Lagerlöf Selma
The Emperor of Portugallia
THE DREAM BEGINS
The first few weeks after the senator's call Jan was unable to do a stroke of work: he just lay abed and grieved. Every morning he rose and put on his clothes, intending to go to his work; but before he was outside the door he felt so weak and weary that all he could do was to go back to bed.
Katrina tried to be patient with Jan, for she understood that pining, like any other sickness, had to run its course. Yet she could not help wondering how long it would be before Jan's intense yearning for Glory Goldie subsided. "Perhaps he'll be lying round like this till Christmas!" she thought. "Or possibly the whole winter?"
And this might have been the case, too, had not the old seine-maker dropped in at Ruffluck one evening and been asked to stay for coffee.
The seine-maker, like most persons whose thoughts are far away and who do not keep in touch with what happens immediately about them, was always taciturn. But when his coffee had been poured and he had emptied it into his saucer, to let it cool, it struck him that he ought to say something.
"To-day there's bound to be a letter from Glory Goldie," he said.
"I feel it in my bones."
"We had greetings from her only a fortnight ago in her letter to the senator," Katrina reminded him.
The seine-maker blew into his saucer a couple of times before saying anything more. Whereupon he again found it expedient to bridge a long silence with a word or so.
"Maybe some blessing has come to the girl, and it has given her something to write about."
"What kind of blessing might that be?" scouted Katrina. "When you've got to drudge as a servant, one day is as humdrum as another."
The seine-maker bit off a corner of a sugar-lump and gulped his coffee. When he had finished an appalling stillness fell upon the room.
"It might be that Glory Goldie met some person in the street," he blurted out, his half-dead eyes vacantly staring at space. He seemed not to know what he was saying.
Katrina did not think it necessary to respond; so replenished his cup without speaking.
"Maybe the person she met was an old lady who had difficulty in walking," the seine-maker went on in the same offhand manner, "and maybe she stumbled and fell when Glory Goldie came along."
"Would that be anything to write about?" asked Katrina, weary of this senseless talk.
"But suppose Glory Goldie stopped and helped the old lady up?" pursued the seine-maker, "and she was so thankful to the girl for helping her that she opened her purse and gave her all of ten rix-dollars – wouldn't that be worth telling?"
"Why certainly," said Katrina, "if it were true. But this is just something you're making up."
"It is well, sometimes, to be able to indulge in little thought feasts," contended the seine-maker, "they are often more satisfying than the real ones."
"You've tried both kinds," returned Katrina, "so you ought to know."
The seine-maker went his way directly, and Katrina gave no further thought to his story.
As for Jan, he took it at first as idle chatter. But lying abed, with nothing to take up his mind, presently he began to wonder if there was not some hidden meaning back of the seine-maker's words. The old man's tone sounded a bit peculiar when he spoke of the letter. Would he have sat there and made up such a long story only for talk's sake? Perhaps he had heard something. Perhaps Glory Goldie had written to him? It was quite possible that something so great had come to the little girl that she dared not send direct word to her parents, and wrote instead to the seine-maker, asking him to prepare them.
"He'll come again to-morrow," thought Jan, "and then we'll hear all about it."
But for some reason the seine-maker did not come back the next day, nor the day after. By the third day Jan had become so impatient to see his old friend that he got up and went over to his cabin, to find out whether there was anything in what he had said.
The old man was sitting alone mending a drag-net when Jan came in. He was so crippled from rheumatism, he said, he had been unable to leave the house for several days.
Jan did not want to ask him outright if he had received a letter from Glory Goldie. He thought he would attain his object more easily by approaching it in the indirect way the other had taken. So he said:
"I've been thinking of what you told us about Glory Goldie the last time you were at our place."
The seine-maker looked up from his work, puzzled. It was some little time before he comprehended what Jan alluded to. "Why, that was just a little whimsey of mine," he returned presently.
Then Jan went very close to the old man. "Anyhow it was something pleasant to listen to," he said. "You might have told us more, perhaps, if Katrina hadn't been so mistrustful?"
"Oh, yes," replied the seine-maker. "This is the sort of amusement one can afford to indulge in down here, in the Ashdales."
"I have thought," continued Jan, emboldened by the encouragement, "that maybe the story didn't end with the old lady giving Glory Goldie the ten rix-dollars. Perhaps she also invited the girl to come to see her?"
"Maybe she did," said the seine-maker.
"Maybe she's so rich that she owns a whole stone house?"
"That was a happy thought, friend Jan!"
"And maybe the rich old lady will pay Glory Goldie's debt?" Jan began, but stopped short, because the old man's daughter-in-law had just come in, and of course he did not care to let her into the secret.
"So you're out to-day, Jan," observed the daughter-in-law. "I'm glad you're feeling better."
"For that I have to thank my good friend Ol' Bengtsa!" said Jan, with an air of mystery. "He's the one who has cured me."
Jan said good-bye, and left at once. For a long while the seine-maker sat gazing out after him.
"I don't know what he can have meant by saying that I have cured him," the old man remarked to his daughter-in-law. "It can't be that he's – ? No, no!"
HEIRLOOMS
One evening, toward the close of autumn, Jan was on his way home from Falla, where he had been threshing all day. After his talk with the seine-maker his desire for work had come back to him. He felt now that he must do what he could to keep up so that the little girl on her return would not be subjected to the humiliation of finding her parents reduced to the condition of paupers.
When Jan was far enough away from the house not to be seen from the windows he noticed a woman in the road coming toward him. Dusk had already fallen, but he soon saw it was the mistress herself – not the new one, but the old and rightful mistress of Falla. She had on a big shawl that came down to the hem of her skirt. Jan had never seen her so wrapped up, and wondered if she was ill. She had looked poorly of late. In the spring, when her husband died, she had not a gray hair on her head, and now, half a year afterward, she had not a dark hair left.
The old mistress stopped and greeted Jan, after which the two stood and talked. She said nothing that would indicate that she had come out expressly to see him, but he felt it to be so. It flashed into his head that she wanted to speak with him about Glory Goldie, and he was rather miffed when she began to talk about something quite different.
"I wonder, Jan, if you remember the old owner of Falla, my father, who was master there before Eric came?"
"Why shouldn't I remember him, when I was all of twelve at the time of his death?"
"He had a good son-in-law," said the old mistress.
"He had that," agreed Jan.
The old mistress was silent a moment, and sighed once or twice
before she continued: "I want to ask your advice about something,
Jan. You are not the sort that would go about tittle-tattling what
I say."
"No, I can hold my tongue."
"Yes, I've noticed that this year."
New hopes arose in Jan. It would not be surprising, thought he, if Glory Goldie had turned to the old mistress of Falla and asked her to tell him and Katrina of the great thing that had come to her. For the old seine-maker had been taken down with rheumatic fever shortly after their interrupted conversation, and for weeks he had been too ill to see him. Now he was up and about again, but very feeble. The worst of it was that after his illness his memory seemed to be gone. He had waited for him to say something more about Glory Goldie's letter, but as he had failed to do so, and could not even take a hint, he had asked him straight out. And the old man had declared he had not received any letter. To convince Jan he had pulled out the table drawer and thrown back the lid of his clothes-chest, to let him see for himself that there was no such letter.
Of course he had forgotten what he did with it, Jan concluded. So, no wonder the little girl had turned to the mistress of Falla. Pity she hadn't done it in the first place! Now that the old mistress was hesitating so long he felt certain in his own mind that he was right. But when she again returned to the subject of her father, he was so surprised he could hardly follow her. She said:
"When father was nearing the end he summoned Eric of Falla to his bedside and thanked him for his loving care of a helpless old man in his declining years. 'Don't think about that, Father,' said Eric. 'We're glad to have you with us just as long as you care to stay.' That's what Eric said. And he meant it, too!"
"He did that," confirmed Jan. "There were no fox-tricks about him!"
"Wait, Jan!" said the mistress, "we'll just speak of the old people for the present. Do you remember the long silver-mounted stick father used to carry?"
"Yes; both the stick and the high leather cap he always wore when he went to church."
"So you remember the cap, too? Do you know what father did at the last? He told me to fetch him his stick and cap, and then he gave them to Eric. 'I could have given you something that was worth more money,' he told Eric, 'but I am giving you these instead, for I know you would rather have something I have used.'"
"That was an honour well earned." When Jan said that he noticed that the old mistress drew her shawl closer together. He was sure now she was hiding something under it – maybe a present from Glory Goldie! "She'll get round to that in time," he thought. "All this talk about her father is only a makeshift."
"I have often spoken of this to my children," the old mistress went on, "and also to Lars Gunnarson. Last spring, when Eric lay sick, I think both Lars and Anna expected that Lars would be called to the bedside, as Eric had once been called. I had brought him in the stick and cap so they'd be handy in case Eric wished to give them to Lars; but he had no such thought."
The old mistress's voice shook as she said that, and when she spoke again her tone sounded anxious and uncertain.
"Once, when we were alone, I asked Eric what his wishes were, and he said if I wanted to I could give the things to Lars when he was gone as he had not the strength to make speeches."
Whereupon the mistress of Falla threw back her big shawl, and then Jan saw that she held under it a long, silver-mounted ebony stick and a stiff, high-crowned leather cap.
"Some words are too heavy for utterance," she said with great gravity. "Answer me with just a nod, Jan, if you will. Can I give these to Lars Gunnarson?"
Jan drew back a step. This was a matter he had entirely dismissed from his mind. It seemed such a long time since Eric of Falla died he hardly remembered how it happened.
"You understand, Jan, that all I want to know is whether Lars can accept the stick and cap with the same right as Eric. You must know, as you were with him that time in the forest. It would be well for me," she added, as Jan did not speak, "if I could give them to Lars. I believe there would be less friction afterward between the young folks and me."
Her voice failed her again, and Jan began to perceive why she had aged so much the past few months; but now his mind was so taken up with other things that he no longer cherished the old resentment against his new employer.
"It's best to forgive and forget," he said. "It pays in the long run."
The old mistress caught her breath. "Then it is just as I thought!" she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "I'll not ask you to tell what took place. It's best for me not to know. But one thing is certain, Lars Gunnarson shall never get his hands on my father's stick!"
She had already turned to go, then suddenly faced about. "Here, Jan," she said, holding out the things. "You may have the stick and cap, for I want them to be in good, honest hands. I daren't take them home again lest I be forced to turn them over to Lars; so you keep them as a memento of the old master, who always thought well of you."
Then she walked away, erect and proud, and there Jan stood holding the cap and stick. He hardly knew how it had come about. He had never expected to be so honoured. Were these heirlooms now to be his? Then in a moment, he found an explanation: Glory Goldie was back of it all. The old mistress knew that he was soon to be elevated to a station so exalted that nothing would be too good for him. Indeed, had the stick been of silver and the cap of gold they would have been even more suitable for the father of Glory Goldie.
CLOTHED IN SATIN
No letter had come from Glory Goldie to either her father or mother. But it mattered very little now that Jan knew she was silent simply because she wished her parents to be all the more surprised and happy when the time came for her to proclaim the good tidings.
But, in any case, it was a good thing for him that he had peeped into her cards. Otherwise he might easily have been made a fool of by persons who thought they knew more about Glory's doings than he did. For instance, there was Katrina's experience at church the first Sunday in Advent. Katrina had been to service, and upon her return Jan had noticed that she was both alarmed and depressed.
She had seen a couple of youths who were just back from Stockholm standing on the church knoll talking with a group of young boys and girls. Thinking they might be able to give her some news of Glory Goldie, she had gone up to them to make inquiries.
The youths were evidently telling of some of their escapades, for all the men, at least, laughed uproariously. Katrina thought their behaviour very unseemly, considering they were on church ground. The men must have realized this themselves, for when she came up they nudged one another and hushed. She had caught only a few words, spoken by a youth whose back was turned to her, and who had not seen her.
"And to think that she was clothed in satin!" he said.
Instantly a young girl gave him a push that silenced him, then, glancing round, he saw Katrina just behind him and his face went red as blood; but immediately after he tossed his head, and said in a loud voice:
"What's the matter with you? Why can't I be allowed to say that the queen was arrayed in satin?"
When he said that the young people laughed louder than ever. Then Katrina went her way, unable to bring herself to question them. And when she came home she was so unhappy that Jan was almost tempted to come out with the truth about Glory Goldie; but on second thought, he asked her to tell him again what had been said about the queen.
Katrina did so, but added: "You understand of course that that was only said to sweeten the pill for me."
Jan meanwhile kept mum. But he could not help smiling to himself.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Katrina. "You have such a queer look on your face these days. You don't know what they meant, do you?"
"I certainly don't," answered Jan. "But we ought to have enough confidence in the little girl to think all is as it should be."
"But I'm getting so anxious – "
"The time to speak," Jan struck in, "has not come, either for them or me. Glory Goldie herself has probably requested them not to say anything to us. So we must rest easy, Katrina, indeed we must."
STARS
When the little girl had been gone nearly eight months, who should come stalking into the barn at Falla one fine day, while Jan stood threshing there, but Mad Ingeborg!
Mad Ingeborg was first cousin to Jan. But as she was afraid of Katrina he seldom saw her. It was to escape meeting Jan's wife that she had sought him out at Falla during his work hours.
Jan was none too pleased to see Ingeborg! She was not exactly insane, but flighty – and a terrible chatterer. He went right on with his work, taking no notice of her.
"Stop your threshing, Jan!" she said, "so that I can tell you what
I dreamed about you last night."
"You'd better come some other time, Ingeborg," Jan suggested. "If Lars Gunnarson hears that I'm resting from my work he'll be sure to come over to see what's up."
"I'll be as quick as quick can be. If you remember, I was the brightest child in our family, which doesn't give me much to brag about, as the rest of you were a dull lot."
"You were going to tell me about a dream," Jan reminded her.
"In a minute – a minute! You mustn't be afraid. I understand – understand: hard master now at Falla – hard master. But don't be uneasy, for you'll not be scolded on my account. There's no danger of that when you're with a sensible person like me."
Jan would have liked to hear what she dreamed about him, for confident as he was of the ultimate realization of his great expectations, he nevertheless sought assurances from all quarters. But now Mad Ingeborg was wandering along her own thought-road and at such times it was not easy to stop her. She went very close to Jan, then, bending over him, her eyes shut tight, her head shaking, the words came pouring out of her mouth.
"Don't be so scared. Do you suppose I'd be standing here talking to you while you're threshing at Falla if I didn't know the master had gone up to the forest and the mistress was down at the village selling butter. 'Always keep them in mind,' says the catechism. I know enough for that and take good care not to come round when they can see me."
"Get out of the way, Ingeborg! Otherwise the flail might hit you."
"Think how you boys used to beat me when we were children!" she rattled on. "Even now I have to take thrashings. But when it came to catechism examinations, I could beat you all. 'No one can catch Ingeborg napping,' the dean used to say. 'She always knows her lessons.' And I'm good friends with the little misses at Lövdala Manor. I recite the catechism for them both questions and answers – from beginning to end. And what a memory I've got! I know the whole Bible by heart and the hymn book, too, and all the dean's sermons. Shall I recite something for you, or would you rather hear me sing?"
Jan said nothing whatever, but went to threshing again. Ingeborg, undaunted, seated herself on a sheaf of straw and struck up a chant of some twenty stanzas, then she repeated a couple of chapters from the Bible, whereupon she got up and went out. Jan thought she had gone for good, but in a little while she reappeared in the doorway of the barn.
"Hold still!" she whispered. "Hold still! Now we'll say nothing but what we were going to say. Only be still – still!"
Then up went her forefinger. Now she held her body rigid and her eyes open. "No other thoughts, no other thoughts!" she said. "We'll keep to the subject. Only hush your pounding!"
She waited till Jan minded her.
"You came to me last night in a dream – yes, that was it. You came to me and I says to you like this: 'Are you out for a walk, Jan of the Ashdales?' 'Yes,' says you, 'but now I'm Jan of the Vale of Longings.' 'Then, well met,' says I. 'There's where I have lived all my life.'"
Whereupon she disappeared again, and Jan, startled by her strange words, did not immediately resume his work, but stood pondering. In a moment or two she was there again.
"I remember now what brought me here," she told him. "I wanted to show you my stars."
On her arm was a small covered basket bound with cord, and while she tugged and pulled at a knot, to loosen it, she chattered like a magpie.
"They are real stars, these. When one lives in the Vale of Longings one isn't satisfied with the things of earth; then one is compelled to go out and look for stars. There is no other choice. Now you, too, will have to go in search of them."
"No, no, Ingeborg!" returned Jan. "I'll confine my search to what is to be found on this earth."
"For goodness sake hush!" cried the woman. "You don't suppose I'm such a fool as to go ahunting for those which remain in the heavens, do you? I only seek the kind that have fallen. I've got some sense, I guess!"
She opened her basket which was filled with a variety of stars she had evidently picked up at the manors. There were tin stars and glass stars and paper stars – ornaments from Christmas trees and confectionery.
"They are real stars fallen from the sky," she declared. "You are the only person I've shown them to. I'll let you have a couple whenever you need them."
"Thanks, Ingeborg," said Jan. "When the time comes that I shall have need of stars – which may be right soon – I don't think I'll ask you for them."
Then at last Mad Ingeborg left.
It was some little time, however, before Jan went back to his threshing. To him this, too, was a finger-pointing. Not that a crack-brained person like Ingeborg could know anything of Glory Goldie's movements; but she was one of the kind who sensed it in the air when something extraordinary was going to happen. She could see and hear things of which wise folk never had an inkling.
