Book III The Bereaved
It Was Sigrun’s mother, the old Dean’s wife from Stenbroträsk. Early in May, 1916, she was on a visit to some relatives in Bohuslän, and, being so near, thought she ought to go over to her son-in-law at Algeröd and see how he was.
On arriving at the humble little vicarage, she found that Pastor Rhånge had brought his mother over to keep house for him. A simple and straightforward soul, this mother, who, as the widow of a pilot, and in straitened circumstances, had pinched and saved to get her son into the priesthood. The visitor noticed that she was proud and happy at being able to live with her son and look after him, as was reasonable enough. Nothing to take offence at in that.
But the income arising from the living was so pitifully small that the old lady had likewise found herself obliged to eke out the money by taking paying guests. She had staying with her now two young girls, in delicate health, who had been sent there in the hope of benefiting by the fresh mountain air.
At first the two girls had been a little afraid of the dark and gloomy master of the house, who was in mourning for his wife, but when Sigrun’s mother came to Algeröd they had got over their fear. It was a great surprise to her. Instead of a house full of sorrow and mourning, she found a place full of laughter and play and merriment.
The afternoon seemed long to her; she was in dread of losing her patience before it ended. Wherever she went, the vision of her daughter was before her eyes, and she could not but wonder how Rhånge ever could endure these two young girls about the place, showing off as they did, and courting his attention, so evidently that it must have annoyed and incensed him had he been as he was before.
But he was changed—that was evident in every way. He was a different man altogether.
His voice, his laugh, had grown loud and shrill, and he had, too, a strange way of boasting about his own excellence.
Before, his manner had always been marked by great dignity and seriousness. No one could be in his company for two minutes without discovering the priest in him. But now, all that had disappeared. Before, he had seemed to leave it to others to find out that he was a gifted and distinguished man; now, he took it upon himself to tell them so.
He spoke of how clever he had been at school, how easily and well he had passed his examination, of the great and wonderful things he had done among his congregations; kept on with story after story, as if he would never end.
And the two girls clapped their hands in evident admiration.
It seemed, indeed, as if he were pleased to show his mother-in-law how they looked up to him, and how completely he could do as he pleased with them. He was like a man who has made one great failure, and seeks desperately in every way to reinstate himself.
He was not in any way pleasant or obliging toward the two young girls, and there was contempt in every word he gave them. But he could not keep away from them. He spoke of work he had to do, but he did not leave the company. Sigrun’s mother was hurt at first, thinking that her daughter was already forgotten. But in the course of the evening, another idea came into her mind. She began to think he felt the loss of his wife so keenly that it was driving him to ruin.
She was to stay the night, and when it was late enough for her to retire, she could not refrain from saying a few words to him: that she understood he would have to marry again soon, but she sincerely hoped he would be careful in his choice, and not take the first that came to hand.
At this he asked her to go with him into his room, but said nothing to the others.
And there he showed her how he had collected all Sigrun’s belongings—things she had brought with her from her own home, as well as those from after her marriage.
Portraits of her in all sizes were spread about the room, and her books were foremost on the bookshelf.
One book there was which her mother recognized particularly; a little book of devotion which had been given her before her confirmation. It lay on the table beside the bed.
“I read in it every evening,” said the Pastor—“that book and no other.”
He opened the middle compartment in a large cabinet. Here he had put away a couple of little ivory boxes, which Sigrun had had as a little gill. And, taking them out, he laid them caressingly against his cheek.
“She was fond of them,” he said, “and they are never touched by any hand but mine. Those others out there are never allowed to see anything of all this.”
He showed her the little picture of the home at Stenbroträsk, which had comforted Sigrun so many times. It was wrapped in several layers of tissue paper, rolled up in a cloth, and packed away at the back of a drawer, as if it had been something precious.
“You don’t think I would ever let any one else look at this?” he said.
He brought out a little cloth which Sigrun had worked for him.
“It is always on that table,” he said, “because Sigrun herself put it there. But I have another that I put over it when the sun shines in—you can see it is not faded.”
Sigrun had made a cushion for his rocking-chair, and the fringe at the bottom had come loose in one or two places. He had tried to mend it himself, sewing with coarse thread and big stitches. He held it up now to show—clumsily done it was, but he could not entrust the work to any other hand.
Sigrun’s mother offered to take it up with her to her room and mend it properly. He allowed her to do so, but held the cushion long in his hands, turning it over and over, before he could let it go.
The dearest treasures of all, Sigrun’s two plain rings and one other ring, and one or two little gold trinkets, he had put away in a little leather bag.
“I carry that about with me all day in my waistcoat pocket,” he said. “And at night it is under my pillow. It never leaves me night or day.”
Sigrun’s mother was moved to deep sympathy. She saw how his sorrow was tearing at him, threatening to rend him asunder. And she understood that he strove against it in the presence of others, tried to be as he had been, but could not, and that it was this which made such discord in his being.
She sat down on a sofa and beckoned him to her.
“Come and sit down by me,” she said in a gentle, motherly voice. “And tell me all your trouble.”
At this he broke out into violent weeping.
“I don’t know,” he cried—“I don’t know what is to become of me. I can find nothing in life, now that Sigrun is gone.
“She is gone,” he said again, “and yet I cannot feel that she is dead. To me it seems as if she had gone from me because she was afraid of me.
“I could not make her happy, but it was only because I loved her so, beyond all bounds or reason. I wanted her all to myself. And I hemmed her in and shut her off from everything. And now it tortures me beyond measure that I let her suffer. If I had known she was going to leave me so soon, I would have kept myself in check. What would it have mattered if I had perished, as long as she was happy in her brief earthly life?
“I know they say she died of the smallpox. But I dare not believe that was it. And I dare not ask how it was that she went. I dread to hear that she died because I had made her so unhappy that she could not stay with me.”
Sigrun’s mother sat still and let him give vent to his feelings. She was not surprised at anything he said, for she knew, being old, that no human being ever stood beside the grave of a loved one without being torn by remorse and the pangs of conscience.