"I knew the suffering would come," she said mournfully. "So many have had their place in your heart that I could not hope to fill it all myself at first. But I love you so, and I felt so strong, I thought I could win my way into it little by little until it was all mine ...
and now...." She broke off, and fell to sobbing anew.
Olof would have given anything to speak to her then, but found no words.
"And it is so terrible to see it all and be helpless," she went on.
"You are a wanderer still--and I cannot hold you ... you leave me--for those that wait for you...."
"O Heaven!" cried Olof in agony. "Kyllikki, don"t--don"t speak like that. You know I do not care for any other--would not be with any other but you."
"But you go--even against your will. And they come towards you smiling. I am all alone--and they are so many. And they must win--for I can give no more than one woman can. But they are for ever whispering to you of what a woman can give but once in her life--each in her own way...."
"Kyllikki!" Olof broke in imploringly.
But she went on unheeding, pouring out her words like a stream in flood-time.
"And they hate me because I thought to keep you for myself alone. And while you lie in my arms, they come smiling and whispering and thread their arms between us and offer you their lips...."
"Kyllikki!" he cried again, and grasped at her hand like a drowning man.
"And then--then it is no longer me you hold in your arms, but those others; not my lips, but theirs, you kiss...." She tore her hand away, and broke out weeping anew.
Olof sat as if turned to stone. The thing was said--it was as if a secret curse was for ever d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps, and spreading poison all around.
Kyllikki"s despair gathered and grew like an avalanche. What a blind self-deceit their life had been! How they had hoped and dreamed--with a gulf of naked hopelessness on every side!
"If only I had--what I have hoped for these last two years, then I could bear it all. For that--none could rob me of that! But now--I know why it has not come. And now there is no hope even of that!"
And she groaned aloud.
Olof felt as if a dagger"s thrust had pierced the tenderest nerve of an already aching wound. He had tried to comfort her, though he himself had long since lost all hope. The fault could only lie with him--and now he understood! He felt himself crushed by a weight of despair, and sat there staring before him, without a word.
Kyllikki grew calmer after a while, and looked up. The silence of the place came to her now for the first time, and with it a new dread.
She turned to Olof, and at sight of his face, drawn with despair, and darkly shadowed in the gloom, she realised what her words must have meant to him.
"Olof--dear!" she cried, taking his hand. "What have I done? I did not mean to reproach you. It might be my fault as well--it must be mine more than yours...."
But Olof sat motionless as before, save for a shiver that now and then pa.s.sed through his frame.
And Kyllikki, seeing him thus, felt her own trouble fade; a wave of unspeakable tenderness and affection came over her.
"Don"t--Olof, you must not be miserable for that," she said earnestly.
"Oh, how could I ever say it--how could I be so thoughtless and selfish and cruel...?"
"No," said Olof--"it was not that. You could not help it. You were my conscience, that is all--as you must ever be, or you would not be the friend you are."
"Don"t say that, Olof--it was just that I forgot. We are friends--and the one thing that can make and keep us friends is to toil and suffer together--Olof, _together_!"
Gently she drew closer to him, and threw her arms about him.
"Don"t you see?" she went on softly. "It"s all because I love you so.
I want you for myself, all for myself. I will not let you go--no, you shall look at me. I will drive them away, all of them, if they try to come between us; oh, I am strong enough, I know. You are mine, Olof, do you hear? All mine--mine.... Oh, why do you sit there so? Speak to me, Olof!"
Her pa.s.sionate earnestness burned like bright flames about him, gradually warming his heart to life again.
"Kyllikki, how good you are!" he said, and his eyes glistened as he spoke. "You are all I have in life--without you, I should be lost. If only--if only I could be sure of one thing...."
"What is it--tell me, Olof...?"
"That--that you do not despise me, but trust me, that you believe I only care to be yours."
"Trust you?--indeed I do," said Kyllikki. "I know we are both striving toward the same end. But there are enemies that are always on the watch. We must beat them--and we will! And I am yours--all yours--as the night when you said good-bye to Kohiseva. And you are mine--all mine ... and then, Olof--then it will come--the one thing I must have to live for...."
OUT OF THE PAST
"KIRKKALA, 7 _May_ 1899."
"Dearest,--You will not be angry because I write to you? How could you, you who are so good! I would not have written, but I must, for there is so much to tell you. It is spring now, as it was then, and it has brought with it such a longing that I must turn to you, speak to you--and then I can wait again till next spring. You must have known that I have been with you--surely you felt it? And now here I am, having learned by chance where you are.
"Do you remember the story I told you? About the girl and her lover and the mark on her breast? And what I asked for then, and you gave me? I have often wondered since whether, perhaps, you might have misunderstood it all--when I was so serious and thoughtful about it--if you thought I was not certain of myself, not sure that I should always be yours, as I wished to be. But it was not so, dear Olof; I knew myself well enough even then, though not so deeply as I do now.
How strong and deep love is! I read once in a poem--surely you know it too:
""The lightning stroke falls swifter than breath, But the tree that is struck bears the mark till its death.""
And so it is--there is no more to add; it is as if written by the finger of G.o.d. And so it must be, or what would our love be worth?
"But it is not all who understand it, even the half. Human beings are so strange--wondering and asking always--people ask, for instance, why I am always so lonely.... They cannot see that I am not lonely at all.
"Olof, if you knew all I have felt and suffered in these years! I hardly know if I dare tell you. But I must--I only turn to you now to say it all, so that I may feel easier after. I have longed for you so--more than I can ever say; I wonder how I have been able to live at all. Olof, Olof, do not look at me! I have only come to whisper a little in your ear.... I have had such dreadful thoughts. As if someone were always behind me whispering, "Look, there is a knife--it is a friend; take it and press it deep in your breast--it will feel like the softest touch of the evening wind. Look, the river is in flood...." And I have hardly dared to pa.s.s by the well, for it looked up at me so strangely with its dark eye. And I know I should have given way if you had not saved me. When I thought how you would feel if you heard what I had done, I seemed to see you so clearly; you looked at me reproachfully, only looked at me without a word, and I felt ashamed that I had ever thought of what would cause you sorrow.
And you nodded, and forgave me, and all was well again.
"Then I took to hoping that some miracle should bring you back to me.
I hoped something might happen to you, so that I could buy your life with mine. You might be bitten by a snake--it does happen sometimes.
Coming up one night with the lumbermen, and then next morning the news would be all over the place, how you had been bitten, and were on the point of death; and I would hurry down with the rest to where you were, and bend down beside you, and press my lips to the place and draw the poison out. And then I could feel it pa.s.sing with your blood into my veins, in a great wave of happiness. And soon I should sink down beside you on the gra.s.s; but you would be saved, and you would know I had been true to you until death.
"So I waited year after year. Then I wanted you to be ill--very, very ill for a long time, and weak, till your heart could hardly beat at all for want of blood, and you lay in a trance. Then the doctors would say, if anyone would give their blood he might come to life again.
But no one could be found, for there were only strangers there. Then I hear about it, and come quickly, and the doctors start at once, for there is no time to be lost. And they draw off my blood and let it flow into your body, and it acts at once, and you move a little, though you are still in a trance. "A little more," say the doctors--"see, the girl is smiling; it will do her no harm." And they only see that I smile, and do not know how weak I am already. And when you wake, I am cold and pale already, but happy as a bride, and you kiss me on the lips like a lover. For now I am your bride, and one with you for ever, and I cannot die, for my blood lives in you!
"But all this was only dreams. You were not ill, nor bitten by a snake, and at last I did not even know where you were. And then I wanted to die, for I felt so weak. And I waited for it day after day and month after month--I had already written to say good-bye to you.
But death did not come--I had to go on living.
"I have been so ill, Olof--it is my heart. Perhaps I am too sensitive; they called me a dreamer when I was a child. And even now that I am older they have said the same. But how could I ever forget you, and the hours that were the confession and communion of my whole life? How could I forget those evenings when I sat at your feet and looked into your eyes? Olof, I can feel it all still, and tremble at the thought of it.
"You must forgive me all this. It feels easier now that I have spoken to you and told you about it all--how I still feel, grateful to you for all you gave me then. I was very childish and poor then, and had nothing to give you in return--now, afterwards, I could perhaps have given you something too. I should have been so happy if we could have been together always; earth would have been like heaven, and none but angels everywhere. And even now I can be so happy, though I only have you in secret. Secretly I say good-night to you, and kiss you, and no one knows that you rest every night in my arms. And, do you know, Olof, there is one thing that is so strange, I hardly know what it means. Now, just lately, I have felt sometimes that you were really here, your living self, sitting beside me and whispering that I was yours, your love, your friend. And it makes me so happy--but I always cry afterwards.
"There was one thing more--but I can"t think what it was. Something about ... yes, now I remember. The greatest and loveliest of all, that I asked you for Shall I tell you? The miracle has happened, though no one knows about it. You gave it me after all, that spring when I was so ill. And I could not live without it. He is two years old now--oh, if you could only see him! His eyes and his voice--they are just your very own. Do not be anxious about him. I will be so careful, and see that he grows up a fine man. I have sewed every st.i.tch of his clothes myself, and he looks like a prince--there never was such a child.