Sigrun
The stranger thanked Lotta Hedman sincerely for her story.
“I am more than glad that I happened to be in the train to-day,” he said. “Ah, if we could only hear the heavenly music oftener! Then the world would be different in many ways.”
With this remark he drew back into his corner. He pulled his hat down over his eyes, but Lotta Hedman felt sure that he had not done so in order to sleep, but to think at ease over what he had heard.
After a little she felt a powerful desire to speak with him again. “Talk to him of Sigrun. Ask his advice about your journey,” said a voice within her very clearly. “But why should I speak of Sigrun to one who is a stranger to her and to me?” she protested to herself. Nevertheless, in a moment the desire was there again. “Speak to him of Sigrun! Look at him, now that his hat has slipped aside. A good man who has suffered much. And of a humble heart. Whoever he meets, however fallen and deep in sin, he holds them for greater than himself. To such a man one can speak of anything. Tell him of Sigrun!”
“No, Lotta Hedman, be careful! You are not at home in Stenbroträsk now, where you know everyone. How do you know this man is as good as you say? Perhaps he is even now laughing at you in his thoughts.”
The train rolled on and on, from station to station. People got out and others entered. At a great junction where several lines met, all the passengers in the third-class carriage got out, except Lotta Hedman and the stranger sitting opposite.
Hardly were they alone when the man sat straight up in his seat, put his hat in the rack above, and began to speak.
He was kind and wise, cheerful, and, above all, gentle and humble in manner. It was this gentleness that marked him, so that people could not look at him for five minutes without longing to tell him all their troubles.
“That man would understand my weakness”—so thought all who met with him. “It would be good to speak with him. He would understand how hard it is for me.”
And it was not long before Lotta Hedman broke off in the middle of a conversation about the box factory and work in Stenbroträsk.
“I should like to ask you about something,” she said. “I am in trouble, and you know I live all alone and have no one to ask. Perhaps you could give me good advice.”
“Do not say you want me to advise you,” said the man. “I am surely but ill-fitted to advise. But tell me, at least, what it is that troubles you. You speak well, and this is a long journey. I am going all the way to Dalsland myself. It will be a couple of days before I get home.”
“Well, it was this way. Once I had a friend. She was the eldest daughter of the Dean at Stenbroträsk. We were both going to be confirmed, and went to classes together.”
Her voice choked a moment, and her eyes reddened.
“I never cared so much for anyone on earth as I did for her,” she went on, after struggling a moment with her emotion.
The man sat quite still, making no attempt to hurry or assist her. He looked, indeed, somewhat embarrassed.
“Let me tell you how it was she first came to speak to me. Then you will understand what she was like.”
“Do,” he said. “That will be best. And take your time. We have all the day before us.”
“Well, it was when we were going to the confirmation classes, and one morning, in the interval, some of us, a dozen, perhaps, were standing in a corner of the churchyard talking about a piece in the catechism. I remember one of the boys said he was sure God loved mankind, for He had made us, and so, of course, He must be pleased with His own work.
“Now the few of us standing there together, we were the youngest at the classes, and poor folk’s children, all of us. The others, who were better and finer than the rest of us, walked up and down outside the church in little groups, and now and then stopped to gather round the Dean’s daughter; she was going to be confirmed that year too. She was beautiful to look at, and there was something about her that drew people to her. You could hardly help looking over to where she was.
“But we others, we knew, of course, that we couldn’t expect her to take any notice of us, and so we had to be content with standing in a corner talking about the catechism.
“‘If we were all like her,’ I said to the others, ‘then God might well be pleased with us all.’
“It was the Dean’s daughter we were thinking of, and then we all turned and stood looking at her.
“She had the loveliest soft brown hair, all curling at the temples and falling in soft waves over the brow and neck. A longish face, with thin cheeks and long eyelashes, and eyes like a deep well to look down in. And she seemed to be made somehow of finer stuff than the rest of us. Like some berries you can see through. She was rather tall, and walked with her head a little drooping to one side, and it seemed to us that suited her, with her looks and manner altogether.”
The listener bent forward suddenly, covering his eyes with his hand. The vision of a dearly loved face rose up before him. He saw it now as it had appeared to him that day at sea, when beauty after beauty passed before their eyes. So strangely young and questioning.
“Sigrun was her name,” said Lotta Hedman. “And it was an uncommon name, but that was not the only thing uncommon about her.
“Just on that day, watching her as she stood there, in the sunlight outside the church, I understood why it was one could not help looking at her.
“True, she was a human being like the rest of us. With eyes and nose and mouth as anyone else, and born in the Deanery at Stenbroträsk, and her parents ordinary people like everyone else’s. But that could not deceive any with eyes to see. Sigrun was of another sort than ordinary people; she was from another world.” The man, still sitting with his head resting on his hand, nodded involuntarily. That was the very word. From another world—a bird of passage that had lost its way, separated from its fellows, and somehow come among another flock not of its kind.
“For there are other worlds,” said Lotta Hedman. “Many worlds besides the one we live in. And Sigrun was from one of them. But perhaps you cannot understand?”
“Yes,” said the man, “I understand. I have met someone myself once who was from another world. At least, I think I understand,” he added, as if fearing he had spoken too confidently.
“And I slipped away into a corner under the belfry,” went on Lotta Hedman, covering her eyes. “I wanted to think over what this meant; that Sigrun was different from all the rest.
“If she were from another world, then surely she must be able to see that I was one of the chosen, appointed one day to speak the words of God. And would she not want to speak to me herself? She who was better than all the rest, would she not be better able to judge and choose than they?
“But I was not left alone with my thought for long. The others came up, all of them from our corner, that did not dare to go up to her; they came and gathered round me.
“‘Here’s Lotta Hedman sitting crying, because Sigrun won’t look at her,’ said one.
“‘Of course she won’t—Sigrun to look at one like you, indeed, such a sight!’ said another, and tried to make me see it the same way.
“‘Look at your hair—sticking out all round your head like a wild bush.’
“And I sat still and let them go on. ‘If it was only that,’ I thought to myself. ‘But it’s because Sigrun is from another world, and that’s worse than all the rest.’
“‘And such a figure you’ve got,’ said the others. ‘No shape at all. You can never get your clothes to sit properly like others do. And your eyes are sharp and hard, and you’ve a voice like a raven....’
“Now I hadn’t been crying before, but then I felt the tears coming, because the others were all so harsh and unkind, when they tried to comfort me.
“But then all of a sudden it seemed as if a warm, gentle light filled the air in front of me—like sunlight in a room on a cold winter’s day.
“A cool, soft hand drew my hands away from my face, and when I looked up it was Sigrun standing there, and smiling at me, and asking if I would row her across in my boat later on, when we had finished lessons for the day.
“And though I knew that the others must have told her that I was only a poor girl, and always ill besides; though I knew it was only for pity’s sake she asked me, still I felt so happy, so happy. Oh, you can never understand how wonderful it was to feel, and I loved her from that moment.”
“And I loved her from that moment,” repeated the listener to himself, and felt once more the touch of a woman’s lips on his face, and a little merry laugh. “Though I knew it was only for pity’s sake,” he whispered to himself—“though I knew well it was only for pity’s sake.
“Sigrun,” he murmured half aloud, “why should you come back to me like this to-day? I thought I had sent you away for ever. Why do you come back now?”
Lotta Hedman went on with her story. “But that afternoon, when we were rowing across, she asked me, Sigrun, if it was I that had heard the wonderful music in the Deanery on the day of the funeral, and asked me to tell her all about it. And I told her that and more. All the other things I had seen and heard, I told her everything, and told her, too, that I believed I was to be a seer and a prophet of God. And she did not laugh at me. Only said quite humbly that she never saw such things herself, but her dearest wish was to be a nurse. Not for ordinary people, ill with this or that, but for those stricken by the plague, or leprosy. Or if that could not be done, then she would go and care for witless folk, or teach the blind to read or deaf-mutes to talk. Her greatest sorrow, she said, was that she feared her father and mother would not let her go away to such work.
“I can remember even now,” said Lotta Hedman, “how beautiful she was when she spoke of that.”
The man sitting opposite looked up a moment, and his eyes shone. “Your story is a great delight to me,” he said. “Far more than you know.”
“It is very good of you to say so,” said Lotta Hedman. “I thought you would have been tired of it long ago.”
“Do not think that,” said he. “That girl—the Dean’s daughter from Stenbroträsk—you might talk to me of her all the rest of the way, and I should not be tired of hearing. And then I suppose you were friends after the day you went out in the boat together?”
“Yes,” said Lotta Hedman; “we were good friends—that is true. We went out in the boat nearly every evening, as long as the lessons lasted. Sigrun liked to sit in a boat and just drift up and down, not going anywhere, but just drifting. She did not care for steamers nor for railways, and did not care for driving with horses, but she loved to drift about in a little boat. And the thing she longed for most of all was the sea.”
The man sitting opposite bowed his head once more and covered his eyes. “True,” he thought to himself. “She longed to see the sea. She told me that. How she had longed for it ever since she was a child of fifteen. But it was given to me to show her that. At least, I have done one good thing in my life.”
Lotta Hedman did not need much encouragement from a listener; she went on, undisturbed, with her story.
“Then I thought, as soon as the confirmation classes were over, we should never see each other again, but all that summer after, Sigrun came down to the shore nearly every day, and we rowed up and down the river for hours together. And so it went on, summer after summer; it was the happiest time in all my life.”
The man sighed. “Why have you come back, Sigrun?” he whispered to himself. “You, so young and good, so beautiful and unspoiled, why do you come back to me now? I have tried to think of you as a woman ageing, a mother of children, a loving and affectionate wife. Why do you come now in all the freshness of youth?”
“And now I must tell you the end of that friendship,” said Lotta Hedman.
“After it had lasted four years, I was sitting at home one Sunday afternoon in spring, looking at a big red-painted farmhouse that grew up outside the east window. One wing showed out after another, and I was wondering what sort of a house it could be, and why it was being built up so grandly just that evening.
“It was getting late, and nearing twilight already. Father and mother had been to church that morning, and were sitting on either side of the hearth, smoking and talking. But I sat at the window, watching the house grow up against the grey evening sky.
“It was a red house on two floors, set high on a hill with a lot of old apple trees on the slope in front, and on one side of the orchard I could see a cowshed and barn, and on the other, stables and outhouses and a big stone store-cellar with one little room built over.
“Close by the store-cellar was a tree, of a sort I did not know. It was all knotty and rough, with a thick trunk and wide-spreading branches, and looked ever so old—there was something misshapen and threatening about it.
“Father and mother, sitting by the hearth, sat without speaking now—just thinking together. They knew each other so well.
“‘It’s a pity about Lotta,’ said mother. And father answered at once without asking what she meant, that it was a pity, surely. He’d been thinking of the same thing, you know.
“But I thought to myself that they did not know at all, really—for how could it be a pity about me in any way, as long as I had all my visions and voices to be happy with?
“And the big farmhouse stood there clear and plain as ever. It looked as if I could just walk in at any moment through the gate and talk to the people indoors. I could see tools and things lying about in the yard, and the bucket by the well, and the dog-kennel and the pigeon-loft, and I could see it was a fine big place, but something old and out of date about it.
“It was all very still and quiet and forsaken. Not a soul, not a beast of any kind was moving anywhere.
“And then I saw something that was more surprising than all the rest. There was a stone wall round the farm and buildings and yard, between them and the fields, and in the middle a gate. And one of the gateposts stood up straight and firm, but the other was grey and almost rotted through, and would have tumbled down if it hadn’t been for a whole lot of struts and supports round it.
“Just as I caught sight of that old gatepost, I felt a shiver through me. And I knew that there was something I was afraid of, and did not want to see any more.
“I put my hands before my eyes, and turned away from the window; it would not go away. Next time I looked out, there it was, just as before, a splendid place to see, standing out against the black hills behind. And looking at a place like that in reality, you would surely think it must be rich and powerful people that lived there. Everything was well kept, except that one gatepost.
“And I tried not to look at it, because it made me afraid, but just as I turned my eyes away from it, I saw that there was someone in the house after all. Someone sitting at the window of the little room above the cellar, almost opposite the gatepost, and looking down at it.
“It was an old woman, with a stern but beautiful face, and white hair set up under a cap—I had never seen anyone wear a cap like that before. She sat quite still, with folded hands, and her eyes fixed on the post. Sitting there like a stone, just looking and looking at it all the time.
“Now I felt more afraid of her than of the post itself, and I turned away from the window, and tried to make her go away, by thinking of Sigrun.
“I thought what good friends we had been, and still were. There was nothing that could separate us. The winter before, Sigrun had been away, to visit some relatives in the south, and stayed with them for several months, but when she came back, we were just as good friends as before.
“I never needed to do more than just call for Sigrun to make all darkness vanish away. But it did not help me this time. When I turned to the window again, there was the farmhouse, just as before, and the old woman still staring darkly and fixedly down at the same spot.
“Father and mother, sitting by the hearth, were talking the same way as before.
“‘Yes, it will be hard for Lotta,’ said mother. ‘But she’s young, and young folks soon forget.’
“‘Yes, that’s true. As long as you’re young,’ said father.
“And then they sighed, and puffed away at their pipes.
“Heavy thoughts weighed on me now. I felt that father and mother were right, and that something cruel was going to happen to me.
“Then I tried again. I thought of Sigrun, as she had been, when she came to me a few months back and told me that she was engaged to a clergyman she had met while she had been away staying with her friends.
“She had been so happy at the thought of marrying a priest. It was just the thing for her, as a clergyman’s daughter. And he had a living of his own already, and his own congregation, though he was only a little over thirty. It was only a small place, but then he was not to be there long. With his powers, he would certainly end as a bishop.
“So, really, it was a fine thing that he had a home of his own already, and they could get married in the autumn.
“I was a little astonished at first, for I had always thought she was going to be a nurse, but she said it was just the same when you married a priest. Better, indeed, for now she would have a whole congregation to help and look after.
“I thought over all this, and looked out again, thinking it would be better now. But it was only worse, for now the old woman stood up, and I could see her face. And it was dark with anger and hate, and she lifted a clenched hand and shook it toward me, pointing with the other hand toward the gatepost. It was just as if she had said, if I dared to touch it, it would be the worse for me.
“She was terrible to look at, and I was frightened, but at the same time, she was so pitifully old and helpless, I felt like crying with pity for her.
“But then, just as she raised her hand, the whole thing disappeared. All—farmhouse and gatepost and the old woman herself. As if there had never been anything there at all. And oh, I felt such a relief.
“Why should I be anxious, just because Sigrun had her lover staying on a visit for a day or so? And why should mother and father be anxious about me, just because they had seen him in church that day?
“And then at last I saw a couple of heads appear on the river bank. And I was so glad, and called out to mother and father:
“‘That’s Sigrun, I’m sure, coming to show me her lover. Come and look, if it isn’t right—the two there coming down toward the river?’
“Then mother made haste to put away her pipe and move all the chairs about and wipe up a few drops of water spilt on the floor.
“But father came over to me by the window, and we stood looking out at the two. And now I saw the man for the first time, walking there with Sigrun on his arm. He was not so very tall, but strongly built—a broad-shouldered, powerful man. And handsome, with a fine head. I could not see anything to find fault with, unless it were that he was short-sighted and wore glasses.
“When they came in, they looked proud and happy. And I was pleased, too, with Sigrun’s lover, and glad they had come to see me. He looked as if he could take care of his wife, whatever might happen. As long as she had him to support her, surely she could never be unhappy or discouraged.
“The priest spoke kindly to father and mother. But when he came to speak to me, he blinked his eyes a little behind his glasses, and looked at me with a sort of smile.
“‘Aha,’ said he, ‘so this is the great seer, the wise young woman from Stenbroträsk. I’m quite afraid of her. She can see through people, of course, and what if she were dissatisfied with me!’
“And he laughed, and Sigrun too, and father smiled a little.
“It was as if I was just something to laugh at and make fun of.
“I went all red at first, with the blood rushing to my face. Then I felt I turned all stiff and hard. And I could not understand how anyone could talk so openly about the thing that was my holiest secret. And how could Sigrun ever have betrayed me, and told her lover, when I had told her just because I could trust her?”
Lotta Hedman’s voice rose to a shriller tone, just as when she had spoken of her hard and lonely life. The pain of her thoughts rang in her words.
The man before her looked up with a sad smile.
“You might surely have known it must be so,” he said. “Sigrun had given herself to him with all her soul, with all her thoughts, and all she had ever known.”
“That was so, perhaps,” said the other, “but it was cruel to me to feel. Mother tried to answer for me, for she knew I could not say anything myself then.
“‘She has but a foolish mother, has my girl,’ said mother. ‘But the Lord has heard my prayers. He has given me a daughter that sees and understands more than most.’
“I felt how brave it was of mother to speak out. I could have gone down on my knees and thanked her, but she was silent, she too, when the priest gave her one sharp look through his eyeglasses, and began talking with a thick and heavy voice, all important, as if he might have been standing in the pulpit.
“‘We’ve need to be ever watchful, those of us who are Christians,’ he said, ‘lest we should fall back into heathen ways. And whosoever seeks to penetrate into the unknown is trying, as it were, to go their own way instead of the way that is Christ Jesus. Beware of setting up other gods; of setting up oneself as God.’
“And he preached like that for a long while. And nobody in the room dared to say a word against him now. And where was all that I had seen and heard before? It all seemed blown away in a breath, the moment that man came into the house. And I had to sit there, helpless, without a word, and hear him preaching and correcting me in front of Sigrun and mother and father.
“I looked over at Sigrun, and there she was sitting, looking up at her lover all humbly and admiring. And I could see she was pleased that he was trying to lead me into the right way. And she, too, felt now just as he did, that all we had had to talk of together before was something wicked and harmful. He was speaking for my good, and all I had to do was to turn from my erring ways and try to be like everyone else.
“I was so miserable; it was so cruel. I would rather have died than sit there and see Sigrun turn away from me like that.”
The listener looked up once more.
“Yet it was good, surely, that she had no other thought, no thought of her own, but only his thoughts,” he said. “That is the beautiful thing about her.”
Lotta Hedman went on without heeding.
“They stayed some time, not talking to me alone, you understand, but to mother and father too. And all that the priest man said was kind and sensible in a way; he knew how to speak. When he dropped out of the preaching tone, his voice was cheerful and bright. It was easy to understand that Sigrun was fond of him.
“I did not say a word as long as he was there, and Sigrun looked at me every now and then with a sort of surprise, and at last she asked me was I ill? But I only shook my head. She didn’t seem to think anything but that I ought to be quite happy about it all.
“It was a relief when at last they were gone. But then a thing happened. Sigrun had forgotten her gloves, and came back by herself to fetch them.”
The man sitting listening had changed countenance. “What right have you,” he asked himself, “to sit and listen to all this talk of Sigrun? Take care! Longing will return, sorrow will return, and love wake afresh. It will be just as it was six years ago, when you sat on the rocks dreaming of love. Day after day, dreaming of her.”
“And then,” Lotta Hedman went on—“then she asked me if I did not think her lover was wonderful and splendid; had I ever believed there was such a man in the world? And when I still said nothing, she lost patience altogether.
“‘Whatever is the matter with you to-day?’ she asked. ‘What makes you silent and hard all at once? I thought it would do you good to talk to a priest. And he was so eager to see you himself, and I’ve told him so much about you, and how strange you were. And what will he think now?’
“I sat quite still until she was out of the door. But then I ran after her.
“‘Oh! Sigrun, don’t marry him!’ I cried. ‘He will make you miserable.’ And Sigrun looked at me all astonished, and I said again, ‘He will kill your soul, as he has killed mine!’
“Then Sigrun drew herself up.
“‘Now you are wicked and unkind,’ she said, ‘to speak like that just because someone says things that do not please you to hear.’
“And then she went away for good.
“And I was glad that mother and father did not say anything, did not try to comfort me or explain things. I went out into the kitchen, all cold as it was, and sat down and cried. Cried for hours together. Crying for our beautiful friendship, and for my own soul that had been taken away and could never come back; I felt myself wronged and betrayed; and for the first time in my life I tasted that bitter fruit.”
Lotta Hedman had lowered her voice, just as when she had ended her long speech about the letter to the King and the Millennium. Her face showed deep suffering; she felt the agony of humiliation.