It so happened that the Munkerud judge and his wife, who had been at a banquet at Bro parsonage, came riding past Berga farm about two o’clock in the morning and saw a light burning in the window of the guest room. They saw the yellow flame and the white light clearly, and later they told about this surprising light that had burned in the summer night.
Then the happy girls at Berga laughed and said that the judge and his wife had been seeing things, for they had run out of tallow candles at their house; they were already used up in March. Then the captain swore that no one had stayed in the guest room for days and weeks. But the captain’s wife kept quiet and turned pale, for this white light with the clear flame used to show itself when someone in her family would be delivered by Death, Death the liberator.
Shortly thereafter, one day in radiant August, Ferdinand came home from the surveying service in the northern forests. He arrived pale and sick with an incurable ache lodged in his lungs, and as soon as the captain’s wife saw him, she knew that her son must die.
So he would pass away, this good son who had never given his parents any sorrow. The young man would leave the sweetness and joy of the earth and the beautiful, beloved bride who awaited him, and the rich estates, the thundering hammers, which would have been his.
Finally, when my pale friend had waited one lunar cycle, he plucked up courage and approached the house one night. He thought about how hunger and need had been met there by happy faces; why shouldn’t he too be received with joy?
He came slowly up the sand path, casting a dark shadow across the lawn, where the dewdrops shone in the moonbeams. He did not come as a happy harvester with flowers in his hat and his arm around a girl’s waist. He walked hunched over like a worn-out invalid and held the scythe concealed in the folds of his cloak, while owls and bats fluttered around him.
In the night the captain’s wife, who was awake, heard knocking at the windowsill, and she sat up in bed and asked, “Who is knocking?”
And the old ones tell that Death answered her, “It is Death who is knocking.”
Then she got up, opened her window, and saw bats and owls fluttering in the moonlight, but Death she did not see.
“Come,” she said in a half whisper, “friend and liberator! Why have you waited so long? I have waited, I have called. Come and deliver my son!”
Then Death slipped into the house, happy as a poor deposed monarch who in the decrepitude of old age gets back his crown, happy as a child when it is called to play.
The next day the captain’s wife was sitting by her son’s sickbed and spoke with him about the blessedness of emancipated spirits and their splendid lives.
“They labor,” she said, “they work. What artists, my son, what artists! When you are among them, tell me, what will you become then? One of those sculptors without a chisel, who creates roses and lilies, one of the masters of sunset glow. And when the sun goes down at its fairest, I will sit and think: Ferdinand has done this.
“My dear boy, just think, so much to see, so much to do! Think about all the seeds that will be awakened to life in spring, the storms that will be guided, the dreams that will be sent! And think about those long journeys through space from world to world!
“Remember me, boy of mine, when you get to see so much that is lovely. Your poor mother has never seen anything other than Värmland.
“But one day you will stand before our Lord and ask him to let you have one of the small worlds that roll around in space, and he will give it to you. When you get it, it is cold and dark, full of chasms and cliffs, and there are neither flowers nor animals. But you work on that star, which God has given you. You bring light and heat and air there, you bring herbs and nightingales and clear-eyed gazelles there, you let rapids rush down into the chasms, you raise up mountains and sow the plains with the red dest roses. And when I die, Ferdinand, when my soul trembles before the long journey and fears being separated from known regions, then you sit waiting outside the window in a carriage harnessed with birds of paradise, in a glistening golden coach, my Ferdinand.
“And my poor, worried soul will be taken up in your carriage and be placed by your side, honored like a queen. Then we drive through space past the shimmering worlds, and when we come close to these heavenly estates and they become more and more splendid, then I, who don’t know any better, ask, ‘Shouldn’t we stay here, or here?’
“But you laugh silently to yourself and urge on the team of birds. At last we come to the smallest of the worlds, but the loveliest of all I have seen, and there we stop outside a golden palace, and you let me enter into the eternal home of delight.
“There the storehouses are filled, and the bookcases. The spruce forest does not stand there, like here at Berga, covering up the lovely world; instead I look out over wide seas and sunny plains, and a thousand years are like a day.”
Then Ferdinand died, charmed by sweet visions, smiling at the magnificence to come.
My pale friend, Death the liberator, had never been involved in anything so sweet. For of course there were those who wept at Ferdinand Uggla’s deathbed, but the sick man himself smiled at the man with the scythe when he took his place at the bedside, and his mother listened for the death rattles as if for sweet music. She trembled that Death might not be able to complete his task, and when all was over, tears came from her eyes, but they were tears of joy that fell on her son’s rigid face.
Never had my pale friend been so celebrated as at Ferdinand Uggla’s burial. If he had dared to show himself, he would have come in a feather-adorned beret and gold-stitched robe and danced ahead of the funeral procession up the cemetery path, but now he sat, old and lonely, curled up on the cemetery wall with his old, black coat on and watched the procession arrive.
Oh, that was a curious funeral! Sun and light clouds made the day happy, long rows of rye shocks adorned the fields, the astrakhans in the parsonage orchard shone transparent and clear, and in the rosarium outside the parish clerk’s residence were showy dahlias and carnations.
It was a curious funeral procession that advanced between the lindens. Ahead of the flower-bedecked casket walked beautiful children, strewing flowers. No mourning clothes were to be seen, no crepe, no white wing collars with broad hems, for she, the captain’s wife, did not want someone who had died happy to be conveyed into the good sanctuary by a gloomy funeral procession, but instead by a glittering wedding procession.
Next after the casket came Anna Stjärnhök, the dead man’s lovely, radiant bride. She had placed the bridal crown on her head, hung the bridal veil over her, and dressed in a trailing bridal gown of white, rustling silk. Thus adorned, she went to be wed at the grave to a decaying bridegroom.
After her they came two by two, tall old ladies and stately men. The splendid, shining ladies came with dazzling clasps and brooches, with milk white pearl necklaces and gold bracelets. The plumes in their turbans were raised high over the cannon curls with silk and lace, and from their shoulders floated the thin, silk-woven shawls, which they had once received as a wedding gift, down over dresses of gaudy silk. And the men came in their best finery, with swelling ruffles, in high-collared tailcoats with gilded buttons and in vests of stiff brocade or richly embroidered velvet. This was a wedding procession; thus had the captain’s wife wanted it.
She herself came next after Anna Stjärnhök, led by her husband. If she had owned a dress of shining brocade, she would have worn it; if she had owned jewelry and a shining turban, she would also have worn them to honor her son on his festival day. But she only owned this black taffeta gown and its yellowed lace, which had seen so many parties, and she wore them to this one too.
Although the funeral guests came with pomp and splendor, there was likewise not a dry eye as they proceeded up to the grave while the bells rang quietly. Men and women wept, not so much for the dead man but for themselves. See, there went the bride, there the bridegroom was carried, there they themselves walked, dressed up for a banquet, and yet—is there anyone who tra
mps the verdant paths of earth and does not know that he is destined for grief, for sorrow, for misfortune, for death? They walked and wept at the thought that no earthly thing would be able to protect them.
The captain’s wife did not weep, but she was the only one whose eyes were dry.
When the prayers had been said and the grave filled in, they all went from there to the carriages. Only the captain’s wife and Anna Stjärnhök lingered at the grave to offer the dead man a final farewell. The old woman sat down on the grave mound, and Anna took a seat by her side.
“Look,” said the captain’s wife, “I have said to God: ‘Let Death the liberator come and take away my son, let him take away the one I love the most to the peace of the quiet places, and no tears other than those of joy will come from my eyes. I want to accompany him with wedding pomp to his grave, and I will move my red rosebush, rich with blossoms, which stands outside my bedroom window, out to him at the churchyard.’ And now it is so: my son is dead. I have greeted Death as a friend, called him by the sweetest names, I have wept tears of joy over my son’s rigid face, and in autumn, when the leaves have fallen, I will move my red rosebush here. But do you, who are sitting here by my side, know why I have sent such prayers to God?”
She looked questioningly at Anna Stjärnhök, but the girl sat silent and pale beside her. Perhaps she struggled to deaden inner voices that already began whispering to her, there by the dead man’s grave mound, that now she was finally free.
“The fault is yours,” said the captain’s wife.
Then the girl collapsed as though struck by a club. She did not answer a word.
“Anna Stjärnhök, you were once proud and self-willed. Then you played with my son, took him, and rejected him. What was there to do? He had to accept it, as others did. Perhaps also because he and all of us loved your money as much as you. But you came back, you came with blessing to our home, you were gentle and meek, strong and good when you came back. You cherished us with love, you made us so happy, Anna Stjärnhök, and we poor people were lying at your feet.
“And yet, yet I wished that you had not come. Then I would not have had to pray to God to shorten my son’s life. Last Christmas he could have endured losing you, but since he came to know you, the way you are now, he did not have the strength for it.
“Know this, Anna Stjärnhök, who today have put on your bridal gown to accompany my son, that if he had lived, then you would never have been allowed to follow him in that garb to Bro church, because you did not love him.
“I saw it: you came only out of compassion, because you wanted to ease our hard lot. You didn’t love him. Don’t you think I know love, that I see it wherever it is, and understand when it is lacking? Then I thought: may God take my son’s life, before he has his eyes opened!
“Oh, if only you had loved him! Oh, if only you had never come to us and sweetened our life, when you didn’t love him! I knew my duty. If he had not died, I would have had to say to him that you didn’t love him, that you wanted to marry him because you were compassion itself. I would have had to force him to set you free, and then his life’s happiness would have been wasted. Do you see, that is why I prayed to God that he would get to die, so that I would not need to disturb the calm of his heart. And I have been happy about his sunken cheeks, delighted in his rattling breath, trembled that Death might not complete his task.”
She fell silent and wanted for a reply, but Anna Stjärnhök could not yet speak; she was still listening to the many voices in the depths of her soul.
Then the captain’s wife burst out in despair, “Oh, how fortunate they are, who can mourn their dead, those who are able to weep rivers of tears! I must stand with dry eyes at my son’s grave, I must be happy about his death. How unfortunate I am!”
Then Anna Stjärnhök pressed her hands hard against her breast. She recalled the winter night when she had sworn by her young love to be the support and consolation of these poor people, and she trembled. Had all that been in vain then, was her sacrifice not one of those that God accepts? Would it all be turned into a curse?
But if she sacrificed everything, would not God then give his blessing to the work and let her become a bringer of happiness, a support, a help to people?
“What is required for you to grieve for your son?” she asked.
“What is required is that I should no longer believe the evidence of my old eyes. If I thought you loved my son, then I would grieve over his death.”
Then the girl got up with eyes burning with rapture. She tore off the bridal veil and spread it out over the grave; she tore off the wreath and crown and set them alongside.
“See now how I love him!” she called out. “I give him my crown and veil. I am wed to him. Never will I belong to another.”
Then the captain’s wife also got up. She stood silently awhile, all of her body shaking, and her face twisted, but finally came the tears, the tears of sorrow.
But my pale friend, Death the liberator, shuddered when he saw those tears. So he had not really been greeted with happiness, not even here had they rejoiced in their hearts over him.
He pulled the cowl far down over his face, slipped slowly down from the churchyard wall, and vanished between the rye shocks of the fields.
CHAPTER 29
DROUGHT
If dead things love, if earth and water divide friends from enemies, I would gladly own their love. I would like the green earth not to feel my steps as a heavy burden. I wish that she would gladly forgive that for my sake she was wounded with plow and harrow, and that she would willingly open herself for my dead body. And I would like the wave, whose bright mirror is shattered by my oars, to have the same patience with me that a mother has with an eager child, when it climbs up on her lap without paying heed to the unwrinkled silk of the special-occasion dress. I would be friends with the clear air that quivers over the blue hills and with the glistening sun and the beautiful stars. For it often seems to me as if dead things feel and suffer with the living. The barrier between them and us is not as great as people think. What part of the earth’s matter is there that has not been part of the cycle of life? Hasn’t the drifting dust of the road been caressed as soft hair, loved as good, benevolent hands? Hasn’t the water in the waterwheel flowed in bygone days as blood through beating hearts?
The spirit of life still lives in dead things. What does he sense, where he slumbers in dreamless sleep? The voice of God he hears. Does he also take note of the human?
Oh, latter-day children, haven’t you seen it? When discord and hatred fill the earth, then dead things too must suffer greatly. Then the wave becomes wild and rapacious as a robber, then the field becomes barren as a miser. But woe to anyone for whose sake the forest sighs and the hills weep!
That year, when the cavaliers ruled, was peculiar. It seemed to me as if the people’s anxiety must have disturbed the peace of dead things. How should I depict the contagion that then spread across the land? Should we not believe that the cavaliers were the parish gods, and that everything was animated by their spirit? The spirit of adventure, carefreeness, wildness.
If everything that went on among the people on Löven’s shore that year could be told, then a world would be astonished. For then old love awakened, then new love was ignited. Then old hatred flared up, and long-nurtured revenge seized its prey. Then everyone rose up in desire for the sweetness of life: they grasped at dance and games, play and drink. Then all that was most inwardly concealed in their souls was revealed.
This contagion of anxiety emanated from Ekeby. It first spread to the ironworks and the estates and drove people to misfortune and sin. We have been able to follow it thus far to some degree, because the old people preserved memories of the events at some of the large estates, but we know little of how it spread further among the people. No one should doubt, however, that the anxiety of the age passed from village to village, from hut to hut. Where a vice was concealed, it had its eruption; where there was a fissure between woman and man,
it turned into a chasm; where a great virtue or strong will was concealed, it too must emerge. For not all that occurred was bad, though the times were such that the good was often as ruinous as the bad. It was as with great windfalls deep in the forest, where tree falls over tree, pine draws pine with it, and even the undergrowth is torn apart by falling giants.
Do not doubt that madness spread among farmers and servants! Everywhere hearts became wild and brains confused. Never was the dance so merry at the crossroads, never was the beer keg emptied so quickly, never was so much grain thrown into the distilling kettle. Never were the banquets so many, never was there a shorter path between the angry word and the sting of the knife.
But anxiety did not stop among people. It spread to all living things. Never had wolf and bear ravaged more severely, never had fox and owl howled more gruesomely, never did the sheep go astray more often in the forest, never did so much illness rage among the costly livestock.
Anyone who wishes to see the context of things must go away from cities and live in a solitary hut at the forest edge. If he must guard the charcoal pile night after night or live out on the long lakes day and night during a light summer month, while the log raft makes its slow journey to Vänern, then he must learn to pay heed to all the signs in nature and understand how dead things depend on the living. He must see that when there is anxiety on the earth, the peace of the dead things is disturbed. The people know that. It is in such times that the wood nymph puts out the charcoal pile, the sea witch breaks apart the boat, the water sprite sends sickness, the gnome starves the cow. And so it was this year. Never had the spring floods ravaged so severely. Ekeby mill and smithy were not their only victims. Small rivers, which in bygone days, when spring had given them strength, at the most would have been able to carry off an empty barn, now went on the attack against entire farms and washed them away. Never had the thunder been heard to do so much damage even before midsummer—after midsummer she was no longer heard. Then came the drought.