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INVISIBLE LINKS


FROM THE SWEDISH OF SELMA LAGERLOeF

TRANSLATED BY PAULINE BANCROFT FLACH



CONTENTS

THE SPIRIT OF FASTING AND PETTER NORD
THE LEGEND OF THE BIRD'S NEST
THE KING'S GRAVE
THE OUTLAWS
THE LEGEND OF REOR
VALDEMAR ATTERDAG
MAMSELL FREDRIKA
THE ROMANCE OF A FISHERMAN'S WIFE
MOTHER'S PORTRAIT
A FALLEN KING
A CHRISTMAS GUEST
UNCLE REUBEN
DOWNIE
AMONG THE CLIMBING ROSES



THE SPIRIT OF FASTING AND PETTER NORD

I

I can see before me the little town, friendly as a home. It is so
small that I know its every hole and corner, am friends with all
the children and know the name of every one of its dogs. Who ever
walked up the street knew to which window he must raise his eyes to
see a lovely face behind the panes, and who ever strolled through
the town park knew well whither he should turn his steps to meet
the one he wished to meet.

One was as proud of the beautiful roses in the garden of a
neighbor, as if they had grown in one's own. If anything mean or
vulgar was done, it was as great a shame as if it had happened in
one's own family; but at the smallest adventure, at a fire or a
fight in the market-place, one swelled with pride and said: "Only
see what a community! Do such things ever happen anywhere else?
What a wonderful town!"

In my beloved town nothing ever changes. If I ever come there
again, I shall find the same houses and shops that I knew of old;
the same holes in the pavements will cause my downfall; the same
stiff hedges of lindens, the same clipped lilac bushes will
captivate my fascinated gaze. Again shall I see the old Mayor who
rules the whole town walking down the street with elephantine
tread. What a feeling of security there is in knowing that you are
walking there! And deaf old Halfvorson will still be digging in his
garden, while his eyes, clear as water, stare and wander as if they
would say: "We have investigated everything, everything; now,
earth, we will bore down to your very centre."

But one who will not still be there is little, round Petter Nord:
the little fellow from Vaermland, you know, who was in Halfvorson's
shop; he who amused the customers with his small mechanical
inventions and his white mice. There is a long story about him.
There are stories to be told about everything and everybody in the
town. Nowhere else do such wonderful things happen.

He was a peasant boy, little Petter Nord. He was short and round;
he was brown-eyed and smiling. His hair was paler than birch leaves
in the autumn; his cheeks were red and downy. And he was from
Vaermland. No one, seeing him, could imagine that he was from any
other place. His native land had equipped him with its excellent
qualities. He was quick at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready
with his tongue, clear in his thoughts. And, moreover, full of fun,
good-natured and brave, kind and quarrelsome, inquisitive and a
chatterbox. A madcap, he never could show more respect to a
burgomaster than to a beggar! But he had a heart; he fell in love
every other day, and confided in the whole town.

This child of rich gifts attended to the work in the shop in rather
an extraordinary manner. The customers were waited on while he fed
the white mice. Money was changed and counted while he put wheels
on his little automatic wagons. And while he told the customers of
his very last love-affair, he kept his eye on the quart measure,
into which the brown molasses was slowly curling. It delighted his
admiring listeners to see him suddenly leap over the counter and
rush out into the street to have a brush with a passing street-boy;
also to see him calmly return to tie the string on a package or to
finish measuring a piece of cloth.

Was it not quite natural that he should be the favorite of the
whole town? We all felt obliged to trade with Halfvorson, after
Petter Nord came there. Even the old Mayor himself was proud when
Petter Nord took him apart into a dark corner and showed him the
cages of the white mice. It was nervous work to show the mice, for
Halfvorson had forbidden him to have them in the shop.

But then in the brightening February there came a few days of warm,
misty weather. Petter Nord became suddenly serious and silent. He
let the white mice nibble the steel bars of their cages without
feeding them. He attended to his duties in the most irreproachable
way. He fought with no more street boys. Could Petter Nord not bear
the change in the weather?

Oh no, the matter was that he had found a fifty-crown note on one
of the shelves. He believed that it had got caught in a piece of
cloth, and without any one's seeing him he had pushed it under a
roll of striped cotton which was out of fashion and was never taken
down from the shelf.

The boy was cherishing great anger in his heart against Halfvorson.
The latter had destroyed a, whole family of mice for him, and now
he meant to be revenged. Before his eyes he still saw the white
mother with her helpless offspring. She had not made the slightest
attempt to escape; she had remained in her place with steadfast
heroism, staring with red, burning eyes on the heartless murderer.
Did he not deserve a short time of anxiety? Petter Nord wished to
see him come out pale as death from his office and begin to look
for the fifty crowns. He wished to see the same despair in his
watery eyes as he had seen in the ruby red ones of the white mouse.
The shopkeeper should search, he should turn the whole shop upside
down before Petter Nord would let him find the bank-note.

But the fifty crowns lay in its hiding-place all day without any
one's asking about it. It was a new note, many-colored and bright,
and had big numbers in all the corners. When Petter Nord was alone
in the shop, he put a step-ladder against the shelves and climbed
up to the roll of cotton. Then he took out the fifty crowns,
unfolded it and admired its beauties.

In the midst of the most eager trade he would grow anxious lest
something should have happened to the fifty crowns. Then he
pretended to look for something on the shelf, and groped about
under the roll of cotton till he felt the smooth bank-note rustle
under his fingers.

The note had suddenly acquired a supernatural power over him. Might
there not be something living in it? The figures surrounded by wide
rings were like magnetic eyes. The boy kissed them all and
whispered: "I should like to have many, very many like you."

He began to have all sorts of thoughts about the note, and why
Halfvorson did not inquire for it. Perhaps it was not Halfvorson's?
Perhaps it had lain in the shop for a long time? Perhaps it no
longer had any owner?

Thoughts are contagious.--At supper Halfvorson had begun to speak
of money and moneyed-men. He told Petter Nord about all the poor
boys who had amassed riches. He began with Whittington and ended
with Astor and Jay Gould. Halfvorson knew all their histories; he
knew how they had striven and denied themselves; what they had
discovered and ventured. He grew eloquent when he began on such
tales. He lived through the sufferings of those young people; he
followed them in their successes; he rejoiced in their victories.
Petter Nord listened quite fascinated.

Halfvorson was stone deaf, but that was no obstacle to conversation,
for he read by the lips everything that was said. On the other
hand, he could not hear his own voice. It rolled out as strangely
monotonous as the roar of a distant waterfall. But his peculiar way
of speaking made everything he said sink in, so that one could not
escape from it for many days. Poor Petter Nord!

"What is most needed to become rich," said Halfvorson, "is the
foundation. But it cannot be earned. Take note that they all have
found it in the street or discovered it between the lining and
cloth of a coat which they had bought at a pawnbroker's sale; or
that it had been won at cards, or had been given to them in alms by
a beautiful and charitable lady. After they had once found that
blessed coin, everything had gone well with them. The stream of
gold welled from it as from a fountain. The first thing that is
necessary, Petter Nord, is the foundation."

Halfvorson's voice sounded ever fainter and fainter. Young Petter
Nord sat in a kind of trance and saw endless vistas of gold before
him. On the dining table rose great piles of ducats; the floor
heaved white with silver, and the indistinct patterns on the dirty
wall-paper changed into banknotes, big as handkerchiefs. But
directly before his eyes fluttered the fifty-crown note, surrounded
by wide rings, luring him like the most beautiful eyes. "Who can
know," smiled the eyes, "perhaps the fifty crowns up on the shelf
is just such a foundation?"

"Mark my words," said Halfvorson, "that, after the foundation, two
things are necessary for those who wish to reach the heights. Work,
untiring work, Petter Nord, is one; and the other is renunciation.
Renunciation of play and love, of talk and laughter, of morning
sleep and evening strolls. In truth, in truth, two things are
necessary for him who would win fortune. One is called work, and
the other renunciation."

Petter Nord looked as if he would like to weep. Of course he wished
to be rich, naturally he wished to be fortunate, but fortune should
not be so anxiously and sadly won. Fortune ought to come of
herself. Just as Petter Nord was fighting with the street boys, the
noble lady should stop her coach at the shop-door, and invite the
Vaermland boy to the place at her side. But now Halfvorson's voice
still rolled in his ears. His brain was full of it. He thought of
nothing else, knew nothing else. Work and renunciation, work and
renunciation, that was life and the object of life. He asked
nothing else, dared not think that he had ever wished anything
else.

The next day he did not dare to kiss the fifty-crown note, did not
dare even to look at it. He was silent and low-spirited, orderly
and industrious. He attended to all his duties so irreproachably
that any one could see that there was something wrong with him. The
old Mayor was troubled about the boy and did what he could to cheer
him.

"Did you think of going to the Mid-Lent ball this evening?" asked
the old man. "So, you did not. Well, then I invite you. And be sure
that you come, or I will tell Halfvorson where you keep your
mouse-cages."

Petter Nord sighed and promised to go to the ball.

The Mid-Lent ball, fancy Petter Nord at the Mid-Lent ball! Petter
Nord would see all the beautiful ladies of the town, delicate,
dressed in white, adorned with flowers. But of course Petter Nord
would not be allowed to dance with a single one of them. Well, it
did not matter. He was not in the mood to dance.

At the ball he stood in a doorway and made no attempt to dance.
Several people had asked him to take part, but he had been firm and
said no. He could not dance any of those dances. Neither would any
of those fine ladies be willing to dance with him. He was much too
humble for them.

But as he stood there, his eyes began to kindle and shine, and he
felt joy creeping through his I hubs. It came from the dance music;
it came from the fragrance of the flowers; it came from all the
beautiful faces about him. After a little while he was so
sparklingly happy that, if joy had been fire, he would have been
surrounded by bursting flames. And if love were it, as many say it
is, it would have been the same. He was always in love with some
pretty girl, but hitherto with only one at a time. But when he now
saw all those beautiful ladies together, it was no longer a single
fire, which laid waste his sixteen-year-old heart; it was a whole
conflagration.

Sometimes he looked down at his boots, which were by no means
dancing shoes. But how he could have marked the time with the broad
heels and spun round on the thick soles! Something was dragging and
pulling him and trying to hurl him out on the floor like a whipped
ball. He could still resist it, although his excitement grew
stronger as the hours advanced. He grew delirious and hot. Heigh
ho, he was no longer poor Petter Nord! He was the young whirlwind,
that raises the seas and overthrows the forests.

Just then a hambo-polska [Note: A Swedish national dance of a very
lively character] struck up. The peasant boy was quite beside himself.
He thought it sounded like the polska, like the Vaermland polska.

Suddenly Petter Nord was out on the floor. All his fine manners
dropped off him. He was no longer at the town-hall ball; he was at
home in the barn at the midsummer dance. He came forward, his knees
bent, his head drawn down between his shoulders. Without stopping
to ask, he threw his arms round a lady's waist and drew her with
him. And then he began to dance the polska.

The girl followed him, half unwillingly, almost dragged. She was
not in time; she did not know what kind of a dance it was, but
suddenly it went quite of itself. The mystery of the dance was
revealed to her. The polska bore her, lifted her; her feet had
wings; she felt as light as air. She thought that she was flying.

For the Vaermland polska is the most wonderful dance. It transforms
the heavy-footed sons of earth. Without a sound soles an inch thick
float over the unplaned barn floor. They whirl about, light as
leaves in an autumn wind. It is supple, quick, silent, gliding. Its
noble, measured movements set the body free and let it feel itself
light, elastic, floating.

While Petter Nord danced the dance of his native land, there was
silence in the ball-room. At first people laughed, but then they
all recognized that this was dancing. It floated away in even,
rapid whirls; it was dancing indeed, if anything.

In the midst of his delirium Petter Nord perceived that round about
him reigned a strange silence. He stopped short and passed his hand
over his forehead. There was no black barn floor, no leafy walls,
no light blue summer night, no merry peasant maiden in the reality
he gazed upon. He was ashamed and wished to steal away.

But he was already surrounded, besieged. The young ladies crowded
about the shop-boy and cried: "Dance with us; dance with us!"

They wished to learn the polska. They all wished to learn to dance
the polska. The ball was turned from its course and became a
dancing-school. All said that they had never known before what it
was to dance. And Petter Nord was a great man for that evening. He
had to dance with all the fine ladies, and they were exceedingly
kind to him. He was only a boy, and such a madcap besides. No one
could help making a pet of him.

Petter Nord felt that this was happiness. To be the favorite of the
ladies, to dare to talk to them, to be in the midst of lights, of
movement, to be made much of, to be petted, surely this was happiness.

When the ball was over, he was too happy to think about it. He
needed to come home to be able to think over quietly what had
happened to him that evening.

Halfvorson was not married, but he had in his house a niece who
worked in the office. She was poor and dependent on Halfvorson, but
she was quite haughty towards both him and Petter Nord. She had
many friends among the more important people of the town and was
invited to families where Halfvorson could never come. She and
Petter Nord went home from the ball together.

"Do you know, Nord," asked Edith Halfvorson, "that a suit is soon
to be brought against Halfvorson for illicit trading in brandy? You
might tell me how it really is."

"There is nothing worth making a fuss about," said Petter Nord.

Edith sighed. "Of course there is nothing. But there will be a
lawsuit and fines and shame without end. I wish that I really knew
how it is."

"Perhaps it is best not to know anything," said Petter Nord.

"I wish to rise in the world, do you see," continued Edith, "and I
wish to drag Halfvorson up with me, but he always drops back again.
And then he does something so that I become impossible too. He is
scheming something now. Do you not know what it is? It would be
good to know."

"No," said Petter Nord, and not another word would he say. It was
inhuman to talk to him of such things on the way home from his
first ball.

Beyond the shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy.
There sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with
Petter Nord of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked.
Now he heard what he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know
the seventh commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes.
That was what he deserved.

God be blessed and praised for having let him go to the ball and
get a new view of it all. Usch! what ugly thoughts he had had; but
now it was quite changed. As if riches were worth sacrificing
conscience and the soul's freedom for their sake! As if they were
worth as much as a white mouse, if the heart could not be glad at
the same time! He clapped his hands and cried out in joy--that he
was free, free, free! There was not even a longing to possess the
fifty crowns in his heart. How good it was to be happy!

When he had gone to bed, he thought that he would show Halfvorson
the fifty crowns early the next morning. Then he became uneasy that
the tradesman might come into the shop before him the next morning,
search for the note and find it. He might easily think that Petter
Nord had hidden it to keep it. The thought gave him no peace. He
tried to shake it off, but he could not succeed. He could not
sleep. So he rose, crept into the shop and felt about till he found
the fifty crowns. Then he fell asleep with the note under his pillow.

An hour later he awoke. A light shone sharply in his eyes; a hand
was fumbling under his pillow and a rumbling voice was scolding and
swearing.

Before the boy was really awake, Halfvorson had the note in his
hand and showed it to the two women, who stood in the doorway to
his room. "You see that I was right," said Halfvorson. "You see
that it was well worth while for me to drag you up to bear witness
against him! You see that he is a thief!"

"No, no, no," screamed poor Petter Nord. "I did not wish to steal.
I only hid the note."

Halfvorson heard nothing. Both the women stood with their backs
turned to the room, as if determined to neither hear nor see.

Petter Nord sat up in bed. He looked all of a sudden pitifully weak
and small. His tears were streaming. He wailed aloud.

"Uncle," said Edith, "he is weeping."

"Let him weep," said Halfvorson, "let him weep!" And he walked
forward and looked at the boy. "You can weep all you like," he
said, "but that does not take me in."

"Oh, oh," cried Petter Nord, "I am no thief. I hid the note as a
joke--to make you angry. I wanted to pay you back for the mice.
I am not a thief. Will no one listen to me. I am not a thief."

"Uncle," said Edith, "if you have tortured him enough now, perhaps
we may go back to bed?"

"I know, of course, that it sounds terrible," said Halfvorson, "but
it cannot be helped." He was gay, in very high spirits. "I have had
my eye on you for a long time," he said to the boy. "You have
always something you are tucking away when I come into the shop.
But now I have caught you. Now I leave witnesses, and now I am
going for the police."

The boy gave a piercing scream. "Will no one help me, will no one
help me?" he cried. Halfvorson was gone, and the old woman who
managed his house came up to him.

"Get up and dress yourself, Petter Nord! Halforson has gone for the
police, and while he is away you can escape. The young lady can go
out into the kitchen and get you a little food. I will pack your
things."

The terrible weeping instantly ceased. After a short tine of hurry
the boy was ready. He kissed both the women on the hand, humbly,
like a whipped dog. And then off he ran.

They stood in the door and looked after him. When he was gone, they
drew a sigh of relief.

"What will Halfvorson say?" said Edith.

"He will be glad," answered the housekeeper.

"He put the money there for the boy, I think. I guess that he
wanted to be rid of him."

"But why? The boy was the best one we have had in the shop for many
years."

"He probably did not want him to give testimony in the affair with
the brandy."

Edith stood silent and breathed quickly. "It is so base, so base,"
she murmured. She clenched her fist towards the office and towards
the little pane in the door, through which Halfvorson could see
into the shop. She would have liked, she too, to have fled out into
the world, away from all this meanness. She heard a sound far in,
in the shop. She listened, went nearer, followed the noise, and at
last found behind a keg of herring the cage of Petter Nord's white
mice.

She took it up, put it on the counter, and opened the cage door.
Mouse after mouse scampered out and disappeared behind boxes and
barrels.

"May you flourish and increase," said Edith. "May you do injury and
revenge your master!"


II

The little town lay friendly and contented under its red hill. It
was so embedded in green that the church tower only just stuck up
out of it. Garden after garden crowded one another on narrow
terraces up the slope, and when they could go no further in that
direction, they leaped with their bushes and trees across the
street and spread themselves out between the scattered farmhouses
and on the narrow strips of earth about them, until they were
stopped by the broad river.

Complete silence and quiet reigned in the town. Not a soul was to
be seen; only trees and bushes, and now and again a house. The only
sound to be heard was the rolling of balls in the bowling-alley,
like distant thunder on a summer day. It belonged to the silence.

But now the uneven stones of the market-place were ground under
iron-shod heels. The noise of coarse voices thundered against the
walls of the town-hall and the church was thrown back from the
mountain, and hastened unchecked down the long street. Four
wayfarers disturbed the noonday peace.

Alas, for the sweet silence, the holiday peace of years! How
terrified they were! One could almost see them betaking themselves
in flight up the mountain slopes.

One of the noisy crew who broke into the village was Petter Nord,
the Vaermland boy, who six years before had run away, accused of
theft. Those who were with him were three longshoremen from the big
commercial town that lies only a few miles away.

How had little Petter Nord been getting on? He had been getting on
well. He had found one of the most sensible of friends and
companions.

As he ran away from the village in the dark, rainy February
morning, the polska tunes seethed and roared in his ears. And one
of them was more persistent than all the others. It was the one
they all had sung during the ring dance.

Christmas time has come,
Christmas time has come,
And after Christmas time comes Easter.
That is not true at all,
That is not true at all,
For Lent comes after Christmas feasting.

The fugitive heard it so distinctly, so distinctly. And then the
wisdom that is hidden in the old ring dance forced itself upon the
little pleasure-loving Vaermland boy, forced itself into his very
fibre, blended with every drop of blood, soaked into his brain and
marrow. It is so; that is the meaning. Between Christmas and
Easter, between the festivals of birth and death, comes life's
fasting. One shall ask nothing of life; it is a poor, miserable
fast. One shall never trust it, however it may appear. The next
moment it is gray and ugly again. It is not its fault, poor thing,
it cannot help it!

Petter Nord felt almost proud at having cheated life out of its
most profound secret.

He thought he saw the pallid Spirit of Fasting creeping about over
the earth in the shape of a beggar with Lenten twigs [Translator's
Note: In Sweden, just before Easter, bunches of birch twigs with
small feathers tied on the ends, are sold everywhere on the
streets. The origin of this custom is unknown.] in her hand. And he
heard how she hissed at him: "You have wished to celebrate the
festival of joy and merry moods in the midst of the time of
fasting, which is called life. Therefore shame and dishonor shall
befall you, until you change your ways."

He had changed his ways, and the Spirit of Fasting had protected
him. He had never needed to go farther than to the big town, for he
was never followed. And in its working quarter the Spirit of
Fasting had her dwelling. Petter Nord found work in a machine shop.
He grew strong and energetic. He became serious and thrifty. He had
fine Sunday clothes; he acquired new knowledge, borrowed books and
went to lectures. There was nothing really left of little Petter
Nord but his white hair and his brown eyes.

That night had broken something in him, and the heavy work at the
machine-shop made the break ever bigger, so that the wild Vaermland
boy had crept quite out through it. He no longer talked nonsense,
for no one was allowed to speak in the shop, and he soon learned
silent ways. He no longer invented anything new, for since he had
to look after springs and wheels in earnest, he no longer found
them amusing. He never fell in love, for he could not be interested
in the women of the working quarter, after he had learned to know
the beauties of his native town. He had no mice, no squirrels,
nothing to play with. He had no time; he understood that such
things were useless, and he thought with horror of the time when he
used to fight with street boys.

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