Book: The Emperor of Portugalia

S >> Selma Lagerlof >> The Emperor of Portugalia




"Go see what the matter is, Boerje," said the pastor. "You're
nearest the door."

Boerje rose at once, opened the door, and glanced up and down the
entry.

"There's nobody out there," he replied. "Jan must have heard
wrongly."

After this interruption the pastor proceeded to explain to his
listeners that this commandment was not so much of a command as it
was good counsel, which should be strictly followed if one wished
to succeed in life. He was himself only a youth, but this much he
had already observed: lack of respect toward parents and
disobedience were at the bottom of many of life's misfortunes.

While the pastor was speaking Jan time and again turned his head
toward the door and he motioned to Katrina, who was sitting on the
last bench and could more easily get to the door than he could, to
go open it.

Katrina kept her seat as long as she dared; but being a bit fearful
of crossing Jan these days, she finally obeyed him. When she had
got the door open, she, like Boerje, saw no one in the entry. She
shook her head at Jan and went back to her seat.

The pastor had not allowed himself to be disconcerted by Katrina's
movements. To the great joy of all the young people, he had almost
ceased putting questions and was voicing some of the beautiful
thoughts that kept coming into his mind.

"Think how wisely and well things are ordered for the dear old
people whom we have with us in our homes!" he said. "Is it not a
blessing that we may be a stay and comfort to those who cared for
us when we were helpless, to make life easy for those who perhaps
have suffered hunger themselves that we might be fed? It is an
honour for a young couple to have at the fireside an old father
or mother, happy and content--"

When the pastor said that a smothered sob was heard from a corner
of the room. Lars Gunnarson, who had been sitting with head
devoutly bowed, arose at once. Crossing the floor on tiptoes, so as
not to disturb the meeting, he went over to his mother-in-law,
placed his arm around her, and led her up to the table. Seating her
in his own chair, he stationed himself behind it and looked down at
her with an air of solicitude; then he beckoned to his wife to come
and stand beside him. Every one understood of course that Lars
wanted them to think that in this home all was as the pastor had
said it should be.

The minister looked pleased as he glanced up at the old mother and
her children. The only thing that affected him a little
unpleasantly was that the old woman wept all the while. He had
never before succeeded in calling forth such deep emotion in any of
his parishioners.

"It is not difficult to keep the Fourth Commandment when we are
young and still under the rule of our parents," the pastor
continued; "but the real test comes later, when we are grown and
think ourselves quite as wise--"

Here the pastor was again interrupted. Jan had just risen and gone
to the door himself. He seemed to have better luck than had Boerje
or Katrina: for he was heard to say "Go'-day" to somebody out in
the entry.

Now every one turned to see who it was that had been standing
outside all the evening, afraid to come in. They could hear Jan
urging and imploring. Evidently the person wished to be excused,
for presently Jan pulled the door to and stepped back into the
room, alone. He did not return to his seat, but threaded his way up
to the table.

"Well, Jan," said the pastor, somewhat impatient, "may we hear now
who it is that has been disturbing us the whole evening?"

"It was the old master of Falla who stood out there," Jan replied,
not in the least astonished or excited over what he had to impart.
"He wouldn't come in, but he bade me tell Lars from him to beware
the first Sunday after Midsummer Day."

At first not many understood what lay back of Jan's words. Those
who sat in the last rows had not heard distinctly, but they
inferred from the startled look on the pastor's face that Jan must
have said something dreadful. They all sprang up and began to crowd
nearer the table, asking to right and left who on earth he could
have been talking to.

"But Jan!" said the pastor in a firm tone, "do you know what you
are saying?"

"I do indeed," returned Jan with an emphatic nod. "As soon as he
had given me the message for his son-in-law he went away. 'Tell
him,' he said, 'that I wish him no ill for letting me lie in the
snow in my agony and not coming to my aid in time; but the Fourth
Commandment is a strict one. Tell him from me he'd better repent
and confess. He will have until the Sunday after Midsummer to do it
in.'"

Jan spoke so rationally and delivered his strange message with such
sincerity that both the pastor and the others firmly believed at
first that Eric of Falla had actually stood outside the door of his
old home and talked with Jan. And naturally they all turned their
eyes toward Lars Gunnarson to see what effect Jan's words had had
on him.

Lars only laughed. "I thought Jan sane," he said, "or I shouldn't
have let him come to the meeting. The pastor will have to pardon
the interruption. It is the madness breaking out again."

"Why of course!" said the pastor, relieved. For he had been on the
point of believing he had come upon something supernatural. It was
well, he thought, that this was only the fancy of a lunatic.

"You see, Pastor," Lars went on explaining, "Jan has no great love
for me, and it's plain now he hasn't the wit to conceal it. I must
confess that in a sense I'm to blame for his daughter having to go
away to earn money. It's this he holds against me."

The parson, a little surprised at Lars's eager tone, gave him a
searching glance. Lars did not meet that gaze, but looked away.
Perceiving his mistake, he tried to look the parson in the face.
Somehow he couldn't--so turned away, with an oath.

"Lars Gunnarson!" exclaimed the pastor in astonishment. "What has
come over you?"

Lars immediately pulled himself together.

"Can't I be rid of this lunatic?" he said, as though Jan were the
one he had sworn at. "Here stand the pastor and all my neighbours
regarding me as a murderer only because a madman happens to hold a
grudge against me! I tell you he wants to get back at me on account
of his daughter. How could I know that she would leave home and go
wrong simply because I wanted what was due me. Is there no one here
who will take charge of Jan," he asked, "so that the rest of us may
enjoy the service in peace?"

The pastor sat stroking his forehead. Lars's remarks troubled him;
but he could not reprimand him when he had no positive proof that
the man had committed a wrong. He looked around for the old mistress
of Falla; but she had slipped away. Then he glanced out over the
gathering, and from that quarter he got no help. He was confident
that all in the room knew whether or not Lars was guilty, yet, when
he turned to them, their faces looked quite blank. Meantime Katrina
had come forward and taken Jan by the arm, and the two of them were
then moving toward the door. Anyhow, the pastor had no desire to
question a crazy man.

"I think this will do for to-night," he said quietly. "We will
bring the meeting to a close." He made a short prayer, which was
followed by a hymn. Whereupon the people went their ways.

The pastor was the last to leave. While Lars was seeing him to the
gate he spoke quite voluntarily of that which had just taken place.

"Did you mark, Pastor, it was the Sunday after Midsummer Day I was
to be on my guard?" he said. "That just shows it was the girl Jan
had in mind. It was the Sunday after Midsummer of last year that I
was over at Jan's place to have an understanding with him about the
hut."

All these explanations only distressed the pastor the more. Of a
sudden he put his hand on Lars's shoulder and tried to read his
face.

"I'm not your judge, Lars Gunnarson," he said in warm, reassuring
tones, "but if you have something on your conscience, you can come
to me. I shall look for you every day. Only don't put it off too
long!"


AN OLD TROLL

The second winter of the little girl's absence from home was an
extremely severe one. By the middle of January it had grown so
unbearably cold that snow had to be banked around all the little
huts in the Ashdales as a protection against the elements, and
every night the cows had to be covered with straw, to keep them
from freezing to death.

It was so cold that the bread froze; the cheese froze, and even the
butter turned to ice. The fire itself seemed unable to hold its
warmth. It mattered not how many logs one laid in the fireplace,
the heat spread no farther than to the edge of the hearth.

One day, when the winter was at its worst, Jan decided that instead
of going out to his work he would stay at home and help Katrina
keep the fire alive. Neither he nor the wife ventured outside the
hut that day, and the longer they remained indoors the more they
felt the cold. At five o'clock in the afternoon, when it began to
grow dark, Katrina said they might as well "turn in"; it was no
good their sitting up any longer, torturing themselves.

During the afternoon Jan had gone over to the window, time and
again, and peered out through a little corner of a pane that had
remained clear, though the rest of the glass was thickly crusted
with frost flowers. And now he went back there again.

"You can go to bed, Katrina dear," he said as he stood looking out,
"but I've got to stay up a while longer."

"Well I never!" ejaculated Katrina. "Why should you stay up? Why
can't you go to bed as well as I?"

But Jan did not reply to her questions. "It's strange I haven't
seen Agrippa Praestberg pass by yet," he said.

"Is it him you're waiting for!" snapped Katrina. "He hasn't been so
extra nice to you that you need feel called upon to sit up and
freeze on his account!"

Jan put up his hand with a sweep of authority--this being the only
mannerism acquired during his emperorship which had not been
dropped. There was no fear of Praestberg coming to them, he told
her. He had heard that the old man had been invited to a drinking
bout at a fisherman's but here in the Ashdales, but so far he had
not seen him go by.

"I suppose he has had the good sense to stay at home," said Katrina.

It grew colder and colder. The corners of the house creaked as if
the freezing wind were knocking to be let in. All the bushes and
trees were covered with such thick coats of snow and rim frost they
looked quite shapeless. But bushes and trees, like humans, had to
clothe themselves as well as they could, in order to be protected
against the cold.

In a little while Katrina observed: "I see by the clock it's only
half after five, but all the same I'll put on the porridge pot and
prepare the evening meal. After supper, you can sit up and wait for
Praestberg or go to bed, whichever you like."

All this time Jan had stood at the window. "It can't be that he
has come this way without my seeing him?" he said.

"Who cares whether a brute like him comes or doesn't come!"
returned Katrina sharply, for she was tired of hearing about that
old tramp.

Jan heaved a deep sigh. Katrina was more right than she herself
knew. He did not care a bit whether or not old "Grippie" had
passed. His saying that he was expected was merely an excuse for
standing at the window.

No word or token had he received from the great Empress, the little
girl of Ruffluck, since the day Lars wrested from him his majesty
and glory. He felt that such a thing could never have happened
without her sanction, and inferred from this that he had done
something to incur her displeasure; but what he could not imagine!
He had brooded over this all through the long winter evenings;
through the long dark mornings, when threshing in the barn at
Falla; through the short days, when carting wood from the big
forest.

Everything had passed off so happily and well for him for three
whole months, so of course he could not think she had been
dissatisfied with his emperorship. He had then known a time such as
he had never dreamed could come to a poor man like himself. But
surely Glory Goldie was not offended at him for that!

No. He had done or said something which was displeasing to her,
that was why he was being punished. But could it be that she was so
slow to forget as never to forgive him? If she would only tell him
what she was angry about! He would do anything he could to pacify
her. She must see for herself how he had put on his working clothes
and gone out as a day labourer as soon as she let him know that
such was her wish.

He could not speak of this matter to either Katrina or the
seine-maker. He would be patient and wait for some positive sign
from Glory Goldie. Many times he had felt it to be so near that he
had only to put out his hand and take it. That very day, shut in as
he was, he had the feeling that there was a message from her on the
way. This was why he stood peering out through the little clear
corner of the window. He knew, also, that unless it came very soon
he could not go on living.

It was so dark now that he could hardly see as far as the gate, and
his hopes for that day were at an end. He had no objection to
retiring at once, he said presently. Katrina dished out the
porridge, the evening meal was hurridly eaten, and by a quarter
after six they were abed.

They dropped off to sleep, too; but their slumbers were of short
duration. The hands of the big Dalecarlian clock had barely got
round to six-thirty when Jan sprang out of bed; he quickly
freshened the fire, which was almost burned out, then proceeded to
dress himself.

Jan tried to be as quiet as possible, but for all that Katrina was
awakened; raising herself in bed she asked if it was already
morning.

No, indeed it wasn't, but the little girl had called to Jan in a
dream, and commanded him to go up to the forest.

Now it was Katrina's turn to sigh! It must be the madness come
back, thought she. She had been expecting it every day for some
little time, for Jan had been so depressed and restless of late.

She made no attempt to persuade him to stay at home, but got up,
instead, and put on her clothes.

"Wait a minute!" she said, when Jan was at the door. "If you're
going out into the woods to-night, then I want to go with you."

She feared Jan would raise objections, but he didn't; he remained
at the door till she was ready. Though apparently anxious to be
off, he seemed more controlled and rational than he had been all
day.

And what a night to venture out into! The cold came against them
like a rain of piercing and cutting glass-splinters. Their skins
smarted and they felt as if their noses were being torn from their
faces; their fingertips ached and their toes were as if they had
been cut off; they hardly knew they had any toes.

Jan uttered no word of complaint, neither did Katrina; they just
tramped on and on. Jan turned in on the winter-road across the
heights, the one they had traversed with Glory Goldie one Christmas
morning when she was so little she had to be carried.

There was a clear sky and in the west gleamed a pale crescent moon,
so that the night was far from pitch dark. Still it was difficult
to keep to the road because everything was so white with snow; time
after time they wandered too close to the edge and sank deep into a
drift. Nevertheless, they managed to make their way clear to the
huge stone that had once been hurled by a giant at Svartsjoe church.
Jan had already got past it when Katrina, who was a little way
behind him, gave a shriek.

"Jan!" she cried out. And Jan had not heard her sound so frightened
since the day Lars threatened to take their home away from them.
"Can't you see there's some one sitting here?"

Jan turned and went back to Katrina. And now the two of them came
near taking to their heels; for, sure enough, propped against the
stone and almost covered with rim frost sat a giant troll, with a
bristly beard and a beak-like nose!

The troll, or whatever it was, sat quite motionless. It had become
so paralyzed from the cold that it had not been able to get back to
its cave, or wherever else it kept itself nowadays.

"Think that there really are such creatures after all!" said Katrina.
"I should never have believed it, for all I've heard so much about
them."

Jan was the first to recover his senses and to see what it was they
had come upon.

"It's no troll, Katrina," he said. "It's Agrippa Praestberg."

"Sakes alive!" gasped Katrina. "You don't tell me! From the look of
him he could easily be mistaken for a troll."

"He has just fallen asleep here," observed Jan. "He can't be dead,
surely!"

They shouted the old man's name and shook him; but he never stirred.

"Run back for the sled, Katrina," said Jan, "so we can draw him
home. I'll stay here and rub him with snow till he wakes up."

"Just so you don't freeze to death yourself!"

"My dear Katrina," laughed Jan, "I haven't felt as warm as I feel
now in many a day. I'm so happy about the little girl! Wasn't it
dear of her to send us out here to save the life of him who has
gone around spreading so many lies about her?"


A week or two later, as Jan was returning from his work one
evening, he met Agrippa Praestberg.

"I'm right and fit again," Agrippa told him. "But I know well
enough that if you and Katrina had not come to the rescue there
wouldn't have been much left of Johan Utter Agrippa Praestberg by
now. So I've wondered what I could do for you in return."

"Oh, don't give that a thought my good Agrippa Praestberg!" said
Jan, with that upward imperial sweep of the hand.

"Hush now, while I tell you!" spoke Praestberg. "When I said I'd
thought of doing you a return service, it wasn't just empty
chatter. I meant it. And now it has already been done. The other
day I ran across the travelling salesman who gave that lass of
yours the red dress."

"Who?" cried Jan, so excited he could hardly get his breath.

"That blackguard who gave the girl the red dress and who afterward
sent her to the devil in Stockholm. First I gave him, on your
account, all the thrashing he could take, and then I told him that
the next time he showed his face around here he'd get just as big a
dose of the same kind of medicine."

Jan would not believe he had heard aright. "But what did he say?"
he questioned eagerly. "Didn't you ask him about Glory Goldie? Had
he no greetings from her?"

"What could he say? He took his punishment and held his tongue. Now
I've done you a decent turn, Jan Anderson, and we're even. Johan
Utter Agrippa Praestberg wants no unpaid scores."

With that he strode on, leaving Jan in the middle of the road,
lamenting loudly. The little girl had wanted to send him a message!
That merchant had come with greetings from her, but not a thing had
he learned because the man had been driven away.

Jan stood wringing his hands. He did not weep, but he ached all
over worse than if he were ill. He felt certain in his own mind
that Glory Goldie had wanted Praestberg to take a message from her
brought by the merchant and convey it to her father. But it was
with Praestberg as with the trolls--whether they wanted to help or
hinder they only wrought mischief.


THE SUNDAY AFTER MIDSUMMER

The first Sunday after Midsummer Day there was a grand party at the
seine-maker's to which every one in the Ashdales had been invited.
The old man and his daughter-in-law were in the habit of
entertaining the whole countryside on this day of each year.

Folks wondered, of course, how two people who were so pitiably poor
could afford to give a big feast, but to all who knew the whys and
wherefores it seemed perfectly natural.

As a matter of fact, when the seine-maker was a rich man he gave
his two sons a farmstead each. The elder son wasted his substance
in much the same way as Ol' Bengtsa himself had done, and died
poor. The younger son, who was the more steady and reliable, kept
his portion and even increased it, so that now he was quite well-to-do.
But what he owned at the present time was as nothing to what he
might have had if his father had not recklessly made away with both
money and lands, to no purpose whatever. If such wealth had only
come into the hands of the son in his younger days, there is no
telling to what he might have attained. He could have been owner of
all the woodlands in the Lovsjoe district, had a shop at Broby, and
a steamer plying Lake Loeven; he might even have been master of the
ironworks at Ekeby. Naturally he found it difficult to excuse the
father's careless business methods, but he kept his thoughts to
himself.

When the crash came for Ol' Bengtsa, a good many persons, Bengtsa
among them, expected the son to come to his aid by the sacrifice of
his own property. But what good would that have done? It would only
have gone to the creditors. It was with the idea in mind that the
father should have something to fall back upon when all his
possessions were gone, that the son had held on to his own.

It was not the fault of the younger son that Ol' Bengtsa had taken
up his abode with the widow of the elder son, for he had begged the
father more than a hundred times to come and live with him. The
father's refusal to accept this offer seemed almost like an act of
injustice; for because of it the son got the name of being mean and
hard-hearted among those who knew the old man was badly off. Still,
there was no ill-feeling between the two.

The son, accompanied by his wife and children, always drove down to
the Ashdales over the steep and perilous mountain road once every
summer, just to spend a day with his father.

If people had only known how badly he and his wife felt every time
they saw the wretched hovel, the ramshackle outhouse, the stony
potato patch, and the sister-in-law's ragged children, they would
have understood how his heart went out to his father. The worst of
all was that the father persisted in giving a big party in their
honour. Every time they bade the old man good-bye they begged him
not to invite all the neighbours in when they came again the next
year; but he was obdurate; he would not forego his yearly feast,
though he could ill afford the expense. Seeing how aged and broken
he looked, one would hardly have thought there was so much of the
old happy-go-lucky Ol' Bengtsa of Lusterby still left in him, but
the desire to do things on a grand scale still clung to him. It had
caused him misfortune from which he could never recover.

The son had learned inadvertently that the old man and the
sister-in-law scrimped the whole year just to be able to give a
grand spread on the day he was at home. And then it was nothing but
eat, eat the whole time! He and his family were hardly out of the
wagon before they were served with coffee and all kinds of tempting
appetizers. And later came the dinner to all the neighbours with a
fish course, a meat course, and game, and rice-cakes, and fruit-mold
with whipped cream, and quantities of wines and spirits. It was
enough to make one weep! He and his wife did nothing to encourage
this foolishness. On the contrary, they brought with them only such
plain fare as they were accustomed to have every day; but for all
that they could not escape the feasting. Sometimes they felt that
rather than let the old man ruin himself on their account they
might better remain away altogether. Yet they feared to do so, lest
their good intentions should be misinterpreted.

And what a strange company they were thrown in with at these
Parties--old blacksmiths and fishermen and backwoodsmen! If such
good, substantial folk as the Falla family had not been in the
habit of coming, too, there would have been no one there with whom
they could have exchanged a word.

Ol' Bengtsa's son had liked the late Eric of Falla best, but he
also entertained in a high regard for Lars Gunnarson, the present
master of Falla. Lars Gunnarson came of rather obscure people, but
he was a man who had the good sense to marry well, and who would
doubtless forge ahead and gain for himself both wealth and
position. When the old man told his son that Lars Gunnarson was not
likely to come to the party this year, the latter was very much
disappointed.

"But it's no fault of mine," Ol' Bengsta declared. "Lars isn't
exactly my kind, but all the same, on your account, I went down to
Falla yesterday and invited him."

"Maybe he's weary of these parties," said the son.

"Oh, no," returned Ol' Bengtsa. "I'm sure he'd be only too glad to
come, but there's something that's keeping him away." He did not
explain further just then, but while they were having their coffee,
he went back to the subject. "You mustn't feel so badly because
Lars isn't coming this evening," he said. "I don't believe you'd
care for his company any more."

"You don't mean that he has taken to drink?"

"That wasn't such a bad guess! He took to it suddenly in the
spring, and since Midsummer Day he hasn't drawn a sober breath."

During these visits the father and son immediately they had
finished their coffee always went fishing. The old man usually kept
very still on these occasions, so as not to scare the fish away,
but this year was the exception. He spoke to the son time and
again. His words came with difficulty, as always, still there
seemed to be more life in him now than ordinarily. Evidently there
was something special he wanted to say, or rather something he
wished to draw from his son. He was like one who stands outside an
empty house shouting and calling, in the hope that somebody will
come and open the door to him.

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