Book: Invisible Links

S >> Selma Lagerlof >> Invisible Links




"She has transfigured our dark fate. Blessings on her name!"

The dead joined in, in a thousandfold echo: "Blessings on her name!"

"Sister," whispered Mamsell Fredrika, "can you not forbid them to
make me, poor, sinful being, proud?"

"But, sisters, sisters," continued the voice, "she has turned
against our race with all her great power. At her cry for freedom
and work for all, the old, despised livers on charity have died
out. She has broken down the tyranny that fenced in childhood.
She has stirred young girls towards the wide activity of life. She
has put an end to loneliness, to ignorance, to joylessness. No
unhappy, despised old Mamsells without aim or purpose in life will
ever exist again; none such as we have been."

Again resounded the echo of the shades, merry as a hunting-song in
the wood which is sung by a happy throng of children: "Blessed be
her memory!"

Thereupon the dead swarmed out of the church, and Mamsell Fredrika
wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.

"I will not go home with you," said her dead sister. "Will you not
stop here now also?"

"I should like to, but I cannot. There is a book which I must make
ready first."

"Well, good-night then, and beware of the knight of the church
road," said her dead sister, and smiled roguishly in her old way.

Then Mamsell Fredrika drove home. All Arsta still slept, and she
went quietly to her room, lay down and slept again.

***

A few hours later she drove to the real early mass. She drove in a
closed carriage, but she let down the window to look at the stars;
it is possible too that she, as of old, was looking for her knight.

And there he was; he sprang forward to the window of the carriage.
He sat his prancing charger magnificently. His scarlet cloak
fluttered in the wind. His pale face was stern, but beautiful.

"Will you be mine?" he whispered.

She was transported in her old heart by the lofty figure with the
waving plumes. She forgot that she needed to live a year yet.

"I am ready," she whispered.

"Then I will come and fetch you in a week at your father's house."

He bent down and kissed her, and then he vanished; she began to
shiver and tremble under Death's kiss.

A little later Mamsell Fredrika sat in the church, in the same
place where she had sat as a child. Here she forgot both the knight
and the ghosts, and sat smiling in quiet delight at the thought of
the revelation of the glory of God.

But either she was tired because she had not slept the whole night,
or the warmth and the closeness and the smell of the candles had a
soporific effect on her as on many another.


She fell asleep, only for a second; she absolutely could not help it.

Perhaps, too, God wished to open to her the gates of the land of
dreams.

In that single second when she slept, she saw her stern father, her
lovely, beautifully-dressed mother, and the ugly, little Petrea
sitting in the church. And the soul of the child was compressed by
an anguish greater than has ever been felt by a grown person. The
priest stood in the pulpit and spoke of the stern, avenging God,
and the child sat pale and trembling, as if the words had been
axe-blows and had gone through its heart.

"Oh, what a God, what a terrible God!"

In the next second she was awake, but she trembled and shuddered,
as after the kiss of death on the church-road. Her heart was once
more caught in the wild grief of her childhood.

She wished to hurry from the church. She must go home and write her
book, her glorious book on the God of peace and love.

***

Nothing else that can be deemed worth mentioning happened to
Mamsell Fredrika before New Year's night. Life and death, like day
and night, reigned in quiet concord over the earth during the last
week of the year, but when New Year's night came, Death took his
sceptre and announced that now old Mamsell Fredrika should belong
to him.

Had they but known it, all the people of Sweden would certainly
have prayed a common prayer to God to be allowed to keep their
purest spirit, their warmest heart. Many homes in many lands where
she had left loving hearts would have watched with despair and
grief. The poor, the sick and the needy would have forgotten their
own wants to remember hers, and all the children who had grown up
blessing her work would have clasped their hands to pray for one
more year for their best friend. One year, that she might make all
fully clear and put the finishing-touch on her life's work.

For Death was too prompt for Mamsell Fredrika.

There was a storm outside on that New Year's night; there was a
storm within her soul. She felt all the agony of life and death
coming to a crisis.

"Anguish!" she sighed, "anguish!"

But the anguish gave way, and peace came, and she whispered softly:
"The love of Christ--the best love--the peace of God--the
everlasting light!"

Yes, that was what she would have written in her book, and perhaps
much else as beautiful and wonderful. Who knows? Only one thing we
know, that books are forgotten, but such a life as hers never is.

The old prophetess's eyes closed and she sank into visions.

Her body struggled with death, but she did not know it. Her family
sat weeping about her deathbed, but she did not see them. Her
spirit had begun its flight.

Dreams became reality to her and reality dreams. Now she stood, as
she had already seen herself in the visions of her youth, waiting
at the gates of heaven with innumerable hosts of the dead round
about her. And heaven opened. He, the only one, the Saviour, stood
in its open gates. And his infinite love woke in the waiting
spirits and in her a longing to fly to his embrace, and their
longing lifted them and her, and they floated as if on wings
upwards, upwards.

The next day there was mourning in the land; mourning in wide parts
of the earth.

_Fredrika Bremer was dead._



THE ROMANCE OF A FISHERMAN'S WIFE

On the outer edge of the fishing-village stood a little cottage on
a low mound of white sea sand. It was not built in line with the
even, neat, conventional houses that enclosed the wide green place
where the brown fish-nets were dried, but seemed as if forced out
of the row and pushed on one side to the sand-hills. The poor widow
who had erected it had been her own builder, and she had made the
walls of her cottage lower than those of all the other cottages and
its steep thatched roof higher than any other roof in the fishing-village.
The floor lay deep down in the ground. The window was neither high
nor wide, but nevertheless it reached from the cornice to the level
of the earth. There had been no space for a chimney-breast in the
one narrow room and she had been obliged to add a small, square
projection. The cottage had not, like the other cottages, its
fenced-in garden with gooseberry bushes and twining morning-glories
and elder-bushes half suffocated by burdocks. Of all the vegetation
of the fishing-village, only the burdocks had followed the cottage
to the sand-hill. They were fine enough in summer with their fresh,
dark-green leaves and prickly baskets filled with bright, red
flowers. But towards the autumn, when the prickles had hardened and
the seeds had ripened, they grew careless about their looks, and
stood hideously ugly and dry with their torn leaves wrapped in a
melancholy shroud of dusty cobwebs.

The cottage never had more than two owners, for it could not hold
up that heavy roof on its walls of reeds and clay for more than two
generations. But as long as it stood, it was owned by poor widows.
The second widow who lived there delighted in watching the burdocks,
especially in the autumn, when they were dried and broken. They
recalled her who had built the cottage. She too had been shrivelled
and dry and had had the power to cling fast and adhere, and all her
strength had been used for her child, whom she had needed to help
on in the world. She, who now sat there alone, wished both to weep
and to laugh at the thought of it. If the old woman had not had a
burr-like nature, how different everything would have been! But who
knows if it would have been better?

The lonely woman often sat musing on the fate which had brought her
to this spot on the coast of Skone, to the narrow inlet and among
these quiet people. For she was born in a Norwegian seaport which
lay on a narrow strip of land between rushing falls and the open
sea, and although her means were small after the death of her
father, a merchant, who left his family in poverty, still she was
used to life and progress. She used to tell her story to herself
over and over again, just as one often reads through an obscure
book in order to try to discover its meaning.

The first thing of note which had happened to her was when, one
evening on the way home from the dressmaker with whom she worked,
she had been attacked by two sailors and rescued by a third. The
latter fought for her at peril of his life and afterwards went home
with her. She took him in to her mother and sisters, and told them
excitedly what he had done. It was as if life had acquired a new
value for her, because another had dared so much to defend it. He
had been immediately well received by her family and asked to come
again as soon and as often as he could.

His name was Boerje Nilsson, and he was a sailor on the Swedish lugger
"Albertina." As long as the boat lay in the harbor, he came almost
every day to her home, and they could soon no longer believe that
he was only a common sailor. He shone always in a clean, turned-down
collar and wore a sailor suit of fine cloth. Natural and frank, he
showed himself among them, as if he had been used to move in the
same class as they. Without his ever having said it in so many
words, they got the impression that he was from a respectable home,
the only son of a rich widow, but that his unconquerable love for a
sailor's profession had made him take a place before the mast, so
that his mother should see that he was in earnest. When he had
passed his examination, she would certainly get him his own ship.

The lonely family who had drawn away from all their former friends,
received him without the slightest suspicion. And he described with
a light heart and fluent tongue his home with its high, pointed
roof, the great open fireplace in the dining-room and the little
leaded glass panes. He also painted the silent streets of his
native town and the long rows of even houses, built in the same
style, against which his home, with its irregular buttresses and
terraces, made a pleasant contrast. And his listeners believed that
he had come from one of those old burgher houses with carved gables
and with overhanging second stories, which give such a strong
impression of wealth and venerable age.

Soon enough she saw that he cared for her. And that gave her mother
and sisters great joy. The young, rich Swede came as if to raise
them all up from their poverty. Even if she had not loved him,
which she did, she would never have had a thought of saying no to
his proposal. If she had had a father or a grown-up brother, he
could have found out about the stranger's extraction and position,
but neither she nor her mother thought of making any inquiries.
Afterwards she saw how they had actually forced him to lie. In the
beginning, he had let them imagine great ideas about his wealth
without any evil intention, but when he understood how glad they
were over it, he had not dared to speak the truth for fear of
losing her.

Before he left they were betrothed, and when the lugger came again,
they were married. It was a disappointment for her that he also on
his return appeared as a sailor, but he had been bound by his
contract. He had no greetings either from his mother. She had
expected him to make another choice, but she would be so glad, he
said, if she would once see Astrid.--In spite of all his lies, it
would have been an easy matter to see that he was a poor man, if
they had only chosen to use their eyes.

The captain offered her his cabin if she would like to make the
journey in his vessel, and the offer was accepted with delight.
Boerje was almost exempt from all work, and sat most of the time on
the deck, talking to his wife. And now he gave her the happiness of
fancy, such as he himself had lived on all his life. The more he
thought of that little house which lay half buried in the sand, so
much the higher he raised that palace which he would have liked to
offer her. He let her in thought glide into a harbor which was
adorned with flags and flowers in honor of Boerje Nilsson's bride.
He let her hear the mayor's speech of greeting. He let her drive
under a triumphal arch, while the eyes of men followed her and the
women grew pale with envy. And he led her into the stately home,
where bowing, silvery-haired servants stood drawn up along the side
of the broad stairway and where the table laden for the feast
groaned under the old family silver.

When she discovered the truth, she supposed at first that the
captain had been in league with Boerje to deceive her, but
afterwards she found that it was not so. They were accustomed on
board the boat to speak of Boerje as of a great man. It was their
greatest joke to talk quite seriously of his riches and his fine
family. They thought that Boerje had told her the truth, but that
she joked with him, as they all did, when she talked about his big
house. So it happened that when the lugger cast anchor in the
harbor which lay nearest to Boerje's home, she still did not know
but that she was the wife of a rich man.

Boerje got a day's leave to conduct his wife to her future home and
to start her in her new life. When they were landed on the quay,
where the flags were to have fluttered and the crowds to have
rejoiced in honor of the newly-married couple, only emptiness and
calm reigned there, and Boerje noticed that his wife looked about
her with a certain disappointment.

"We have come too soon," he had said. "The journey was such an
unusually quick one in this fine weather. So we have no carriage
here either, and we have far to go, for the house lies outside the
town."

"That makes no difference, Boerje," she had answered. "It will do us
good to walk, after having been quiet so long on board."

And so they began their walk, that walk of horror, of which she
could not think even in her old age without moaning in agony and
wringing her hands in pain. They went along the broad, empty
streets, which she instantly recognized from his description. She
felt as if she met with old friends both in the dark church and in
the even houses of timber and brick; but where were the carved
gables and marble steps with the high railing?

Boerje had nodded to her as if he had guessed her thoughts. "It is a
long way still," he had said.

If he had only been merciful and at once killed her hope. She loved
him so then. If he of his own accord had told her everything, there
would never have been any sting in her soul against him. But when
he saw her pain at being deceived, and yet went on misleading her,
that had hurt her too bitterly. She had never really forgiven him
that. She could of course say to herself that he had wanted to take
her with him as far as possible so that she would not be able to
run away from him, but his deceit created such a deadly coldness in
her that no love could entirely thaw it.

They went through the town and came out on the adjoining plain.
There stretched several rows of dark moats and high, green
ramparts, remains from the time when the town had been fortified,
and at the point where they all gathered around a fort, she saw
some ancient buildings and big, round towers. She cast a shy look
towards them, but Boerje turned off to the mounds which followed the
shore.

"This is a shorter way," he said, for she seemed to be surprised
that there was only a narrow path to follow.

He had become very taciturn. She understood afterwards that he had
not found it so merry as he had fancied, to come with a wife to the
miserable little house in the fishing village. It did not seem so
fine now to bring home a better man's child. He was anxious about
what she would do when she should know the truth.

"Boerje," she said at last, when they had followed the shelving,
sandy hillocks for a long while, "where are we going?"

He lifted his band and pointed towards the fishing-village, where
his mother lived in the house on the sand-hill. But she believed
that he meant one of the beautiful country-seats which lay on the
edge of the plain, and was again glad.

They climbed down into the empty cow-pastures, and there all her
uneasiness returned. There, where every tuft, if one can only see
it, is clothed with beauty and variety, she saw merely an ugly
field. And the wind, which is ever shifting there, swept whistling
by them and whispered of misfortune and treachery.

Boerje walked faster and faster, and at last they reached the end of
the pasture and entered the fishing village. She, who at the last
had not dared to ask herself any questions, took courage again.
Here again was a uniform row of houses, and this one she recognized
Even better than that in the town. Perhaps, perhaps he had not lied.

Her expectations were so reduced that she would have been glad from
the heart if she could have stopped at any of the neat little
houses, where flowers and white curtains showed behind shining
window-panes. She grieved that she had to go by them.

Then she saw suddenly, just at the outer edge of the fishing-village,
one of the most wretched of hovels, and it seemed to her as if she
had already seen it with her mind's eye before she actually had a
glimpse of it.

"Is it here?" he said, and stopped just at the foot of the little
sand-hill.

He bent his head imperceptibly and went on towards the little cottage.

"Wait," she called after him, "we must talk this over before I go
into your home. You have lied," she went on, threateningly, when he
turned to her. "You have deceived me worse than if you were my
worst enemy. Why have you done it?"

"I wanted you for my wife," he answered, with a low, trembling voice.

"If you had only deceived me within bounds! Why did you make
everything so fine and rich? What did you have to do with man-servants
and triumphal arches and all the other magnificence? Did you think
that I was so devoted to money? Did you not see that I cared enough
for you to go anywhere with you? That you could believe you needed
to deceive me! That you could have the heart to keep up your lies
to the very last!"

"Will you not come in and speak to my mother?" he said, helplessly.

"I do not intend to go in there."

"Are you going home?"

"How can I go home? How could I cause them there at home such
sorrow as to return, when they believe me happy and rich? But with
you I will not stay either. For one who is willing to work there is
always a livelihood."

"Stop!" he begged. "I did it only to win you."

"If you had told me the truth, I would have stayed."

"If I had been a rich man, who had pretended to be poor, then you
would have stayed."

She shrugged her shoulders and turned to go, when the door of the
cottage opened and Boerje's mother came out. She was a little,
dried-up old woman with few teeth and many wrinkles, but not so old
in years or in feelings as in looks.

She had heard a part and guessed a part, for she knew what they
were quarrelling about. "Well," she said, "that is a fine daughter-in-law
you have got me, Boerje. And you have been deceiving again, I can
hear." But to Astrid she came and patted her kindly on the cheek.
"Come in with me, you poor child! I know that you are tired and
worn out. This is my house. He is not allowed to come in here. But
you come. Now you are my daughter, and I cannot let you go to
strangers, do you understand?"

She caressed her daughter-in-law and chatted to her and drew and
pushed her quite imperceptibly forward to the door. Step by step
she lured her on, and at last got her inside the house; but Boerje
she shut out. And there, within, the old woman began to ask who she
was and how it had all happened. And she wept over her and made her
weep over herself. The old woman was merciless about her son. She,
Astrid, did right; she could not stay with such a man. It was true
that he was in the habit of lying, it was really true.

She told her how it had been with her son. He had been so fair in
face and limbs, even when he was small, that she had always
marvelled that he was a poor man's child. He was like a little
prince gone astray. And ever after it had always seemed as if he
had not been in his right place. He saw everything on such a large
scale. He could not see things as they were, when it concerned
himself. His mother had wept many a time on that account. But never
before had he done any harm with his lies. Here, where he was
known, they only laughed at him.--But now he must have been so
terribly tempted. Did she really not think, she, Astrid, that it
was wonderful how the fisher boy had been able to deceive them? He
had always known so much about wealth, as if he had been born to
it. It must be that he had come into the world in the wrong place.
See, that was another proof,--he had never thought of choosing a
wife in his own station.

"Where will he sleep to-night?" asked Astrid, suddenly.

"I imagine he will lie outside on the sand. He will be too anxious
to go away from here."

"I suppose it is best for him to come in," said Astrid.

"Dearest child, you cannot want to see him. He can get along out
there if I give him a blanket."

She let him actually sleep out on the sand that night, thinking it
best for Astrid not to see him. And with her she talked and talked,
and kept her, not by force, but by cleverness, not by persuasion,
but by real goodness.

But when she had at last succeeded in keeping her daughter-in-law
for her son, and had got the young people reconciled, and had
taught Astrid that her vocation in life was just to be Boerje
Nilsson's wife and to make him as happy as she could,--and that
had not been the work of one evening, but of many days,--then the
old woman had laid herself down to die.

And in that life, with its faithful solicitude for her son, there
was some meaning, thought Boerje Nilsson's wife.

But in her own life she saw no meaning. Her husband was drowned
after a few years of married life, and her one child died young.
She had not been able to make any change in her husband. She had
not been able to teach him earnestness and truth. It was rather in
her the change showed, after she had been more and more with the
fishing people. She would never see any of her own family, for she
was ashamed that she now resembled in everything a fisherman's
wife. If it had only been of any use! If she, who lived by mending
the fishermen's nets, knew why she clung so to life! If she had
made any one happy or had improved anybody!

It never occurred to her to think that she who considers her life a
failure because she has done no good to others, perhaps by that
thought of humility has saved her own soul.



HIS MOTHER'S PORTRAIT

None of the hundred houses of the fishing-village, where each is
exactly like the other in size and shape, where all have just as
many windows and as high chimneys, lived old Mattsson, the pilot.

In all the rooms of the fishing-village there is the same sort of
furniture, on all the window-sills stand the same kinds of flowers,
in all the corner-cupboards are the same collections of sea-shells
and coral, on all the walls hang the same pictures. And it is a
fixed old custom that all the inhabitants of the fishing-village
live the same life. Since Mattsson, the pilot, had grown old, he
had conformed carefully to the conditions and customs; his house,
his rooms and his mode of living were like everybody else's.

On the wall over the bed old Mattsson had a picture of his mother.
One night he dreamed that the portrait stepped down from its frame,
placed itself in front of him and said with a loud voice: "You must
marry, Mattson."

Old Mattsson then began to make clear to his mother that it was
impossible. He was seventy years old.--But his mother's portrait
merely repeated with even greater emphasis: "You must marry, Mattsson."

Old Mattsson had great respect for his mother's portrait. It had
been his adviser on many debatable occasions, and he had always
done well by obeying it. But this time he did not quite understand
its behavior. It seemed to him as if the picture was acting in
opposition to its already acknowledged opinions. Although he was
lying there and dreaming, he remembered distinctly and clearly what
had happened the first time he wished to be married. Just as he was
dressing as a bridegroom, the nail gave way on which the picture
hung and it fell to the floor. He understood then that the portrait
wished to warn him against the marriage, but he did not obey it. He
soon found that the portrait had been right. His short married life
was very unhappy.

The second time he dressed as a bridegroom the same thing happened.
The portrait fell to the ground as before, and he did not dare
again to disobey it. He ran away from bride and wedding and
travelled round the world several times before he dared come home
again.--And now the picture stepped down from the wall and
commanded him to marry! However good and obedient he was, he
allowed himself to think that it was making a fool of him.

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