When she discovered the truth, she supposed at first that the captain had been in league with Borje to deceive her, but afterwards she found that it was not so. They were accustomed on board the boat to speak of Borje as of a great man. It was their greatest joke to talk quite seriously of his riches and his fine family. They thought that Borje had told her the truth, but that she joked with him, as they all did, when she talked about his big house. So it happened that when the lugger cast anchor in the harbor which lay nearest to Borje"s home, she still did not know but that she was the wife of a rich man.
Borje got a day"s leave to conduct his wife to her future home and to start her in her new life. When they were landed on the quay, where the flags were to have fluttered and the crowds to have rejoiced in honor of the newly-married couple, only emptiness and calm reigned there, and Borje noticed that his wife looked about her with a certain disappointment.
"We have come too soon," he had said. "The journey was such an unusually quick one in this fine weather. So we have no carriage here either, and we have far to go, for the house lies outside the town."
"That makes no difference, Borje," she had answered. "It will do us good to walk, after having been quiet so long on board."
And so they began their walk, that walk of horror, of which she could not think even in her old age without moaning in agony and wringing her hands in pain. They went along the broad, empty streets, which she instantly recognized from his description. She felt as if she met with old friends both in the dark church and in the even houses of timber and brick; but where were the carved gables and marble steps with the high railing?
Borje had nodded to her as if he had guessed her thoughts. "It is a long way still," he had said.
If he had only been merciful and at once killed her hope. She loved him so then. If he of his own accord had told her everything, there would never have been any sting in her soul against him. But when he saw her pain at being deceived, and yet went on misleading her, that had hurt her too bitterly. She had never really forgiven him that. She could of course say to herself that he had wanted to take her with him as far as possible so that she would not be able to run away from him, but his deceit created such a deadly coldness in her that no love could entirely thaw it.
They went through the town and came out on the adjoining plain.
There stretched several rows of dark moats and high, green ramparts, remains from the time when the town had been fortified, and at the point where they all gathered around a fort, she saw some ancient buildings and big, round towers. She cast a shy look towards them, but Borje turned off to the mounds which followed the sh.o.r.e.
"This is a shorter way," he said, for she seemed to be surprised that there was only a narrow path to follow.
He had become very taciturn. She understood afterwards that he had not found it so merry as he had fancied, to come with a wife to the miserable little house in the fishing village. It did not seem so fine now to bring home a better man"s child. He was anxious about what she would do when she should know the truth.
"Borje," she said at last, when they had followed the shelving, sandy hillocks for a long while, "where are we going?"
He lifted his band and pointed towards the fishing-village, where his mother lived in the house on the sand-hill. But she believed that he meant one of the beautiful country-seats which lay on the edge of the plain, and was again glad.
They climbed down into the empty cow-pastures, and there all her uneasiness returned. There, where every tuft, if one can only see it, is clothed with beauty and variety, she saw merely an ugly field. And the wind, which is ever shifting there, swept whistling by them and whispered of misfortune and treachery.
Borje walked faster and faster, and at last they reached the end of the pasture and entered the fishing village. She, who at the last had not dared to ask herself any questions, took courage again.
Here again was a uniform row of houses, and this one she recognized Even better than that in the town. Perhaps, perhaps he had not lied.
Her expectations were so reduced that she would have been glad from the heart if she could have stopped at any of the neat little houses, where flowers and white curtains showed behind shining window-panes. She grieved that she had to go by them.
Then she saw suddenly, just at the outer edge of the fishing-village, one of the most wretched of hovels, and it seemed to her as if she had already seen it with her mind"s eye before she actually had a glimpse of it.
"Is it here?" he said, and stopped just at the foot of the little sand-hill.
He bent his head imperceptibly and went on towards the little cottage.
"Wait," she called after him, "we must talk this over before I go into your home. You have lied," she went on, threateningly, when he turned to her. "You have deceived me worse than if you were my worst enemy. Why have you done it?"
"I wanted you for my wife," he answered, with a low, trembling voice.
"If you had only deceived me within bounds! Why did you make everything so fine and rich? What did you have to do with man-servants and triumphal arches and all the other magnificence? Did you think that I was so devoted to money? Did you not see that I cared enough for you to go anywhere with you? That you could believe you needed to deceive me! That you could have the heart to keep up your lies to the very last!"
"Will you not come in and speak to my mother?" he said, helplessly.
"I do not intend to go in there."
"Are you going home?"
"How can I go home? How could I cause them there at home such sorrow as to return, when they believe me happy and rich? But with you I will not stay either. For one who is willing to work there is always a livelihood."
"Stop!" he begged. "I did it only to win you."
"If you had told me the truth, I would have stayed."
"If I had been a rich man, who had pretended to be poor, then you would have stayed."
She shrugged her shoulders and turned to go, when the door of the cottage opened and Borje"s mother came out. She was a little, dried-up old woman with few teeth and many wrinkles, but not so old in years or in feelings as in looks.
She had heard a part and guessed a part, for she knew what they were quarrelling about. "Well," she said, "that is a fine daughter-in-law you have got me, Borje. And you have been deceiving again, I can hear." But to Astrid she came and patted her kindly on the cheek.
"Come in with me, you poor child! I know that you are tired and worn out. This is my house. He is not allowed to come in here. But you come. Now you are my daughter, and I cannot let you go to strangers, do you understand?"
She caressed her daughter-in-law and chatted to her and drew and pushed her quite imperceptibly forward to the door. Step by step she lured her on, and at last got her inside the house; but Borje she shut out. And there, within, the old woman began to ask who she was and how it had all happened. And she wept over her and made her weep over herself. The old woman was merciless about her son. She, Astrid, did right; she could not stay with such a man. It was true that he was in the habit of lying, it was really true.
She told her how it had been with her son. He had been so fair in face and limbs, even when he was small, that she had always marvelled that he was a poor man"s child. He was like a little prince gone astray. And ever after it had always seemed as if he had not been in his right place. He saw everything on such a large scale. He could not see things as they were, when it concerned himself. His mother had wept many a time on that account. But never before had he done any harm with his lies. Here, where he was known, they only laughed at him.--But now he must have been so terribly tempted. Did she really not think, she, Astrid, that it was wonderful how the fisher boy had been able to deceive them? He had always known so much about wealth, as if he had been born to it. It must be that he had come into the world in the wrong place.
See, that was another proof,--he had never thought of choosing a wife in his own station.
"Where will he sleep to-night?" asked Astrid, suddenly.
"I imagine he will lie outside on the sand. He will be too anxious to go away from here."
"I suppose it is best for him to come in," said Astrid.
"Dearest child, you cannot want to see him. He can get along out there if I give him a blanket."
She let him actually sleep out on the sand that night, thinking it best for Astrid not to see him. And with her she talked and talked, and kept her, not by force, but by cleverness, not by persuasion, but by real goodness.
But when she had at last succeeded in keeping her daughter-in-law for her son, and had got the young people reconciled, and had taught Astrid that her vocation in life was just to be Borje Nilsson"s wife and to make him as happy as she could,--and that had not been the work of one evening, but of many days,--then the old woman had laid herself down to die.
And in that life, with its faithful solicitude for her son, there was some meaning, thought Borje Nilsson"s wife.
But in her own life she saw no meaning. Her husband was drowned after a few years of married life, and her one child died young.
She had not been able to make any change in her husband. She had not been able to teach him earnestness and truth. It was rather in her the change showed, after she had been more and more with the fishing people. She would never see any of her own family, for she was ashamed that she now resembled in everything a fisherman"s wife. If it had only been of any use! If she, who lived by mending the fishermen"s nets, knew why she clung so to life! If she had made any one happy or had improved anybody!
It never occurred to her to think that she who considers her life a failure because she has done no good to others, perhaps by that thought of humility has saved her own soul.
HIS MOTHER"S PORTRAIT
None of the hundred houses of the fishing-village, where each is exactly like the other in size and shape, where all have just as many windows and as high chimneys, lived old Mattsson, the pilot.
In all the rooms of the fishing-village there is the same sort of furniture, on all the window-sills stand the same kinds of flowers, in all the corner-cupboards are the same collections of sea-sh.e.l.ls and coral, on all the walls hang the same pictures. And it is a fixed old custom that all the inhabitants of the fishing-village live the same life. Since Mattsson, the pilot, had grown old, he had conformed carefully to the conditions and customs; his house, his rooms and his mode of living were like everybody else"s.
On the wall over the bed old Mattsson had a picture of his mother.
One night he dreamed that the portrait stepped down from its frame, placed itself in front of him and said with a loud voice: "You must marry, Mattson."
Old Mattsson then began to make clear to his mother that it was impossible. He was seventy years old.--But his mother"s portrait merely repeated with even greater emphasis: "You must marry, Mattsson."