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This series of Scandinavian Classics is published by 
 the American-Scandinavian Foundation in the belief 
 that greater familiarity with the chief literary monu- 
 ments of the North will help Americans to a better 
 understanding of Scandinavians, and thus serve to 
 stimulate their sympathetic cooperation to good ends 
 
SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS 
 VOLUME XX 
 
 PER HALLSTROM: 
 SELECTED SHORT STORIES 
 
THIS VOLUME IS ENDOWED BY 
 
 MR. CHARLES S. PETERSON 
 
 OF CHICAGO 
 
PER HALLSTROM: 
 
 SELECTED SHORT STORIES 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY 
 
 F. J. FIELDEN 
 
 Formerly Scholar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; 
 English Lector in the University of Lund 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1922 
 
Copyright, igis, by The American-Scandinavian Foundation 
 
 6H 
 
 C. S. Peterson, The Regan Press, Chicago, U. S. A. 
 
TO 
 D. K. F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 
 
 
 
 ix 
 
 Symposium 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Amor 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 Carneola 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 A Humble Tragedy 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 Melchior 
 
 
 
 79 
 
 A Secret Idyll 
 
 
 
 III 
 
 Don Juan's Rubies 
 
 
 
 155 
 
 Hidden Fires 
 
 
 
 191 
 
 The Water-Finder 
 
 
 
 235 
 
 The Gardener's Wife 
 
 
 
 277 
 
 List of Per Hallstrom's 
 
 Principal 
 
 Writings 
 
 294 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN THE history of Swedish literature the last 
 decade of the nineteenth century will always 
 claim an important place. Not only did the period 
 see the rise and development of no less than six or 
 seven great writers, but it was also an epoch of 
 change. The writers of the time are not bound 
 together by any common cause, but it can now be 
 seen that their work marked a common reaction 
 against the positivist and realistic traditions of the 
 preceding decade. The eighties were years of dis- 
 satisfaction, of scepticism, revolt, and emancipa- 
 tion; their representative in Sweden is Strindberg. 
 The Influence of Ibsen and of the French natural- 
 ists is strongly stamped upon them. Women writ- 
 ers then first begin to take an important place in 
 literature; description, keen observation, and an- 
 alysis are in vogue ; philosophy has a strongly posi- 
 tivist bias ; literature Is centred in the capital. The 
 great writers of the nineties — von Heidenstam, 
 Froding, Selma Lagerlof, Oscar Levertin, Per 
 Hallstrom, Pelle Molln — open an age of imagina- 
 tion and symbolism. A tendency to separate litera- 
 ture from the political and social questions of the 
 hour is accompanied by a return to tradition, 
 patriotism, and the past; there is a renewal of 
 enthusiasm and poetic glow. Realism Is no longer 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 conceived of as gray and featureless, but as full 
 of interesting facts to note, moods to capture, indi- 
 vidual fates to follow. The important influences 
 are Renan and Nietzsche, the former regarded as 
 the cultured, sceptical, aristocratic humanist, the 
 latter as the rediscoverer of the heroic in art and 
 life. The leadership in literature passes out from 
 Stockholm to the provinces.^ 
 
 It is in part because he seems to share in both 
 these two opposing currents of thought that Per 
 Hallstrom holds a somewhat Isolated and special 
 place among Swedish writers. His first prose book, 
 Filsna fdglar {Strayed Birds), consists of short 
 impressionistic sketches from life, In which the 
 gift of psychological Intuition, the satirical humor, 
 and the power of sympathy with the outcasts of 
 society, all so characteristic of this author, are 
 already abundantly manifest. In several other 
 respects he has affinities with the writers of the 
 eighties. In particular in his Insistence upon moral 
 values, his detestation of injustice, lies, and 
 shams, his restless, doubting, critical temperament. 
 But his later work, while preserving some of these 
 tendencies, Is no less definitely romantic. The sto- 
 ries in Purpur (Purple) show a characteristic love 
 of color and a desire to escape into the ampler air 
 of the Imagination which are paralleled in Lever- 
 
 ^ Cp. F. Book, Sveriges moderna liiteratur, Stockholm 1921, 
 chaps. V and XI, passim. 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 tin's Legender och visor, Heidenstam's Hans 
 Alienus, and in Gosta Berlings saga} An ever- 
 strengthening mystical tendency runs through the 
 plays and stories of a later period, In which the 
 transforming, dignifying, and ennobling power 
 of death comes to be a leading motif; while al- 
 most everything he writes — short stories, plays, 
 novels, poems, and at times even the essays — Is 
 touched by an all-pervading lyricism. 
 
 But there are further characteristics which con- 
 tribute to set Hallstrom apart from other Swedish 
 writers. The genius of Swedish literature has 
 hitherto been mainly lyrical ; Hallstrom's deep In- 
 terest in the workings of the human mind, his subtle 
 psychology — sometimes so subtle as to incur the 
 charge of being too exclusively Intellectual — is 
 perhaps his most noteworthy and original con- 
 tribution to the literature of his country. Again, 
 hardly any Swedish writer can rival him in width 
 of range and power of adaptability. He roams 
 at will through all lands and ages. The Palestine 
 of Old Testament days, the Greece of the mytho- 
 logical period, medieval Europe, Italy at varying 
 stages of her civilization and history, the France 
 of the Revolution, modern America, Stockholm 
 and the solitudes of his native Sweden — any and 
 every scene can be made to serve as a background 
 to the story, and rarely indeed can any false note 
 '^Ibid., p. 278. 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 be detected. This unusual color and variety have 
 perhaps mitigated against Hallstrom's popularity 
 in his own country, but should serve to make him 
 more easily appreciated abroad. His lack of for- 
 mal academic training and his early contact with 
 life have also helped to differentiate him from 
 the majority of his fellow-writers. 
 
 The outside facts of Hallstrom's life are soon 
 told. Born in Stockholm on September 29, 1866, 
 he studied engineering at the Technical College of 
 that city and in 1888 went out to America as 
 chemist at a factory in Chicago. Returning in 1 890, 
 he held a government post for a time and then 
 went to live in Florence. From 1904 to 1905 he was 
 dramatic critic to the Stockholm paper Dagens 
 Nyheter, and since 1906 he has settled down at 
 Saltsjo-Storangen, near Stockholm, devoting him- 
 self to writing. He was elected a member of the 
 Swedish Academy in 1908, and is one of the com- 
 mittee which awards the Nobel prize for litera- 
 ture, and notwithstanding his retiring disposition 
 and dislike of publicity, honors of various kinds 
 have not been withheld from him. 
 
 On the subject of his early life and first publi- 
 cations Hallstrom is his own best interpreter. In 
 a paper contributed to a collection published by 
 the Swedish Authors' Society,^ for which various 
 prominent authors were asked to write upon the 
 
 ^ Ndr vi borjade. Stockholm, 1902. 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 subject of "My First Book," he tells of his lonely 
 and melancholy boyhood, his early passion for Eng- 
 lish poetry and later discovery of Carlyle and 
 Goethe, the vivid and not altogether happy im- 
 pressions made upon him by his life in America, 
 the beginning of the short tales afterwards col- 
 lected in Vilsna fdglar and Purpur, and the pub- 
 lication and failure of his first book, a volume of 
 poems entitled Lyrik och fantasier (1891). A 
 detached critical outlook upon life and a certain 
 pessimism are strongly marked features of this 
 early period, and though softened and completed 
 by other qualities in later years, they have never 
 entirely disappeared. In the matter of form the 
 choice of the short sketch proved to be significant. 
 Among the poems written at this period were sev- 
 eral in narrative style, and Hallstrom, to quote 
 his own words, had already begun "to feel his way 
 towards that domain which was to become his 
 own — the short story." In later years, as a glance 
 at the bibliographical note which follows these 
 pages will show, he was to develop an extraordi- 
 nary productiveness in several branches of the 
 literary art. His lyrics contain many fine things, 
 he has achieved success in the drama, and he has 
 latterly shown himself to be a critic of no mean 
 abihty. But competent judges agree in hailing him 
 as the master of the short story in Sweden. These 
 tales with their varying moods of lyrical beauty, 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 deep pathos, keen wit, and sharp-sighted observa- 
 tion and intuition, their richness of imagination, 
 and their typically Swedish feeling for nature, are 
 masterpieces in an admittedly difficult art, and 
 upon them all the author's care and feeling have 
 been lavished. 
 
 Scattered up and down Hallstrom's essays can 
 be found remarks which illustrate the lines upon 
 which his stories are laid down. In a paper on 
 Rabindranath Tagore,^ speaking of the Glimpses 
 of Bengal, he writes: "As was in general the 
 case with the short story during the literary 
 period to which the book belongs (the period of 
 Hallstrom's own Filsna fdglar) they are rather 
 sketches than tales with which we have here to do. 
 The theme of the genuine short story is almost a 
 concentrated drama, and if the treatment is fully 
 in accord there will be at one and the same time 
 vigorous conciseness and harmoniously rounded 
 outlines. In its miniature form the short story 
 has scope for greatness in the details and a single 
 yet wide perspective — like the Florentine medal- 
 lion of pre-Renaissance times. The more it tends 
 to become an episode or a separate fragment of 
 a novel, a description of types or milieu, the more 
 remote is it from the sculptural and the nearer 
 it approaches to painting or drawing." Again, in 
 an essay on Cervantes's Novelas Ejemplares, in- 
 
 ' The last essay in Levande dikt. 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 spired by the ter-centenary of 1916/ he points out 
 that the development of intrigue and incident in 
 the Itahan novella was not accompanied by any 
 deepening of psychological insight or widening of 
 philosophical basis, and that Cervantes's origi- 
 nality lay just here. "He could give life and mean- 
 ing even to that which was dry and barren, and 
 fill out the enlarged form of the short story as a 
 pioneer for later ages." It is possible that Hall- 
 strom himself owes something to Cervantes, and 
 he has certainly learned from Shakespeare, of the 
 organic nature of whose imagination and methods 
 of dramatic composition he writes thus in another 
 essay: "Here, as in the world of reality, the uni- 
 verse re-echoes in the individual fate, hangs upon it 
 by a thousand slender threads. The drama is not 
 isolated upon a stage, it moves past like a stream, 
 where wind and waves have come from far and 
 have farther yet to go."^ 
 
 These passages, and in particular the one just 
 quoted, will suffice to suggest what are the main 
 features of Hallstrom's best and most character- 
 istic work in the domain of the short story. He 
 sees farther and implies more than Maupassant, 
 with whom he has been compared^ and upon whose 
 "natural limitation of thought, vision, and feel- 
 
 ' Published in Konst och Iw, second essay. 
 ' Konst och liv, third essay. 
 
 'By Ola Hansson in the Nordisk Re-vy for 1895. The article 
 refers only to Vilsna fdglar. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing" he shrewdly comments in the above-mentioned 
 paper on Tagore. While Hallstrom has not the 
 Frenchman's marvelous clearness of outline and 
 is far from possessing, or even aiming at, his direct 
 and concise style, he is ever on the watch for those 
 subtle connections which bind up the individual 
 human life with the universal and the infinite, and 
 it is this feature of his work that lends to it much 
 of its originality and power. He is chiefly con- 
 cerned with mental states, emotional crises, and 
 moral ideas, the incidents that give rise to these 
 assuming quite a secondary place. His favorite 
 method is to use all the material at his disposal — 
 lyrical setting, characters, and plot — in working 
 up to one supreme moment when the individual 
 life or lives become transformed and lost in the 
 glory or sombre majesty of some universal human 
 experience. The method is exemplified in A Hum- 
 ble Tragedy and The Gardener's Wife, still 
 better in Hidden Fires and The Water-Finder. 
 And of all such experiences the hour of death is 
 the greatest and most universal. The thought of 
 Death as the deliverer, the reconciler, the great 
 compensator for the wrongs and injustice of life, 
 runs through all Hailstorm's work, and he has com- 
 posed a whole collection of stories, Thanatos, upon 
 this very motif. Yet it Is no mere intellectual con- 
 viction with him, but a deep truth intuitively 
 perceived and devoutly cherished. The greatness 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 of death lends to every life a greatness, so that 
 even so commonplace an individual as Janson, 
 the central character in A Humble Tragedy, is 
 caught up in the presence of death and trans- 
 formed, at least for the time being, into "some- 
 thing rich and strange." Next to Death comes 
 Love, but it is noteworthy here that with Hall- 
 strom the ruling principle of love is not passion 
 but self-abnegation (cp. Hidden Fires), and this, 
 like death, means also liberation from the self. 
 Hallstrom's sympathy with the "strayed birds" of 
 the community — derived in part from Tolstoi and 
 Dostoievski — is also largely based upon the idea 
 of a common mortality. In his compassion, his 
 sense of life as one and of individual human exist- 
 ence as an illusion, and his belief in a chain of 
 causes (see especially Carneola), Hallstrom, as 
 Book has pointed out, is obviously influenced by 
 Schopenhauer, though he is without the German 
 philosopher's contempt of reality or hatred of 
 men. The charge of pessimism has often been 
 brought against him, yet he is no mere pessimist. 
 Rather is it, as Georg Brandes has well said, that 
 Hallstrom "seems inclined to conceive of that 
 heightening of life's emotions which we call hap- 
 piness as thriving better in hope or in remembrance 
 than in the daily reality."' No writer has seen 
 
 1 G. Brandes, Samlede Skrifter (Copenhagen, 1906), XVII, 
 p. 199. 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 more clearly that the life which has not known its 
 share of suffering, self-devotion, and self-discipline 
 can never reach the topmost heights to which 
 human nature may attain. 
 
 In the selecting of the stories here translated, 
 prominence has been given to tales with a Swedish 
 setting. Three In particular, Melchior, Hidden 
 Fires, and The Water-Finder, will, it is hoped, 
 even in translation, convey some idea of the won- 
 derful imaginative power of Hallstrom's descrip- 
 tions of nature. The scenery and natural setting 
 of the story are no mere ornaments which, though 
 constituting an added beauty, are still not abso- 
 lutely indispensable: they are just as integral a 
 part of the story as any of the characters or inci- 
 dents, while the descriptions themselves are often 
 so vivid as to produce an almost physical effect. 
 Symposium, Amor, and Don Juan's Rubies will 
 serve to Illustrate, among other things, the 
 author's gift of humor. In his earlier stories this 
 often takes a satirical turn, but in the later collec- 
 tions there is also to be found humor of a more 
 genial order. Carneola exhibits the combined rich- 
 ness and restraint of Hallstrom's imagination, 
 while The Gardener's Wife is a beautiful illustra- 
 tion of how pathos may be kept within artistic 
 limits, and never allowed to degenerate into sen- 
 timentality. A Secret Idyll reflects with remarkable 
 fidelity the pathos of the French Revolution. 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 In form and style this writer has a manner all 
 his own. While the story has harmony and propor- 
 tion and is usually built up around some single 
 moral idea, Hallstrom permits himself as many 
 ramifications and side-issues as he pleases before 
 the structure is completed. "No style can bear less 
 resemblance to the straight line than Per Hall- 
 strom's."^ His method of narration is rather by 
 ever-widening circles which, ere they reach their 
 goal, have succeeded in including many wonderful 
 and beautiful, if not strictly essential, things that 
 one would not willingly forego. While the read- 
 er's patience may occasionally be taxed by these 
 digressions, it is doubtful whether the suggestive- 
 ness and profound implications of some of the 
 stories could be achieved in any other way. A 
 minor point of interest is that instead of following 
 the common practice of giving to each collection 
 the title of the first story in it, Hallstrom invents 
 a title for the whole book which binds it together 
 under some single aspect and happily brings out 
 the essential note of the whole. Such titles are 
 Strayed Birds, Purple, Thanatos, The Four Ele- 
 ments. The stories chosen for the present volume 
 therefore suffer from being, torn out of the collec- 
 tions to which they belong, though this disadvan- 
 tage may perhaps be partly compensated by the 
 greater variety gained. 
 
 ^ Levertin. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 Per Hallstrom is a writer with a remarkable 
 combination of gifts, an extremely wide range, 
 and many qualities which, but for the accident of 
 language, would have made him far more widely 
 known. His intimate knowledge and warm appre- 
 ciation of English literature,^ his imaginative 
 power, and the strongly moral significance of his 
 work are some of the reasons why he should be 
 especially appreciated in English-speaking coun- 
 tries. The vague suggestiveness and occasional 
 heaviness and obscurity of his style render him 
 by no means an easy author to translate, and none 
 can be more sensible than the present translator of 
 the defects of this attempt. Yet it seemed regret- 
 table that so serious an artist, with so wide a range 
 of sympathies and culture, and one, moreover, 
 whose early imagination was fed and nourished 
 on the nectar and ambrosia of English Romantic 
 poetry, should remain for so long comparatively 
 unknown in those foreign countries where he was 
 most likely to be appreciated. 
 
 I desire to express my thanks to the author him- 
 self for the ready sanction he has given to my 
 undertaking, and for his great kindness in advising 
 
 ^Hallstrom's knowledge of the English national character 
 would seem to be less complete, while he sees only one side, 
 and that not the greatest, of American life and character. But 
 it has not been thought necessary to dwell in this place upon his 
 recent political essays, papers which in their very nature are 
 ephemeral and which may be omitted from a consideration of 
 their author's more enduring and more purely literary work. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 me in the matter of the selection of the stories. 
 In this difficult task of selection I have further 
 had the advantage of the kind assistance of Pro- 
 fessor Book, of the University of Lund, my in- 
 debtedness to whose writings {Sveriges moderna 
 litteratur, Sveriges nationallitteratur, Essayer och 
 kritiker, and articles in Ord och Bild and Svenska 
 Dagbladet) may be here generally acknowledged. 
 I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor 
 Book for his friendly advice and encouragement 
 in the initial stages of my work. Lastly, Dr. Eilert 
 Ekwall, Professor of English in the same uni- 
 versity, has been good enough to spend some hours 
 in assisting me over various difficulties of language, 
 and to him also, for this as for other acts of kind- 
 ness, my sincere thanks are due. For the final 
 choice of the stories, as well as for all defects in 
 the translation, I myself must accept full respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 F. J. FIELDEN. 
 Lund, October, igsi. 
 
SYMPOSIUM 
 
 [SYMPOSION] 
 
 FROM VILSNA FAGLAR 
 1894 
 
Symposium 
 
 ANY ONE who met Herr Oswald Helnrich 
 l\. von Riesenbach briskly making his way to- 
 wards the old aristocratic quarter of Philadelphia, 
 with a familiar glance at the dreary rigid houses, 
 could easily gather from a number of minor char- 
 acteristics, almost impossible to seize individually 
 — the concave arch of his back, the curve of his 
 mustache, the grasp of his fingers round the 
 handle of his stick — that his name was von Riesen- 
 bach and that he represented that portion of the 
 nobility of Europe which, without forgetting its 
 privileges of birth, was modern enough here in 
 the New World to devote itself to work with fever- 
 ish energy and attach little importance to mere 
 outward elegance of attire. 
 
 Any one meeting him a few moments later on 
 the other side of Oliver Street, where the fine 
 houses show their straight backs only and a quite 
 humble class of society begins, could with equal 
 certainty conclude from his lingering steps and 
 his interested and observant glances that he was 
 called von Riesenbach and that, in addition to the 
 qualities already mentioned, he had enough of 
 warm humanity in him to study also the struggles 
 of the lower classes, and to employ his abundant 
 
4 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 leisure time in taking walks and enriching his 
 memory with amusing trifles. 
 
 In both cases Herr von Riesenbach would have 
 been judged aright, yet only so as a great actor's 
 creations are rightly understood, for Herr von 
 Riesenbach did not live in the elegant quarter, he 
 had nothing to do, and consequently was never in 
 any hurry to get home ; neither had he the slightest 
 interest in the life of the poorer streets, for this, 
 on the contrary, was a torment to him. But he 
 lived, quite unpretentiously, in one of these streets, 
 and this was only his artfully elaborated plan for 
 reaching his dwelling without being suspected of 
 it, while he obviously gave every one to know that 
 he lived in one of the respectable houses with 
 asphalt in front, and balconies, and a view on to 
 some scanty green space and a church or two. 
 
 Properly, he was not called von Riesenbach 
 either, but had taken the name from his mother 
 in the hope of thereby attaining what he had con- 
 ceived as his object in life in America — a marriage 
 with some rich girl. 
 
 I have forgotten to mention that he had been 
 an officer in the reserve, but that goes without 
 saying, since he was a German immigrant; he had 
 also possessed a diamond breastpin and a ring 
 with a large pearl In It, which he used to twirl 
 round absent-mindedly as he sat in the tram cars. 
 
 But that was before the date of this story. 
 
SYMPOSIUM S 
 
 Of the diamond there now remained only cer- 
 tain inscriptions on the windows that had once 
 been von Riesenbach's, and a Jew had flicked at 
 the pearl with his long black nails and said that 
 "it was not ripe, and therefore hardly worth 
 twenty dollars, but he supposed he could take it 
 for a little while." Since that day he had now 
 been in undisturbed possession of it for several 
 months. 
 
 Von Riesenbach had gone down in the world, 
 and the above description no longer quite fitted 
 him, for now he never visited the elegant quarters 
 of the town, but kept to the river banks, the fac- 
 tory districts, and the outer parks, and he no 
 longer lived in the humble street. He had no home 
 at all ; he slept where he could, and latterly — since 
 the weather was warm — for the most part in one 
 of the suburbs. He looked for work, but rarely 
 found any, and never managed to keep it. He 
 could do nothing ; he was gloomy and seemed made 
 on purpose for Irish navvies to exercise their wit 
 upon; and so he went about starving, shyly turn- 
 ing corners, and constantly wandering deeper and 
 deeper Into a labyrinth, as it seemed to him. 
 
 He pondered and brooded as he went. He was 
 not at all of a critical turn of mind and had never 
 had a superabundance of ideas, but when he stood 
 hungry In front of a window full of articles of 
 food, more ideas came than he could well 
 
6 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 manage — catastrophic ideas, whose consequences 
 pushed him still more helplessly aside than the 
 stern reality had done. He felt a gnawing envy of 
 well-nigh every one, could not hide his feelings 
 under a finer name, and suffered at the fact. At 
 last he took refuge in longing, in calling to mind 
 his happier position before he had been fool 
 enough to fling it away, and in cherishing timid 
 expectations of some chance which would set him 
 on his feet again. He was the most luckless of 
 vagabonds because he could not bring himself to 
 belong to the class. He feft like some disguised 
 Haroun al Raschid under the bastinado and un- 
 able to prove his identity. 
 
 One sunny morning he was shaking the blood 
 into his veins outside a white villa, dejectedly medi- 
 tating plans for getting breakfast, when a figure 
 which he seemed to recognize came along the 
 street. 
 
 It was a German named Miiller, a broad- 
 shouldered, keen-eyed fellow who had studied 
 everything under the sun, and, as he himself ex- 
 pressed it, was acquainted with the portals to all 
 the temples of knowledge, yet could never even 
 get a post as portfer or watch-dog at any of them — 
 he had never had enough regard for his dignity. 
 "And if I'm not even fit for a professorship in this 
 country," he would sigh over his glass of beer, 
 "I'll gladly set up as a nigger, one of those who 
 
SYMPOSIUM 7 
 
 act the 'Living Head' at village fairs, and stick 
 their topknots through a hole for people to shy 
 balls at, three shies for five cents." 
 
 He had almost reached the necessary tint now, 
 tanned as he was by dust and sunshine. His pri- 
 vate tutorships in German families were long since 
 a thing of the past, and so were the soles of his 
 boots. 
 
 Riesenbach had met him in beer-shops in better 
 days, and his robust loquacity had not exactly ap- 
 pealed to him, but now he thought a little chat 
 might warm him up. He was curious to know the 
 reason for the other's haste, a thing so temptingly 
 unusual when one has an ocean of time about one. 
 Miiller greeted him in friendly but absent-minded 
 fashion: "You, too, a man of the guild? Well, 
 how d'you like it now? Tell me straight 1" He 
 looked inquiringly at him, as if the answer were 
 impossible to guess. "It has its different sides. — 
 But excuse me, I'm in a hurry. Will you come along 
 and have something to eat?" 
 
 The word "eat" drove out all the others. "With 
 pleasure ! I'm hungry." 
 
 "Hungry? Let's hurry up, then. My appetite, 
 too, is best in the mornings. It's practice, you 
 see; I seldom eat other times. And besides, how 
 could one better show one's joy in existence than" 
 — here his voice took on a caressing tone, as though 
 he were about to touch on some familiar and well- 
 
8 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 loved topic — "than by eating a nice fresh loaf and 
 drinking milk to it on a lovely morning like this?" 
 
 "Hm! Beer and meat wouldn't be a bad way, 
 either." 
 
 "Beer! Beer, you say, and meat? I'm sorry for 
 you. That speech points to a materialistic gross- 
 ness of mind, such as ill suits our butterfly exist- 
 ences." 
 
 They had reached a clean-swept little street of 
 peaceful red two-storied houses, with white win- 
 dow casements and marble steps. Miiller's glance 
 stole uneasily forwards, but soon calmed down 
 again. 
 
 "Yes, the cloth's spread now. We have nearly 
 three-quarters of an hour before us, I think." He 
 turned off at an iron fence, stopped at a flight of 
 steps where a basket and a milk-can stood, and 
 threw himself down with a sigh of satisfaction, 
 Riesenbach staring at him. 
 
 "They put out the can and the basket every 
 evening, you see, so as not to have to get up early 
 and shop, and then in the morning they find milk 
 and bread there, like good little children when 
 they get presents, but to-day they won't get any. 
 Fall to I" 
 
 "But that's stealing! How d'you expect me 
 .... My reputation . . . ." 
 
 "Stealing! Ach was! Fiddlesticks! Won't you 
 take what life offers, or will you rather pine away 
 
SYMPOSIUM 9 
 
 like another Echo till only your name is left, and 
 a whispered 'von Riesenbach,' 'von Riesenbach' 
 sounds from the blind alleys every time I break 
 an excellent loaf like this? The sweetest little 
 baker's girl comes here, with cheeks like tea-cakes, 
 — I generally see her at a distance — as plump as 
 Flora herself or Ceres or the studies of heads in 
 Gartenlaube, and offers you the loveliest golden 
 bread, and you remain hard and cold!" 
 
 His voice was so convincing, and he sat in such 
 an attitude of unimpeachable right that Riesen- 
 bach felt he must give way. 
 
 Miiller continued in a milder tone: "We are but 
 birds, you know, picking up crumbs" — his mouth 
 was dilated by an enormous piece — "I a great tit, 
 and you a heraldic bird with two heads, that pre- 
 vent each other from eating." 
 
 Riesenbach took the half-loaf gracefully offered 
 him and ate in silence, not without uneasy glances 
 at the windows. Miiller politely pressed him to the 
 contents of the can: "Take a drink, drink deep! 
 Help yourself! — Drat that milkman! Didn't I 
 think as much, when I saw his narrow gallows look? 
 He puts water in the milk, the scoundrel, and we're 
 expected to put up with it ! — Here's a paper, too. 
 The Press, I see. So they're Republicans In this 
 house? Let's see if there's anything interesting 
 
 in it." 
 
 He folded the newspaper with a voter's air of 
 
lo PER HALLSTROM 
 
 authorized dignity, smiled like a pedagogue now 
 and again at some clumsy phrase, seemed to find 
 the whole thing boring, yet endured it good- 
 naturedly. Rieseiibach began to think aloud, 
 tempted by the unwonted peace he felt to give 
 expression to the thoughts that constantly op- 
 pressed him. He half indulged the hope that now 
 he would be able to collect his ideas and justify 
 himself to some extent in another's eyes. 
 
 "If only we could live our lives again," he 
 began, "if only some one would help us I Don't 
 you think we could rise again and be even better 
 than before ? One learns so much this way, if only 
 misfortune didn't press one down. Oh, just give 
 me a place and let me show you !" 
 
 Miiller ironically puckered up his eyebrows. 
 "What would you be? A magistrate?" He laid 
 down the paper and shook himself. "Always the 
 same things in them," he said cheerfully, "the 
 same torrent of words, the abuse and insults that 
 nobody means ; at bottom they're so much alike, 
 both parties. Their charges and defenses remind 
 me of a rascal in a Danish comedy, who plays the 
 part of two opposing lawyers in court, pleads into 
 his own mouth, and finally boxes both his own ears. 
 But let them go their way ! Here we sit, the dar- 
 lings of creation, our life a constant Sabbath! 
 Then let the ox bellow in the well : we won't help 
 him out! Unhappy, do you say? Vdla me DiosI 
 
SYMPOSIUM II 
 
 Can there be anything more poetically free and 
 splendid than our life here ? Such golden sunshine 
 slanting along the street, white marble steps to 
 sit on — just like disguised little princes in the fairy- 
 tales — and milk and bread! .... Milk and 
 bread, and marble steps 1 What more has life to 
 offer, unless it were a cigar, possibly? Inside that 
 house they are sleeping and dreaming of money to 
 buy a piano with, or else of how to get their fel- 
 low-citizens to elect them a 'city-wardsman,' while 
 we enjoy the cream of life (somewhat diluted, 
 certainly) , invite ourselves to just a little of their 
 breakfast, and leave them their whole heap of 
 troubles both for lunch and supper." 
 
 His laughing countenance was merry as a sun- 
 rise against the red wall. Riesenbach at that mo- 
 ment felt a sincere admiration for him and was 
 almost proud to be sitting on the same steps as he. 
 Miiller got up, stretched out the arm with the 
 milk-can, and declaimed: 
 
 "See here! This last remnant of watered milk 
 I offer upon this marble altar to the sun and to 
 Delight. May she long thrive on the outskirts of 
 this needlessly noisy world, may she not be alto- 
 gether scared away by steam whistles, and may 
 she now and again find her breakfast outside her 
 sleeping fellow-citizens' gates. Evoe! E-e-e .... 
 Look there ! Now they're moving inside the house ! 
 I shouted too loud I Off with us, quick ! I shouldn't 
 
12 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 like to see their annoyance at losing the milk: it 
 would have a disturbing effect upon my love of 
 humankind." 
 
 A couple of streets away they parted. MuUer 
 broke off a sprig of flowering creeper and carried 
 it between his lips, swaying unconcernedly in the 
 sunshine. Riesenbach felt the tide of his good 
 spirits ebb as quickly as it had risen, was ashamed 
 at having had to flee, and stood looking after his 
 comrade. 
 
AMOR 
 
 [JMOR] 
 
 FROM BRILJANTSMYCKET, ETC, 
 
 1896 
 
Amor 
 
 WHEN Christine first came to Mrs. Asplund, 
 both of them thought it was by the direct 
 interposition of Providence that she had been sent 
 there, with a Registry Office, as it happened, for 
 intermediary, and two sHghtly drunken men with a 
 cart as a means of conveyance for her things. 
 
 And since the weather was fine that day, and 
 her chest of drawers was got through the door 
 ■vyithout accident, Christine regarded that too as a 
 sign of especial grace, and sat down to weep out 
 of gratitude and a mildly oppressive feeling that 
 she had not deserved all this, but would strive her 
 utmost to do so. 
 
 When a month had passed by, Mrs. Asplund 
 was no longer so sure as to the powers that guided 
 Christine's fate, for she had discovered in her an 
 occasionally shameless appetite, but if only this 
 defect of nature were held in check and their inter- 
 course were attuned to its proper key by suitable 
 severity, she was nevertheless tolerably well con- 
 tent with her servant, especially in contrast to 
 the last shameless creature, who wore a hat with 
 poppies in it and received letters addressed 
 "Miss," and once, just before the cup of her in- 
 iquity overflowed, went for a walk on a Friday 
 
 15 
 
i6 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 evening. Christine, on the other hand, still con- 
 tinued to believe in the divine occasion of her com- 
 ing, and felt her responsibility to be deep. 
 
 Certainly the old lady was a trial sometimes, 
 but then, bless you, she was so old too, and lonely 
 and sick, and Christine knew in her own case that if 
 she had had any authority over any one, she herself 
 might perhaps not always have been so very good- > 
 tempered. However, she had never been in that 
 position, on the contrary it was always others that 
 had exercised authority over her, and had more- 
 over exercised it to some purpose. She would soon 
 be forty, and would be so glad to think that she 
 was to take root in that place and would never 
 have to move, and the wages, too, were higher 
 than usual, since she had to be something very 
 like a nurse, and all things considered it must be 
 regarded as an excellent place, especially when 
 compared with the lot of those who had neither 
 food nor bed. Christine often made such compari- 
 sons, and they never failed to comfort her as far 
 as her own troubles were concerned, although they 
 brought the tears to her eyes at the thought of all 
 unhappy creatures. 
 
 In order to manage her mistress she further 
 hit upon the plan of taking her humorously, which 
 subtler, if not more humble, minds than Christine's 
 have found to be the only possible way of circum- 
 venting the troubles of life. 
 
AMOR 17 
 
 She first applied her method by meeting all the 
 old lady's squabbles with a broad smile and re- 
 ceiving her abuses as if they had been the witty 
 inventions of a precocious child; but this met with 
 no success, bringing upon her only sundry out- 
 spoken remarks concerning the expression of her 
 face and an evident mistrust as to the condition of 
 her brain. Then Christine in her need would find 
 her reply by a singular inspiration, for it would 
 never have occurred to her to bandy words for 
 the pleasure of so doing, she being all humility 
 and entirely without self-esteem or any belief in 
 her own talents. And so it was without at all put- 
 ting her soul into them, more as if they had been 
 the reflections of a third person, that she made 
 her contributions to the discussion. But this method 
 succeeded quite well. The poor invalid liked 
 being answered back and received from her dis- 
 putes a sense of exhilaration such as she might have 
 derived from a bout with the foils : even her rheu- 
 matism was improved by them. 
 
 Their days usually passed in the following 
 manner. 
 
 When Christine came in about eight o'clock — 
 having reveled in her independence for a couple 
 of hours previously, busying herself with lighter 
 duties and singing into cupboards, in extremely 
 subdued tones, just before she closed their doors 
 — she saw at first nothing of her mistress. For 
 
1 8 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Mrs. Asplund, to protect herself from draughts, 
 had fenced herself about with six open umbrellas, 
 three on each side, and the wide four-poster con- 
 sequently looked almost like part of an ancient 
 galley with its garland of shields. Christine, of 
 course, did not know this, but she was none the 
 less seized with a feeling of more than common 
 respect every time she came in, and it was never 
 without a certain trepidation that she moved the 
 topmost umbrella away towards the inner wall. 
 And there the old woman lay. Christine could not 
 distinguish much of her, but she heard her com- 
 plaints rising feebly out of the dark abyss. Not a 
 wink had she slept, not one wink, while on the 
 other hand she, Christine, had been snoring in a 
 shameless fashion. Nobody could understand what 
 she suffered, least of all she, Christine, who gen- 
 erally speaking understood nothing at all, and 
 went about like an elephant (although, without 
 deserving it, she had been given felt slippers for 
 Christmas) and could now only be prevented from 
 breaking the lamp-glass by the last poor act of 
 strained vigilance on the part of a sick woman. 
 
 For Christine this had become a litany, which 
 she in a certain way liked to hear, much as she 
 enjoyed the Sunday poundings in church, which 
 she took as a necessary culinary preparation for 
 the life of eternity. She listened to It more as to 
 music than to words with sense and truth in them, 
 
AMOR 19 
 
 and ended It by jokingly putting up the last umbrel- 
 la as a defense and peeping over the edge. This 
 never failed to amuse her mistress, and by making 
 speedy use of the mood of the moment Christine 
 could get permission to lift her up and begin her 
 toilet. When, after a couple of hours, this was so 
 far advanced that the old lady sat In her chair 
 before the mirror, and the pains In the poor joints 
 had subsided, the decisive battle of the day was 
 fought out. 
 
 Christine had to comb her hair, and If she suc- 
 ceeded during this delicate proceeding In warding 
 off the attacks, the day was saved. Before the mir- 
 ror, too, with their reflections right In front of 
 them within the wooden frame, they felt like four 
 persons, and made every effort to show the wit 
 and force demanded in so large a company. 
 
 Mrs. Asplund always began with something di- 
 rectly personal. 
 
 "You're as ugly as Satan," she said, vigorously 
 threatening Christine's image with her chin, "your 
 face Is like a ball of wool, I can't bear to look at 
 it" — and that was not a bad comparison either, 
 her coarse and high complexion was not unlike 
 red wool, especially with the lamplight coming 
 sharply from beneath, and certainly her head was 
 round. But neither had Christine herself any delu- 
 sions as to her appearance, and therefore she was 
 not offended but rather felt flattered that she 
 
20 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "looked" anything at all, and found the compari- 
 son with so large a ball of wool something quite 
 opulent and not at all derogatory. 
 
 "Well, m'm," she would answer, in a childishly 
 pouting tone, "some folks is so handsome that 
 they gets proud, and it's only so as not to be proud 
 that I've made myself so ugly. But if you like, 
 ma'am, it can be different to-morrow, only then 
 perhaps the lieutenants will come and take me 
 away from you, and if I get too handsome they 
 may make a mistake between us." 
 
 "You and your lieutenants! You'd hardly be 
 allowed to brush their servant's servant's boots I 
 But there we see what ideas and plans you've got 
 in your head!" — the tone malicious, and every 
 word with more teeth in it than one would have 
 thought possible in so old a mouth, but at the same 
 time enlivened at the idea of these sinful but de- 
 lightful creatures, as dainty and as dangerous as 
 crackers. 
 
 "That's not it, ma'am, it's because you carry on 
 and snap like a horse that I think about lieuten- 
 ants." 
 
 And so they would continue, till the old 
 woman's narrow plaits were colled up into a bas- 
 ket, topped on Sundays by a flaming rosette. 
 
 But sometimes also they would talk of serious 
 things. Then Christine did not open her mouth, 
 but listened with respect to what one of her bet- 
 
AMOR ai 
 
 ters had to say, one who had been taught and had 
 gone to school, and at these times she felt warmly 
 towards her mistress, especially when the latter 
 began to talk about religion, as of course she 
 always did. 
 
 They might begin with the wires over the 
 yard, those strange hollow wires that the godless 
 people of to-day had found out how to talk 
 through, though they would never get her, Mrs. 
 Asplund, to put her mouth to one of those treach- 
 erous boxes. "Think of the Judgment, Christine, 
 ^ow they'll be torn off, and what a tangle there 
 will be!" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" Christine had never thought of 
 that. "But since there are such things .... 
 There'll be some remedy for that, too." 
 
 "Ah, the Judgment! Yes, yes, we aren't what 
 we should be. I'm not very gentle sometimes — 
 but when one suffers so ! And you aren't what you 
 should be either, Christine, though you are not 
 ill!" 
 
 Oh, no, Christine knew that well enough, and 
 she had had no schooling either! But there was 
 nothing to say against her mistress, nothing at all ! 
 
 "And think of eternity, Christine, think of 
 eternity!" 
 
 Christine thought of eternity, or at least tried 
 as honestly as any one else to do so, and the tears 
 came Into her eyes. She wished everybody so well, 
 
22 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 and blushed to be concerned In anything so great. 
 
 "To sit by the throne of the Lamb — ah, frail 
 creatures that we are! But we have such faith, 
 Christine, and so . . . ." 
 
 Yes, certainly, Christine had faith, too, but she 
 only desired a quite humble place, not exactly 
 among the really blessed, some kind of a servant's 
 place there also. 
 
 "Oh, but it isn't so up there, Christine, it isn't 
 so, although it may seem strange; there's no dif- 
 ference there, if you only believe." 
 
 Christine believed, fully and firmly believed, 
 and she thought that her mistress would be her 
 joy and great protection there. But she said noth- 
 ing of this, and had she done so she would have 
 been met by politely modest objections. She was 
 edified in her inmost heart far more than even 
 on Sundays, for this she understood so well, she 
 could feel it in her soul, and she was a long time 
 drying her eyes in the kitchen afterwards. 
 
 Usually her mistress was there with her, wear- 
 ing a cloak that she had lately had made, although 
 she never went outside the door, because she felt 
 it as a duty of state. It was very elegant, and had 
 five shoulder-capes. Out in the kitchen she would 
 have a finger in everything, partly to kill time, 
 partly because she suspected Christine of careless- 
 ness, waste, or even actual dishonesty. 
 
 She kept so sharp an eye upon her that Christine 
 
AMOR 23 
 
 always felt as If the pins in her clothes had got 
 out of place. Sometimes she had to hold the old 
 lady up while she lectured by the hour on how 
 things should be done, and as the day was long 
 enough for a sick woman, there often came abuse 
 and hard words, but Christine's temper was not 
 spoiled; she felt quite at her ease amid it all and 
 even grew a little stouter, and would have sung, 
 when she was alone again in the evenings, if it 
 could have been done noiselessly. 
 
 And so they might long have lived in all regu- 
 larity as a notable example of authority in a mis- 
 tress and submission in a servant, had not Fate, 
 which exists but to make tragedies, amused herself 
 by tearing asunder these bands also. 
 
 One Sunday evening, when twilight had come, 
 Mrs. Asplund was dozing in her chair, having 
 laid upon the closed lid of her sewing-basket a 
 tract with the title "Whither art thou dancing?" — 
 a question somewhat unnecessary in her case. 
 Christine, meanwhile, was alone in the kitchen, 
 under a shelf full of cups shining with their Sun- 
 day polish, when suddenly there was a sound of 
 stumbling outside the door, and something fell 
 against the latch. Christine realized that some one 
 had hurt himself, and hastened to open. Outside 
 in the fading light a slender stooping figure rose, 
 holding his hands to his forehead, and he did not 
 take them away to look when the ray of light 
 
24 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 from the door fell upon him, so he must have 
 hurt himself badly. 
 
 To Christine's frightened question he replied 
 that certainly he had hurt himself a little, but it 
 was nothing serious; he often ran into things, he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, it's so dark here in the twilight," said 
 Christine. 
 
 Oh, that made no difference to him, for he was 
 blind. And he took away his hands and stood there 
 with a long red mark on his forehead and his 
 clouded swimming eyes right opposite hers — oh, 
 how sorry she felt for him, and what a blow he 
 had given himself! 
 
 "Blind! Blind, poor fellow, are you blind? 
 Come in and rest here. Quite blind, is it? Can't 
 you see a bit here In the light?" 
 
 No, he could not, he said, and laughed that it 
 should be .so hard for her to understand how com- 
 pletely blind he was. As Christine always liked 
 it when people laughed at her, so long as it was 
 not done in evident malice, she was pleased now, 
 too, and tried to be as nice as possible to the 
 stranger. There was also something so helpless 
 and childlike about him as he stood there with 
 his poor vacant eyes, his mouth smiling so readily, 
 as If every word granted him were a friendly gift. 
 
 He had a thin, light beard and smooth hair 
 which was rather long. His slender figure had 
 
AMOR 2S 
 
 also, when he sat, that upright, snail-like, bal- 
 ancing position which the blind get through grop- 
 ing about with hands outstretched, his arms lay 
 curved along his sides, and the fingers met in his 
 lap and danced and twined about each other as 
 neatly as if every one of them could see and as 
 regularly as if he were at work. 
 
 His name was Qvist, it came out in the course 
 of conversation, and he had been living in the 
 house for two or three days, in a room in the 
 attic. He made a living — not a very good one but 
 as good as could be expected — by basket-weaving, 
 and did his own room and made his own bed and 
 cooked for himself and never burnt himself in 
 doing so, and seldom went out, though he could 
 find his way anywhere very well. 
 
 But however could he find his way, when she, 
 Christine, knocked into things when she went 
 about if it was ever so little dark? 
 
 Oh, he could feel draughts from gateways and 
 streets and squares, quite different draughts — 
 sucking ones, cold ones, swift or whirling ones — 
 and then there was the noise, he heard every part 
 of it and understood whence it came. And of peo- 
 ple he could feel something — the warmth or the 
 fact that some one was there, and horses he took 
 good care not to go near. But still it wasn't pleas- 
 ant to go out. His only diversion was to calculate 
 exactly where he was, and that was of course a 
 
26 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 comfort, but nevertheless it was sometimes a 
 tedious and anxious proceeding — and then never 
 to feel or know anything of the objects he brushed 
 past or listened to ! 
 
 Christine sat looking at him, sniffing with emo- 
 tion, her eyes almost as blind as his from sheer 
 compassion. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Poor fellow!" 
 — She had the greatest difficulty in restraining 
 herself from throwing her rough, red arms around 
 his neck and weeping with him and telling him 
 about her own life, how hard it had been some- 
 times and how grateful she was now, and how 
 gladly she would have given him her sight. 
 
 Then the conversation grew more cheerful 
 again. The blind man had his room very nice now, 
 everything was so tidy and spruce; only it was a 
 pity no one came and saw it, really saw It, for he 
 had only friends who were like himself. He could 
 play the tin whistle, too, till his canary almost 
 burst its throat in competition with him, and the 
 time was not heavy, for he had such a blessed 
 gift of sleeping long and soundly. His mood be- 
 came cheerful, and he joked as far as was fitting 
 with a new acquaintance — he had fallen down like 
 that, he said, because he had wanted to peep in 
 through the keyhole, he had heard there was 
 such a pretty servant-girl there — and in the end 
 they got quite merry and might have long con- 
 tinued so, had not the blind man contrived to 
 
AMOR 27 
 
 knock down a saucepan, in throwing back his head 
 too recklessly as he laughed. 
 
 Then they heard from the inner chamber a 
 groaning that might have given voice to the medi- 
 tations of a whole ecclesiastical year upon the sin- 
 ful depths of life. It was Mrs. Asplund, who had 
 been awakened and with her rapid powers of com- 
 bination had at once come to the conclusion that 
 the house was on fire, and that she was doomed to 
 be burnt alive while the heartless creature in the 
 kitchen was running about the streets without even 
 informing the police. Christine had to dismiss her 
 visitor in haste, and hurry out to reassure her. 
 
 This was a matter that took some time, for 
 hardly had one terror been driven away when an- 
 other took its place. It was now a regular roman 
 d'intrigue about some dangerous relative of Chris- 
 tine's, who with her consent had stolen one or 
 more copper utensils and was now on the way to 
 hide them in a cave, until they could be disposed 
 of without danger and profligate feasts could be 
 held with the money. Christine had to take her out 
 into the kitchen so that she herself could count over 
 every article, and even then only half succeeded in 
 convincing her. The tranquillity of their life to- 
 gether had received a shock, and whatever Chris- 
 tine did, it was difficult to avoid having her action 
 interpreted as fresh evidence that she was a ser- 
 pent, who was concealing something. 
 
28 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 And so she was, for the bhnd man sometimes 
 came to see her, but only for short visits, just so 
 as to rest before climbing his four flights of stairs. 
 He would half sit upon the woodbin and did not 
 say much, but only smiled so as to show all his 
 teeth and gums, and listened with delight to the 
 sound of her work and always thanked her when 
 he went. 
 
 Christine was so moved at all this that she 
 wished to do something for him, but really she 
 would have been best pleased if he had not come, 
 for the situation in regard to her mistress was 
 becoming more and more critical. 
 
 Mrs. Asplund was perfectly clear in her own 
 mind that her servant was keeping up a liaison, 
 and with the quickness of imagination that always 
 characterized this lady she had no difficulty in find- 
 ing the man in question : it could be no other than 
 an ex-artilleryman, who had lived in the house 
 four years ago and had then once turned out to 
 be drunk when carrying wood, and whom, though 
 she had never heard of him since, she believed to 
 be capable of any crime. And it was a little trying 
 for Christine, when she had seen the poor blind 
 man's helpless friendly smile disappear behind the 
 yellow door, to be obliged to listen all the ensuing 
 evening to dreadful insinuations and tales of the 
 bestial savagery of men, and to direct questions 
 (put in a fury of rage) as to whether she had 
 
AMOR 29 
 
 "that carrion" with her in the kitchen every night. 
 
 Yet Christine had not the heart to dismiss him, 
 and so she had to take this, too, humorously, as 
 far as it was possible to do so. 
 
 One Sunday night she even went up to his room : 
 he was so anxious to show it to her. 
 
 It lay at the far end of a brick-walled passage, 
 and was not large : there was only room for his 
 clothes and the stove, on either side of the door, 
 and the uncurtained window stared almost vacantly 
 into one's face. The room had a curb roof on both 
 sides, and on a hook in the middle hung a bird-cage 
 of precisely the same shape. The bed? Oh, how 
 pitiful and poor it was, in spite of all his clumsy 
 efforts ! Besides this there were only a few chairs, 
 a washstand, and a table with unwieldy sheets of 
 braille writing on it. He had a lamp lit, and felt 
 busily with his hands to see if it was burning 
 properly. 
 
 "Why, how nice everything is I" said Christine. 
 "Real comfortable !" 
 
 He was so delighted at her praise that she 
 would willingly have strained the truth a little 
 further; he beamed with satisfaction and stroked 
 every object he came at, even a poker, with an 
 almost maternal gesture. "Yes, isn't it!" How 
 pleasant it was that she had come, who could really 
 see and properly appreciate how he managed! 
 He had taken such pains to think out what would 
 
30 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 be the best place for everything, and was so pleased 
 that he had succeeded. He always tidied up so 
 carefully, too. Nobody could suspect, could they, 
 that there were osiers and a good many finished 
 articles under the bed? 
 
 "No, indeed! And so you've lit the lamp for 
 my sake, too?" 
 
 Oh, no, not at all I He always liked to have a 
 light in the evenings, when he could afford it, and 
 especially on Sundays. 
 
 "But do you see it, or know about it?" 
 
 "No, I don't see it at all, but I feel it, I know 
 it's there. And then it shines outside, and people 
 know there's some one living here. And then .... 
 everybody does the same .... they are all glad 
 when the lamp is lit or the fire, I have read, and 
 I myself .... certainly I'm not always cheered 
 by it, but I know I should be if I were like other 
 people, and it's pleasant to think .... that the 
 light is there. And then there's the bird, you see ; 
 it hops and hops about, and when I play it wakes 
 up and is lively, just like in the daytime." 
 
 Christine saw it peeping out with its little black, 
 shining, seed-like eyes. She did not know why that 
 should be so sad a sight here, but she could hardly 
 keep from crying out in sympathy. 
 
 But she soon felt better, for Qvist was not sad 
 at all. On the contrary, in his gentle and humble 
 fashion the poor fellow was delighted, and showed 
 
AMOR 31 
 
 her everything, his kitchen utensils, a bead- 
 embroidered cushion, which was so funny to feel 
 and was so lovely, he had heard, with quite blue 
 roses, as blue as the sky in warm weather, and red 
 and green leaves — and it really was uncommonly 
 pretty, Christine thought also. 
 
 He chatted merrily about his work, so Interest- 
 ing sometimes, when there were more difficult 
 matters to work out and combine neatly, and about 
 his family, which was not really his, for he was 
 a foster-child, but which had been very kind to 
 him. 
 
 Finally at Christine's invitation he took down 
 his whistle and began to play. Oh, how merry the 
 tune was, how light and free ! Christine did not 
 know what it was called, and It might have been 
 pleasant to know, but she would not interrupt him, 
 and soon forgot all about it, merely listening and 
 watching how the smile flitted about his mouth and 
 his fingers danced and his eyes danced with them, 
 swimming and bright. 
 
 So very happy and fresh It sounded! It saw, 
 that tune of his! It knew everything, it swung 
 around swiftly and surely, caressing, laughing, 
 comforting with words of cheer. She, poor crea- 
 ture, knew not what she felt, but It was all so 
 gentle and pleasant, and everything was friendly, 
 and perhaps there was nothing stern and hard in 
 the world, everything was good If one looked at 
 
32 PER HALLSTRGM 
 
 it as one ought. And the bird, too, began to chir- 
 rup, such a funny little bird ! 
 
 The room was really quite cosy, like a box over 
 one's head, small though it was with its sloping 
 roof. She said not a word as long as he was able 
 and willing to play, but only listened with delight, 
 and the time certainly went too fast for his clumsy, 
 old silver watch on the wall to keep up with it. 
 
 At last the music became as it were troubled, 
 uneasy. He broke off short, and his hands fumbled 
 aimlessly. Then he burst out : 
 
 Could she care for him, would she marry him, 
 no one had ever loved him, they could manage it 
 with a little help, of that she need have no fear — 
 would she care for him, love him, poor lonely 
 fellow as he was, he loved her so, he was certain 
 she was beautiful, he did not know how he looked 
 himself, but he loved her so. 
 
 It came so unexpectedly that before Christine 
 knew where she was she found herself plunged 
 into the noisiest tempest of tears. She could not 
 for the life of her have said why, whether because 
 it was sad to hear this question from a blind man, 
 when she had lived so long past the time for such 
 things and had never heard it before, whether 
 she regretted that she herself was not young and 
 pretty and that he ... . Oh, no, it was not that, 
 not that at all ! She wept because she felt within 
 her breast something so unusual, so disturbingly 
 
AMOR 33 
 
 new, and could not tell where it would lead. And 
 she had really no other experience of emotion than 
 sorrow, could not find any expression for it but 
 tears ; she was not made that way. But she was not 
 in the least in despair and did not really mind cry- 
 ing, only it was provoking not to be able to control 
 it but to have to simply howl as she was doing, so 
 that she frightened herself. But Qvist was abso- 
 lutely terrified. What was he to think, poor fel- 
 low? So at last she had to stop. 
 
 "Was she too angry with him?" 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" The tears seemed on the point 
 of breaking out again, worse than ever. "No, 
 certainly not!" 
 
 "Did she think, then ....?" He turned quite 
 pale and stretched out his hands for information. 
 
 "Yes, she thought . . . ." Ah, those poor dear 
 hands, that were round her at once! — "Yes, in- 
 deed, she loved him, if he loved her, and even in 
 any case." — And not many more words were 
 spoken, but there was much crying and laugh- 
 ing too. And the time, the time! Oh, that 
 stupid clock! 
 
 But when the tears were at last convinced of 
 their own foolishness, and she was no longer any- 
 thing but happy, she became embarrassed again 
 and felt much as if she had had on a wonderful fine 
 new dress, and could not tell how it suited her. She 
 put on clumsy school-girl airs and was not a little 
 
34 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 affected, but this was only on the surface, and it 
 did not matter, for Qvist could not see it. 
 
 "Did he really think her pretty?" 
 
 "Yes, wasn't she? So good and kind as she was? 
 She must be pretty." 
 
 Pretty! She had to laugh at the idea, but did 
 so very quietly. If It was a silly notion it was none 
 the less a pleasant one, and certainly she would be 
 kind, so that if what people said were true, she 
 would not be so ugly, either. She said, therefore, 
 somewhat guardedly: "I'm not pretty at all, and 
 I'm not young either, and there are perhaps dif- 
 ferent tastes about that as about everything else, 
 but perhaps you wouldn't think me disagreeable, 
 if you could see me." 
 
 "If he could see? No, no, he was sure he 
 shouldn't think that, as sure as he was of any- 
 thing." 
 
 And so that matter was dismissed. 
 
 But her mistress ! Was it not wicked to think of 
 leaving one so old, when God had given her such 
 a good post with Mrs. Asplund and had so obvi- 
 ously fenced her round, to show that her place 
 was there? All Christine's joy sank down, as 
 though it had dropped out of her hands like porce- 
 lain and fell in pieces to the floor. Oh, dear! 
 What would she do and what could she say when 
 her mistress pointed out her black ingratitude, and 
 how would everything go? 
 
AMOR 35 
 
 But Qvist objected mildly that her mistress 
 could get another servant, and maybe it was as 
 wicked to grieve him as to vex Mrs. Asplund, per- 
 haps he was just as lonely and helpless. And per- 
 haps God meant one to be a little happy, too, as 
 far as one could. 
 
 This reassured Christine, especially the excel- 
 lent idea about the new servant, and they man- 
 aged to find plenty to talk about during the short 
 time that was left before she had to go. 
 
 As he came downstairs with her, she realized 
 well enough how foolish this would look to others, 
 and she heard the censure of the world, clothed 
 in her mistress' deferential voice; but it never 
 occurred to her that what she had done could be 
 undone, and she regretted nothing. She was happy 
 and had a right to be so, since she did not get in 
 any one's way, though she was no longer young 
 and was really, when she thought carefully about 
 it, anything but handsome, and though he was 
 blind and they might have a hard enough job to 
 make ends meet. 
 
 And she would like to see any one who would 
 say anything bad about him when he came to visit 
 her, even If it were Mrs. Asplund herself. 
 
 However, she was prudent enough not to wish 
 to run the risk that evening, and so she said good- 
 bye to him outside the door and went in to meet 
 Mrs. Asplund's now chronic mistrust. And this 
 
36 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 time it was worse than ever, for Christine's red 
 face was not of the kind to let tears come and go 
 and leave no traces, so that her mistress was 
 more firmly convinced than ever that the innocent 
 artilleryman was a scoundrel and Christine a silly 
 goose. But since she needed Christine and hoped 
 that this nuisance would soon pass over, seeing 
 that it was a person of mature age she had with 
 her, she aired her convictions in much the same 
 vaguely menacing words as usual, and grew calmer 
 when Christine nevertheless remained happy and 
 sensible, and went to rest not much disturbed, 
 except for this rheumatism. 
 
 She suspected nothing of that which threatened 
 her and would moreover never have believed in 
 such a piece of folly. Fortunately, she did not 
 happen to look out of the window. 
 
 Out there the blind man was walking, too happy 
 to be contained beneath his sloping roof, with the 
 night above him and the stars, which he knew 
 existed up there and were so lovely, people said. 
 He threw back his head that he might turn his 
 radiant face and his dead eyes towards the window 
 where he knew there was a light burning and she 
 who loved him was looking out — who loved him 
 in spite of all, just as he was, and dreamed like 
 him about the wished-for hour, in spite of all, and 
 however it might look. 
 
CARNEOLA 
 
 lCAliN£OLJ] 
 
 FROM PURPUR 
 
 189S 
 
Carneola 
 
 THIS is the tale of how Raymond LuUy 
 became the man whose fame was spread 
 throughout Christendom with a grandeur that 
 made men marvel, the hermit to whom travelers 
 came from far, asking of him advice to heal the 
 wounds of their souls — and they stood there 
 amazed beneath the death-like calm of his eyes, 
 half trembling at the dimly divined riddle of his 
 being, half pitying — contemptuously pitying — his 
 voluntary poverty. This is the tale as it painted 
 Itself to Raymond in the waking visions of the 
 night, ere he had lived many years as a hermit, 
 the tale as it burned on the not yet extinguished 
 pyre of suffering, with the color of roses caught 
 by flame, with an odor of incense and black earth, 
 with a sound of weeping and deep, panting words, 
 and behind it all the steel-blue cold and the star- 
 spangled spaces of heaven. It is also the tale of 
 a woman. 
 
 Carneola was her name, and the glance of her 
 eyes had in it something of dark butterflies flitting 
 over colored joy; her lips, when she ceased to 
 speak, never closed entirely, but quivered as over 
 some word held back, a word that would have 
 turned laughter into weeping; her slender hands 
 
 39 
 
4° PER HALLSTROM 
 
 she was wont to keep folded and at rest, and they 
 shone bluish white against the purple velvet on 
 her bosom. 
 
 She wore a dress with the underslip fitting close 
 to her finely curved neck, though such was no 
 longer the custom; the outer part left her sides 
 free, with the graceful lines of waist and hips, and 
 was caught over her breast by a brooch with a red 
 stone in it, which sparkled in the light like a drop 
 of blood from the Holy Grail. Over her head she 
 wore a dark kerchief, striped with gold, glistening 
 where the coiled hair raised its arch, and stealing 
 away in folds close to her cheek. 
 
 Round about her shone and smiled the sunniest 
 mirth of the little kingdom of Majorca — mirth 
 that stared idly at the blue heavens through trees 
 whose leafy tops seemed still to bear the impress 
 of the inviting gesture made by the Creator's hand, 
 or that drowsed peacefully within high garden 
 walls, so white and warm with sunshine that the 
 wind, circling too near them, was whirled up and 
 scattered like smoke over the flowering runners 
 on the coping. Behind, the round towers of the 
 palace stretched forth their watchful heads with 
 the pointed caps upon them, looking out over 
 the light blue satin of the sea ; but otherwise it was 
 an angular medley of decorated doors and cor- 
 nices that took on the color of old gold in the 
 mid-day sunshine, a palace such as some giant's 
 
CARNEOLA 41 
 
 child might have built of shells and glittering frag- 
 ments, as he played by the seashore. 
 
 And they played inside that building. The music 
 of zithers clung like a ring of bursting bubbles 
 about heads that were ever bending together in 
 merriment and whispered confidences. The golden 
 balls of the jugglers seemed the proper measures 
 of the time, as they rose and fell and were tossed 
 up again by dextrous hands. When the wind some- 
 times increased in strength and pressed his puffing 
 lips against the walls, it was only in playful men- 
 ace, as though to warn them: Stay in there, chil- 
 dren, warm yourselves in one another's looks, 
 press each other's hands and stayl Stay in there 1 
 
 There was no foe to war against on the islands, 
 nor any game to hunt. Yet they must have their 
 falcons like other folk, and so they taught the 
 birds to strike at bats that had been frightened 
 from their crannies and that darted forward, 
 blinded by the light, with turns as sharp as the 
 curve of a whip ; or they let out pigeons and took 
 pleasure in seeing their pink feet pressed close to 
 their bodies, the soft wings as they caressed the 
 air, and the blue shadows on the ground when the 
 birds sought the shelter of the aviaries. Or else 
 they suffered themselves to be snared in the toils 
 of love, and enmeshed in flying or captured 
 dreams, in alternating little griefs and triumphs, 
 just as they also delighted in the artfully inter- 
 
42 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 woven rhymes of their songs, with here and there 
 a note of pleasant melancholy. 
 
 And so one night Raymond became enamored 
 of Carneola, having grown weary of his latest 
 mistress' walk. It was a thought too bustling and 
 too heavy, and never could her figure show that 
 repose of line which can unite the expectant joy 
 of the whole landscape into one image, carving 
 it against a gold-streaked sky under the careless 
 folds of the dress. 
 
 But Carneola stood just so, leaning against the 
 balusters of a staircase; where Raymond sat, a 
 little distance from her foot, he saw her cheek 
 with its amber-colored shadows and the lovely fall 
 of the kerchief standing out sharply against the 
 margin of an orange sunset, fading into icy green, 
 and he could not comprehend how he had ever 
 desired to look on aught but that dark veil, in 
 which the golden threads gleamed dully, like the 
 edge of a velvet butterfly. 
 
 Dark butterflies — now he understood the ex- 
 pression in her glance. Was it longing? No, it was 
 too deep for longing. Was it sorrow? She had 
 never murmured. Could it be perchance but a sense 
 of loneliness, and the knowledge that among all 
 this crowd of light-winged beings there was none 
 whose soul could keep even flight with hers out 
 over the purple sea of passion? But Raymond 
 could do so. It was but for an hour that he had 
 
CARNEOLA 43 
 
 joined the others at their sport: in his youth and 
 newly won freedom from his books it had amused 
 him to dance and feel the bonds fluttering about 
 him. But there was other stuff in him, and now 
 he clenched his fist and pressed it to the warm 
 earth, and vowed that with that woman he would 
 gaze upon the farthest horizon of delight. 
 
 She was young, though her husband had been 
 dead several years, and none could understand 
 why she still wore her widow's veil, for she could 
 not have loved him so deeply. Nor could any one 
 explain the coyness of her eyes, for where the 
 laughter was merriest and all was at its gayest 
 there she too was drawn, there her hand beck- 
 oned, and her voice was heard, but with a fragile 
 cadence, as though her inward ear were listening 
 for its echo. "She tries to strangle her conscience 
 with silken bands," said some, — but what, then, 
 could have set her conscience at strife? At the 
 confessional the priest's blessing followed as 
 closely upon the rustle of her garments when she 
 knelt as the myrtle-branch recovers from the buf- 
 fet of the wind, and none had ever seen a guilty 
 blush upon her cheek or envy trembling about her 
 mouth. 
 
 Raymond thought that he had guessed the rid- 
 dle. Love it was that she was listening for, Love 
 the mighty, the ascending flight of two twin beings 
 through an ever brighter, purer atmosphere — and 
 
44 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 none could say whose wings it was that bore them 
 at this moment or at that — the drink of two red 
 mouths dipped side by side into the spacious cup 
 of joy. And he offered her his faith, his strength: 
 it was not unattainably far, that she sought — 
 seated close by her he said it, with his cheek touch- 
 ing her dark veil. 
 
 "Love is the miracle," said he; "only have faith, 
 and there he stands in his unfathomable greatness, 
 bending over your head. Have faith only, and your 
 foot shall float still more lightly than now, for the 
 wings are there already, folded up in that little 
 pointed shoe. Only have faith, and all that you 
 require in a man will blossom forth in me ; already 
 I hear the rustle of the palms above us." 
 
 She raised her folded hands a little, so that the 
 fingers touched the clasp at her breast, and gently 
 shook her head. "But Death is there," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "And is that so sure? For us, as we are now? 
 Nay, there is no Death. We know nought of him. 
 If we love. Death cannot be, for then we know 
 that death and pain lie deep beneath our feet, as 
 far removed as a broken dream, within the ring 
 of time, in that world which is not the real world." 
 
 Then Carneola's eyes flashed, and the red stone 
 of her brooch threw a gleam upon her hand; it 
 was as though her soul was filled with the clear- 
 ness of the mystery, even as the darkness is tremu- 
 
CARNEOLA 45 
 
 lously filled by the lightning flash. But anon the 
 light vanished, and her fingers closed tight and 
 painfully, as one in despair may close them. 
 
 "I believed just now in the miracle," she whis- 
 pered, "but my eyes were drawn to the wounds 
 and not the halo, and now I only see that they are 
 real." 
 
 Raymond dared not catch her hand to him, 
 although with mingled pain and exultation he felt 
 that she was his, that she believed in him if not in 
 love, or that it was her very love that made her 
 suffer more. He could not grieve thereat, but he 
 scanned her thoughts, scanned them impatiently 
 yet sure of victory, and every morning the sun 
 was shining on his pillow ere he slept, slept happy, 
 with the great eventful day before him. 
 
 One night there was feasting at the palace, and 
 they danced the torch dance. 
 
 The music was placed In darkness, and it was 
 as though its tones took bodily shape and fluttered 
 in among the gleams from the swinging lights. The 
 halting joy of the violins, the wide wing-beats of 
 the horns, the enticing melancholy of the flutes, 
 and the drum's gruff exhortation all seemed to 
 have hastened in among the tortuous ranks of the 
 dancers and to have cried: "Fly, oh, fly! See, ever 
 the draught doth choke the flame ! This world is 
 for time and change, for pain and longing, but 
 we raise the curtain to another, the world of Love. 
 
46 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Fly, oh, fly with us!" Not long before, there had 
 been as much light as a hundred wax candles could 
 bear upon their heads, but now there were only 
 flickering gleams of red upon crimson cheeks, 
 lengthening shadows on dilated pupils. Raymond 
 and Carneola clasped hands tight at every meet- 
 ing and loosed their grasp almost in fear, and 
 their hearts were lighter than ever, for they felt 
 that the dance was teaching them wisdom, driving 
 away all obstructing thoughts, and folding them 
 together like frightened children, that they might 
 afterwards meet the light with wide awake and 
 smiling eyes. 
 
 Ere the music had yet sunk to rest, and as men 
 began to bring in the lights, Carneola whispered 
 in reply to Raymond's question: "Yea, take me! 
 Never more to part! Let us fly from here!" In 
 the brightening light he saw her eyes shine with 
 joy, her mouth tremble with expectation; she 
 seemed raised aloft by exultation, yet with despair 
 still hanging heavy at her foot. 
 
 He left her and wandered through corridors 
 and chambers with his blood dancing in time to 
 the renewed strains of the music and an expanse 
 of flaming light within his breast — then his sharp 
 ear distinguished her step upon the stairs, and he 
 caught her up when she had reached her chamber. 
 There was a prie-dieu there with an image, and 
 the light of a lamp shone over the red folds of 
 
CARNEOLA 47 
 
 her skirt; otherwise there was no light save that 
 of the moonbeams shining coldly through the col- 
 ored glass of the window. He laid his forehead 
 upon Carneola's knee and gave utterance to his 
 ecstatic thoughts: "The miracle, the miracle I" — 
 He pressed her hands against his eyes and reached 
 up his arms, so that they enwrapped her slender 
 form. — "Now your doubts are all hidden, shut 
 away!" 
 
 Carneola inclined her mouth close to his hair. — 
 "Yea, and even though Death were near us ... . 
 Are you sure of your miracle?" 
 
 Raymond lifted his eyes and shuddered at her 
 questioning tone, but her love streamed down 
 upon him with intoxicating force. 
 
 "Yea," said he firmly, "Love is all, the other is 
 illusion. Love is joy, the same arm embracing 
 both. The other stands outside, and never can 
 come in." 
 
 Carneola pressed upon his forehead a kiss so 
 hot that it burned like fever, then freed herself, 
 rose tottering, and took a few steps forward to- 
 wards the lamp. Her thoughts were strung to the 
 point of delirium ; she sang to the music which still 
 danced alluringly in the distance. Then she broke 
 off with half incomprehensible words, while her 
 hands rose white and trembling to her breast, and 
 she unclasped the brooch with the red stone, which 
 glistened like a blood-drop as it fell. 
 
48 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "I believe, I believe in the miracle." — ^Her voice 
 sounded thin, like the ringing of thin glass. She 
 folded back the dress from her shapely curved 
 neck, turned it back from her breast, and glanced 
 downwards, as though expecting to see some in- 
 effable, infinite deliverance. Then her face sud- 
 denly hardened in the desolation of despair, with 
 the eyes gazing into remoteness and deep with the 
 very depths of sorrow. 
 
 "See," she said — and Raymond saw, saw some- 
 thing frightful, corroding — "see what I bearl" 
 
 Raymond felt his head a blank, like the depths 
 beneath his feet; grief, terror, infinite bitterness, 
 and a sickening feeling of loathing made his brain 
 whirl, but yet he heard her continue: 
 
 "I saw it coming years ago. I have cradled 
 Death in my bosom. I would fain have cast him 
 out and fled from him. I have prayed to God for 
 miracles; I have tried to forget it out there; I 
 have played, and I have laughed. It eat deeper 
 and deeper in: constantly I felt it, ever saw it 
 there. I loved you, love you still. I believed — I 
 did not know — I felt it just now as a miracle. God 
 is love, they say, and I thought — do you still be- 
 lieve in miracles, Raymond?" 
 
 Raymond bent his head. He felt the tears op- 
 press him, tears and pity, and therewith something 
 terribly cold. 
 
 "Our God is the God of afflictions, Carneola." 
 
CARNEOLA 49 
 
 She spoke with the despairing wail of a child 
 that fears the dark. 
 
 "I have known it, known it always, but it has 
 frightened me, and I have fled from Him. I have 
 frolicked like the others, and I have spoken with 
 their words. I have believed them in my sleep — 
 the whole has been a dream. This is the reality. 
 Have not you a sore like this? Do not they all 
 bear one, and is not that why they play music as 
 they do? Hark! What weeping at the doors I" 
 
 Raymond dared not look up. He wept for all 
 things, so it seemed to him, in weeping for her; 
 she was too great for him to behold. Then she 
 came close to him and moaned like a starving 
 woman : 
 
 "Can you stay with me nevertheless, can you 
 love me? I have yearned for your love. I shall not 
 die yet. The loneliness makes me fear, and I was 
 so happy but now. Without love I cannot live." 
 
 But Raymond felt the emotion that had lately 
 filled him to be so little now, so trampled under 
 the foot of the inevitable, that, even had he been 
 able, he would have had no wish to raise it. As 
 a boy, when he had found wounded birds, he had 
 felt just so, though not so strongly. He had not 
 wished to look at them, but had hastened to give 
 them their death blow. 
 
 "I can weep with you," he said gently. 
 
 Like cold steel laid against an aching forehead. 
 
50 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 his accents brought her to herself. She covered 
 her bosom and went towards the door, beckoning 
 him to follow. 
 
 "Farewell," she said, with something of her 
 wonted proud beauty in the gesture with which 
 she gave him her hand to kiss, and her eyes drew 
 his gaze into dark expanses, greater than he had 
 ever guessed at. 
 
 From outside the music floated in to meet them. 
 They smiled mournfully upon each other, and 
 thus it was, with that smile about the quivering 
 of her mouth and the dark butterflies of her look 
 drowning in a sea of sorrow, that Carneola's image 
 came before Raymond's eyes every time her name 
 was mentioned, every time he thought upon a 
 woman. 
 
 He never saw her more, never inquired about 
 her fate; that same night he left behind him the 
 dully gleaming lights of Majorca and held 
 his course towards the steel-blue void of sea 
 and sky. 
 
 He understood all, he had seen through the 
 deceitfulness of joy and beauty, he had tried to 
 caress life, and she had faded like a shadow in his 
 grasp, but great and endless was the pain. 
 
 It was Truth alone, the voice of the Godhead, 
 that did not lie — and lo ! was it not but terror from 
 men's fables and traditions that had caused her to 
 
CARNEOLA SI 
 
 be shunned? Did she not bear about her the 
 beauty of the open spaces? 
 
 Pain, that was the drop sprinkled upon Nature's 
 breast, to accustom the wailing child to snatch his 
 mouth away, that he might eagerly receive the 
 food of the soul and grow strong for the life of 
 eternity. 
 
 Vain was it to grope for love or pity here below, 
 to turn the inquiring cry of the human heart into 
 the promise of divinity. When the fledgeling 
 stretches his downy head over the edge of the nest, 
 and sees, below the blue vault which hitherto has 
 been his only world, an earth lying blazing in the 
 sunlight, he knows not that at that moment there 
 is breaking from its shell the hawk which shall 
 grow strong and wild beneath its mother's speckled 
 breast, and shall one day silence the chirp of 
 terror in his throat. 
 
 When the youth, from the dreams and pure air 
 of boyhood's world, looks down upon life that 
 tempts him, already the disaster is in motion which 
 shall meet his forehead like a stone from a sling. 
 For infinitely far back goes the chain of events, 
 from the limits of time the dark threads of sorrow 
 wind in and out of all the motley patterns woven 
 by the hands of Fate, and from the beginning of 
 all it has been determined where and how they 
 are to meet. 
 
 But outside all is God, is Truth, where all desire 
 
52 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 and hope are quenched as sparks are quenched 
 within the ocean, and the soul is conscious only of 
 itself, for its greatness embraces the universe. 
 
 So Raymond passed within the cloister walls 
 and turned to books and to the converse of holy 
 men, if haply he might find whether there was any 
 other that understood this, and he found eyes 
 that sometimes sounded the depths of the calm 
 which he was seeking, and words that seemed to 
 resemble scattered echoes of his thoughts ; but he 
 shunned the churches that raised to heaven vaults 
 as of upstretched arms and their hymns hot with 
 desire. 
 
 And Raymond spoke few words, but his 'hand 
 was ever ready to act; he never prayed, but all 
 men knew that he was near God. 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 
 
 [EN SIMPEL TRJGEDI] 
 
 FROM THANATOS 
 
 1900 
 
A Humble Tragedy 
 
 IT WAS In the fore-cabin of a small steamboat, 
 a tiny little room which, as though in an attempt 
 at perspective, narrowed rapidly towards the 
 stewardess' little box, and thus caused her pale, 
 fat features, filling the background, to assume 
 gigantic proportions and dominate the whole. The 
 cabin was also dominated by the warm smell of 
 a huge beefsteak In the middle of one of the long 
 tables. 
 
 Behind the steak, compressed In pleasant ease 
 between It and the cabin wall, sat a man of tanned 
 and weather-beaten countenance, with a light 
 beard, and a brown jersey underneath his but- 
 toned jacket. He ate with slow conviction, sipping 
 his glass of stout from time to time with evident 
 enjoyment. He had previously opened the pro- 
 ceedings no less appreciatively by a dram, but had 
 prudently stopped at one, and now sat In an agree- 
 able glow watching the decanter as It passed over 
 to a couple of men on the opposite table, who 
 could not afford a dinner, but by repeated doses 
 were cheating their hunger in a fashion whose 
 consequences were easy to foresee. 
 
 The man's name was Janson, and so he was 
 addressed by all who knew him. Of course he 
 
 55 
 
56 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 had a Christian name, too; there were even four 
 of them to be found upon his birth ciertificate, and 
 these, in earlier days, he was accustomed to repeat 
 upon request, together with his age and the year 
 upon which he was entering. At that time people 
 called him by the first of these names, in conven- 
 tional style. But he was now a man of thirty, inde- 
 pendent, and even — thanks to his own efforts — 
 quite well-to-do ; his mother was dead and honor- 
 ably buried — so that he ran no risk of ever being 
 called anything but Janson, possibly with a more 
 and more definite "Mr." to look forward to. 
 
 Janson had reason to-day for feeling more than 
 usually well pleased with himself and almost every- 
 thing. He had disposed of a load of hay, bought 
 as a speculation, and had done his business like 
 a man. He had not been able to avoid being 
 impressed by: his new acquaintances, the imposing 
 head grooms, whose broad-backed and corpulent 
 dignity was already beginning to be reflected in 
 his own bearing, but he had none the less defended 
 his interests against them and was therefore neces- 
 sarily impressed by his own cleverness also. He 
 could not help building castles in the air as he 
 sat, based on simple calculations with the aid of 
 his fingers, and this made the food taste still better 
 and drove the blood to his head, so that his 
 thoughts became more bold than usual, and took 
 on an almost disturbingly rapid motion. This re- 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 57 
 
 vealed itself partly in a humorous view of things 
 about him, partly in a sense of power and self- 
 confidence which filled out his jersey and made 
 his own person a proportionately worthier object 
 of contemplation. The comfort and elegance of 
 the room, with its odor of food, took on a height- 
 ened value from the sound of the ice striking 
 against the iron sides of the boat in the current, 
 and from the foggy daylight that came in through 
 the tiny round windows from the December cold 
 and dampness outside. 
 
 He sat looking in friendly fashion at his two 
 fellow-passengers opposite : they could not fail to 
 inspire a sensible man with mild compassion. They 
 were two young workmen, painters no doubt, to 
 judge by their curly hair. It was clear that their 
 prospects for the night in front of them were none 
 too rosy; they would not be admitted into any 
 room, but would have to sleep the sleep of the 
 wronged and the despairing in some outhouse, 
 supposing that they reached their destination at 
 all. His own anticipations were very pleasant. 
 Not only warmth and good cheer to be genteelly 
 enjoyed, but also a little part to play, a seller 
 deliberately to impose upon and render humble 
 for the self-contemplation of the night and the 
 business to follow in the morning. 
 
 The waitress also afforded material for dreams. 
 Her name was Marie, and Janson thought her 
 
58 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 very pleasing, though not quite as much so now as 
 in the days when all thought of anything but a shy 
 pleasantry, received at the best without reproof, 
 was quite out of the question between him and a 
 lady of her class. She had a stumpy figure, a round 
 little body, full bosom, and a pale in-doors com- 
 plexion, all of which were to his taste with the 
 possible exception of the paleness, but this, too, 
 he regarded in his altered circumstances as some- 
 thing to be appreciated as a sign of luxury and 
 refinement, just as he himself ought now to prefer 
 cigars to plug. Her faculties had been developed 
 by her calling in two directions, mental arithmetic 
 and repartee, and her somewhat tired face had 
 thus assumed an expression of self-command and 
 knowledge of the world, beneath which could be 
 suspected character and the power to unbend in 
 hours of recreation. Janson could not dream of 
 marriage with her, even if his affections had not 
 already been engaged, as he reminded himself in 
 this connection — certainly not, but there might 
 be a brief and slightly loose flirtation, not involv- 
 ing too much, half pleasure and half duty towards 
 himself, with some of his youth still left and his 
 bright prospects. He made preparations by pulling 
 at his beard as he watched the girl's busy move- 
 ments, but his thoughts could not succeed in fol- 
 lowing and slowly occupied themselves with the 
 penchant already mentioned. 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 53 
 
 This was for a country girl named Augusta, not 
 exactly what would be called a peasant girl, the 
 daughter of parents well-to-do, solid, and re- 
 spected. She had left home, though there was no 
 need for her to do so, with a twofold end in view — 
 to gain a living and at the same time further train- 
 ing as a dressmaker. Janson had known her for 
 several years, respected her highly, admired her 
 good sense and character and the clothes she made 
 for herself, and was attracted by all this and other 
 things, so that he could think calmly but warmly 
 of a life spent at her side. He remembered now 
 that the boat would have to pass her father's 
 landing-stage, but on further consideration he saw 
 but little likelihood that Augusta would be there 
 or would have left for the country at all. Still less 
 could he dwell upon the pleasant possibility that 
 she might be on the boat going home. Certainly 
 they had not put off yet, and he still heard people 
 walking on the gangway over his head, but at this 
 season she would no doubt be staying in Stockholm. 
 
 The two journejrmen painters were curious fel- 
 lows to look at and listen to, as he sat there after 
 dinner in a position slightly raised above them. 
 With their uncombed hair and spotted clothes they 
 resembled tramps. They had no control over their 
 bodies ; they looked shy and found their surround- 
 ings too elegant. But they now began to be so 
 merry that intimate conversation was no longer 
 
6o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 an adequate means of expression for them. This 
 was their first meeting, and they were to work 
 together; for two young and enthusiastic natures 
 thus discovering one another life readily took on 
 the form of song — tenor, of course, as suited their 
 profession and their curly hair. 
 
 They began very softly, and so far back in their 
 throats that most of the sound could get no fur- 
 ther: "And ne'er can we know — Brighter days 
 here below — Than those which we live in the 
 spring-tide of youth." 
 
 The stewardess coughed sharply, and the wait- 
 ress pierced them with a look, but they knew 
 nothing of it as they sought the depths of each 
 other's eyes. 
 
 "What's yer name ?" asked one of them ; "Chris- 
 tian name, I mean." 
 
 "Johan Mauritz Evald." 
 
 "I'll call you Evald, tKen. Evald, we're going 
 to be together." 
 
 "Well, of course I was christened Evald, too, 
 but me real name's John." 
 
 "That's all the same to me. Evald, I'm going to 
 call you. You're a good sort, Evald; we're going 
 to be together. You know me, Evald; 'scuse my 
 askin', don't you like me just a bit? My name's 
 Charles." 
 
 "A bit I More'n a bit — no one could help it. 
 How can you ask that, Charlie?" 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 6i 
 
 Charles was deeply touched. 
 
 "It's a fine thing when people have tact and 
 show themselves friendly," said he. "B — rare 
 thing, too." 
 
 "Got a family, Evald?" 
 
 "How d'ye mean? If I'm married?" 
 
 "Oh, no — mother and dad, or only mother, I 
 mean. I've got nobody, never have had." He bent 
 forwards and drew with his finger on the table, 
 in a kind of confused idea about a family tree. 
 
 Evald hesitated. 
 
 "Mine's alive," he said, "for all I know; at 
 least she was last Christmas, when she broke her 
 arm. But I ha'n't heard anything since." 
 
 "You're a lucky chap to have some one, Evald. 
 Shake hands !" Evald did so, with emotion. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps you're right there," said he. "Of 
 course I'm lucky." 
 
 But his comrade clutched his fingers convul- 
 sively. 
 
 "You, Evald, you know me; you know how I 
 am. I've got a heart, but nobody cares about me, 
 no young women, nobody at all." 
 
 Evald cared about him, and tried to make that 
 clear. 
 
 "Yes, of course, you're my oldest and very best 
 friend ; but d'you think, for instance, that she over 
 there . . . .?" He meant the waitress. Evald 
 thought it not impossible. "Try," he said, "try I" 
 
62 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 The drunken man stretched out his arm and 
 caught the girl by the waist just as she went by. 
 The face he turned up to her bore in its confusion 
 an expression of helpless weakness, unqualified 
 adoration, and shy delight that should have soft- 
 ened a stone. 
 
 "Marly," he said, with thickly blended r- and 
 1-sounds, "Marly!" 
 
 But Marie was doubly insulted that this scene 
 should take place in the respectable presence of 
 a third person, and she tore herself away so vio- 
 lently that she almost pulled him off his chair. 
 With a stranger close by ! No more was needed 
 to sink both the friends into the depths of despair, 
 with their looks hanging upon each other's, and 
 the cruel world left to look after itself behind 
 their forsaken shoulders. 
 
 Janson watched them with a pleasant feeling 
 that he was the protector of these foolish wan- 
 derers, and would let them work for him when he 
 built himself a house and set up his own home — and 
 meanwhile he digested his dinner and once more 
 turned over in his mind the wealth of ideas that 
 had come before him. Between himself and the 
 girl there quite naturally arose a common feeling 
 of superiority before these poor wretches; they 
 smiled at one another and exchanged a few jesting 
 words, and Janson could not but feel his satisfac- 
 tion redoubled by the envy, subdued by admiration, 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 63 
 
 which stole towards him from the two whom none 
 regarded. 
 
 Then he heard a trampling of many feet right 
 above his head. He concluded that some heavy 
 object was being brought on board, and inter- 
 rupted his thoughts to wonder vaguely what it 
 might be. A threshing-mill? No, it was too late 
 In the year. A piano ? Probably not, for who would 
 have It, now that no gentlemen's families lived 
 out of town any longer? It was some long object 
 anyhow, to judge by the trampling, and certainly 
 something fragile, too. He wondered if he ought 
 to have a piano, in case he married — a second- 
 hand one, not too dear — and whether it was pos- 
 sible that Augusta might find time and ability to 
 learn to play on it, and by this means he was drawn 
 away from his questioning. The boat put out, the 
 journeymen painters wept over their memories and 
 their solitariness, and Janson remained a little 
 longer over his finished meal and his castles in 
 the air. Then he rose, put off paying till later, since 
 he thought it looked well to have an account here 
 and meant to take a little more presently, and went 
 up on deck to look about him, feeling satisfaction 
 In the firmness and sureness of his steps on the 
 companion-way. 
 
 It was gray and cold up there, the air gave an 
 impression of blindness, the broken ice rattled 
 against the bows. The passengers, simple folk 
 
64 PER HALLSTRGM 
 
 merely, sat huddled by the engines for the sake 
 of the warmth, looking sluggishly at one another 
 and saying nothing. Janson remembered the heavy 
 thing that had been carried on board, glanced 
 round in search of it but did not find it, and con- 
 tinued his walk on to the upper deck and looked 
 around. 
 
 It was a trifle dismal; that was unavoidable. 
 Gray and white and misty, the sky like tin-plate, 
 the lake like lead, no movement In the water, only 
 the furrow of the steamer and slowly eddying 
 lumps of ice broken in pieces. No other color than 
 the naked walls of the empty villas, and patches 
 of red or green from upturned boats on the shores : 
 the horizon cut off by the dark prickly line of the 
 firs. 
 
 The captain, a squat little man who looked as 
 if he had been cut off from below, was pacing up 
 and down his tiny enclosure like a bear in a cage. 
 Janson thought that he, as representing the upper 
 classes on that boat, owed it to his position to 
 speak to the captain, and he smiled and made a 
 remark about the weather; but he got only short 
 replies and therefore did not dare to offer the 
 captain a drink, as he had at first Intended, but 
 withdrew somewhat shyly to the smoklng-cabin 
 and gave his order for coffee and punch. 
 
 He saw clearly that the waitress was Impressed 
 when she came up, and life at once took on Its 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 65 
 
 rosy hue for him again. He turned in his woolen 
 jersey at the wrists and buttoned his coat so as to 
 look more like a gentleman, he called the girl by 
 her Christian name and came near to inventing 
 a little jest before she went. He enjoyed once 
 more, and more intensely, all the thoughts with 
 which he had been busy. 
 
 If, now, he became actually almost wealthy, 
 should he get married at once or should he enjoy 
 himself for a time with, for instance, Marie here? 
 She evidently thought well of him ; he was a fine- 
 looking fellow with mustaches and a naturally 
 pointed beard. He would be able to crack jokes 
 if he had a little practice and got over the worst 
 part. He would drink with the captain sooner or 
 later ; he ought to have a little fun like other folk. 
 Augusta would be willing to wait, for she was a 
 sensible girl and certainly did not long for the 
 trials of marriage, though she would bear them 
 in exemplary fashion when they did come. No one 
 knew of their feeling for each other, and the words 
 they had exchanged upon the subject were but 
 few and simple, though clear enough since each 
 felt sure of the other. She was a splendid girl and 
 he a deuced fine fellow ! 
 
 How he had made his way up — just think of 
 it! He had starved, he had frozen, had known 
 Christmases without a single candle, had begged 
 credit for his mother from shop-keepers and been 
 
66 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 refused, had got drunk on a glass of beer and 
 wept for shame, had worked with ice forming 
 round his wrists, had been beaten in the cold but 
 without getting warmer. He had even taken com- 
 munion in worn-out shoes, had lain sick and known 
 that there would not be a penny for his funeral. 
 Then matters had improved; he had been "con- 
 verted" and had braced himself to a vivid con- 
 sciousness of a responsibility that never loosed its 
 hold, as also of the practical advantages of being 
 respected by his fellow-men, he had felt himself 
 a worm and a chosen vessel before the Almighty 
 and an irreproachable man before all others. The 
 religious impression had soon worn off, but he 
 was what he was, a man of sense, who looked 
 before he leaped, and knew how to make his own 
 way. The coffee was good, the punch was good, 
 and as he sat there in a glow his imagination took 
 a swift and almost poetic flight, although it was 
 occupied only with possible and even common- 
 place things. The future lay before him in the 
 comfort and warmth of a home, and the wintry 
 scene outside the windows, with its blind staring, 
 its cold, and its powerless hostility, only served to 
 sharpen the effect. 
 
 Janson would have liked to sing, but in the first 
 place he supposed, from recent recollections, that 
 this was forbidden, and then he had no voice and 
 knew nothing but a couple of hymns from days 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 67 
 
 gone by, melancholy hymns that did not suit his 
 present mood. So instead of singing he got up 
 and walked about, since it was impossible for him 
 to keep still; and in order to see people again, to 
 show them his happiness and do something for 
 them, he betook himself to the steerage. 
 
 There stood the two painters, having probably 
 been turned out of the saloon, smiling sadly and 
 cheerfully by turns at each other and the wall they 
 stood by and at everything. There the country- 
 people thawed in the warmth and comfort and 
 exchanged a few words now and again. There the 
 screw beat slowly and surely like a heart, driving 
 the whole ship forwards with a muffled sound of 
 ice and ice-cold water yielding to her passage. 
 
 Janson went over to the other side, where he 
 had not been before, and his smiling glance met two 
 faces that seemed familiar to him. Augusta's par- 
 ents — what a happy chance! Now he could get 
 some news — and beside them a long object, evi- 
 dently that which he had wondered about. He 
 determined to find out also what it was, and be- 
 came as happy as a child at his meeting with these 
 two, which as it were brought him nearer to the 
 object of his thoughts. 
 
 He went up to them and greeted them warmly, 
 but they turned curiously reserved looks upon him. 
 Did they not recognize him? "It's Janson," he 
 said. "And how are you this lovely afternoon?" 
 
68 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 But they did not laugh at the witticism, as they 
 should have done: they silently stretched out their 
 hands and greeted him modestly, conscientiously, 
 and a trifle ceremoniously, as is the habit of their 
 class — almost too ceremoniously, with an excess 
 of stiffness and coldness in their hands. 
 
 Janson stared past them at the long object with 
 a slight sh6ck of uneasiness which he could not 
 explain, and with heightened curiosity. Was it 
 theirs? There was a tarpaulin over it: It was 
 strangely narrow. 
 
 He turned his eyes from it towards their faces. 
 They were even calmer than might have been ex- 
 pected, and indeed a trifle pallid. 
 
 "Been in to town, Erikson?" asked Janson, by 
 way of opening a conversation, though there could 
 be no doubt of the fact. 
 
 "Yes, we have." 
 
 "Then you've seen Augusta, I expect? How is 
 she, and how's she getting on ?" 
 
 Erikson slowly made ready to answer; it seemed 
 to be uncommonly difiicult for him. The wife's 
 features were drawn into a curious grimace. Was 
 she laughing? A queer sort of laughter! Jan- 
 son's own smile stiffened as he met it. — No, she 
 was crying, and she laid her coarsened fingers 
 over her eyes while the tears trickled down be- 
 tween them. Then the husband said slowly: "Our 
 girl, Augusta, she died the night afore last." 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 69 
 
 Janson was bereft of thought and feeling; he 
 could only hear how the noise of the broken ice 
 penetrated through the dull pulsations of the en- 
 gines, which now became strangely slow with whole 
 eternities between them. Was the boat going to 
 stop ? And he heard himself ask with a voice that 
 took on the same heavy beat: "How? How did 
 she die?" 
 
 The answer came circumstantially, with painful 
 conscientiousness amid an enforced calm, 
 
 "At the hospital. We knew nothing about it, 
 and then there came a telephone message that she 
 was there. The day afore yesterday they sent me 
 word that some one wanted to talk to me on the 
 telephone. I come there and says 'Hallo !' 'Is it 
 Augusta's father?' they ask at the other end. 
 'Yes,' says I, 'is it Augusta?' I thought perhaps 
 that she had something real glad to tell me and 
 so was joking with me. 'No, Augusta's in the hos- 
 pital,' they say at the other end; 'she's ill.' It was 
 the servant in the family that Augusta sewed for, 
 and she didn't tell me anything, only talked a lot, 
 as them girls do, and was in a hurry. So when we 
 went in yesterday morning and came to the hos- 
 pital and asked for her, the gentleman at the gate 
 said that there was nobody there with that name, but 
 we stopped there and couldn't understand how she 
 could be well again and out already. Then some one 
 else comes along and they look into papers. 'Oh, 
 
70 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 yes,' says they, 'it's all right, Augusta Wil- 
 helmina, age twenty-three,' and so forth, and we 
 tries to get In. 'No,' says they, 'not this way: 
 she died last night.' There we stood in the 
 snow and didn't know what we were doing and 
 got in other people's way and were pushed aside. 
 But then they were kind to us and helped us to 
 look after her." 
 
 And he went on to tell why she had gone there, 
 for some internal complaint, and how she had 
 been operated upon and died under the operation. 
 He spoke without the slightest tone of lament and 
 seemed only to be striving with his calm and hope- 
 less look to reconstruct all the facts as they had 
 presented themselves. 
 
 Janson dared not meet his eyes or notice the 
 mother's tears. He looked at the tarpaulin behind 
 them and again wondered absent-mindedly what 
 it covered. Was the boat going to stop ? The piston- 
 rods moved at longer and longer intervals. They 
 would soon be backing. 
 
 "And where is she now?" he asked, when all 
 was silent. The wife let her fingers fall from her 
 face, and her eyes blinded with tears were revealed 
 in the gray light from the port-hole. She stretched 
 out her hand towards the tarpaulin, groping 
 wildly, then let it fall and arrested it in a despair- 
 ing caress of the hard canvas. The husband spoke 
 in subdued and hollow tones as before. 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 71 
 
 "She's there, our Augusta. We bought a coffin 
 in David Bagare Street. It was ready, just the 
 right size, and so we had her laid out at once." 
 And he went on to tell what steps they had had to 
 take to arrange this and what the coffin had cost — 
 all the chilling misery of the mise-en-scene of death. 
 They had nearly missed the boat, and what could 
 they have done then ? 
 
 Janson heard every word and also the beat of 
 the engines — ^more rapid now, disturbingly rapid 
 — ^but it was with a curious growing feeling that 
 something had come in between, something had 
 arisen between him and all this. What was it? 
 It was grief, it was bitter cold from outside, it was 
 despair that would fain cry out and strike — and 
 now it was upon him. 
 
 He uttered a cry of anguish that was driven 
 all over the boat and frightened all other sounds 
 into silence. Behind him a circle of terrified faces 
 gleamed like white patches in the twilight, with 
 mouths open and eyes staring. The two journey- 
 men painters clutched each other's hands like chil- 
 dren in the dark; in the doorway of the fore cabin 
 women's heads emerged from the gloom. He him- 
 self listened to his cry, did not understand it, and, 
 undoing the buttons of his coat, he panted for 
 breath. 
 
 "The coffin," he hissed, "the coffin? Was it that 
 that came? Was that what I heard carried here? 
 
72 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Open it! Take away the tarpaulin, open it! I want 
 to see her, I want to see her !" 
 
 The parents sat rigid before his look, which 
 had become so terribly pale. Behind his back the 
 circle of heads closed in more thickly; they began 
 to think in a kind of common groping movement, 
 seized by the same terror, but inarticulate yet. 
 Was he out of his mind, sick, or only drunk? What 
 was he talking about, and what cold feeling was 
 it that swept down upon that narrow enclosed 
 space ? 
 
 His longing to see the dead girl seized him with 
 unexpected force, he could not bear a refusal, he 
 could have crawled on his knees and coaxed a 
 hearing from them. His feeling for her, which had 
 disappeared, suddenly blossomed out into pas- 
 sion, and he knew that it must always have been 
 so, and yet he was weak as a child with all his 
 violence. He seized the parents' hands, bent over 
 them and spoke rapidly, but his distorted counte- 
 nance frightened them and they hardly understood 
 him. 
 
 "I loved her; let me see her, open the coffin! 
 I loved her; we had settled that now this spring 
 or some other spring — and now she is dead, dead ! 
 But I must see her, I tell you. I heard when she 
 came. She trod so heavily over my head. I was 
 thinking of nothing, here and there, as one does — 
 as one does, oh, God ! — and then she came. Show 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 73 
 
 me now that she is dead; I don't believe you. It 
 was just here I saw her last. I stood like this, and 
 she said good-bye, and laughed and gave me her 
 hand, and how can it be, then ,...?! must see 
 her hands, I must see her hands — open the coffin, 
 I say, or else I'll do it myself and lay myself down 
 beside her." 
 
 They understood him at last, and shuddered 
 and were terrified at the thought of the corpse. 
 But behind him the circle had drawn still closer 
 and had found words: "Let him have his way; 
 he'll go out of his mind, else." 
 
 They obeyed. Still trembling, they rose, drew 
 off the tarpaulin, and turned the half-insertedl 
 screws. He stood upright, rocking himself to and 
 fro to subdue his Inward cries. His gaze was fixed 
 immovably upon the end of the coffin where the 
 head must be. And then they raised the lid. 
 
 In the scanty, cold, gray light of the corner 
 she was doubly cold and pale, the contracted and 
 emaciated face seemed small and fragile, but took 
 on an awful beauty and grandeur from the pain- 
 filled peace of the mouth and the conquered suffer- 
 ing in the sunken eyes. But the most dreadful thing 
 to see was the resting of the hands one against the 
 other. 
 
 Janson had thought that he would touch them, 
 seize them, kiss them, whisper to them and warm 
 them: but now he dared not even look at them. 
 
74 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Instead, he placed his own hands together in the 
 same way and wrung them as if in religious en- 
 thusiasm and in torment. Though he felt the pres- 
 ent nearer and more real to him than ever, yet his 
 consciousness was at the same time far away, sev- 
 eral years back in his life, at the moment when 
 he was being "converted." It was in a narrow 
 room, as now, with the breath of many people 
 panting in the ear, and many eyes staring at the 
 same point, and slow thoughts gifted with wings, 
 and cold and damp outside. He did not know 
 whether they were words from that time that now 
 rose to his lips once more. 
 
 "We poor mortals, what do we know? I have 
 talked and laughed like others, I have thought 
 about my own and believed that it was mine, and 
 I have not heard how steps were drawing near, 
 have not seen how hands already gripped it fast. 
 I have built my house and stamped upon the bed- 
 rock and have said, 'It is mine I' But the mountain 
 split to pieces under my feet, and I am falling in 
 the sand and the water rises — soon all will come 
 down, and the rafters will strike my head." 
 
 He ceased, for he found no more words. On 
 that day he had had many, there had been a shiver 
 of pleasure in it, something that had seized him 
 by the hair and borne him aloft in a transport. 
 But then the feeling was so common : his despair 
 did not reach anything tangible, it came in a stream 
 
A HUMBLE TRAGEDY 75 
 
 from without and bore him with it. Now there 
 was this poor rigid face, these hands .... And 
 he continued, with short moaning sounds, half 
 stifled with tears: "Augusta! Augusta! That you 
 should come so, that we should meet like this! 
 What did we know last time, what did we think, 
 and what did I know just now?" 
 
 In the circle around him they began to under- 
 stand what had happened ; the women's tears began 
 to flow, the men stared in silence at the floor. Only 
 in the two young painters with their half-drunken 
 susceptibilities did the otherwise self-contained pity 
 express itself in action. They tottered up to the 
 mourner, caught his hands, and inclined their poor 
 muddled heads towards his own. He looked at 
 them without astonishment and with no thought 
 of shame, and with a friendly movement led them 
 back; then the tears burst forth. 
 
 The dead girl's parents had also realized at 
 last who it was they had before them; but the 
 coffin-lid between their hands had entirely occu- 
 pied them. They had only wondered in alarm 
 whether they could get it on again. Now they saw 
 that they could do so, and slowly, reverently, they 
 hid their lost one from the eyes of all, spread out 
 the tarpaulin again, and prepared a place between 
 them for whenever he should choose to take it. 
 
 He did so quite soon, his composure was re- 
 stored, and he began to talk with them. 
 
76 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 There they sat and exchanged their memories, 
 and beneath their restrained and mournful words 
 the legend of the dead grew up, that legend which 
 is perhaps more true than the reality, since all that 
 is mean has vanished out of it — that echo of a 
 human being's best voice, which is heard after all 
 of us when regret is there to form it. They were 
 no fine or subtle feelings and images that they con- 
 jured up, only barren commonplaces about duties 
 performed, and good will, and gladness — so mel- 
 ancholy now — but a certain greatness came over 
 them, as good as most other greatness, through 
 the calm and dignity of their tones. And around 
 them their fellow-passengers listened and followed 
 the story, as much of it as they could hear, and 
 believed every word and sat very still, conscious 
 of the engine-beats as a kind of rhythm to the 
 whole, and the noise of the breaking Ice outside 
 in the gathering darkness and the cold. 
 
MELCHIOR 
 
 IMELCHIOR] 
 
 FROM THANATOS 
 
 1900 
 
Melchior 
 
 HE WAS one of those beings who are not 
 seldom to be met with in the country in some 
 decayed gentleman's house, where the shutters are 
 for the most part screwed on to the windows day 
 and night and stare with their round eye-holes at 
 the neglected grounds, on the watch for something 
 unforeseen to turn up and direct the course of 
 time backwards, against Nature's common laws. 
 Since the passing of the happy sociable days when 
 carriages or sledges would drive up in a circle 
 round the middle flower-bed, and a superfluity of 
 light and warmth streamed out through the gate 
 in welcome towards the guests, the inmates of the 
 place seem no longer to have any reason for their 
 slumbering existence. 
 
 Inside, the house looks deserted and unswept. 
 On the faded tapestries are patches that have kept 
 the original color, revealing the position of the 
 more valuable pieces of furniture which have van- 
 ished. Those that remain, sofas and chairs in the 
 empire style, painted in white lead, have become 
 bluish and dark with age and cold, like thin and 
 frozen hands. Here and there hang portraits of 
 straight-backed individuals, whose confident bear- 
 ing, even before the searching lens of the camera, 
 
 79 
 
8o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 shows clearly that they never dreamt of the possi- 
 bility of hanging here one day, soiled by famishing 
 flies, while their readily repeated titles strive in 
 vain to shed a parting glory upon the family. 
 
 The present owner (only apparent owner) 
 seems to be as much a product of the decline of the 
 house as that decline is of himself: there is a sug- 
 gestion of decaying timber about his person. 
 Through indolence or incapacity he has lost all 
 chance of keeping his position within his own 
 class or gaining a footing in another, and it is as 
 impossible for him to re-establish himself as for 
 the building to renovate itself unaided. 
 
 If the house, as was the case with Melchior's, 
 is situated very far north, where it has always 
 been a little exotic, the cold and the years take 
 a much firmer hold upon it, the snow presses down 
 upon its back, the storm tears away the pantiles, 
 everything proceeds more rapidly and dismally 
 than elsewhere. Melchior's establishment had in 
 a few years been rendered in a great measure 
 helpless, like a paralytic body; its life remained 
 only in the immediate neighborhood of the kitchen, 
 reduced to the lowest functions. And with Melchior 
 himself it was little better. 
 
 Not that he had ever been good for very much 
 more, but as long as circumstances had held him 
 up, nobody had noticed it. 
 
 He had had some schooling, which he had duly 
 
MELCHIOR 8i 
 
 forgotten, but which had at any rate left behind it 
 the Latin dictionary placed in a conspicuous posi- 
 tion on his book-shelf, and the power to pronounce 
 foreign words in an educated fashion without 
 being afraid of them. He could make daughters 
 of families laugh at almost the same jokes as the 
 serving-maids, but with suitably adapted tones. 
 He could ride a horse and shoot a hare and talk 
 sensibly enough in business, however it might be 
 when he came to practice. So he could take his 
 place in the life of society, and this he did. 
 
 He had thoroughly enjoyed himself. 
 
 Nobody had waited for dinners with frock-coat 
 buttoned tighter, rubbing his hands before the 
 hostess and concealing under a friendly smile the 
 appetite induced by the long drive. Nobody had 
 with greater restraint attended to the word of 
 command for the schnapps or more enthusiastic- 
 ally settled down to the smorgasbord. Nobody had 
 with deeper respect bowed and stared over the 
 toasts. Losses and abuse at the card-table no one 
 had taken more lightly. None had drunk punch 
 more devotedly and honorably, with an ever 
 greater appreciation of every fresh glass, or 
 laughed more heartily at the coarsest well-worn 
 stories. Nobody had gone home in such a glow 
 of gratitude towards the whole world, so benevo- 
 lently philosophizing beneath the stars and the 
 glowing stump of a cigar. And nobody, as long 
 
82 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 as it was possible, had been more ready to impart 
 to others the same privileges and the same joy. 
 
 But the world had changed without any obvi- 
 ously sufficient cause. Troubles began to wait at 
 the doors and did not stop there either. Soon they 
 were sitting in Melchior's most comfortable chairs, 
 and when they went out, admitting others in their 
 passing, they took away the chairs with them. His 
 house grew very bare about him, and the inex- 
 plicable nature of the proceeding made it all the 
 more distressing. It was as though a conjurer had 
 jestingly undertaken to show how all Melchior's 
 possessions could be contained in his top-hat, and 
 then by cramming it down over his head had con- 
 vinced him that in any case the hat was empty into 
 the bargain. 
 
 Melchior did not take it seriously to heart. He 
 was as he had always been, but others no longer 
 took him for the same. Every one had suddenly 
 become staid and sensible, and expected the same 
 of him. The thing that most annoyed them now 
 was his relation to Carolina, which to himself had 
 previously seemed a quite innocent though no 
 longer amusing joke. She was a servant-girl who 
 had never seemed to him especially pretty, but 
 with whom he had entered into an "intimate ac- 
 quaintanceship," as the phrase went. The acquaint- 
 anceship soon seemed to him to be very much on 
 the surface, since it ended by their not even wish- 
 
MELCHIOR 83 
 
 ing each other "Good morning," but there she 
 was, anyhow, and could not be reasoned away, and 
 still less could the children, though as far as that 
 went they too were almost like strangers to him. 
 And it grew very dismal about him in his loneliness 
 away up in a desolate valley, where the mountains 
 ended and the sea-coast began. 
 
 All real social intercourse was over. High 
 bailiffs, foresters, and even sheriffs' officers soon 
 lived their worthy lives apart from him. At the 
 inn, when it was possible, he formed occasional 
 acquaintanceships with horse-buyers and county 
 police, but at last he had no one at all, and fared 
 really badly and was sometimes in want. 
 
 Yet both without and within he was still very 
 much the same. He wished nobody any harm, he 
 preferred to enjoy himself, above all he sought to 
 avoid the labor of thinking and to be left in peace. 
 It seemed to him that every one else, from the 
 governor of the province right down to the house- 
 cat or the bear in his cave, desired the same thing, 
 and except in the case of the last-named he had 
 always respected their desires. He held that a man 
 was a man, whether he were counted among the 
 damned or the blessed, and perhaps also inde- 
 pendently of clothes and position, but that a man 
 with a hundred thousand was a thousand times 
 more of a man than one with a hundred. He had no 
 doubts about the precepts of religion, but was 
 
84 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 afraid they were unpractical, and if taken quite 
 seriously would ruin, among other things, the 
 farming that was already so embarrassed. But 
 they need not be taken seriously, for in common 
 with all exalted ideas, such as the talk about peer- 
 less and loyal men to which he had always listened 
 with emotion, they had in them more of poetic 
 than of literal truth. He believed that cleanliness 
 was a virtue and water often cold to wash in, that 
 untruth was a human failing and "lie" a very ugly 
 word. As may be seen, his ideas, if not clearer 
 than other people's, were just about as coherent. 
 
 Externally he still had a certain elegance re- 
 maining. His cap was of Alaska seal and could 
 not become anything else, although the skin had 
 to a great extent returned to the hidden recesses 
 of Nature which it had unwillingly left: he could 
 not help its fitting his head as if it had been new. 
 His fur coat was well filled out by his figure ; his 
 legs and gait had once for all acquired the posture 
 which comes from treading one's own soil and 
 imagining that one is directing a piece of work. 
 His eyes still had the alert look of his hunting 
 days, and his heavy mouth hid its embarrassed 
 smile under a mustache which the years might 
 possibly have made gray, but not less manly. 
 
 He was nearing forty when his darkest days 
 approached. All his property was represented by 
 Carolina, who unfortunately could not be dis- 
 
MELCHIOR 85 
 
 posed of, and his horse, Xanthos, to whom unfor- 
 tunately the opposite applied. This was probably 
 the object which above all others in life set Mel- 
 chior's heart-strings vibrating most strongly. Pride, 
 admiration, affection, any esthetic speculation of 
 which he was capable — of all this Xanthos, with 
 his trim feet and his short ears, his broad chest 
 and narrow back, his thin mane and bushy tail, 
 had been the centre. He had come to comprehend 
 all the splendor that had otherwise vanished; he 
 was the tiny hope that still remained in spite of 
 everything. Hence the high-sounding name that 
 was little in accord with Melchior's habits ; for this 
 horse's sake he had even discovered a reminiscence 
 of school-learning left in the otherwise sufficiently 
 empty crannies of his memory. He had bought the 
 animal against his financial conscience and had 
 kept it hitherto under a feigned idea that it was 
 prudent and distinguished thus to bury his capital, 
 but really with a chilling sense that if he once lost 
 Xanthos, he himself would understand no more 
 than others why his immortal soul should have 
 chosen his particular existence as its view-point 
 upon eternity. 
 
 But to this matters came, and by the middle of 
 the winter he reluctantly arrived at the conclusion, 
 aided by Carolina, that he must drive into the 
 town, a distance of thirty miles or more, and sell 
 the horse. 
 
86 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 He was to have gone very early, but when he 
 woke to a remembrance of what the day had in 
 store for him, he drew the counterpane about his 
 ears and swore in disgust, and was soon off into a 
 warm and pleasant dream about the good old days. 
 It seemed likely that there would be no journey 
 at all. 
 
 But when Carolina had made herself sufficiently 
 tender-footed by wandering about with a kind of 
 bounding step of indignation and despair, she took 
 the liberty of, breaking into his dream. She had 
 never been very good-looking, and her complexion, 
 even when it was smooth and admired, had had 
 that tendency to violet which the bitter climate 
 easily gives. Now it burned hard and cold as the 
 northern lights. She spoke with the curious use, 
 peculiar to the district, of "one" as pronoun of 
 address and "he" as indefinite pronoun : the former 
 idiom gave an ironical color, even where that was 
 not intended, and the latter stamped even a gen- 
 eral observation with something aggressive and 
 personal. 
 
 "Does one think," she cried, "that one can 
 drone away out of this, too, that one can lie in 
 bed and be his lordship for another day with not 
 a penny in the house, and the wood unchopped, and 
 the snow not shoveled off the path, even? Some- 
 body else can bear one brat after brat, and stand 
 up to the eyes in work, and one must be a fine gen- 
 
MELCHIOR 87 
 
 tleman with his horse, and only that is fine and 
 good enough for one! Starvation's generally the 
 end of it, and perhaps that's what one would like, 
 if only there's a fine horse for the funeral. Now 
 I myself — and an eternal shame it is — have rubbed 
 down the horse while one has been lying there 
 snoozing, and perhaps I gave it a pinch or two, 
 and now there's the choice between us." 
 
 Oh, if that were all, thought Melchior, as he 
 compared her uncomfortably piercing look with 
 the mild and shining eyes of his horse ; oh. If that 
 were all 1 But the Incomprehensible world had for- 
 bidden in advance any reflections as to that pos- 
 sibility. What a man did not want, that he had to 
 keep, and what he did care about, rascally horse- 
 dealers took from him. He tried to shrug his 
 shoulders at her ill-bred tone, but at once huddled 
 them together for the cold, and felt himself en- 
 tirely defenceless. He got up and dipped his face 
 in water, complaining in one long groan that it was 
 so bitterly cold and life was so hard to live. When 
 he was dressed he looked out through the window, 
 but met only his own face with its hanging mus- 
 taches against the shining darkness. 
 
 "It's early enough," he said; "why. It's still 
 night! And perhaps I shan't need to go very far," 
 he added, with a shudder at the thought; "perhaps 
 I shall meet some one on the road, and then — 
 why, the job will be done. Then I'll come home 
 
88 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 before night in some other conveyance and bring 
 money with me, and everything'!! be a!! right." 
 
 It did not sound so cheerfu! as it shou!d have 
 done, but Carolina was magnanimous enough not 
 to notice that. So he put on his well worn coat 
 and cap and shivered in the co!d and stamped 
 manfully into his fur boots. 
 
 "You'll put me up some sandwiches for the 
 journey," he suggested jauntily. 
 
 But Carolina answered, grim as Fate: "There's 
 nothing to put up. One has oneself to thank — 
 there'll be a few loaves left in the Icitchen." 
 
 Melchior swore at her lack of delicacy, but 
 silently, so that only his mustache trembled. He felt 
 a respectful pity for himself, and when he was 
 alone in the room he stole softly to the pantry and 
 took a handful of ginger-nuts, the only delicacy 
 in the house. 
 
 "I'll bring home a whole lot instead," he 
 thought, "I won't forget it" — and he made a ges- 
 ture of refusal towards the bread, as he went out 
 to harness the horse. 
 
 It was bitterly cold doing it, everything tried 
 to slip outiof his fingers. Melchior endeavored to 
 put into his manner as much of his usual cheerful- 
 ness as he could, so that the horse should not 
 suspect anything. But when he sat in the sledge 
 with the elkskin rug hiding its old and leaky con- 
 dition, and looked at Xanthos and stretched him- 
 
MELCHIOR 89 
 
 self out, he felt with satisfaction that the whole 
 affair looked quite imposing as he cracked his 
 whip at the door. 
 
 Carolina thought so, too. Her afflicted woman's 
 heart softened, and in a humble reflection that 
 perhaps she had done them both wrong, she tried 
 to smile at driver and steed and showed the chil- 
 dren what a father they still had, and what a 
 horse he could call his own. 
 
 Melchior was glad to get away from his wretch- 
 edness: his errand did not present itself to his 
 mind just then. He once more cracked his whip 
 for the encouragement of the onlookers, threw 
 his head smartly back, and off he went. 
 
 Dawn had come now. The stars twinkled palely 
 in the cold, and the fir-tops ate sharply into the 
 falling white moon. At the gate the hoar-frost fell 
 from the rowans and powdered his coat with the 
 finest silver, while waxwings, as gorgeous as par- 
 rots, let go the red berries and chattered after 
 Melchior as he drove by. 
 
 He thought of the old days, when he was set- 
 ting off to school. To-day, as then, the excitement 
 that belongs to the beginning of a journey pre- 
 dominated, and entirely hid the goal. 
 
 So Melchior drove along by woods and fells 
 and bogs, where the wind whistled in the slanting 
 black pines and drew the snow after it like eddying 
 smoke. He sat cheerful and light-hearted with his 
 
90 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 cheek against the soft sealskin and enjoyed the 
 jingle of the sleigh-bells and the sight of Xan- 
 thos' trim little feet dancing. He did not think 
 much, Melchior could not do that, but the keen- 
 ness of the air and the swaying motion cleared 
 his brain, and filled it with a kind of idea that 
 everything that was bright and happy in his pres- 
 ent life was passing out with him to liberty, that 
 he and Xanthos were in some way bound together 
 and need not be ashamed before any one, that 
 they two would take their pleasure and were 
 deuced fine fellows, both of them, with the world 
 open before them. It even vaguely suggested itself 
 to him that the soul which he like other people 
 was supposed to have was specially connected with 
 Xanthos, and he was glad to feel it released. And 
 as he had grown accustomed to talking to himself 
 or to the horse, since friends had disappeared 
 more and more, he called out now and again in 
 the direction of the animal's sagaciously twitch- 
 ing ears. 
 
 "Xanthos, old boy," he said, "we've come out 
 of it well, you and I ; we left the old woman and 
 the brats and their noise, and now we're going to 
 enjoy ourselves. One takes those things upon one- 
 self, Xanthos, but one is not bound forever all 
 the same, one can always go away. It was getting 
 too hard for us at home, we were getting old 
 there, and so we said good-bye. It's a fine thing 
 
MELCHIOR 91 
 
 to travel when one is young, Xanthos, and look, 
 what lovely weather we're going to have!" 
 
 It was broad day now, and as light as It could 
 be so £ar north. The clouds, which had been 
 carded together Into a single blanket, now parted, 
 and the morning sky appeared, clear and green 
 and cold, while against it, with their tops high in 
 the clouds, the mountains lay so bright and icy 
 that Melchior cringed with cold as he went by. 
 But soon they were behind him, the way became 
 open, the rising of the road over the hills gave an 
 impression of driving into the pale expanse, and 
 everything was forgotten in the mere speed. 
 
 A peasant with downtrodden pointed shoes 
 (himself no less shrunken than they) and a frozen 
 drop on the end of his red nose, respectfully swung 
 open a gate; Melchior nodded his patronage to 
 the value of at least a krona and went on even 
 more cheerfully than before, through the village 
 and past the school-house, where the children 
 stopped fighting to stare after him. 
 
 "We won't stay here among the peasants, Xan- 
 thos," said Melchior; "we'll cross the river first 
 of all." 
 
 It narrowed here to a waterfall. The banks 
 contracted In steep slopes of snow and pine woods, 
 everything as hard and cold as stone. Most of the 
 eddies were frozen over now, but In the middle, 
 between Ice-coated boulders, could still be heard 
 
92 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 a dull wild roar, and the spray rose up and turned 
 into hoar-frost at once. The dark, slippery form 
 of an otter was seen gliding into a hole down be- 
 low; Melchior's hunting blood rose to his cheeks, 
 his memory played around former triumphs, and 
 he was surprised to see how lovely it was down 
 there. But he had to drive on; he had enough to 
 do to reach the place where the road led over the 
 river, and all else was forgotten. 
 
 The ice had come loose at the edge as the river 
 had sunk, and many travelers had passed before 
 him and weighed it down, so that the water had 
 oozed up and eaten into the surface. There was a 
 regular lake to scramble down into from the high 
 bank, and Xanthos stopped, uneasy and trembling. 
 Behind this channel the covering of ice lay terribly 
 broad and cold, and on the other side, far off, 
 was another dark patch of wet. Here for the first 
 time Melchior lost heart. 
 
 Xanthos could no longer manage by himself, 
 for in that case they would both have stopped 
 where they were. His master must jump out and 
 lead him. The ferryman was not inclined for extra 
 trouble, since he expected nothing for it : he stood 
 at his door and grinned at them. Disconcerted, as 
 he always was by ridicule, Melchior sprang out 
 of the sledge and pretended to laugh and talk as 
 they plunged in. Poor Xanthos, he went in up to 
 his belly and the snow increased around his wet 
 
MELCHIOR 93 
 
 feet ! Poor Melchior, too, with his fur boots that 
 kept the water in ! The wind moaned and whistled 
 about them in the wide open valley — and the same 
 difficulties, only worse, at the other bank. Then 
 they had to run and stumble along so as to get 
 warm and knock the balls of ice from the poor 
 horse's hoofs. Melchior swore, and all his light- 
 heartedness from the beginning of the journey had 
 vanished. He could no longer help remembering 
 on what errand he had come. Even into the 
 wretched sledge the water had penetrated and 
 had frozen; Melchior began to long for some- 
 thing warm. But he would have to pass by the 
 inn, for he had gambling-debts of old standing 
 there with the inn-keeper — could he without loss 
 of self-respect come and ask for coffee on credit? 
 
 But he must get in somewhere and warm him- 
 self a moment, and he must see people and re- 
 assure himself. It was as though nothing existed 
 except himself and Xanthos, and also a blind cold 
 that came rushing upon them and demanded their 
 lives, a white void craving to be filled, with what 
 he did not know, but he had nothing to give it. 
 
 He stopped at a wretched little hovel, a hut of 
 unbarked timber which he had scarcely noticed 
 before, put on a friendly air, and walked in. 
 
 "Is there any coffee to be had here, mother, 
 coffee without salt? A little coffee, at once? I'm 
 in a hurry, you see." 
 
94 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 The old woman was more wretched even than 
 her cottage; she was clothed in rags. She had 
 two daughters much like herself, with the ashen 
 complexions of old women. The younger was 
 blear-eyed and did not seem quite right in her 
 head. 
 
 They all looked flattered, abashed, and hope- 
 ful, and tried their best to smile. Melchior had 
 never seen anything so poverty-stricken, and he 
 became terrified and oppressed that such things 
 could be. — Coffee they had, but without salt? 
 What was there to have with it, then? They had 
 no sugar. 
 
 Melchior's spirits groaned within him. "Only 
 coffee, then, mother. But something with It, per- 
 haps? A little white bread?" 
 
 They all laughed at that. What did he take 
 them for? How should they have white bread? — 
 But the youngest girl did not laugh at all heartily. 
 
 Melchior congratulated himself that he had his 
 ginger-nuts, and he broke bits out of them In his 
 pocket and put them to his mouth as he waited. 
 He was so hungry that these crumbs seemed to 
 him ridiculous, and, besides, the feeble-minded 
 girl was looking at him all the time and drawing 
 nearer like a wild beast that has scented something. 
 In a sudden impulse of soft-heartedness he gave 
 her the whole handful — there! Good-bye to the 
 ginger-nuts! Her face lit up and became like a 
 
MELCHIOR 95 
 
 child's, but to show her delight she could do noth- 
 ing but tramp up and down with her hands hanging, 
 like a little bear dancing. Melchior drank his bitter 
 coffee at a gulp and at once got up to go. They 
 had expected a copper, and it grieved him that he 
 had none to give. He only felt still more depressed 
 by this poverty after his rest, and he shivered un- 
 easily as he took his place in the sledge and 
 drove on. 
 
 On past woods and bogs in long stretches, al- 
 ways the same scene. The woods were dark green 
 and the bogs dark blue and brown where no snow 
 lay on them, as for the most part it did, in great 
 masses on the trees and great drifts on the 
 marshes. Here and there, patches of dark frozen 
 water shone like dully staring eyes. On the road 
 two sledge-tracks of shining ice ran on before and 
 drew him between them towards the inevitable, 
 and the cold hummed and sang in the telegraph- 
 wires. 
 
 "I shall have to put up at the next stopping- 
 place," he thought. "There I must sell my soul, 
 if I have luck and find a purchaser." But he dared 
 not say anything to Xanthos, for fear he might 
 understand. 
 
 Now the horse's hoofs thundered on the 
 wooden bridge, and the inn lay before them, red 
 and spacious and inviting. Melchior had known 
 pleasant hours there before, but now the sight 
 
96 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 was awful to see and drove the heart up into his 
 tightened throat. 
 
 The ostler's grin of recognition must be sternly 
 repressed. 
 
 "Hallo, there 1 I'm just looking in a minute, not 
 stopping. My own horse. By the way, is there 
 any of that cursed tribe of horse-dealers here? 
 Tired of the horse, you know; should like another 
 
 now." 
 
 "Yes, there's one, a proper 'un, big gold watch 
 and wolfskin coat. Just goin' off now." 
 
 "What luck! We'd better follow our whim, 
 then, I suppose." Melchior tottered up on his 
 stiffened limbs, erect in figure and with a proudly 
 embarrassed smile, found the man on the steps — 
 an obnoxious, massive figure, wrapped up in fold 
 upon fold of scarf over his pocket-book — and said 
 what he had to say. 
 
 "That horse there?" answered the man, and 
 took a bird's-eye view of it. "Well, let's have a 
 look at him. Take him out and trot him round." 
 
 The cursed upstart I Melchior had never 
 thought any one could be so ill-mannered and 
 heartless. Well, needs must, since it was a ques- 
 tion of business; he must restrain himself. 
 Fumbling with his blue and trembling hands, he 
 unharnessed the horse and brought him into the 
 yard. 
 
 "Look alive, look alive! Let's have no butter- 
 
MELCHIOR 97 
 
 fingers !" called the man. "Is he slow in the joints, 
 eh, that horse ? Can't he step it out and go ?" 
 
 "Can't he justl He's trotted twenty miles at a 
 stretch, but he's got as much spirit as ever." Mel- 
 chior took a tickling grip on the bit and made the 
 animal bridle up. Now, Xanthos, he thought, we 
 must show them what you're made of. He cried 
 and halloo'd and danced round with him faster 
 and faster. Both horse and master were on their 
 mettle : he could not entirely distinguish between 
 them, and only remembered that this was a busi- 
 ness matter and that some one was to be im- 
 pressed. He was hardly conscious of his poor 
 frozen feet or of the icicles hanging from his 
 mustaches round his thin face. His body was 
 jerked to and fro, and it was only by accident that 
 he kept on his feet. Inwardly he was weeping and 
 raging with pain and anxiety, but he tried to look 
 as cheerful as possible, as though it were only 
 from the sheer joy of living and an excess of 
 energy that he was dancing about like this, and 
 all kinds of shadowy recollections of circuses and 
 other amusements crowded into his brain. In the 
 end he himself believed that he was happy, al- 
 though it felt so strange. 
 
 The dealer stood on the steps and cast his rapid 
 professional glance over the animal, as also over 
 its master, who had lost his cap and was whirling 
 around like a straw. At length he came down and 
 
98 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 deigned to say something — the brute! Melchior 
 stopped to listen. There were many people round 
 them now. 
 
 "An old horse," said the man, "turning gray 
 already. Has he any teeth left?" 
 
 Melchior's anger strove with his, anxiety. 
 
 "Gray, sir? You run yourself and get your skin 
 full of frost! Old? He's no more old than I am." 
 
 "Well, well," said the man, appealing to the 
 others with a broad grin, "that'll do, I reckon. 
 You've both seen your best days, haven't you?" 
 Laughter came rolling upon him from all sides 
 and struck like whips. 
 
 Melchior felt as if he stood stripped and naked 
 in the snow. What was he ? A poor, worn-out devil 
 dancing at a fair. What was he good for? Noth- 
 ing. And he stifled his indignation under a humble 
 laugh. "Ha, ha, a manner of speaking, sir! Xan- 
 thos is young enough, young and strong. I — well, 
 I have been younger, but that's not the point just 
 now. The horse is a good one : come and look at 
 him." 
 
 The man did so, pressing his fingers roughly 
 into the animal's mouth, as if he meant to break 
 off its teeth. He looked critically at it, but that was 
 only a pretense, for he knew well enough what It 
 was worth. 
 
 "The price," he asked. "What had you — hm, 
 thought?" 
 
MELCHIOR 99 
 
 Melchior was anxious, as if he had had to guess 
 a lucky number, but he straightened himself 
 proudly. "Fifteen hundred I gave for him, didn't 
 look twice at a krona then, but he's worth that and 
 more. I'll sell him for eight, the sledge included, of 
 course, the sledge included." 
 
 The man whistled. — "Sledge included? Much 
 obliged" — and he turned on his heel. No doubt 
 he meant to create an effect and thought that 
 Melchior would run after him and catch him by the 
 folds of his scarf. Not he ! It hadn't yet come to 
 that ! With fellows of that sort one did not haggle 
 or barter, either in buying or selling. One threw 
 them their money or went one's way. 
 
 With a dignified bearing, though crimson with 
 rage, he put in the horse again, drew on his mit- 
 tens (still with dignity) and took his place in the 
 sledge, in the hope of meeting better luck in the 
 town. But since there was now no one left to im- 
 press, he sank together in weakness and terror for 
 the long journey, and anxiety for the issue of It, 
 whether it led to business or no. And so Melchior 
 drove away. 
 
 On past woods and bogs and woods and bogs 
 again, with here and there a field with drying- 
 hurdles and fences weighted with snow. Thin and 
 cold was the air, and tiring all this whiteness which 
 merely slipped past but never disappeared. Some- 
 times snow fell, lightly and silently, as though the 
 
loo PER HALLSTROM 
 
 day wished to blot out the little that still distin- 
 guished it from uniformity, and doze in peace; 
 then it would stop, and the light would gleam out 
 upon a still colder, almost inconceivable white- 
 ness, and stare into Melchior's eyes. This hap- 
 pened as regularly as an infinitely prolonged 
 blinking. 
 
 Melchior sat watching the horse's tired trot, and 
 wondered why they were both alive. Perhaps he 
 had been wrong in not giving way and knocking 
 off a hundred or two. 
 
 "If I had, Xanthos," he thought, "we should 
 be well off now ; we could eat and drink, and with 
 the money I could have bought something for us. 
 Perhaps we weren't worth more, either ; it's so easy 
 to be mistaken in oneself. Others must know bet- 
 ter, they know everything. It would have been 
 nice to go home instead, warm and with full stom- 
 achs, and give you a feed from the new bag of 
 oats to-night — oh, but, Xanthos, you wouldn't 
 have been there then ! A curse on this life, a curse 
 on this cold — there's a stirring in the air above 
 us : if it was dark, we should see the northern 
 lights now, green and red, all the sky a flaming 
 hell of cold. And Charles's Wagon would be roll- 
 ing without horses along the ice of the Milky Way, 
 and the stars would be staring at us: 'What are 
 you doing here, and what sort of a game are you 
 playing?' — You must be as hungry as me, poor 
 
MELCHIOR lOl 
 
 Xanthos, and worse : you have the load to draw. 
 At the next inn we must put up, we must have 
 something, whatever happens. Here we are al- 
 ready, Xanthos. Now look smart and lively, as they 
 do at inns, so that folk shan't know what a fix 
 we're in." 
 
 It was a tumble-down inn with dents in the 
 walls on both sides of the stove, and windows 
 broken in bouts of fisticuffs. In comparison with 
 other straight-lined and orderly houses, the whole 
 place seemed ruined by drunkenness. All the fam- 
 ily inside drank, too, and a stout, hot-tempered 
 serving-maid tried in vain to keep trade going. 
 
 Melchior was much afraid of her and cracked 
 his whip loudly, so as to keep up his spirits. 
 
 "Here are tired and hungry travelers. Give us 
 the best you've got!" The girl stood on the steps 
 and looked him up and down. 
 
 "Asking is one thing and paying's another," was 
 her answer. They had had business with each 
 other before, and she would thank him to let her 
 see a little money first. 
 
 Melchior beat his breast at the insult and 
 thought the echo sounded manly and encouraging. 
 Was that a welcome? Should he punish her by 
 going away again? No, she was practically un- 
 educated, and one must pass it over. He pushed 
 her back with a seemly jest. "If it's surety you 
 want, I suppose horse and man will be enough, 
 
102 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 valued together — how many hundreds shall we 
 say?" 
 
 This impressed the girl and she promised a 
 warm meal, Xanthos was led to his measure of 
 oats in the stable, and Melchior to the kitchen; 
 he preferred this to the inn dining-room, for he 
 wished to see people about him and be gracious 
 and condescending. The old father and mother 
 were sitting in apathy, staring into blue flames. 
 Melchior roused them to a consciousness of each 
 other and of the world, had wood put upon the 
 fire, and was thawed and cheered by the warmth : 
 he ordered brandy and treated the company, felt 
 kindly towards them all, and was glad to be alive. 
 
 He chatted about his journey, his horse, and 
 the state of his affairs : all were equally splendid. 
 He boasted how he had taken it out of a horse- 
 dealer who had forced himself upon him, he im- 
 provised meetings with persons of quality upon the 
 road, he recovered his life as it had been in former 
 days, though in a more imposing form. Everything 
 had over it a glamour such as he had never before 
 imagined; he clung to it anxiously and repeated 
 his words, from a desire to keep himself here as 
 long as possible. The drunken couple heard him 
 with delight, they were glad to be able to under- 
 stand what he said, and nodded and shook their 
 heads in admiration. — "Now he must go into the 
 town and amuse himself. It was a fine thing to get 
 
MELCHIOR 103 
 
 away from home now and again. He was quite 
 free, of course. But he must hurry away, before 
 it got late." — They both agreed, envied him his 
 pleasure, and never dreamed of pressing him to 
 stay, as of course he ought not to do either. 
 
 Time passed, and he had to pay up and go. He 
 felt in his trousers' pocket — he had forgotten his 
 purse I He felt in his coat — his pocket-book too I 
 Well, he could leave security, the skin from the 
 sledge, for instance. 
 
 The girl gave him sour looks. She had been 
 humbugged, but she would not take the rug from 
 him. — "Humbugged? What are you talking 
 about? Me to humbug people? Mind what you're 
 saying! You can have the rug, I don't need it; 
 haven't I got my coat, and aren't I as hot as fire?" 
 — And he threw out the skin and went, not at all 
 annoyed; he was still thinking delightedly what 
 excellent folk they were and how he had enjoyed 
 himself with them. 
 
 The weather was worse now and the short day 
 was over. The air was a dirty gray in the twilight, 
 with only the whirling of snow-flakes for a sky. 
 Woods and bogs were still there, indeed, but there 
 was little to be seen of them, only a dark glimpse 
 of the woods, and nothing at all of the bogs, an 
 entangling net of driving snow all round. Xanthos 
 trotted along faster than ever, well fed and happy, 
 and yet everything seemed motionless and un- 
 
I04 PER HALLSTRQM 
 
 changed about them, as in some dream-journey. 
 Melchior lay back and hardly troubled about the 
 reins ; he was tired and indulged his half-drunken 
 fancies. 
 
 "It's a fine thing to travel when one is young, 
 Xanthos; you and I, we're going in to town to 
 amuse ourselves. There I'll buy you a velvet sad- 
 dle-cloth, like grandfather had in the war. He 
 was a man, if you like ; he fought with the Russians. 
 We youngsters used to play with the saddle-cloth ; 
 it had a wreath of great yellow topazes in silver, 
 that shone like wolves' eyes. The wolves were 
 around him, and there was a ring of shining points, 
 two by two, but they didn't dare to come on, be- 
 cause the stones danced and shone as the horse 
 galloped, and the beasts were afraid and howled 
 in the cold, and were left behind. That's the thing 
 to have to keep those beggars off, else they'll soon 
 have you by the throat. You shall have one, Xan- 
 thos, you shall be fine. Your name's fine, too, 
 Xanthos; it's Greek. It's the only thing I remem- 
 ber of all that I have learned; except for that I 
 don't know so much more than you .... 
 
 "We go on and on, though we don't want to. 
 Something drives us; we don't know where we're 
 going. We think we know people and are friends 
 and like them; but at the best they only sit and 
 stare at you and wonder why you take up their 
 time and drink their punch. It doesn't matter. Up 
 
MELCHIOR 105 
 
 hill and down dale — it's fine to be rocked and feel 
 the snow on you when you're warm, isn't it?" 
 
 The snow fell thicker and thicker; his coat was 
 white and his cap white, and on beard and eye- 
 brows great flakes collected. Melchior dozed off 
 in agreeable fatigue. 
 
 He woke to feel his feet aching. "It's from that 
 cursed river," he thought; "it'll pass off when we 
 come to the town. If we only get there soon I" 
 
 The road bent sharply; on a hill a dull gleam 
 flickered from a cottage window; close to the 
 sledge lay a barn, as rounded and white as a cat. 
 
 "Hallo I" cried Melchior, "we must have 
 reached the short cut, where the river goes. We've 
 had enough of winding roads. Down there, Xan- 
 thos." 
 
 Xanthos dived into the ditch and out again, the 
 snow breaking like water over his shoulders. "It'll 
 soon be better," thought Melchior; "we must find 
 the track soon." The snow whirled into the sledge 
 and up against him. Melchior tried to bury his 
 head in his collar, but the wind was blowing hard 
 on one side, and the ice on his mustache increased 
 till it became as big as his fist and weighed him 
 down. He sat wondering if he had not been a fool 
 to leave the rug behind, and a fool to turn off the 
 main road, for the snow was still just as deep. 
 
 Suddenly the flakes ceased falling, the white 
 whirl was swept away, and the sky was left clear 
 
io6 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 and dark, with a pale flaming over it. Melchior 
 no longer knew whether he were awake or asleep, 
 but it seemed to him that he had never seen a light 
 so cold and hostile. He stopped the horse and 
 waded up to it on his stiffened feet, with a vague 
 feeling that he must consult with it, look into its 
 eyes to see what he was to do, seek help and sup- 
 port from the only creature near him. He stared 
 into the round, large orbs and was amazed that 
 they had nothing to tell him, and the thought now 
 first occurred to him that they must see quite dif- 
 ferently from his, with everything made bigger by 
 the stronger refraction of the pupils — gigantic, 
 strange, and awful. 
 
 "There it is, Xanthos," he said, "there it is 1 We 
 don't know the way, either of us, but we must try 
 to get back, you must try." And he sat in the sledge 
 again and let it go where it would. 
 
 But matters grew no different, except that their 
 course slackened as the horse grew tired. Melchior, 
 too, was tired, a strange numbness crept in from 
 his scalp and lapped at his brain. Odd images and 
 memories wakened; he spoke, but the words did 
 not get far beyond his mustaches. 
 
 "Xanthos, Xanthos, where are we? You are 
 Achilles's horse, and I am Achilles, but what was it 
 that happened to him and what was it I came out 
 for? I was well off with Carolina, she was good to 
 me, she smiled at me when I left. And the world 
 
MELCHIOR 107 
 
 was always queer; I never understood it. They 
 stand there like horse-dealers and judge you, fat 
 rascals with false aces of hearts in their breasts 
 and nothing else ; they stand on the steps and look 
 at you : 'Will he do, or will he not?' Xanthos, you 
 are good and you are handsome ; you were always 
 the best thing I had, and you're the only thing left 
 now. All the time I felt a kind of pain inside me 
 when I thought about this journey. You could speak 
 before in the story, you warned Achilles then — 
 why don't you say something now? You've got a 
 star on your forehead and such kind, shining eyes 
 — if you could look at me, Xanthos! I can't see 
 you !" 
 
 Melchior tried to reach out towards his beau- 
 tiful horse ; he could not open his eyes, for the lids 
 had frozen together. Groping like a blind man, 
 he fell heavily forwards, while Xanthos, lost and 
 weary and cold, with a dark wonder and fear be- 
 fore his dim intelligence, drew him on into the 
 snow, which was lightly falling once more. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 
 
 IHEMLIG IDYLL] 
 
 FROM THANATOS 
 
 1900 
 
A Secret Idyll 
 I 
 
 IN THE autumn of 1793 Jean Timoleon Gou- 
 bin was employed as a scrivener in the little 
 town of Mans. 
 
 His wages were six hundred francs a year; he 
 had no one to care for nor any to rejoice over. 
 He dined out once a day, and for the rest lived 
 on dry bread, the crumbs of which he carefully 
 blew away from his official papers and brushed out 
 of his cravat with a contented yet melancholy feel- 
 ing that he owed no man anything, and could hon- 
 orably live the life that was his lot. 
 
 His three names furnished with a fair degree 
 of completeness an Index of his soul. 
 
 He had got the first from Rousseau, and with 
 it a warm breath of all the hope and illusion that 
 filled the time. The second came from Plutarch's 
 Stoic hero. It had in it the coolness and the ring 
 of bronze, and the desire for greatness which 
 seemed now to have fled the world, and splendor 
 from the flames of the pyre on the ruined strong- 
 hold of the Syracusan tyrants, lifting up the shade 
 of the dead man high into the eternity of fame. 
 The surname again fettered all this to earth, kept 
 it enclosed within a poor man's well brushed coat, 
 
 III 
 
112 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 took it to work in the mornings and home to bed 
 in the evenings, preaching every day its calmly 
 ironical lesson : This and this you have been set 
 to do, a great task or a small, and great if all your 
 strength goes to the doing of it. 
 
 And this it did: it was no time for slackness 
 and indifference. This was the stern period of 
 harvest, and all around was burning the worth- 
 less chaff from the scamped day labor of the 
 centuries. 
 
 So he sat and copied with a penmanship that 
 grew ever clearer and more faultless, less and less 
 characteristic; he had a self-denying satisfaction 
 in seeing it so. He tried to do more and more 
 every day, and to make his extracts constantly 
 clearer and more definite. When his fingers stiff- 
 ened with the cold, and that happened often 
 enough, for an oppressed country could no longer 
 afford many fires for her children and servants, 
 he rubbed his hands against each other and 
 dreamed with head aloft. 
 
 In another and worse time he would have writ- 
 ten verses, and in his poor but haughty isolation 
 would with listening ears have wrapped himself 
 about his own personality, heightening and chisel- 
 ing out every peculiarity therein and building for it 
 a pedestal out of a half despised, half longed for 
 world. But now this never occurred to him, for the 
 more he was rebuffed by men as individuals, by 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 113 
 
 what they had brought things to and were, the 
 more he loved humankind as it was meant to be 
 and should be. In a near future he saw all men 
 thus, without crime, without sin, with simple, inno- 
 cent hearts, and no sign of wear about them but 
 in their hands, drawing in with quiet breath a joy 
 of which there was as little to say as of pure and 
 uncorrupted air. But over this idyll, as in an an- 
 tique temple, rising upon steps of masonry' above 
 tilled fields and garden copses, he saw the great 
 ones of the past, Plutarch's heroic figures, with 
 long and measured steps, as befits dead men, 
 mounting guard between the pillars and stooping 
 down to welcome the newcomers who had made 
 themselves worthy to attain their circle. That was 
 the place for those on whose broad breasts the 
 lightest breath of Joy herself rested too heavily, 
 who wrapped the Nessus-shirt of suffering in proud 
 folds about them, wearing it without a tremor 
 and hardly deigning a glance at the bliss they 
 thereby secured for others. It was there he longed 
 to be. 
 
 He was only twenty-two years old and had 
 shaped his ideal as well as he knew how. 
 
 About him, far and near, he saw men who be- 
 lieved themselves to be upon the way he sought 
 to tread: in the France of the Terror there was 
 no lack of self-devotion or of heroism. But for 
 him, with his look accustomed to the pose that 
 
"4 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 only a heroic death can give — and that not at 
 once, but in an enlarging of the figure through the 
 ages — these living great ones could not be great 
 enough for models, there was a lack of gravity 
 about them. Unlike the blood of legend, which 
 never soils and sullies the dagger or the sword, 
 the blood that now ran red disgusted him, and he 
 had no desire to increase its flow, however neces- 
 sary were the shedding. He abode his time, till 
 he should feel that this had come and could see the 
 shadows beckon, and if it never came at all, that 
 was better than losing his way in following it 
 along gloomy paths. Meanwhile he did his duty, 
 humble though it was, feeling his conscience clear, 
 and smiling little and talking even less, and held 
 himself very erect with his three names. 
 
 The civil war rolled against the town and back 
 again, flooding the country with hatred and terror 
 and defiance and suffering. Jean Timoleon ob- 
 served it all with stoical calm and a feeling that 
 now perhaps his testing-time was drawing near, 
 and that if so he was ready to meet it. 
 
 Meanwhile he worked and wrote as fast as he 
 could for the cold, and ate his dry bread and 
 made his wretched couch in the evenings, so that — 
 his greatest luxury — he might read himself to 
 sleep by lamplight over his Plutarch, and- sleeping 
 dream not at all, as is fitting for him who is wait- 
 ing for his fate. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 115 
 
 II 
 
 One night he went home earlier than usual, for 
 the day had been unquiet and often disturbed. 
 The Vendean army, like a hunted animal, had 
 hurled itself with the boldness of despair against 
 Mans and the foe, and had met its fate outside 
 the town. After a fierce and uncertain fight it had 
 been crushed and, as the sun went down, scattered 
 and whirled away like withered leaves towards the 
 darkness and destruction. During the varying for- 
 tunes of the day there had been a constant stream 
 of people to the mairie with their doubts, their 
 lamentations, and their patriotic advice. Goubin 
 had not been able to write much, but had had to 
 practise his smile of calm and stoical confidence 
 and even to speak unwilling words of encourage- 
 ment or disapproval. But when the battle was 
 over he made good the time he had lost, while the 
 stillness spread about him as when storm-tossed 
 water subsides and settles back into its place, when 
 the pressure is weakened. 
 
 In the streets it was still far from quiet. Many 
 of the insurgents had blindly and rashly taken 
 refuge there, since there were objects to hide be- 
 hind and shadows to cover them. They were 
 hunted now by any who willed; no quarter was 
 given, for they themselves had long since rooted 
 that word out of the language. Cries and death- 
 rattles sounded, rifle shots pierced the silence and 
 
Ii6 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 the darkness, and lit up for a flashing moment 
 walls and corners that seemed to hang floating 
 from the veil of night, pale faces that looked like 
 feverish visions of terror and were snatched back 
 into the darkness, as though they lacked reality, 
 while the echo of the shot died away. 
 
 The lanterns of the patrols shed a dull gleam 
 upon the metal parts of weapons and the buttons 
 of uniforms; behind, all was an obscure mass ot 
 wandering shadows, out of which the soldiers' 
 measured tramp and clatter sounded in curious 
 contrast to the formless void. It was as though 
 the darkness was fighting with itself in anguish, 
 striving for life and shape, as though all the souls 
 which had been sent to wander in the unknown had 
 remained before closed doors like beggars driven 
 out, mumbling their ineffectual prayers to be al- 
 lowed to stay. One might have said that the mighty 
 age itself, rich in destruction as also in new births, 
 was lying tossing on its couch in delirium and crea- 
 tive dreams. 
 
 In the cold, damp air there came from the 
 frost-bitten, sodden leaves of the gardens a smell 
 of sweetish fermentation and of soil, which in 
 some way suggested blood and made breathing 
 heavy. 
 
 Goubin walked carefully In the middle of the 
 street, fearing lest he should set his foot on some- 
 thing foul and slippery. He held his head erect 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 117 
 
 and took refuge in the Stoic world of his imagina- 
 tion, that he might not be frightened by the sights 
 he saw around him. 
 
 "It will be good to shut it out," said he, "to lie 
 in bed with the book and forget. To-morrow it will 
 be gone, the sun will soon break through the mist 
 and will shine only on deeds of valor. The world 
 will once more be for the bright and the strong, 
 the maples will still burn red, though they are 
 thinning. All will be different then." 
 
 On an open square a dog joined him. It came 
 with a feeble whine from the darkness, was afraid, 
 prowled about, and came back again. It sniffed 
 shyly at him and seemed thus with its dark instinct 
 to be assuring itself that here was the protector it 
 needed. It followed close behind him, started 
 away at any movement, ran on in front and 
 stopped, afraid of some unknown object, until he 
 nearly stumbled over it. All the time it uttered the 
 same gentle, appealing whine. 
 
 He belonged to the Vendeans, thought Goubin. 
 Perhaps he has seen his master fall and was fright- 
 ened by the stiffness of his limbs ; and now all that 
 was his light and providence is gone, and he under- 
 derstands nothing and is oppressed by the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 It seemed to him the shyest and most helpless 
 thing in all this helplessness and terror, and though 
 he would not encourage it by a word, he let it fol- 
 
n8 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 low him, half convinced that he would not be able 
 to help taking it in. 
 
 He will disturb me, he thought, and interrupt 
 my reading; and I have hardly food to give him — 
 but nothing is settled yet, and perhaps he will go 
 away of himself. 
 
 But the dog did not do so; on the contrary, it 
 drew its magic circle all the closer, so as to compel 
 his sympathy. 
 
 When Goubin reached his door, the animal un- 
 derstood by the slackening of his footsteps that 
 this was where he lived, and bounded in before 
 him as if it had known the way. 
 
 There was a little light from a window on the 
 other side of the street, and Goubin stopped to 
 look at his companion. 
 
 It stood still, whining as before, wagging its 
 tail and fawning on him, but with its attention dis- 
 tracted by something else behind it. The half-gate 
 stood as usual lifted off its hinges and supported 
 against the wall ; in the space behind it something 
 moved. Goubin put in his head to see what it was. 
 
 Huddled up in the damp and the dirt, like a 
 rat hunted to exhaustion and awaiting the death- 
 blow, a human form lay crouching, perfectly still 
 now, with eyes fixed on his, perfectly silent, with 
 breath caught in a last despairing hope of not 
 being seen. The darkness scattered before his 
 look and he saw that it was a woman. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 119 
 
 He thought of passing on and taking no notice 
 of her, going up to his book and his rest In a 
 feeling that by so doing he was fulfilling her de- 
 sire and showing his compassion. But his pity had 
 been roused by the episode with the dog, and the 
 Infinitely desperate state of her position became 
 clear to him. A refugee, of course, he thought. 
 Sooner or later she will be discovered and killed. 
 Even if the darkness and cold were all, I could 
 not leave her thus. — ^And without reflecting, he 
 whispered: "Come out and follow me I" 
 
 She obeyed him in silence, creeping out and ris- 
 ing to her feet. She was young and fragile, and 
 In spite of the semi-darkness he could see that her 
 wet and shapeless clothes hinted at better condi- 
 tions. He signed to her to go into the shadow, and 
 she vanished into it as though the night had re- 
 ceived her again. He turned to the dog. It was 
 at once clear to him that he could not shelter 
 both, for people would hear the dog whining 
 as they passed the doors, and would come out 
 to see. 
 
 "Go thy way," he said, and it grieved him much 
 to say it; "go thy way, thou art not the most help- 
 less here!" " 
 
 The dog saw that its shy hopes were at an end, 
 and slunk away with the same gentle whining. 
 
 Goubin turned to the other. 
 
 "Follow me, mademoiselle, very quietly!" And 
 
120 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 the night gave her back again, and she followed 
 him like a shadow. 
 
 He bade her wait at the door, while he slipped 
 downstairs again in order to fetch his lighted 
 candle, as he always did, from a couple of working- 
 people who lived on the ground floor. He heard 
 the dog still ; it was howling now with all the aban- 
 doned despair that may lie in the sound, and at a 
 -distance others answered it between the shots. 
 Goubin shuddered, with a feeling that all this 
 fright and terror touched him now quite otherwise 
 than before, but yet without collecting his thoughts 
 to a realization of what he had done. 
 
 "An awful night, citizen," said the artisan's 
 wife, as she snuffed the wick. "Fair enough, though, 
 for those who are no longer concerned in the 
 business. Now at last we can begin to feel our 
 lives safe and have only to bar our doors, citizen." 
 
 "Only that, citizen." And he took his candle- 
 stick and went, still unable to think. 
 
 He carefully unlocked the door and admitted 
 his guest. She Instinctively turned away from the 
 light, so that he could not see her face, and did 
 the same when she had passed the threshold. He 
 set the light on the table and paced to and fro in 
 the little room In an attempt to bring his mind to 
 view his situation. 
 
 It was very serious, for this was no less than 
 treason that he had committed, and he was risking 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 121 
 
 his own life by acting as he had done. Life in itself 
 did not count for so much. He had accustomed 
 himself to think of it as fuel which one is prepared 
 to cast upon the fire should occasion demand. That 
 was its proper end, and that was what the great 
 men had done of whom he had read and in whose 
 presence he lived. But to fling it away as a worth- 
 less thing out into darkness and shame, with no 
 momentary gleam of splendor lighting it, to sacri- 
 fice it for a despised cause which he himself hated, 
 — that he could not so easily bring himself to do. 
 What was she, that dark shadow over there, who 
 had suddenly brought a menace into his exist- 
 ence? One of the thousand furies of the Vendeans, 
 who in wild recklessness had accompanied them 
 and fired their cruelty, one who under other 
 circumstances would have seen his life stamped 
 out with as much indifference as if he had been 
 a creeping thing trampled beneath the horses' 
 hoofs ! 
 
 He felt her look fastened upon him, doubtless 
 as helplessly and beseechingly as it must have been 
 just now, when the darkness hid it as was only 
 right. A look of a hunted rat, of a wounded animal 
 at bay, a look in which there was mingled all the 
 helplessness, the fear, and the distress that placed 
 human beings among the lowest of the low. His 
 own eyes shone with resentment as he raised them 
 to her. 
 
122 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Mon Dieu! How young she was, and what 
 strange eyes she had I 
 
 All that he had expected was contained in them, 
 but so infinitely different, and blended with so in- 
 finitely much besides. 
 
 Helplessness? Yes, certainly, or else they would 
 have lied, and that they could not do. — Distress 
 there was, but such as would never let a sound pass 
 the lips, and was felt not only for herself but for 
 all who were fallen and broken. — Fear, too, but 
 not exactly for death, and enveloped in modesty, 
 pride, and a thousand delicate and sensitive things. 
 All at once he understood what this girl must be 
 feeling, alone here at night-time, and dependent 
 on a stranger's pleasure. That gave him imme- 
 diately a strange joy and sense of power, a sudden 
 glimpse of the possibilities that these poor walls 
 might contain, but close upon that shame and pity, 
 and fear of what his eyes might have betrayed. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said, in a voice which he 
 wished to make respectful but which amid all these 
 conflicting feelings became only constrained, "you 
 have fled?" 
 
 She seemed to take it as a taunt. Her eyes 
 flashed with indignation, and the lids sank over 
 them to hide the tear-drops. But she looked up 
 again at once, too proud to hide anything, too 
 proud to make a secret of that which was obvious. 
 
 "Like all the others," she answered curtly. And 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 123 
 
 then at once, to empty the cup of humiliation with- 
 out more ado and reach the bottom of sincerity: 
 "When I lay there under the gate, I could have 
 begged for my life." 
 
 She meant also, and Goubin understood it: "But 
 now I beg no more." But what he especially no- 
 ticed was the ring of her voice. It was strangely 
 childish, notwithstanding its depth. It gave an 
 impression of never having been able to say any- 
 thing but the truth, as if it would have become 
 cracked and changed otherwise, like a bell which 
 has been flung from its high position and can never 
 get back its tone. 
 
 The face entirely answered the voice, as very 
 seldom happens. The large eyes perhaps did not 
 see so much or very rapidly, but they looked al- 
 ways straight in front ; they shone still brighter as if 
 against a background of dark seriousness held in 
 reserve. The rather high forehead was smooth and 
 finely arched, as befits calm thought and dreamless 
 sleep. The mouth, too childlike to be firm, bore 
 a melancholy that disguised itself in a light girlish 
 sullenness, displayed to discourage unwelcome ad- 
 miration. Her mouth was the only thing that 
 prompted the reflection that her life might have 
 been like the lives of others. 
 
 All this was now pale and wearied, the high 
 bonnet crushed, the dress spotted and heavy with 
 wet. As she stood there she seemed to be a por- 
 
124 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 trait in which time had worn away all the unessen- 
 tials, but had lacked the heart to touch the beauty 
 of the features otherwise than with a slightly soft- 
 ening breath. 
 
 Goubin's voice showed all the respect he desired 
 it should contain, 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said he, "I asked but to con- 
 firm my supposition. I am almost a stranger here, 
 and I know not where to take you into safety, if 
 any safe place is to be found. You see here all that 
 I can offer you, and you must share it with me. 
 Were I to go out, suspicions would be aroused, 
 you understand; everything must take its usual 
 course. The bed is yours ; I myself will sleep here 
 in my chair." 
 
 She rapidly followed his words and saw at once 
 that they could not be gainsaid. She nodded her 
 consent without a sound, but in the look that met 
 his all her thoughts lay childishly revealed. There 
 was gratitude, which knew not how far it ought 
 to go, or whether it was friend or foe that met it ; 
 there was shy apology for the sacrifices she was 
 claiming; there was questioning disquiet: "Who 
 are you, of what nature is your soul, do you speak 
 the same language as I?" And finally there was 
 grief and weariness, and longing for the solitude 
 of the dark. 
 
 Goubin replied at once to her mute questions. 
 
 "I am not of your party, mademoiselle; I have 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 125 
 
 hated your cause." This made no difference to her 
 look, which remained no less questioning. An even 
 prouder calm came into her eyes as they left him 
 and traveled round the room. 
 
 "I am quite poor, mademoiselle," — ^untll now, 
 when he saw her there, he had never thought how 
 mean his circumstances were, and he blushed for 
 them — "quite poor, and I have not much to offer 
 you. You must be hungry. I have only milk and 
 bread." 
 
 She made a gesture of refusal and went and 
 sat down on the bed. By this she seemed to wish 
 to show him that as his hospitality was, so she 
 took it, simply, without its being bound to con- 
 tinue, with no claim upon his pity, but with the 
 gratefulness and confidence that was proper be- 
 tween equals. She looked very tired where she sat. 
 
 The bed was poor and hard, with a patched 
 quilt, the brick floor very cold, bare, and dirty, 
 the walls spotted with damp. The tall, narrow 
 linen-chest showed by the looseness of its drawers 
 how empty most of them were. The writing-table 
 halted and froze upon thin legs. Goubin looked 
 around him with a curious interest, and he thought: 
 I have been quite happy here. Now I may lose it 
 any time. — ^And he longed for his book and his 
 solitude. In the angle of the wall against the slop- 
 ing roof he saw his shadow, sloping too, cut off 
 just at the neck. He had never noticed it before, 
 
126 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 and he stared in wonder at it. That, maybe, he 
 thought, is just what awaits us both. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said calmly, "I will put out 
 the light now. I hope that you will rest well, for 
 you have need of it." And he blew out the candle. 
 
 "Good night, monsieur!" Her voice sounded 
 doubly childish in the darkness, and rang for a 
 long time in his ears. He wrapped his cloak about 
 him and stretched himself in his easy-chair. It was 
 impossible for him to collect his thoughts. 
 
 He heard her damp clothing rustle as she took 
 it off, and he was glad at her confidence. He heard 
 her fall on her knees and pray to gods that were 
 not his. How strange it was ! Yesterday they knew 
 nothing of each other, and their thoughts, had they 
 met under the stars, would have passed by like 
 silent birds without suspecting it, each follow- 
 ing its own track. Now the darkness held them in 
 the same embrace, perhaps to meet the same fate, 
 and yet they were no less strangers than before. 
 He heard her lie down in the bed, and guessed 
 at her shiver of cold and insecurity as she did so, 
 then heard her gently turn, and with quiet breaths 
 dissolve in sleep. 
 
 He himself could find no rest; he seemed to be 
 lying and listening to fate, and he longed once 
 more for his poor, vanished, untroubled world and 
 strove in vain to bring it into accord with 'this 
 strange and wonderful experience. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 127 
 
 For a long time the dog was heard outside. At 
 last its howling ended in a cry and a hubbub of 
 voices, and was still. 
 
 He dozed off to sleep in the cold, and all things 
 were lost to him. 
 
 in 
 
 He woke several times, listened in astonishment 
 to her breathing, and fell asleep again. When it 
 was almost light, he rose and silently made ready 
 to leave. 
 
 She was sleeping quietly, looking very tired 
 still, gray and pale amid the grayness and the pale- 
 ness, softly folded up in slumber like a frozen and 
 withered flower-bud. Now that he could not see 
 her eyes she seemed more of a stranger than ever — 
 what had she to do with his life? Like a hunted 
 exhausted bird, straying in through an open win- 
 dow, she had come there and he had sheltered 
 her. Could she not be let out again? Had he not 
 merely to open the window and let chance rule, 
 as in a thousand other cases ? For him she meant 
 danger — unsought, irrational — she meant death 
 itself. And death, not as the delivering genius of 
 the stories, the death which he knew and revered, 
 but as the crowning absurdity, with shame and 
 dishonor to follow. Was it for this that he had 
 shaped his life, not without a struggle, to the purest 
 of purposes, for this that he had kept his robe 
 proud and unspotted and his will firm ? It was not 
 
128 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 from the danger that he shrank, but from the 
 treachery against all that unborn part of him that 
 longed to come to life and act. Should he himself 
 be the traitor, he his own Judas, hanging himself 
 with the wages of his treachery? 
 
 But he was very much afraid of waking her 
 from the sleep she so much needed. 
 
 He carefully set out on the table what he had 
 of food and drink, and wrote on a scrap of paper 
 beside it: "Keep perfectly quiet till I come home I" 
 
 And with a continued irresolution that distressed 
 him he stole out very softly, trembling at the noise 
 of the key in the lock. 
 
 Down in the street he saw the dog again. It had 
 been given a great wound, probably by some im- 
 patient patriot who was indignant at its howling, 
 and all the more so since he knew to whom it had 
 belonged. It lay now in a pool of blood, pressed 
 against a wall, looking at every one who passed 
 by. Quite still it lay, in that silence of dumb ani- 
 mals before death which is at once so humble and 
 so dignified. The brown eyes, which had been so 
 dark and had seen and understood so little, hardly 
 more than an uncertain feeling for this, an un- 
 certain terror of that, were now wonderfully clear 
 and animated. They contained neither fear nor 
 hope, but only begged, in their submissive com- 
 plaint: O shadow, gliding before my eyes more 
 clearly than I have ever seen you glide before. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 129 
 
 help me out of the world of shadows, where I no 
 more belong; help me from my torments, you who 
 surely can do so ! 
 
 Goubin went up to It, and as the animal's head 
 sank confidingly into his hand, he put a pistol to 
 its temple and freed it from its pain. He repented 
 bitterly that he had deceived its confidence the 
 night before, and shuddered at its last convulsion ; 
 but regrets and shuddering and all his conflicting 
 thoughts of an hour ago were dissolved in a calm 
 and deep compassion for all that was, all the un- 
 quietness that feared to rest. 
 
 With his customary sure and rapid steps, as of 
 a man who lets the future be the future and holds 
 himself erect upon the firm ground of the present, 
 he proceeded to his work and attended to it as 
 usual, with even shorter dreams than ordinary. 
 
 When he got home, the stranger was sitting 
 motionless in his chair, and she met the candle- 
 light with eyes that only slowly freed themselves 
 from the darkness into which they had been staring. 
 
 "Were you afraid at my steps, mademoiselle? 
 You could not know that it was I," he added, at 
 her silent question. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I know nothing of you, either," she answered. 
 "You are bound by nothing." 
 
 He did not trouble to reply to her insinuation : 
 he was content at her tone. So there was to be no 
 
130 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 question of thanks, which would have made him 
 blush, and no embarrassing weakness. He had 
 saved her, as he was bound to do ; she had accepted, 
 as she again was bound to do; and whether they 
 succeeded or failed, the matter was now finished 
 with. She had her world and he his; there was a 
 wall between them, and so he would have it be. 
 
 "No one has disturbed you, mademoiselle?" 
 
 "No one. I have sat here. The day grew to twi- 
 light and the twilight to darkness, and I have 
 hardly thought of anything. There is nothing to 
 think of more. — Or is there?" Her eyes flashed, 
 rising suddenly like a winged creature shaking the 
 darkness from it. "Is there? You will tell me, 
 sir? Our cause, my cause?" 
 
 "It must have been ended yesterday. Only the 
 death-struggle left." It almost grieved him to 
 say so. 
 
 Her face grew calm again. 
 
 "As I said, nothing to think of. The death- 
 struggle is a matter of nerves and blood, nothing 
 more. But the world Is very empty without thought, 
 and one shivers in it." And she gently shook her- 
 self and began to pace the room. 
 
 He had brought back food for them both and 
 he laid it on the table. He invited her to eat and 
 she helped herself very sparingly. Goubin, too, ate 
 little; it seemed to him only like some curious 
 game to be sitting there. 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 131 
 
 Suddenly she glanced at him and blushed, like 
 one who has forgotten his duty. 
 
 "You ought, perhaps, to know, sir, who I am 
 and what is my history. Since you may perhaps 
 come to die for me, I mean, unless you think better 
 of it. One should always know what one dies for." 
 
 The childlike quality of her voice was stranger 
 than ever as she said these words. "Die" and "dies" 
 sounded as if a spring had suddenly kept back its 
 bubbling murmur, and the silence of the grotto 
 behind had advanced darkly and deeply over it. 
 There was also a mocking Irony in these last words, 
 which, perhaps, said more than they intended. 
 
 "Only the name, mademoiselle!" The rest was 
 easy to guess. The childhood in an old castle, with 
 the tree-tops of the park forming thick, peaceful 
 clouds to the eye, with the sun's good-night In the 
 west, shining calmly upon the calm, proud souls 
 of equals. Mass in the private chapel, with the 
 jubilation of bells above the altar when the miracle 
 was accomplished and God Himself stepped down, 
 reverenced and adored, and yet in some way come 
 upon appeal, like everything else In an exalted and 
 well tended existence. The world below and out- 
 side unknown and not regarded. Then unrest over 
 the whole, its murmurs Increasing as strange years 
 passed by, a menace like the cry of circling hawks 
 in autumn, incomprehensible messages by post, the 
 rattle of the weather-cocks during the delibera- 
 
132 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 tions of sleepless nights, long doubt and sudden 
 resolution. Then the war, the crusade against that 
 which would defy both Providence and Nature's 
 laws, the men all in the saddle, the women wait- 
 ing, exalted and intoxicated by the moaning of the 
 wind in the silence and the first reports of victory. 
 Impossible to remain there in the stillness ! Away 
 to where the horns echoed and the hunt was being 
 decided! Out to help, if not with the hands, at 
 least with the fiery and inflaming desire of the 
 soul 1 And the mothers' blessings and the priests' 
 consecrated banners, and the joy of riding and 
 adventure, and then disaster and defeat. 
 
 A world of circumscribed and violent thoughts 
 which had no place in the present, a world of spec- 
 tres, as though the family portraits in the galleries, 
 with no other substance than the pride supporting 
 their pose, had stepped down from their frames 
 and gone out to throttle in a nightmare the souls 
 that aspired to life. 
 
 He would hear nothing of this in the tones of 
 that fresh voice. "The name only, mademoiselle." 
 
 "As you will." She seemed to understand his 
 reluctance. "Charlotte de . . . ." 
 
 "That will suffice. Mademoiselle Charlotte. My 
 name is Jean Timoleon Goubin. And since we have 
 nothing to talk about, and it is still so early, per- 
 haps you, like me, would wish to read? I have a 
 few books there." 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 133 
 
 ".Thank you, Monsieur Jean, not now; it would 
 be but words for me. For reading, too, one must 
 have firm ground under the foot. Mine has given 
 way. No, it is not sad at all," she added, seeing 
 his look, "one can float about so freely. One feels 
 oneself already a part of the wind and the dark- 
 
 ness." 
 
 She looked so, as she sa«t, with her dark eyes 
 dilated and the energy of her slender figure con- 
 tained within itself. Now and then she would blink 
 to drive away a memory that was about to become 
 too clear, an anxious thought for some one dear 
 to her, and the reflection of the light in her eyes 
 fell like dying sparks. A part of the wind and the 
 darkness ? A part, rather, of that unknown force 
 which lifts the souls of men to enthusiasm and de- 
 sire for the great, and of itself can fill them with 
 the sheer joy of living — in this case lost and doubt- 
 ing, having cast away the worthless toys it played 
 with. 
 
 Goubin often looked at her over his book, she 
 seemed no longer a stranger at all, although he 
 had not wished to know anything of her; she was 
 as a memory of the best moments of his lonely 
 dreams. She suggested to him also migrating birds 
 borne along amid darkness and storm, or song that 
 waited silent in the whirlwind and the roar. Would 
 it sink and thus be choked, or would it one day rise 
 into the solitudes of air and light? That was all 
 
134 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 one to him. In uncertainty, as now, he would 
 choose to have it; he was content to feel his fate 
 knit with hers, whether once only or for ever. 
 
 His book sank down, and she noticed it. 
 
 "Yes, you are right," she said, rising. "It is 
 better to rest. Sleep is good, and it were wisest 
 perhaps to grow accustomed to it." 
 
 Goubin put out the light and took possession 
 of his chair. He found it still harder to sleep than 
 on the' previous night. He was cold, his thoughts 
 flew hither and thither and had to be checked ; his 
 sleep, when it came, was short and disturbed by 
 dreams. The stranger fell on her knees as before, 
 and prayed to her gods for the lost cause which 
 she would no longer recognize even to herself, lay 
 for a time silent and motionless in the darkness, 
 and then slept very tranquilly, breathing lightly. 
 Probably she had her mouth a little open, Goubin 
 thought, and he imagined how child-like it would 
 be with that melancholy and disconcerting look 
 gone from it. 
 
 IV 
 
 So passed a week or more, and Goubin began 
 to grow accustomed to his new life, strange though 
 it was. 
 
 He did his work as usual and had his usual one 
 meal out, so as not to arouse suspicions by any 
 change in his hours and habits ; he walked with his 
 confident and measured steps and held himself 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 135 
 
 erect and unapproachable. But he had more and 
 more a feeling that he was walking In his sleep on 
 dangerous paths, where an unexpected cry would 
 be enough to make him start and lose his footing 
 and fall to destruction. He felt his nature divided 
 In two, like a celestial body, which shows only one 
 of its halves to the eyes of men ; the other, turned 
 towards the stars and the secrets of space, did not 
 know itself but lay beyond reach of words and 
 language or of the sun and the vicissitudes of life, 
 lay shining with a strange light towards death and 
 that which lies behind. There the stranger had her 
 place, she who existed but for him. 
 
 He had never been In love and did not love now 
 either, if by that be meant longing and unrest. His 
 blood took its usual flow to and from the heart, 
 and his look was calm and clear as ever. 
 
 In the world of his imagination women had had 
 little place. Hardly detached from the wrapping 
 of words as he read, they had flitted past In stiff 
 white robes in the shape of Portia, Cato's daugh- 
 ter, or the mother of the Gracchae — calm beings 
 whose whole soul was yielded in a proud reply, 
 and who immolated themselves In the second rank, 
 behind the main action. Or else they had been in- 
 significant creatures who were only there to make 
 the web of fate more many-colored and myste- 
 rious, the embodiment of apostasy from thought, 
 of weakness and foolishness, shadows merely, 
 
136 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 which, though he could never understand why, had 
 had power to lead men's looks astray. In life about 
 him they had hardly occupied him at all. Half in 
 shyness and disdain, and half in pity, he had looked 
 upon them as creatures that strangely disturbed an 
 existence which lay otherwise so even for the path 
 of duty. 
 
 So it was very little the thought that she was a 
 woman which made the stranger play her part in 
 his life; her very helplessness was a protection 
 there. But the danger to which she gave shape re- 
 vealed darker depths on that account. That which 
 was alien in her became still more unknown and 
 enticing to the thought; she became twice as 
 strange, cast into his world as a constant surprise. 
 
 In the mornings he avoided looking at her, but 
 he knew that she was only feigning sleep, and all 
 the day he found himself longing for her look. 
 When he came home in the evenings his hand 
 trembled on the lock, and he had to hear her child- 
 like voice before he could regain his calm. She 
 had washed and repaired her dress, her face was 
 fresh and rested, and he saw that she grew pret- 
 tier every day. He himself was worn out with cold 
 and lack of sleep, and ascribed to this, in great 
 measure, his curious condition of mind; he even 
 began to fear sickness, should it have to continue 
 longer. 
 
 In the evenings by candlelight he had begun to 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 137 
 
 read aloud, so as to keep his thoughts on his 
 book and soar once again into the expanse that 
 had given him peace before, that he might meet 
 her there, calm where all was calm and great, and 
 not disquieting and mysterious as elsewhere. He 
 chose his beloved Plutarch, and she listened gladly 
 and eagerly; it delighted her to hear more of 
 these great ones of the past, whose very names 
 had in former days filled her with wonder and 
 rung in her ears, she knew not why, like the sound 
 of bells in the wind. She had often asked her 
 teachers about them — ^mild abbes with eyes that 
 had grown used to gliding rapidly and respectfully 
 past superiority in every form — and they had an- 
 swered her with a bow in their tone, no less for 
 her than for the faded memories of school-days 
 and the altered order of things: "Miltiades, 
 mademoiselle," — or "Dion, mademoiselle, a man 
 who died long ago, distinguished for heathen vir- 
 tues, but who does not immediately concern us, 
 mademoiselle." And by that she had under- 
 stood that even if they might have had more to 
 say, it would hardly have been worth her while 
 to listen. 
 
 And now it was opened to her, this world, close 
 enough to give an impression of new and amazing 
 life — yet far enough to admit of a general view 
 and the introduction into the story of that note 
 which charms the fancy: "Once upon a time." She 
 
138 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 was entirely held by it, and all her thoughts, like 
 the floating homeless creatures they were, went out 
 to meet it in its arrested dying beauty, like dark 
 birds which take flight so close upon the setting 
 sun that they may be thought to follow it. Her 
 figure was mere expectant energy, as before, but 
 her look now reflected a calmness as of wide, rest- 
 ing clouds. 
 
 But Goubin did not read well. Like most of 
 those who sternly treat their own words like care- 
 less servants, he never grew closely acquainted 
 with the words of others. There passed, too, into 
 his voice something of the restraint and self- 
 discipline that stamped his life ; the writing never 
 became anything but black on white. He heard it 
 himself, and stammered with impatience when he 
 saw that she too felt it. 
 
 "You must be tired. Monsieur Jean, let me read 
 to you." And she took the book and read, and 
 now for him also all became new, this that he still 
 recognized so well that each episode followed the 
 other with the sureness of remembrance. Where 
 he sat and gazed at her, the light flowed out be- 
 fore his eyes in a golden mist supporting her and 
 behind her the pictures of his fancy, all things 
 together, near and far, like the events of the day 
 when one is tired and thinks one has been through 
 them before in some dream or previous existence, 
 and wonders what they mean, and yet already 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 139 
 
 knows it in that inmost shrine to which no words 
 can reach. 
 
 The silver echoes of her childlike voice increased 
 and swelled; her soul, made for action, as the 
 storm for flight, swept into the silent world of 
 shadows, gave them blood to drink, made them 
 quiver anew with the desires of life, and carried 
 their words back, imparting to them the passion 
 and proud calm that had been theirs at the begin- 
 ning, when they had trembled like arrows burying 
 themselves in the target. 
 
 Now and again they would break off their read- 
 ing and listen to some unfamiliar sound. The dan- 
 ger was near them all the time, and they felt its 
 suppressed breathing at their ears. Some one need 
 only come outside the door and distinguish a 
 strange voice for suspicions to be aroused. Soon 
 afterwards the metal fittings of fire-arms would 
 rattle against the bricks, gruff voices would cry: 
 "In the name of the law," and the door would fly 
 open and reveal death standing darkly on the 
 threshold. They were not afraid of it; they almost 
 longed for it, and the present with all that it con- 
 tained became the dearer for this uncertainty. 
 Without pausing to be reassured, they would turn 
 once more to their stories and continue reading, 
 and the light that flickered as it bent inwards in 
 the draught was the only thing that showed uneasi- 
 ness within this poor and narrow room. 
 
I40 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 But no one came, and they continued evening 
 after evening. They preferred to linger over the 
 latest periods, when the sun of happiness had al- 
 most withdrawn from Hellas and its caresses were 
 all the dearer, as the evening light is wont to be, 
 between long shadows in air that has grown 
 chilly — over PhilopcEmen, Agis, or Cleomenes. It 
 was thus, upon the verge of ruin, that they loved 
 their heroes best, and thus, they felt, their longing 
 for a past and vanished world came nearest to ful- 
 filment. 
 
 When Philopcemen, leading his band of youths 
 with purple robes under their mantles, entered the 
 theatre just as the singer was singing : "For Greece 
 I bind upon my brows the wreath of liberty" — and 
 the air trembled with applause, with sobs, and 
 jubilation, and the rows of seats fluttered white, 
 as though a flock of birds were taking wing, right 
 up to where the deep blue heaven began above the 
 topmost row — then their own breasts swelled in 
 unison with all these long since broken hearts, in 
 the same illusion and the same sad certainty that 
 all was but illusion. 
 
 When Agis passed through the land with his 
 young and silent troop of warriors, their hair 
 flowing far down over their shoulders, their hands 
 closed tight about their weapons, their eyes bright 
 with the joy of sacrifice, their lips shut firmly over 
 their smile, — the whole as still as a vision of spec- 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 141 
 
 tres, as dignified as rows of figures on an urn with 
 the ashes of dead men, which History musingly 
 turns round and round before our lowered gaze — 
 then they sat motionless in a grief which in its 
 exaltation came near to being a kind of joy. 
 
 And in the last flaming vision of Cleomenes' 
 wild march of destruction through the tyrant's 
 court, of his dead body nailed upon the cross in 
 a lion-skin with the sunken head still smiling and 
 inspiring fear by its defiance, they saw victory in 
 defeat, thought withdrawn from the changes and 
 caprice of time and raised in triumph over its fight 
 with matter, and they envied him his end. 
 
 There they sat in the shabby room, shivering a 
 little with cold, strangely Isolated with the danger 
 about them, and each of them dreaming in silence, 
 she of her lost cause, which had been trampled in 
 the dust and seemed so poor and humble now, and 
 yet was warmed by the heart's hot flame, he of his 
 ideal, which hesitatingly drew in its steps, fearing 
 to soil Its robes in the world of the present. This 
 unknown girl was now better known to him than 
 any other thing. She entered Into almost all his 
 dreams, the only reality in all the changing world. 
 She was Honor, waiting in uneasy rest, deep-eyed 
 and clear-eyed, gazing before her, forgetful of 
 herself. And the light burned down In its socket, 
 panting as if the flame wished to take flight out 
 into the darkness towards the unknown, where all 
 
142 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 sounds were checked and fell, where all things 
 waited like her — and silently they had to light a 
 fresh candle and pursue their thoughts. 
 
 One night, when his head was dizzy with fa- 
 tigue and he could no longer grasp the words 
 otherwise than as curious echoes, he brought out 
 the request he had been keeping back. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Charlotte, I am afraid this can 
 go on no longer. I have not been able to sleep on 
 account of the cold. If I fall ill, there will be no 
 possibility of keeping our secret. Will you give 
 me a place in the bed beside you?" 
 
 She turned her direct gaze upon him and thought 
 rapidly over his words. "Certainly," said she ; "why 
 did you not tell me before? It grieves me to think 
 you have been cold." 
 
 Her confidence came as easily as a child's hand- 
 shake after its first shyness. It gladdened Goubin's 
 heart, and, though he had not expected it, her 
 consent now seemed to him so natural and obvious 
 that he blushed at his former hesitation. When 
 the light was out and he lay by her side, he fell 
 asleep very soon with a delicious sense of fatigue 
 and peace, such as he could not remember having 
 felt since childhood, when the days were longer 
 and the nights deeper and softer than ever they 
 had been since. 
 
 But towards morning he dreamed. 
 
 All was discovered, the door into the porch 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 143 
 
 Stood open, and the darkness nodded threaten- 
 ingly behind the grim faces of the other inmates 
 of the house, who had dropped their ordinary 
 looks with their everyday clothes and business, and 
 now stared coldly and severely from between the 
 bayonets. They were taken before the tribunal. 
 Their case was soon decided, almost without 
 words, only with looks filled with strange memo- 
 ries, fusing together persons and times that were 
 long distant, confounding trifles and Important 
 things, staring at him and all that his life had 
 contained in a deep and stony surprise that It 
 should finish so. But he was not surprised ; he felt 
 clearer and lighter than ever before. He looked 
 at his companion and found in her the same calm, 
 and behind her head the expanses of the legends 
 and the splendor from their common enthusiasm. 
 This is Honor, he thought; out of the darkness 
 she came to me, silently, with a finger on her lips, 
 and without a word she points out to me the way. 
 Why should voices rise about her and the sun of 
 day shine on her? Is she not what she Is without 
 these? A proud silence Is her nature; to follow 
 unseen her earliest summons, that is happiness, 
 that Is all. 
 
 Bound on a cart, they were taken with the swift- 
 ness of dreams to Nantes, where the end was to 
 be, down along the Loire. It was night all the 
 time, and the waters of the river with their gray 
 
144 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 gleam gave the only light there was. Groves and 
 villages lay blacker than all else upon the black 
 fields. Darkly against the darkness, a world of 
 up-piled, shadowy clouds was outlined against the 
 sky. 
 
 They stood before the death-tribunal and citizen 
 Carrier, of whom report said so much. He was not 
 terrifying at all ; like a shadow, grotesquely length- 
 ened and quivering in the trembling of the light 
 that cast it, he stood there and dared not meet 
 their gaze. He was the intoxication of destruction, 
 he was the absurd terror of death, and he vanished 
 to nothing before a proud glance, after having 
 pointed towards the river. Still gray and dully 
 shining, it was turning in slow eddies as it met the 
 tidal water from the sea, and a thousand strange 
 and pallid figures, upright and stiff, were rocking 
 in its surges. 
 
 Now Goubin understood what it meant. It was 
 there they were to be taken. Into those cold depths, 
 whose dull gleam was that of Hades and the Styx, 
 they were to be flung, and they would choke and 
 sink and rise and be gently drawn towards the 
 Infinitude of ocean and as gently sucked back again, 
 following the pulse of the tide under the mys- 
 terious forces of the moon and space. His only 
 fear was that they would not both suffer together, 
 that they would be parted. But already they stood 
 on the deck of the barge, which was slippery with 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 145 
 
 tears and spray, stood there close together, 
 with firm footing — nothing to grieve for longer, 
 therefore, the wind fresh on their foreheads, 
 salt foam upon their lips, and peace within their 
 breasts. 
 
 Some one was occupied with their hands ; some- 
 thing cut sharply into the skin — what was it? Ah, 
 they were binding them together, and together 
 they would sink. Like two flames melting into each 
 other, two bubbles which, breaking, are enlarged 
 to one, their souls would be crushed by destruction 
 and from beneath the pressure would rise towards 
 unknown spaces. As love folds two beings together, 
 first in the look and desire, then in kisses and flame, 
 and a new life is born from their meeting, mys- 
 terious, unexplainable, theirs and no longer theirs 
 alone but also something new, so now death would 
 drink both their lives in the same breath, and what- 
 ever came of It, annihilation or new birth, they 
 would assuredly be one. What did it matter, then, 
 which it was — their looks met in the same thought 
 — what did it matter? Nothing, nothing at all; 
 their eyes blazed to their inmost depths of cer- 
 tainty and joy, they were bound together like twin 
 stars to shine upon each other through the ages. 
 She and Honor, whose accents had been heard in 
 his best moments, she and the Unknown, with all 
 the secrets of a woman's fate! Joy seized upon 
 him so powerfully that the dream broke, as it does 
 
146 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 with every violent feeling; its gray world dissolved 
 like mist before the sun, and he opened his eyes. 
 
 The daylight shone half in; beside him lay the 
 stranger sleeping with that look of infancy which 
 slumber always gives, sleeping with the peril out- 
 side, perhaps in the same dream as his, perhaps 
 as far remote from it as heart can be from heart. 
 His joy was gone, he felt only a quiet satisfaction 
 in the protection he had given her, and he gently 
 stole from the bed. 
 
 V 
 
 So several more days and nights passed by. As 
 before, they spoke little to each other, they met in 
 thought over the book or else in dreams, and that 
 was sufficient for them. It seemed to Goubin as 
 if words and talk were out of place between them, 
 as though his very feeling for her presupposed a 
 proud silence for its existence, and would have 
 become forced and ugly if it had been mentioned. 
 It hardly existed to the outward view and to the 
 day, but in the depths it lingered mute, though 
 concentrated and enclosed within itself; only in 
 the heightened world of dreams did it gravely 
 move among the shadows. Their position, too, 
 was such that every approach to an ordinary 
 tone was at once checked of itself, all light- 
 heartedness became not only thoughtless cruelty 
 but a danger. 
 
 He was very happy as things were, perhaps 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 147 
 
 just because they could hardly remain so longer — 
 their freedom from discovery became a greater 
 marvel every day. As often as he could he tried 
 to learn something of the possibilities for her flight 
 from the town. Through his position he at last 
 found a way : suspicions had been reported against 
 a family which was assumed to be in connection 
 with the rebels, and an arrest was intended. Goubin 
 at once made his plans; he resolved to let his pro- 
 tegee warn them and join herself to them in flight. 
 It was treason twice over, but he was himself sur- 
 prised to find that the matter seemed to him en- 
 tirely obvious and simple. 
 
 In the evening he disclosed his plan to her. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Charlotte, you may now be 
 free. You may now go back to those from whom 
 you came." And he informed her in brief words 
 what she had to do. 
 
 She received the news as calmly as all else, with 
 only a suppressed shiver before the change await- 
 ing her, such as a bird might know if, having lost 
 its power of flight for a time, it had regained it 
 and turned dizzy before the adventure. There was 
 not a trace of gladness in her looks. 
 
 "I had not thought it," she said; "I thought all 
 was finished. But if it be that life is offered me — 
 and why should it not be so ? — there is but one 
 answer to give. And you. Monsieur Jean, whom 
 I have already had to thank for every day, when 
 
148 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 each hour has made its importance' felt as perhaps 
 the last in life, to you I am now indebted for an 
 unknown portion of the future, whether long or 
 short I know not, nor yet how great its value." 
 
 And after that they had not many words to say 
 to one another. 
 
 They sat and waited for the night. The book 
 was left lying, for neither had peace of mind to 
 read. They only looked at each other now and 
 again; when their gaze met, they smiled slightly, 
 as was never their wont before, and with a forced 
 air of encouragement. She sat and looked about 
 her in the narrow room with an interest that was 
 new to her. It seemed that already for her it was 
 beginning to belong to the world of memory, where 
 all is precious more or less, and nothing is un- 
 lovely in its wondrous peace. But it was very cold 
 and bare, very small, and Goubin, as he stared and 
 slightly shivered, with a numbness in his brain as 
 when one is aroused from sleep and not yet fully 
 awake, wondered how it would look afterwards, 
 when all was as before and yet so different now 
 that this had happened. The light burned audibly 
 In the stillness, and their thoughts echoed audibly. 
 The air seemed changed, as though the wall of 
 danger which had hitherto encircled them was now 
 removed: they felt a curious emptiness. 
 
 When the hour had come, they rose up to go. 
 Their eyes met, as they used to meet in their 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 149 
 
 dreams, and the depths shone out grave and clear. 
 And with a feeling of mysterious bonds, of in- 
 visible fetters as from star to star, they turned 
 from the room which alone was to know that their 
 lives had met, and passed out into the darkness. 
 
 Goubin went with her to her destination, saw 
 her vanish like a shadow, and retraced his steps. 
 
 VI 
 
 Some years afterwards, when the land was be- 
 ginning to grow quiet again, he received a letter 
 secretly. He knew at once from whom it came, 
 and in the somewhat stiff and nervous hand he 
 thought he could discern her restrained movements 
 of energy in reserve, the expression round the 
 mouth with its melancholy suUenness, on the watch 
 against approach or admiration, which must have 
 accompanied the movements of the fingers as chil- 
 dren's faces do when they write, and the look 
 which deliberated whether every word was so true 
 that it might have been uttered by that voice. 
 
 The letter ran thus: 
 
 TO MONSIEUR JEAN TIMOLEON GOUBIN: 
 
 He who has received a benefit would gladly 
 thank his benefactor with something more than 
 words. He who has to thank another for his life 
 possesses that life no longer. Like a Roman son, 
 he holds it but as a loan which may be taken back 
 where it was given. 
 
I50 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 My life is now yours, and perhaps also upon 
 other grounds than this. 
 
 I was very happy with you. The air was light 
 there, life seemed richer with her face ever half 
 averted as in parting. That time has gone: life 
 now looks full upon me. Will you accept it hand 
 in hand with me ? 
 
 I am free and almost alone now. I have wealth 
 enough. I need hardly tell you that I have need of 
 no one, and have little taste for anything that 
 compassion may give. 
 
 CHARLOTTE DE COMBALET. 
 
 Goubin read it over several times and then 
 paced up and down his room, more in reverie than 
 in hesitation. He was very happy and lived over 
 again in succession all that he could recapture of 
 those wonderful days, as he had for long been 
 doing with their separate fragments. He walked 
 as though exalted by a calm, festive joy, and all 
 that he looked upon in his poor surroundings took 
 on the special meaning it had . acquired when 
 she was there, and met his consciousness with 
 the fullness and significance which objects have 
 in dreams. When the candle had burnt out, he 
 lit a new one and sat down to write his an- 
 swer without searching for words, merely list- 
 ening to an inner voice and fixing it upon the 
 paper: 
 
A SECRET IDYLL 151 
 
 MADEMOISELLE : 
 
 I was very happy when you were here. I still 
 enjoy your presence, as when one listens to the 
 echo of a song that is dead. One lives in it, one 
 could wish it back, and yet those opening tones, 
 could they once more resound in the ears, would 
 disturb the finished harmony. It would not be the 
 same, for the river of Time, like all other rivers, 
 flows not back; it would be something new which 
 would bear away the old into bluer distances. Life 
 is but a kind of gradual death; whether it leads 
 towards development or later to decline, each 
 moment is buried in that which follows, nothing 
 is stationary; even the mountain slowly melts be- 
 fore the rain. 
 
 Only when it is freed from the chain can mem- 
 ory stand shining and unchangeable. And it is so 
 that I would have you. 
 
 You came from out the darkness, unexpected 
 and unknown; you sat in my poor domain and 
 listened quietly ; your eyes had the constancy of the 
 stars. You were honor and dreams for me, you are 
 that still — can one ever reach them and call them 
 one's own? To have merely caught sight of them 
 is much, and is worth a high price : and have they 
 stayed with one so long that one has stamped their 
 features on the mind and now can always recognize 
 them with no further chance of error, that is great 
 happiness. 
 
152 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 You have done so, you I shall always recognize. 
 With danger in the air about you, shining against 
 its dark background, you stand in my memory, 
 beloved and revered. That space is you — without 
 it all were weak and dulled and mean — that space 
 is you forever. 
 
 JEAN TIMO'LEON GOUBIN. 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 
 
 {DON JUANS RUBINER] 
 
 FROM RESEBOKEN 
 
 1898 
 
Don Juan's Rubies 
 I 
 
 DON JUAN DE MARANA Y TENORIO 
 arrived one fine morning in the beginning 
 of October at Baza, a medium sized town in the 
 province of Granada. He had come through Car- 
 tagena from Naples, and was on the way to his 
 native town — Sevilla, as all the world knows — 
 in order to begin a new life there. This was not 
 his intention on starting, but during the journey 
 by sea, when the incommodiousness of the vessel 
 had admitted of only the scantiest attention to his 
 toilet, and the passage was uneven, Don Juan fell 
 to thinking, which he had never done before, and 
 to thinking gloomy thoughts, which he had had 
 still less opportunity of doing. During a heavy 
 storm in the night-time he seemed to see the tops 
 of the waves becoming an awful shining fire of 
 sulphur blue, and all these tongues stretching in 
 a most unpleasant manner precisely at himself, as 
 though to lick him up. There came into his mind 
 all kinds of stories about Purgatory which priests 
 and monks had told him when he was a child, and 
 the truth of which he had never doubted, though his 
 contempt for the said priests and monks had after- 
 wards made him turn away from it with a grimace. 
 
 IS5 
 
156 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 During his stay in Cartagena, where he had passed 
 the time away with a love intrigue, this impression 
 had been somewhat weakened, but now during this 
 last ride in the fresh morning air it came again, 
 stubborn and unwelcome, and was in some way 
 connected with the even tramp-tramp of their 
 ambling nags. It especially annoyed him constantly 
 to hear his servant Graceo close behind him think- 
 ing that perhaps it would be just the same down 
 there. Graceo followed the fashion of the time 
 for lackeys in affecting a certain clown-like wit 
 which brought him both more silver pieces and 
 fewer cuffs than any other method of procedure, 
 but which in the end became a little tiresome to 
 his master. The bare thought of the stiffly sloping 
 head and the forced smile under the turned-up 
 mustaches amid all kinds of infernal torments was 
 unpleasant — yet it was difficult enough to have 
 patience with him. 
 
 During all this Don Juan was further reminded 
 by the wind that whistled in his half-boots of his 
 worst personal defect, his sturdy, well-filled calves, 
 which for some years had been no longer fashion- 
 able : on the contrary they should be very thin now. 
 
 From what has been said it will easily be gath- 
 ered that Don Juan was no longer in the gladness 
 of his youth and the sunshine of his fortunes. He 
 was, in fact, approaching the age when the possi- 
 bilities for enjoying life are amassed by the 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES iS7 
 
 pleasure-seeker rather In an abstract form, such 
 as power and gold, while the joys of the palate 
 alone yield fully what they promise. 
 
 In Baza, when his meal was finished, he wan- 
 dered about with his toothpick in his mouth and 
 found all faces tedious, most of all that of Don 
 Manuel de Ocafias, a gentleman whom he had 
 known many years previously, when everything 
 was brighter except Don Manuel himself. After 
 having expressed in many well chosen words their 
 mutual delight at meeting and their firm devotion 
 until death to the brother and friend — really quite 
 Interchangeable terms — whom they saw before 
 them, they went arm In arm to Don Manuel's 
 house, where a large shield with Don Manuel's 
 coat-of-arms was enthroned over the gate, while 
 the lattice-work of the balcony at the side sup- 
 ported Don Manuel's drying linen. In a shaded 
 room that took Its light from the courtyard they 
 continued to protest their undying affection and 
 their vast delight, since they had nothing else to 
 say to each other; but Don Juan could not help 
 remarking that his host had something on his 
 mind. At last, after a thousand excuses, the latter 
 took a purse from his pocket, picked out three or 
 four coins, which did not seem to be usable, fondled 
 them with his fingers and his look, and was reluc- 
 tantly preparing to consign them to a case. Don 
 Juan's curiosity was aroused by the spark he had 
 
158 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 suddenly seen flash in the otherwise unillumined 
 eyes of his host, and he wished to know the reason. 
 
 "Senor Don Manuel, my deeply revered friend," 
 said he, "it has not escaped me that the coins you 
 have there are of quite unusual beauty, and you 
 would render me a thousand-fold your debtor by 
 permitting me to look at them more closely and 
 supporting my ignorance by explaining to me their 
 value." 
 
 Don Manuel leaped up eagerly and gave him 
 the coins, though he need only have stretched out 
 his hand and passed them. 
 
 "This, Senor Don Juan, is a Roman silver stater 
 from Bilbilis, a now forgotten town in the neigh- 
 borhood of Calatayud, the stamp is that of the 
 emperor Tiberius, as you yourself can see. This 
 is a Caligula from Osca, the present Huesca, and 
 this an Emperor Augustus from Calagurris Julia 
 Nassica, which, as you may easily hear, is the same 
 as Calahorra." 
 
 Don Juan was amazed at all these unfamiliar 
 names that flooded over him. "By San Gennaro — 
 forgive me ; I forget I am no longer in Naples — 
 by all the saints, Don Manuel, you are a scholar 
 then?" 
 
 Don Manuel raised his eyebrows and pushed 
 the accusation from him with both hands. "Cer- 
 tainly not," he cried, "certainly not! But I am a 
 collector, you observe, and therefore I have had 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 159 
 
 to learn many things if I would not be cheated. 
 I have far better specimens than these, as you shall 
 soon see." He drew out several small cases with 
 smaller boxes inside them, which he began to take 
 up. Don Juan sat there and stretched out his hand 
 for the coins, looked at them and handed them 
 back again. With the coin he was given every time 
 one or more names, which it seemed to him that 
 he had learnt as a boy and a youth, but had been 
 wicked enough to forget. This made him feel hum- 
 ble and dejected, and even Don Manuel's proud 
 and eager face gave him many thoughts which he 
 did not at once succeed in arranging. To show that 
 he was following, he seized a very badly clipped 
 coin and held it up between his thumb and finger. 
 
 "This, Don Manuel," said he, "this coin with 
 these curious marks, resembling keys and pincers, 
 this is no doubt a Moorish dirrhem?" 
 
 But Don Manuel beat down his mistake from 
 a distance. 
 
 "By no means," he cried. "It is, as I have told 
 you, Seiior Don Juan, an Arabian felus." And 
 Don Juan felt himself still smaller and realized 
 that he had been mistaken in more than one thing 
 in his life — in Don Manuel himself, for instance, 
 who now almost impressed him. And while his 
 host, as he showed him one of the greatest treas- 
 ures in his collection, a Gothic coin with King 
 Achila's image, was elaborating a long argument 
 
i6o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 to the effect that had this species of coin not been 
 found, we should be so unfortunate as not even 
 to know that this king had reigned, Don Juan's 
 impressions at last resolved themselves into clar- 
 ity. He gravely regarded Achila's head, which 
 looked as if it had been drawn by a child of three, 
 and seeing a cross on the reverse of the coin, he 
 kissed it reverently. 
 
 "Don Manuel here," thought he, "is a happy 
 man: that must be as certain as that my legs are 
 too stout" — and he drew them under his chair. 
 "His eyes show clearly that at every step he finds 
 a new goal for his efforts, just as Graceo's mule 
 spies a fresh thistle after every bend in the road. 
 Every one of these coins is a triumph: he has it 
 laid up in a casket and can take it out and enjoy 
 it. And there are some left to search for, probably 
 a whole host, for who can tell how many kinds 
 of coins there are? These bits of money have 
 slipped away just like mine, some one has bought 
 with them pleasure of some kind, which has van- 
 ished now, but Don Manuel has the coins. What 
 have I collected and gained? It is I who resemble 
 Graceo's mule, for thistles are all that I have had !" 
 
 This and much more Don Juan pondered for 
 the first time, while his host talked happily about 
 King Achila. But now Don Manuel with beaming 
 face held up another coin, which he had kept till 
 the last. 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES i6i 
 
 "This, Senor Don Juan," said he ceremoniously, 
 "is a Phoenician coin from Gadir or Cadiz. I 
 would not change it for any earthly profit. On 
 the reverse it has a fish, a dolphin, on the ob- 
 verse a head, which, as far as my knowledge goes 
 is that of their goddess Astarte, the goddess of 
 love." 
 
 As he stretched out his hand Don Juan thought : 
 
 "The goddess of love! Have there been people 
 who have made a god out of anything so entirely 
 and essentially dull?" And after looking at the 
 round features of the head, which he found un- 
 utterably stupid, he handed the treasure back. 
 "Seiior Don Manuel, my honored friend," said 
 he, "I must express to you my wonder, not only 
 at your good fortune and joy, but also at the mel- 
 lifluous wisdom by virtue of which you would de- 
 serve still greater happiness, if that were possible. 
 This last coin alone would have compensated me 
 In full measure for the years of my life, had I been 
 wise enough to seek for it." 
 
 Don Manuel hid his smile of triumph beneath 
 his mustache, and wishing to show politeness in 
 return, he answered: 
 
 "Ah, Don Juan, you have not been Idle! Even 
 to us reports of your doings have penetrated. In 
 that sphere you have driven me out of the field. 
 Who could have guessed it when you came as a 
 shy youth to Salamanca, and we taught you to 
 
i62 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 pluck at a guitar and sing a seguidilla or practised 
 the latest Italian thrust with you?" 
 
 Don Juan could not remember that his host 
 had had any knowledge to give away in these mat- 
 ters, but he did not even trouble to smile at his 
 boa'st. He let his gloomy thoughts overflow, since 
 they had once been brought into the channel. 
 
 "Ah, Don Manuel," he burst out, "you have not 
 in your whole collection a coin so small that it 
 would answer to all that. The girls of Flanders 
 weep in the most disagreeable way when one leaves 
 them, and spoil all the fine Flemish lace round 
 one's neck, and Germans talk thickly in the most 
 difficult of languages and expect one to swear eter- 
 nal faithfulness to them in it; the ladles of Milan 
 eat fried fish, of which one grows tired, the Bo- 
 lognese die for you or else arrange a meeting near 
 a couple of abominably sloping towers. Roman 
 women have rough voices and hang you as full 
 of amulets as a fish has scales, and Neapolitans 
 think you have the evil eye as soon as you look 
 obliquely at them. As for our own ladies — ^but 
 excuse me, I do not know from which town your 
 own seiiora comes, so let us take them in general — 
 have you observed that they wish us to cease eat- 
 ing and so lose flesh for love? And then these 
 phrases, eternally the same, so indescribably 
 enervating I One must be everlastingly amazed at 
 the sun — 'Is it Aurora that meets me, since I see 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 163 
 
 that all the former objects of my admiration were 
 but stars that are extinguished now ? What splen- 
 dor is this that so pitilessly blinds and scorches 
 me?' — And so on ! I assure you, Don Manuel, one 
 grows tired of these innumerable sunrises, and, as 
 you are aware, one catches cold most easily at that 
 time of the day." 
 
 Don Manuel's tiny eyes gleamed and darted 
 to and fro, like bleak at the water's edge, in the 
 greed and curiosity aroused by all the experiences 
 here hinted at. "Ah, my dear friend, it must be 
 very interesting none the less," he sighed between 
 lips that had become moist. But Don Juan did not 
 trouble to parade a shred of his triumph before 
 him ; he did not even feel that he had known any 
 triumphs now. 
 
 "When I look at your fine collection, Seiior 
 Don Manuel," he continued, "I think in bitter envy, 
 I admit, of what I have brought together. Locks of 
 hair, letters, amulets — in most cases I have for- 
 gotten where they belonged. I could never bring 
 any system into them, and in many cases I have 
 nothing left." 
 
 Ah, well, Don Manuel did not mean that any 
 methodical and properly arranged collection could 
 be made of them, but nevertheless he thought they 
 must possess a certain charm. 
 
 Don Juan sat just as gloomily, with his legs 
 under his chair, and thought aloud. 
 
i64 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "When I was young," he murmuredj "it was a 
 little different. It seems to me that I felt many 
 things then. I know not what it was, but, by all 
 the fiends, it amused me ! The very uncertainty of 
 danger had something tempting in it, and there 
 were — I seem clearly to remember that there 
 were — charming women. But now, whether it be 
 they that are more stupid or I that have grown 
 wiser, you can form no conception how identical 
 they are. Their passion, fall, and remorse proceed 
 as regularly as a drill, every one of them knows 
 her time in the most irritating fashion. It is like 
 catching birds in one's boyhood, Don Manuel. 
 The only difficulty was to take the first decoy- 
 birds, to make the first capture, after that all was 
 so easy that one soon tired of it. 
 
 "And the nuns," concluded Don Juan, with 
 something like exasperation, "the nuns are the dull- 
 est of the lot. It is a little difficult to get over the 
 wall, but afterwards — the fruit that is fastened to 
 an espalier ripens soonest of all. 
 
 "As I told you, you are happy with your little 
 caskets. I can. wish nothing better than that you 
 may find a King Achila the Second and ticket him 
 as inalienable property in your family. As for me, 
 I must go now, and shall shortly leave your town, 
 but I would thank you for this instructive and 
 unforgettable hour. If you ever see me again, 
 Serior Don Manuel, it will be as another man." 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 165 
 
 And with a thousand assurances of his loyal 
 devotion until death he parted from his friend, 
 who in some amazement stared after him a while 
 and with dully gleaming eyes mused upon his 
 words, before he turned to rearrange his coins. 
 
 II 
 
 Don Juan passed out again into the unpleasantly 
 dark entrance and shivered in the evening air, until 
 Graceo, who had borne his cloak after him, came 
 out from the servants' quarters and hung it over 
 his shoulders. Graceo at once began to prattle 
 after his familiar habit about the people of the 
 house, but his master did not listen to him and 
 intentionally slammed the gate to behind him so 
 that it might crush him a little. Outside, night had 
 fallen, and the full moon was peeping down upon 
 Don Juan through the lattice of the balcony ex- 
 actly under one of Don Manuel's extended shirts, 
 as if it had jestingly wished to hide itself there. 
 Don Juan looked up at the shining disk, which was 
 mirrored in his slightly prominent brown eyes and 
 grinned upon their vacancy, then he shivered once 
 more, sighed, and went, without knowing why, 
 merely by force of habit, to the corner of the gar- 
 den wall. When he saw his shadow outlined blue 
 and dismally there, he drew himself up to his 
 accustomed elegance, so as not to seem ridiculous 
 before it, and hummed a tune as he waited for his 
 
i66 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 valet to catch him up. The latter was limping from 
 the blow he had received on his knee, and was 
 therefore displaying to even less advantage than 
 usual the over-modern drumsticks with which Na- 
 ture had provided him. 
 
 "Graceo," said Don Juan in a friendly tone, in 
 order to encourage him, "I think you said that 
 Don Manuel has three daughters?" 
 
 "It is quite possible, Senor," answered the in- 
 jured man; "three things are always certain, but 
 I, and he himself, too, know of no more than one, 
 as I lately had the honor of informing you, Seiior." 
 
 "But I thought I heard three names." 
 
 "That Is also possible, although I thought you 
 did not hear me at all, Seiior. At all events, I 
 thought I hurt my knee in the gate, though I have 
 forgotten it now, and I may at the same time have 
 forgotten all that I knew before." 
 
 But Don Juan's sour looks showed him that he 
 would do well to lay aside both his wit and his 
 grudge for the moment, and he continued in a 
 respectful tone: "It is only that Doiia Marcela 
 has two friends staying with her. Dona Angela 
 and Dona Silvia, and all three are walking in the 
 garden now and talking, as I may guess, about 
 yourself, Seiior, for a duenna came and questioned 
 me while I was eating cheese and chestnuts with 
 Lisardo, a very agreeable fellow. I could have 
 eaten more chestnuts if she had not come." 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 167 
 
 "And are they fair, these ladies? You did not 
 catch a glimpse of them?" 
 
 "To judge by the duenna they may be as lovely 
 as possible, for she was uncommonly ugly. I only 
 know that the chestnuts were good and the 
 cheese as old as could be desired. But hush, 
 master! There they go! I can hear the sand 
 crunching." 
 
 It was really so, and Don Juan stole gently to 
 the wall and listened. It would not have occurred 
 to him just now that he would ever do such a thing 
 again, but the moonlight and the wall were too 
 much for him. And it was not to be expected that 
 he should be entirely indifferent to the knowledge 
 of what other people thought of him, now that he 
 intended to begin a new life, and consequently felt 
 his personality increasing in importance. 
 
 "Don Juan de Marafia," he heard an empty, 
 drawling little girl's voice saying, "that is he of 
 whom they all tell so many stories, though one 
 can never hear them right." 
 
 "You seem to have good ears, Silvia," answered 
 another complaining voice. "I can only hear about 
 the saints, and King Rodrigo and the traitor 
 Oppas, or the Cid, or the red king of the Moors 
 and Don Pedro. But perhaps Don Juan is a saint, 
 too; perhaps it is to him you go and pray when 
 you look so cross?" 
 
 "You know as much about him as I do, Angela, 
 
1 68 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 although you pretend not to," answered the first. 
 
 But Doiia Marcela interrupted her quickly. "It 
 is he," she said, "but he is old now. Porcia caught 
 a glimpse of him and thought he did not look at 
 all up-to-date. His valet was old, too, she said, and 
 seemed harmless and absurd. There is not much to 
 talk about any longer." 
 
 "Still, it would have been pleasant to see him, 
 I think," sighed Angela. "It would be a distrac- 
 tion to see somebody. One gets so tired of always 
 being alone." 
 
 There Silvia agreed with her. "It is insuffera- 
 ble," said she, "and since he is so old, they might 
 easily have shown him to us. It would be amusing 
 to make game of him a little." 
 
 "It would be pleasant to have a little practice 
 in singing redondillas," added Marcela. "I found 
 a whole pile last night by my window, about Love 
 and Cupid's darts and jealousy, exactly as they 
 should be, and I sang them out over the garden, 
 but there was nobody to answer, and so I soon gave 
 it up. A poor old man like that could at least stand 
 outside and invent answering verses until a better 
 came along, for I should like to learn the art 
 properly." 
 
 "Why so, Marcela?" 
 
 "Ah, don't pretend, Angela ! Love must be the 
 most delicious thing of all. It lifts one up to the 
 skies, they say; it makes one forget everything 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 169 
 
 except how one looks, and at the same time makes 
 one far prettier. Then, when you have kept it 
 up for a time, growing warmer and warmer as 
 the nights get colder, he makes his offer, and 
 you get the loveliest jewels and are no longer 
 shut up." 
 
 "Don Juan is very rich and of good family." 
 
 "Did you think I meant him, you goose? Well, 
 perhaps so, until a better and a younger comes 
 along, for he is, as you say, rich." 
 
 "And it would be a good action to convert his 
 soul to good." 
 
 Here they all grew serious. "Certainly," said 
 they, "certainly!" And from their silence Don 
 Juan thought he might conclude that they were 
 praying for him, with the sand crunching under 
 their little feet and their lips imperceptibly curl- 
 ing. Then some one called from the house above. 
 "It is time for us to go home," said Silvia. "They 
 have come for us." And when she had sighed and 
 answered, their steps were heard dying away. 
 
 Don Juan remained staring at his shadow with 
 as fierce a look as if he meant to run it through 
 with hrs sword. 
 
 "Ha, ha," he muttered, "has it gone so far 
 with me? It remains to be seen first whether I 
 cannot teach these little pullets a lesson." 
 
 "Graceo," he said aloud, "go back at once and 
 follow Doiia Silvia and Doiia Angela, and find out 
 
I7P PER HALLSTROM 
 
 where they live. I myself have a little business 
 here, but I shall soon come home and I expect to 
 find you there." 
 
 Graceo lingered and cast a trained eye about 
 him. "But, master," said he, "alone here? The 
 wall is high." 
 
 "See to your own affair, Graceo, and see to It 
 well ! Do you suppose that in the house of a Don 
 Manuel all the gates are properly closed?" And 
 whistling softly, with an indescribable bearing of 
 boastful pride, elastic youth, and investigating cau- 
 tion, Don Juan went slowly along by the wall, while 
 Graceo, still limping, went off on his errand. 
 
 Some little time afterwards the experienced gen- 
 tleman stood under the window which he guessed 
 to be Marcela's, in a magnolia bush which was 
 now growing thin as the autumn advanced. He 
 began to sing, softly and alluringly : 
 
 O Love, of tyrants most cruel, 
 
 What need of thy spear and dart? 
 
 One look — whichwho can avoid or flee — 
 Can pierce to the depths of the heart. 
 
 And when a moment afterwards a black sil- 
 houette appeared in the window against the pale 
 lamplight, he said with flowing tongue: 
 
 "Is it Aurora that meets me, since I see how 
 the stars are extinguished? Is It the sun, that 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 171 
 
 scorches and blinds me?" — and a whole string 
 more of the same stuff. 
 
 Doiia Marcela was less tardy in answering than 
 he in finishing. She did so in a tone of witty mock- 
 ery, such as alone was suitable for a self-respecting 
 dame after such hyperbole. She meant to hint that 
 she would never dream of believing it, but still 
 less of doubting, since she replied to him at all: 
 she let him understand that it was far to Rome, 
 but that the way thereto should be made as pleas- 
 ant and agreeable as possible. 
 
 "Is it the night that speaks to the sun?" she 
 asked in return. "How dark must that night be, 
 when my dark beauty seems to it a sun! But by 
 the far advanced position of the world to-day the 
 night should learn what little prospect he has of 
 meeting the sun." — ^And so on in the same vein. 
 
 When they had continued thus for a time, 
 the moment came for Don Juan to declare how 
 he had been attracted to the town of Baza solely 
 by reports of Marcela's beauty, which had been 
 the polestar (or more properly the sun !) to guide 
 him on his homeward way. In this town, which 
 moreover drew its elixir of life solely and simply 
 from the said beauty, his fate was now to be eter- 
 nally decided, and here on his knees in the dust 
 he prayed to be as kindly received as he had been 
 cruelly wounded by a mere glimpse, a glimpse all 
 too short, in the street. 
 
172 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 As Don Juan was a little uncertain whether his 
 adored was dark or possibly by a happy accident 
 fair, and was therefore afraid of falling into error 
 if he embarked upon a further description of her 
 charms, he was anxious to put an end to the con- 
 versation for that night and come away — a task 
 which he had no difficulty in accomplishing in a 
 graceful manner. Moreover, he found it a trifle 
 cold to stop long in the magnolia bush with its 
 damp leaves. He departed, therefore, after having 
 at different intervals sung two redondillas, more 
 passionate in tone the farther off he stood; and 
 when well outside the wall he hurried home to 
 learn what Graceo had discovered and to lay his 
 plans for the comprehensive undertaking into 
 which his wounded vanity and his ennui and per- 
 haps also the moonlight had led him. 
 
 Doiia Marcela remained at the window, smiling 
 and undecided, happy yet uneasy. She wondered 
 if she had not heard false reports of* Don Juan 
 hitherto; she was pleased that he was rich and 
 of noble birth, and felt it pleasant also to be in- 
 volved in an intrigue. She hesitated over two 
 things: whether she should take the duenna 
 into her confidence, for the gaining of further 
 advantages, and whether it would not be still 
 more agreeable if she really fell in love, of 
 course after having first seen Don Juan's face by 
 daylight. 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 173 
 
 III 
 
 During the next few days Don Juan was busily 
 occupied, now at one end of the town, now at the 
 other ; he came home late and slept little, but never 
 failed to attend mass in one of the three churches, 
 or missed his walk at sunset. He seemed much 
 younger than before, was light and nimble in his 
 walk, cheerful in his look, and had that calm 
 symmetry of movement which a well-apportioned 
 day can give. Graceo also had many things to do, 
 but they only made him older; he grumbled at 
 everything, at the street-paving and the art of 
 writing. He swore at the notary, who sat in his 
 corner and printed off letters for all who wanted 
 them. "Writing, any lout can learn," he said. "He 
 has only to put on an important air and mess his 
 fingers. I could have done it, too, if I had been to 
 school. But it needs genius to get the legs that God 
 has given you to serve when you have to carry 
 round the products of all this quill-driving, and to 
 deliver them where there are dogs needs philoso- 
 phy, too." But he received many reals from his 
 master and spent them in drinking wine in the 
 evenings with different people, to each of whom 
 he gave a different explanation of his business in 
 the town. 
 
 Don Juan himself, having met his friend Don 
 Manuel two or three times, explained to him that 
 he had decided to stay on until the great festival 
 
174 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 should be celebrated. There was a relic to be in- 
 stalled with all the usual solemnities in the church 
 of San Jago, a very precious relic, one of the fangs 
 of the serpent that had tempted Eve from Para- 
 dise. All the more important families of the town 
 were to be present at the ceremony, and Don Juan, 
 as his honored friend could very well understand, 
 would not for anything miss this edifying specta- 
 cle, which now in his altered state of mind had a 
 heightened attraction for him. 
 
 Meanwhile Don Juan had new and splendid 
 apparel made to be used on that occasion, and also 
 bought a costly diamond clasp to wear In his hat, 
 for which purpose he paid a visit to Israel Perez, 
 the best goldsmith in the place. 
 
 Israel had not "llmpieza," that is to say, pure 
 Christian blood, but he himself was a Christian: 
 it was to do him grave and perilous wrong to state 
 anything else. Every Friday he ate fish so near 
 the front of his shop that any one could see him, 
 and any other day in .the week he would buy, again 
 so openly that all might see, a piece of pork, which 
 he would bury in his back garden after nightfall. 
 He was a shrewd fellow, with an excellent know- 
 ledge of precious stones. 
 
 When Don Juan had chosen his clasp, he asked 
 to see some other jewels. "I want some more un- 
 common stones," said he, "some solitaires of one 
 kind or another. They may cost what you will." 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 175 
 
 "Then my gracious benefactor has only to 
 choose," answered Israel with a bow, and he re- 
 tired for a moment to select the required article 
 from his secret stores. 
 
 "See here, my protector," said he, as he returned 
 holding a large and magnificent ruby like a burning 
 coal between his crooked black fingers, "see here 
 the wonder of Ceylon, the treasure of Taprobane, 
 which the holy king Alexander captured from the 
 Moors there. Its color is as the noble sefior's own 
 blood; see now, when I hold it in the half-light 
 it is merry and nimble as fire, but it is shot with 
 blue ! This stone is altogether unique ; there is 
 not its like in all the world, and it has rested 
 In its time upon the forehead of the goddess 
 Venus." 
 
 "I am well content with it," replied Don Juan, 
 "but it is tiresome that it should be unique, for I 
 would have had others." 
 
 "Then my gracious benefactor has only to say 
 the word, for I have two others, just the same," 
 said Israel with some embarrassment. 
 
 "And each of them perhaps just as unique as 
 this one?" 
 
 "Your highness deigns to jest with a poor man; 
 it is very friendly of your grace. But I have no 
 more than three, I swear; they have rested on the 
 foreheads of three idols, Minos, iEacus, and 
 Rhadamanthus." 
 
176 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "I thought you said something different about 
 this one." 
 
 "That was but another name for the same 
 Rhadamanthus, sir." 
 
 And to finish with these ambiguities, Israel Perez 
 hastened to fetch the other stones also, and went 
 on talking eagerly with wide gestures which made 
 the red points between his fingers dart to and fro 
 against his black coat like sparks upon burnt paper. 
 
 "Ah, sir! Ah, sir! These three stones, what can 
 one not buy with them ! Honor, sir — if there is 
 so much honor left — here is enough for three 
 hearts I Innocence, sir — if there are so many inno- 
 cent — these stones can dazzle three pairs of eyes ! 
 Hold one of them up in the dark and it will shine 
 of itself, and for these stones three blades, ready 
 for anything, may be yours. Put them to holy uses, 
 and the first will buy you free from Hell, the sec- 
 ond from Purgatory, and the third from Para- 
 dise — oh, my accursed tongue ! I mean that for the 
 third you will be let to stay there !" 
 
 Don Juan sat revolving something in his mind, 
 moving his fingers to and fro upon his knees and 
 only half listening to the other's words. "And so 
 it is your soul's welfare that you are prepared to 
 sell, Israel?" said he. "Name your price, and if 
 there are so many gold pieces in my purse, I will 
 take the stones, for I think they will serve my 
 purpose." And as they soon came to terms, he 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 177 
 
 took the jewels and ordered a different setting for 
 each of them, to be ready one each day. 
 
 That evening Don Juan stood in the magnolia 
 bush and sang, very softly, long and passionate 
 redondillas, while Marcela, who had in a short 
 time developed her natural talent, improvise.d 
 whole poems in answer, which made her very proud 
 and happy. When they had said well-nigh all that 
 could be said of love, the sun, jealousy, and the 
 half-life, or rather death, which they each suffered 
 in the absence of the other, Don Juan made a 
 lengthy declaration. 
 
 "The joy that fetters me here," said he, "is the 
 deciding factor in my life. I have wandered before, 
 I have many times gone astray, but now I stand 
 before the pole-star of my love, the fixed, immova- 
 ble northern star. I have guessed it all the time, 
 and have kept my real love pure and untainted 
 within my breast. See, here I have a jewel, this red 
 stone burning in the darkness like a heart in flames. 
 It is peerless and unique In all the world; it is 
 fairer than any other ruby. This stone I have 
 always borne about me; I have wished to bestow 
 it only where my heart should find another worthy 
 of itself and of this gift. Now I give it without 
 reserve, now I beg that for a moment I may be 
 allowed to lie at your feet and present it to you. 
 With It I give you all." Much more he said, and 
 among other things that immediately after the 
 
178 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 great church festival, where he hoped to make the 
 acquaintance of her family, he would openly ap- 
 pear as her suitor. 
 
 Dona Marcela was naturally very curious to 
 see the stone and was also touched by his words. 
 They were eloquent, they did her much honor and 
 himself, too, for anything finer than a whole life's 
 striving after perfection, with its Issue in herself, 
 she had difficulty in imagining. She had also found 
 pleasure In Don Juan's exterior by daylight; she 
 thought his eyes beautiful and expressive, his fig- 
 ure still young, and his dress rich. But she knew 
 that it was a far more serious matter to let her 
 admirer into her chamber than to bestow on him 
 a look at the church gate or to sing redondillas 
 over his head into the darkness; she felt herself 
 seized by an agreeable trembling and a pleasant 
 temptation towards the unknown. And so It was 
 only with a half-refusal and with genuine regret 
 that she answered: 
 
 "But, Don Juan, that cannot be, for no approach 
 to my chamber Is available. Next door to me sleeps 
 Porcia ; I hear her through the wall. She Is incor- 
 ruptible, she is honor itself, and if she is disturbed 
 she is cross and will answer no to anything what- 
 ever, for she has respect for the proprieties and is 
 especially out of humor when she wakes." 
 
 But Don Juan answered almost cheerfully: 
 
 "But there is no need to go that way. This little 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 179 
 
 ladder here is easy to haul up by a cord and easy 
 to attach. Only find a cord, or let me throw one up 
 to you!" 
 
 This about the rope ladder decided her. The 
 temptation was too strong, for ladders she had 
 always dreamt of, though never seen. A cord was 
 easy to find, and it was as an enamored woman 
 that she let it down through the window. For a 
 moment, as she ?aw the whirling motion of the ball 
 of twine, it came upon her how as a child she had 
 been wont to play with kittens in that manner, and 
 it was with a smile that she saw Don Juan eagerly 
 fumbling for the ball. A moment afterwards she 
 hauled up the ladder and fastened it with anxious 
 care that it should hold. 
 
 That same evening Graceo sat with wild, red 
 eyes in a wine-shop explaining to a chance ac- 
 quaintance, an alguazil, how he was staying in the 
 town with a view to obtaining employment in that 
 gentleman's famous and respected corps, while his 
 master, too, intended to settle here in order to 
 become alguazil mayor, to which post he was ex- 
 pecting a nomination, thanks to high connections 
 at court. 
 
 IV 
 
 For the great church festival the gentry of the 
 town of Baza were assembled in a room that over- 
 looked the market-place, in one of the most dis- 
 tinguished houses. From there they were to accom- 
 
i8o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 pany the procession, but the time before was to be 
 employed in secular and merry thoughts, and all 
 the more naturally as It was only upon such rare 
 occasions that the unmarried maidens could show 
 that they existed, otherwise than with a prayer- 
 book in their hands and a duenna behind them. 
 Every one was dressed as sumptuously as his 
 means allowed, and they had therefore the great- 
 est interest In eyeing one another. 
 
 Fairest among all the maidens were Dona Mar- 
 cela. Dona Angela, and Dona Silvia, and to them 
 all eyes were drawn. From their mulberry-colored 
 velvet dresses, held out at right angles from the 
 hips by their hoops, their graceful forms emerged 
 like nosegays set In dark-glazed Moorish vases. 
 Their heads and necks, whose warm golden hue 
 was not yet overlaid by the shining paint of gold- 
 leaf which in the most elegant circles was begin- 
 ning to be the fashion, surprised and delighted by 
 their freshness — they were really like flowers, like 
 pale and lovely tulips. They had a certain resem- 
 blance to one another; one could not say what 
 it was; not in their dresses alone, which several 
 others had in the same durable and fashionable 
 color, but also in their faces and expressions. A 
 delighted glow of pride shone from them, and 
 the eyes of all three ended their circle at the door 
 every time they cast a triumphant glance around 
 them. One could have said that like flowers they 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES i8i 
 
 were drawn towards the sun which gave them 
 beauty. Around them young admirers pressed so 
 closely that their swords, all at the same angle to 
 their sides, formed a metal railing to fence the 
 damsels round like images of saints, and they 
 could not see each other for all the heads that hid 
 the view. The older gentlemen congratulated their 
 fathers on such miracles and phoenixes of beauty 
 and virtue, but Don Manuel for his part was so 
 much occupied by his latest find, the absolute pearl 
 of his collection, a Greek coin from Sagunto, that 
 he paid little heed to anything else. 
 
 But all at once there was a movement in the hall, 
 which made the crowd about the three friends 
 thinner and allowed them slowly to approach each 
 other — as rapidly as a fitting demeanor and their 
 stiff dresses would permit. It was the renowned 
 stranger, Don Juan de Maraiia y Tenorio, who 
 had entered and with easy grace was greeting his 
 acquaintances and through them making the ac- 
 quaintance of the rest. 
 
 How handsome and imposing he looked none 
 can imagine who had not the advantage of living 
 in his day and meeting him in person. His some- 
 what scanty hair lay hidden under his cap, and 
 the flashing diamond clasp diverted all attention 
 to itself. His sloping forehead showed clear and 
 even and almost venerable, especially since he 
 bore his head so high. His prominent brown 
 
i82 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 eyes had no rivals but each other in brilliance and 
 proud assurance, his lips wore a chaste and be- 
 witching smile. He carried his hands and elbows 
 like no one else, and the laces that adorned his 
 neck and breast were more dazzlingly white and 
 fine than any others there. The only thing that 
 could be objected against him was that his legs, 
 notwithstanding their dark and very tight silk 
 stockings, were somewhat too substantial for a 
 man of his pretensions and rank. 
 
 Radiant and triumphant, he slipped between the 
 different groups, stopped with each a moment and 
 turned to the next, his movements thus assuming 
 the course of a heavenly body, which, rotating 
 round its own glory, moves on among the lesser 
 lights. The three young ladies observed him with 
 still more pleasure than all the rest; they took 
 short breaths which trembled with expectation. 
 Then they turned to one another with a smile of 
 triumph, and remembered that they had not met 
 since that evening when they had talked all manner 
 of foolishness about him in the garden. 
 
 What was it that caused their smiles to stiffen, 
 and the natural easy pride before a well-loved 
 friend and rival to become hard and cold? Over 
 the ear of each, embedded in the dark hair, so 
 that it only half shone out, was a large and splendid 
 ruby — that was the first thing that met their gaze. 
 They stood there mute, their thoughts crowding 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 183 
 
 upon them, and at that moment a foolish old 
 pedant, Don Eugenio de Figueroa, came up, and 
 noticing the three rubies, took, from them an idea 
 for a vapid, simultaneous compliment. 
 
 "Fair graces, what is this I see?" he called; 
 "what means this mark of sisterhood? Is it a bee 
 that has taken you for flowers and stung you — 
 ah, happy bee! — or are they three coals from 
 Vesta's holy altar? Do they signify that all tears 
 and sighing will rebound from your stony hearts?" 
 
 Happily, if in this situation one may speak of 
 happiness, Marcela's mother here drew her away 
 to be presented to Don Juan, who, as he paid his 
 glowing compliments, dexterously contrived to 
 draw her a little apart, so that they might exchange 
 a word or two. 
 
 "You have deceived me, Don Juan," said she, 
 darkly. That was all she dared to say, though she 
 would have liked to strike him to the ground to 
 avenge her cruelly wounded vanity. And at his 
 innocent look she hinted: "The ruby, the peerless 
 jewel!" 
 
 "Ah !" Don Juan's look shone and caressed her. 
 "I have not deceived you, as you think, Dona Mar- 
 cela. I only wished to punish you a little for your 
 contempt before you saw me, for those words you 
 spoke in the garden. But love broke the point of 
 my revenge. Your ruby, Marcela, hear me as I 
 swear it, is genuine. The others are counterfeit." 
 
1 84 PER HALLSTRGM 
 
 And when he saw that the explanation changed 
 the whole case for her, and even gave her jewel a 
 heightened value, he left her with a smile and 
 came at length to Dona Angela. Here, upon much 
 the same demand, he repeated exactly the same 
 words, and with the same effect. 
 
 A third time the same scene was repeated; and 
 after that Don Juan stayed his hand, and did not 
 trouble to secure many introductions. He saw the 
 three friends happy once more, he felt a little 
 weary; and the procession of the holy relic was 
 on the point of being formed. 
 
 He himself took his place in it by the side of a 
 very pious old lady, who was entirely satisfied with 
 his devout mien, no less than with his handsome 
 figure. 
 
 When the ceremony was ended he went straight 
 to his lodging, and after some little trouble man- 
 aged to get hold of Graceo, who, firm believer as 
 he was, had signalized the importance of the day 
 by going about when the procession was over and 
 throwing stones at the windows of any of the 
 townsfolk who had shown themselves lukewarm 
 and suspect. Including those of Israel Perez, though 
 he had made every effort to be present at the fes- 
 tival. 
 
 "Graceo," said Don Juan, "you will pack our 
 baggage' to-night, and see that our horses are fed. 
 Early to-morrow we leave Baza." 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 185 
 
 Graceo stared in amazement. 
 
 "Master," said he, "I thought you were bound 
 here with three-fold bonds. After all the business 
 I have had ! It is hard not to be allowed to sit on 
 a doorstep and rest!" 
 
 But Don Juan's serious look compelled him to 
 silence and obedience, or to keep his grumbling 
 low. 
 
 V 
 
 And so it was on a fine morning at the end of 
 October that Don Juan de Maraiia y Tenorlo left 
 Baza, the aforesaid medium sized town in the 
 province of Granada. He was also still on the way 
 to his native place, Sevilla, to begin a new life there. 
 He listened to the tread of Graceo's mule behind 
 him and thought, as the fresh morning air whistled 
 in his half-boots, about Don Manuel's collection 
 and his calm, happy look of conscious honesty, 
 and about Dona Marcela, Dona Angela, and 
 Dona Silvia, who even already tended to melt 
 together before his eyes into a single figure with 
 three rubles. "This is no longer to be endured," 
 he muttered; "It is, as I have said, a barren field 
 on which I have entered. If only one of them had 
 doubted that last thing I told them ! But they de- 
 voured It as eagerly as do carp a piece of bread 
 one throws them, and dived down to the depths 
 with it. If only one had doubted, I would have 
 striven to win her, she would have been my King 
 
1 86 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Achlla, and I should not have been happy, till she 
 had become mine again." 
 
 He found the air gray and unpleasant, in spite 
 of the fine weather; he lingered long to watch a 
 blind beggar who, with a boy at his feet, was eat- 
 ing bread and onions and seemed to be much enjoy- 
 ing them. 
 
 "Graceo," he asked, "can you guess why that 
 beggar is so happy?" 
 
 "It is no doubt his cursed habit, Seiior," an- 
 swered that hardened jester. 
 
 "By no means I It is because he cannot see how 
 mouldy his bread is. The boy sees it, and chooses 
 his bits, and will never be as fat as he. And he gets 
 tears in his eyes from the onions I" 
 
 Throwing them a copper, he pursued his way, 
 and between master and servant the following dia- 
 logue took place, though Don Juan did not turn 
 round, nor did Graceo's mouth relax for one mo- 
 ment its jocular grimace. 
 
 "Does it not seem to you, Graceo," said Don 
 Juan, "that the life we have lived during the — five 
 years you have been with me has been very dull?" 
 
 "It may have been my fault that you should 
 think so, Seiior, for true it is that I have spent my 
 pound in amusing you, and that in such a way that 
 I have clipped it, as the money-changers do with 
 gold coins, and shall soon have only the lead 
 remaining." 
 
DON JUAN'S RUBIES 187 
 
 "But you yourself, Graceo?" 
 
 "Ah, some men want one thing and some an- 
 other. For my own part I regret only the shoes 
 I have worn out and the gifts I have not received. 
 'It will be a swan, said the hen, when she laid her 
 egg in the water,' so an uncle of mine used always 
 to say to me when he heard folk complain that 
 they had not become what they had expected. 'Tis 
 true I thought that I with my appearance might 
 do something better than merely carry messages 
 for others. But I defy any one who cannot read 
 addresses to deliver notes as well as I." 
 
 "Well, then, Graceo, you shall have something 
 else to do. You shall be my steward, for I intend 
 to settle down at home and begin an entirely new 
 life. I expect also the same of you." 
 
 "No need to wait for that, Seiior. I mean to 
 begin a life that will make me by five inches a 
 better man. Instead of stealing the honor of oth- 
 ers, I shall hold to my master's property with all 
 a faithful servant's zeal. But when you have 
 any letters to send in the darkness, I beg that 
 I may perform the service, so as not to reform 
 too suddenly, and because another might confuse 
 them." 
 
 To this Don Juan answered nothing, and they 
 rode on in silence. 
 
 However, notwithstanding Graceo's doubts, 
 Don Juan did become another man. The stories 
 
1 88 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 that are still told of him bear witness to this fact, 
 though with poetic exaggeration. 
 
 One of them states that he became a monk and 
 a fanatic, a story which is inadequate on the face 
 of it. For fanatics are not made of those who have 
 given themselves away in beggar's doles. The 
 fanatic is the gamester who has staked his whole 
 life upon one board and lost, or the miser who 
 would make his goods suffice also for another 
 world. 
 
 This tradition must be interpreted to mean that 
 as this gentleman advanced in years and came to 
 think both on his sins and on the advantages of 
 Paradise, he steered his course so that he ever kept 
 an eye upon both quarters. Another legend, an 
 obvious legend, says that he was carried away, 
 while still in the full flow of his wickedness, by the 
 Commander's statue, which he had bidden to sup- 
 per. For any one skilled In the Interpretation of 
 myths this will clearly mean that respectability 
 took him to its embrace and overwhelmed him 
 with honors, when he deserved them, and that he 
 saw commanders at his house to banquets. 
 
 This Don Juan's happy amendment was assisted 
 beyond a doubt by the phase of his life, that Octo- 
 ber month, which he passed in the town of Baza, 
 and of which the history is here for the first time 
 recorded. 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 
 
 IDET STUMMA] 
 
 FROM DE FYRA ELEMENTERNA 
 
 1906 
 
Hidden Fires 
 I 
 
 THE village lay between hills, just where the 
 mountain district in its last descents stepped 
 down on to the wide, low coastland. The woods 
 were taller and thicker than they are to-day, and 
 covered every part where no water-course with 
 its spring and autumn floods had kept away the 
 trees, building walls of alluvial deposit and cloth- 
 ing them with gray osiers. But there was a river 
 there, and in its spacious valley men had early 
 settled down. They had ditched the meadows and 
 ploughed up the best of them for tilled land, had 
 set axe and fire to the roots of the giant trees, and 
 one generation after another had widened its do- 
 main. Now the valley lay smiling under the south- 
 ern sun, not over fertile, but rich and kindly 
 enough, below the red farmsteads of the hill-slopes. 
 The narrow fields with their changing crops were 
 woven into a striped and chequered coverlet which 
 in spring-time seemed of the finest and lightest 
 texture possible. Even the little barns of the 
 marshes gleamed silver-gray then, and looked like 
 a scattered and resting herd. The land, however, 
 was clayey and none too easy to work. It undulated 
 still, not having arrived at the peace of the plains; 
 
 191 
 
192 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 the rise and fall of It was like the arrested heaving 
 of some broad and powerful breast. 
 
 Just above, the river took Its last plunge, com- 
 pressing Its waters and roaring untamed both sum- 
 mer and winter. When the frost came, a white 
 vapor rose there, which was swept forwards In the 
 draught caused by the current and fell upon the 
 banks as sleet before the snow Itself arrived. The 
 children would run In the mist, calling and laugh- 
 ing to one another, suddenly shivering and smiling 
 merrily when they came out again and found each 
 other with cheeks freshened by the cold, but hair 
 grizzled as If with age. Down below, the river 
 froze over, but was never really safe, on account 
 of the ever restless and gently eddying forces In 
 Its depths. Not- seldom some one was drowned 
 there, but they had to look much lower down the 
 river for the corpse when spring came. When It 
 was found, the arms might be stretched above the 
 head, as when the last appealing cry was made to 
 home and friends; they had stiffened so, convul- 
 sively clutching at all that was safe and dear. The 
 coffin had to be made very long, and looked sinister 
 and threatening, and the grave had to be large. 
 To the children It seemed as If a cry would sound 
 from It when the warmth and sunshine came to 
 loosen all that the frost had bound. 
 
 The hills sloped down with very high walls of 
 rock. Their tops were clothed with forest, but 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 193 
 
 since it was a difficult task to carry down unsawn 
 timber from the upper slopes, or even to climb 
 up to them, the trees were left untouched to grow 
 and decay in their native wildness. The giant pines 
 became bleached skeletons of trees where eagles 
 sought to dwell, as their custom is, above the hard 
 and prickly line of the fir tops. When all was 
 muffled in white, the forest shone and glowed 
 against the glass-green sky in the morning and 
 evening sunshine like patterns of frost upon a win- 
 dow-pane, but much larger, for all the distance. 
 A vast, strange, motionless world it was, the im- 
 age of a dreamland remaining when the mem- 
 ory of all the wonders that had happened there 
 had vanished. 
 
 The whole year long the rocks caught up every 
 sound that took its birth among them, and tossed 
 the echoes to and fro until they died away to 
 human ears. When the farm-girl called home her 
 cows by all their tender names, her calls would be 
 re-echoed far within the rock until it seemed as 
 if the fairy folk inside were also bringing in herds 
 richer, larger, and more splendid than those of 
 mortal men. Or as if in hollow and mournful 
 tones they mimicked and mocked the sounds, or in 
 hate and malice strove to lure the possessions of 
 others into their hands. In all these different ways 
 could the echoes be interpreted, according to the 
 time and mood. 
 
194 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 When the sleigh-bells jingled sharply in the 
 frost on the way up to the fairy portal, and sud- 
 denly vanished round the bend, it sounded to the 
 listeners' ears as if bells and sleigh had been borne 
 right into the heart of the "hill and continued to 
 echo there from among winding tracks that were 
 otherwise closed to mortal footsteps, or at least 
 admitted of no journey back. 
 
 A sense of mystery and secrecy, born of a con- 
 stant suppression and concealment of emotion as 
 age after age had rolled by, came to dominate the 
 feelings of all. The voices of the people took on 
 a deep and husky tone that lingered in the ear. 
 Their eyes under the compact eyebrows gazed pen- 
 sively forwards in sober and as it were ceremonial 
 peace in the simplest duties of their daily toil. The 
 lips were kept tightly closed, and their silent own- 
 ers seemed ever to be listening to voices from 
 within. 
 
 A strong race flourished there, a people trained 
 to self-mastery but quick to heed the inward mo- 
 tions of the soul, silent in Its activities, still more 
 silent in its joy. 
 
 II 
 
 One day a man died there, and as several mis- 
 haps had already shaken the prosperity of that 
 house, the children had now to leave their home 
 and seek service among strangers. The eldest 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 195 
 
 daughter's name was Ingert; she was not yet quite 
 full-grown, but bade fair to be tall and strong and 
 handsome. She came to a neighboring farm where 
 the master of the house was young and unmarried, 
 and had his mother living with him. It was a well- 
 respected, comfortable dwelling, and she found a 
 good home there. More and more charges de- 
 volved upon her in proportion as her strength and 
 intellect ripened, and this made her easier in mind, 
 since now she felt she had her duty to fulfil, though 
 otherwise it vexed her much that she had fallen 
 from her independent state and must now do an- 
 other's bidding. Hardest of all was it to be in that 
 position so near home, where those who saw her 
 might be thinking the same thoughts as herself, 
 so that she had to guard herself against their sus- 
 pected pity. 
 
 At length the two young people began to take 
 an interest in each other. They showed it neither 
 by look nor word, rather they became more dis- 
 tant and almost surly in their manners. Both con- 
 cealed their feelings with a kind of uneasiness 
 which grew more shy and proud as their affection 
 ripened. Why It should be so they did not clearly 
 realize, any more than they would have asked why 
 the cloud-shadow came, bringing wind and cold ; it 
 was there, and one only wrapped one's garment 
 closer round one. Did they probe their inner na- 
 tures at all, it seemed to them that love like theirs 
 
196 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 could find no answering love so deep and strong: 
 that was as hard as for a storm to blow from two 
 different quarters at once. In their humility 
 they thought that they could never inspire in each 
 other any such emotion as they felt, yet neither 
 would have been content with anything less genuine 
 in the answer than in the call. The girl, too, 
 found her poverty a hindrance to any thoughts of 
 marriage. 
 
 For the rest it was happiness enough just to live 
 at each other's side and let their daily labors fill 
 the hours in peace of conscience. For long years 
 they would hardly have thought of requiring any- 
 thing more. Nor would the young man have wished 
 to go against his mother, who had no desire to 
 see a daughter In the house. She had a cancer in 
 the breast, and knew that her days were numbered. 
 The short time she had yet to live she wished to 
 pass undisturbed, feeling her will rule strong and 
 firm until the hour came when it must break up 
 and pass away. Darkly yet bravely she looked on 
 life, and would have no mask of joy to hide it. It 
 could play on In its own fashion when she was 
 gone, she said, but she herself refused to smile and 
 twist her mouth any more, knowing well how little 
 that was worth. She took a fancy to Ingert pre- 
 cisely on account of the girl's silence, which she 
 believed to be grounded in the same coldness as 
 her own, and was kinder to her than to others since 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 197 
 
 she received no unnecessary confidences in return. 
 And so passed the days until she died. 
 
 But now the young man — Gabriel was his 
 name — knew that If he ever was to speak at all it 
 must be in connection with the changes following 
 upon his mother's death. Yet this offended his 
 sense of what was fitting, for after such a loss it 
 seemed ungrateful so soon to fill the gap and turn 
 sorrow into gladness. His mother had filled a 
 great place and left a vivid and impressive memory 
 behind her; even the curious chilly feeling of the 
 air in the rooms had something pure and still about 
 it that ought not to be disturbed. The dead woman 
 was among them yet, and her spirit must not be 
 frightened out into the darkness to gaze through 
 the window at others in their joy. 
 
 This alone he could do and must do : he would 
 talk to Ingert and ask if she were willing to remain 
 in the house, though he was now alone, and 
 take control in place of his dead mother. 
 Time would then have a chance to bring with it 
 that which was to follow, if indeed it ever came 
 at all. 
 
 But when he put his question to her, with voice 
 well under control and not a word too many, he 
 could not at the same time control his glance. It 
 smiled at and caressed the possibilities of the fu- 
 ture ; a gleam came into his eye as they stood there 
 on the front doorstep on 'that March evening, 
 
198 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 looking out over the snow with the spring light 
 upon it. And Ingert saw the gleam. 
 
 Now Ingert was very proud and thought rap- 
 idly and clearly. 
 
 He has never looked at me so before, she re- 
 flected : he thinks I am pretty, he knows I am poor, 
 and he would have me stay here alone with him. 
 Had he thought any more of me, had he meant 
 anything further, he would have said so now. It 
 might be my shame to stay, for I could deny him 
 nothing if he asked me right. Or even if he only 
 made believe to love me. I know what ideas a man 
 might take into his head if we got used to living 
 here quietly alone together. 
 
 And just because her own love was so deep, 
 she put a tighter curb upon her inward feelings. 
 She knew quite well that if things turned out as 
 she had feared, with a man of honor like Gabriel 
 it would lead to marriage. Or, if she played her 
 cards well, she might draw him on In perfectly 
 honorable fashion, notwithstanding her poverty. 
 But this happiness. If indeed the word were fitting, 
 should not be won with the slightest guile or mean- 
 ness — not by her, and not with him, although as 
 far as others were concerned she looked upon such 
 matters with the absence of prejudice common In 
 her circle. Now I must pluck up courage, she 
 thought, and there and then she found it in abun- 
 dance and her resolve stood fast. 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 199 
 
 "No," she answered, "I will not stay." 
 
 The gleam died out from Gabriel's eyes. He, 
 too, cast up accounts with his love, and came to 
 hard and serious conclusions. 
 
 There's no answering love in her, thought he, 
 and I had never expected it, either. Only that per- 
 haps one day .... But that was not so certain. 
 She Is right, and if she feels that way, 'tis best to 
 break off here and now. 
 
 And after that it was more Impossible than ever 
 for him even to let her catch a hint of his real mean- 
 ing. Their farewells were curt but friendly. As 
 good master and good servant they parted, but 
 very heavy were the steps that led them from each 
 other. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ingert would not stay in the neighborhood. To 
 be there, drifting farther and farther from him 
 as time went by, to see him take a wife, to dance 
 at his wedding, meet his children — these things 
 she could not do. Should chance once more bring 
 them together, her shame would threaten her 
 anew, for now more than ever she felt that it was 
 to him she belonged. She went away in search of 
 another place, some distance down the river, and 
 therefore farther south, among the plains. 
 
 She found work with a peasant named Nil-s. 
 He had much land and many laborers under him, 
 was respected by all, and was an upright, sober 
 
200 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 man. Not long before she came, he had been left 
 a widower with one little son. 
 
 He thought very highly of the stranger who 
 went about her work with quiet dignity and yet 
 achieved more than others in their mirth. She 
 seemed to belong to another circle than that of 
 her fellow-servants, although without voluntarily 
 holding herself aloof from them. But what made 
 it seem so, apart from the disposition Nature had 
 given her, and the still slightly rankling memory 
 that she was born in another class, was her 
 love and her longing for the one she had left 
 behind. 
 
 Had he felt as I do, she thought, he would have 
 followed by now and fetched me back ; and I should 
 have gone with him at once. For 'tis there with 
 him I am now, though I seem to Hve here. Every 
 night it must be there I go, though afterwards I 
 have no memory of what I saw. His voice I still 
 hear in my waking hours, with the strange echo 
 that clings up there to every tone. I should be less 
 tired if my feet could really wear themselves out 
 on the paths to his home. It is well that no chance 
 brings him near, for then would my fate be sealed. 
 "Xhls can go on no longer : I must, I must forget. 
 
 So when in course of time her master asked her 
 if she would be his wife, she turned pale instead 
 of red. 
 
 Fate will have it so, she mused. She means well 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 201 
 
 and kindly by me, and if she bows my head so as 
 to hurt me, it is but that I may see my salvation. 
 Only in duty have I yet found my rest, even when 
 that rest was scanty and soon disturbed. If I now 
 take my duty still more seriously, I know that it 
 will yield me more, although it cost more also. 
 Then I must learn to rule my thoughts, and even 
 in my secret heart I shall be as I ought to be. The 
 man who offers me his hand has never thought 
 otherwise than highly of me. More than I can 
 give he has not required — my life shall be his. 
 The old life must die. It shall be put far, far away 
 from me, and the way to it shall be forever closed. 
 
 So she accepted his offer and in due time became 
 his wife. As such, she behaved just as before, and 
 was not a whit less silent and serious. Many 
 thought she took pride in her place, but as this 
 pride was not ill-suited to the quiet dignity of her 
 young nature, she forfeited no respect on that 
 account. 
 
 It was some months before the news reached her 
 native village. All this time Gabriel had been rest- 
 less and disturbed, though no one knew the reason. 
 To sit brooding over lost happiness was not his 
 nature, nor was it so that this upland people looked 
 on life. They demanded much of themselves, and 
 should that not suiEce to bring peace, they made 
 still further demands and pressed on. So it was 
 with Gabriel. 
 
202 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 In order to fill up the time, since the winter's 
 work would leave a good many hours on his hands, 
 he took to adding to his farm, though it was al- 
 ready too large for him. Needless extravagance of 
 this kind was no more unusual then in these north- 
 ern districts than it is to-day, and if any wondered 
 why he did so all alone, they never went beyond 
 the supposition that he felt it difficult to keep on 
 living with the memory of his mother in the house. 
 He himself let the explanation pass. He was un- 
 willing to call in aid, and with his own hands 
 fetched every log of wood from the forest. There 
 he heard how every blow of the axe against the 
 frozen wood, ringing clear in the frosty air, called 
 forth answering sounds from far within the hills, 
 where the chains of the wood-sledge also rattled. 
 It was as if, alongside of his building, another was 
 growing up in a region hidden from mortal view, 
 some enterprise like his own, mysterious and dark 
 in purpose, but greater and mightier, as everything 
 is greater behind the doors of the unknown. 
 
 Sometimes he would say to himself: I have let 
 my happiness go from me, and now I am building 
 for it a house that will always be empty. But still 
 I will get it ready. What are they building in there ? 
 Is their lot like ours? But what do I know of my 
 lot! Perhaps Fate wills that one day the house 
 shall not be empty : Ingert may feel as I do. Then 
 she will come back, and the cottage shall shine to 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 203 
 
 welcome her and tell her that she has never been 
 out of my thoughts. On, then! But anyhow 'tis 
 well to work oneself tired and sleep well. — He 
 had got the roof on and the rooms were now ready, 
 white-washed, and echoing in their emptiness. 
 
 Then came the news of what had happened. 
 And now he could saw and plane no longer, and the 
 hours dragged heavily. I cannot stay here, said he : 
 I have nothing to think of, nothing to see to now. 
 She did not care for me, and she can never come 
 back. — He realized that it was for her alone he 
 had been building, and that all the time a mighty 
 hope had been inspiring his labors. 
 
 He forged a lock and set it on the door, and 
 that done, there was no longer anything to bind 
 him to the place. 
 
 I will go and seek her, he resolved. It can make 
 no difference to her, for she can never have given 
 a thought to me and mine. I will say that I have 
 become poor, and have had to go out to work as 
 she did before. She will find me work if she can, 
 for we parted friends. In those days I was happy 
 If I could only be in her presence. I can be just 
 as happy now, for she was no nearer to me then. 
 Or I may be wretched — but no matter, so that I 
 can be where she is. 
 
 So he left his farm to others, said that he wished 
 to see something of the world, and vanished. No 
 one knew where or wherefore, but his explanation 
 
204 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 was accepted. Such things had happened before in 
 those parts. Men in sudden weariness and desire 
 for change had let go all that they had as of little 
 worth, in order to prove that which they knew 
 not, and which therefore seemed worth living for. 
 
 IV 
 
 One morning a stranger seeking work came to 
 Nils as he labored in the forest. 
 
 Standing there in the snow, changing posture 
 with unconstrained and easy motions, the stranger 
 looked at the peasant with a deep and searching 
 gaze before revealing his errand. It was as though 
 he wished to weigh the other and see what manner 
 of man he was ere he made any request; and this 
 pleased Nils, who knew his own worth and re- 
 quired worth in others also. 
 
 There was work to be had, and there and then 
 the stranger was able to show what he could do. 
 None could come near him in strength and skill, 
 and Nils resolved to engage him as his man when 
 he had asked his history and received satisfactory 
 answers to confirm his good impressions. The man 
 shared the laborers' food, and in the evening went 
 with the team home. 
 
 Ingert stood on the hearth and saw them come 
 in, a silent file, axe in hand, entering with the long 
 and gentle strides with which they had marched 
 through the forest. First came her husband, then 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 205 
 
 the others in order of age, and lastly, when the 
 door was about to be closed, the stranger. 
 
 She turned pale, and her look stole past him 
 so swiftly that she seemed not to have marked 
 him at all. He stood motionless, with a sub- 
 dued trembling, while the other mute figures 
 laid down their tools and formed a circle round 
 the fire. 
 
 Now, Gabriel had meant to feign surprise, to 
 go and speak to her with every gesture well under 
 control, and tell her how strange It seemed to him 
 to find her there. At her question he would then 
 repeat the story he had got by heart. She would 
 sympathize in a half distant manner, and perhaps 
 with some annoyance, too, since their positions 
 were now so curiously reversed; but, anyhow, it 
 would be pleasant to receive her patronage and 
 hear her voice again. But in the blaze of the fire- 
 light he saw only her glance, her paleness, and 
 her trembling; something seized his heart with 
 an iron grip, and kept back every word. Least of 
 all could he have let his first words, his first 
 gestures, before her be a lie. He had not reckoned 
 with that. 
 
 "I have brought a man with me from the forest, 
 as you see," said Nils. 
 
 Not even then did Ingert look at him. She gazeci 
 at the quivering shadow behind and above him, 
 and quaked at the thought of hearing his voice. 
 
2o6 FER HALLSTROM 
 
 Long ago now it had faded from her dreams, but 
 there would still be about it those echoes of the 
 past. 
 
 "I see," was her only answer. 
 
 "I mean to have him here," continued her hus- 
 band, "since there is a place empty and he wants 
 work. See that he has what he needs." 
 
 The affair being so simple, Nils never troubled 
 to notice how his words were received. This was 
 a matter that belonged to his domain, and a brief 
 explanation was enough. Had he looted at his 
 wife he would have been surprised. 
 
 Ingert turned paler than ever, and made a little 
 movement towards her heart, as though some- 
 thing had pierced it. But she forced the hand down 
 again before it could reach her bosom.. This was 
 done in broken jerks, and not without a struggle. 
 She mastered, too, the tones of her voice before 
 she answered, but still they sounded expression- 
 less and curt. 
 
 "Very well, I'll see to it." 
 
 Nils paid no heed to her manner, tired as he was, 
 and unsuspecting. The others thought : She doesn't 
 like this to have come so suddenly, and perhaps 
 it vexes her that he should have managed it by 
 himself. She has a will of her own, we know. — 
 But they found nothing very remarkable about 
 the whole affair. 
 
 Gabriel stood motionless and unobserved, gaz- 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 207 
 
 ing and gazing as she turned once more to the 
 fire that blazed high behind her with the fuel she 
 had thrown on to occupy her trembling hands. 
 
 Why should she turn so pale, thought he. Is 
 she vexed? Doesn't she like to be reminded of the 
 time when I was master of the house? I ought to 
 have thought of that. It isn't kind of her, now 
 that she sees me poor. Not even to speak to me I 
 But, anyhow, I understand, and I must go. But 
 no, there is something more. What is it that has 
 caught her heart, just as it gripped mine? Is it the 
 same thing? God in heaven, have I been mistaken? 
 Is my misery far, far greater than I thought? Or 
 is it not joy instead, joy in sorrow, joy such as I 
 shall never reach, but joy anyhow? 
 
 In the columns of sparks from the fire, the red 
 embers that glowed like a fairy castle and crum- 
 bled to pieces like corrupting limbs from which 
 life has long since fled, he saw their ruined future, 
 their hard and bitter fate. All that evening he sat 
 with his eyes upon the flames, in bitterness and 
 woe, in pain and solemn mourning. But he was not 
 quite sure that he had guessed aright, and could 
 not come to a resolve. In his weariness and under 
 the enchantment of the fire he seemed also to 
 have a right to the poor joy that had become his 
 own. As she passed to and fro, without even ap- 
 pearing to notice that he was there, his ears fol- 
 lowed her steps, guessed at her hidden heart- 
 
2o8 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 throbs, and even had an inkling of her buried 
 thoughts. 
 
 But Ingert was thinking: He loves me. Why 
 else should he have come? All is over with me 
 now; I can never find peace any more. My life will 
 burn away down there in the fire on that hearth. — 
 When she was alone in the room with Nils and 
 could speak freely, she said: 
 
 "You ought not to have that man here." 
 
 He was surprised. The matter was done with 
 and already forgotten. 
 
 "What do you mean? Why not?" 
 
 "You know nothing about him. I don't like it." 
 
 More she could not say, for even to hint at what 
 had been between them would be to open all her 
 soul, lay bare her heart's wound. At the moment 
 of confession all would be over between her hus- 
 band and herself, and she had her duty and her 
 marriage vow to think of. 
 
 For the first time Nils was annoyed with her. 
 
 "That's my business," he answered. "He has 
 told me all he needed, and he has my promise, too." 
 
 By that she understood that his decision could 
 not be altered and that she must submit to it, how- 
 ever impossible that might seem. She lay awake 
 the whole night thinking. 
 
 Perhaps he will go away of himself, she pon- 
 dered. But no, he will not do that. We have parted 
 once, but this is for ever, for life and death. My 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 209 
 
 duty is to drive him away, whether there is any 
 hope or not. As things have come about, not a 
 word must be exchanged between us. Not a look 
 must show what we were, and still are, to one 
 another. The time is past when words could have 
 helped. There is fire between us now, and how- 
 ever it may burn and eat away the heart, not a 
 gesture must reveal the pain. 
 
 Next morning she was pale from lack of sleep, 
 but held herself erect and went about her duties. 
 To the stranger she spoke not a word as she 
 handed him his food with the others. 
 
 His heart was aching with resigned sorrow, 
 and her gift felt humiliating and heavy in his hand. 
 
 I was wrong, of course, thought he; that was 
 only a foolish dream yesterday. It's annoyance she 
 feels. But if I am nothing to her, my being here 
 can matter little compared with what it means 
 for me to see her face. Besides, how could I go 
 away without a word? There is no help for it: 
 even if I never found out the truth I should have 
 to come back again. That fire in the evening draws 
 me to it like a bird of night. 
 
 The others thought: It was as we supposed. 
 She has a grudge against him. She cannot bear to 
 have him in the house without her sanction. 
 
 Nils came to the same conclusion. I should never 
 
2IO PER HALLSTROM 
 
 have thought it of her, said he to himself. But 
 that's the way of women. Perhaps I was wrong 
 in denying her — pooh ! it can't be helped now, and 
 it will pass, like everything else. 
 
 But it did not pass, and matters became no differ- 
 ent. For almost a year the stranger went to and 
 fro about his work with the other people of the 
 farm. He did not spare himself, he strained every 
 nerve to do his best, and none got through as 
 much work as he. In the house he took up little 
 room, and made no attempt to push himself for- 
 ward. 
 
 But all in vain! The goodwife would never 
 speak to him or look at him. When she had to 
 hand him his portions of food, she did so without 
 any marked unfriendliness but in silence, as if he 
 were not a human being but one of those super- 
 natural and mysterious creatures to whom it was 
 the custom in olden times to offer the sacrifices of 
 the house on feast-days. In equal silence he re- 
 ceived her gifts, and seemed to find no strange- 
 ness in her behavior. He merely bent his head,' 
 and when there was a fire on the hearth he would 
 sit staring into It, serious, but as it seemed con- 
 tented, buried in his thoughts and dreams. 
 
 And this was what he was thinking and dream- 
 ing: 
 
 He was not there among the rest, he did not see 
 Ingert's movements as her comely, pale, and some- 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 2II 
 
 what proud figure passed to and fro in the large 
 room: he only heard her there. His inner vision 
 swiftly forged images out of the Impressions that 
 his ears received. Every night he withdrew to the 
 farm that he had left empty and unfinished amid 
 the winter snows, far away among the hard and 
 frozen hills. Nor was he alone there; all that he 
 had craved and been denied in life was with him. 
 The silent woman who possessed his soul and 
 would not even lower her gaze to meet it, looked 
 upon him now with clear, deep, radiant eyes ; here, 
 too, she talked with him. They wept and rejoiced 
 together. The spell that lay upon them was broken, 
 life would begin afresh here. But all was not yet 
 ready for that; with glad but measured steps 
 would they go to meet it. All the plans which he 
 had never brought to completion but had left be- 
 hind him to freeze up, as it were, like unborn souls, 
 now came to their fulfilment. Far finer than any 
 he had ever seen or dreamed of were the house- 
 hold articles that were to fill the rooms, as they 
 now took shape under his loving care : they were 
 rich and splendid as the treasures of the gnomes 
 who began their building with his. One by one they 
 were ready, and every time he and she rejoiced 
 like two children over their possessions, and ad- 
 mired them for long together. But just then part 
 of the dream fabric would escape his grasp and 
 vanish, or the whole space between them might 
 
212 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Stand empty. That surprised him not at all. It is 
 always so with happiness, he thought; one cannot 
 hold it fast in its conipleteness and entirety. Be- 
 sides, he would have to do still better to make 
 things worthy of her: there was no lack of time. 
 To work once more, then, and with a good cour- 
 age ! Such a dear and holy task it was I . . . . And 
 never tiring, he began his dream-labors anew. 
 
 He would sit with a quiet smile, the glow of 
 reflected fires in his eyes. Never were the evening 
 hours too long for him. 
 
 But every morning, when he met Ingert, he 
 flashed upon her a swift, inquiring, beseeching 
 look: Will it come soon? Have you forgotten how 
 it used to be? And although she turned away, he 
 saw that his glance had struck home; a pale gleam 
 would light up her face, and her hand would twitch 
 in a speedily arrested movement upwards. 
 
 I am tormenting her, thought he. Whatever be 
 the reason, a great thing or a small, the same 
 steel has pierced both our hearts. I should never 
 have come here, and I must not stay. 
 
 But all the day he longed for her, and was 
 drawn back again. He was as if bewitched, and 
 felt that his will was no longer in his power. 
 
 I have met my fate as it has been meted out 
 to me, he thought; and I do not complain, either, 
 for I have her near me. All this of course means 
 nothing to her ; it is only her wounded pride. I was 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 213 
 
 her master, and I remind her of days she would 
 rather forget. 
 
 The whole situation, too, had become a habit 
 which could not be broken. 
 
 Nils and the other members of the household 
 had also grown accustomed to the atmosphere 
 which the stranger had brought with him into the 
 house, and for the most part were not aware of 
 any difference. In order to make her coldness to 
 him less noticeable and to clear it from suspicion, 
 Ingert had become very sparing in her words to 
 all, speaking no more than was necessary. It is 
 her nature, they thought, and they found her 
 comely In the pride and dignity of her youth, and 
 hardly wished her otherwise, especially as there 
 was nothing lacking In the performance of her 
 duties. 
 
 To her husband's child she now transferred all 
 that could find no expression elsewhere. She be- 
 came the tenderest of mothers to the boy, but a 
 mother without gladness, giving, but expecting 
 nothing In return. When he was sick, she would 
 carry him to and fro for hours, soothing him to 
 sleep and listening to his moaning and the sound 
 of her own measured steps. Then she would sit 
 oblivious of everything, rocking him in her arms 
 as If it were a grief she bore, staring out over his 
 flaxen head towards the shadows as they thick- 
 ened, and the darkness that swept up from the 
 
214 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 floor like a river in flood. If she were called away, 
 it was with regret and as though torn from some 
 pleasant task that she laid down her burden. The 
 child was fond of her in return, but in his own 
 fashion. He attached himself to her, but seldom 
 smiled in her presence. He grew quiet and thought- 
 ful, as though he had caught in the grave and 
 terrifying future a glimpse of the world in which 
 his elders lived. 
 
 Nils thought still more highly of his wife be- 
 cause she acted thus by his motherless boy, and 
 could see no fault in her, though it did sometimes 
 surprise him that their life had grown so strangely 
 ceremonial. But that did not displease him, either, 
 for his was a slow and deliberate nature, entirely 
 taken up by the performance of duty. 
 
 And so passed the time for them all. 
 
 VI 
 
 One day, when winter had come again, some- 
 thing happened. 
 
 They were out in the woods, felling trees. There 
 had been a heavy snowfall, which, beginning in 
 mist and rain, had cleared the air for a sharp frost 
 afterwards. The snow had therefore collected 
 upon the branches of the tall fi>r trees in heavy 
 masses which hung there like monstrous slumber- 
 ing creatures, and gripped so firmly with their slug- 
 gish limbs that hardly anything was shaken off by 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 215 
 
 the blows of the axe on the iron-hard wood. Nils 
 forgot to take into account this extra weight, and 
 stayed too long hewing at the roots of a great 
 tree. All at once the trunk snapped like a glass rod 
 and fell right over him. 
 
 The others heard the crash follow too close 
 upon the last stroke, and all understood the dan- 
 ger, but none found time to think what was to be 
 done. Only the stranger sprang forwards, swift 
 as a bird of prey, caught his master to him just 
 as the falling trunk was grazing his head, hurled 
 him to the ground beneath his own body, and so 
 saved him. But he could not draw away his hand 
 quickly enough. The tree caught it, and the end 
 of an old broken twig in the bark tore in it a deep, 
 wide gash. 
 
 Nils rose to his feet and stared in confusion, 
 at his rescuer before he could realize the full ex- 
 tent of his indebtedness. Even then, in the midst 
 of his gratitude, he was amazed at the stranger's 
 appearance. 
 
 Gabriel, pale but with shining eyes, stood with 
 a curious, hard smile upon his features, watching 
 his blood run down upon the white snow. Not a 
 feature was distorted by the pain ; on the contrary, 
 his sufferings seemed to bring him satisfaction and 
 relief. He stared at the red drops as they fell, as 
 though they had formed a writing the sense of 
 which was of grave importance for him and fur- 
 
2i6 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 nished the answer to a host of questions. His lips 
 moved gently, and he said within himself: "It was 
 so, then ! I ought to have done it, and I did. I have 
 learned to know myself." 
 
 He was as far away from all about him as when 
 he sat every evening by the hearth, and was rapt 
 in his dreams now as then. 
 
 There was no question of thanks, for these men 
 were wont to be sparing of their words and feel- 
 ings, but Nils touched the damaged hand with 
 something akin to reverence as he examined the 
 cut. He advised a speedy return home. It might be 
 dangerous, he said, if the cold got into the wound. 
 
 The stranger's eyes flashed at the mention of 
 going home alone, and now his comrades noticed 
 how white the accident had made him. But he 
 fought down his weakness, his look became calm, 
 and he was himself again. He would not listen to 
 the proposal, the blood could flow as long as it 
 liked, and only against his will would he after- 
 wards consent to have his hand bound up. "Time 
 enough to see to it at night," said he. 
 
 When they came home it was the goodwife's 
 task to dress the wound. In a few words they told 
 her what had happened and what the stranger 
 had done. 
 
 Now she will surely speak to him at last, was the 
 general thought; now at any rate the silence will 
 be broken. And for this reason they all gazed 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 217 
 
 expectantly upon her. Gabriel tried to keep in the 
 background and hid his hand as if in shame, the 
 clotted blood and ice rustling at every movement. 
 But he was pushed forwards to meet her in the 
 firelight. 
 
 Ingert was deadly pale. It seemed as if she real 
 Ized the full extent of the averted peril; it was 
 clear, too, they thought, how the idea of her threat- 
 ened loss affected her. Ingert was pale as death, 
 and could not now control her trembling. 
 
 Her eyes opened wider and wider, her breathing 
 became short and strong, and there was a quiver- 
 ing at once violent and restrained about the corners 
 of her mouth, as though some agitated and be- 
 wildered speech were trying to break forth. But 
 she kept back the words. She did not even look 
 at the stranger, only at his hand. 
 
 There must be something hard and cold as ice 
 about her, they said to themselves, and turned 
 away their looks in some vexation. The two stood 
 there as if alone, amid the silence and the red 
 sheen. 
 
 Ingert heated water, washed away the ice and 
 blood, and took off the bandage. Thereupon the 
 blood began to flow again. She was on the point 
 of swooning at the sight, but silently she controlled 
 herself and did what she had to do. She managed, 
 also, well-nigh to subdue the trembling of her 
 hands. 
 
2i8 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 The injured man stood with a strange smile 
 upon his face, just as when he was hurt; he, too, 
 was very pale, but his face and eyes shone. It was 
 as if he took pleasure in the pain when the bandage 
 was taken off from the wound, but when she gently 
 wrapped it up afresh, his mouth twitched and he 
 nearly wept. When all was finished he remained 
 holding out his hand, as if he would have liked 
 to go through it all once more. It seemed to him 
 then that her gesture for a moment hinted at an 
 uncertainty as to whether her task was done. It 
 might also mean that she, too, wished to remain 
 at it a little longer. He was sure that her fingers 
 trembled, but no more could he learn, for her 
 eyes never once met his, and she soon withdrew. 
 
 All that evening Gabriel sat staring into the fire. 
 He was feverish now, and his eyes shone brighter 
 than ever. An expression of radiant joy kept pass- 
 ing over his features at the pictures that his mind's 
 eye conjured up. 
 
 He was far away in the north again. The warm 
 blood was dripping from his wound, and his heart 
 grew light. Like the drops, his words poured forth 
 wild and red, and now they found an answer. His 
 beloved was not dumb there. "You acted right," 
 said she. "Never would I have come here with you 
 had you done otherwise. Now, now we have each 
 other, and nothing mean can find root within our 
 thoughts." .... But since his hand was injured, 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 219 
 
 he could not that evening build up as usual his 
 palace of joy. Yet that made no difference, the 
 hours were not long, and they two had the future 
 before them. 
 
 When he went to rest he was as blissfully tired 
 as a child can be with happiness and light. 
 
 Every time the wound was tended the same thing 
 happened. There was no change in their behavior, 
 everything was done in silence, at the suggestion 
 of others. At last no further attention was needed, 
 and then life was very empty for Gabriel. In the 
 end the whole incident was forgotten, and even 
 the general surprise at Ingert's hardness passed 
 away. 
 
 Since the stranger had saved Nils's life, his de- 
 parture was more than ever out of the question. 
 He had his place there, and would belong there 
 always. And all was as before till Christmas came. 
 
 VII 
 
 In Nils's family there was kept up an old custom 
 which had formerly been common in that district. 
 
 When the master and mistress of the house set 
 off for early morning church on Christmas Day, 
 they would take formal leave of all the people on 
 the farm, even though most of these accompanied 
 them to service. The meaning of the act was that 
 now, at this greatest of festivals, master and serv- 
 ant would free themselves from anything that 
 
220 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 might have oppressed either side during the work- 
 ing days of the year. They wished to be quite free 
 from every burdensome thought, with consciences 
 clear and calm, when they appeared before their 
 God and His infinite mercy. All the past should be 
 laid bare before Him with its honest endeavors, 
 which certainly might have come short in much 
 and little, but had all the time been meant for the 
 best. In a few simple words they prayed each other 
 forgiveness for all that should have been other- 
 wise, or, if the tears came too near, contented 
 themselves with an eloquent hand-shake. In return 
 they received thanks for the year that had gone 
 and good wishes for the coming year. It set the 
 mind at rest, and, without reflecting why, they sat 
 during the journey and noticed how peaceful all 
 the stars of night seemed in their infinitude. The 
 more welcome for this ceremony were the brightly 
 burning little lights with which the church was 
 decorated, and the pale daybreak afterwards, with 
 its promise of an approaching sun. 
 
 The custom was followed this year, too. Nils 
 went the round of the well-lighted room, looked 
 confidingly into the eyes of all, shook hands with 
 confidence, and said what he had to say, briefly, 
 but quietly and with assurance. Something child- 
 like passed into the sincerity of this otherwise so 
 dignified and somewhat taciturn man, and like a 
 child's was their answering trust. 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 221 
 
 The last in the circle was Gabriel. His master's 
 grasp closed over the scar left by the wound. 
 
 "I know best," said he, "what you have been to 
 me this year. Between us two all is well." 
 
 The stranger returned his gaze with a look as 
 calm and honest as his own. He answered that it 
 was so, and gave his master his good wishes and 
 his blessing for the journey. He himself would not 
 go with them, and now he drew back unobserved 
 from the company and passed out of the room. 
 
 Nils went to get the sledge ready while his wife 
 took her leave. 
 
 For Ingert this task was very hard. She shivered 
 in her agitation, and the candle-lights pricked her 
 like needles. Certainly she had meant well by all 
 and had done her duty, but more than that she had 
 not been able to do. Cold and proud the uninitiated 
 must have thought her, and that pained her now 
 more than ever. It was some relief, however, to 
 perceive that Gabriel had gone, for to him she 
 could not even that morning say a word. 
 
 Very pale, she passed with rapid steps from 
 one to the other. The clear, steady lights shone 
 round her; she was lovely but delicately frail, and 
 the thought came to every one that the past twelve 
 months had taken more out of her than a year 
 should take. She is too young for her task, they 
 thought: it cannot last long. She could not say 
 much, but she gazed and gazed, and from her eyes 
 
222 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 even these unobservant natures could divine some- 
 thing of what was passing in her soul. The sorrow 
 and secret discipline of a whole year loomed darkly 
 behind their lustre. 
 
 "Believe me, oh, believe me!" she seemed to 
 wish to say. "It was not I, not my own will. Fate 
 held her hand upon my neck, and for fear of being 
 crushed to earth, I had to hold myself stiff. Your 
 feelings, whatever they have been, were as noth- 
 ing, ah, nothing to mine!" 
 
 The tears were not far off, but she was happy, 
 as one who may at least half speak out the burden 
 laid so crushingly upon him. 
 
 "Have I been a good mistress to you?" she 
 asked; and, amazed at their own emotion, they 
 answered: "Yes, indeed, ma'am, that you have. 
 And take our thanks for all you've done." And 
 they gave her their sincere and hearty blessing. 
 
 At last only the child was left. 
 
 She knelt down before the boy, who stood in 
 his corner with wide-open, frightened eyes, watch- 
 ing all that went on. And now the tears were still 
 nearer flowing. She held both his hands and spoke 
 to him in rapid, impetuous, and for the most part 
 incomprehensible words. 
 
 "I have not made your life happy," said she; 
 "but I could not, I had no happiness to give. It 
 is not every one who has that, as one day you may 
 come to learn for yourself. But one must bear up 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 223 
 
 all the same. Have I at least been anything like a 
 good mother to you, you who have no mother? 
 Can you give me thanks for the year that has 
 gone? I shall not fall, I shall hold out as I have 
 done hitherto. And If — which may God forbid — 
 you ever come to see Into my heart, you will know 
 that I could do no more, and will pardon what was 
 lacking." 
 
 The boy stared at her In amazement. In the 
 dark and silent weaving of the bend between them 
 he had already understood enough to make the 
 tears now start forth. 
 
 "Mother has been good," stammered he be- 
 tween his sobs, as he pressed shyly to her, "mother 
 has been good." 
 
 "But you must say 'thank you,' too. I will say 
 It for you; we will speak together." 
 
 But unwittingly she clasped her hands as she 
 did so, and, struggling with her sobs, spoke 
 her thanks to some one else In a tone that fright- 
 ened the boy, so that his answering words be- 
 came a shriek. She had to soothe him to rest on 
 her bosom. 
 
 When she arose It was with an air of relief and 
 liberty. "So now I have stood my test, and there 
 It lies behind me with all the other shadows." But 
 she went out quickly without looking round for 
 any one whom she might have forgotten. 
 
 Nils was ready and had the torch alight. Now 
 
224 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 he held it up to her, and looking earnestly at her, 
 asked : 
 
 "Have you taken leave of all of them in the 
 house?" 
 
 The color that the air had brought into her 
 cheeks, after all her recent conflict of emotions, 
 faded away as swiftly as the darkness round her, 
 but she answered calmly, "Yes." 
 
 "Of Gabriel, too?" 
 
 She trembled, and the corners of her mouth 
 twitched with pain. 
 
 "He was not inside." 
 
 "Then go and look for him. You must not for- 
 get any one." 
 
 "Think what you're doing! Don't drive me to 
 it! Think well what you're doing!" Her voice be- 
 came strangely deep. Her husband was amazed to 
 see how large and black and desperate-looking 
 were her eyes, as he stood holding the light up to 
 them. The flame of the torch was caught by a 
 puff of air, the darkness itself became red and 
 low. The frost sparkled and groaned upon the 
 ground. 
 
 "Nothing must be hidden and forgotten any 
 longer," he answered firmly. "We must be free 
 from everything when we come before God." 
 
 He could not give way in this matter. He had 
 done so many times during the year, when he had 
 begun to touch upon the subject, but had checked 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 225 
 
 himself because every time she had pressed her 
 hand to her heart, as if something had pierced it. 
 He had thought then : It is on my account, that I 
 could go against her. But a wrong had been done 
 to the stranger, and on this day that must be the 
 all-important thing. 
 
 Ingert stood looking at him, pondering on his 
 words. 
 
 "Nothing must be hidden or forgotten, you 
 have said. You know best, of course." 
 
 She peered into his face to see if his purpose 
 held, but besought him no longer. Rather, there 
 was something like a threat in her look. 
 
 But as he stood there firm and motionless, with 
 no intention even of repeating what he had said, 
 a wild flame lit up the darkness of her eyes, a 
 strange light of joy and pain which he could not 
 comprehend. He did not recognize her. Her soul 
 was no longer there. Had he spoken, she would 
 not have heard him, for she was listening to some- 
 thing far away, a voice that ensnared and fettered 
 her with its deep, mysterious tones. 
 
 "I will go, then," said she. And swiftly, but as 
 though borne by an unseen power rather than 
 of her own will, she passed into the house. 
 
 VIII 
 
 In order to be as far away as possible, Gabriel 
 had withdrawn to the men's sleeping-room, and 
 
226 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 he was alone. A tiny light was burning, but the 
 dark night came in through the window-panes. It 
 was cold and cheerless. 
 
 He sat on his bed and thought of all this and 
 of how his year had passed, and he shivered. He 
 longed for them to be ready so that he could go 
 to the kitchen hearth again. There, perhaps, he 
 might get his dreams back and be almost happy 
 as Christmas morning came on. Then he heard 
 her steps and recognized them. 
 
 He knew at once that the footsteps were for 
 him, and he thought : Now she comes to speak to 
 me : they have made her do it. She can only have 
 one thing to say — that I must go, that I cannot 
 stay here. And I have been expecting it for a whole 
 year. Of course I must obey her, but what shall I 
 then have left in all the world? 
 
 He sat motionless, straining his eyes in the di- 
 rection of the door, half fearful, half triumphant. 
 Now at last he would receive the wages he 
 had earned, although so poor a wage that he 
 must needs smile at it. But now at least he 
 would exist for her. Man to woman he would 
 face her at last, before memory alone was left 
 him. 
 
 Her hand was on the latch. The door opened 
 and closed, but Gabriel did not stir. 
 
 She must drive me away, thought he. Not one 
 of her words will I waste. They are too precious 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 227 
 
 for that, since they are all that I shall have. And 
 I have waited long enough for them. 
 
 She went straight up to him. Her steps were 
 very swift, she almost ran. Her face gleamed pale 
 in the dusk, but there was something else in her 
 look, he knew not what. 
 
 When she was close beside him, she opened her 
 mouth to speak, but no sound came. She had grown 
 so used to forcing back the words in his presence 
 that now her lips refused to do her service. Her 
 hands felt at her breast, were checked as usual, 
 trembled, and were still. The thousand darts that 
 she had suffered in silence now made their stings 
 felt anew. Her face contracted, and all was pre- 
 pared for a struggle. 
 
 Then she let the inevitable come. 
 
 Her hands flew up to her heart and gripped at 
 it as though they wished to drive in still deeper 
 all the pain she felt, they clutched convulsively, 
 as if to arrest a stream of blood. It was infinite 
 torture to her not to be able to speak. 
 
 Now the tightened lips moved, and then it came. 
 
 But still no words, hardly a human sound. She 
 burst out into a wild cry of relief, a tempest of 
 ecstasy that at last the silence was broken, but at 
 the same time there was a note of anguish at 
 something new, something mightier than all the 
 rest. And she tottered and sank to the floor. 
 
 But before she reached it Gabriel had risen and 
 
228 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 thrown his arms around her. He remained stand- 
 ing, though his burden grew very heavy. 
 
 Her head was close to his, her hands stroked 
 his face with trembhng and convulsive movements, 
 her panting breath caressed his lips. She prayed 
 him forgiveness for all, she mourned over their 
 common sorrow, smiled at their present joy, made 
 confession of a whole year of pain and love at 
 which her heart had bled. 
 
 She had no words to do it with, on|y her hands, 
 which she still had the power to move. In the end — 
 for all passed so quickly — she had but her soul, 
 and she breathed it out in a strange, long-drawn 
 sigh close to his mouth. Then she grew quite still. 
 
 Gabriel had kissed and kissed her in a transport 
 of exultation and tears. He felt himself in the 
 presence of an ineffable joy, and all the long way 
 to it, as well as every other hard and painful thing, 
 was forgotten in the glory that was about them. 
 But he saw at once what had happened, stood up- 
 right, and listened in silence. 
 
 It could not be otherwise, the thread could be 
 drawn no finer. And so must they two meet. He 
 did not even know what he felt, but only that it 
 was so. But he could not let her go, now that at 
 last he bore the sum of his desires in his arms, and 
 he stood gently rocking her while his gaze passed 
 out beyond her shoulder towards the darkness and 
 the frosty stars of night. 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 229 
 
 IX 
 
 Having grown tired of waiting, Nils had come 
 to fetch his wife. 
 
 By then the stranger was sitting on the bed, 
 so as to have one hand free to caress her. He 
 rocked her to and fro like a child, and met the 
 husband's eyes with the look he was accustomed 
 to wear in the evenings by the fire. 
 
 To the mute amazement of his master he paid 
 no heed, but only stroked Ingert's hair away from 
 her forehead and showed, as he fondled it, how 
 white and changed her face had become. 
 
 "She is dead," he said at length. And at Nils's 
 terrified and expressionless repetition of the word: 
 "She is dead, as you see. She came to me in the 
 end." 
 
 And he rocked her and pressed her to him as 
 before, without caring in the least who it was that 
 saw him. 
 
 As the husband stood dumbfounded, incapa- 
 ble of thought, he went on, still rocking her to 
 and fro : 
 
 "I loved her, you know, long since. That was 
 why I came here. I hoped for nothing, and I got 
 nothing, not even a word. I only wanted to be near 
 her, and that wish was granted. Her life she could 
 not give me, so she came to me in death. She is 
 mine now." 
 
 Still Nils understood nothing. He could not 
 
230 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 even believe that she was really dead. The whole 
 thing was so incomprehensible. 
 
 "What have you done to her?" he asked, step- 
 ping threateningly forward. "Let her go ! Give 
 her to me!" 
 
 But Gabriel merely sat rocking his burden, and 
 turned upon the other a strangely calm gaze that 
 cooled his anger. 
 
 "What should I have done to her? Wasn't it 
 you who sent her here? You have given her to 
 me, and now she is mine; no one can take her back 
 again. She has kept silent so as not to break her 
 marriage vow, I see it at last. But I never knew 
 before what it cost her. Her silence tightened 
 round her heart, for it was mine long ago and 
 yearned towards me. At last the bonds were 
 broken, but they had been drawn too close. The 
 heart could not bear its freedom, everything had 
 grown too mean for it. So it broke in that same 
 moment: and what else could it have done? She is 
 happy now; we are both happy. I haven't shed 
 
 a tear." 
 
 At last Nils began to understand. He called to 
 mind her last looks and words, and struggled with 
 his tears. He felt himself shut away from her by 
 the stranger's gaze, and that hurt him. But his own 
 sorrow, however deep and great he felt it, was too 
 small to venture forth here. 
 
 "It is you that have killed her," he moaned. 
 
HIDDEN FIRES 231 
 
 "Perhaps you are right, but what matter now ? 
 Look at her!" And Gabriel once more stroked her 
 hair and pointed out that she seemed to smile. 
 "Don't you see that it's with joy? More than joy, 
 Fate itself?" 
 
 Nils saw, and he shivered, still more abstracted 
 than before in his own blind grief. 
 
 "If it be as you say," said he; "if it be as you 
 say . . . ." 
 
 But he did not doubt, nor yet did he know what 
 was to follow in his thoughts. 
 
 The stranger calmly linked his words on to his 
 master's. 
 
 "Then this is also mine, this that is left of her. 
 You won't refuse her that?" And as the husband 
 blanched at the strangeness of his request, he 
 added : 
 
 "I will take her to the place where she was 
 born and bred. It is there she should rest easiest. 
 I have a farm there, and had built a new one, but 
 I left it empty when word came that she would 
 never live in it. And now she shall lie there on her 
 bier. Every night I have sat and gone on building 
 while I listened to her footsteps, but of this I never 
 dreamed. But now the house will suit her as it is. 
 Bare, clean boards. It is ready, and she must come 
 home." 
 
 And the husband gave his promise, constrained 
 by the other's look and by his own feeling of insig- 
 
232 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 nificance before this great, half-understood, un- 
 fathomable thing. When Gabriel rose and released 
 his precious and heavy burden, it was to make 
 ready for her last journey. 
 
 The torches had burnt down unobserved in all 
 this confusion and terror. The stars, too, were 
 extinguished. The light of Christmas Day broke 
 more solemn and cold in its gray paleness than 
 ever in years gone by. Over whitened fields and 
 frozen water-courses the procession slowly took 
 its way towards the spot within the mountains 
 where the sleigh-bells would echo among the rocks, 
 as if there amid the reserve and constraint, the 
 infinite strength and secrecy, a place was being 
 made ready for something In Ingert's nature and 
 fate. 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 
 
 [KALLORNA'i 
 
 FROM DE FYRA ELEMENTERNA 
 
 1906 
 
Ti'he Water-Finder 
 
 IT SEEMS to me that Spring has never been 
 so near my heart and eye as that time. More- 
 over, I was a boy then, and it was my first journey 
 north. 
 
 During the last few weeks of school the year's 
 awakening had, as it were, moved past me in the 
 distance, borne upon brightening nights with flocks 
 of migrating birds high up in the fading blue. The 
 roar of the river sounded with a note ever more 
 alluring, the chestnut buds flamed whiter and 
 whiter in the sunlight, and the great tepid drops 
 of rain brought disquiet where they fell. 
 
 If I walked outside the town, the wealth of 
 Nature was already too abundantly displayed 
 about me. The miracle is over, it seemed to say: 
 you have come too late to see it. A whole long 
 year and the dark winter's snow are between us 
 ere you can try to capture me again, and even then 
 you will succeed no better. 
 
 In the height of June I sat in the train and was 
 borne towards the forests. There the foam-flecked 
 river, rushing wide, showed the way to the un- 
 known, and in wide blue heights, in fresh mountain 
 air, it was about me, great and wonderful and 
 dreamy. Suddenly I started in amazement, and 
 
 235 
 
236 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 looked with eyes wide open at the nearest objects. 
 I had managed to catch up the flying spring. 
 
 Thickets of birch and aspen stretched, light as 
 clouds, along the tender green of the dales, under 
 the still frozen twilight of the pine-woods, and 
 before the river's shimmering blue. They seemed 
 to have nothing material about them save their 
 power to glitter and shine in the low sunlight which 
 held them suspended on Its beams, and to send 
 out into the cool evening air their strong yet deli- 
 cate perfume. Beneath them, among the brown 
 leaves of last year, I caught a glimpse of flowers 
 which I could not yet pluck and own. It was as 
 though the spirit of one not long dead and deeply 
 mourned had appeared again amid the circle of 
 his loved ones, where already his memory had 
 begun to be illuminated and transformed by the 
 poetry of the irrevocable, and had stood there 
 bright and smiling, gently whispering: "See, here 
 am I ! This is my self, which I could never give to 
 you entirely. Look on me, but touch me not!" 
 
 The sun went down, but no darkness came with 
 the night. I was borne along past silent lakes, on 
 whose steep banks the leafy tree-tops raised their 
 heads in wreath upon wreath of foliage; the same 
 scent as before came from them, but there was 
 no glitter now. Only a palely shining color in a 
 thousand shades, and one or two stars low down, 
 burning and trembling upon trembling twigs. No 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 237 
 
 sound but the noise of the rolling train and the 
 echo that was lost behind us, and now and then 
 a thrush that broke off startled in the midst of a 
 trill. 
 
 One could not think that all this was real; the 
 earth lay stretched and bound in a rapt prophetic 
 transport, listening to herself and staring up into 
 the light-blue spaces of heaven. Never again, it 
 seemed, could she awake from her enchantment, 
 and it was hopeless, though tempting, to guess at 
 her riddles and secrets. 
 
 The journey came to an end, and lulled by the 
 sound of some invisible waterfall — a gentle voice, 
 I knew not whence, from all the strange, cool 
 world about me in its fresh gray dew — I fell asleep. 
 
 When I awoke, the impressions of the night 
 vanished as I made acquaintance with the fall and 
 saw from what a wild and careless sport its voice 
 arose. The spring which I had seized was about 
 me even in full daylight, and there was also a new 
 and strange country to explore. 
 
 It was a lovely district with high forest-clad 
 hills, so gently sloping that they gave an air of 
 combined grandeur and mildness, especially now, 
 when the dark green foliage of the pine trees was 
 giving place in every hollow to the shining, tender 
 leaves of June. The river flowed slowly, ere it was 
 caught in the giddy pace of the fall, and spread out 
 into a number of wide lakes, gliding into one an- 
 
238 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 other between points and islets. Three or four 
 sheets of water, one above the other, could be 
 seen from any piece of rising ground. The forest 
 was impenetrable and wild, full of stones and bogs 
 and fallen trunks ; on the plains stretched for the 
 most part desolate marshes, where goats browsed 
 among swaying tussocks and black stunted trees. 
 It was only along the water that the beauty began, 
 or else when the whole was viewed in a single 
 prospect, softened and shining in the sunlight that 
 bathed it. 
 
 One evening I was present at a scene which 
 sums up for me all my memories and impressions 
 from that time. 
 
 There was a small farm on the slope down 
 towards the river, built the previous autumn by a 
 young couple who had moved into the district. 
 It was so new that the house was not yet painted, 
 and the timber had hardly been bleached by the 
 sunshine. The sheds for the few cattle were not 
 yet ready, there were neither paths nor fences; 
 the whole farm lay cheerfully and as if in sport 
 broadcast among the tender green. There was no 
 well, either, and that was just the point now under 
 discussion. 
 
 To choose the place for a well is not a task for 
 every man, for intelligence and strength of arm 
 are of little use unless one can also find the right 
 place where the vein of water comes nearest to 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 239 
 
 the earth's surface and of itself, as it were, seeks 
 the light of day. A special art of water-divining 
 has been developed, though indeed "art" is hardly 
 the right word, for nothing in it can be learned. 
 The only implement, the dowsing-rod, is there for 
 all, but not every hand can make it show its power. 
 That is a gift that is supposed to run through cer- 
 tain families only, and every district has its own 
 trusted diviner. 
 
 In this case it was a peasant named Grels Olofs- 
 son of By, and he was noteworthy in more ways 
 than this. He had also the gift of curing many 
 kinds of diseases and bodily injuries; he was 
 "wise." 
 
 This property is, as a rule, bound up with primi- 
 tive superstition and traditions from heathen 
 times : the means employed are often absurdly 
 crude, often also deeply poetic, and no doubt have 
 their roots for the most part in old sacrificial 
 customs. 
 
 With Grels it was not so. Superstition played 
 no part in his methods. Certainly there lay beneath 
 them a mysticism hardly suspected by himself, but 
 the only expression it took was an intuitive glance 
 into the patient's being, a naively contemplative 
 imagination which, without anatomical knowledge, 
 seemed to grasp immediately the coherence and 
 secret life of the body. Imagination was, perhaps, 
 the whole secret, for who knows how deep lie the 
 
240 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 roots of this most mysterious of human faculties, 
 and how much it can achieve? It is seen in aJl 
 created things, it is perhaps the greatest positive 
 force in the world. In poem and legend it roves at 
 will, but it is also found silent and hidden in the 
 workshops of Nature. In man it is perhaps might- 
 iest where it finds least expression, and dwells 
 nearest to that which has neither voice nor con- 
 sciousness. So it was in this peasant, who had never 
 withdrawn himself from the realities of life. 
 
 He rarely failed, and had never made any seri- 
 ous blunder, so that professional physicians re- 
 ceived him not only with tolerance but with respect. 
 
 He was a solid, cautious, and determined man, 
 who thought rapidly but spoke little and slowly, in 
 all respects the most notable and Influential person 
 in the parish. He was rich, too, one might say, for 
 he still owned his forest, but seemed never to have 
 been tempted to make money out of it, and lived 
 his life as simply and thriftily as the poorest. For 
 his services he would receive no payment, though 
 they often took up his busiest hours; he seemed 
 to count them as a recreation, and it was with a 
 calm and deliberate joy that he performed them. 
 He had been for some years a widower and had 
 two children living, a son and a daughter. 
 
 I had not seen him before, and I regarded him 
 with curiosity as I waited in wonder and with a 
 certain schoolboy superiority for the unknown cere- 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 241 
 
 mony. He was tall and still slender, though he 
 would soon be an old man. His head was large and 
 massively shaped, the eyes clear and untroubled 
 as a child's, although the swift decision with which 
 their glance was directed did not lack virility. 
 Strong, too, was the mouth which the slightly griz- 
 zled beard left entirely exposed, yet no hardness 
 could be discerned there, but rather a seriousness 
 which seemed never to have been tempted to 
 laughter. 
 
 He sat on the ground, listening in silence to the 
 farmer's somewhat unnecessary story of how he 
 had come to build just there, and of where he 
 would prefer the well to be sunk. Now and again 
 he looked past him with a friendly glance at the 
 friendly little house, half lowered his eyelids, and 
 let the sun shine full in his face with an obvious 
 sensation of well-being, while with his strong labor- 
 er's hand he stroked the tender grass. He had come 
 there over the lakes, rowed by his son and daugh- 
 ter, and had still upon him some impression of the 
 journey, which may have been new for that year 
 and was well-loved and familiar from of old. It 
 must have been strange and wonderful enough that 
 quiet evening. Every tree on the slope stood out 
 clearly in the reflecting surface, every shining red 
 farmstead smiled at its image, which seemed all 
 the more cheerful for the shadows below. All was 
 set in a single limpid expanse, a world of air and 
 
242 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 water, both alike ethereal, with the bright and 
 almost immaterial visions of the spring floating 
 therein. 
 
 He was resting now, delighting in every breath 
 he took, and collecting himself, as was his wont, 
 ere the time of testing came. In spite of his alert 
 appearance, which had nothing mysterious about 
 it, he gave a curious impression of listening, and 
 reminded one of those legendary figures who can 
 hear the grass grow, and for whom the secret 
 places of the earth lie open. Behind him was his 
 daughter, picking flowers. 
 
 She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen, and the whole 
 of her round little face was fresh and red as a 
 cherry, though the spring sun had already tanned 
 it slightly. The kerchief falling down over her 
 shoulders exposed her nut-brown, curly hair; nut- 
 brown, too, were her eyes, which were more than 
 commonly wide open, had short lashes, and re- 
 flected the light. Her figure was supple and slen- 
 der, as they are often found to be in wood- 
 land districts; in her violet-gray woolen dress 
 she resembled one of the downy flowers of the 
 season. 
 
 Grels stood up and went to the nearest thicket 
 to cut a twig. He searched long and carefully, cau- 
 tiously parting the catkins on the boughs, and 
 when he had made his choice, the sap could be 
 seen running out beneath the knife under the 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 243 
 
 smooth bark. He cut off the branch in such a way 
 that it had the shape of a Y, tried it to see if it 
 suited his grip, and looked about him to judge the 
 ground. He seemed to find it promising and nodded 
 to his son, who, in unwilling obedience to the ges- 
 ture, now stepped up to his father. 
 
 "Try once again, Olof," said Grels. "You ought 
 to be old enough now. Try again !" And he handed 
 him the dowsing-rod. The young man took it, still 
 against his will. 
 
 "What's the use?" he asked, but since his fa- 
 ther's eye continued to admonish him, he held the 
 twig away from him and began to walk in a slightly 
 stooping posture. 
 
 He was a tall and powerfully built youth of 
 eighteen, brisk and active, with a dark line of 
 energy above the eyes, in other respects like his 
 father, except that his mouth was larger and more 
 mobile, and had about it something discontented, 
 an air half of sullenness, half of desire. 
 
 He walked swiftly and impatiently down the 
 slope, and seemed displeased to feel the eyes of 
 all upon him. 
 
 The father followed him with his look. 
 
 "You're not stooping low enough, Olof," said 
 he. "It's just as it was before. You'll never do it 
 that way. You're thinking of something, and then 
 no power can come." 
 
 Olof stopped short. "You know what I'm think- 
 
244 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 ing about," he answered. "I've no taste for this, 
 and I can't do it. I can't stand it any longer." 
 
 The sister's shrill voice called eagerly: 
 
 "Here, Olof, here I Why don't you come this 
 way, boy? You can find it without any dowsing- 
 rod, you can tell by the flowers. The vein must go 
 here, where they are freshest. Can't you see?" 
 
 But he took no notice of her and handed back 
 the twig so as to be freed from his task. 
 
 "All this is not for me," he said in a low voice. 
 "You knew it before, and it will always be so." 
 
 Grels bent his clear and sober gaze disapprov- 
 ingly upon him, but silently took the rod, and with 
 eyes half-lowered to meet the light began his tour 
 of inspection. 
 
 He held his hands close to his knees and walked 
 very slowly, as though he were looking for some- 
 thing in the thin grass, passing up the slope and 
 turning aside to follow the scarce visible depres- 
 sions of the ground. The low sunshine enveloped 
 his curiously groping movements and almost hid 
 them from us, the gleaming boughs of the birch 
 trees shone like glass in the thickets, and their 
 half open leaves were shot through with gold. A 
 gust of cool freshness and perfume was wafted 
 through the evening air, and one could almost see 
 the dew already falling where the flowers shone 
 between gleaming stalks. Silently we all followed 
 him at a distance, and even the farmer's young 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 245 
 
 wife, heavy with the child she bore and the con- 
 finement to the house in winter, had ventured out 
 and smiled a melancholy, tired, yet hopeful smile 
 upon the spring, the sunshine, and the well that 
 was to be. A swift, merry, and metallic twitter 
 passed through the air — it was the swallows that 
 had just arrived and gratefully found a nesting- 
 place upon the new-built house, consecrating it, 
 as it were, to the joys and vicissitudes of life. 
 
 Slowly the dowsing-rod turned, as though by 
 some mysterious power of its own, and pointed 
 towards the ground: a glad cry of surprise rose 
 from us all. But Grels went on, stooping and 
 groping as before, magnified by the light into some 
 unknown, mysterious, yet friendly power. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped, since the rod was swinging 
 with short pendulous beats between his hands, 
 which with their swollen veins and convulsive grip 
 seemed hardly able to hold it longer. He pushed 
 it into the ground as a mark, — the place was 
 found. Then he rose, obviously exhausted, and 
 mopped his forehead. There, too, the veins were 
 swollen, and his skin was red under its tan. 
 
 He turned to the farmer. "No need to dig very 
 deep here," he said, "but the water will be fresh 
 and sweet all the same." And he smiled encour- 
 agingly at him and the young wife and their home. 
 "May it be a blessing to you, and may there be 
 many of you to drink long of it I" 
 
246 PER HALLSTRGM 
 
 They thanked him and spoke of returning his 
 services, but he put their thanks aside. He wiped 
 his forehead as though he was tired, and seemed 
 to be debating with himself. Then in a firm voice 
 he called his son to him. 
 
 "Go back now, both of you," said he. "I will 
 stay here to see that the work is properly done." 
 
 This was doubtless his custom in such cases, 
 for the girl smiled indulgently as at some familiar 
 weakness. "It's a pity you won't come, father," 
 she answered; "it's, calmer than ever now, and it 
 will be so lovely on the water." The son nodded 
 obediently, but seemed to make inward objections 
 to such a waste of precious time. And so they both 
 went down to the boat.^ 
 
 Grels sat on the ground again and rested, with 
 his brown hand caressing the grass as before, con- 
 tent to remain upon the spot and have his well- 
 loved task to himself. He now first caught sight 
 of the swallows, and with his clear glance fol- 
 lowed the motion of their wings as they flashed 
 against the blue. He seemed as happy as a man 
 can be. 
 
 That gave me courage to speak to him. My 
 imagination had been roused by the mystery of the 
 scene. It had never before occurred to me to won- 
 der where the water came from in wells and 
 springs, or to think what it meant for our human 
 race. The hazel-twig also was a riddle that my 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 247 
 
 scanty knowledge of magnetism left as dark as 
 ever, in spite of the boldest speculations. Now I 
 wished to know as much as he, and I began by 
 hinting at my hypothesis and the knowledge I al- 
 ready possessed. 
 
 He looked at me and gently shook his head at 
 my too elaborate wisdom. 
 
 "It needs water," was his answer. "Everything 
 needs water to live. And so it tries to get down 
 there after it, when it can no longer get it through 
 the root. We can all of us find what we want, if we 
 don't scatter ourselves over other things. If I 
 planted it deep enough in the ground, that little 
 twig, it would take root and become a tree again, 
 for such power it has — a fine, strong tree. But 
 this well will do more than that ; it will give men 
 their daily drink, and instead of a tree a race will 
 branch out here." 
 
 "But where does the vein come from? Can you 
 find one anywhere in the earth?" 
 
 It pleased him to hear my questions. He seemed 
 to have often pondered them himself. 
 
 "All water comes from the clouds. It circulates 
 during the ages like blood in a man's body. Mostly 
 the rain goes straight to the rivers again, or stops 
 in the turf for a time and does its work there, and 
 is breathed out through leaves and stalks. But 
 some of it goes deeper. Here under the ground" — 
 and he patted it as he spoke — "there are lakes and 
 
248 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 streams, too. You can see it best when you dig: 
 there are layers of clay that will let nothing 
 through, but in between them are stones and gravel 
 that are always dripping with wet. They are lakes 
 that the sun never shines on. Nobody sees them, 
 but there they are, and they have their work to do ; 
 a current runs through them all the time and keeps 
 renewing them. Without them there could be no 
 life, the roots go down into them. Not even in the 
 hardest frost, when all that we see is ice and snow, 
 are these depths frozen. Sometimes the water runs 
 out of itself into the daylight, in some cleft in the 
 woods, and then becomes a stream that grows 
 greater and greater till it forms a river and fall. 
 But you have to dig for it as well, and then it may 
 almost leap out to meet you, if there's pressure on 
 it from the hills. That water's the freshest and 
 clearest. It has been so silent and shut in down 
 there, and like everything else it is glad to see 
 the light." 
 
 Here was much for me to think about, much 
 more than I could explain, especially that about 
 the personal life that was in some way connected 
 with our view of Nature. Nor did I stop at that, 
 but everywhere I went I divined and almost heard 
 the secret course of the water beneath the visible 
 earth. The spring season about me thus became 
 more fresh and more enchanting, and everything, 
 even the deep, wild trills of the myriad thrushes 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 249 
 
 at evening seemed to speak of those silent and 
 hidden powers that bore up the whole. 
 
 I saw Grels for a few days longer, working in 
 silent contentment with spade and crowbar, wet 
 through, and dripping with moisture and clay. 
 When he stood deep down in the earth and thought 
 himself alone, he would hum and sing to himself 
 for joy. After all was finished, he went away. 
 
 Of the son I heard that the relations between 
 him and his father were somewhat strained. He 
 was not content with his station and work, or with 
 the strangely quiet and suppressed life at home. 
 People justified him to a certain degree, for he 
 was a very intelligent, active, and industrious 
 youth. He wished "to be something," to see and 
 try the world, and he thought it foolish for them 
 neither to sell their woods nor themselves to make 
 money out of them. Against all this Grels set his 
 calm and taciturn authority, so that it hardly ven- 
 tured so far as a definite proposal, but he suffered 
 from it none the less, both out of love for his boy 
 and also from anxiety as to what might happen 
 after his own death. But all this was hearsay to 
 me, for I met none of the family again that 
 summer. 
 
 Four years later I came back to the neighbor- 
 hood. Much had happened there, people had died, 
 and others had come to the spot, but on the whole 
 there was little change. The same thrushes sang 
 
250 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 the same songs, eternally new, in the thickets ; the 
 spring-tide green shone just as light and golden in 
 the evenings. At night the landscape lay just as 
 pale, staring into the distance at the same high 
 heaven, while the voice of the fall sounded as 
 inexplicable as ever in its untamed force. 
 
 The well that Grels had opened now displayed 
 itself like all the others with its sweep sharply 
 outlined against the sky. Around it life had blos- 
 somed richly. 
 
 The red cottage glowed cheerfully with the 
 showiest of geraniums and balsams behind the 
 window-panes ; in front lay a little garden with all 
 the bushes in it that the uncongenial climate would 
 permit to thrive. A couple of flaxen-haired chil- 
 dren now welcomed with amazement the swallows' 
 return, and bent their heads in laughter and alarm 
 at the sudden flight of the birds right over them. 
 
 Olof Grelson had left home long since. He had 
 gone out as a laborer into the woods, since he was 
 given no help to anything else. But with no other 
 capital than his clear head and his power for work, 
 he had soon found means of doing business. He 
 had done well enough, but had lived a hard life 
 and himself become somewhat hard. He was said 
 to be more anxious now than ever to get his ma- 
 ternal inheritance — a wood-lot — into his hands, so 
 that he could act on a larger scale, but certain tes- 
 tamentary conditions bound him. The father op- 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 251 
 
 posed to his plans his usual silent and superior 
 resistance, still refusing to be drawn into the un- 
 rest of modern life, and retaining his contempt for 
 money and what it could achieve. The girl took his 
 side with all the gay determination of her happy 
 nature, so that Olof and his next of kin did not 
 get on well together. Violent scenes had even oc- 
 curred during the winter. Grels had his daughter 
 with him still, and on her approaching marriage, 
 the son-in-law, a man after his own heart, was to 
 move in and take Olof's place. I met her first of all. 
 
 The sun had gone down leaving a chilliness 
 approaching frost, and a perfectly clear, greenish 
 sky, such as is often to be seen when dew falls 
 heavily. I was walking among cultivated lands 
 through a field of barley, and saw the dewdrops 
 lying so thick upon the young stalks that they be- 
 came all gray and shone like silver. A great yellow 
 moon burst over the edge of the aspen wood, whose 
 still tender foliage had hardly yet begun its eternal 
 trembling. The sound of the water and the 
 thrushes' song penetrated here as everywhere, but 
 so strangely remote were they, so closely inter- 
 woven with each other and with the crispness of 
 the air, that they seemed to be part of the past or 
 a dream of the future, rather than the present 
 reality. 
 
 From the opposite side of the field I saw a girl 
 coming. 
 
252 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 I cannot tell why it struck me that she was going 
 to meet her sweetheart, though indeed that was 
 easy to guess. What was stranger was a feeling of 
 sadness that was also aroused, a slightly shudder- 
 ing suspicion of the corruption of all things, such 
 as may lie close at hand before the freshest and 
 most spring-like sights in life. Perhaps it was due 
 chiefly to the cold and the twinkling white torch 
 of the evening star in the paleness, and the sounds 
 that filled the air. Perhaps, too, there was a touch 
 of envy in it. She drew nearer, and I recognized 
 her by the cherry redness of her round soft face 
 and by the way in which she bore some flowers in 
 her hand — carefully, as if she held a prayer-book 
 there, too, following the custom of her childhood 
 on a Sunday. She had grown a little taller but was 
 otherwise hardly changed since I last saw her: it 
 was the same elastic yet slightly rigid figure, ac- 
 customed to subduing the expressions of the youth- 
 ful joy she felt In merely being alive. But her hazel 
 eyes shone wide under the brightness of the moon, 
 and even in my presence her mouth could not con- 
 ceal its smile of radiant happiness. Beyond all 
 doubt it was her sweetheart she was going to meet. 
 
 As I passed by, I saw that her feet and skirts 
 were dripping with dew, and her hands and arms 
 bore traces of flower-picking in the damp leaves 
 adhering to them. A few water-drops, shaken down 
 from the bushes, still remained glistening on her 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 253 
 
 fresh young face and hair. No prettier image of 
 the spring and youthful joy could be imagined, as 
 she walked with the gray dew running down into 
 her tracks. 
 
 I stood looking after her, but though she prob- 
 ably felt my gaze, nothing in her careless carriage 
 was altered. Then, as I anticipated, a man ap- 
 peared from among the bushes, no doubt the 
 expected lover. Her steps became more rapid, and 
 she ran to meet him on the slope, as unconcernedly 
 as though the whole world might see her if it 
 would, and continued her walk close to his side. 
 
 They were to marry very soon, and she and her 
 father were often staying here with relatives near 
 the railway-station, on various errands connected 
 with the wedding. 
 
 Next day Olof, too, came there for a meeting 
 on some business matter, along with two rather 
 unpleasant-looking men of the small speculator 
 type, half boastful in their sly confidence, half shy 
 in the contrast between their workingmen's limbs 
 and their gentlemen's attire. Olof himself was 
 majestic, tall, and manly, but the lines of energy 
 around his eyes were darker and his mouth harder 
 and more discontented than before. 
 
 They established themselves at the inn, where 
 there was much drinking, blustering, and talking. 
 The two strangers eagerly took part in the family 
 dispute, and threw such light upon it as was pos- 
 
254 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 sible from their ideas of human nature and its 
 motives. That boded no good, for Olof had made 
 an appointment with the future brother-in-law 
 there, so that all might be made clear between 
 them. Late in the afternoon he arrived, and as he 
 indignantly refused to form one of such a com- 
 pany, Olof, already inflamed with spirits and talk- 
 ing, went outside with him a few yards to discuss 
 matters. The other was an irreproachable but vio- 
 lent man, who had taken the family discords very 
 hardly, with all the charges and counter-charges 
 that had been made. 
 
 The subject of conversation was no doubt Olof's 
 desire to sell the timber, or part of it. He wished 
 to engage his brother-in-law on his side, to help 
 him in influencing his father. How it happened no 
 one knew, but a violent quarrel arose, and in his 
 hardly responsible state of semi-intoxication Olof 
 Grelson plunged his knife into his adversary. 
 
 The news spread quickly, and the place was full 
 of people when I reached it. They had not thought 
 of taking the Injured man away, but had only borne 
 him down to the stream close by. 
 
 His true-love was there amongst the first, and 
 had probably helped to carry him. She knelt by the 
 water with his head held close to her, as with 
 mechanically swift, unconscious movements she 
 bathed his temples and forehead with her hand- 
 kerchief. It was hard to recognize her from the 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 25S 
 
 evening before: her cheeks were paler than any 
 one's, and the eyes that were fixed upon her sweet- 
 heart's had almost the same look as his. That look 
 was strange enough, the orbs dilated as though 
 they had wished to leave their seat in his brain 
 and grasp more than can be seen by mortal eye, 
 rigid and as it were frozen beneath his vision in 
 a clarity that might at any moment be broken in 
 pieces like ice. But yet it was calm, and the expres- 
 sion about his mouth was very peaceful, almost 
 happy, as is said to be commonly the case in bleed- 
 ing. There was nothing dreadful in the sight of 
 him; though the blow had come so suddenly and 
 unexpectedly, it seemed to have come quite nat- 
 urally, and to have changed nothing in his manly 
 strength. 
 
 In her, again, the look came up against some- 
 thing impenetrable and hostile ; her immeasurable 
 pain, was thrown back upon a torn and suffering 
 point within her, and winged its way out again 
 towards hope. All her being trembled, like a string 
 under a violent grasp, between memory and the 
 reality. She could not reconcile them with one an- 
 other, or feel that the same self still existed in a 
 world so rapidly transformed. 
 
 The emotion which in her was but internal and 
 which sank down to rest in the figure lying prone 
 before her, broke out in gestures, words, and tears 
 in the men and women at his feet. Arms and hands 
 
256 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 were in violent motion, proposals and advice met 
 one another, and with the confused sounds the 
 murmur of the stream and, far away, the roar of 
 the water-fall were mingled in contrasting coolness. 
 
 Olof stood apart on a little foot-bridge lower 
 down, darkly outlined against the evening sky, 
 strange and unfamiliar to look at, as error and 
 crime themselves are. He stared down into the 
 water where a red streak of blood from the wound 
 spread into a bubble and floated on beneath his feet 
 into the darkness. His heat had left him : he seemed 
 cold and shook his shoulders now and then, turn- 
 ing away from the reflection of his pale face in 
 the stream but being drawn to it again. In all this 
 scene of terror and amazement, it was he who un- 
 derstood least and seemed most to be pitied. 
 
 Grels, whom some one had run to fetch, was 
 seen approaching in the distance at his usual steady 
 pace. 
 
 His son saw him coming and turned away as 
 shyly and awkwardly as a guilty child. He went 
 past us in a curve, following the course of the 
 stream, and could be seen from time to time be- 
 tween the stone-gray alder trunks. He was fol- 
 lowed by the two men from the inn, who had pre- 
 viously stood apart, not knowing what to do. Their 
 flight was absently watched but soon forgotten. 
 Hope was aroused in all when the "doctor" was 
 seen coming, and they had no thoughts for other 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 257 
 
 things. Even the girl's look brightened. Only the 
 injured man lay unmoved. 
 
 Grels stooped down and made his examination, 
 his strong and practised hands moving carefully 
 over the uncovered body, his eyes gazing calmly 
 and clearly into those of the wounded man but 
 avoiding those of his daughter. It seemed as 
 though he designedly kept all thought at a distance, 
 so that from his usual intuition he might gain full 
 certainty. He raised his hand In token of silence, 
 and listened and pondered. The murmur of the 
 water close by and in the distance rose up louder 
 amongst us. 
 
 It was not hard to anticipate his verdict, for 
 now it was a dying man's last rattle that broke out. 
 
 The girl stretched out her hand and seized her 
 father's. She had not understood or noticed what 
 had just taken place. An anguished cry of hope 
 seemed to lurk in her shining brown eyes, a spark 
 of light, a flood of glad tears longing to burst 
 forth. She forced Grels's eyes to meet hers and 
 confirm her hopes. His look was very deep and 
 still, wonderfully and awfully still. 
 
 "Father!" she cried, and at that moment she 
 understood. Her voice was hushed, and the gleam 
 faded from her eyes; she let his hand fall and 
 thought only of her dying lover. She cherished 
 every movement he could yet make, every sign he 
 might perhaps give that he knew her to be there. 
 
258 PER HALLSTR5M 
 
 She tried to keep pace with that panting struggle 
 of his that seemed eternal, and tenderly to enfold 
 with all her thoughts each breath, as it rose into 
 the void. 
 
 Grels stood up, and half turning from his own 
 trouble, signed to all that she whom it concerned 
 most nearly should be left in peace with her own. 
 In this there was at once something of reverence, 
 of submission to the law of life that casts upon 
 each individual his own incommunicable burden of 
 suffering, and also some contempt for words, 
 however friendly and familiar, before the crush- 
 ing weight of facts. 
 
 "How did it happen?" he asked, in order to 
 divert attention from the scene, though otherwise 
 it was a question of minor importance for the mo- 
 ment. "Who ....?" 
 
 It was clear that only half had been told him, 
 and that he suspected nothing. None could bring 
 himself to answer, but half unconsciously all turned 
 their gaze towards the spot where the doer of the 
 deed had last been visible. 
 
 Grels followed the direction of their eyes, and 
 he, too, looked up along the dark curve of the 
 stream. The obscurity took shape before his gaze, 
 as when one stares upon a maze of lines and 
 blotches, and imagination gives them forpi. A 
 group of three men could be discerned in the wood, 
 engaged in a kind of struggle. One of them pushed 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 259 
 
 away the others, who were trying to stop him and 
 still shouted eager counsel after him. Olof came 
 slowly down towards his father and drew near. 
 
 "They wanted me to fly," he said, "but what 
 good would that do ? I went away because of you, 
 but now I've come back again. What's the use of 
 running? It's all up with me anyhow. Or" — his 
 voice suddenly rose from its dull and lifeless tones 
 into a wild note of struggle that was painful to 
 hear, an impetuous cry against the impossible — 
 "or is there hope, is there still hope?" 
 
 The father's hand rose swiftly to his heart and 
 was held there. He was now quite pale, but forced 
 himself to composure. 
 
 "That's a deal to come at once," he faltered. 
 "You! Was it you?" 
 
 "How do I know? My hand anyhow" — and 
 he looked at it as at some awful unknown object, 
 and seemed sickened by the blood-spots on it and 
 the recollection of their lukewarm feeling. "Yes, 
 of course," he resumed firmly, and as if judging 
 himself irrevocably, "I did it. It was my evil fate. 
 Is there any hope?" 
 
 In these few seconds Grels had had time to take 
 in the new circumstances with all that they involved. 
 
 "There's always hope," said he, "but not as 
 you mean it, not here in this case." And for answer 
 he merely stepped aside and left the view open. 
 
 The dying man was collecting himself for a final 
 
36o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Struggle. His eyes shone as though they wished to 
 get back their ordinary human expression before 
 the eddying memories from the dark past; his 
 mouth was contorted with pain and opened wide. 
 It was as though all his being, that unknown thing 
 we call the soul, were striving to break its bonds 
 and sink into something still more unknown but 
 greater, something feared but at the same time 
 longed for. 
 
 Olof saw it, but seemed to have no further 
 thoughts or feelings. Dull, fruitless regret stood 
 darkly in his eyes. "If only I had not done it," he 
 seemed to torture himself by thinking, "if I if ! If 
 I had not spoilt my life !" 
 
 The sister's face repeated the movements of the 
 dear countenance in her lap, took leave of the same 
 memories, stiffened in the same cold. A little more 
 of the strain, and she would have sunk down be- 
 side the corpse in the same death. 
 
 Then his mouth opened still wider and some- 
 thing broke from it, invisible to all yet to all equally 
 real. Like one of the bubbles of the stream below, 
 it burst with a suggestion of sound and was gone. 
 And immediately — a silent wonder — the strug- 
 gling lines of the face were smoothed out to rest 
 as before, a rest much deeper than before, a peace 
 such as life never offers, not even in sleep. Before 
 this sublime and noble calm, and the coolness of 
 the air, the murmurs of the water, the sense of 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 261 
 
 what was fleeing and of what had been and was to 
 be, the tears welled up into the eyes of all, and 
 most abundantly and blessedly into those of the 
 mourner by his head, and no one saw anything 
 more. 
 
 Only Olof still stood erect, cut off from the feel- 
 ing shared by all, dark in his barren regrets, puz- 
 . zled and boundlessly poor. 
 
 Grels had been near his daughter when she was 
 left alone, as though to receive her again Into the 
 world of suffering humanity, to assure her of 
 support and comfort there. Before he led her away 
 with him beside the corpse, he went up to his son 
 and looked inquiringly upon him, waiting for his 
 final words. The unhappy youth had not a thought 
 to meet him with, hardly even a look. 
 
 "I shall stop here," was all he said, "till they 
 take me." 
 
 "That was what I expected of you." And to 
 that side of the matter he gave no further heed: 
 it was decided and done with. "If there's anything 
 more, send for me and I will come." 
 
 But there was nothing more, and Olof stayed 
 where he was, pondering and brooding. No one 
 kept guard over him; evening came, and he still 
 sat there — ^until they took him. 
 
 After that I saw no more for the time of Grels 
 and his children. I read of the trial in a newspaper. 
 Olof denied nothing, but could explain nothing. 
 
262 ' PER HALLSTR5M 
 
 either. He made an impression of firmness, manli- 
 ness, but of a certain rigidity also. The sentence 
 was as mild as the law allowed, but still hard 
 enough — several years' imprisonment. 
 
 And summer turned to winter, and summers and 
 winters followed each other again, and time 
 went on. 
 
 Once more I journeyed to those parts, and 
 found the same spring again and everything as 
 before. 
 
 I asked after Grels, whether he was still alive, 
 and how it was with him. 
 
 Yes, he was still alive, and just the same. Why 
 not? — The event seemed to be forgotten. 
 
 And the daughter, was she married? 
 
 No — and now they remembered — no, she was 
 not married: she had not forgotten him who was 
 dead. She was indeed quite changed. Not old yet, 
 at least in appearance, but very grave. Like her 
 father, she never laughed, and she resembled him 
 closely now in all her ways. When there were sick- 
 beds to visit or other things to do, they always 
 came together, and the names of both were now 
 mentioned with the respect that had always been 
 paid to his. 
 
 And the son, Olof, was he still in prison? Was 
 anything known of him ? 
 
 They reckoned up on their fingers. Yes, he must 
 be still in prison, but his term would soon expire. 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 263 
 
 It might do so any time now, perhaps. But besides 
 this they knew little about him. 
 
 Grels had once gone down to see him, but Olof 
 had only sent the message: "I am still the same, 
 I am not worthy," and Grels had quietly come 
 home again. "What man is," he had said to those 
 who had marveled at the answer, "comes from 
 within. If he has that within him which I am wait- 
 ing for, it will break out some time, and if he has it 
 not, there's still less use in talking. He shall be 
 welcome if and when the time has come." 
 
 They had asked if he had sent word to his son 
 that he forgave him, but his only answer was: 
 "What magic could that do? We do not live on 
 other's words. No, I sent no message, and- 1 have 
 nothing to forgive, either. Should I push in be- 
 tween my son and his fate ?" 
 
 They found these words incomprehensible 
 enough, but no one entered into discussion or judg- 
 ment of them, since it was Grels who spoke them, 
 and he was a man apart. 
 
 The vicar had also once been in the county town 
 and had talked with the prison chaplain there. 
 The latter had nothing good to report. The pris- 
 oner was unlike any whom he had had to do with, 
 blameless in his conduct, composed and calm, but 
 quite unapproachable so far. Religion took no hold 
 upon him, he had no desire for freedom and yet 
 did not fear it, either. His inner life seemed shut 
 
264 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 within a vault more firm than the prison roof, that 
 of hard, unyielding necessity. "It is all so sense- 
 less," he would often say. "If they had taken my 
 life in return I could have understood it, but to 
 keep me here is petty and stupid." The officials 
 feared that he might be one of those born criminals 
 whom an inexorable fate seems to drive farther 
 and farther along the path they have once trod- 
 den, and they were anxious when they thought of 
 him as free. 
 
 That was what I learnt, and I did not think I 
 should meet any of the three again. 
 
 But one day another well was to be dug, and 
 Grels came to the spot to practise his old art. I 
 went there to see him once more. 
 
 He sat on the ground, just as when I first made 
 his acquaintance, to rest and collect his strength, 
 and, as before, his hand absently caressed and 
 stroked the grass. He was greatly changed, though 
 those about him had not noticed the fact. He was 
 now an old man; the hair had receded from 
 his forehead and was very gray; his back was 
 slightly bent. His eyes, still as clear as a child's, 
 now showed a kind of inner darkness behind 
 every thought: the mystical had penetrated into 
 them. 
 
 His daughter sat near him among the flowers. 
 She no longer seemed to think of picking them, 
 but looked upon them as precious and well-loved 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 265 
 
 things. She took in the air with deep breaths, her 
 complexion uniformly flushed with the effort of 
 rowing, her hands resting in her lap like tired 
 servants who have done their duty and have now 
 no more to occupy them. Her look, too, was a 
 little tired. It traveled round in friendly yet sober 
 fashion, as though to say : It is all so wonderfully 
 glad and lovely here, there can be none who needs 
 me ! There was health in all her presence yet, but 
 none the less she contrasted with the shining, bud- 
 ding life about her. 
 
 It was an amazingly rich and smiling spot of 
 earth. 
 
 The slope was steeper here than elsewhere, and 
 flowed down to the river-bank with the contours 
 from the heights above clearly perceptible beneath 
 the fine grass. Against the wall of pine-woods stood 
 the birches with their shining white stems and 
 foliage like pure golden scent and vapor, yet so 
 thick that only above their tops could the dark 
 lines of the pine trees form a background. The 
 river lay open to the view, curled into ripples where 
 the fall began. It burned and flashed in a thousand 
 flames, while great shell-like patches sank into the 
 blue and reappeared. Farther off, before it curved, 
 it lay serene and wide as the heavens themselves, 
 reflecting fleecy clouds. And between points and 
 islets, stretch upon stretch of water showed itself. 
 
 The sunlight, streaming down upon the green 
 
266 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 slope, seemed to have been broken as by a prism, 
 and transformed direct into the colors of the flow- 
 ers. They stood thick in clumps and circles, cow- 
 slips and anemones, saxifrage and buttercups, 
 blooming in unwonted profusion. From the new- 
 built farm, all clean and shining with its shingle 
 roof, a light blue smoke arose. A whistle from a 
 locomotive pierced the air, and the train rolled 
 past at a distance, 'bearing its unknown freight, 
 and sharpening by the nqise it made the effect of 
 quiet and seclusion. 
 
 When he had rested his tired arms, Grels rose 
 and with practised eye looked long and search- 
 ingly around. 
 
 He seemed to expect quite a particular pleasure 
 in this case from the finding of life-giving streams, 
 and his bent head could be imagined to be listening 
 already to their gentle bubbling and murmuring 
 in the depths. He walked away and cut a hazel- 
 twig, slowly, and after careful choice. 
 
 The eyes of the onlookers followed him, and 
 no one but myself paid any heed to two men who 
 were approaching and had stopped by the farm. 
 There was something in their clothes and bearing 
 that was foreign to the district, and I therefore 
 watched them with attention. 
 
 At once I recognized that it was Olof and prob- 
 ably an attendant from the prison. They must have 
 come direct from there. On account of their mis- 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 267 
 
 givings, the authorities had not wished to leave the 
 prisoner alone until they got him home. 
 
 Even at a distance his face could be seen to be 
 pale from his confinement, and perhaps also from 
 emotion. I gave an involuntary shiver. To think 
 that he should come just now, in the midst of all 
 this, in the spring-time ! 
 
 For him it must have been a strangely moving 
 spectacle. Those last days in prison, with the fu- 
 ture anxiety drawing nearer and nearer, the ques- 
 tion: What have you to do with life out there, 
 what road will you take In It to hide yourself ? And 
 then the change of seasons taking place, more rap- 
 idly for him than for others, guessed at in a 
 glimpse over a wall, the dance of motes In the sun- 
 light streaming through a grating, beyond his 
 reach like all else that he had lost, forfeited with 
 all the other joys of life. The day of release came, 
 and all this was over. It was a world ready-made 
 that he looked out upon, a world with no place for 
 him, lovely but strange. 
 
 After that the journey north through woods 
 that resembled his own, over rivers with their fa- 
 miliar and stimulating voice. Then, suddenly, 
 spring again, hope, joy as an aching possibility once 
 more. But, anon, memory still heavier than before, 
 that which was forfeited still more Irrevocably lost. 
 
 He turned dizzy, and half to gain support, half 
 also out of a desire to remain unseen, he pressed 
 
268 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 himself against the corner of the house and stood 
 there watching, silent and still. 
 
 Grels had his dowsing-rod ready, and walked 
 in a stooping position over the grass. The rod 
 began almost immediately to tremble in his hand, 
 for there must have been water all around, but he 
 searched for the best vein and went up and down 
 the slope, to and fro, with his eyes on the ground 
 and the light playing about his bent and aging 
 figure. 
 
 I could imagine how the eyes of the young man 
 over there must be dilating at the sight, how his 
 memory would go far back, and how, as in child- 
 hood, a mysterious reverence would fill him at the 
 sight that met his eyes. I could see him peering at 
 the signs of old age and sorrow, and could fancy 
 that all must seem strange to him as a dream, 
 whose meaning we search for even in sleep. 
 
 Grels had found the vein, had followed it up, 
 stopped where the rod pointed down as though 
 never to be removed from the place, pushed it 
 firmly into the ground, and raised his eyes. 
 
 The first sight that met them was his son's white 
 face right opposite. All the others saw it at the 
 same moment. 
 
 Grels stood still and let his hands drop. They 
 trembled as the rod had lately done, then fumbled 
 about in a curious manner, were checked, fell down, 
 and stopped half-way. Suddenly they were pulled 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 269 
 
 up as by some alien power, and with clear eyes and 
 outstretched arms he stood waiting. 
 
 There came the prodigal, lurching rapidly over 
 the grass and almost falling. He reached his 
 father, and with violent sobs buried himself in his 
 bosom. They both stood trembling. 
 
 I turned towards the sister. She had grown white 
 and was looking at them. No doubt she had "for- 
 given" him, as the phrase goes, but now, when she 
 saw the slayer of her lover close at hand, she felt 
 how hard it was to mean that word sincerely, and 
 the chilling memory rose up before her. The sound 
 of the waterfall was in her ears now as then, and 
 she seemed drawn dizzily along by it towards all 
 the grief and horror that the years had dulled but 
 could not kill. 
 
 Gently but firmly Grels freed himself from his 
 son's convulsive grasp, held him at arm's length, 
 and looked into his pale shining face and feverish 
 eyes. Olof made no movement to hide his head. 
 As it seemed without a thought of himself, he let 
 his soul be searched by that strange, clear, mys- 
 teriously omniscient look. Neither qf them cared 
 that all were looking at them, however much it 
 was otherwise against their natures to reveal their 
 inward feelings. Quite alone they stood there, ex- 
 isting only for each other, two of one stock, meet- 
 ing soul to soul. 
 
 "Father, Father," the words came at last, stam- 
 
270 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 mering and childishly simple in the moved and 
 deep manly tones, "I love you!" The bareness of 
 the phrase made its meaning richer, and calm and 
 firm came Grels's answer: " 'Tis a gdod and bless- 
 ed sight, my son. I knew that I should see it one 
 day. And so of all the rest there need be no more 
 words between us." 
 
 And he gripped his son's hands as if Ih greeting 
 between equals, in token of redress and dismissal 
 from all the past. 
 
 Retaining one hand, he drew him towards his 
 sister. "Here," said he, "you have something to 
 try to win back. Me you have always had." And 
 he left them together. It might be for fear of dis- 
 turbing them, out of a deep and delicate feeling 
 that even he could only interfere as a stranger in 
 their reconciliation. Or perhaps he needed action 
 if he himself was to regain the calm that so far he 
 had only forced himself outwardly to show. How- 
 ever it was, he seized his spade with hands that 
 trembled slightly, and went back to work at the 
 spot where the well was to be. 
 
 The man from the prison now came up to state 
 his errand. With the commission of trust he had, 
 and his irreproachable bearing as the representa- 
 tive of law and order, though not in uniform, he 
 could not but feel himself to be a person of import- 
 ance in this circle, and the consciousness appeared 
 in all his square and rigid figure. He began by a 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 271 
 
 long speech in the style of an usher of court (not 
 much dryer, incidentally, than the style of his su- 
 periors) of how he presumed that this was his 
 charge's father etc., and since at the prison they 
 had had certain misgivings etc., and were fully con- 
 vinced of the importance of a firm and consistent 
 future upbringing for the prisoner on the grounds 
 laid down by the authorities — with much more of 
 the like nature — therefore .... But he never 
 brought his period to a close. 
 
 Grels nodded at him with a friendly smile, and 
 with the mere look broke off his stream of words. 
 Without further explanation he set his crowbar 
 into the ground, and while the man, silenced by 
 resentment and doubt, drew back a step or two, 
 he began his work. 
 
 It proceeded with swift, hopeful, swinging 
 movements, the iron clanged against the stones, 
 and as the sunlight wove its glory about him and 
 all his being, he seemed younger and stronger than 
 before. 
 
 The brother and sister were left standing silent, 
 staring into each other's white and altered faces. 
 They looked, not as one does at something real, 
 but as upon an apparition, such as excited minds 
 may see when a sudden impression of light para- 
 lyzes the outward power of perception. Their feel- 
 ings were too deep for words, their tongues were 
 tied, the present had no meaning for them, the 
 
272 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 memories of the past alone took life again in bod- 
 ily shape. 
 
 There were long years of mourning and bitter- 
 ness for her, of dark despair for him, hopelessness 
 in the patient fulfilment of the daily tasks, and in 
 the emptiness of prison. The dead man was be- 
 tween their feet, and the deed that had broken 
 both their lives rose up between them with para- 
 lyzing chill in the murmur of the waterfall. 
 
 Shyly and doubtfully the brother raised his 
 hand, the sister saw the movement, met it with her 
 look, and trembled. For a moment they both stared 
 at it, as if they saw the spots of blood there still. 
 They were as far as ever from each other, and had 
 they spoken, the words would have sealed a life- 
 long parting. 
 
 But they were silent, the hand sank back as tim- 
 idly as it had risen, and their eyes met once more. 
 They lived back into their memories again. 
 
 For her, it was her days of dreaming over the 
 certain happiness awaiting her, for him his early 
 hopes and violent longings after action, power, 
 and life. Their lips twitched mournfully. They 
 went still farther back. They saw each other as 
 children in friendship and in play, in feelings 
 whose warmth was unsuspected, they peered into 
 each other's bloodless faces for any signs of the 
 vanished past, just as in the ashes of a sheet of 
 paper we can trace the shadowy writing. 
 
THE WATER-FINDER 273 
 
 Then there slowly passed over both a trans- 
 formation, coming from within with a gentle light 
 that spread radiant into the look and even pene- 
 trated to the pallid cheeks. It was no longer his 
 own self that each saw, the other was no more a 
 stranger there. The bridge was stretched from 
 soul to soul, the time for the miracle had come. 
 Brother and sister, merged like dewdrop with dew- 
 drop in the memory of their common happiness, 
 understood each other and forgot themselves, 
 melted in the same compassion for each other's 
 ravaged life. No longer was it one that had of- 
 fended and one that had been wronged, it was the 
 same sorrow for both, and the same hope rising 
 out of it. Neither of them knew which made the 
 first movement, whose tears it was that drew the 
 other's with them; breast to breast they rocked 
 each other with their tears and reconciliation. And 
 since it came without a word, their feeling had 
 nothing of the limitation of speech. From the deep- 
 est depths it rose, instinctively and without end. 
 
 When they both looked up, the father's tool 
 was clanging no less merrily. Hand in hand like 
 children they went up to him. He looked at them 
 and nodded, as though the sight were just what he 
 had expected, signed to them to wait a moment, 
 then stooped down, and pried at the ground. A 
 large stone rolled down the slope before them, and 
 a cheerful splashing sound was heard. 
 
274 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 Grels threw down his tools and clasped his chil- 
 dren to him, standing erect and smiling, with clear 
 eyes and radiant face. At their feet, a bubbling jet 
 rose glittering In the sunshine, the water sprang 
 up a yard from the ground under the subterranean 
 pressure, splashed their clothes, and fell down to 
 run on in a stream through flowers and grass. Like 
 a song the jet burst forth, spontaneous and fresh, 
 and the first stream, still a little clouded with clay 
 and sand, now grew clear and sparkling, the love- 
 liest thing on all this lovely earth. 
 
 They stood and looked at it hand In hand, with 
 silent wonder. Lowering their eyes in the sunlight, 
 they gazed dreamily upon the blue surface of the 
 river, where the way led to their home and future 
 life. 
 
 And there I left them. 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 
 
 [ TRADCARDSMASTARFRUN] 
 
 FROM NYA NOVELLER 
 
 1921 
 
s 
 
 TAfi" Gardener s Wife 
 
 HE HAD been married several years, and 
 this Easter she was on her first visit to her par- 
 ents, poor working-people in a country town. 
 
 She had long looked forward to showing them 
 her boy, who was tall and strong for his age and 
 really not at all as the pink-toned photograph 
 made him out to be. It had a splendid background 
 of palms and stone parapet, but the child's face 
 had become sulky in vain expectation of the tradi- 
 tional bird, and his clothes fitted him badly. The 
 journey would also be a much needed rest and 
 relaxation for herself. She would be able to sleep 
 till late in the morning, to chat over a cup of coffee 
 all day long, and carefully repeat all the conversa- 
 tions that she herself could remember or that 
 others had engaged in. She would make the very 
 most of everything she had or hoped to have, and 
 tell the price of all the clothes she had brought 
 with her. All this amid smiles of tired happiness, 
 and sighs over vanished youth and folly such as 
 became a little married woman. 
 
 The husband had to remain at his post at the 
 Hall, for extensive rose-culture was carried on 
 there, and just at this season the budding stems in 
 the rose-houses required careful attention. They 
 
 277 
 
278 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 promised particularly well this spring, and the 
 gardener and his wife built not a little upon 
 their percentage of the sale. It was in anticipa- 
 tion of this windfall that her journey could be 
 thought of. 
 
 Yet she got very little pleasure from it. The 
 child took cold on the railway journey, was ill 
 when they arrived, and caused only trouble, which 
 made the grandparents grumble and distressed the 
 mother. Then danger and panic followed. The 
 boy grew worse and worse for a few days, and 
 died when he could live no longer. 
 
 The mother was distracted, but as generally 
 happens with the poor, it was not the loss itself 
 that she was free to mourn. Circumstances took 
 care that there should not be wanting those anxie- 
 ties for trifles which at once tear open and conceal 
 the wound. The luxury of a complete and undis- 
 turbed sorrow may be as unattainable as extrava- 
 gances much more pleasant. The financial ques- 
 ■ tion, as always, obtruded itself. 
 
 The boy's illness had cost something, and her 
 purse had been carefully adjusted to previous con- 
 ditlorts. A living child of tender years may travel 
 free upon the railway, but a dead one has lost this 
 right, along with many others more agreeable. 
 He has suddenly become a very serious and im- 
 portant personage, whose dignity necessitates a 
 number of arrangements and ceremonies. To buy 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 279 
 
 a coffin now could not be thought of, and, more- 
 over, the mother would have found it Infinitely 
 hard to leave her dead child alone In the luggage- 
 van, in return for a receipt. When It was still so 
 cold, too ! Besides, she had no money to pay the 
 carriage: she had only her return ticket. To go 
 home alone on this, after having had the child 
 burled in the town, was still more dreadful to think 
 of. And besides, that plan, too, was impracticable 
 on account of the expense. The only thing left to 
 do was to go back as she had come, with the dead 
 body on her knee, pretending that it was a living 
 child. It was a dangerous undertaking, a swindle 
 with Heaven knew what penalties attached to it. 
 Yet it must be carried out, and that quickly, as 
 soon as she had got the death certificate, if it was 
 to be possible at all. That was quite enough to 
 think over and torment herself about all that even- 
 ing and night, and in her terror she had neither 
 strength nor opportunity to mourn for her child 
 as she would have wished. It almost seemed to her 
 that it would not have been so bad at all if he had 
 only died at home. 
 
 Next morning she was at the train very early. 
 She wished first of all to find a place in the corner 
 of a ladles' compartment, as mercifully dark as 
 could be found. She was most afraid of the ticket 
 collector, the natural foe to an enterprise such as 
 hers. He was terrifying enough in any case, with 
 
28o PER HALLSTROM 
 
 the shining buttons even on the back of his uniform, 
 and a many-eyed vigilance, an inflexible sense of 
 justice, that were in some way connected with them. 
 Much depended, too, upon her traveling compan- 
 ions, whether they were quiet people who would 
 let her keep her lips closed, or meddlesome fami- 
 lies with children. The last possibility froze her 
 blood. The thought of the little ones climbing 
 about, or only sitting staring with eyes that could 
 open and shut, was one that was not to be borne. 
 
 "Why did I have him?" she thought. "What 
 does it all mean? There's no meaning in it, no 
 meaning at all." That was the worst part of her 
 grief. 
 
 However, Fortune seemed willing to favor her, 
 for only two persons came into her compartment. 
 One was an elderly woman with purple in her hat, 
 and an abrupt, reserved air, who was entirely taken 
 up with looking after two parcels and an umbrella. 
 The other was a younger woman, dressed in rusty 
 black, with the rings looking very large on her thin 
 hand. She stared out of the window most of the 
 time, and dared not look at any one. 
 
 The train rattled out of the station, swaying to 
 and fro as it caught the points. The noise was 
 dreadful, and the increasing light distressed her. 
 But to have left this place of misery was at least 
 something gained. Part of her terror, it seemed, 
 might be left behind there. There was hope in the 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 281 
 
 fact that the carriage containing her could really 
 have begun to move. 
 
 All was silent till the collector came along and 
 punched the tickets with his tightly nipping instru- 
 ment. 
 
 "How old?" he asked, indicating the bundle on 
 her knee. 
 
 "Two years, going three." 
 
 "That's what they all say." He measured them 
 both with a look of experienced mistrust. "Tall 
 for that age! When was his birthday?" 
 
 Had she faltered at all in her answer, he would 
 have suspected something. The gardener's wife 
 knew that, and heroically restrained the trembling 
 in her voice. She thought she ought to smile, and 
 managed to do so, in spite of the memories that the 
 question aroused. 
 
 "Twenty-third of June, Midsummer Eve." 
 
 "Capital ! Well, you know best, I suppose, since 
 it's so easy to remember," said he, with elegant 
 facetiousness. "Then he must have his bucket and 
 spade, don't forget! It must be a boy, at least?" 
 He peered again, but could not catch a glimpse of 
 the child's face. "Very tall, anyhow!" He could 
 not get away from that. 
 
 "Yes, such a big, fine boy! But he only looks 
 so tall because he's lying down. When he stands 
 up, he's only so high." 
 
 She tried to measure, but could not recollect. 
 
282 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 and stopped short with a trembling of the 
 hand. "I daren't wake him," she added anx- 
 iously; "he's a little poorly, and sleep is so good 
 for him." 
 
 The old woman on the same seat joined in with 
 evident concern: 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, what are you doing? Let's 
 have no children crying ! In a train they never fin- 
 ish. As bad as canaries when your sewing-machine's 
 working; the more noise there is, the louder they 
 sing." 
 
 The mother did not like this way of speaking 
 of her boy, but was glad enough of the help. The 
 official was scared at the mere thought. 
 
 "All right, then," he grumbled, and disappeared. 
 The woman opposite turned her pale face with 
 interest towards the interior of the compartment. 
 
 The gardener's wife breathed once more, and 
 was almost happy since the first and worst ordeal 
 was over. The woman in black she was not afraid 
 of, but the older woman was certainly dangerous, 
 so that it was still necessary to be very cautious. 
 It had hurt her to talk as she had done, just as 
 if her little one were alive, but still it had been 
 wonderfully easy. "I'll pretend to myself, too, that 
 it is so," she thought; "that's the only way." She 
 was pleased that now she was practically ac- 
 quainted with her fellow-passengers. 
 
 "My boy doesn't cry," she said. "He's always 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 283 
 
 good, though he's not quite well just now. Nothing 
 serious," she added quickly, so as not to arouse 
 too lively an interest and also to delude herself. 
 She pressed the terribly rigid little body to her, 
 so that everything looked well and safe. — "Noth- 
 ing serious at all, now." 
 
 "He lies uncommonly still," answered the old 
 lady, without reflecting any further about them. 
 
 "He always does that when he knows he's with 
 me. Else It may happen .... But now he's so 
 safe that he doesn't even turn round." 
 
 "Then he must be quite well again." 
 
 "Oh, yes !" Here she saw that she ought to 
 smile once more. "There's nothing much the mat- 
 ter with him now. I was a bit anxious, because we 
 were away from home, but now . . . ." 
 
 She herself almost believed what she said. Just 
 about as much as she did any other time when she 
 had said to herself, "I am happy," and had felt 
 at the same moment that there was something dan- 
 gerous in those words. One should never try to 
 look behind them, but should think: "It must be 
 so, since it looks so now." 
 
 The rattling speed of the train came greatly to 
 her assistance. The shadows of the telegraph-posts 
 glided constantly by the window, and trees and 
 other objects moved their positions like clouds. It 
 was as though one could not have taken hold of 
 anything, even had one wished, in this constant 
 
284 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 hurrying on without stopping : everything seemed 
 to be in a state of flux. On the fields the snow lay 
 hard and gray; behind, the woods shot past with 
 the blue mist of a thaw gleaming between the tree- 
 trunks, and here and there a ray of sunshine. It 
 was like a screen that seemed to represent some- 
 thing but was nothing real. Everything became 
 what one would have it be, and the traveler merely 
 flew onwards without really knowing how. The 
 whole thing was a kind of dizzy game. 
 
 "Yes, I am so happy now," she resumed, in 
 order to be really sure of her ground, and that no 
 silence might set in. For in this case one could not 
 be certain what a silence might bring forth. 
 
 The old woman paid no heed to the informa- 
 tion, but got up and counted her two parcels, so as 
 to assure herself that no thief had slipped in be- 
 hind the ticket-collector's back. But the other pas- 
 senger looked at the group opposite her with a 
 thin and melancholy smile. 
 
 "Children are too delightful," she said, with one 
 of those suppressed and slightly sluggish voices 
 that at once convey an impression of very few 
 ideas and very little joy in life. But the gardener's 
 wife did not know what to make of her look and 
 tone, and suspected them of being slyly penetrat- 
 ing. That she could not bear, just when she had 
 found the right way of jesting bravely and bearing 
 up. People ought to help her instead and believe 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 285 
 
 her at once, so that she might find It easier to 
 believe herself. 
 
 "Yes, that's so," she answered in a superior 
 tone, and raised her chin to show how confident 
 she was. 
 
 "I have never had any of my own." 
 
 Now there could be no doubt as to her innocence, 
 for the words sounded so heavy and dejected that 
 it was evident that she was thinking only of herself. 
 The gardener's wife felt her own Importance and 
 enjoyed it, while at the same time she clung more 
 firmly to the fiction she had invented. 
 
 "That's a pity," she said, but there was no real 
 sympathy in her tone, for she had no strength to 
 spare just then. "So you've never known what it 
 is to be a mother." 
 
 The remark was obvious, but that did not occur 
 to either of them. On the contrary, both pon- 
 dered long upon the thought, which they found 
 new and wonderful enough. The gardener's wife 
 lifted her chin a little higher, and was not afraid, 
 although the sunshine suddenly broke In upon 
 her. 
 
 "N-no, perhaps not," the other agreed humbly, 
 and blew her nose, "perhaps not, though of course 
 one can imagine. Especially when one has wanted 
 them badly." 
 
 And then out came her secret, clumsily and child- 
 ishly. 
 
286 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "I have done so for many years now, and I have 
 been a vidow since last summer." 
 
 "That's very sad. I must condole with you," 
 said the gardener's wife, and blushed as she said 
 it, for the phrase was hardly polite and suitable so 
 long afterwards. But the other was obviously no 
 judge of such matters. 
 
 "Thank you," said she, and then passed on to 
 that which filled her thoughts. "It's my work that 
 makes me do it." 
 
 "Oh?" — What had that to do with it, and why 
 were people so intrusive? 
 
 "I sew for a baby-linen firm. They don't pay 
 well, and you have to be quick. But it's pleasant 
 work." 
 
 The gardener's wife became interested. She had 
 often admired these little garments and wanted 
 them for her boy. She should like to know if they 
 were hard to make, and what they might cost. 
 
 "When I have been sewing at cloaks and hoods, 
 those cloaks of white cashmere with swan's-down, 
 I have thought how nice it would be to make one 
 for my own little girl." 
 
 "A boy is best," said the gardener's wife, and 
 raised hers a little on her benumbed arm. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps, but they don't have hoods with 
 that soft stuff in them. It was always a girl I 
 thought of. And I do still," she added, with a smile 
 still more helpless than before. "When the hood's 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 287 
 
 freshly finished and I have tied the ribbons on to 
 try them, then especially . . . ." 
 
 At these words the gardener's wife saw before 
 her something which she had often noticed without 
 thinking of any comparison with children. She saw 
 roses that had been wrapped round with cotton 
 so that they should not open too fast. All the great 
 rose-house at home stood before her as the March 
 sunshine streamed In, more light and clear than 
 anything else In the snow-covered landscape with 
 Its shadows of blue. In the light shone delicate 
 green leaves and slender stems, and the buds grew 
 so thickly that they looked unreal. There some- 
 times one became gravely glad at heart. "I will 
 hold fast to that," she thought; "It is there I will 
 pretend to be." In her overwrought state she was 
 easily able to delude herself, especially if she half- 
 closed her eyes, so that the sunshine glittered on 
 the lashes. It was only as If In the distance, and 
 with a constant wondering what It was, that she 
 heard the train rushing on Its way. 
 
 "I have even sewn a hood," continued her com- 
 panion shyly and artlessly, "out of bits that were 
 left over once. When I take It up, I think that I 
 have had a child that has gone, and that by this 
 time It would have been something." 
 
 The gardener's wife started, ope-ned her eyes, 
 and fastened upon her a gaze so dark that she 
 grew quite frightened. 
 
288 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 "Don't talk like that!" she said. 
 
 The seamstress was at once convinced that she 
 had been foolish, and regretted her confessions. "I 
 fancy her only quite little," she made haste to 
 add, for fear of ending too abruptly, "never that 
 she will grow up." 
 
 The mother answered nothing, and by a great 
 effort managed to think nothing, either. She 
 blinked and felt the sunshine upon her face, and 
 had a moment's peace again. The old woman brok^ 
 in with a voice so decided and loud that she was 
 afraid the child would be wakened. 
 
 "Better not to think any farther," she said. 
 
 "Why not?" asked the seamstress, confidingly. 
 
 "Hm ! Any one can see you've never had any ! 
 When they're small, you get a little pleasure out 
 of 'em for your trouble, or at least you think you 
 do. But once they can understand, the trouble be- 
 gins, and when they grow up, there it is ready for 
 you." And she continued in obvious personal bit- 
 terness, though she avoided giving examples, to 
 recite a whole jeremiad of the woes and sufferings 
 that await a mother — the bad companions that 
 come along in their time, the untruthfulness so 
 easily learned, the lightness of adult age, crime 
 at the worst, ingratitude all the while. 
 
 The seamstress gazed at her in terror, crushed 
 by her wisdom and experience, yet eager to defend 
 one who could not defend herself. 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 289 
 
 "My little girl would never have been like that," 
 she faltered. "She would have been called Ame- 
 lia," — at which she felt herself pitiably silly and 
 stopped short. 
 
 The old lady laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 "Oh, I've nothing against her, of course. I'm 
 only speaking of children In general. And, any- 
 how, girls aren't the worst. They've got to learn 
 what It means to have them, too, and If they come 
 back badly knocked about, still they generally 
 do come back in the end. But the boys, those 
 that you were weakest for, they know how to pay 
 you back." 
 
 And now her words became harsher than before. 
 It was plain that she had had recent experience of 
 trouble on account of some son, and it may have 
 been from a prison cell she was returning. She was 
 a shrewd old woman, who seemed to have many 
 ideas in her head, and she tried to get to the bot- 
 tom of that which lay before her. If one could 
 only keep them, that was her complaint: if only 
 they didn't despise one, so that everything one 
 could teach them was thrown away on them. But 
 sooner than anything they learn that a mother 
 is to be looked down on, because she is only a 
 woman, while they are men. The idlest grin of any 
 of their own sex counts for more than her best 
 words. It isn't the father's custom to say much, 
 and he doesn't like being worried. And so things 
 
290 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 have to go as they may, well or 111, always away 
 from her as soon as others begin to take hold. 
 
 "Then you have to get your bits of things to- 
 gether and look after them for yourself as well 
 as you can," she concluded; "they'll have 'em after 
 you, and that's all there is to it." 
 
 She counted her parcels again like an experi- 
 enced and weary soul, who had no illusions left, 
 and was tolerably well content with her loneliness. 
 
 The gardener's wife could not bear her, and 
 would not sit in silence and agree with her. She 
 seemed to separate her from the child with her 
 cold words. That must not be, and least of all now. 
 Every time her thoughts were on the way to fol- 
 low her, the air grew empty and awful, and some- 
 thing infinitely sorrowful, far worse than anything 
 the old woman talked of, seemed ready to fall 
 upon her. She refused to know what it was. She 
 closed her eyes, as long as the words continued, 
 and found her wondrous peace again in the sun- 
 shine and the clear vision of the roses and the 
 green. When they ceased, she began to talk to the 
 seamstress, for with the other she would have 
 nothing to do. She found the words so quickly 
 that she amazed her listener, who had never before 
 seen such burning eyes or such a fevered flush 
 coming and going on the cheeks. 
 
 "My boy isn't like that," said she; "he's never 
 given me an uneasy moment, and he never will. 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 291 
 
 He's such a darling! It's a pity he's asleep, so 
 that I can't show him. So round he Is, and red, and 
 healthy : you never saw such a boy. And he'll never 
 tell me a lie. You can see that In his eyes, and be- 
 sides, he's too fond of me. He's so strong, he can 
 carry the little watering-can, and he follows close 
 behind me like a little dog, when I go and look 
 after the roses. Sometimes he sits and goes to sleep 
 quite quietly till they've been attended to and his 
 turn comes. Then the sun shines in on his hair: in 
 the evening It can get right In. And then I haven't 
 got the heart to wake him !" 
 
 The seamstress sat filled with desire to see such 
 a wonderful child, and from her joyless existence 
 she felt a kind of envy rise up against wealth so 
 vast. But stronger still shone admiration in her 
 pinched features. Both envy and admiration 
 pleased the mother, and she became quite con- 
 fident. Even the old lady turned a friendly look 
 upon her, though of this she took no notice. She 
 talked on, of all she could remember, from the 
 first little feeble smile at something shining by the 
 bedside, the first word, and then of all the further 
 progress week by week. These things seemed still 
 more wonderful and promising now than when 
 they had happened. Every memory had the sun- 
 shine over it, and it was as if no other light had 
 ever been. Her past and present happiness amazed 
 herself. The old lady yawned at these prolix com- 
 
292 PER HALLSTROM 
 
 monplaces, but the seamstress could never have 
 enough of them. Her innocent questions constantly 
 gave rise to something new, and she, too, was 
 equally amazed, so that the mother thought that 
 she had never met such agreeable company. She 
 was only troubled by her look, which would not 
 always meet her own direct, but peered from time 
 to time at the little creature on her knee. 
 
 "I thought he moved then," she said more than 
 once; "now you'll see that he'll wake up." 
 
 But the mother's grip only tightened and she 
 made haste to answer: "No, he needs sleep so 
 badly." Evpry time, her growing restlessness made 
 her more eager to continue, although she felt fa- 
 tigue begin to come upon her like a dull and distant 
 headache. 
 
 "Let it come," she thought, in a layer of her 
 brain behind that now so busily engaged in finding 
 words. "I'm so happy now, and happiness is tiring, 
 but it's easy to sleep afterwards." 
 
 The speed of the train also proved a help to 
 her. It obeyed her will as it rushed on among 
 shadows which never grew real; it fled with her 
 from something, what she did not know, but some- 
 thing that was powerless to hold her. Sometimes 
 the whistle shrieked wildly and strangely, almost 
 as though the whole train were about to hurl itself 
 down a precipice and be smashed to atoms. And 
 so it might, for aught she cared, for then she could 
 
THE GARDENER'S WIFE 293 
 
 sleep best of all. And every time she held her little 
 burden the tighter, overjoyed to be able to press 
 it to her bosom, should the need arise. Meanwhile 
 she never ceased to talk, now of the past, now of 
 the certain future. 
 
 She did not recognize herself, she could not tell 
 where she found so many words, she who was so 
 shy and awkward and had few ideas of any kind. 
 Her fellow-travelers, too, began to find it strange 
 to listen to her. They sat staring more and more, 
 and it was not impossible that they thought her 
 brain affected. They knew not that she was living 
 in an atmosphere of poetry, which begins when 
 that of reality is denied. They did not see that it 
 was joy she carried in her arms, joy secure from 
 life's changes, radiant and fair, as long as it was 
 given her to keep it. And the train rushe.d on, with 
 mother and child, and all that is contained between 
 the words. 
 
 THE END 
 
LIST OF PER HALLSTROM'S PRINCIPAL 
 WRITINGS 
 
 Poems: Lyrik och fantasier, 1891; Skogslandet, 
 1904. 
 
 Plays: Grefven af Antwerpen, iSgg; Bianca Ca- 
 pello, 1900; En veneziansk komedi, 1901 ; Ero- 
 tikon, 1908; Tvd legenddramer, 1908; Tva 
 sagodramer, 19 10; Karl den elfte, 1918 ; Gustaf 
 den tredje, 191 8; Nessusdrdkten, 19 19. 
 
 Short Stories : (collections) Filsna fdglar, 1894; 
 Purpur, 1895; Briljantsmycket, 1896; Rese- 
 boken, 1898; Thanatos, 1900; Berdttelser, 
 1902; De fyra elementerna, 1906; Nya novel- 
 ler, 19 1 2. 
 
 Longer Tales and Novels : En gammal histo- 
 ria, iSg^;Vdren, i8g8 -jDodafallet, igo2;Gus- 
 taf Sparfverts roman, 1903; En skdlmroman, 
 1906. 
 
 Essays, etc.: Italienska bref, 1901; Skepnader 
 och tankar, 19 10; C. V. A. Strandberg, 1912; 
 Levande dikt, 1914; Konst och liv, 1919. 
 
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