From a Swedish Homestead
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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 highroad 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 watch-dog 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 ant-hill, where the ants, unmolested, went to and fro – to and fro. He looked at the flower-beds 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 skull-cap 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 hay-loft 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.
From a Swedish
Homestead
IX
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 grave-digger, 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.