Lagerlöf Selma
From a Swedish Homestead
From a Swedish
Homestead
VI
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 arm-chair. 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.
From a Swedish
Homestead
VII
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 bath-house 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 bath-house, 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 wood-shed 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 bath-house 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 bath-house 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 bath-houses 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 clear-headed 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; house-cleaning 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.
