Leonard and the Fisherman
After a dinner consisting of an anchovy and four cold potatoes Leonard, a needy artist in wood-cuts, wandered about aimlessly through the city. It was a May day of the grand and dangerous sort. Over the heavens voyaged festal white clouds of giant size, bulging with undefined expectations. And the cool, prickly wind whistled with seductive mockery of all that lay behind the horizon: explorations, adventures, visions of beauty. It was a day of lightness and oppression; of futile longing for action; of cold, far-reaching perfidy; and deep, exhausting unrest. How can the breast expand to bursting and at the same time feel so horribly empty? thought Leonard. Spring is the time when we not only make solemn confession but are merged into a new vital existence; whence, then, in the name of all the devils, is this emptiness, this lack in the midst of plenty, this criminal tendency to put all the glory behind one as quickly as possible?
Brooding painfully over these things, Leonard reeled about half blind and with aching eyes through Gustavus Adolphus Place. Finally he succeeded in making a resolution: to go down to the River Terrace and see whether the apple trees had begun to blossom yet.
It proved that they had not gone beyond the budding stage.
Leonard then dragged himself up to the railing and stood there a long while under the branches of a large poplar, watching the Northstream tumble its waters between the piers.
There is a certain immobility in the midst of motion in rushing water. The same foaming, roaring wave stays there hour after hour, year after year, indicating a stone in the uneven bed of the torrent. Leonard sought to calm himself with philosophizing over this wave. So does life go on through its forms, he thought. Yonder fettered wave corresponds to the ripple of a flower petal, the curve of a chin. Then some spring day, maybe, the stone is undermined, an unknown obstruction in the furrow of the stream of life is cleared away, and the wave is transformed, the flower petal changes, the curve of the chin becomes different and softer.
Leonard was not the first man who had philosophized above the running stream. But he found no rest thereby. His thoughts merely played on the surface; they served only to sharpen his feeling of uncertainty. The fettered wave irritated him with its feeble trembling, its futile tossing. The continuous roar was like an indefinite warning, a dark threat. A warning of what? A threat of what? Ah, thou wonderful month of May!
Leonard clenched his empty fists and sank down on a bench in complete despair.
With that his eye fell on a little old man of the fisher trade. He was smoking in great repose a short pipe, muttering to himself, and picking at his clasp-knife, which he had taken apart and hung on the railing to dry. Leonard observed him a long time with secret envy. In winter it’s all very fine to be young, he thought, but in spring a man ought to be as old as possible—or at least to have rheumatism that lets up in fair weather. He got up laboriously and pushed his way to the fisherman.
“What have you to say to a day like this?” he grumbled.
“Eh, well, just that I think there are bream under the bridge piers today,” the old man said reflectively and puffed out a little blue cloud.
Leonard was struck by the answer. He began a long conversation with the fisherman, whose name was Lundstrom. The best fishing was spring and autumn, he learned. It was mostly smelt and bream. Perhaps a perch now and again. And before Christmas everybody got a burbot or two in eel-pots a little further up the Malar.
He doesn’t make any too much, thought Leonard. But he doesn’t talk about his fishing in the surly tone that poor men mostly use in growling about their scanty earnings. He is proud of his catches, he fondles his tackle, and his eyes rest confidently and patiently on the water. I gather from that that he is a true fisherman, which a man isn’t very likely to become unless he has left much behind him.
This quiet fisher person had a strange and enigmatical charm for Leonard. The old man had pulled together the large iron rings, and already the dip-net was swinging festively at its gallows on his low green-painted craft. There was only the grapnel to be pulled in. Thereupon Leonard reached over the railing and pled touchingly to be taken along for once.
Yes, that would be all right enough.
The boat was first hauled along the stone quay to the bridge and then out with the stem set straight into the roaring whirlpool. A few quick, well-directed oar-strokes, and they floated calmly in the back eddy from the nearest pier of the bridge with the foaming surge to right and left and the dusky arches of the bridge ringing and singing over their heads. There was a dizziness in the suction between the bridge piers, a sensation of rapid movement and yet of rest.
Lundstrom made fast to a ring and sat down at the crank by means of which he lowered and raised his net.
“Now the job is to sink the net straight down,” he said; “and to do that one must manage so that it is half taken by the current and half by the back eddy. Perhaps the gentleman will give a pull at the oars. There, bring her in a little and it’ll be fine!”
Leonard brought the boat in and the net descended solemnly.
The old man sank into meditation for a while, and this was a good time to study him. He was by no means ill to look at.
Why should the upper classes be condemned to appear correct and banal? Why should fine folk go about as a monstrosity to every practised and sensitive eye? Look at Lundstrom’s jacket here! The sun and rain of all seasons has given it the most delicate shade of green. His hat with its admirable patina might be of bronze. And his trousers!—what a combination of characteristic wrinkles, telling of age, experience and strife well sustained. What a treasure for an artist in wood-cuts! Lundstrom’s custom had grown as one with him. It was no wretched accident. Is there anything more agonizing than a tired, grumpy scarecrow that peers out of a brand new summer suit, glittering with naïve optimism? Or red-cheeked, pious rusticity sewed up in cautiously gray, pessimistic duds from a distant, smoky, rain-dripping, overcrowded factory district? But out of Lundstrom’s worn collar grew a face covered with moss-gray stubble over a network of friendly wrinkles and furrows. And out of the stubble shot up a two-story nose with room for many a pinch of reflective snuff. Large noses may be either volcanic or placid. Lundstrom’s was placid. It separated genially but firmly two small gray, liquidly bright eyes, which never seemed to have fastened on anything that burned too hot, never to have stared at anything helplessly, never to have wavered anxiously about over empty, exhausting horizons.
Lucky man, sighed Leonard. He sits peacefully under the voyaging clouds, in the midst of the Northstream swollen with spring freshets he sits peacefully at his crank. He is on the far side of indefinite expectations and adventure and drifting about in the inane. He has happily left his future behind him.
“But for heaven’s sake it must surely be time for you to haul up.”
“No hurry, no hurry,” opined Lundstrom, who nevertheless began gently to turn the crank. The net came up with a good sediment of silver-white splashing smelts.
With a quiet pursing of the lips the old man emptied his cargo into the fish-well.
Next time there was a bream, a plump rascal.
Beyond the bridge railing and the stone barrier over by Gustavus Adolphus Place it was already black with people. A little boy in a blue embroidered blouse tried very cleverly to spit on Leonard’s hat. But Leonard began to find the folk up there altogether ephemeral, them and the whole muddle of palace, Parliament House, churches, theatres, prisons and banks which chance had collected along the river; the river which had run when there were only a few islands here inhabited by fishermen, and which would continue to run when all the splendor was dust again.
But Lundstrom, who grew cheerful with his good luck, began little by little to express his opinion about one thing and another. It may as well be said first as last that he regarded with slightly ironic disapproval a good deal of the bustle up there in the city. Ministerial crises, election campaigns, debates, law-suits, theatre intrigues, and things of that sort struck him as mere nonsense.
“Folks babble and gad about so they get tired and cross,” he said. “They ought to fish a little more than they do. All the ministers ought to come down here and pull the net a couple of times a week. And the party leaders and the soloists and the other star actors as well. That would make them really good. And if there wasn’t room for them all here, let the government hire a big boat and carry them all out to the coast. It’s right astonishing how folks can work things out when they are together in a boat. And likewise how it can thaw one’s head to sit and look at a dipsy. I don’t know how it is, but there’s surely something specially particular about water.
“Yes, I need only think about myself,” continued Lundstrom. “How should I have ever got straight without this here boat and net? It doesn’t help how quiet a man is; he gets stage fright sometimes just the same, in my opinion. First night is first night, and that’s just how it feels in the pit of the stomach many weeks ahead. The gentleman may imagine that it’s a job to turn a wild and desolate wood into a fine castle hall with roof chandeliers and a marble floor and pillars and pictures and chairs. And all that must be done in less time than the gentleman needs to empty a glass of punch. It was specially hard with that fellow Shakespeare, who was hard on account of all his scenes. Imagine if a piece of cliff scenery should come dancing down into the middle of a little petite French boudoir, as they call it. That would look fine! Aye, if a man went off and worried over all the misfortunes that could happen, it was a good thing to have fishing to turn to. Down here it was as if all a man’s troubles ran off him. Lord! a man would think, it isn’t the only thing in life if a piece of building should go wrong up in that play-box there. Yes, I’ve been in the theatre line over fifty years, I have. So a man has his memories. ‘A Traveling Troupe’ was a crazy piece, for there a man had to turn the wings hindside front, as the gentleman should know, so that only the gray cloth could be seen from the hall. I believe I know all the fine lines by heart from that day to this, and Hamlet too at a pinch. One time Yorick’s skull was to have been brought out. The public got impatient and began to cough and stamp. But we couldn’t raise the curtain for the church-yard scene, because Hamlet had to have the skull to make his speech about. There was the skull of a man who had killed his wife and child and one and a half bailiffs; we had got the loan of it from the Charles Institute. We hunted and hunted. At last I came upon the skull in a trunk. The actor who was playing Hamlet was so glad that he promised to give me a supper at Stromsholm. He kept his word, too: steak and vegetables and fizzy pearls. Afterwards it came out that somebody had hid the skull on purpose. It was somebody who wanted to have the rôle and was nearly bursting with jealousy. He certainly needed to get out and fish a little, eh?
“Well, that was Hamlet. Afterwards I went over to the opera. I didn’t regret it; music suited me better. That comes about as a man gets older, you see. A man gets tired of the many words. But with music one can think anything at all. I was with the opera upwards of twenty years, up to last Christmas—Aye, aye, a man gets old.... Well, so now I get to amuse myself with the boat here and tramping for the organ at Jacob’s Church. Yes, that affair of the organ tramping is a special particular story which we shan’t talk over now,” said Lundstrom, who seemed to touch with some shyness his transition to the churchly vocation.
Hereupon the old man again grasped his crank, and up came another splendid batch of fat breams. With friendly, approving comment he let them vanish into the well.
Look here, today is turning out better than I supposed, thought Leonard, who could hardly keep from rubbing his hands. My life and trade seem really prosperous from the frog’s-eye view of this old fisherman.
But Lundstrom cast a knowing, sidelong look at him.
“No, I steal up into the theatre garret sometimes and hear a little of this world’s music yet, as old as I am. Though it doesn’t give me sleepless nights any more, you see. A man sleeps well when he has a big organ to turn to.”
Leonard smiled more broadly and sat quiet, struck by the old man’s repose. This contented frog’s-eye view of the drama of life spread out into a wider perspective than he had supposed at the start.
The old man pointed to a paper sticking out of the artist’s pocket.
“Should you perhaps care to look what they’re giving up there tonight? ‘Tristan and Isolde.’ Indeed! that’s a fine thing. Then I’ll go up a while. You see I’ve been with them and set scenes for that opera, so it’s an old acquaintance. Well, and so I’ll thank you for your help. It’s past eight and that will have to be enough of the breams till tonight.”
It was in fact drawing on towards evening. Heaven’s great voyaging clouds had ceased to move, saturated with the newly-won warmth of the light, and had sunk nearer to earth. In the stealthy silence of the early twilight the roaring of the river grew suddenly stronger, and its whirlpools more suckingly mysterious. It was evident that the spring day had determined to show the last and most dangerous phase of its power.
But Lundstrom cast loose from the ring unconcernedly. His craft was slung some fifty yards down with the surge but glided neatly into the smooth water under the River Terrace, where it was moored at its usual place.
It did not occur to Leonard to say good-bye. And yet as he went up the granite steps he felt that now he was passing out of the worthy Lundstrom’s perspective. Here ashore the fisherman’s power of giving certitude was no longer the same.
No, for up on the bridge went Woman. Nothing could save one from her. Ah, this delicate shiver in the air, this trembling in the nerves of the invisible which sent its waves through coat and Sunday paper straight into one’s heart! The restlessness of the day had deepened to a livelier and more dangerous poison. That which in the morning was a sick longing for distant horizons—what was it towards evening but the erotic urge?
Under the low rosy clouds too went Woman, she who grows with the shades so as with night to overshadow the world.
A poor artist’s situation was again near to desperation.
The enviable Lundstrom was to go in a back way and listen to ‘Tristan and Isolde.’ Leonard followed him shyly and irresolutely to the stage entrance of the opera house. In his eyes lay a prayer not to be left alone in the midst of the dreadful spring evening. Lundstrom did not fail to see the young man’s helplessness.
“The gentleman may surely come with me,” he said. “I’m a good friend of the porter from forty years back. He gets a bream or so now and then. Just come along!”
Leonard passed a gray head which nodded at a rectangular peep-hole. He then went into a long dark corridor, where a squire with brown kilt and broadsword stood joking at a telephone. Next there were some steps, where Leonard continually had to stand and wait for the puffing Lundstrom. All was silent and empty here. They met only a fireman and a scene-shifter in a blue coat, who called Lundstrom “uncle.”
Now a warm, dusky odor was perceptible and a muffled buzzing and mumbling, which seemed to come from the very walls. That must be the orchestra, which was tuning up somewhere in the depths. But Lundstrom cautiously pushed up an iron door and they came out on the first gallery of the stage. Down in the great cluttered space below ran workmen arranging the ship’s deck for the first act, and some of the chorus men stood in a laughing group waiting to take their places.
Lundstrom cast a searching glance below.
“Look at that!” he muttered with some disapproval; “they have made the tent smaller. In my time it ran out to the fifth plank, mark H.”
It was still too noisy and disturbed where they were, so they went up by a narrow ladder to the second gallery. Lundstrom sat down on a mighty stage dragon of lath and plaster which was hoisted up in the back-scene, and Leonard leaned against a great machine with handles, hexagonal cylinders and heavy felt hammers.
“The old stage thunder,” whispered Lundstrom. “They have new, better thunder now that goes by electricity.”
There was a fantastic play of light and shadow up through the enormously high vault of the stage, which extended over their heads with five more galleries. The electric footlights below threw splintered rays up through the grilled flooring of the galleries, until the gleams were lost in an incredible labyrinth of ropes, weights and pulleys. The whole was like a giant skeleton, a fantastic loom.
This is where they weave dusty lies, thought Leonard, who found the rear view of the drama grotesque and oppressive, so that he almost began to long for the streets again. People must love illusion astoundingly, if it can be made big business to such an extent.
But with this the trickling tones of the orchestra tuning up were suddenly silent, and after a few moments the prelude broke out with a voice of powerful earnestness. A thrill passed through Leonard’s nerves and in a moment he was tense and expectant. Like a living, overwhelming stream of actuality the music burst forth through all the dusty rubbish of illusion.
Now the curtain was raised and the human voices came up, gushed up. There was the sailor’s gay song of yearning on his billowy journey to the land of King Mark, Isolde’s wildly surging hate and suffering, Tristan’s timid, rock-firm defiance of death. So it went on to the magic potion and the helpless, the irresistible love cry which is lost in endless jubilation.
The curtain fell again.
Leonard looked at Lundstrom, wondering what he could possibly fish up from such a stream. The old man seemed tranquil and unmoved, as he sat on the scaly dragon and held in his mouth his unlighted pipe.
“Now they’ve got to hurry down there,” he said, “for now the ship must become a park.”
Threads began to move on the giant loom, blocks creaked and giant fabrics gave forth dust. With that the park was there, though it looked very strange from the back, and the curtain solemnly came aloft once more.
The two sat squatting again at the brink of the great music torrent. Heavy, bottomless well of tone—dark purple, restlessly driving waves, which now and then break into foam with a cry:
“O thou spirit’s
Highest, maddest
Exquisite burning joy!”
Love rescued from the cold glance of day—night without morning—yearning for death—the world’s redemption through passionate ecstasy!
“Quiet our trembling,
Sweetest death,
With yearning awaited,
O love-blent Death!”
And so on to the end—the sinister dawn with the chill spectres of day, the discovery, the crossed blades and Tristan’s wound.
Such things are too much for a poor lonely and hungry artist on a lovely evening in May.
“The deuce is in it,” he muttered, “the very deuce! Why after that should a poor devil sit and carve in wood?”
But Lundstrom sat with his chin on his hand and gazed out of the distance, paying hardly any attention to Leonard’s violent gestures. The old man’s shadow was outlined on a blue background, large, vague, as though ready to merge in the dimness of the thousand recesses around it.
Leonard was no longer interested in him, he would have preferred to be alone. Pshaw! the poor old codger hasn’t a notion of what is seething down there, he thought. He’s just moidering around with old stage properties. But thereupon Lundstrom lifted his gray head and said something which indicated that he nevertheless could fish memories out of the stream of tone.
“Sometimes when I sit here I get to be with them that lie out in the church-yard,” he muttered. “Wife and children and friends. It’s as if the music rinsed one out inside. Everything gets clearer and one sees that what’s been is still.”
“I see only what will never come to pass in life for my part, and that’s a cursed lot different,” burst out Leonard with greater bitterness than he himself realized. In his heat he was constrained to use strong words. But in reality he felt the beginning of a relaxation and release.
Then came the third act.
Tristan lies in feverish dreams by the shore of the sea. He waits for his Isolde. But when she finally comes, he, in the wild joy of desperation, tears open his unhealed wound and bleeds to death before it is vouchsafed him to kiss her. So, too, it had to be. Passion has overleaped all human bounds. It is a cool, wondrous alleviation that finally his blood may pour forth with the poison of the potion, with all the endless, tempestuous, lamenting, jubilating desire.
They got up softly and pressed out through the glowing dust over mighty craters of tone.
Outside, the spring night was cool. Leonard grew pale and his eyes shone.
“In old times people opened their veins,” he muttered, “but this is a much finer way.”
He edged hurriedly across Gustavus Adolphus Place and took his stand at the barrier by the river. The moon hung thin as a flower petal up in the greenish-blue heavens, whose color seemed to consist only of coolness and depth. The river rolled along pale mother-of-pearl dust.
Here assuredly some one passed one day in May and was empty and sad and full of fiery moods, thought Leonard. But now he has loved and died with Tristan, so that now he hardly touches the ground, and everything is silent and all the world appears as a cool and lovely memory. Yes, what have I, Leonard the artist in wood-cuts, not experienced, seeing that I stand here with the fate of a mighty heart behind me! In this hour I feel love as a great enrapturing memory, something that lives in my soul but is not able to choke my freedom. I have come to drink the potion without its fatal poison. Verily art can give appeasement even to the most burning Now. In art is freedom!
Leonard had almost wholly forgotten his fisherman. But now he noted that the old man stood steadily beside him at the rampart. His face appeared smaller than before in the moonlight. Despite the two-story nose and the gray stubble it was almost like a child’s. But it had always the same stamp of repose. It peered out into the spring night, as if all this illimitable canopy was a friendly home for brisk old folks. Naturally, thought Leonard, the whole world is for him just a beautiful dream of once on a time. The moon, the trees, and the rushing water here, all are his memory, all have flowed into a great certitude, all are his innermost self, as memories are.
Leonard gave the old man his hand:
“Thanks for your help!” he said.
“Aye, thanks and good-bye, then. Now I must down there again a bit, I suppose. Fishing is best at night.”
Thereupon Lundstrom went to his net. But Leonard strolled without uncertainty or restlessness up to his den on the crest of South Stockholm. His thoughts played meanwhile with the same daring little speech:
Why should infinity make us homeless? he said to himself. Infinity has its middle point somewhere. Well, and I, woodcut artist Leonard, am sitting in the centre. Should I not then with a good heart cut at my boxwood blocks?