old women go about in the house and examine her small belongings. It is as if they had seen her wear that very veil and that very shirt of hair. They inspect the room in which she lived, and point to the bedstead and the packets of letters, and they tell how at first she could not at all learn to write, but that it came to her all at once without her having learnt it. And only look at her writing⁠—how good and distinct! And then they point to the little bottle she used to carry at her belt, so as always to have a little medicine at hand in case she met a sick person, and they utter a blessing over the old lantern she held in her hand when she went and visited the sick in the long weary nights. It is just as if they would say: “Dear me⁠—dear me! that our little Caterina Benincasa should be gone, that she will never come any more and look after us old people!” And they kiss her picture, and take a flower from the bouquets to keep as a remembrance.

It looks as if those who were left in the home had long ago prepared themselves for the separation, and tried to do everything possible to keep alive the memory of the one who had gone away. See, there they have painted her on the wall; there is the whole of her little history represented in every detail. There she is when she cut off her beautiful long hair so that no man could ever fall in love with her, for she would never marry. Oh dear⁠—oh dear! how much ridicule and scoffing she had suffered on that account! It is dreadful to think how her mother tormented her and treated her like a servant, and made her sleep on the stone floor in the hall, and would not give her any food, all because of her being so obstinate about that hair. But what was she to do when they continually tried to get her married⁠—she who would have no other bridegroom than Christ? And there she is when she was kneeling in prayer, and her father coming into the room without her knowing it saw a beautiful white dove hovering over her head whilst she was praying. And there she is on that Christmas Eve when she had gone secretly to the Madonna’s altar in order the more fully to rejoice over the birth of the Son of God, and the beautiful Madonna leaned out of her picture and handed the Child to her that she might be allowed to hold it for a moment in her arms. Oh, what a joy it had been for her!

Oh dear, no; it is not at all necessary to say that our little Caterina Benincasa is dead. One need only say that she has gone away with the Bridegroom.

In her home one will never forget her pious ways and doings. All the poor of Siena come and knock at her door because they know that it is the marriage-day of the little virgin, and large piles of bread lie in readiness for them as if she were still there. They have their pockets and baskets filled; had she herself been there, she could not have sent them away more heavily laden. She who had gone away had left so great a want that one almost wonders the Bridegroom had the heart to take her away with him.

In the small chapels which have been arranged in every corner of the house they read Mass the whole day, and they invoke the bride and sing hymns in her praise.

“Holy Caterina,” they say, “on this the day of thy death, which is thine heavenly wedding-day, pray for us!”

“Holy Caterina, thou who hadst no other love but Christ, thou who in life wert His affianced bride, and who in death wast received by Him in Paradise, pray for us!”

“Holy Caterina, thou radiant heavenly bride, thou most blessed of virgins, thou whom the mother of God exalted to her Son’s side, thou who on this day wast carried by angels to the kingdom of glory, pray for us!”

It is strange how one comes to love her, how the home and the pictures and the love of the old and the poor seem to make her living, and one begins to wonder how she really was, whether she was only a saint, only a heavenly bride, and if it is true that she was unable to love any other than Christ. And then comes to one’s mind an old story which warmed one’s heart long ago, at first quite vague and without shape, but whilst one is sitting there under the loggia in the festively decorated home and watching the poor wander away with their full baskets, and hearing the subdued murmur from the chapels, the story becomes more and more distinct, and suddenly it is vivid and clear.

Nicola Tungo was a young nobleman of Perugia, who often came to Siena on account of the races. He soon found out how badly Siena was governed, and often said, both at the festive gatherings of the great and when he sat drinking in the inns, that Siena ought to rise against the Signoria and procure other rulers.

The Signoria had not been in power for more than half a year; they did not feel particularly firm in their office, and did not like the Perugian stirring up the people. In order promptly to put a stop to it, they had him imprisoned, and after a short trial he was sentenced to death. He was placed in a cell in the Palazzo Publico whilst preparations were being made for his execution, which was to take place the next morning in the Market Place.

At first he was strangely affected. Tomorrow he would no more wear his green velvet doublet and his beautiful sword; he would no more walk down the street in his cap with the ostrich-feather and attract the glances of the young maidens, and he had a feeling of painful disappointment that he would never ride the new horse which he bought yesterday, and which he had only tried once.

Suddenly he called the gaoler, and asked him to go to the gentlemen of the Signoria and tell them that he could not possibly allow himself to be killed; he had no time. He had far too much to do. Life could not do without him. His father was old, and he was the only son; it was through his descendants that the family should be continued. It was he who should give away his sisters in marriage, he who should build the new palace, he who should plant the new vineyard.

He was a strong young man; he did not know what sickness was, had nothing but life in his veins. His hair was dark and his cheeks red. He could not realize that he should die.

When he thought of their wanting to take him away from pleasure and dancing, and the carnival, and from the races next Sunday, and from the serenade he was going to sing to the beautiful Giulietta Lombardi, he became furiously angry, and his wrath was roused against the councillors as though they were thieves and robbers. The scoundrels⁠—the scoundrels that would take his life from him!

But as time went on his longings grew deeper; he longed for air and water and heaven and earth. He felt he would not mind being a beggar by the wayside; he would gladly suffer sickness and hunger and cold if only he were allowed to live.

He wished that everything might die with him, that nothing would be left when he was gone; that would have been a great consolation.

But that people should go to the Market Place and buy and sell, and that the women would fetch water from the well, and that the children would run in the streets the next day and all days, and that he would not be there to see, that he could not bear. He envied not only those who could live in luxury and pleasure, and were happy; he envied quite as much the most miserable cripple. What he wanted was life, solely life.

Then the priests and the monks came to see him. It made him almost happy, for now he had someone upon whom he could wreak his anger. He first allowed them to talk a little. It amused him to hear what they had to say to a man so deeply wronged as he was, but when they said that he ought to rejoice that he was permitted to leave this life and gain the bliss of heaven in the fullness of his youth, then he started up and poured forth his wrath upon them. He scoffed at God and the joys of heaven⁠—he did not want them. He would have life, and the world, and its pomps and vanities. He regretted every day in which he had not revelled in earthly enjoyment; he regretted every temptation he had resisted. God need not trouble Himself in the least about him; he felt no longing for His heaven.

The priests continued to speak; he seized one of them by the throat, and would have killed him had not the gaoler thrown himself between them. They now bound and gagged him, and then preached to him; but as soon as he was allowed to speak he raged as before. They talked to him for many hours, but they saw that it was of no avail.

When they could think of nothing else to do, one of them suggested they should send for the young Caterina Benincasa, who had shown great power in subduing defiant spirits. When the Perugian heard the name he suddenly ceased his abuse. In truth, it pleased him. It was something quite different, having to do with a young, beautiful maiden.

“By all means send for the maiden,” he said.

He knew that she was the young daughter of a dyer, and that she went about alone and preached in the lanes and streets of the town. Some thought she was mad, others said that she had visions. For him she might, anyhow, be better company than these dirty monks, who made him completely beside himself.

The monks then went their way, and he was alone. Shortly afterwards the door was again opened, but if she for whom they had sent had really entered the cell, she must have walked with very light footsteps, for he heard nothing. He lay on the floor just as he had thrown himself down in his great anger; now he was too tired to raise himself, or make a movement, or even to look up. His arms were tied together with ropes, which cut deep into his flesh.

He now felt that someone began to loosen his bands; a warm hand touched his arm, and he looked up. Beside him lay a little figure in the white dress of the Dominicans, with head and neck so shrouded in a white veil that there was not more of her face to be seen than of that of a knight in helmet and closed visor.

She did not look so meek by any means; she was evidently a little annoyed. He heard her murmur something about the gaolers who had tightened the bands. It did not appear as if she had come for any other purpose than these knots. She was only taken up with loosening them so that they did not hurt. At last she had to bite in them, and then she succeeded. She untied the cord with a light hand, and then took the little bottle which was suspended from her belt and poured a few drops upon the chafed skin.

He lay the whole time and looked at her, but she did not meet his glance; it appeared as if she could think of nothing else but what she had between her hands. It was as if nothing were further from her thoughts than that she was there to prepare him for death. He felt so exhausted after his passion, and at the same time so quieted by her presence, that he only said:

“I think I will sleep.”

“It is a great shame that they have not given you any straw,” she said.

For a moment she looked about undecided. Then she sat down upon the floor, and placed his head in her lap.

“Are you better now?” she said.

Never in his whole life had he felt such a rest. Yet sleep he could not, but he lay and looked up in her face, which was like wax, and transparent. Such eyes he had never seen before. They were always looking far, far away, gazing into another world, whilst she sat quite motionless, so as not to disturb his sleep.

“You are not sleeping, Nicola Tungo,” she said, and looked uneasy.

“I cannot sleep,” he replied, “because I am wondering who you can be.”

“I am a daughter of Luca Benincasa the dyer, and his wife Lapa,” she said.

“I know that,” he said, “and I also know that you go about and preach in the streets. And I know that you have attired yourself in the dress of a nun, and have taken the vows of chastity. But yet I don’t know who you are.”

She turned her head away a little. Then she said, whispering like one who confesses her first love:

“I am the Bride of Christ.”

He did not laugh. On the contrary, he felt quite a pang in his heart, as from jealousy.

“Oh, Christ!” he said, as if she had thrown herself away.

She heard that his tone was contemptuous, but she thought he meant that she had spoken too presumptuously.

“I do not understand it myself,” she said, “but so it is.”

“Is it an imagination or a dream?” he said.

She turned her face towards him. The blood rose red behind the transparent skin. He saw suddenly that she was fair as a flower, and she became dear to him. He moved his lips as if to speak, but at first no sound came.

“How can you expect me to believe that?” he said defiantly.

“Is it not enough for you that I am here in the prison with you?” she asked, raising her voice. “Is it any pleasure for a young girl like me to go to you and other evildoers in their gloomy dungeons? Is it usual for a woman to stand and preach at the street corners as I do, and to be held in derision? Do I not require sleep as other people? And yet I must rise every night and go to the sick in the hospitals. Am I not timid as other women? And yet I must go to the highborn gentlemen at their castles and reason with them, I must go to the plague-smitten, I must see all vice and sin. When have you seen another maiden do all this? But I am obliged to do it.”

“Poor thing!” he said, and stroked her hand gently⁠—“poor thing!”

“For I am not braver, or wiser, or stronger than others,” she said. “It is just as hard for me as for other maidens. You can see that. I have come here to speak with you about your soul, but I do not at all know what I shall say to you.”

It was strange how reluctantly he would allow himself to be convinced.

“You may be mistaken all the same,” he said. “How do you know that you can call yourself the Bride of Christ?”

Her voice trembled, and it was as if she should tear out her heart when she replied:

“It began when I was quite young; I was not more than six years old. It was one evening when I was walking with my brother in the meadow below the church of the Dominicans, and just as I looked up at the church I saw Christ sitting on a throne, surrounded by all His power and glory. He was attired in shining white garments like the Holy Father in Rome. His head was surrounded by all the splendour of Paradise, and around Him stood Pietro Paolo and the Evangelist Giovanni. And whilst I gazed upon Him my heart was filled with such a love and holy joy that I could hardly bear it. He lifted His hand and blessed me, and I sank down on the meadow, and was so overcome with bliss, that my brother had to take me in his arms and shake me. And ever since that time, Nicola Tungo, I have loved Jesus as a bridegroom.”

He again objected.

“You were a child then. You had fallen asleep in the meadow and were dreaming.”

“Dreaming?” she repeated. “Have I been dreaming all the time I have seen Him? Was it a dream when He came to me in the church in the likeness of a beggar and asked for alms? Then I was wide awake, at any rate. And do you think that for the sake of a dream only I could have borne all the worries I have had to bear as a young girl because I would not marry?”

Nicola went on contradicting her because he could not bear the thought that her heart was filled with love to another.

“But even if you do love Christ, maiden, how do you know that He loves you?”

She smiled her very happiest smile and clapped her hands like a child.

“Now you shall hear,” she said. “Now I will tell you the most important of all. It was the last night before Lent. It was after my parents and I had been reconciled, and I had obtained their permission to take the vow of chastity and wear the dress of a nun, although I continued to live in their house; and it was night, as I told you, the last night of the carnival, when everybody turns night into day. There were fêtes in every street. On the walls of the big palaces hung balconies like cages, completely covered with silken hangings and banners, and filled with noble ladies. I saw all their beauty by the light of the red torches in their bronze-holders, the one row over the other quite up to the roof; and in the gaily decorated streets there was a train of carriages, with golden towers, and all the gods and goddesses, and all the virtues and beauties went by in a long procession. And everywhere there was such a play of masks and so much merriment that I am sure that you, sir, have never taken part in anything more gay. And I took refuge in my chamber, but still I heard laughter from the street, and never before have I heard people laugh like that; it was so clear and bell-like that everyone was obliged to join in it. And they sang songs which, I suppose, were wicked, but they sounded so innocent, and caused such pleasure, that one’s heart trembled. Then, in the middle of my prayers, I suddenly began to wonder why I was not out amongst them, and the thought fascinated and tempted me, as if I were dragged along by a runaway horse; but never before have I prayed so intensely to Christ to show me what was His will with me. Suddenly all the noise ceased, a great and wonderful silence surrounded me, and I saw a great meadow, where the Mother of God sat amongst the flowers, and on her lap lay the Child Jesus, playing with lilies. But I hurried thither in great joy, and knelt before the Child, and was at the same moment filled with peace and quietness, and then the Holy Child placed a ring on my finger, and said to me, ‘Know, Caterina, that today I celebrate My betrothal with thee, and bind thee to Me by the strongest faith.’ ”

“Oh, Caterina!”

The young Perugian had turned himself on the floor, so that he could bury his face in her lap. It was as if he could not bear to see how radiant she was whilst she was speaking, and now her eyes became bright as stars. A shadow of pain passed over him. For whilst she spoke a great sorrow had sprung up in his heart. This little maiden, this little white maiden, he could never win. Her love belonged to another; it could never be his. It was of no use even to tell her that he loved her; but he suffered; his whole being groaned in love’s agony. How could he bear to live without her? It almost became a consolation to remember that he was sentenced to death. It was not necessary for him to live and do without her.

Then the little woman beside him sighed deeply, and came back from the joys of heaven in order to think of poor human beings.

“I forgot to speak to you about your soul,” she said.

Then, he thought: “This burden, at any rate, I can lighten for her.”

“Sister Caterina,” he said, “I do not know how it is, but heavenly consolation has come to me. In God’s name I will prepare for death. Now you may send for the priests and monks; now I will confess to them. But one thing you must promise me before you go: you must come to me tomorrow, when I shall die, and hold my head between your hands as you are doing now.”

When he said this she burst into tears, from a great feeling of relief, and an unspeakable joy filled her.

“How happy you must be, Nicola Tungo!” she said. “You will be in Paradise before I am;” and she stroked his face gently.

He said again:

“You will come to me tomorrow in the Market Place? Perhaps I shall otherwise be afraid; perhaps I cannot otherwise die with steadfastness. But when you are there I shall feel nothing but joy, and all fear will leave me.”

“You do not seem to me any more as a poor mortal,” she said, “but as a dweller of Paradise. You appear to me radiant with life, surrounded by incense. Bliss comes to me from you, who shall so soon meet my beloved Bridegroom. Be assured I shall come.”

She then led him to confession and the Communion. He felt the whole time as if he were asleep. All the fear of death and the longing for life had passed away from him. He longed for the morning, when he should see her again; he thought only of her, and of the love with which she had inspired him. Death seemed to him now but a slight thing compared with the pain of the thought that she would never love him.

The young maiden did not sleep much during the night, and early in the morning she went to the place of execution, to be there when he came. She invoked Jesu, Mother, Marie, and the Holy Caterina of Egypt, virgin and martyr, incessantly with prayers to save his soul. Incessantly she repeated: “I will that he shall be saved⁠—I will, I will.” But she was afraid that her prayers were unavailing, for she did not feel any longer that ecstasy which had filled her the evening before; she only felt an infinite pity for him who should die. She was quite overcome with grief and sorrow.

Little by little the Market Place filled with people. The soldiers marched up, the executioner arrived, and much noise and talking went on around her; but she saw and heard nothing. She felt as if she were quite alone.

When Nicola Tungo arrived, it was just the same with him. He had no thought for all the others, but saw only her. When he saw at the first glance that she was entirely overcome with sorrow, his face beamed, and he felt almost happy. He called loudly to her:

“You have not slept much this night, maiden?”

“No,” she said; “I have watched in prayer for you; but now I am in despair, for my prayers have no power.”

He knelt down before the block, and she knelt so that she could hold his head in her hands.

“Now I am going to your Bridegroom, Caterina.”

She sobbed more and more.

“I can comfort you so badly,” she said.

He looked at her with a strange smile.

“Your tears are my best comfort.”

The executioner stood with his sword drawn, but she bade him with a movement stand on one side, for she would speak a few words with the doomed man.

“Before you came,” she said, “I laid my head down on the block to try if I could bear it; and then I felt that I was still afraid of death, that I do not love Jesus enough to be willing to die in this hour; and I do not wish you to die either, and my prayers have no power.”

When he heard this he thought: “Had I lived I should have won her”; and he was glad he should die before he had succeeded in drawing the radiant heavenly bride down to earth. But when he had laid his head in her hands, a great consolation came to them both.

“Nicola Tungo,” she said, “I see heaven open. The angels descend to receive your soul.”

A wondering smile passed over his face. Could what he had done for her sake make him worthy of heaven? He lifted his eyes to see what she saw; the same moment the sword fell.

But Caterina saw the angels descend lower and lower, saw them lift his soul, saw them carry it to heaven.

All at once it seemed so natural that Caterina Benincasa has lived all these five hundred years. How could one forget that gentle little maiden, that great loving heart? Again and again they must sing in her praise, as they are now singing in the small chapels:

“Pia Mater et humilis,
Naturæ memor fragilis,
In hujus vitæ fluctibus
Nos rege tuis precibus.
Quem vidi, quem amavi,
In quem credidi, quem dilexi,
Ora pro nobis.
Ut digni efficiamur promessionibus Christi!
Santa Caterina, ora pro nobis!”5

The Empress’s Money-Chest

The Bishop had summoned Father Verneau to appear before him. It was on account of a somewhat unpleasant matter. Father Verneau had been sent to preach in the manufacturing districts around Charleroi, but he had arrived there in the midst of a strike, when the workmen were rather excited and unmanageable. He informed the Bishop that he had immediately on his arrival in the Black Country received a letter from one of the leaders of the men to the effect that they were quite willing to hear him preach, but if he ventured to mention the name of God either directly or indirectly, there would be a disturbance in the church.

“And when I went up into the pulpit and saw the congregation to whom I should preach,” said the Father, “I felt no doubt but that the threat would be carried out.”

Father Verneau was a little dried-up monk. The Bishop looked down upon him as being of a lower order. Such an unshaven, not too clean monk, with the most insignificant face, was, of course, a coward. He was, probably, also afraid of the Bishop.

“I have been informed,” said the Bishop, “that you carried out the workmen’s wishes. But I need not point out⁠—”

“Monseigneur,” interrupted Father Verneau in all humility, “I thought the Church, if possible, would avoid everything that might lead to a disturbance.”

“But a Church that dare not mention the name of God⁠—”

“Has Monseigneur heard my sermon?”

The Bishop walked up and down the floor to calm himself.

“You know it by heart, of course?” he said.

“Of course, Monseigneur.”

“Let me hear it, then, as it was delivered, Father Verneau, word for word, exactly as you preached it.”

The Bishop sat down in his armchair. Father Verneau remained standing.

“ ‘Citizens and citizenesses,’ ” he began in the tone of a lecturer.

The Bishop started.

“Yes, that is how they will be addressed, Monseigneur.”

“Never mind, Father Verneau, only proceed.”

The Bishop shuddered slightly; these two words had suddenly shown him the whole situation. He saw before him this gathering of the children of the Black Country, to whom Father Verneau had preached. He saw many wild faces, many rags, much coarse merriment. He saw these people for whom nothing had been done.

“ ‘Citizens and citizenesses,’ ” began Father Verneau afresh, “ ‘there is in this country an Empress called Maria Theresa. She is an excellent ruler, the best and wisest Belgium has ever had. Other rulers, my fellow-citizens, other rulers have successors when they die, and lose all power over their people. Not so the great Empress Maria Theresa. She may have lost the throne of Austria and Hungary; Brabant and Limburg may now be under other rulers, but not her good province of West Flanders. In West Flanders, where I have lived the last few years, no other ruler is known to this very day than Maria Theresa. We know King Leopold lives in Brussels, but that has nothing to do with us. It is Maria Theresa who still reigns here by the sea, more especially in the fishing villages. The nearer one gets to the sea, the mightier becomes her power. Neither the great Revolution, nor the Empire, nor the Dutch have had the power to overthrow her. How could they? They have done nothing for the children of the sea that can compare with what she has done. But what has she not done for the people on the dunes! What an invaluable treasure, my fellow-citizens, has she not bestowed upon them!

“ ‘About one hundred and fifty years ago, in the early part of her reign, she made a journey through Belgium. She visited Brussels and Bruges, she went to Liege and Louvain, and when she had at last seen enough of large cities and profusely ornamented town-halls, she went to the coast to see the sea and the dunes.

“ ‘It was not a very cheering sight for her. She saw the ocean, so vast and mighty that no man can fight against it. She saw the coast, helpless and unprotected. There lay the dunes, but the sea had washed over them before, and might do so again. There were also dams, but they had fallen down and were neglected.

“ ‘She saw harbours filled with sand; she saw marshes overgrown with rushes and weeds; she saw, below the dunes, fishing-huts ravaged by the wind⁠—huts looking as if they had been thrown there, a prey for the sea; she saw poor old churches that had been moved away from the sea, lying between quicksands and lyme-grass, in desolate wastes.

“ ‘The great Empress sat a whole day by the sea. She was told all about the floods and the towns that had been washed away; she was shown the spot where a whole district had sunk under the sea; she was rowed out to the place where an old church stood at the bottom of the sea; and she was told about all the people who had been drowned, and of all the cattle that had been lost, the last time the sea had overflowed the dunes.

“ ‘The whole day through the Empress sat thinking: “How shall I help these poor people on the dunes? I cannot forbid the sea to rise and fall; I cannot forbid it to undermine the shore; nor can I stay the storm, or prevent it from upsetting the fishermen’s boats; and still less can I lead the fish into their nets, or transform the lyme-grass into nutritious wheat. There is no monarch in the world so mighty that he can help these poor people in their need.”

“ ‘The next day it was Sunday, and the Empress heard Mass at Blankenberghe. All the people from Dunkirk to Sluis had come to see her. But before Mass the Empress went about and spoke with the people.

“ ‘The first person she addressed was the harbour-master from Nieuport. “What news is there from your town?” asked the Empress. “Nothing new,” answered the harbour-master, “except that Cornelis Aertsen’s boat was upset in the storm yesterday; and we found him this morning riding on the keel.” “It was a good thing his life was saved,” said the Empress. “Well, I don’t know,” said the harbour-master, “for he was out of his mind when he came on shore.” “Was it from fear?” asked the Empress. “Yes,” said the harbour-master; “it is because we in Nieuport have nothing to depend upon in the hour of need. Cornelis knew that his wife and his small children would starve to death if he perished; and it was this thought, I suppose, that drove him out of his mind.” “Then that is what you need here on the dunes⁠—something to depend upon?” “Yes, that is it,” said the harbour-master. “The sea is uncertain, the harvest is uncertain, the fishing and the earnings are uncertain. Something to depend upon, that is what we need.”

“ ‘The Empress then went on, and the next she spoke to was the priest from Heyst. “What news from Heyst?” said she to him. “Nothing new,” he answered, “except that Jacob van Ravesteyn has given up making ditches in the marshes, and dredging the harbour, and attending to the lighthouses, and all other useful work he had to do.” “How is that?” said the Empress. “He has inherited a sum of money,” said the priest; “but it was less than he had expected.” “But now he has something certain,” said the Empress. “Yes,” said the priest; “but now he has got the money he dare not venture to do anything great for fear it will not be sufficient.” “It is something infinitely great, then, that is needed to help you at Heyst?” said the Empress. “It is,” said the priest; “there is infinitely much to do. And nothing can be done until we know that we have something infinitely great to fall back upon.”

“ ‘The Empress then went on until she came to the master-pilot from Middelkerke, whom she began to question about the news from his town. “I do not know of anything new,” said the master-pilot, “but that Ian van der Meer has quarrelled with Luca Neerwinden.” “Indeed!” said the Empress. “Yes, they have found the cod-bank they have both been looking for all their lives. They had heard about it from old people, and they had hunted for it all over the sea, and they have been the best of friends the whole time, but now they have found it they have fallen out.” “Then it would have been better if they had never found it?” said the Empress. “Yes,” answered the master-pilot, “it would indeed have been better.” “So, then, that which is to help you in Middelkerke,” said the Empress, “must be hidden so well that no one can find it?” “Just so,” said the master-pilot; “well hidden it must be, for if anyone should find it, there would be nothing but quarrelling and strife over it, or else it would be all spent, and then it would be of no further use.”

“ ‘The Empress sighed, and felt she could do nothing.

“ ‘She then went to Mass, and the whole time she knelt and prayed that power might be given her to help the people. And⁠—you must excuse me, citizens⁠—when the Mass was finished, it had become clear to her that it was better to do a little than to do nothing. When all the people had come out of the church, she stood on the steps in order to address them.

“ ‘No man or woman of West Flanders will ever forget how she looked. She was beautiful, like an Empress, and she was attired like an Empress. She wore her crown and her ermine mantle, and held the sceptre in her hand. Her hair was dressed high and powdered, and a string of large pearls was entwined amongst the curls. She wore a robe of red silk, which was entirely covered with Flemish lace, and red, high-heeled shoes, with large diamond buckles. That is how she appears, she who to this day still reigns over our West Flanders.

“ ‘She spoke to the people of the coast, and told them her will. She told them of how she had thought of every way in which to help them. She said that they knew she could not compel the sea to quietness or chain the storm, that she could not lead the fish-shoals to the coast, or transform the lyme-grass into wheat; but what a poor mortal could do for them, that should be done.

“ ‘They all knelt before her whilst she spoke. Never before had they felt such a gentle and motherly heart beat for them. The Empress spoke to them in such a manner about their hard and toilsome life that tears came into their eyes over her pity.

“ ‘But now the Empress said she had decided to leave with them her Imperial money-chest, with all the treasures which it contained. That should be her gift to all those who lived on the dunes. That was the only assistance she could render them, and she asked them to forgive her that it was so poor; and the Empress herself had tears in her eyes when she said this.

“ ‘She now asked them if they would promise and swear not to use any of the treasure until the need amongst them was so great that it could not become any greater. Next, if they would swear to leave it as an inheritance for their descendants, if they did not require it themselves. And, lastly, she asked every man singly to swear that he would not try to take possession of the treasure for his own use without having first asked the consent of all his fellow-fishermen.

“ ‘If they were willing to swear? That they all were. And they blessed the Empress and cried from gratitude. And she cried and told them that she knew that what they needed was a support that would never fail them, a treasure that could never be exhausted, and a happiness that was unattainable, but that she could not give them. She had never been so powerless as here on the dunes.

“ ‘My fellow-citizens, without her knowing it, solely by force of the royal wisdom with which this great Queen was endowed, the power was given her to attain far more than she had intended, and it is therefore one can say that to this day she reigns over West Flanders.

“ ‘What a happiness, is it not, to hear of all the blessings which have been spread over West Flanders by the Empress’s gift! The people there have now something to depend upon which they needed so badly, and which we all need. However bad things may be, there is never any despair.

“ ‘They have told me at the dunes what the Empress’s money-chest is like. They say it is like the holy shrine of Saint Ursula at Bruges, only more beautiful. It is a copy of the cathedral at Vienna, and it is of pure gold; but on the sides the whole history of the Empress is depicted in the whitest alabaster. On the small side-towers are the four diamonds which the Empress took from the crown of the Sultan of Turkey, and in the gable are her initials inlaid with rubies. But when I ask them whether they have seen the money-chest, they reply that shipwrecked sailors when in peril always see it swimming before them on the waves as a sign that they shall not be in despair for their wives and children, should they be compelled to leave them. But they are the only ones who have seen the treasure, otherwise no one has been near enough to count it. And you know, citizens, that the Empress never told anyone how great it was. But if any of you doubt how much use it has been and is, then I will ask you to go to the dunes and see for yourself. There has been digging and building ever since that time, and the sea now lies cowed by bulwarks and dams, and no longer does harm. And there are green meadows inside the dunes, and there are flourishing towns and watering-places near the shore. But for every lighthouse that has been built, for every harbour that has been deepened, for every ship of which the keel has been laid, for every dam that has been raised, they have always thought: “If our own money should not be sufficient, we shall receive help from our Gracious Empress Maria Theresa.” But this has been but a spur to them: their own money has always sufficed.

“ ‘You know, also, that the Empress did not say where the treasure was. Was not this well considered, citizens? There is one who has it in his keeping, but only, when all are agreed upon dividing it, will he who keeps the treasure come forward and reveal where it is. Therefore one is certain that neither now nor in the future will it be unfairly divided. It is the same for all. Everyone knows that the Empress thinks as much of him as of his neighbour. There can be no strife or envy amongst the people of the dunes as there is amongst other men, for they all share alike in the treasure.’ ”

The Bishop interrupted Father Verneau.

“That is enough,” he said. “How did you continue?”

“I said,” continued the monk, “that it was very bad the good Empress had not also come to Charleroi. I pitied them because they did not own her money-chest. Considering the great things they had to accomplish, considering the sea which they had to tame, the quicksands which they had to bind, considering all this, I said to them surely there was nothing they needed so much.”

“And then?” asked the Bishop.

“One or two cabbages, your Eminence, a little hissing; but then I was already out of the pulpit. That was all.”

“They had understood that you had spoken to them about the providence of God?”

The monk bowed.

“They had understood that you would show them that the power which they deride because they do not see it must be kept hidden? that it will be abused immediately it assumes a visible form? I congratulate you, Father Verneau.”

The monk retired towards the door, bowing. The Bishop followed him, beaming benevolently.

“But the money-chest⁠—do they still believe in it at the dunes?”

“As much as ever, Monseigneur.”

“And the treasure⁠—has there ever been a treasure?”

“Monseigneur, I have sworn.”

“But for me,” said the Bishop.

“It is the priest at Blankenberghe, who has it in his keeping. He allowed me to see it. It is an old wooden chest with iron mountings.”

“And?”

“And at the bottom lie twenty bright Maria Theresa gold pieces.”

The Bishop smiled, but became grave at once.

“Is it right to compare such a wooden chest with God’s providence?”

“All comparisons are incomplete, Monseigneur; all human thoughts are vain.”

Father Verneau bowed once again, and quietly withdrew from the audience-room.

The Peace of God

Once upon a time there was an old farmhouse. It was Christmas-eve, the sky was heavy with snow, and the north wind was biting. It was just that time in the afternoon when everybody was busy finishing their work before they went to the bathhouse to have their Christmas bath. There they had made such a fire that the flames went right up the chimney, and sparks and soot were whirled about by the wind, and fell down on the snow-decked roofs of the outhouses. And as the flames appeared above the chimney of the bathhouse, and rose like a fiery pillar above the farm, everyone suddenly felt that Christmas was at hand. The girl that was scrubbing the entrance floor began to hum, although the water was freezing in the bucket beside her. The men in the woodshed who were cutting Christmas logs began to cut two at a time, and swung their axes as merrily as if log-cutting were a mere pastime.

An old woman came out of the pantry with a large pile of cakes in her arms. She went slowly across the yard into the large red-painted dwelling-house, and carried them carefully into the best room, and put them down on the long seat. Then she spread the tablecloth on the table, and arranged the cakes in heaps, a large and a small cake in each heap. She was a singularly ugly old woman, with reddish hair, heavy drooping eyelids, and with a peculiar strained look about the mouth and chin, as if the muscles were too short. But being Christmas-eve, there was such a joy and peace over her that one did not notice how ugly she was.

But there was one person on the farm who was not happy, and that was the girl who was tying up the whisks made of birch twigs that were to be used for the baths. She sat near the fireplace, and had a whole armful of fine birch twigs lying beside her on the floor, but the withes with which she was to bind the twigs would not keep knotted. The best room had a narrow, low window, with small panes, and through them the light from the bathhouse shone into the room, playing on the floor and gilding the birch twigs. But the higher the fire burned the more unhappy was the girl. She knew that the whisks would fall to pieces as soon as one touched them, and that she would never hear the last of it until the next Christmas fire was lighted.

Just as she sat there bemoaning herself, the person of whom she was most afraid came into the room. It was her master, Ingmar Ingmarson. He was sure to have been to the bathhouse to see if the stove was hot enough, and now he wanted to see how the whisks were getting on. He was old, was Ingmar Ingmarson, and he was fond of everything old, and just because people were beginning to leave off bathing in the bathhouses and being whipped with birch twigs, he made a great point of having it done on his farm, and having it done properly.

Ingmar Ingmarson wore an old coat of sheep’s-skin, skin trousers, and shoes smeared over with pitch. He was dirty and unshaven, slow in all his movements, and came in so softly that one might very well have mistaken him for a beggar. His features resembled his wife’s features and his ugliness resembled his wife’s ugliness, for they were relations, and from the time the girl first began to notice anything she had learned to feel a wholesome reverence for anybody who looked like that; for it was a great thing to belong to the old family of the Ingmars, which had always been the first in the village. But the highest to which a man could attain was to be Ingmar Ingmarson himself, and be the richest, the wisest, and the mightiest in the whole parish.

Ingmar Ingmarson went up to the girl, took one of the whisks, and swung it in the air. It immediately fell to pieces; one of the twigs landed on the Christmas table, another on the big four-poster.

“I say, my girl,” said old Ingmar, laughing, “do you think one uses that kind of whisk when one takes a bath at the Ingmar’s, or are you very tender, my girl?”

When the girl saw that her master did not take it more seriously than that, she took heart, and answered that she could certainly make whisks that would not go to pieces if she could get proper withes to bind them with.

“Then I suppose I must try to get some for you, my girl,” said old Ingmar, for he was in a real Christmas humour.

He went out of the room, stepped over the girl who was scouring the floor, and remained standing on the doorstep, to see if there were anyone about whom he could send to the birch-wood for some withes. The farm hands were still busy cutting Yule logs; his son came out of the barn with the Christmas sheaf; his two sons-in-law were putting the carts into the shed so that the yard could be tidy for the Christmas festival. None of them had time to leave their work.

The old man then quietly made up his mind to go himself. He went across the yard as if he were going into the cowshed, looked cautiously round to make sure no one noticed him, and stole along outside the barn where there was a fairly good road to the wood. The old man thought it was better not to let anyone know where he was going, for either his son or his sons-in-law might then have begged him to remain at home, and old people like to have their own way.

He went down the road, across the fields, through the small pine-forest into the birch-wood. Here he left the road, and waded in the snow to find some young birches.

About the same time the wind at last accomplished what it had been busy with the whole day: it tore the snow from the clouds, and now came rushing through the wood with a long train of snow after it.

Ingmar Ingmarson had just stooped down and cut off a birch twig, when the wind came tearing along laden with snow. Just as the old man was getting up the wind blew a whole heap of snow in his face. His eyes were full of snow, and the wind whirled so violently around him that he was obliged to turn round once or twice.

The whole misfortune, no doubt, arose from Ingmar Ingmarson being so old. In his young days a snowstorm would certainly not have made him dizzy. But now everything danced round him as if he had joined in a Christmas polka, and when he wanted to go home he went in the wrong direction. He went straight into the large pine-forest behind the birch-wood instead of going towards the fields.

It soon grew dark, and the storm continued to howl and whirl around him amongst the young trees on the outskirts of the forest. The old man saw quite well that he was walking amongst fir-trees, but he did not understand that this was wrong, for there were also fir-trees on the other side of the birch-wood nearest the farm. But by-and-by he got so far into the forest that everything was quiet and still⁠—one could not feel the storm, and the trees were high with thick stems⁠—then he found out that he had mistaken the road, and would turn back.

He became excited and upset at the thought that he could lose his way, and as he stood there in the midst of the pathless wood he was not sufficiently clearheaded to know in which direction to turn. He first went to the one side and then to the other. At last it occurred to him to retrace his way in his own footprints, but darkness came on, and he could no longer follow them. The trees around him grew higher and higher. Whichever way he went, it was evident to him that he got further and further into the forest.

It was like witchcraft and sorcery, he thought, that he should be running about the woods like this all the evening and be too late for the bathing. He turned his cap and rebound his garter, but his head was no clearer. It had become quite dark, and he began to think that he would have to remain the whole night in the woods.

He leant against a tree, stood still for a little, and tried to collect his thoughts. He knew this forest so well, and had walked in it so much, that he ought to know every single tree. As a boy he had gone there and tended sheep. He had gone there and laid snares for the birds. In his young days he had helped to fell trees there. He had seen old trees cut down and new ones grow up. At last he thought he had an idea where he was, and fancied if he went that and that way he must come upon the right road; but all the same, he only went deeper and deeper into the forest.

Once he felt smooth, firm ground under his feet, and knew from that, that he had at last come to some road. He tried now to follow this, for a road, he thought, was bound to lead to some place or other; but then the road ended at an open space in the forest, and there the snowstorm had it all its own way; there was neither road nor path, only drifts and loose snow. Then the old man’s courage failed him; he felt like some poor creature destined to die a lonely death in the wilderness.

He began to grow tired of dragging himself through the snow, and time after time he sat down on a stone to rest; but as soon as he sat down he felt he was on the point of falling asleep, and he knew he would be frozen to death if he did fall asleep, therefore he tried to walk and walk; that was the only thing that could save him. But all at once he could not resist the inclination to sit down. He thought if he could only rest, it did not matter if it did cost him his life.

It was so delightful to sit down that the thought of death did not in the least frighten him. He felt a kind of happiness at the thought that when he was dead the account of his whole life would be read aloud in the church. He thought of how beautifully the old Dean had spoken about his father, and how something equally beautiful would be sure to be said about him. The Dean would say that he had owned the oldest farm in the district, and he would speak about the honour it was to belong to such a distinguished family, and then something would be said about responsibility. Of course there was responsibility in the matter; that he had always known. One must endure to the very last when one was an Ingmar.

The thought rushed through him that it was not befitting for him to be found frozen to death in the wild forest. He would not have that handed down to posterity; and he stood up again and began to walk. He had been sitting so long that masses of snow fell from his fur coat when he moved. But soon he sat down again and began to dream.

The thought of death now came quite gently to him. He thought about the whole of the funeral and all the honour they would show his dead body. He could see the table laid for the great funeral feast in the large room on the first floor, the Dean and his wife in the seats of honour, the Justice of the Peace, with the white frill spread over his narrow chest; the Major’s wife in full dress, with a low silk bodice, and her neck covered with pearls and gold; he saw all the best rooms draped in white⁠—white sheets before the windows, white over the furniture; branches of fir strewn the whole way from the entrance-hall to the church; housecleaning and butchering, brewing and baking for a fortnight before the funeral; the corpse on a bier in the inmost room; smoke from the newly-lighted fires in the rooms; the whole house crowded with guests; singing over the body whilst the lid of the coffin was being screwed on; silver plates on the coffin; twenty loads of wood burned in a fortnight; the whole village busy cooking food to take to the funeral; all the tall hats newly ironed; all the corn-brandy from the autumn drunk up during the funeral feast; all the roads crowded with people as at fair-time.

Again the old man started up. He had heard them sitting and talking about him during the feast.

“But how did he manage to go and get frozen to death?” asked the Justice of the Peace. “What could he have been doing in the large forest?”

And the Captain would say that it was probably from Christmas ale and corn-brandy. And that roused him again. The Ingmars had never been drunkards. It should never be said of him that he was muddled in his last moments. And he began again to walk and walk; but he was so tired that he could scarcely stand on his legs. It was quite clear to him now that he had got far into the forest, for there were no paths anywhere, but many large rocks, of which he knew there were none lower down. His foot caught between two stones, so that he had difficulty in getting it out, and he stood and moaned. He was quite done for.

Suddenly he fell over a heap of fagots. He fell softly on to the snow and branches, so he was not hurt, but he did not take the trouble to get up again. He had no other desire in the world than to sleep. He pushed the fagots to one side and crept under them as if they were a rug; but when he pushed himself under the branches he felt that underneath there was something warm and soft. This must be a bear, he thought.

He felt the animal move, and heard it sniff; but he lay still. The bear might eat him if it liked, he thought. He had not strength enough to move a single step to get out of its way.

But it seemed as if the bear did not want to harm anyone who sought its protection on such a night as this. It moved a little further into its lair, as if to make room for its visitor, and directly afterwards it slept again with even, snorting breath.

In the meantime there was but scanty Christmas joy in the old farm of the Ingmars. The whole of Christmas-eve they were looking for Ingmar Ingmarson. First they went all over the dwelling-house and all the outhouses. They searched high and low, from loft to cellar. Then they went to the neighbouring farms and inquired for Ingmar Ingmarson.

As they did not find him, his sons and his sons-in-law went into the fields and roads. They used the torches which should have lighted the way for people going to early service on Christmas morning in the search for him. The terrible snowstorm had hidden all traces, and the howling of the wind drowned the sound of their voices when they called and shouted. They were out and about until long after midnight, but then they saw that it was useless to continue the search, and that they must wait until daylight to find the old man.

At the first pale streak of dawn everybody was up at Ingmar’s farm, and the men stood about the yard ready to set out for the wood. But before they started the old housewife came and called them into the best room. She told them to sit down on the long benches; she herself sat down by the Christmas table with the Bible in front of her and began to read. She tried her best to find something suitable for the occasion, and chose the story of the man who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves.

She read slowly and monotonously about the unfortunate man who was succoured by the good Samaritan. Her sons and sons-in-law, her daughters and daughters-in-law, sat around her on the benches. They all resembled her and each other, big and clumsy, with plain, old-fashioned faces, for they all belonged to the old race of the Ingmars. They had all reddish hair, freckled skin, and light-blue eyes with white eyelashes. They might be different enough from each other in some ways, but they had all a stern look about the mouth, dull eyes, and heavy movements, as if everything were a trouble to them. But one could see that they all, every one of them, belonged to the first people in the neighbourhood, and that they knew themselves to be better than other people.

All the sons and daughters of the house of Ingmar sighed deeply during the reading of the Bible. They wondered if some good Samaritan had found the master of the house and taken care of him, for all the Ingmars felt as if they had lost part of their own soul when a misfortune happened to anyone belonging to the family.

The old woman read and read, and came to the question: “Who was neighbour unto him that fell amongst thieves?” But before she had read the answer the door opened and old Ingmar came into the room.

“Mother, here is father,” said one of the daughters; and the answer, that the man’s neighbour was he who had shown mercy unto him, was never read.

Later in the day the housewife sat again in the same place, and read her Bible. She was alone; the women had gone to church, and the men were bear-hunting in the forest. As soon as Ingmar Ingmarson had eaten and drunk, he took his sons with him and went out to the forest; for it is every man’s duty to kill a bear wherever and whenever he comes across one. It does not do to spare a bear, for sooner or later it will get a taste for flesh, and then it will spare neither man nor beast.

But after they were gone a great feeling of fear came over the old housewife, and she began to read her Bible. She read the lesson for the day, which was also the text for the Pastor’s sermon; but she did not get further than this: “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” She remained sitting and staring at these words with her dull eyes, now and again sighing deeply. She did not read any further, but she repeated time after time in her slow, drawling voice, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.”

The eldest son came into the room just as she was going to repeat the words afresh.

“Mother!” he said softly.

She heard him, but did not take her eyes from the book whilst she asked:

“Are you not with the others in the forest?”

“Yes,” said he, still more softly, “I have been there.”

“Come to the table,” she said, “so that I can see you.”

He came nearer, but when she looked at him she saw that he was trembling. He had to press his hands hard against the edge of the table in order to keep them still.

“Have you got the bear?” she asked again.

He could not answer; he only shook his head.

The old woman got up and did what she had not done since her son was a child. She went up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and drew him to the bench. She sat down beside him and took his hand in hers.

“Tell me now what has happened, my boy.”

The young man recognised the caress which had comforted him in bygone days when he had been in trouble and unhappy, and he was so overcome that he began to weep.

“I suppose it is something about father?” she said.

“It is worse than that,” the son sobbed. “Worse than that?”

The young man cried more and more violently; he did not know how to control his voice. At last he lifted his rough hand, with the broad fingers, and pointed to what she had just read: “Peace on earth.⁠ ⁠…”

“Is it anything about that?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Is it anything about the peace of Christmas?”

“Yes.”

“You wished to do an evil deed this morning?”

“Yes.”

“And God has punished us?”

“God has punished us.”

So at last she was told how it had happened. They had with some trouble found the lair of the bear, and when they had got near enough to see the heap of fagots, they stopped in order to load their guns. But before they were ready the bear rushed out of its lair straight against them. It went neither to the right nor to the left, but straight for old Ingmar Ingmarson, and struck him a blow on the top of the head that felled him to the ground as if he had been struck by lightning. It did not attack any of the others, but rushed past them into the forest.

In the afternoon Ingmar Ingmarson’s wife and son drove to the Dean’s house to announce his death. The son was spokesman, and the old housewife sat and listened with a face as immovable as a stone figure.

The Dean sat in his easy-chair near his writing-table. He had entered the death in the register. He had done it rather slowly; he wanted time to consider what he should say to the widow and the son, for this was, indeed, an unusual case. The son had frankly told him how it had all happened, but the Dean was anxious to know how they themselves looked at it. They were peculiar people, the Ingmars.

When the Dean had closed the book, the son said:

“We wanted to tell you, sir, that we do not wish any account of father’s life to be read in church.”

The Dean pushed his spectacles over his forehead and looked searchingly at the old woman. She sat just as immovable as before. She only crumpled the handkerchief a little which she held in her hand.

“We wish to have him buried on a week day,” continued the son.

“Indeed!” said the Dean.

He could hardly believe his own ears. Old Ingmar Ingmarson to be buried without anyone taking any notice of it! The congregation not to stand on railings and mounds in order to see the display when he was being carried to the grave!

“There will not be any funeral feast. We have let the neighbours know that they need not think of preparing anything for the funeral.”

“Indeed, indeed!” said the Dean again.

He could think of nothing else to say. He knew quite well what it meant for such people to forego the funeral feast. He had seen both widows and fatherless comforted by giving a splendid funeral feast.

“There will be no funeral procession, only I and my brothers.”

The Dean looked almost appealingly at the old woman. Could she really be a party to all this? He asked himself if it could be her wishes to which the son had given expression. She was sitting there and allowing herself to be robbed of what must be dearer to her than gold and silver.

“We will not have the bells rung, or any silver plates on the coffin. Mother and I wish it to be done in this way, but we tell you all this, sir, in order to hear, sir, if you think we are wronging father.”

Now the old woman spoke:

“We should like to hear if your Reverence thinks we are doing father a wrong.”

The Dean remained silent, and the old woman continued, more eagerly:

“I must tell your Reverence that if my husband had sinned against the King or the authorities, or if I had been obliged to cut him down from the gallows, he should all the same have had an honourable funeral, as his father before him, for the Ingmars are not afraid of anyone, and they need not go out of their way for anybody. But at Christmas God has made peace between man and beast, and the poor beast kept God’s commandment, whilst we broke it, and therefore we now suffer God’s punishment; and it is not becoming for us to show any ostentatious display.”

The Dean rose and went up to the old woman.

“What you say is right,” he said, “and you shall follow the dictates of your own conscience.” And involuntarily he added, perhaps most to himself: “The Ingmars are a grand family.”

The old woman straightened herself a little at these words. At that moment the Dean saw in her the symbol of her whole race. He understood what it was that had made these heavy, silent people, century after century, the leaders of the whole parish.

“It behooves the Ingmars to set the people a good example,” she said. “It behooves us to show that we humble ourselves before God.”

A Story from Halstanäs

In olden times there stood by the roadside an old country-house called Halstanäs. It comprised a long row of red-painted houses, which were of low structure, and right behind them lay the forest. Close to the dwelling-house was a large wild cherry-tree, which showered its black fruit over the red-tiled roof. A bell under a small belfry hung over the gable of the stables.

Just outside the kitchen-door was a dovecote, with a neat little trelliswork outside the holes. From the attic a cage for squirrels was hanging; it consisted of two small green houses and a large wheel, and in front of a big hedge of lilacs stood a long row of beehives covered with bark.

There was a pond belonging to the farm, full of fat carp and slim water-snakes; there was also a kennel at the entrance; there were white gates at the end of the avenue, and at the garden walks, and in every place where they could possibly have a gate. There were big lofts with dark lumber-rooms, where old-fashioned uniforms and ladies’ headgear a hundred years old were stored away; there were large chests full of silk gowns and bridal finery; there were old pianos and violins, guitars and bassoons. In bureaus and cabinets were manuscript songs and old yellow letters; on the walls of the entrance-hall hung guns, pistols and hunting-bags; on the floor were rugs, in which patches of old silken gowns were woven together with pieces of threadbare cotton curtains. There was a large porch, where the deadly nightshade summer after summer grew up a thin trelliswork; there were large, yellow front-doors, which were fastened with bolts and catches; the hall was strewn with sprigs of juniper, and the windows had small panes and heavy wooden shutters.

One summer old Colonel Beerencreutz came on a visit to this house. It is supposed to have been the very year after he left Ekeby. At that time he had taken rooms at a farm at Svartsjö, and it was only on rare occasions that he went visiting. He still had his horse and gig, but he scarcely ever used them. He said that he had grown old in earnest now, and that home was the best place for old people.

Beerencreutz was also loath to leave the work he had in hand. He was weaving rugs for his two rooms⁠—large, many-coloured rugs in a rich and strangely-thought-out pattern. It took him an endless time, because he had his own way of weaving, for he used no loom, but stretched his wool from the one wall to the other right across the one room. He did this in order to see the whole rug at one time; but to cross the woof and afterwards bring the threads together to a firm web was no easy matter. And then there was the pattern, which he himself thought out, and the colours which should match. This took the Colonel more time than anyone would have imagined; for whilst Beerencreutz was busy getting the pattern right, and whilst he was working with warp and woof, he often sat and thought of God. Our Lord, he thought, was likewise sitting at a loom, still larger, and with an even more peculiar pattern to weave. And he knew that there must be both light and dark shades in that weaving. But Beerencreutz would at times sit and think so long about this, until he fancied he saw before him his own life and the life of the people whom he had known, and with whom he had lived, forming a small portion of God’s great weaving; and he seemed to see that piece so distinctly that he could discern both outlines and colouring. And if one asked Beerencreutz what the pattern in his work really meant, he would be obliged to confess that it was the life of himself and his friends which he wove into the rug as a faint imitation of what he thought he had seen represented on God’s loom.

The Colonel, however, was accustomed to pay a little visit to some old friends every year just after midsummer. He had always liked best to travel through the country when the fields were still scented with clover, and blue and yellow flowers grew along the roadside in two long straight rows.

This year the Colonel had hardly got to the great high road before he met his old friend Ensign von Örneclou. And the Ensign, who was travelling about all the year round, and who knew all the country houses in Värmland, gave him some good advice.

“Go to Halstanäs and call upon Ensign Vestblad,” he said to the Colonel. “I can only tell you, old man, I don’t know a house in the whole country where one fares better.”

“What Vestblad are you speaking about?” asked the Colonel. “I suppose you don’t mean the old Ensign whom the Major’s wife showed the door?”

“The very man,” said the Ensign. “But Vestblad is not the same man he was. He has married a fine lady⁠—a real stunning woman, Colonel⁠—who has made a man of him. It was a wonderful piece of good luck for Vestblad that such a splendid girl should take a fancy to him. She was not exactly young any longer; but no more was he. You should go to Halstanäs, Colonel, and see what wonders love can work.”

And the Colonel went to Halstanäs to see if Örneclou spoke the truth. He had, as a matter of fact, now and then wondered what had become of Vestblad; in his young days he had kicked so recklessly over the traces that even the Major’s wife at Ekeby could not put up with him. She had not been able to keep him at Ekeby more than a couple of years before she was obliged to turn him out. Vestblad had become such a heavy drinker that a Cavalier could hardly associate with him. And now Örneclou declared that he owned a country house, and had made an excellent match.

The Colonel consequently went to Halstanäs, and saw at the first glance that it was a real old country-seat. He had only to look at the avenue of birches with all the names cut on the fine old trees. Such birches he had only seen at good old country-houses. The Colonel drove slowly up to the house, and every moment his pleasure increased. He saw lime hedges of the proper kind, so close that one could walk on the top of them, and there were a couple of terraces with stone steps so old that they were half buried in the ground. When the Colonel drove past the pond, he saw indistinctly the dark carp in the yellowish water. The pigeons flew up from the road flapping their wings; the squirrel stopped its wheel; the watchdog lay with its head on its paws, wagging its tail, and at the same time faintly growling. Close to the porch the Colonel saw an anthill, where the ants, unmolested, went to and fro⁠—to and fro. He looked at the flowerbeds inside the grass border. There they grew, all the old flowers: narcissus and pyrola, sempervivum and marigold; and on the bank grew small white daisies, which had been there so long that they now sowed themselves like weeds. Beerencreutz again said to himself that this was indeed a real old country-house, where both plants and animals and human beings throve as well as could be.

When at last he drove up to the front-door he had as good a reception as he could wish for, and as soon as he had brushed the dust off him he was taken to the dining-room, and he was offered plenty of good old-fashioned food⁠—the same old cakes for dessert that his mother used to give him when he came home from school; and any so good he had never tasted elsewhere.

Beerencreutz looked with surprise at Ensign Vestblad. He went about quiet and content, with a long pipe in his mouth and a skullcap on his head. He wore an old morning-coat, which he had difficulty in getting out of when it was time to dress for dinner. That was the only sign of the Bohemian left, as far as Beerencreutz could see. He went about and looked after his men, calculated their wages, saw how things were getting on in the fields and meadows, gathered a rose for his wife when he went through the garden, and he indulged no longer in either swearing or spitting. But what astonished the Colonel most of all was the discovery that old Ensign Vestblad kept his books. He took the Colonel into his office and showed him large books with red backs. And those he kept himself. He had lined them with red ink and black ink, written the headings with large letters, and put down everything, even to a stamp.

But Ensign Vestblad’s wife, who was a born lady, called Beerencreutz cousin, and they soon found out the relationship between them; and they talked all their relatives over. At last Beerencreutz became so intimate with Mrs. Vestblad that he consulted her about the rug he was weaving.

It was a matter of course that the Colonel should stay the night. He was taken to the best spare room to the right of the hall and close to his host’s bedroom, and his bed was a large four-poster, with heaps of eiderdowns.

The Colonel fell asleep as soon as he got into bed, but awoke later on in the night. He immediately got out of bed and went and opened the window-shutters. He had a view over the garden, and in the light summer night he could see all the gnarled old apple-trees, with their worm-eaten leaves, and with numerous props under the decayed branches. He saw the large wild apple-tree, which in the autumn would give barrels of uneatable fruit; he saw the strawberries, which had just begun to ripen under their profusion of green leaves.

The Colonel stood and looked at it as if he could not afford to waste his time in sleeping. Outside his window at the peasant farm where he lived all he could see was a stony hill and a couple of juniper-bushes; and it was natural that a man like Beerencreutz should feel more at home amongst well-trimmed hedges and roses in bloom.

When in the quiet stillness of the night one looks out upon a garden, one often has a feeling that it is not real and natural. It can be so still that one can almost fancy one’s self in the theatre; one imagines that the trees are painted and the roses made of paper. And it was something like this the Colonel felt as he stood there. “It cannot be possible,” he thought, “that all this is real. It can only be a dream.” But then a few rose-leaves fell softly to the ground from the big rose-tree just outside his window, and then he realized that everything was genuine. Everything was real and genuine; both day and night the same peace and contentment everywhere.

When he went and laid down again he left the window-shutters open. He lay in the high bed and looked time after time at the rose-tree; it is impossible to describe his pleasure in looking at it. He thought what a strange thing it was that such a man as Vestblad should have this flower of Paradise outside his window.

The more the Colonel thought of Vestblad the more surprised he became that such a foal should end his days in such a stable. He was not good for much at the time he was turned away from Ekeby. Who would have thought he would have become a staid and well-to-do man?

The Colonel lay and laughed to himself, and wondered whether Vestblad still remembered how he used to amuse himself in the olden days when he was living at Ekeby. On dark and stormy nights he used to rub himself over with phosphorus, mount a black horse, and ride over the hills to the ironworks, where the smiths and the workmen lived; and if anyone happened to look out of his window and saw a horseman shining with a bluish-white light tearing past, he hastened to bar and bolt everywhere, saying it was best to say one’s prayers twice that night, for the devil was abroad.

Oh yes, to frighten simple folks by such tricks was a favourite amusement in olden days; but Vestblad had carried his jokes further than anyone else the Colonel knew of.

An old woman on the parish had died at Viksta, which belonged to Ekeby. Vestblad happened to hear about this. He also heard that the corpse had been taken from the house and placed in a barn. At night Vestblad put on his fiery array, mounted his black horse, and rode to the farmstead; and people there who were about had seen a fiery horseman ride up to the barn, where the corpse lay, ride three times round it and disappear through the door. They had also seen the horseman come out again, ride three times round the house and then disappear. But in the morning, when they went into the barn to see the corpse, it was gone, and they thought the devil had been there and carried her off. This supposition had been enough for them. But a couple of weeks later they found the body, which had been thrown on to a hayloft in the barn, and then there was a great outcry. They found out who the fiery horseman was, and the peasants were on the watch to give Vestblad a good hiding. But the Major’s wife would not have him at her table or in her house any longer; she packed his knapsack and asked him to betake himself elsewhere. And Vestblad went out into the world and made his fortune.

A strange feeling of uneasiness came over the Colonel as he lay in bed. He felt as if something were going to happen. He had hardly realized before what an ugly story it was. He had no doubt even laughed at it at the time. They had not been in the habit of taking much notice of what happened to a poor old pauper in those days; but, great God! how furious one would have been if anybody had done that to one’s own mother!

A suffocating feeling came over the Colonel; he breathed heavily. The thought of what Vestblad had done appeared so vile and hateful to him, it weighed him down like a nightmare. He was half afraid of seeing the dead woman, of seeing her appear from behind the bed. He felt as if she must be quite near. And from the four corners of the room the Colonel heard terrible words: “God will not forgive it! God has never forgotten it!”

The Colonel closed his eyes, but then he suddenly saw before him God’s great loom, where the web was woven with the fates of men; and he thought he saw Ensign Vestblad’s square, and it was dark on three sides; and he, who understood something about weaving and patterns, knew that the fourth side would also have to be covered with the dark shade. It could not be done in any other way, otherwise there would be a mistake in the weaving.

A cold sweat broke out on his forehead; it seemed to him that he looked upon what was the hardest and the most immovable in all the world. He saw how the fate which a man has worked out in his past life will pursue him to the end. And to think there were actually people who thought they could escape it!

Escape it! escape! All was noted and written down; the one colour and the one figure necessitated the other, and everything came about as it was bound to come about.

Suddenly Colonel Beerencreutz sat up in bed; he would look at the flowers and the roses, and think that perhaps our Lord could forget after all. But at the moment Beerencreutz sat up in bed the bedroom door opened, and one of the farm-labourers⁠—a stranger to him⁠—put his head in and nodded to the Colonel.

It was now so light that the Colonel saw the man quite distinctly. It was the most hideous face he had ever seen. He had small gray eyes like a pig, a flat nose, and a thin, bristly beard. One could not say that the man looked like an animal, for animals have nearly always good faces, but still, he had something of the animal about him. His lower jaw projected, his neck was thick, and his forehead was quite hidden by his rough, unkempt hair.

He nodded three times to the Colonel, and every time his mouth opened with a broad grin; and he put out his hand, red with blood, and showed it triumphantly. Up to this moment the Colonel had sat up in bed as if paralyzed, but now he jumped up and was at the door in two steps. But when he reached the door, the fellow was gone and the door closed.

The Colonel was just on the point of raising the alarm, when it struck him that the door must be fastened on the inside, on his side, as he had himself locked it the night before; and on examining it, he found that it had not been unlocked.

The Colonel felt almost ashamed to think that in his old age he had begun to see ghosts. He went straight back to bed again.

When the morning came, and he had breakfasted, the Colonel felt still more ashamed. He had excited himself to such an extent that he had trembled all over and perspired from fear. He said not a word about it. But later on in the day he and Vestblad went over the estate. As they passed a labourer who was cutting sods on a bank Beerencreutz recognised him again. It was the man he had seen in the night. He recognised feature for feature.

“I would not keep that man a day longer in my service, my friend,” said Beerencreutz, when they had walked a short distance. And he told Vestblad what he had seen in the night. “I tell you this simply to warn you, in order that you may dismiss the man.”

But Vestblad would not; he was just the man he would not dismiss. And when Beerencreutz pressed him more and more, he at last confessed that he would not do anything to the man, because he was the son of an old pauper woman who had died at Viksta close to Ekeby.

“You no doubt remember the story?” he added.

“If that’s the case, I would rather go to the end of the world than live another day with that man about the place,” said Beerencreutz. An hour after he left, and was almost angry that his warning was not heeded. “Some misfortune will happen before I come here again,” said the Colonel to Vestblad, as he took leave.

Next year, at the same time, the Colonel was preparing for another visit to Halstanäs. But before he got so far, he heard some sad news about his friends. As the clock struck one, a year after the very night he had slept there, Ensign Vestblad and his wife had been murdered in their bedroom by one of their labourers⁠—a man with a neck like a bull, a flat nose, and eyes like a pig.

The Inscription on the Grave

Nowadays no one ever takes any notice of the little cross standing in the corner of Svartsjö Churchyard. People on their way to and from church go past it without giving it a glance. This is not so very wonderful, because it is so low and small that clover and bluebells grow right up to the arms of the cross, and timothy-grass to the very top of it. Neither does anyone think of reading the inscription which stands on the cross. The white letters are almost entirely washed out by the rain, and it never occurs to anyone to try and decipher what is still left, and try to make it out. But so it has not always been. The little cross in its time has been the cause of much surprise and curiosity. There was a time when not a person put his foot inside Svartsjö Churchyard without going up to look at it. And when one of the old people from those days now happens to see it, a whole story comes back to him of people and events that have been long forgotten. He sees before him the whole of Svartsjö parish in the lethargic sleep of winter, covered by even white snow, quite a yard deep, so that it is impossible to discern road or pathway, or to know where one is going. It is almost as necessary to have a compass here as at sea. There is no difference between sea and shore. The roughest ground is as even as the field which in the autumn yielded such a harvest of oats. The charcoal-burner living near the great bogs might imagine himself possessed of as much cultivated land as the richest peasant.

The roads have left their secure course between the gray fences, and are running at random across the meadows and along the river. Even on one’s own farm one may lose one’s way, and suddenly discover that on one’s way to the well one has walked over the spirea-hedge and round the little rose-bed.

But nowhere is it so impossible to find one’s way as in the churchyard. In the first place, the stone wall which separates it from the pastor’s field is entirely buried under the snow, so with that it is all one; and secondly, the churchyard itself is only a simple large, white plain, where not even the smallest unevenness in the snow-cover betrays the many small mounds and tufts of the garden of the dead.

On most of the graves are iron crosses, from which hang small, thin hearts of tin, which the summer wind sets in motion. These little hearts are now all hidden under the snow, and cannot tinkle their sad songs of sorrow and longing.

People who work in the towns have brought back with them to their dead wreaths with flowers of beads and leaves of painted tin; and these wreaths are so highly treasured that they are kept in small glass cases on the graves. But now all this is hidden and buried under the snow, and the grave that possesses such an ornament is in no way more remarkable than any of the other graves.

One or two lilac bushes raise their heads above the snow-cover, but their little stiff branches look so alike, that it is impossible to tell one from the other, and they are of no use whatever to anyone trying to find his way in the churchyard. Old women who are in the habit of going on Sundays to visit their graves can only get a little way down the main walk on account of the snow. There they stand, trying to make out where their own grave lies⁠—is it near that bush, or that?⁠—and they begin to long for the snow to melt. It is as if the one for whom they are sorrowing has gone so far away from them, now that they cannot see the spot where he lies.

There are also a few large gravestones and crosses that are higher than the snow, but they are not many; and as these are also covered with snow, they cannot be distinguished either.

There is only one pathway kept clear in the churchyard. It is the one leading from the entrance to the small mortuary. When anyone is to be buried the coffin is carried into the mortuary, and there the pastor reads the service and casts the earth upon the coffin. It is impossible to place the coffin in the ground as long as such a winter lasts. It must remain standing in the mortuary until God sees fit to thaw the earth, and the ground can be digged and made ready.

Just when the winter was at its hardest, and the churchyard quite inaccessible, a child died at Sander’s, the ironmaster at Lerum ironworks.

The ironworks at Lerum were large, and Sander, the ironmaster, was a great man in that part of the country. He had recently had a family grave made in the churchyard⁠—a splendid grave, the position of which one could not easily forget, although the snow had laid its thick carpet over it. It was surrounded by heavy, hewn stones, with a massive chain between them, and in the middle of the grave stood a huge granite block, with their name inscribed upon it. There was only the one word “Sander,” engraved in large letters, but it could be seen over the whole churchyard. But now that the child was dead, and was to be buried, the ironmaster said to his wife:

“I will not allow this child to lie in my grave.”

One can picture them both at that moment. It was in their dining-room at Lerum. The ironmaster was sitting at the breakfast-table alone, as was his wont. His wife, Ebba Sander, was sitting in a rocking-chair at the window, from where she had a wide view of the lake, with its small islands covered with birches.

She had been weeping, but when her husband said this, her eyes became immediately dry. Her little figure seemed to shrink from fear, and she began to tremble.

“What do you say? What are you saying?” she asked, and her voice sounded as if she were shivering from cold.

“I object to it,” he said. “My father and my mother lie there, and the name ‘Sander’ stands on the stone. I will not allow that child to lie there.”

“Oh,” she said, still trembling, “is that what you have been thinking about? I always did think that some day you would have your revenge.”

He threw down his serviette, rose from the table, and stood before her, broad and big. It was not his intention to assert his will with many words, but she could see, as he stood there, that nothing could make him change his mind. Stern, immovable, obstinate he was from top to toe.

“I will not revenge myself,” he said, “only I will not have it.”

“You speak as if it were only a question of removing him from one bed to the other,” she said. “He is dead. It does not matter to him where he lies, I suppose; but for me it is ruin, you know.”

“I have also thought of that,” he said, “but I cannot.”

When two people have been married, and have lived together for some years, they do not require many words to understand one another. She knew it would be quite useless to try and move him.

“Why did you forgive me, then?” she said, wringing her hands. “Why did you let me stay with you as your wife and promise to forgive me?”

He knew that he would not do her any harm. It was not his fault that he had now reached the limit of his forbearance.

“Say to people what you like,” he said; “I shall not say anything. You can say, if you like, that there is water in the vault, or that there is only room for father and mother and you and me.”

“And you imagine that they will believe that!”

“Well, you must manage that as best you can.”

He was not angry; she knew that he was not. It was only as he said: on that point he could not give way.

She went further into the room, put her hands at the back of her head, and sat gazing out of the window without saying anything. The terrible thing is that so much happens to one in life over which one has no control, and, above all, that something may spring up within one’s self over which one is entirely powerless. Some years ago, when she was already a staid married woman, love came to her; and what a love⁠—so violent that it was quite impossible for her to resist.

Was not the feeling which now mastered her husband⁠—was not that, after all, a desire to be revenged?

He had never been angry with her. He forgave her at once when she came and confessed her sin.

“You have been out of your senses,” he said, and allowed her to remain with him at Lerum as if nothing had happened.

But although it is easy enough to say one forgives, it may be hard to do so, especially for one whose mind is slow and heavy, who ponders over but never forgets or gives vent to his feelings. Whatever he may say, and however much he may have made up his mind, something is always left within his heart which gnaws and longs to be satisfied with someone else’s suffering. She had always had a strange feeling that it would have been better for her if he had been so enraged that he had struck her. Then, perhaps, things could have come right between them. All these years he had been morose and irritable, and she had become frightened. She was like a horse between the traces. She knew that behind her was one who held a whip over her, even if he did not use it; and now he had used it. He had not been able to refrain any longer. And now it was all over with her.

Those who were about her said they had never seen such sorrow as hers. She seemed to be petrified. The whole time before the funeral it was as if there were no real life in her. One could not tell if she heard what was said to her, if she had any idea who was speaking to her. She did not eat; it was as if she felt no hunger. She went out in the bitterest cold; she did not feel it. But it was not grief that petrified her⁠—it was fear.

It never struck her for a moment to stay at home on the day of the funeral. She must go to the churchyard, she must walk in the funeral procession⁠—must go there, feeling that all who were present expected that the body would be laid in the family vault of the Sanders. She thought she would sink into the ground at all the surprise and scorn which would rise up against her when the gravedigger, who headed the procession, led the way to an out-of-the-way grave. An outburst of astonishment would be heard from everybody, although it was a funeral procession: “Why is the child not going to be buried in the Sanders’ family vault?” Thoughts would go back to the vague rumours which were once circulated about her. “There must have been something in them, after all,” people will whisper to each other. And before the mourners left the churchyard she would be condemned and lost. The only thing for her to do was to be present herself. She would go there with a quiet face, as if everything was as it ought to be. Then, perhaps, they might believe what she said to explain the matter.⁠ ⁠…

Her husband went with her to the church; he had looked after everything, invited people, ordered the coffin, and arranged who should be the bearers. He was kind and good now that he had got his own way.

It was on a Sunday. The service was over, and the mourners had assembled outside the porch, where the coffin was standing. The bearers had placed the white bands over their shoulders; all people of any position had joined in the procession, as did also many of the congregation. She had a feeling as if they had all gathered together in order to accompany a criminal to the scaffold.

How they would all look at her when they came back from the funeral! She was there to prepare them for what was to happen, but she had not been able to utter a single word. She felt quite unable to speak quietly and sensibly. There was only one thing she wanted: to scream and moan so violently and loudly that it could be heard all over the churchyard; and she had to bite her lips so as not to cry out.

The bells commenced to ring in the tower, and the procession began to move. Now all these people would find it out without the slightest preparation. Oh, why had she not spoken in time? She had to restrain herself to the utmost from shouting out and telling them that they must not go to the grave with the dead child. Those who are dead are dead and gone. Why should her whole life be spoiled for the sake of this dead child? They could put him in the earth, where they liked, only not in the churchyard. She had a confused idea that she would frighten them away from the churchyard; it was risky to go there; it was plague-smitten; there were marks of a wolf in the snow; she would frighten them as one frightens children.

She did not know where they had digged the child’s grave. She would know soon enough, she thought; and when the procession entered the churchyard, she glanced around the snow-covered ground to see where there was a new grave; but she saw neither path nor grave⁠—nothing but the white snow. And the procession advanced towards the small mortuary. As many as possibly could pressed into the building and saw the earth cast on to the coffin. There was no question whatever about this or that grave. No one found out that the little one which was now laid to rest was never to be taken to the family vault.

Had she but thought of that, had she not forgotten everything else in her fear and terror, then she need not have been afraid, not for a single moment.

“In the spring,” she thought, “when the coffin has to be placed in the ground, there will probably be no one there except the gravedigger; everybody will think that the child is lying in the Sanders’ vault.” And she felt that she was saved.

She sank down sobbing violently. People looked at her with sympathy. “How terribly she felt it!” they said. But she herself knew that she cried like one who has escaped from a mortal danger.

A day or two after the funeral she was sitting in the twilight in her accustomed place in the dining-room, and as it grew darker she caught herself waiting and longing. She sat and listened for the child; that was the time when he always used to come in and play with her. Why did he not come that day? Then she started. “Oh, he is dead, he is dead!”

The next day she sat again in the twilight, and longed for him, and day by day this longing grew. It grew as the light does in the springtime, until at last it filled all the hours both of day and night.

It almost goes without saying that a child like hers was more loved after death than whilst it was living. While it was living its mother had thought of nothing but regaining the trust and the love of her husband. And for him the child could never be a source of happiness. It was necessary to keep it away from him as much as possible; and the child had often felt he was in the way.

She, who had failed in and neglected her duty, would show her husband that she was worth something after all. She was always about in the kitchen and in the weaving-room. Where could there be any room, then, for the little boy?

But now, afterwards, she remembered how his eyes could beg and beseech. In the evening he liked so much to have her sitting at his bedside. He said he was afraid to lie in the dark; but now it struck her that that had probably only been an excuse to get her to stay with him. She remembered how he lay and tried not to fall asleep. Now she knew that he kept himself awake in order that he might lie a little longer and feel his hand in hers. He had been a shrewd little fellow, young as he was. He had exerted all his little brain to find out how he could get a little share of her love. It is incomprehensible that children can love so deeply. She never understood it whilst he was alive.

It was really first now that she had begun to love the child. It was first now that she was really impressed by his beauty. She would sit and dream of his big, strange eyes. He had never been robust and ruddy like most children, but delicate and slender. But how sweet he had been! He seemed to her now as something wonderfully beautiful⁠—more and more beautiful for every day that went. Children were indeed the best of all in this world. To think that there were little beings stretching out their hands to everybody, and thinking good of all; that never ask if a face be plain or pretty, but are equally willing to kiss either, loving equally old and young, rich and poor. And yet they were real little people.

For every day that went she was drawn nearer and nearer to the child. She wished that the child had been still alive; but, on the other hand, she was not sure that in that case she would have been drawn so near to it. At times she was quite in despair at the thought that she had not done more for the child whilst he was alive. That was probably why he had been taken from her, she thought.

But it was not often that she sorrowed like this. Earlier in life she had always been afraid lest some great sorrow should overtake her, but now it seemed to her that sorrow was not what she had then thought it to be. Sorrow was only to live over and over again through something which was no more. Sorrow in her case was to become familiar with her child’s whole being, and to seek to understand him. And that sorrow had made her life so rich.

What she was most afraid of now was that time would take him from her and wipe out the memory of him. She had no picture of him; perhaps his features little by little would fade for her. She sat every day and tried to think how he looked. “Do I see him exactly as he was?” she said.

Week by week, as the winter wore away, she began to long for the time when he would be taken from the mortuary and buried in the ground, so that she could go to his grave and speak with him. He should lie towards the west, that was the most beautiful, and she would deck the grave with roses. There should also be a hedge round the grave, and a seat where she could sit often and often. People would perhaps wonder at it; but they were not to know that her child did not lie in the family grave; and they were sure to think it strange that she placed flowers on an unknown grave and sat there for hours. What could she say to explain it?

Sometimes she thought that she could, perhaps, do it in this way: First she would go to the big grave and place a large bouquet of flowers on it, and remain sitting there for some time, and afterwards she would steal away to the little grave; and he would be sure to be content with the little flower she would secretly give him. But even if he were satisfied with the one little flower, could she be? Could she really come quite near to him in this way? Would he not notice that she was ashamed of him? Would he not understand what a disgrace his birth had been to her? No, she would have to protect him from that. He must only think that the joy of having possessed him weighed against all the rest.

At last the winter was giving way. One could see the spring was coming. The snow-cover began to melt, and the earth to peep out. It would still be a week or two before the ground was thawed, but it would not be long now before the dead could be taken away from the mortuary. And she longed⁠—she longed so exceedingly for it.

Could she still picture to herself how he looked? She tried every day; but it was easier when it was winter. Now, when the spring was coming, it seemed as if he faded away from her. She was filled with despair. If she were only soon able to sit by his grave and be near to him again, then she would be able to see him again, to love him. Would he never be laid in his little grave? She must be able to see him again, see him through her whole life; she had no one else to love.

At last all her fears and scruples vanished before this great longing. She loved, she loved; she could not live without the dead! She knew now that she could not consider anybody or anything but him⁠—him alone. And when the spring came in earnest, when mounds and graves once again appeared all over the churchyard, when the little hearts of the iron crosses again began to tinkle in the wind, and the beaded wreaths to sparkle in their glass cases, and when the earth at last was ready to receive the little coffin, she had ready a black cross to place on his grave. On the cross from arm to arm was written in plain white letters,

“Here rests my child,”

and underneath, on the stem of the cross, stood her name.

She did not mind that the whole world would know how she had sinned. Other things were of no consequence to her; all she thought about was that she would now be able to pray at the grave of her child.

The Brothers

It is very possible that I am mistaken, but it seems to me that an astonishing number of people die this year. I have a feeling that I cannot go down the street without meeting a hearse. One cannot help thinking about all those who are carried to the churchyard. I always feel as if it were so sad for the dead who have to be buried in towns. I can hear how they moan in their coffins. Some complain that they have not had plumes on the hearse; some count up the wreaths, and are not satisfied; and then there are some who have only been followed by two or three carriages, and who are hurt by it.

The dead ought never to know and experience such things; but people in towns do not at all understand how they ought to honour those who have entered into eternal rest.

When I really think over it I do not know any place where they understand it better than at home in Svartsjö. If you die in the parish of Svartsjö you know you will have a coffin like that of everyone else⁠—an honest black coffin which is like the coffins in which the country judge and the local magistrate were buried a year or two ago. For the same joiner makes all the coffins, and he has only one pattern; the one is made neither better nor worse than the other. And you know also, for you have seen it so many times, that you will be carried to the church on a wagon which has been painted black for the occasion. You need not trouble yourself at all about any plumes. And you know that the whole village will follow you to the church, and that they will drive as slowly and as solemnly for you as for a landed proprietor.

But you will have no occasion to feel annoyed because you have not enough wreaths, for they do not place a single flower on the coffin; it shall stand out black and shining, and nothing must cover it; and it is not necessary for you to think whether you will have a sufficiently large number of people to follow you, for those who live in your town will be sure to follow you, everyone. Nor will you be obliged to lie and listen if there is lamenting and weeping around your coffin. They never weep over the dead when they stand on the church hill outside Svartsjö Church. No, they weep as little over a strong young fellow who falls a prey to death just as he is beginning to provide for his old people as they will for you. You will be placed on a couple of black trestles outside the door of the parish room, and a whole crowd of people will gradually gather round you, and all the women will have handkerchiefs in their hands. But no one will cry; all the handkerchiefs will be kept tightly rolled up; not one will be applied to the eyes. You need not speculate as to whether people will shed as many tears over you as they would over others. They would cry if it were the proper thing, but it is not the proper thing.

You can understand that if there were much sorrowing over one grave, it would not look well for those over whom no one sorrowed. They know what they were about at Svartsjö. They do as it has been the custom to do there for many hundred years. But whilst you stand there, on the church hill, you are a great and important personage, although you receive neither flowers nor tears. No one comes to church without asking who you are, and then they go quietly up to you and stand and gaze at you; and it never occurs to anyone to wound the dead by pitying him. No one says anything but that it is well for him that it is all over.

It is not at all as it is in a town, where you can be buried any day. At Svartsjö you must be buried on a Sunday, so that you can have the whole parish around you. There you will have standing near your coffin both the girl with whom you danced at the last midsummer night’s festival and the man with whom you exchanged horses at the last fair. You will have the schoolmaster who took so much trouble with you when you were a little lad, and who had forgotten you, although you remembered him so well; and you will have the old Member of Parliament who never before thought it worth his while to bow to you. This is not as in a town, where people hardly turn round when you are carried past. When they bring the long bands and place them under the coffin, there is not one who does not watch the proceedings.

You cannot imagine what a churchwarden we have at Svartsjö. He is an old soldier, and he looks like a Field-Marshal. He has short white hair and twisted moustaches, and a pointed imperial; he is slim and tall and straight, with a light and firm step. On Sundays he wears a well-brushed frock-coat of fine cloth. He really looks a very fine old gentleman, and it is he who walks at the head of the procession. Then comes the verger. Not that the verger is to be compared with the churchwarden. It is more than probable that his Sunday hat is too large and old-fashioned; as likely as not he is awkward⁠—but when is a verger not awkward?

Then you come next in your coffin, with the six bearers, and then follow the clergyman and the clerk and the Town Council and the whole parish. All the congregation will follow you to the churchyard, you may be sure of that. But I will tell you something: All those who follow you look so small and poor. They are not fine town’s-people, you know⁠—only plain, simple Svartsjö folk. There is only one who is great and important, and that is you in your coffin⁠—you who are dead.

The others the next day will have to resume their heavy and toilsome work. They will have to live in poor old cottages and wear old, patched clothes; the others will always be plagued and worried, and dragged down and humbled by poverty.

Those who follow you to your grave become far more sad by looking at the living than by thinking of you who are dead. You need not look any more at the velvet collar of your coat to see if it is not getting worn at the edges; you need not make a special fold of your silk handkerchief to hide that it is beginning to fray; you will never more be compelled to ask the village shopkeeper to let you have goods on credit; you will not find out that your strength is failing; you will not have to wait for the day when you must go on the parish.

While they are following you to the grave everyone will be thinking that it is best to be dead⁠—better to soar heavenwards, carried on the white clouds of the morning⁠—than to be always experiencing life’s manifold troubles. When they come to the wall of the churchyard, where the grave has been made, the bands are exchanged for strong ropes, and people get on to the loose earth and lower you down. And when this has been done the clerk advances to the grave and begins to sing: “I walk towards death.”

He sings the hymn quite alone; neither the clergyman nor any of the congregation help him. But the clerk must sing; however keen the north wind and however glaring the sun which shines straight in his face, sing he does.

The clerk, however, is getting old now, and he has not much voice left; he is quite aware that it does not sound as well now as formerly when he sang people into their graves; but he does it all the same⁠—it is part of his duty. For the day, you understand, when his voice quite fails him, so that he cannot sing any more, he must resign his office, and this means downright poverty for him. Therefore the whole gathering stands in apprehension while the old clerk sings, wondering whether his voice will last through the whole verse. But no one joins him, not a single person, for that would not do; it is not the custom. People never sing at a grave at Svartsjö. People do not sing in the church either, except the first hymn on Christmas Day morning.

Still, if one listened very attentively, one could hear that the clerk does not sing alone. There really is another voice, but it sounds so exactly the same that the two voices blend as if they were only one. The other who sings is a little old man in a long, coarse gray coat. He is still older than the clerk, but he gives out all the voice he has to help him. And the voice, as I have told you, is exactly the same kind as the clerk’s; they are so alike one cannot help wondering at it.

But when one looks closer, the little gray old man is also exactly like the clerk; he has the same nose and chin and mouth, only somewhat older, and, as it were, more hardly dealt with in life. And then one understands that the little gray man is the clerk’s brother; and then one knows why he helps him. For, you see, things have never gone well with him in this world, and he has always had bad luck; and once he was made a bankrupt, and brought the clerk into his misfortunes. He knows that it is his fault that his brother has always had to struggle. And the clerk, you know, has tried to help him on to his legs again, but with no avail, for he has not been one of those one can help. He has always been unfortunate; and then, he has had no strength of purpose.

But the clerk has been the shining light in the family; and for the other it has been a case of receiving and receiving, and he has never been able to make any return at all. Great God! even to talk of making any return⁠—he who is so poor! You should only see the little hut in the forest where he lives. He knows that he has always been dull and sad, only a burden⁠—only a burden for his brother and for others. But now of late he has become a great man; now he is able to give some return. And that he does. Now he helps his brother, the clerk, who has been the sunshine and life and joy for him all his days. Now he helps him to sing, so that he may keep his office.

He does not go to church, for he thinks that everyone looks at him because he has no black Sunday clothes; but every Sunday he goes up to the church to see whether there is a coffin on the black trestles outside the parish room; and if there is one he goes to the grave, in spite of his old gray coat, and helps his brother with his pitiful old voice.

The little old man knows very well how badly he sings; he places himself behind the others, and does not push forward to the grave. But sing he does; it would not matter so much if the clerk’s voice should fail on one or other note, his brother is there and helps him.

At the churchyard no one laughs at the singing; but when people go home and have thrown off their devoutness, then they speak about the service, and then they laugh at the clerk’s singing⁠—laugh both at his and his brother’s. The clerk does not mind it, it is the same to him; but his brother thinks about it and suffers from it; he dreads the Sunday the whole week, but still he comes punctually to the churchyard and does his duty. But you in your coffin, you do not think so badly of the singing. You think that it is good music. Is it not true that one would like to be buried in Svartsjö, if only for the sake of that singing?

It says in the hymn that life is but a walk towards death, and when the two old men sing this⁠—the two who have suffered for each other during their whole life⁠—then one understands better than ever before how wearisome it is to live, and one is so entirely satisfied with being dead.

And then the singing stops, and the clergyman throws earth on the coffin and says a prayer over you. Then the two old voices sing: “I walk towards heaven.” And they do not sing this verse any better than the former; their voices grow more feeble and querulous the longer they sing. But for you a great and wide expanse opens, and you soar upwards with tremulous joy, and everything earthly fades and disappears.

But still the last which you hear of things earthly tells of faithfulness and love. And in the midst of your trembling flight the poor song will awake memories of all the faithfulness and love you have met with here below, and this will bear you upwards. This will fill you with radiance and make you beautiful as an angel.

The Holy Night

When I was five years old I had such a great sorrow! I hardly know if I have had a greater since.

It was then my grandmother died. Up to that time, she used to sit every day on the corner sofa in her room, and tell stories.

I remember that grandmother told story after story from morning till night, and that we children sat beside her, quite still, and listened. It was a glorious life! No other children had such happy times as we did.

It isn’t much that I recollect about my grandmother. I remember that she had very beautiful snow-white hair, and stooped when she walked, and that she always sat and knitted a stocking.

And I even remember that when she had finished a story, she used to lay her hand on my head and say: “All this is as true, as true as that I see you and you see me.”

I also remember that she could sing songs, but this she did not do every day. One of the songs was about a knight and a sea-troll, and had this refrain: “It blows cold, cold weather at sea.”

Then I remember a little prayer she taught me, and a verse of a hymn.

Of all the stories she told me, I have but a dim and imperfect recollection. Only one of them do I remember so well that I should be able to repeat it. It is a little story about Jesus’ birth.

Well, this is nearly all that I can recall about my grandmother, except the thing which I remember best; and that is, the great loneliness when she was gone.

I remember the morning when the corner sofa stood empty and when it was impossible to understand how the days would ever come to an end. That I remember. That I shall never forget!

And I recollect that we children were brought forward to kiss the hand of the dead and that we were afraid to do it. But then someone said to us that it would be the last time we could thank grandmother for all the pleasure she had given us.

And I remember how the stories and songs were driven from the homestead, shut up in a long black casket, and how they never came back again.

I remember that something was gone from our lives. It seemed as if the door to a whole beautiful, enchanted world⁠—where before we had been free to go in and out⁠—had been closed. And now there was no one who knew how to open that door.

And I remember that, little by little, we children learned to play with dolls and toys, and to live like other children. And then it seemed as though we no longer missed our grandmother, or remembered her.

But even today⁠—after forty years⁠—as I sit here and gather together the legends about Christ, which I heard out there in the Orient, there awakes within me the little legend of Jesus’ birth that my grandmother used to tell, and I feel impelled to tell it once again, and to let it also be included in my collection.

It was a Christmas Day and all the folks had driven to church except grandmother and I. I believe we were all alone in the house. We had not been permitted to go along, because one of us was too old and the other was too young. And we were sad, both of us, because we had not been taken to early mass to hear the singing and to see the Christmas candles.

But as we sat there in our loneliness, grandmother began to tell a story.

“There was a man,” said she, “who went out in the dark night to borrow live coals to kindle a fire. He went from hut to hut and knocked. ‘Dear friends, help me!’ said he. ‘My wife has just given birth to a child, and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.’

“But it was way in the night, and all the people were asleep. No one replied.

“The man walked and walked. At last he saw the gleam of a fire a long way off. Then he went in that direction, and saw that the fire was burning in the open. A lot of sheep were sleeping around the fire, and an old shepherd sat and watched over the flock.

“When the man who wanted to borrow fire came up to the sheep, he saw that three big dogs lay asleep at the shepherd’s feet. All three awoke when the man approached and opened their great jaws, as though they wanted to bark; but not a sound was heard. The man noticed that the hair on their backs stood up and that their sharp, white teeth glistened in the firelight. They dashed toward him. He felt that one of them bit at his leg and one at his hand and that one clung to his throat. But their jaws and teeth wouldn’t obey them, and the man didn’t suffer the least harm.

“Now the man wished to go farther, to get what he needed. But the sheep lay back to back and so close to one another that he couldn’t pass them. Then the man stepped upon their backs and walked over them and up to the fire. And not one of the animals awoke or moved.”

Thus far, grandmother had been allowed to narrate without interruption. But at this point I couldn’t help breaking in. “Why didn’t they do it, grandma?” I asked.

“That you shall hear in a moment,” said grandmother⁠—and went on with her story.

“When the man had almost reached the fire, the shepherd looked up. He was a surly old man, who was unfriendly and harsh toward human beings. And when he saw the strange man coming, he seized the long spiked staff, which he always held in his hand when he tended his flock, and threw it at him. The staff came right toward the man, but, before it reached him, it turned off to one side and whizzed past him, far out in the meadow.”

When grandmother had got this far, I interrupted her again. “Grandma, why wouldn’t the stick hurt the man?” Grandmother did not bother about answering me, but continued her story.

“Now the man came up to the shepherd and said to him: ‘Good man, help me, and lend me a little fire! My wife has just given birth to a child, and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.’

“The shepherd would rather have said no, but when he pondered that the dogs couldn’t hurt the man, and the sheep had not run from him, and that the staff had not wished to strike him, he was a little afraid, and dared not deny the man that which he asked.

“ ‘Take as much as you need!’ he said to the man.

“But then the fire was nearly burnt out. There were no logs or branches left, only a big heap of live coals; and the stranger had neither spade nor shovel, wherein he could carry the red-hot coals.

“When the shepherd saw this, he said again: ‘Take as much as you need!’ And he was glad that the man wouldn’t be able to take away any coals.

“But the man stooped and picked coals from the ashes with his bare hands, and laid them in his mantle. And he didn’t burn his hands when he touched them, nor did the coals scorch his mantle; but he carried them away as if they had been nuts or apples.”

But here the storyteller was interrupted for the third time. “Grandma, why wouldn’t the coals burn the man?”

“That you shall hear,” said grandmother, and went on:

“And when the shepherd, who was such a cruel and hard-hearted man, saw all this, he began to wonder to himself: ‘What kind of a night is this, when the dogs do not bite, the sheep are not scared, the staff does not kill, or the fire scorch?’ He called the stranger back, and said to him: ‘What kind of a night is this? And how does it happen that all things show you compassion?’

“Then said the man: ‘I cannot tell you if you yourself do not see it.’ And he wished to go his way, that he might soon make a fire and warm his wife and child.

“But the shepherd did not wish to lose sight of the man before he had found out what all this might portend. He got up and followed the man till they came to the place where he lived.

“Then the shepherd saw that the man didn’t have so much as a hut to dwell in, but that his wife and babe were lying in a mountain grotto, where there was nothing except the cold and naked stone walls.

“But the shepherd thought that perhaps the poor innocent child might freeze to death there in the grotto; and, although he was a hard man, he was touched, and thought he would like to help it. And he loosened his knapsack from his shoulder, took from it a soft white sheepskin, gave it to the strange man, and said that he should let the child sleep on it.

“But just as soon as he showed that he, too, could be merciful, his eyes were opened, and he saw what he had not been able to see before and heard what he could not have heard before.

“He saw that all around him stood a ring of little silver-winged angels, and each held a stringed instrument, and all sang in loud tones that tonight the Saviour was born who should redeem the world from its sins.

“Then he understood how all things were so happy this night that they didn’t want to do anything wrong.

“And it was not only around the shepherd that there were angels, but he saw them everywhere. They sat inside the grotto, they sat outside on the mountain, and they flew under the heavens. They came marching in great companies, and, as they passed, they paused and cast a glance at the child.

“There were such jubilation and such gladness and songs and play! And all this he saw in the dark night, whereas before he could not have made out anything. He was so happy because his eyes had been opened that he fell upon his knees and thanked God.”

Here grandmother sighed and said: “What that shepherd saw we might also see, for the angels fly down from heaven every Christmas Eve, if we could only see them.”

Then grandmother laid her hand on my head, and said: “You must remember this, for it is as true, as true as that I see you and you see me. It is not revealed by the light of lamps or candles, and it does not depend upon sun and moon; but that which is needful is, that we have such eyes as can see God’s glory.”

The Emperor’s Vision

It happened at the time when Augustus was Emperor in Rome and Herod was King in Jerusalem.

It was then that a very great and holy night sank down over the earth. It was the darkest night that anyone had ever seen. One could have believed that the whole earth had fallen into a cellar-vault. It was impossible to distinguish water from land, and one could not find one’s way on the most familiar road. And it couldn’t be otherwise, for not a ray of light came from heaven. All the stars stayed at home in their own houses, and the fair moon held her face averted.

The silence and the stillness were as profound as the darkness. The rivers stood still in their courses, the wind did not stir, and even the aspen leaves had ceased to quiver. Had anyone walked along the seashore, he would have found that the waves no longer dashed upon the sands; and had one wandered in the desert, the sand would not have crunched under one’s feet. Everything was as motionless as if turned to stone, so as not to disturb the holy night. The grass was afraid to grow, the dew could not fall, and the flowers dared not exhale their perfume.

On this night the wild beasts did not seek their prey, the serpents did not sting, and the dogs did not bark. And what was even more glorious, inanimate things would have been unwilling to disturb the night’s sanctity, by lending themselves to an evil deed. No false key could have picked a lock, and no knife could possibly have drawn a drop of blood.

In Rome, during this very night, a small company of people came from the Emperor’s palace at the Palatine and took the path across the Forum which led to the Capitol. During the day just ended the Senators had asked the Emperor if he had any objections to their erecting a temple to him on Rome’s sacred hill. But Augustus had not immediately given his consent. He did not know if it would be agreeable to the gods that he should own a temple next to theirs, and he had replied that first he wished to ascertain their will in the matter by offering a nocturnal sacrifice to his genius. It was he who, accompanied by a few trusted friends, was on his way to perform this sacrifice.

Augustus let them carry him in his litter, for he was old, and it was an effort for him to climb the long stairs leading to the Capitol. He himself held the cage with the doves for the sacrifice. No priests or soldiers or senators accompanied him, only his nearest friends. Torchbearers walked in front of him in order to light the way in the night darkness and behind him followed the slaves, who carried the tripod, the knives, the charcoal, the sacred fire, and all the other things needed for the sacrifice.

On the way the Emperor chatted gaily with his faithful followers, and therefore none of them noticed the infinite silence and stillness of the night. Only when they had reached the highest point of the Capitol Hill and the vacant spot upon which they contemplated erecting the temple, did it dawn upon them that something unusual was taking place.

It could not be a night like all others, for up on the very edge of the cliff they saw the most remarkable being! At first they thought it was an old, distorted olive-trunk; later they imagined that an ancient stone figure from the temple of Jupiter had wandered out on the cliff. Finally it was apparent to them that it could be only the old sibyl.

Anything so aged, so weather-beaten, and so giant-like in stature they had never seen. This old woman was awe-inspiring! If the Emperor had not been present, they would all have fled to their homes.

“It is she,” they whispered to each other, “who has lived as many years as there are sand-grains on her native shores. Why has she come out from her cave just tonight? What does she foretell for the Emperor and the Empire⁠—she, who writes her prophecies on the leaves of the trees and knows that the wind will carry the words of the oracle to the person for whom they are intended?”

They were so terrified that they would have dropped on their knees with their foreheads pressed against the earth, had the sibyl stirred. But she sat as still as though she were lifeless. Crouching upon the outermost edge of the cliff, and shading her eyes with her hand, she peered out into the night. She sat there as if she had gone up on the hill that she might see more clearly something that was happening far away. She could see things on a night like this!

At that moment the Emperor and all his retinue marked how profound the darkness was. None of them could see a hand’s breadth in front of him. And what stillness! What silence! Not even the Tiber’s hollow murmur could they hear. The air seemed to suffocate them, cold sweat broke out on their foreheads, and their hands were numb and powerless. They feared that some dreadful disaster was impending.

But no one cared to show that he was afraid, and everyone told the Emperor that this was a good omen. All Nature held its breath to greet a new god.

They counseled Augustus to hurry with the sacrifice, and said that the old sibyl had evidently come out of her cave to greet his genius.

But the truth was that the old sibyl was so absorbed in a vision that she did not even know that Augustus had come up to the Capitol. She was transported in spirit to a far-distant land, where she imagined that she was wandering over a great plain. In the darkness she stubbed her foot continually against something, which she believed to be grass-tufts. She stooped down and felt with her hand. No, it was not grass, but sheep. She was walking between great sleeping flocks of sheep.

Then she noticed the shepherds’ fire. It burned in the middle of the field, and she groped her way to it. The shepherds lay asleep by the fire, and beside them were the long, spiked staves with which they defended their flocks from wild beasts. But the little animals with the glittering eyes and the bushy tails that stole up to the fire, were they not jackals? And yet the shepherds did not fling their staves at them, the dogs continued to sleep, the sheep did not flee, and the wild animals lay down to rest beside the human beings.

This the sibyl saw, but she knew nothing of what was being enacted on the hill back of her. She did not know that there they were raising an altar, lighting charcoal and strewing incense, and that the Emperor took one of the doves from the cage to sacrifice it. But his hands were so benumbed that he could not hold the bird. With one stroke of the wing, it freed itself and disappeared in the night darkness.

When this happened, the courtiers glanced suspiciously at the old sibyl. They believed that it was she who caused the misfortune.

Could they know that all the while the sibyl thought herself standing beside the shepherds’ fire, and that she listened to a faint sound which came trembling through the dead-still night? She heard it long before she marked that it did not come from the earth, but from the sky. At last she raised her head; then she saw light, shimmering forms glide forward in the darkness. They were little flocks of angels, who, singing joyously, and apparently searching, flew back and forth above the wide plain.

While the sibyl was listening to the angel-song, the Emperor was making preparations for a new sacrifice. He washed his hands, cleansed the altar, and took up the other dove. And, although he exerted his full strength to hold it fast, the dove’s slippery body slid from his hand, and the bird swung itself up into the impenetrable night.

The Emperor was appalled! He fell upon his knees and prayed to his genius. He implored him for strength to avert the disasters which this night seemed to foreshadow.

Nor did the sibyl hear any of this either. She was listening with her whole soul to the angel-song, which grew louder and louder. At last it became so powerful that it wakened the shepherds. They raised themselves on their elbows and saw shining hosts of silver-white angels move in the darkness in long, swaying lines, like migratory birds. Some held lutes and cymbals in their hands; others held zithers and harps, and their song rang out as merry as child-laughter, and as carefree as the lark’s trill. When the shepherds heard this, they rose up to go to the mountain city, where they lived, to tell of the miracle.

They groped their way forward on a narrow, winding path, and the sibyl followed them. Suddenly it grew light up there on the mountain: a big, clear star kindled right over it, and the city on the mountain summit glittered like silver in the starlight. All the fluttering angel throngs hastened thither, shouting for joy, and the shepherds hurried so that they almost ran. When they reached the city, they found that the angels had assembled over a low stable near the city gate. It was a wretched structure, with a roof of straw and the naked cliff for a back wall. Over it hung the Star, and hither flocked more and more angels. Some seated themselves on the straw roof or alighted upon the steep mountain-wall back of the house; others, again, held themselves in the air on outspread wings, and hovered over it. High, high up, the air was illuminated by the shining wings.

The instant the Star kindled over the mountain city, all Nature awoke, and the men who stood upon Capitol Hill could not help seeing it. They felt fresh, but caressing winds which traveled through space; delicious perfumes streamed up about them; trees swayed; the Tiber began to murmur; the stars twinkled, and suddenly the moon stood out in the sky and lit up the world. And out of the clouds the two doves came circling down and lighted upon the Emperor’s shoulders.

When this miracle happened, Augustus rose, proud and happy, but his friends and his slaves fell on their knees.

“Hail, Caesar!” they cried. “Thy genius hath answered thee. Thou art the god who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”

And this cry of homage, which the men in their transport gave as a tribute to the Emperor, was so loud that the old sibyl heard it. It waked her from her visions. She rose from her place on the edge of the cliff, and came down among the people. It was as if a dark cloud had arisen from the abyss and rushed down the mountain height. She was terrifying in her extreme age! Coarse hair hung in matted tangles around her head, her joints were enlarged, and the dark skin, hard as the bark of a tree, covered her body with furrow upon furrow.

Potent and awe-inspiring, she advanced toward the Emperor. With one hand she clutched his wrist, with the other she pointed toward the distant East.

“Look!” she commanded, and the Emperor raised his eyes and saw. The vaulted heavens opened before his eyes, and his glance traveled to the distant Orient. He saw a lowly stable behind a steep rock wall, and in the open doorway a few shepherds kneeling. Within the stable he saw a young mother on her knees before a little child, who lay upon a bundle of straw on the floor.

And the sibyl’s big, knotty fingers pointed toward the poor babe. “Hail, Caesar!” cried the sibyl, in a burst of scornful laughter. “There is the god who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”

Then Augustus shrank back from her, as from a maniac. But upon the sibyl fell the mighty spirit of prophecy. Her dim eyes began to burn, her hands were stretched toward heaven, her voice was so changed that it seemed not to be her own, but rang out with such resonance and power that it could have been heard over the whole world. And she uttered words which she appeared to be reading among the stars.

“Upon Capitol Hill shall the Redeemer of the world be worshiped⁠—Christ⁠—but not frail mortals.”

When she had said this, she strode past the terror-stricken men, walked slowly down the mountain, and disappeared.

But, on the following day, Augustus strictly forbade the people to raise any temple to him on Capitol Hill. In place of it he built a sanctuary to the newborn Godchild, and called it Heaven’s Altar⁠—Ara Cœli.

The Wise Men’s Well

In old Judea the Drought crept, gaunt and hollow-eyed, between shrunken thistles and yellowed grass.

It was summertime. The sun beat down upon the backs of unshaded hills, and the slightest breath of wind tore up thick clouds of lime dust from the grayish-white ground. The herds stood huddled together in the valleys, by the dried-up streams.

The Drought walked about and viewed the water supplies. He wandered over to Solomon’s Pools, and sighed as he saw that they still held a small quantity of water from their mountain sources. Then he journeyed down to the famous David’s Well, near Bethlehem, and found water even there. Finally, he tramped with shuffling gait toward the great highway which leads from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.

When he had arrived about halfway, he saw the Wise Men’s Well, where it stands close by the roadside. He saw at a glance that it was almost dry. He seated himself on the curb, which consists of a single stone hollowed out, and looked into the well. The shining water-mirror, which usually was seen very near the opening, had sunk deep down, and the dirt and slime at the bottom of the well made it muddy and impure.

When the Well beheld the Drought’s bronzed visage reflected in her clouded mirror, she shook with anguish.

“I wonder when you will be exhausted,” said the Drought. “Surely, you do not expect to find any fresh water source, down there in the deep, to come and give you new life; and as for rain⁠—God be praised! there can be no question of that for the next two or three months.”

“You may rest content,” sighed the Well, “for nothing can help me now. It would take no less than a wellspring from Paradise to save me!”

“Then I will not forsake you until every drop has been drained,” said the Drought. He saw that the old Well was nearing its end, and now he wanted to have the pleasure of seeing it die out drop by drop.

He seated himself comfortably on the edge of the curb, and rejoiced as he heard how the Well sighed down there in the deep. He also took a keen delight in watching the thirsty wayfarers come up to the well-curb, let down the bucket, and draw it up again, with only a few drops of muddy water.

Thus the whole day passed; and when darkness descended, the Drought looked again into the Well. A little water still shimmered down there. “I’ll stay here all night,” cried he, “so do not hurry yourself! When it grows so light that I can look into you once more, I am certain that all will be over with you.”

The Drought curled himself up on the edge of the well-curb, while the hot night, which was even more cruel, and more full of torment than the day had been, descended over Judea. Dogs and jackals howled incessantly, and thirsty cows and asses answered them from their stuffy stalls.

When the breeze stirred a little now and then, it brought with it no relief, but was as hot and suffocating as a great sleeping monster’s panting breath. The stars shone with the most resplendent brilliancy, and a little silvery new moon cast a pretty blue-green light over the gray hills. And in this light the Drought saw a great caravan come marching toward the hill where the Wise Men’s Well was situated.

The Drought sat and gazed at the long procession, and rejoiced again at the thought of all the thirst which was coming to the well, and would not find one drop of water with which to slake itself. There were so many animals and drivers they could easily have emptied the Well, even if it had been quite full. Suddenly he began to think there was something unusual, something ghostlike, about this caravan which came marching forward in the night. First, all the camels came within sight on a hill, which loomed up, high and distinct, against the horizon; it was as though they had stepped straight down from heaven. They also appeared to be larger than ordinary camels, and bore⁠—all too lightly⁠—the enormous burdens which weighted them.

Still he could not understand anything but that they were absolutely real, for to him they were just as plain as plain could be. He could even see that the three foremost animals were dromedaries, with gray, shiny skins; and that they were richly bridled and saddled, with fringed coverings, and were ridden by handsome, noble-looking knights.

The whole procession stopped at the well. With three sharp jerks, the dromedaries lay down on the ground, and their riders dismounted. The pack-camels remained standing, and as they assembled they seemed to form a long line of necks and humps and peculiarly piled-up packs.

Immediately, the riders came up to the Drought and greeted him by laying their hands upon their foreheads and breasts. He saw that they wore dazzling white robes and huge turbans, on the front of each of which there was a clear, glittering star, which shone as if it had been taken direct from the skies.

“We come from a far-off land,” said one of the strangers, “and we bid thee tell us if this is in truth the Wise Men’s Well?”

“It is called so today,” said the Drought, “but by tomorrow there will be no well here. It shall die tonight.”

“I can understand this, as I see thee here,” said the man. “But is not this one of the sacred wells, which never run dry? or whence hath it derived its name?”

“I know it is sacred,” said the Drought, “but what good will that do? The three wise men are in Paradise.”

The three travelers exchanged glances. “Dost thou really know the history of this ancient well?” asked they.

“I know the history of all wells and fountains and brooks and rivers,” said the Drought, with pride.

“Then grant us a pleasure, and tell us the story!” begged the strangers; and they seated themselves around the old enemy to everything growing, and listened.

The Drought shook himself and crawled up on the well-curb, like a storyteller upon his improvised throne, and began his tale.

“In Gebas, in Media, a city which lies near the border of the desert⁠—and, therefore, it has often been a free and well-beloved city to me⁠—there lived, many, many years ago, three men who were famed for their wisdom.

“They were also very poor, which was a most uncommon state of affairs; for, in Gebas, knowledge was held in high esteem, and was well recompensed. With these men, however, it could hardly have been otherwise, for one of them was very old, one was afflicted with leprosy, and the third was a black, thick-lipped negro. People regarded the first as much too old to teach them anything; the second they avoided for fear of contagion; and the third they would not listen to, because they thought they knew that no wisdom had ever come from Ethiopia.

“Meanwhile, the three wise ones became united through their common misery. They begged during the day at the same temple gate, and at night they slept on the same roof. In this way they at least had an opportunity to while away the hours, by meditating upon all the wonderful things which they observed in Nature and in the human race.

“One night, as they slept side by side on a roof, which was overgrown with stupefying red poppies, the eldest among them awoke; and hardly had he cast a glance around him, before he wakened the other two.

“ ‘Praised be our poverty, which compels us to sleep in the open!’ he said to them. ‘Awake! and raise your eyes to heaven!’

“Well,” said the Drought, in a somewhat milder tone, “this was a night which no one who witnessed it can ever forget! The skies were so bright that the heavens, which usually resemble an arched vault, looked deep and transparent and full of waves, like a sea. The light surged backwards and forwards and the stars swam in their varying depths: some in among the light-waves; others upon the surface.

“But farthest away and highest up, the three men saw a faint shadow appear. This shadow traveled through space like a ball, and came nearer and nearer, and, as the ball approached, it began to brighten. But it brightened as roses do⁠—may God let them all wither!⁠—when they burst from their buds. It grew bigger and bigger, the dark cover about it turned back by degrees, and light broke forth on its sides into four distinct leaves. Finally, when it had descended to the nearest of the stars, it came to a standstill. Then the dark lobes curled themselves back and unfolded leaf upon leaf of beautiful, shimmering, rose-colored light, until it was perfect, and shone like a star among stars.

“When the poor men beheld this, their wisdom told them that at this moment a mighty king was born on earth: one, whose majesty and power should rise higher than that of Cyrus or of Alexander; and they said to one another: ‘Let us go to the father and mother of the newborn babe and tell them what we have seen! Mayhap they will reward us with a purse of coin or a bracelet of gold.’

“They grasped their long traveling staves and went forth. They wandered through the city and out from the city gate; but there they felt doubtful for a moment as they saw before them the great stretch of dry, smooth desert, which human beings dread. Then they saw the new star cast a narrow stream of light across the desert sand, and they wandered confidently forward with the star as their guide.

“All night long they tramped over the wide sand-plain, and throughout the entire journey they talked about the young, newborn king, whom they should find reposing in a cradle of gold, playing with precious stones. They whiled away the hours by talking over how they should approach his father, the king, and his mother, the queen, and tell them that the heavens augured for their son power and beauty and joy, greater than Solomon’s. They prided themselves upon the fact that God had called them to see the Star. They said to themselves that the parents of the newborn babe would not reward them with less than twenty purses of gold; perhaps they would give them so much gold that they no longer need suffer the pangs of poverty.

“I lay in wait on the desert like a lion,” said the Drought, “and intended to throw myself upon these wanderers with all the agonies of thirst, but they eluded me. All night the Star had led them, and on the morrow, when the heavens brightened and all the other stars grew pale, it remained steady and illumined the desert, and then guided them to an oasis where they found a spring and a ripe, fruit-bearing tree. There they rested all that day. And toward night, as they saw the Star’s rays border the sands, they went on.

“From the human way of looking at things,” continued the Drought, “it was a delightful journey. The Star led them in such a way that they did not have to suffer either hunger or thirst. It led them past the sharp thistles, it avoided the thick, loose, flying sand; they escaped the burning sunshine and the hot desert storms. The three wise men said repeatedly to one another: ‘God is protecting us and blessing our journey. We are His messengers.’

“Then, by degrees, they fell into my power,” said the Drought. “These star-wanderers’ hearts became transformed into as dry a desert as the one which they traveled through. They were filled with impotent pride and destructive greed.

“ ‘We are God’s messengers!’ repeated the three wise ones. ‘The father of the newborn king will not reward us too well, even if he gives us a caravan laden with gold.’

“By and by, the Star led them over the far-famed River Jordan, and up among the hills of Judea. One night it stood still over the little city of Bethlehem, which lay upon a hilltop, and shone among the olive trees.

“But the three wise ones looked around for castles and fortified towers and walls, and all the other things that belong to a royal city; but of such they saw nothing. And what was still worse, the Star’s light did not even lead them into the city, but remained over a grotto near the wayside. There, the soft light stole in through the opening and revealed to the three wanderers a little Child, who was being lulled to sleep in its mother’s arms.

“Although the three men saw how the Star’s light encircled the Child’s head, like a crown, they remained standing outside the grotto. They did not enter to prophesy honors and kingdoms for this little One. They turned away without betraying their presence. They fled from the Child, and wandered down the hill again.

“ ‘Have we come in search of beggars as poor as ourselves?’ said they. ‘Has God brought us hither that we might mock Him, and predict honors for a shepherd’s son? This Child will never attain any higher distinction than to tend sheep here in the valleys.’ ”

The Drought chuckled to himself and nodded to his hearers, as much as to say: “Am I not right? There are things which are drier than the desert sands, but there is nothing more barren than the human heart.”

“The three wise ones had not wandered very far before they thought they had gone astray and had not followed the Star rightly,” continued the Drought. “They turned their gaze upward to find again the Star, and the right road; but then the Star which they had followed all the way from the Orient had vanished from the heavens.”

The three strangers made a quick movement, and their faces expressed deep suffering.

“That which now happened,” continued the Drought, “is in accord with the usual manner of mankind in judging of what is, perhaps, a blessing.

“To be sure, when the three wise men no longer saw the Star, they understood at once that they had sinned against God.

“And it happened with them,” continued the Drought furiously, “just as it happens with the ground in the autumn, when the heavy rains begin to fall. They shook with terror, as one shakes when it thunders and lightens; their whole being softened, and humility, like green grass, sprang up in their souls.

“For three nights and days they wandered about the country, in quest of the Child whom they would worship; but the Star did not appear to them. They grew more and more bewildered, and suffered the most overwhelming anguish and despair. On the third day they came to this well to drink. Then God had pardoned their sin. And, as they bent over the water, they saw in its depths the reflection of the Star which had brought them from the Orient. Instantly they saw it also in the heavens and it led them again to the grotto in Bethlehem, where they fell upon their knees before the Child and said: ‘We bring thee golden vessels filled with incense and costly spices. Thou shalt be the greatest king that ever lived upon earth, from its creation even unto its destruction.’

“Then the Child laid his hand upon their lowered heads, and when they rose, lo! the Child had given them gifts greater than a king could have granted; for the old beggar had grown young, the leper was made whole, and the negro was transformed into a beautiful white man. And it is said of them that they were glorious! and that they departed and became kings⁠—each in his own kingdom.”

The Drought paused in his story, and the three strangers praised it. “Thou hast spoken well,” said they. “But it surprises me,” said one of them, “that the three wise men do nothing for the well which showed them the Star. Shall they entirely forget such a great blessing?”

“Should not this well remain perpetually,” said the second stranger, “to remind mankind that happiness, which is lost on the heights of pride and vainglory, will let itself be found again in the depths of humility?”

“Are the departed worse than the living?” asked the third. “Does gratitude die with those who live in Paradise?”

But as he heard this, the Drought sprang up with a wild cry. He had recognized the strangers! He understood who the strangers were, and fled from them like a madman, that he might not witness how The Three Wise Men called their servants and led their camels, laden with water-sacks, to the Well and filled the poor dying Well with water, which they had brought with them from Paradise.

Bethlehem’s Children

Just outside the Bethlehem gate stood a Roman soldier, on guard. He was arrayed in full armor, with helmet. At his side he wore a short sword, and held in his hand a long spear. He stood there all day almost motionless, so that one could readily have believed him to be a man made of iron. The city people went in and out of the gate and beggars lolled in the shade under the archway, fruit venders and wine dealers set their baskets and jugs down on the ground beside the soldier, but he scarcely took the trouble to turn his head to look at them.

It seemed as though he wanted to say: This is nothing to see. What do I care about you who labor and barter and come driving with oil casks and wine sacks! Let me see an army prepare to meet the enemy! Let me see the excitement and the hot struggle, when horsemen charge down upon a troop of foot-soldiers! Let me see the brave men who rush forward to scale the walls of a beleaguered city! Nothing is pleasing to my sight but war. I long to see the Roman Eagles glisten in the air! I long for the trumpets’ blast, for shining weapons, for the splash of red blood!

Just beyond the city gate lay a fine meadow, overgrown with lilies. Day by day the soldier stood with his eyes turned toward this meadow, but never for a moment did he think of admiring the extraordinary beauty of the flowers. Sometimes he noticed that the passersby stopped to admire the lilies, and it amazed him to think that people would delay their travels to look at anything so trivial. These people do not know what is beautiful, thought he.

And as he thought thus, he saw no more the green fields and olive groves round about Bethlehem; but dreamed himself away in a burning-hot desert in sunny Libya. He saw a legion of soldiers march forward in a long, straight line over the yellow, trackless sand. There was no protection against the sun’s piercing rays, no cooling stream, no apparent boundaries to the desert, and no goal in sight, no end to their wanderings. He saw soldiers, exhausted by hunger and thirst, march forward with faltering step; he saw one after another drop to the ground, overcome by the scorching heat. Nevertheless, they marched onward without a murmur, without a thought of deserting their leader and turning back.

Now, there is something beautiful! thought the soldier, something that is worth the glance of a valiant man!

Since the soldier stood on guard at the same post day after day, he had the best opportunity to watch the pretty children who played about him. But it was with the children as with the flowers: he didn’t understand that it could be worth his while to notice them. What is this to rejoice over? thought he, when he saw people smile as they watched the children’s games. It is strange that anyone can find pleasure in a mere nothing.

One day when the soldier was standing at his accustomed post, he saw a little boy about three years old come out on the meadow to play. He was a poor lad, who was dressed in a scanty sheepskin, and who played quite by himself. The soldier stood and regarded the newcomer almost without being aware of it himself. The first thing that attracted him was that the little one ran so lightly over the field that he seemed scarcely to touch the tips of the grass-blades. Later, as he followed the child’s play, he was even more astonished. “By my sword!” he exclaimed, “this child does not play like the others. What can it be that occupies him?”

As the child played only a few paces away, he could see well enough what the little one was doing. He saw how he reached out his hand to capture a bee that sat upon the edge of a flower and was so heavily laden with pollen that it could hardly lift its wings for flight. He saw, to his great surprise, that the bee let itself be taken without trying to escape, and without using its sting. When the little one held the bee secure between his fingers, he ran over to a crack in the city wall, where a swarm of bees had their home, and set the bee down. As soon as he had helped one bee in this way, he hastened back to help another. All day long the soldier saw him catch bees and carry them to their home.

“That boy is certainly more foolish than any I’ve seen hitherto,” thought the soldier. “What put it into his head to try and help these bees, who can take such good care of themselves without him, and who can sting him at that? What kind of a man will he become if he lives, I wonder?”

The little one came back day after day and played in the meadow, and the soldier couldn’t help marveling at him and his games.

“It is very strange,” thought he. “Here I have stood on guard for fully three years, and thus far I have seen nothing that could interest me, except this infant.”

But the soldier was in nowise pleased with the child; quite the reverse! For this child reminded him of a dreadful prediction made by an old Hebrew seer, who had prophesied that a time of peace should come to this world some day; during a period of a thousand years no blood would be shed, no wars waged, but human beings would love one another like brethren. When the soldier thought that anything so dreadful might really come to pass, a shudder passed through his body, and he gripped his spear hard, as if he sought support.

And now, the more the soldier saw of the little one and his play, the more he thought of the Thousand-year Reign of Peace. He did not fear that it had come already, but he did not like to be reminded of anything so hateful!

One day, when the little one was playing among the flowers on the pretty meadow, a very heavy shower came bursting through the clouds. When he noticed how big and heavy the drops were that beat down upon the sensitive lilies, he seemed anxious for his pretty friends. He hurried away to the biggest and loveliest among them, and bent towards the ground the stiff stalk which held up the lily, so that the raindrops caught the chalices on their under side. As soon as he had treated one flower like this, he ran to another and bent its stem in the same way, so that the flower-cups were turned toward the ground. And then to a third and a fourth, until all the flowers in the meadow were protected against the rainfall.

The soldier smiled to himself when he saw the boy’s work. “I’m afraid the lilies won’t thank him for this,” said he. “Naturally, every stalk is broken. It will never do to bend such stiff growths in that way!”

But when the shower was over, the soldier saw the little lad hurry over to the lilies and raise them up. To his utter astonishment, the boy straightened the stiff stalks without the least difficulty. It was apparent that not one of them was either broken or bruised. He ran from flower to flower, and soon all the rescued lilies shone in their full splendor in the meadow.

When the soldier saw this, he was seized with a singular rage. “What a queer child!” thought he. “It is incredible that he can undertake anything so idiotic. What kind of a man will he make, who cannot even bear to see a lily destroyed? How would it turn out if such a one had to go to war? What would he do if they ordered him to burn a house filled with women and children, or to sink a ship with all souls on board?”

Again he thought of the old prophecy, and he began to fear that the time had actually come for its fulfilment. “Since a child like this is here,” thought he, “perhaps this awful time is very close at hand. Already, peace prevails over the whole earth; and surely the day of war will nevermore dawn. From this time forth, all peoples will be of the same mind as this child: they will be afraid to injure one another, yea, they will not have the heart even to crush a bee or a flower! No great deeds will be done, no glorious battles won, and no brilliant triumvirate will march up to the Capitol. Nothing more will happen that a brave man could long for.”

And the soldier⁠—who all the while hoped he would soon live through new wars and longed, through daring feats, to raise himself to power and riches⁠—felt so exasperated with the little three-year-old that he raised his spear threateningly the next time the child ran past.

Another day it was neither the bees nor the lilies the little one sought to protect, but he undertook something which struck the soldier as being much more needless and thankless.

It was a fearfully hot day, and the sunrays fell upon the soldier’s helmet and armor and heated them until he felt as if he wore a suit of fire. To the passersby it looked as if he must suffer tortures from the heat. His bloodshot eyes were ready to burst from their sockets, and his lips were dry and shriveled. But as he was inured to the burning heat of African deserts, he thought this a mere trifle, and it didn’t occur to him to move from his accustomed place. On the contrary, he took pleasure in showing the passersby that he was so strong and hardy and did not need to seek shelter from the sun.

While he stood thus, and let himself be nearly broiled alive, the little boy who was wont to play in the meadow came suddenly up to him. He knew very well that the soldier was not one of his friends and so he was always careful not to come within reach of his spear; but now he ran up to him, and regarded him long and carefully; then he hurried as fast as he could towards the road. When he came back, he held both hands like a bowl, and carried in this way a few drops of water.

“Mayhap this infant has taken it upon himself to run and fetch water for me,” thought the soldier. “He is certainly wanting in common sense. Should not a Roman soldier be able to stand a little heat! What need for that youngster to run around and help those who require no help! I don’t want his compassion. I wish he and all like him were out of the world!”

The little one came walking very slowly. He held his fingers close together, so that nothing should be spilled or wasted. All the while, as he was nearing the soldier, he kept his eyes anxiously fixed upon the little water which he brought with him, and did not see that the man stood there frowning, with a forbidding look in his eye. Then the child came up to the soldier and offered him the water.

On the way his heavy blond curls had tumbled down over his forehead and eyes. He shook his head several times to get the hair out of his eyes, so that he could look up. When he succeeded at last, and became conscious of the hard expression on the soldier’s face, he was not frightened, but stood still and begged him, with a bewitching smile, to taste of the water which he had brought with him. But the soldier felt no desire to accept a kindness from the child, whom he regarded as his enemy. He did not look down into his pretty face, but stood rigid and immovable, and showed no sign that he understood what the child wished to do for him.

Nor could the child understand that the man wished to repel him. He smiled all the while just as confidently, raised himself on the tips of his toes, and stretched his hands as high as he could that the big soldier might more easily get at the water.

The soldier felt so insulted because a mere child wished to help him that he gripped his spear to drive the little one away.

But just at that moment the extreme heat and sunshine beat down upon the soldier with such intensity that he saw red flames dance before his eyes and felt his brains melt within his head. He feared the sun would kill him, if he could not find instant relief.

Beside himself with terror at the danger hovering over him, the soldier threw his spear on the ground, seized the child with both hands, lifted him up, and absorbed as much as he could of the water which the little one held in his hands.

Only a few drops touched his tongue, but more was not needed. As soon as he had tasted of the water, a delicious coolness surged through his body, and he felt no more that the helmet and armor burnt and oppressed him. The sunrays had lost their deadly power. His dry lips became soft and moist again, and red flames no longer danced before his eyes.

Before he had time to realize all this, he had already put down the child, who ran back to the meadow to play. Astonished, the soldier began to say to himself: “What kind of water was this that the child gave me? It was a glorious drink! I must really show him my gratitude.”

But inasmuch as he hated the little one, he soon dismissed this idea. “It is only a child,” thought he, “and does not know why he acts in this way or that way. He plays only the play that pleases him best. Does he perhaps receive any gratitude from the bees or the lilies? On that youngster’s account I need give myself no trouble. He doesn’t even know that he has succored me.”

The soldier felt, if possible, even more exasperated with the child a moment later, when he saw the commander of the Roman soldiers, who were encamped in Bethlehem, come out through the gate. “Just see what a risk I have run through that little one’s rash behavior!” thought he. “If by chance Voltigius had come a moment earlier, he would have seen me standing with a child in my arms.”

Meanwhile, the Commander walked straight up to the soldier and asked him if they might speak together there without danger of being overheard. He had a secret to impart to him. “If we move ten paces from the gate,” replied the soldier, “no one can hear us.”

“You know,” said the Commander, “that King Herod, time and again, has tried to get possession of a child that is growing up here in Bethlehem. His soothsayers and priests have told him that this child shall ascend his throne. Moreover, they have predicted that the new King will inaugurate a thousand-year reign of peace and holiness. You understand, of course, that Herod would willingly make him⁠—Harmless!”

“I understand!” said the soldier eagerly. “But that ought to be the easiest thing in the world.”

“It would certainly be very easy,” said the Commander, “if the King only knew which one of all the children here in Bethlehem is The One.”

The soldier knit his brows. “It is a pity his soothsayers can not enlighten him about this,” said he.

“But now Herod has hit upon a ruse, whereby he believes he can make the young Peace-Prince harmless,” continued the Commander. “He promises a handsome gift to each and all who will help him.”

“Whatsoever Voltigius commands shall be carried out, even without money or gifts,” said the soldier.

“I thank you,” replied the Commander. “Listen, now, to the King’s plan! He intends to celebrate the birthday of his youngest son by arranging a festival, to which all male children in Bethlehem, who are between the ages of two and three years, shall be bidden, together with their mothers. And during this festival⁠—” He checked himself suddenly, and laughed when he saw the look of disgust on the soldier’s face.

“My friend,” he continued, “you need not fear that Herod thinks of using us as child-nurses. Now bend your ear to my mouth, and I’ll confide to you his design.”

The Commander whispered long with the soldier, and when he had disclosed all, he said:

“I need hardly tell you that absolute silence is imperative, lest the whole undertaking miscarry.”

“You know, Voltigius, that you can rely on me,” said the soldier.

When the Commander had gone and the soldier once more stood alone at his post, he looked around for the child. The little one played all the while among the flowers, and the soldier caught himself thinking that the boy swayed above them as light and attractive as a butterfly.

Suddenly he began to laugh. “True,” said he, “I shall not have to vex myself very long over this child. He shall be bidden to the feast of Herod this evening.”

He remained at his post all that day, until the even was come, and it was time to close the city gate for the night.

When this was done, he wandered through narrow and dark streets, to a splendid palace which Herod owned in Bethlehem.

In the center of this immense palace was a large stone-paved court encircled by buildings, around which ran three open galleries, one above the other. The King had ordered that the festival for the Bethlehem children should be held on the uppermost of these galleries.

This gallery, by the King’s express command, was transformed so that it looked like a covered walk in a beautiful flower-garden. The ceiling was hidden by creeping vines hung with thick clusters of luscious grapes, and alongside the walls, and against the pillars stood small pomegranate trees, laden with ripe fruit. The floors were strewn with rose-leaves, lying thick and soft like a carpet. And all along the balustrades, the cornices, the tables, and the low divans, ran garlands of lustrous white lilies.

Here and there in this flower garden stood great marble basins where glittering gold and silver fish played in the transparent water. Multicolored birds from distant lands sat in the trees, and in a cage sat an old raven that chattered incessantly.

When the festival began children and mothers filed into the gallery. Immediately after they had entered the palace, the children were arrayed in white dresses with purple borders and were given wreaths of roses for their dark, curly heads. The women came in, regal, in their crimson and blue robes, and their white veils, which hung in long, loose folds from high-peaked headdresses, adorned with gold coins and chains. Some carried their children mounted upon their shoulders; others led their sons by the hand; some, again, whose children were afraid or shy, had taken them up in their arms.

The women seated themselves on the floor of the gallery. As soon as they had taken their places, slaves came in and placed before them low tables, which they spread with the choicest of foods and wines⁠—as befitting a King’s feast⁠—and all these happy mothers began to eat and drink, maintaining all the while that proud, graceful dignity, which is the greatest ornament of the Bethlehem women.

Along the farthest wall of the gallery, and almost hidden by flower-garlands and fruit trees, was stationed a double line of soldiers in full armor. They stood, perfectly immovable, as if they had no concern with that which went on around them. The women could not refrain from casting a questioning glance, now and then, at this troop of ironclad men. “For what are they needed here?” they whispered. “Does Herod think we women do not know how to conduct ourselves? Does he believe it is necessary for so many soldiers to guard us?”

But others whispered that this was as it should be in a King’s home. Herod himself never gave a banquet without having his house filled with soldiers. It was to honor them that the heavily armored warriors stood there on guard.

During the first few moments of the feast, the children felt timid and uncertain, and sat quietly beside their mothers. But soon they began to move about and take possession of all the good things which Herod offered them.

It was an enchanted land that the King had created for his little guests. When they wandered through the gallery, they found beehives whose honey they could pillage without the interference of a single crotchety bee. They found trees which, bending, lowered their fruit-laden branches down to them. In a corner they found magicians who, on the instant, conjured their pockets full of toys; and in another corner they discovered a wild-beast tamer who showed them a pair of tigers, so tame that they could ride them.

But in this paradise with all its joys there was nothing which so attracted the attention of these little ones as the long line of soldiers who stood immovable at the extreme end of the gallery. Their eyes were captivated by their shining helmets, their stern, haughty faces, and their short swords, which reposed in richly jeweled sheaths.

All the while, as they played and romped with one another, they thought continually about the soldiers. They still held themselves at a distance, but they longed to get near the men to see if they were alive and really could move themselves.

The play and festivities increased every moment, but the soldiers stood all the while immovable. It seemed incredible to the little ones that people could stand so near the clusters of grapes and all the other dainties, without reaching out a hand to take them.

Finally, there was one boy who couldn’t restrain his curiosity any longer. Slowly, but prepared for hasty retreat, he approached one of the armored men; and when he remained just as rigid and motionless, the child came nearer and nearer. At last he was so close to him that he could touch his shoe latchets and his shins.

Then⁠—as though this had been an unheard-of crime⁠—all at once these iron-men set themselves in motion. With indescribable fury they threw themselves upon the children, and seized them! Some swung them over their heads, like missiles, and flung them between lamps and garlands over the balustrade and down to the court, where they were killed the instant they struck the stone pavement. Others drew their swords and pierced the children’s hearts; others, again, crushed their heads against the walls before they threw them down into the dark courtyard.

The first moment after the onslaught, there was an ominous stillness. While the tiny bodies still swayed in the air, the women were petrified with amazement! But simultaneously all these unhappy mothers awoke to understand what had happened, and with one great cry they rushed toward the soldiers. There were still a few children left up in the gallery who had not been captured during the first attack. The soldiers pursued them and their mothers threw themselves in front of them and clutched with bare hands the naked swords, to avert the deathblow. Several women, whose children were already dead, threw themselves upon the soldiers, clutched them by the throat, and sought to avenge the death of their little ones by strangling their murderers.

During this wild confusion, while fearful shrieks rang through the palace, and the most inhuman death cruelties were being enacted, the soldier who was wont to stand on guard at the city gate stood motionless at the head of the stairs which led down from the gallery. He took no part in the strife and the murder: only against the women who had succeeded in snatching their children and tried to fly down the stairs with them did he lift his sword. And just the sight of him, where he stood, grim and inflexible, was so terrifying that the fleeing ones chose rather to cast themselves over the balustrade or turn back into the heat of the struggle, than risk the danger of crowding past him.

“Voltigius certainly did the right thing when he gave me this post,” thought the soldier. “A young and thoughtless warrior would have left his place and rushed into the confusion. If I had let myself be tempted away from here, ten children at least would have escaped.”

While he was thinking of this, a young woman, who had snatched up her child, came rushing towards him in hurried flight. None of the warriors whom she had to pass could stop her, because they were in the midst of the struggle with other women, and in this way she had reached the end of the gallery.

“Ah, there’s one who is about to escape!” thought the soldier. “Neither she nor the child is wounded.”

The woman came toward the soldier with such speed that she appeared to be flying, and he didn’t have time to distinguish the features of either the woman or her child. He only pointed his sword at them, and the woman, with the child in her arms, dashed against it. He expected that the next second both she and the child would fall to the ground pierced through and through.

But just then the soldier heard an angry buzzing over his head, and the next instant he felt a sharp pain in one eye. It was so intense that he was stunned, bewildered, and the sword dropped from his hand. He raised his hand to his eye and caught hold of a bee, and understood that that which caused this awful suffering was only the sting of the tiny creature. Quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked up his sword, in the hope that as yet it was not too late to intercept the runaways.

But the little bee had done its work very well.

During the short time that the soldier was blinded, the young mother had succeeded in rushing past him and down the stairs; and although he hurried after her with all haste, he could not find her. She had vanished; and in all that great palace there was no one who could discover any trace of her.

The following morning, the soldier, together with several of his comrades, stood on guard, just within the city gate. The hour was early, and the city gates had only just been opened. But it appeared as though no one had expected that they would be opened that morning; for no throngs of field laborers streamed out of the city, as they usually did of a morning. All the Bethlehem inhabitants were so filled with terror over the night’s bloodshed that no one dared to leave his home.

“By my sword!” said the soldier, as he stood and stared down the narrow street which led toward the gate, “I believe Voltigius has made a stupid blunder. It would have been better had he kept the gates closed and ordered a thorough search of every house in the city, until he had found the boy who managed to escape from the feast. Voltigius expects that his parents will try to get him away from here as soon as they learn that the gates are open. I fear this is not a wise calculation. How easily they could conceal a child!”

He wondered if they would try to hide the child in a fruit basket or in some huge oil cask, or amongst the grain-bales of a caravan.

While he stood there on the watch for any attempt to deceive him in this way, he saw a man and a woman who came hurriedly down the street and were nearing the gate. They walked rapidly and cast anxious looks behind them, as though they were fleeing from some danger. The man held an ax in his hand with a firm grip, as if determined to fight should anyone bar his way. But the soldier did not look at the man as much as he did at the woman. He thought that she was just as tall as the young mother who got away from him the night before. He observed also that she had thrown her skirt over her head. “Perhaps she wears it like this,” thought he, “to conceal the fact that she holds a child on her arm.”

The nearer they approached, the plainer he saw the child which the woman bore on her arm outlined under the raised robe. “I’m positive it is the one who got away last night. I didn’t see her face, but I recognize the tall figure. And here she comes now, with the child on her arm, and without even trying to keep it concealed. I had not dared to hope for such a lucky chance,” said the soldier to himself.

The man and woman continued their rapid pace all the way to the city gate. Evidently, they had not anticipated being intercepted here. They trembled with fright when the soldier leveled his spear at them, and barred their passage.

“Why do you refuse to let us go out in the fields to our work?” asked the man.

“You may go presently,” said the soldier, “but first I must see what your wife has hidden behind her robe.”

“What is there to see?” said the man. “It is only bread and wine, which we must live upon today.”

“You speak the truth, perchance,” said the soldier, “but if it is as you say, why does she turn away? Why does she not willingly let me see what she carries?”

“I do not wish that you shall see it,” said the man, “and I command you to let us pass!”

With this he raised his ax, but the woman laid her hand on his arm.

“Enter thou not into strife!” she pleaded. “I will try some other way. I shall let him see what I bear, and I know that he can not harm it.” With a proud and confident smile she turned toward the soldier, and threw back a fold of her robe.

Instantly the soldier staggered back and closed his eyes, as if dazed by a strong light. That which the woman held concealed under her robe reflected such a dazzling white light that at first he did not know what he saw.

“I thought you held a child on your arm,” he said.

“You see what I hold,” the woman answered.

Then the soldier finally saw that that which dazzled and shone was only a cluster of white lilies, the same kind that grew in the meadow; but their luster was much richer and more radiant. He could hardly bear to look at them.

He stuck his hand in among the flowers. He couldn’t help thinking that it must be a child the woman carried, but he felt only the cool flower-petals.

He was bitterly deceived, and in his wrath he would gladly have taken both the man and the woman prisoners, but he knew that he could give no reason for such a proceeding.

When the woman saw his confusion, she said: “Will you not let us go now?”

The soldier quietly lowered the spear and stepped aside.

The woman drew her robe over the flowers once more, and at the same time she looked with a sweet smile upon that which she bore on her arm. “I knew that you could not harm it, did you but see it,” she said to the soldier.

With this, they hastened away; and the soldier stood and stared after them as long as they were within sight.

While he followed them with his eyes, he almost felt sure that the woman did not carry on her arm a cluster of lilies, but an actual, living child.

While he still stood and stared after the wanderers, he heard loud shouts from the street. It was Voltigius, with several of his men, who came running.

“Stop them!” they cried. “Close the gates on them! Don’t let them escape!”

And when they came up to the soldier, they said that they had tracked the runaway boy. They had sought him in his home, but then he had escaped again. They had seen his parents hasten away with him. The father was a strong, gray-bearded man who carried an ax; the mother was a tall woman who held a child concealed under a raised robe.

The same moment that Voltigius related this, there came a Bedouin riding in through the gate on a good horse. Without a word, the soldier rushed up to the rider, jerked him down off the horse and threw him to the ground, and, with one bound, jumped into the saddle and dashed away toward the road.

Two days later, the soldier rode forward through the dreary mountain-desert, which is the whole southern part of Judea. All the while he was pursuing the three fugitives from Bethlehem, and he was beside himself because the fruitless hunt never came to an end.

“It looks, forsooth, as though these creatures had the power to sink into the earth,” he grumbled. “How many times during these days have I not been so close to them that I’ve been on the point of throwing my spear at the child, and yet they have escaped me! I begin to think that I shall never catch up with them.”

He felt despondent, like one who believes he is struggling against some superior power. He asked himself if it might not be possible that the gods protected these people against him.

“This trouble is in vain. Let me turn back before I perish from hunger and thirst in this barren land!” he said to himself, again and again. Then he was seized with fear of that which awaited him on his homecoming, should he turn back without having accomplished his mission.

Twice he had permitted the child to escape, and neither Voltigius nor Herod would pardon him for anything of the kind.

“As long as Herod knows that one of the Bethlehem children still lives, he will always be haunted by the same anxiety and dread,” said the soldier. “Most likely he will try to ease his worries by nailing me to a cross.”

It was a hot noonday hour, and he suffered tortures from the ride through this mountain district on a road which wound around steep cliffs where no breeze stirred. Both horse and rider were ready to drop.

Several hours before he had lost every trace of the fugitives, and he felt more disheartened than ever.

“I must give it up,” thought he. “I verily believe it is time wasted to pursue them further. They must perish anyway in this awful wilderness.”

As he thought this, he discovered, in a mountain-wall near the roadside, the vaulted entrance to a grotto.

Immediately he rode up to the opening. “I will rest a while in this cool mountain cave,” thought he. “Then, mayhap, I can continue the pursuit with renewed strength.”

As he was about to enter, he was struck with amazement! On each side of the opening grew a beautiful lily. The two stalks stood there tall and erect and full of blossoms. They sent forth an intoxicating odor of honey, and many bees buzzed around them.

It was such an uncommon sight in this wilderness that the soldier did something extraordinary. He broke off a large white flower and took it with him into the cave.

The cave was neither deep nor dark, and as soon as he entered he saw that there were already three travelers within: a man, a woman, and a child, who lay stretched out upon the ground, lost in deep slumber.

The soldier had never before felt his heart beat as it did at this vision. They were the three runaways whom he had hunted so long. He recognized them instantly. And here they lay sleeping, unable to defend themselves and wholly in his power.

He drew his sword quickly and bent over the sleeping child.

Cautiously he lowered the sword toward the infant’s heart, and measured carefully, in order to kill with a single thrust.

He paused an instant to look at the child’s countenance. Now, when he was certain of victory, he felt a grim pleasure in beholding his victim.

But when he saw the child his joy increased, for he recognized the little boy whom he had seen play with bees and lilies in the meadow beyond the city gate.

“Why, of course I should have understood this all the time!” thought he. “This is why I have always hated the child. This is the pretended Prince of Peace.”

He lowered his sword again while he thought: “When I lay this child’s head at Herod’s feet, he will make me Commander of his Life Guard.”

As he brought the point of the sword nearer and nearer the heart of the sleeping child, he reveled in the thought: “This time, at least, no one shall come between us and snatch him from my power.”

But the soldier still held in his hand the lily which he had broken off at the grotto entrance; and while he was thinking of his good fortune, a bee that had been hidden in its chalice flew towards him and buzzed around his head.

He staggered back. Suddenly he remembered the bees which the boy had carried to their home, and he remembered that it was a bee that had helped the child escape from Herod’s feast. This thought struck him with surprise. He held the sword suspended, and stood still and listened for the bee.

Now he did not hear the tiny creature’s buzzing. As he stood there, perfectly still, he became conscious of the strong, delicious perfume which came from the lily that he held in his hand.

Then he began to think of the lilies that the little one had saved; he remembered that it was a cluster of lilies that had hidden the child from his view and made possible the escape through the city gate.

He became more and more thoughtful, and he drew back the sword.

“The bees and the lilies have requited his good deeds,” he whispered to himself. Then he was struck by the thought that the little one had once shown even him a kindness, and a deep crimson flush mounted to his brow.

“Can a Roman soldier forget to requite an accepted service?” he whispered.

He fought a short battle with himself. He thought of Herod, and of his own desire to destroy the young Peace-Prince.

“It does not become me to murder this child who has saved my life,” he said, at last.

And he bent down and laid his sword beside the child, that the fugitives on awakening should understand the danger they had escaped.

Then he saw that the child was awake. He lay and regarded the soldier with the beautiful eyes which shone like stars.

And the warrior bent a knee before the child.

“Lord, thou art the Mighty One!” said he. “Thou art the strong Conqueror! Thou art He whom the gods love! Thou art He who shall tread upon adders and scorpions!”

He kissed his feet and stole softly out from the grotto, while the little one smiled and smiled after him with great, astonished child-eyes.

The Flight Into Egypt

Far away in one of the Eastern deserts many, many years ago grew a palm tree, which was both exceedingly old and exceedingly tall.

All who passed through the desert had to stop and gaze at it, for it was much larger than other palms; and they used to say of it, that some day it would certainly be taller than the obelisks and pyramids.

Where the huge palm tree stood in its solitude and looked out over the desert, it saw something one day which made its mighty leaf-crown sway back and forth on its slender trunk with astonishment. Over by the desert borders walked two human beings. They were still at the distance at which camels appear to be as tiny as moths; but they were certainly two human beings⁠—two who were strangers in the desert; for the palm knew the desert-folk. They were a man and a woman who had neither guide nor pack-camels; neither tent nor water-sack.

“Verily,” said the palm to itself, “these two have come hither only to meet certain death.”

The palm cast a quick, apprehensive glance around.

“It surprises me,” it said, “that the lions are not already out to hunt this prey, but I do not see a single one astir; nor do I see any of the desert robbers, but they’ll probably soon come.”

“A sevenfold death awaits these travelers,” thought the palm. “The lions will devour them, thirst will parch them, the sandstorm will bury them, robbers will trap them, sunstroke will blight them, and fear will destroy them.”

And the palm tried to think of something else. The fate of these people made it sad at heart.

But on the whole desert plain, which lay spread out beneath the palm, there was nothing which it had not known and looked upon these thousand years. Nothing in particular could arrest its attention. Again it had to think of the two wanderers.

“By the drought and the storm!” said the palm, calling upon Life’s most dangerous enemies. “What is that that the woman carries on her arm? I believe these fools also bring a little child with them!”

The palm, who was farsighted⁠—as the old usually are⁠—actually saw aright. The woman bore on her arm a child, that leaned against her shoulder and slept.

“The child hasn’t even sufficient clothing on,” said the palm. “I see that the mother has tucked up her skirt and thrown it over the child. She must have snatched him from his bed in great haste and rushed off with him. I understand now: these people are runaways.

“But they are fools, nevertheless,” continued the palm. “Unless an angel protects them, they would have done better to have let their enemies do their worst, than to venture into this wilderness.

“I can imagine how the whole thing came about. The man stood at his work; the child slept in his crib; the woman had gone out to fetch water. When she was a few steps from the door, she saw enemies coming. She rushed back to the house, snatched up her child, and fled.

“Since then, they have been fleeing for several days. It is very certain that they have not rested a moment. Yes, everything has happened in this way, but still I say that unless an angel protects them⁠—

“They are so frightened that, as yet, they feel neither fatigue nor suffering. But I see their thirst by the strange gleam in their eyes. Surely I ought to know a thirsty person’s face!”

And when the palm began to think of thirst, a shudder passed through its tall trunk, and the long leaves’ numberless lobes rolled up, as though they had been held over a fire.

“Were I a human being,” it said, “I should never venture into the desert. He is pretty brave who dares come here without having roots that reach down to the never-dying water veins. Here it can be dangerous even for palms; yea, even for a palm such as I.

“If I could counsel them, I should beg them to turn back. Their enemies could never be as cruel toward them as the desert. Perhaps they think it is easy to live in the desert! But I know that, now and then, even I have found it hard to keep alive. I recollect one time in my youth when a hurricane threw a whole mountain of sand over me. I came near choking. If I could have died that would have been my last moment.”

The palm continued to think aloud, as the aged and solitary habitually do.

“I hear a wondrously beautiful melody rush through my leaves,” it said. “All the lobes on my leaves are quivering. I know not what it is that takes possession of me at the sight of t