Читать книгу From a Swedish Homestead - Selma Lagerlöf - Страница 6

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It is quite certain the sun loves the open places outside the small village churches. Has no one ever noticed that one never sees so much sunshine as during the morning service outside a small, whitewashed church? Nowhere else does one see such radiant streams of light, nowhere else is the air so devoutly quiet. The sun simply keeps watch that no one remains on the church hill gossiping. It wants them all to sit quietly in church and listen to the sermon—that is why it sends such a wealth of sunny rays on to the ground outside the church wall.

Perhaps one must not take it for granted that the sun keeps watch outside the small churches every Sunday; but so much is certain, that the morning Ingrid had been placed in the grave in the churchyard at Raglanda, it spread a burning heat over the open space outside the church. Even the flint stones looked as if they might take fire as they lay and sparkled in the wheel-ruts. The short, down-trodden grass curled, so that it looked like dry moss, whilst the yellow dandelions which grew amongst the grass spread themselves out on their long stems, so that they became as large as asters.

A man from Dalarne came wandering along the road—one of those men who go about selling knives and scissors. He was clad in a long, white sheep-skin coat, and on his back he had a large black leather pack. He had been walking with this burden for several hours without finding it too hot, but when he had left the highroad, and came to the open place outside the church, he stopped and took off his hat in order to dry the perspiration from his forehead.

As the man stood there bare-headed, he looked both handsome and clever. His forehead was high and white, with a deep wrinkle between the eyebrows; the mouth was well formed, with thin lips. His hair was parted in the middle; it was cut short at the back, but hung over his ears, and was inclined to curl. He was tall, and strongly, but not coarsely, built; in every respect well proportioned. But what was wrong about him was his glance, which was unsteady, and the pupils of his eyes rolled restlessly, and were drawn far into the sockets, as if to hide themselves. There was something drawn about the mouth, something dull and heavy, which did not seem to belong to the face.

He could not be quite right, either, or he would not have dragged that heavy pack about on a Sunday. If he had been quite in his senses, he would have known that it was of no use, as he could not sell anything in any case. None of the other men from Dalarne who walked about from village to village bent their backs under this burden on a Sunday, but they went to the house of God free and erect as other men.

But this poor fellow probably did not know it was a holy day until he stood in the sunshine outside the church and heard the singing. He was sensible enough at once to understand that he could not do any business, and then his brain began to work as to how he should spend the day.

He stood for a long time and stared in front of him. When everything went its usual course, he had no difficulty in managing. He was not so bad but that he could go from farm to farm all through the week and attend to his business, but he never could get accustomed to the Sunday—that always came upon him as a great, unexpected trouble.

His eyes became quite fixed, and the muscles of his forehead swelled.

The first thought that took shape in his brain was that he should go into the church and listen to the singing, but he would not accept this suggestion. He was very fond of singing, but he dared not go into the church. He was not afraid of human beings, but in some churches there were such quaint, uncanny pictures, which represented creatures of which he would rather not think.

At last his brain worked round to the thought that, as this was a church, there would probably also be a churchyard, and when he could take refuge in a churchyard all was well. One could not offer him anything better. If on his wanderings he saw a churchyard, he always went in and sat there awhile, even if it were in the middle of a workaday week.

Now that he wanted to go to the churchyard a new difficulty suddenly arose. The burial-place at Raglanda does not lie quite near the church, which is built on a hill, but on the other side of the road; and he could not get to the entrance of the churchyard without passing along the road where the horses of the church-goers were standing tied up.

All the horses stood with their heads deep in bundles of hay and nosebags, chewing. There was no question of their being able to do the man any harm, but he had his own ideas as to the danger of going past such a long row of animals.

Two or three times he made an attempt, but his courage failed him, so that he was obliged to turn back. He was not afraid that the horses would bite or kick. It was quite enough for him that they were so near that they could see him. It was quite enough that they could shake their bridles and scrape the earth with their hoofs.

At last a moment came when all the horses were looking down, and seemed to be eating for a wager. Then he began to make his way between them. He held his sheepskin cloak tightly around him so that it should not flap and betray him, and he went on tiptoe as lightly as he could. When a horse raised its eyelid and looked at him, he at once stopped and curtsied. He wanted to be polite in this great danger, but surely animals were amenable to reason, and could understand that he could not bow when he had a pack full of hardware upon his back; he could only curtsy.

He sighed deeply, for in this world it was a sad and troublesome thing to be so afraid of all four-footed animals as he was. He was really not afraid of any other animals than goats, and he would not have been at all afraid of horses and dogs and cats had he only been quite sure that they were not a kind of transformed goats. But he never was quite sure of that, so as a matter of fact it was just as bad for him as if he had been afraid of all kinds of four-footed animals.

It was no use his thinking of how strong he was, and that these small peasant horses never did any harm to anyone: he who has become possessed of such fears cannot reason with himself. Fear is a heavy burden, and it is hard for him who must always carry it.

It was strange that he managed to get past all the horses. The last few steps he took in two long jumps, and when he got into the churchyard he closed the gate after him, and began to threaten the horses with his clenched fist.

'You wretched, miserable, accursed goats!'

He did that to all animals. He could not help calling them goats, and that was very stupid of him, for it had procured him a name which he did not like. Everyone who met him called him the 'Goat.' But he would not own to this name. He wanted to be called by his proper name, but apparently no one knew his real name in that district.

He stood a little while at the gate, rejoicing at having escaped from the horses, but he soon went further into the churchyard. At every cross and every stone he stopped and curtsied, but this was not from fear: this was simply from joy at seeing these dear old friends. All at once he began to look quite gentle and mild. They were exactly the same crosses and stones he had so often seen before. They looked just as usual. How well he knew them again! He must say 'Good-morning' to them.

How nice it was in the churchyard! There were no animals about there, and there were no people to make fun of him. It was best there, when it was quite quiet as now; but even if there were people, they did not disturb him. He certainly knew many pretty meadows and woods which he liked still better, but there he was never left in peace. They could not by any means compare with the churchyard. And the churchyard was better than the forest, for in the forest the loneliness was so great that he was frightened by it. Here it was quiet, as in the depths of the forest; but he was not without company. Here people were sleeping under every stone and every mound; just the company he wanted in order not to feel lonely and strange.

He went straight to the open grave. He went there partly because there were some shady trees, and partly because he wanted company. He thought, perhaps, that the dead who had so recently been laid in the grave might be a better protection against his loneliness than those who had passed away long ago.

He bent his knees, with his back to the great mound of earth at the edge of the grave, and succeeded in pushing the pack upwards, so that it stood firmly on the mound, and he then loosened the heavy straps that fastened it. It was a great day—a holiday. He also took off his coat. He sat down on the grass with a feeling of great pleasure, so close to the grave that his long legs, with the stockings tied under the knee, and the heavy laced shoes dangled over the edge of the grave.

For a while he sat still, with his eyes steadily fixed upon the coffin. When one was possessed by such fear as he was, one could not be too careful. But the coffin did not move in the least; it was impossible to suspect it of containing any snare.

He was no sooner certain of this than he put his hand into a side-pocket of the pack and took out a violin and bow, and at the same time he nodded to the dead in the grave. As he was so quiet he should hear something pretty.

This was something very unusual for him. There were not many who were allowed to hear him play. No one was ever allowed to hear him play at the farms, where they set the dogs at him and called him the 'Goat'; but sometimes he would play in a house where they spoke softly, and went about quietly, and did not ask him if he wanted to buy any goat-skins. At such places he took out his violin and treated them to some music; and this was a great favour—the greatest he could bestow upon anybody.

As he sat there and played at the edge of the grave it did not sound amiss; he did not play a wrong note, and he played so softly and gently that it could hardly be heard at the next grave. The strange thing about it was that it was not the man who could play, but it was his violin that could remember some small melodies. They came forth from the violin as soon as he let the bow glide over it. It might not, perhaps, have meant so much to others, but for him, who could not remember a single tune, it was the most precious gift of all to possess such a violin that could play by itself.

Whilst he played he sat with a beaming smile on his face. It was the violin that spoke and spoke; he only listened. Was it not strange that one heard all these beautiful things as soon as one let the bow glide over the strings? The violin did that. It knew how it ought to be, and the Dalar man only sat and listened. Melodies grew out of that violin as grass grows out of the earth. No one could understand how it happened. Our Lord had ordered it so.

The Dalar man intended to remain sitting there the whole day, and let the dear tunes grow out of the violin like small white and many-coloured flowers. He would play a whole meadowful of flowers, play a whole long valleyful, a whole wide plain.

But she who lay in the coffin distinctly heard the violin, and upon her it had a strange effect. The tones had made her dream, and what she had seen in her dreams caused her such emotion that her heart began to beat, her blood to flow, and she awoke.

But all she had lived through while she lay there, apparently dead, the thoughts she had had, and also her last dream—everything vanished in the same moment she awoke to consciousness. She did not even know that she was lying in her coffin, but thought she was still lying ill at home in her bed. She only thought it strange that she was still alive. A little while ago, before she fell asleep, she had been in the pangs of death. Surely, all must have been over with her long ago. She had taken leave of her adopted parents, and of her brothers and sisters, and of the servants. The Dean had been there himself to administer the last Communion, for her adopted father did not think he could bear to give it to her himself. For several days she had put away all earthly thoughts from her mind. It was incomprehensible that she was not dead.

She wondered why it was so dark in the room where she lay. There had been a light all the other nights during her illness. And then they had let the blankets fall off the bed. She was lying there getting as cold as ice. She raised herself a little to pull the blankets over her. In doing so she knocked her head against the lid of the coffin, and fell back with a little scream of pain. She had knocked herself rather severely, and immediately became unconscious again. She lay as motionless as before, and it seemed as if life had again left her.

The Dalar man, who had heard both the knock and the cry, immediately laid down his violin and sat listening; but there was nothing more to be heard—nothing whatever. He began again to look at the coffin as attentively as before. He sat nodding his head, as if he would say 'Yes' to what he was himself thinking about, namely, that nothing in this world was to be depended upon. Here he had had the best and most silent of comrades, but had he not also been disappointed in him?

He sat and looked at the coffin, as if trying to see right through it. At last, when it continued quite still, he took his violin again and began to play. But the violin would not play any longer. However gently and tenderly he drew his bow, there came forth no melody. This was so sad that he was nearly crying. He had intended to sit still and listen to his violin the whole day, and now it would not play any more.

He could quite understand the reason. The violin was uneasy and afraid of what had moved in the coffin. It had forgotten all its melodies, and thought only of what it could be that had knocked at the coffin-lid. That is how it is one forgets everything when one is afraid. He saw that he would have to quiet the violin if he wanted to hear more.

He had felt so happy, more so than for many years. If there was really anything bad in the coffin, would it not be better to let it out? Then the violin would be glad, and beautiful flowers would again grow out of it.

He quickly opened his big pack, and began to rummage amongst his knives and saws and hammers until he found a screw-driver. In another moment he was down in the grave on his knees and unscrewing the coffin-lid. He took out one screw after the other, until at last he could raise the lid against the side of the grave; at the same moment the handkerchief fell from off the face of the apparently dead girl. As soon as the fresh air reached Ingrid, she opened her eyes. Now she saw that it was light. They must have removed her. Now she was lying in a yellow chamber with a green ceiling, and a large chandelier was hanging from the ceiling. The chamber was small, but the bed was still smaller. Why had she the sensation of her arms and legs being tied? Was it because she should lie still in the little narrow bed? It was strange that they had placed a hymn-book under her chin; they only did that with corpses. Between her fingers she had a little bouquet. Her adopted mother had cut a few sprigs from her flowering myrtle, and laid them in her hands. Ingrid was very much surprised. What had come to her adopted mother? She saw that they had given her a pillow with broad lace, and a fine hem-stitched sheet. She was very glad of that; she liked to have things nice. Still, she would rather have had a warm blanket over her. It could surely not be good for a sick person to lie without a blanket. Ingrid was nearly putting her hands to her eyes and beginning to cry, she was so bitterly cold. At the same moment she felt something hard and cold against her cheek. She could not help smiling. It was the old, red wooden horse, the old three-legged Camilla, that lay beside her on the pillow. Her little brother, who could never sleep at night without having it with him in his bed, had put it in her bed. It was very sweet of her little brother. Ingrid felt still more inclined to cry when she understood that her little brother had wanted to comfort her with his wooden horse.

But she did not get so far as crying. The truth all at once flashed upon her. Her little brother had given her the wooden horse, and her mother had given her her white myrtle flowers, and the hymn-book had been placed under her chin, because they had thought she was dead.

Ingrid took hold of the sides of the coffin with both hands and raised herself. The little narrow bed was a coffin, and the little narrow chamber was a grave. It was all very difficult to understand. She could not understand that this concerned her, that it was she who had been swathed like a corpse and placed in the grave. She must be lying all the same in her bed, and be seeing or dreaming all this. She would soon find out that this was no reality, but that everything was as usual.

All at once she found the explanation of the whole thing—'I often have such strange dreams. This is only a vision'—and she sighed, relieved and happy. She laid herself down in her coffin again; she was so sure that it was her own bed, for that was not very wide either.