Lagerlöf Selma
Jerusalem
"Come out here and look after the boy!" Elof shouted to Karin, "and carry him in. The poor brat's as full as a tick, and can't walk a step."
Karin was so shocked that she almost collapsed. She was obliged to sit down on the steps for a moment, to recover herself, before she could lift the boy. The minute she took hold of him she discovered that he was not really asleep, but stiff from the cold, and unconscious. Taking the boy in her arms, she carried him into the bedroom, locked the door after her, and tried to bring him to. After a while she stepped into the living-room, where Elof sat eating his breakfast. She walked straight up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"You'd better lay in a good meal while you're about it," she said, "for if you have made my brother drink himself to death, you'll soon have to put up with poorer fare than you're getting on the Ingmar Farm."
"How you talk! As if a little brandy could hurt him!"
"Mark what I say! If the boy dies, you'll get twenty years in prison, Elof."
When Karin returned to the bedroom, the boy had come out of his stupor, but was delirious and unable to move hand or foot. He suffered agonies.
"Do you think I'm going to die, Karin?" he moaned.
"No, dear, of course not," Karin assured him.
"I didn't know what they were giving me."
"Thank God for that!" said Karin fervently.
"If I die, write to my sisters and tell them I didn't know it was liquor," wailed the boy.
"Yes, dear," soothed Karin.
"Really and truly I didn't know – I swear it!"
All day Ingmar lay in a raging fever. "Please don't tell father about it!" he raved.
"Father will never know of it," she said.
"But suppose I die, then father would surely find it out, and I would be shamed before him."
"But it wasn't your fault, child."
"Maybe father will think that I shouldn't have taken what Elof offered me? Don't you suppose the whole parish must know that I have been full?" he asked. "What do the hired men say, and what does old Lisa say, and Strong Ingmar?"
"They're not saying anything," Karin replied.
"You will have to tell them how it happened. We were at the tavern in Karmsund, where Elof and some of his pals had been drinking the whole night. I was sitting in a corner on a bench, half asleep, when Elof came over and roused me. 'Wake up, Ingmar,' he said very pleasantly, 'and I'll give you something that will make you warm. Drink this,' he urged, holding a glass to my lips. 'It's only hot water with a little sugar in it.' I was shivering with the cold when I awoke and, as I drank the stuff, I only noticed that it was hot and sweet. But he had gone and mixed something strong with it! Oh, what will father say?"
Then Karin opened the door leading to the living-room, where Elof still lingered over his meal. She felt that it would be well for him to hear this.
"If only father were living, Karin, if only father were living!"
"What then, Ingmar?"
"Don't you think he'd kill him?"
Elof broke into a loud laugh, and when the boy heard him, he turned so pale with fright that Karin promptly closed the door again.
It had this good effect upon Elof, at all events: he put up no objection when Karin decided to take the boy to Storm's school.
***
Soon after Halvor had received the watch, his shop was always full of people. Every farmer in the parish, when in town, would stop at Halvor's shop in order to hear the story of Big Ingmar's watch. The peasants in their long white fur coats stood hanging over the counter by the hour, their solemn, furrowed faces turned toward Halvor as he talked to them. Sometimes he would take out the watch, and show them the dented case and the cracked face.
"So it was there the blow caught him," the peasants would say. And they seemed to see before them what had happened when Big Ingmar was hurt. "It is a great thing for you, Halvor, to have that watch!"
When Halvor was showing the watch he would never let it out of his hands, but would always keep a tight grip on the chain.
One day Halvor stood talking to a group of peasants, telling them the usual story, and at the climax the watch was of course brought out. As it was being passed from one to the other (he holding the chain) there fell upon all a solemn hush. In the meantime Elof had come into the shop, but as every one's attention was riveted upon the watch, no one had remarked his presence. Elof had also heard the story of his father-in-law's watch, and knew at once what was going on. He did not begrudge Halvor his souvenir; he was simply amused at the sight of him and the others standing there looking so solemn over nothing but an old and battered silver watch.
Elof stole quietly up behind the men, reached over, and snatched the watch from Halvor. It was only meant in fun. He had no thought of taking the watch only from Halvor; he just wanted to tease him a bit.
When Halvor tried to snatch it again, Elof stepped back and held it up, as if he were holding out a lump of sugar to a dog. Then Halvor vaulted the counter; and he looked so angry that Elof got frightened and, instead of standing still and handing him back the watch, he ran for the door.
Outside were some badly worn wooden steps; Elof's foot caught in a hole, and down he went. Halvor fell upon him, seized the watch, then gave him several hard kicks.
"You'd better quit kicking me, and find out what's wrong with my back," said Elof.
Halvor stopped at once, but Elof made no move to raise himself.
"Help me up," he said.
"You can help yourself when you've slept off your jag."
"I'm not full," Elof protested. "The fact is, as I started to run down the stairs I thought I saw Big Ingmar coming toward me, to take the watch. That's how I got such an ugly fall."
Then Halvor bent down and gave the poor wretch a lift, for his back was broken. He had to be put into a wagon and driven home. He would never again have the use of his legs. From that time forth Elof was confined to his bed, a helpless cripple. But he could talk, and all day long he kept begging for brandy. The doctor had left strict orders with Karin not to give him any spirits, lest he drink himself to death. Then Elof tried to get what he wanted by shrieking and making the most hideous noises, especially at night. He behaved like a madman, and disturbed every one's rest.
That was Karin's most trying year. Her husband sometimes tormented her until it seemed as though she could not stand it any longer. The very air became polluted by his vile talk and profanity, so that the home was like a hell. Karin begged the Storms to keep little Ingmar with them also during the holidays; she did not want her brother to be at home with her for a day, not even at Christmas.
All the servants at the Ingmar Farm were distantly related to the family, and had always lived on the place. But for the feeling that they belonged to the Ingmarssons, they could not have gone on serving under such conditions. There were precious few nights that they were allowed to sleep in peace. Elof was constantly hitting upon new ways of tormenting both the servants and Karin, to make them give in to his demands.
In this misery Karin passed a winter and a summer and another winter.
But Karin had a retreat to which she would flee at times in order to be alone with her thoughts. Behind the hop garden there was a narrow seat upon which she often sat, with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting in her hands, staring straight ahead, yet seeing nothing. Fronting her were great stretches of cornfields, beyond which was the forest, and in the distance the range of hills and Mount Klack.
One evening in April she sat on her bench, feeling tired and listless, as one often does in the springtime when the snow turns to slush and the ground is still unwashed by spring rains. The hops lay sleeping under a cover of fir brush. Over against the hills hung a thick mist, such as always accompanies a thaw. The birch tops were beginning to turn brown, but all along the skirt of the forest there was still a deep border of snow. Spring would soon be there in earnest, and the thought of it made her feel even more tired. She felt that she could never live through another summer like the last one. She thought of all the work ahead of her – sowing and haymaking; spring baking and spring cleaning; weaving and sewing – and wondered how she would ever get through with it all.
"I might better be dead," she sighed. "I seem to be here for no other purpose than to prevent Elof killing himself with drink."
Suddenly she looked up, as if she had heard some one calling her.
Leaning against the hedge, looking straight at her, stood Halvor
Halvorsson. She did not know just when he had come, but apparently he had been standing there a good while.
"I thought I should find you over here," Halvor said.
"Oh, did you?"
"I remembered how in days gone by you used to step away, and come here to sit and brood."
"I didn't have much to brood over at that time."
"Then your troubles were mostly imaginary."
Karin mused as she looked at Halvor: "He must be thinking what a fool I was not to have married him, who is such a handsome and dignified man. Now he's got me where he can crow over me, and he has come only to laugh at me."
"I've been inside talking with Elof," Halvor enlightened. "It was really him I wanted to see."
Karin made no reply, but sat there, frigid and unresponsive, her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands crossed, prepared to meet all the scorn she fancied Halvor would now heap upon her.
"I said to him," Halvor continued, "that I considered myself largely to blame for his misfortune, since it was at my place that he got hurt." He paused a moment, as if waiting for some expression from her, either of approval or disapproval. But Karin was silent. "So I have asked him to come and live with me for a while. It would at least be a change, and he could see more people than he meets here."
Then Karin raised her eyes, but otherwise remained as motionless as before.
"We have arranged to have him sent to my place to-morrow morning. I know he'll come, because he thinks he can get his liquor. But, of course, you must know, Karin, that that's out of the question. No, indeed! It's no more to be had with me than with you. I shall expect him to-morrow. He is to occupy the little room off the shop, and I've promised him that I'll let his door stand open, so that he may see all persons who come and go."
At Halvor's first words Karin wondered whether this was not something he had made up, but gradually it dawned on her that he was in earnest.
As a matter of fact, Karin had always imagined that Halvor had courted her only because of her money and good connections. It had never occurred to her that he might have loved her for herself alone. She probably knew she was not the kind of girl that men care for. Nor had she herself been in love, either with Halvor or Elof. But now that Halvor had come to her in her trouble, and wanted to help her, she was completely overwhelmed by the bigness of the man. She marvelled that he could be so kind. She felt that surely he must like her a little, since he had come like that, to help her.
Karin's heart began to beat violently and anxiously. She awoke to something she had never before experienced, and wondered what it meant. Then all at once she realized that Halvor's kindness had thawed her frozen heart, and that love was beginning to flame up in her. Halvor went on unfolding his plan, fearing all the while that she might oppose him. "It's hard for Elof, too," he pleaded. "He needs a change of scene, and he won't make as much trouble for me as he has made for you. It will be quite different when he's got a man to reckon with."
Karin hardly knew what she should do. She felt that she could not make a movement or say a word without letting Halvor see that she was in love with him; yet she knew she would have to give him some kind of an answer.
Presently Halvor stopped talking and simply looked at her.
Then Karin rose, involuntarily went up to him, and patted him on the hand. "God bless you, Halvor!" she said in broken tones. "God bless you!"
Despite all her precautions, Halvor must have divined something, for he quickly grasped her hands and drew her to him.
"No! No!" she cried in alarm, freeing herself; then she hurried away.
***
Elof had gone to live with Halvor. All summer he lay in the little bedroom off the shop. Halvor was not troubled with the care of him for a great while, for in the autumn he died.
Shortly after his death Mother Stina said to Halvor: "Now you must promise me one thing: promise me that you will exercise patience as regards Karin."
"Of course I'll have patience," Halvor returned, wonderingly.
"She's somebody worth winning, even if one has to wait seven long years."
But it was not so easy for Halvor to have patience, for he soon learned that this one and that one was paying court to Karin. This began within a fortnight of Elof's funeral.
One Sunday afternoon Halvor sat on the steps in front of his shop, watching the people coming and going. Presently it occurred to him that an unusual number of fine rigs were moving in the direction of the Ingmar Farm. In the first carriage sat an inspector from Bergsana Foundry, in the second was the son of the proprietor of the Karmsund Inn, and last came the Magistrate Berger Sven Persson, who was the richest man in western Dalecarlia, and a sensible and highly esteemed man, too. He was not young, to be sure; he had been twice married, and was now a widower for the second time.
When Halvor saw Berger Sven Persson driving by, he could not contain himself any longer. He jumped to his feet and started down the road; in almost no time he was over the bridge and on the side of the river where the Ingmar Farm lay.
"I'd like to know where all those carriages have gone to," he said to himself. He followed the wheel ruts, half running, but all the while becoming more and more determined. "I know this is stupid of me," he thought, remembering Mother Stina's warning. "But I'm only going as far as the gate, to see what they're up to down there."
In the best room at the Ingmars sat Berger Sven Persson and two other men, drinking coffee. Ingmar Ingmarsson, who still lived at the schoolhouse, was at home over Sunday. He sat at table with them and acted as host, for Karin had excused herself, saying she had some work to do in the kitchen, as the maids had gone down to the mission house to hear the schoolmaster preach.
It was deadly dull in the parlour. All the men sat drinking their coffee without exchanging a word. The suitors were practically strangers to one another, and all three of them were watching for an opportunity to slip into the kitchen for a private word with Karin.
Presently the door opened and in stepped another caller, who was received by Ingmar, and conducted to the table.
"This is Tims Halvor Halvorsson," said Ingmar, introducing the newcomer to Berger Sven Persson.
Sven Persson did not rise, but greeted Halvor with a sweep of the hand, saying, somewhat facetiously:
"It is a pleasure to meet so distinguished a personage."
Ingmar noisily drew up a chair for Halvor, so that he was spared the embarrassment of replying.
From the moment Halvor entered the room, all the suitors became chatty and began to talk big. Each in turn praised and championed the others. It was as if they had all agreed among themselves to stand together until Halvor was well out of the game.
"The magistrate is driving a fine horse to-day," the inspector began.
Berger Sven Persson took up the fun by complimenting the inspector on having shot a bear the winter before. Then the two turned to the innkeeper's son, and said something in praise of a house his father was building.
Finally all three of them bragged about the wealth of Bergen Sven Persson. They waxed eloquent, and with every word they gave Halvor to understand that he was too lowly a man to think of pitting himself against them. And Halvor certainly did feel very insignificant, and bitterly regretted having come.
Just then Karin came along with fresh coffee. At sight of Halvor she brightened for an instant; then it occurred to her that his calling on her so soon after her husband's death looked rather bad. "If he is in such a hurry, people will surely say that he hadn't given Elof proper care, and that he wanted him out of the way so he could marry me." She would rather he had waited two or three years before coming; that would have been long enough to make folks see that he had not been impatient for Elof's departure. "Why need he be in such haste?" she wondered. "Surely he must know that I don't want anyone but him."
Every one had stopped talking the moment Karin appeared, wondering how she and Halvor would greet each other. They barely touched hands.At which the magistrate expressed his delight by a short whistle, while the inspector broke into a loud guffaw. Haldor quietly turned to him. "What are you laughing at?" he said.
The inspector was at a loss for an answer. With Karin there he did not wish to say anything that might give offence.
"He is thinking of a hound that raises a hare and allows some one else to catch it," remarked the innkeeper's son, insinuatingly.
Karin turned blood red, but refilled the coffee cups. "Berger Sven Persson and the rest of you will have to be satisfied with plain coffee," she said. "We no longer serve spirits to any one on this farm."
"Nor do I at my home," said the magistrate approvingly.
The inspector and the innkeeper's son kept quiet; they understood that Sven Persson had scored heavily.
The magistrate straightway began to discourse on temperance and its salutary effects. Karin listened to him with interest, and agreed with all that he said. Seeing that this was the kind of talk that would appeal to her, the magistrate began to spread himself, and delivered long-winded harangue on the curse of liquor and drunkenness. Karin recognized all her own thoughts on the subject, and was glad to find that they were shared by so intelligent a man as the magistrate.
In the middle of his monologue Berger Sven Persson glanced over at Halvor, who sat at the table, looking glum and sulky, his coffee cup untouched.
"It's pretty rough on him," thought Berger Sven Persson, "particularly if there's any truth in what people say about his having given Elof a little lift on his way into the next world. Anyway, he did Karin a good service by relieving her of that dreadful sot." And since the magistrate seemed to think that he had as good as won the game, he felt rather friendly toward Halvor. Raising his cup, he said: "Here's to you, Halvor! You certainly did Karin a good turn when you took her drunken sot of a husband off her hands."
Halvor did not respond to the toast. He sat looking the man straight in the eyes, and wondered how he should take this.
The inspector again burst out laughing. "Yes, yes, a good turn," he haw-hawed, "a real good turn."
"Yes, yes, a real good turn," echoed the innkeeper's son, with a chuckle.
Before they were done laughing, Karin had vanished like a shadow through the kitchen door; but she could hear from the kitchen all that was said inside. She was both sorry and distressed over Halvor's untimely visit. It would probably result in her never being able to marry Halvor. It was plain that the gossips were already spreading evil reports. "I can't bear the thought of losing him," she sighed.
For a time no sound came from the sitting-room, but presently she heard a noise as if a chair were being pushed back. Some one had evidently risen.
"Are you going already, Halvor?" young Ingmar was heard to say.
"Yes," Halvor replied. "I can't stop any longer. Please say good-bye to Karin for me."
"Why don't you go into the kitchen and say it for yourself?"
"No," Halvor was heard to answer, "we two have nothing more to say to each other."
Karin's heart began to pump hard, and thoughts came rushing into her head, as if on wings. Now Halvor was angry at her – and no wonder! She had hardly dared even to shake hands with him, and when the others had scoffed at him, she never opened her mouth in his defence, but quietly sneaked away. Now he must think she did not care for him, and was therefore going, never to return. She could not understand why she should have treated him so shabbily – she who was so fond of him. Then, all at once her father's old saying came to her: "The Ingmarssons need have no fear of men; they have only to walk in the ways of God."
Karin hastily opened the door, and stood facing Halvor before he could manage to leave the room.
"Are you leaving so soon, Halvor?" she asked. "I thought you were going to stay to supper."
Halvor stood staring at Karin. She seemed to be completely changed; her cheeks were aglow, and there was something tender and appealing about her which he had never seen before.
"I'm going, and I'm not coming back," said Halvor. He had not caught her meaning, apparently.
"Do stay and finish your coffee," she urged. Then she took him by the hand and led him back to the table. She turned both white and red, and several times she all but lost her courage. Just the same she braved it out, although there was nothing she feared so much as scorn and contempt. "Now he will at least see that I'm willing to stand by him," she thought. Turning toward her guests, she said: "Berger Sven Persson and all of you! Halvor and I have not spoken of this matter – as I have so recently become a widow – but now it seems best that you should all know that I would rather marry Halvor than any one else in the world." She paused to get control of her voice, then concluded: "Folks may say what they like about this, but Halvor and I have done nothing wrong."
When Karin had finished speaking, she drew nearer to Halvor, as if seeking protection against all the cruel slander that would come now.
The men were speechless, mostly from astonishment at Karin Ingmarsson, who looked younger and more girlish than ever before in her life.
Then Halvor said in a voice vibrant with feeling: "Karin, when I received your father's watch, I felt that nothing greater could have happened to me; but this thing which you have just done transcends everything."
Whereupon Berger Sven Persson, who was in many ways an excellent man, arose.
"Let us all congratulate Karin and Halvor," he said, graciously, "for every one must know that he whom Karin, daughter of Ingmar, has chosen is a man of sterling worth."
