Morning
Then Sigrun awoke, a little ray of red winter sun was shining into the poor chamber where she lay. She had slept, not for a few hours only, but the whole night through. She made haste to get up and set the room in order before going on her way.
The rest had strengthened her; she felt well and resolute now, and without regret for the step she had taken. The only thing that troubled her now was her fear lest she might be discovered. If only she could get away from Hånger without any one learning who she was, she felt sure the danger would be past.
Again she found a tray of food outside her door, and with it a paper, on which was written:
“We understand that you are remaining here, since the man has gone away alone. Do not doubt but that you will be welcome.”
She went into the room opposite, and saw that her companion had indeed gone. It was one more source of anxiety removed. She was rested now, and would far rather go on foot than drive in his sledge. All she need do was to ask her way to a town where she could get a proper conveyance. It could not be far to the nearest railway station; she could be in Göteborg that evening.
She fastened the black kerchief round her head, put on Lotta Hedman’s cloak, and, taking up her bag, prepared to start.
Before leaving the room, however, she opened her bag to see if the money and other things were safe. Then she gave a cry of dismay. The six hundred kronor were gone.
She felt in the pocket of her cloak, and in her dress. The money was not there.
She understood at once that they had been stolen. The knife-grinder had taken them out of the bag while it was in the sledge.
She staggered to a seat. This was a terrible blow. She could not go to America now. All roads were barred. Oh, Heaven!
She bowed her head on the table and tried to think. Yes, she had told the man yesterday that she had money. And he perhaps had been thinking all along how he could get hold of what she had. Tired and exhausted as he was, he had yet been able to carry out his plan.
And in so doing he had rendered life impossible for her.
“It is a hard world to go out in for one that is poor and alone,” she thought. “A hard world.”
She felt not exactly penitent; but she realized now the utter impossibility of accomplishing her purpose.
“I might go out as a beggar on the high road,” she thought. “But what would be the good of that? I did not leave my home to be an adventuress.”
To return home seemed equally impossible. How could she tell her husband that she had given herself out as dead in order to escape from him? It was impossible—not to be thought of.
She knew that for the time being she was among good people. Should she ask them to help her? Again the same difficulty arose. She would have to confess her deceit, her shame. And these honest souls would feel compelled to inform her husband at once that she was alive.
“It was no fancy, after all, that of yesterday,” she told herself. “It was Death that sat beside me on the sledge. And Death will not release one who has once given herself into his hands.”
“But he is not a hard master,” her restless thought went on. “He loosed the bonds that held me to earthly things, and in a gentle way. Why should I not trust him now?”
And so she remained sitting at the table for about an hour, trying to familiarize herself with the thought of death.
“God will be merciful,” she said. “He knows all. He knows I did not mean harm to any one. And He knows that this is the one way open to me now.”
Just then someone entered the room. But Sigrun did not move. It was utterly indifferent to her now, whoever saw her. Her decision was taken, and she knew what she had to do.
She lay still bowed over the table with her face in her hands, and could not see who had come in. The step, however, told her that it was a man, and not an old, but a young man.
“It is Sven Elversson himself,” she thought.
She heard him approaching her at first; then he drew back. He went to the stove, lit a fire there, and returned to the table where she sat.
“Is it so hard for you, Ruth?” he said. “Let me send some of the children to you. Is there nothing here that you might be glad to see again?”
At these words she raised her head, and turned toward him, with a look of fixed despair.
“I am not the one you thought to see,” she said. “I am Sigrun Rhånge, wife of the vicar of Algeröd.”
Sven Elversson drew back a step or two. But he had so trained himself to preserve the same calm, whatever news might be brought him, that he did not even utter a cry. Only his face turned pale. But his confusion was evident from the fact that he began thinking aloud.
“Sigrun Rhånge is dead,” he said. “She died the night before last. When I heard she was dead, I went to Algeröd myself, to see her once more for the last time, but it was too late. She was already laid in her coffin and buried in her grave.”
Sigrun sat gazing at him. There was a solemnity of grief in his words that almost touched her. She was convinced that he was unaware of having spoken aloud.
“Would it were so,” she said in answer to his thought. “Would that Sigrun Rhånge were truly dead and in her grave.”
“Sigrun Rhånge is dead,” he repeated in a low, monotonous voice, still unable to collect himself. “I shall never see her again on earth.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “We may surely say that Sigrun Rhånge is dead. But I, unhappy creature that I am, I am living yet.”
Something within him seemed to grasp the inner meaning of all this quicker than thought, and set his heart in fierce commotion. His cheeks flushed, and his eyes glittered.
He came toward her, took her hand and held it in one of his, while the other stroked her cheek with a swift, momentary touch. He seemed trying to convince himself that it was indeed a living woman here before him.
“You, alive!” he said, and his voice rose to a cry of joy, only to sink next moment to a low, gentle tone. “You here, in my house! What does it mean?”
There was much in his manner that astonished her. But at the same time, it gave her a little courage. Here at least was one who did not look on her misfortune with cold indifference.
“You wrote so kindly to your wife this morning,” she said. “And I have always heard so much good of you. Will you help me now? I am in the greatest need that ever any could be.”
The tears flowed from her eyes. And in her extremity, her desperate need of help, she threw herself on her knees before him.
He did not help her to rise at once. Instead, he laid one hand on either shoulder, and bent over her, his face almost touching her.
“You helped me once,” he said, “when I was in my sorest need. Do you not think I should be glad to repay you that a thousand times, if it were in my power?”
Suddenly he checked himself, and, regaining calmness, moved quietly away from her and drew up a chair.
“Will you not tell me how all this came about?”
She stood up beside him, and began hesitatingly:
“There is so much to say. I hardly know how to begin.” For a moment she was on the point of giving way to tears, but restrained herself. “We were not very happy in our marriage, my husband and I.”
He did not seem to notice that she was standing while he was seated. But he understood that she needed help to tell her story.
“My wife was not happy either,” he said.
He rested one elbow on the table and leaned forward so as to cover his eyes.
Sigrun understood that he was encouraging her to go on.
“There’s been talk about us here and there, I dare say,” she continued. “If you were in Algeröd yesterday, no doubt you heard about the scene with the man who was staying with us....”
“Yes,” he said, “I heard that and more. But there was no ill-will in what was said. Only sorrow—nothing but sorrow.”
His voice was almost a sob. He felt the old fierce pain once more. It hurt him beyond words to speak to her like this, when his one desire was to lay his head in her lap and tell her of the sorrow that had racked him the day before and the misery of this morning, when he learned that his wife had come back now—now that his heart longed only to be left to its sorrow for another.
“And no one doubted that I was dead?” asked Sigrun.
“No,” he said. “No one doubted that you had died of the smallpox.”
She grasped his arm hastily.
“You—you do not know who it was that died. It must have been...”
She stopped, with open mouth, not daring to go on.
“Was it my wife?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it must have been... your wife.”
Sven Elversson said nothing, but rose and walked across the room.
Now Sigrun in her turn sank down on a chair. “Death,” she thought—“Death will not let me go. I had forgotten that the dead woman was Sven Elversson’s wife when I asked him to help me.”
She sat crying quietly, and pulling at a handkerchief. The eerie, drowsy, death-like feeling came over her again.
A few moments later, Sven Elversson came back to the table and sat down in the same position as before.
“Now tell me everything,” he said.
And she obeyed. She told him all that had passed from the moment when the strange woman had come to her door, until now, when she herself sat in the vagabonds’ hostel at Hånger.
He listened with all his soul, and was filled with sorrow for the desperate thing she had done, and all the misery she had brought on herself. He understood better than she did herself that, as she was, all ways in the world were closed to her now. That if she stayed in this world at all, she must be condemned by her own act to endless unrest, endless anxiety, endless penitence and shame.
But despite his sorrow and deep sympathy for her, he could not repress a feeling of rejoicing in himself, that repeated over and over again: “At least she is alive. And she has come to you. Sits here beside you, talking to you. What does all the rest matter now that she is alive?”
Sigrun had long finished her story, and Sven Elversson sat silent, thinking what to say, what must be done. And watching him as he sat, she felt clearly that such a man as he could do nothing else but send her back to her husband. “This man cannot be led to any wrongful deed,” she thought.
“And so it has all been in vain,” she told herself. “All to no purpose. Death will not let me go.”
She looked her fate bravely in the face. And she made no attempt to influence Sven Elversson by speaking of what she had resolved.
“This is a big thing,” he said, and was surprised to find himself talking to Sigrun just as he did to others whom he helped. “But the one thing clear to me at the moment is that you must not go about the country now carrying infection. You will have to stay on here at Hånger for a time.”
She looked up at him. It was so simple, and she had never thought of it. A few days’ respite at least. The thought of death slipped aside.
“There is no one here but my father and mother,” he went on. “And I do not think they will be afraid. But I forgot, there are some children staying here too, that I took in a while ago. But we can send them down to the village. And then we can shut up the place to travellers for a while. You can move over to the house and have one of the guest rooms to yourself.”
“And after?” she asked almost harshly.
He bowed his head, and tried to think. Because he loved her, he could read her thoughts, and he knew that his answer now meant life or death to her.
He could find only strength to say:
“It must be in the hand of God.”
“I cannot drive her to despair,” he thought to himself; “but it may be that her own mind will change. Her love for her husband may wake anew. Surely all will go well, all will come right in time.”
She understood that this was only a respite, but she gave a sigh of relief.
“The way I look at it is this,” he said. “It is never well to lie, and hide things. There’s no denying that. But then, again, it is not well to torture a creature to death. That’s no less true. But the heart may change. Or, better, may become itself again. And then it will be easy, all that seems so difficult now. May I not believe that?”
She shook her head decisively, but said nothing.
“Nay, let us believe it,” he said. “Let us trust to that. And now you will not mind if I tell my father and mother all about it. They are not the sort to tell more than they should. And then we will try not to make this more hard and serious than we need. Just think that it will all come right again in time.”
Sigrun felt as if he were playing with her. At any other time his manner would have annoyed her, but now it was indescribably soothing and comforting. She felt as if this man had taken all her burden, all her trouble and misfortune, on himself, to bear it in her stead.