Pictures of Sweden Part 8

I looked out from the balcony into the neighbouring yard: there was not a soul to be seen, but children had been playing there. There was a little garden made of dry sticks: they were stuck down in the soft soil and had been watered; a broken pan, which had certainly served by way of watering-pot, lay there still. The sticks signified roses and geraniums.

It had been a delightful garden--alas, yes! We great, grown-up men--we play just so: we make ourselves a garden with what we call love's roses and friendship's geraniums; we water them with our tears and with our heart's blood; and yet they are, and remain, dry sticks without root. It was a gloomy thought; I felt it, and in order to get the dry sticks in my thoughts to blossom, I went out. I wandered in the fibres and in the long threads--that is to say, in the small lanes--and in the great street; and here was more life than I dared to expect. I met a herd of cattle returning or going--which I know not--for they were without a herdsman. The shop-boy still stood behind the counter, leaned over it and greeted me; the stranger took his hat off again--that was my day's employment in Sala.

Pardon me, thou silent town, which Gustavus Adolphus built, where his young heart felt the first emotions of love, and where the silver lies in the deep shafts--that is to say, outside the town, "in a flat, and not very pleasant district."

I knew no one in the town; I had no one to be my guide, so I accompanied the cows, and came to the churchyard. The cows went past, but I stepped over the stile, and stood amongst the graves, where the gra.s.s grew high, and almost all the tombstones lay with worn-out inscriptions. On a few only the date of the year was legible.

"Anno"--yes, what then? And who rested here? Everything on the stone was erased--blotted out like the earthly life of those mortals that here were earth in earth. What life's dream have ye dead played here in silent Sala?

The setting sun shone over the graves; not a leaf moved on the trees; all was still--still as death--in the city of the silver-mines, of which this traveller's reminiscence is but a frame around the shop-boy who leaned over the counter.

THE MUTE BOOK.

By the high road into the forest there stood a solitary farm-house.

Our way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle within, but in the yard, in an arbour of flowering lilacs, there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood by and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully over him; his face was covered with a white cloth, and under his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which was a whole sheet of grey paper, and between each lay withered flowers, deposited and forgotten--a whole herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A chapter of his life was blended with every flower.

"Who is that dead man?" we asked, and the answer was: "The old student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too; but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the country, where they paid for his board and lodging.

"He was as gentle as a child, when the dark humour did not come over him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would sit the whole day and look at one plant, and then at another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. G.o.d knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take his peaceful rest in the grave!"

They raised the winding-sheet. There was peace in the face of the dead: a sunbeam fell on it; a swallow in its arrowy flight, darted into the new-made arbour, and in its flight circled twittering over the dead man's head.

How strange it is!--we all a.s.suredly know it--to take out old letters from the days of our youth and read them: a whole life, as it were, then rises up with all its hopes, and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them for many years--them whom we once thought we should always cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with.

The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of the friend--the friend of his school-days--the friend for life. He fixed this leaf on the student's cap in the green wood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the whole of life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved; friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory-plant, too fine for the gardens of the North--it looks as if there still were fragrance in these leaves!--_she_ gave it to him--she, the young lady of that n.o.ble garden.

Here is the marsh-lotus which he himself has plucked and watered with salt tears--the marsh-lotus from the fresh waters. And here is a nettle: what does its leaf say? What did he think on plucking it--on preserving it? Here are lilies of the valley from the woodland solitudes; here are honeysuckle leaves from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here the bare, sharp blade of gra.s.s.

The flowering lilac bends its fresh, fragrant cl.u.s.ters over the dead man's head; the swallow again flies past; "quivit! quivit!" Now the men come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head rests on the Mute-Book--preserved--forgotten!

THE ZaTHER DALE.

Everything was in order, the carriage examined, even a whip with a good lash was not forgotten. "Two whips would be best," said the ironmonger, who sold it, and the ironmonger was a man of experience, which travellers often are not. A whole bag full of "slanter"--that is, copper coins of small value--stood before us for bridge-money, for beggars, for shepherd's boys, or whoever might open the many field-gates for us that obstructed our progress. But we had to do this ourselves, for the rain pattered down and lashed the ground; no one had any desire to come out in such weather. The rushes in the marsh bent and waved; it was a real rain feast for them, and it whistled from the tops of the rushes: "We drink with our feet, we drink with our heads, we drink with the whole body, and yet we stand on one leg, hurra! We drink with the bending willow, with the dripping flowers on the bank; their cups run over--the marsh marigold, that fine lady, can bear it better! Hurra! it is a feast! it pours, it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song. Tomorrow the frogs will croak the same after us and say, 'it is quite new!'"

And the rushes waved, and the rain pattered down with a splashing noise--it was fine weather to travel in to Zather Dale, and to see its far-famed beauties. The whip-lash now came off the whip; it was fastened on again, and again, and every time it was shorter, so that at last there was not a lash, nor was there any handle, for the handle went after the lash--or sailed after it--as the road was quite navigable, and gave one a vivid idea of the beginning of the deluge.

One poor jade now drew too much, the other drew too little, and one of the splinter bars broke; well, by all that is vexatious, that was a fine drive! The leather ap.r.o.n in front had a deep pond in its folds with an outlet into one's lap. Now one of the linch-pins came out; now the twisting of the rope harness became loose, and the cross-strap was tired of holding any longer. Glorious inn in Zather, how I now long more for thee than thy far-famed dale. And the horses went slower, and the rain fell faster, and so--yes, so we were not yet in Zather.

Patience, thou lank spider, that in the ante-chamber quietly dost spin thy web over the expectant's foot, spin my eyelids close in a sleep as still as the horse's pace! Patience? no, she was not with us in the carriage to Zather. But to the inn, by the road side, close to the far-famed valley, I got at length, towards evening.

And everything was flowing in the yard, chaotically mingled; manure and farming implements, staves and straw. The poultry sat there washed to shadows, or at least like stuck-up hens' skins with feathers on, and even the ducks crept close up to the wet wall, sated with the wet.

The stable-man was cross, the girl still more so; it was difficult to get them to bestir themselves: the steps were crooked, the floor sloping and but just washed, sand strewn thickly on it, and the air was damp and cold. But without, scarcely twenty paces from the inn, on the other side of the road, lay the celebrated valley, a garden made by nature herself, and whose charm consists of trees and bushes, wells and purling brooks.

It was a long hollow; I saw the tops of the trees looming up, and the rain drew its thick veil over it. The whole of that long evening did I sit and look upon it during that shower of showers. It was as if the Venern, the Vettern and a few more lakes ran through an immense sieve from the clouds. I had ordered something to eat and drink, but I got nothing. They ran up and they ran down; there was a hissing sound of roasting by the hearth; the girls chattered, the men drank "sup,"[R]

strangers came, were shown into their rooms, and got both roast and boiled. Several hours had pa.s.sed, when I made a forcible appeal to the girl, and she answered phlegmatically: "Why, Sir, you sit there and write without stopping, so you cannot have time to eat."

[Footnote R: Swedish, _sup_. Danish, _snaps_. German, _schnaps_.

English, _drams_.]

It was a long evening, "but the evening pa.s.sed!" It had become quite still in the inn; all the travellers, except myself, had again departed, certainly in order to find better quarters for the night at Hedemore or Brunbeck. I had seen, through the half-open door into the dirty tap-room, a couple of fellows playing with greasy cards; a huge dog lay under the table and glared with its large red eyes; the kitchen was deserted; the rooms too; the floor was wet, the storm rattled, the rain beat against the windows--"and now to bed! said I."

I slept an hour, perhaps two, and was awakened by a loud bawling from the high road. I started up: it was twilight, the night at that period is not darker--it was about one o'clock. I heard the door shaken roughly; a deep manly voice shouted aloud, and there was a hammering with a cudgel against the planks of the yard-gate. Was it an intoxicated or a mad man that was to be let in? The gate was now opened, but many words were not exchanged. I heard a woman scream at the top of her voice from terror. There was now a great bustling about; they ran across the yard in wooden shoes; the bellowing of cattle and the rough voices of men were mingled together. I sat on the edge of the bed. Out or in! what was to be done? I looked from the window; in the road there was nothing to be seen, and it still rained.

All at once some one came up stairs with heavy footsteps: he opened the door of the room adjoining mine--now he stood still! I listened--a large iron bolt fastened my door. The stranger now walked across the floor, now he shook my door, and then kicked against it with a heavy foot, and whilst all this was pa.s.sing, the rain beat against the windows, and the blast made them rattle.

"Are there any travellers here?" shouted a voice; "the house is on fire!"

I now dressed myself and hastened out of the room and down the stairs.

There was no smoke to be seen, but when I reached the yard, I saw that the whole building--a long and extensive one of wood--was enveloped in flames and clouds of smoke. The fire had originated in the baking oven, which no one had looked to; a traveller, who accidently came past, saw it, called out and hammered at the door: and the women screamed, and the cattle bellowed, when the fire stuck its red tongue into them.

Now came the fire-engine and the flames were extinguished. By this time it was morning. I stood in the road, scarcely a hundred steps from the far-famed dale. "One may as well spring into it as walk into it!" and I sprang into it; and the rain poured down, and the water flowed--the whole dale was a well.

The trees turned their leaves the wrong side out, purely because of the pouring rain, and they said, as the rushes did the day before: "We drink with our heads, we drink with our feet, and we drink with the whole body, and yet stand on our legs, hurra! it rains, and it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song--and it is quite new!"

Yes, that the rushes also sang yesterday--but it was the same, ever the same. I looked and looked, and all I know of the beauty of Zather Dale is, that she had washed herself!

THE MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL IN LACKSAND.

Lacksand lay on the other side of the dal-elv which the road now led us over for the third or fourth time. The picturesque bell-tower of red painted beams, erected at a distance from the church, rose above the tall trees on the clayey declivity: old willows hung gracefully over the rapid stream. The floating bridge rocked under us--nay, it even sank a little, so that the water splashed under the horse's hoofs; but these bridges have such qualities! The iron chains that held it rattled, the planks creaked, the boards splashed, the water rose, and murmured and roared, and so we got over where the road slants upwards towards the town. Close opposite here the last year's May-pole still stood with withered flowers. How many hands that bound these flowers are now withered in the grave?

It is far prettier to go up on the sloping bank along the elv, than to follow the straight high-road into the town. The path conducts us, between pasture fields and leaf trees, up to the parsonage, where we pa.s.sed the evening with the friendly family. The clergyman himself was but lately dead, and his relatives were all in mourning. There was something about the young daughter--I knew not myself what it was--but I was led to think of the delicate flax flower, too delicate for the short northern summer.

They spoke about the Midsummer festival the next day, and of the winter season here, when the swans, often more than thirty at a time, sit (motionless themselves) on the elv, and utter strange, mournful tones. They always come in pairs, they said, two and two, and thus they also fly away again. If one of them dies, its partner always remains a long time after all the others are gone; lingers, laments, and then flies away alone and solitary.

When I left the parsonage in the evening, the moon, in its first quarter, was up. The May-pole was raised; the little steamer, 'Prince Augustus,' with several small vessels in tow, came over the Siljan lake and into the elv; a musician sprang on sh.o.r.e, and began to play dances under the tall wreathed May-pole. And there was soon a merry circle around it--all so happy, as if the whole of life were but a delightful summer night.

Next morning was the Midsummer Festival. It was Sunday, the 24th of June, and a beautiful sunshiny day it was. The most picturesque sight at the festival is to see the people from the different parishes coming in crowds, in large boats over Siljan's lake, and landing on its sh.o.r.es. We drove out to the landing-place, Barkedale, and before we got out of the town, we met whole troops coming from there, as well as from the mountains.

Close by the town of Lacksand, there is a row of low wooden shops on both sides of the way, which only get their interior light through the doorway. They form a whole street, and serve as stables for the parishioners, but also--and it was particularly the case that morning--to go into and arrange their finery. Almost all the shops or sheds were filled with peasant women, who were anxiously busy about their dresses, careful to get them into the right folds, and in the mean time peeped continually out of the door to see who came past. The number of arriving church-goers increased; men, women, and children, old and young, even infants; for at the Midsummer festival no one stays at home to take care of them, and so of course they must come too--all must go to church.

What a dazzling army of colours! Fiery red and gra.s.s green ap.r.o.ns meet our gaze. The dress of the women is a black skirt, red bodice, and white sleeves: all of them had a psalm-book wrapped in the folded silk pocket-handkerchief. The little girls were entirely in yellow, and with red ap.r.o.ns; the very least were in Turkish-yellow clothes. The men were dressed in black coats, like our paletots, embroidered with red woollen cord; a red band with a ta.s.sel hung down from the large black hat; with dark knee breeches, and blue stockings, with red leather gaiters--in short, there was a dazzling richness of colour, and that, too, on a bright sunny morning in the forest road.

This road led down a steep to the lake, which was smooth and blue.