'GOD'S PEACE.'
ISo I am really leaving the capital! For the last fifteen years the town has held me close. Like a vile harlot she has made me believe I could not possibly live without her poisonous, perfumed air, her luxurious leisure. I was caught in a web of a thousand threads, and I believed I was caught for good and all. In a vague way I even believed the town could not do without me. Had I not during the past years become a necessary joint in its big machinery? Did not everybody consider me part and parcel of the town, of its ever-changing life, now joyful, now mournful? My voice was heard in important discussions. I had gradually become a much sought-after helper and adviser. I was considered a trustworthy friend and an enemy to be counted with. How tired I often felt, as worn-out as an old cab horse that must be driven by the lash, but which would much prefer to fall flat in the road, to lie there quietly waiting for death and rest.
Yes, I am tired to death. Tired of pleasure and of work, tired of always having to take sides, now with this, now with that, tired of defending and attacking. Tired to death and feeling so indifferent in my heart, yet not daring to allow the slightest sign of this to appear in work or manner.
But most of all I am tired of the eternal struggle for money. Money which must be got by hook or by crook. Money to be slaved for, to be borrowed, to be paid interest on, to be repaid, always more and more money, and always more difficult to get—a constantly growing avalanche which daily becomes more threatening, more impossible to resist, which disturbs one's work during the day, destroys one's sleep at night.
Why wonder at the more or less evident support which Socialism gains amongst people outside the labouring classes? The explanation is near at hand. What have nine out of ten of us who belong to the middle classes to lose by a revolution, by a change of the existing economic laws and rules? We are, at least nine-tenths of us, proletariats fighting a hopeless battle to make the income the community allows us balance with the expenses the same community demands of us, if we are not to be left utterly out of the running. With a very few exceptions, we all live above our means, government officials, artists and scientists, tradesmen and clergymen, actors and officers, journalists, mayors and poets. What would we lose if suddenly the great explosion came, the explosion which would startle the community out of its accustomed groove, and make spills out of agreements, bills of exchange, and I O U's. Those who live from hand to mouth are in a way better off; their demands on life are small, and very little is expected of them. Neither is it for them to begin the movement which leads to a great revolution. It is the men from our midst who teach them to be Socialists. It is the despair in the higher classes which breeds the demands from below.
The other day I wrenched myself away from it all. I gave my affairs into the hands of a sympathetic solicitor, made an arrangement with my publisher, a man who has an amiable belief in my talent, and who is willing for a year or two to pay me a modest monthly allowance. I packed my trunk, and this afternoon, without saying good-bye to any one, I came on board this steamer which will take me to the old provincial town where I spent my early childhood. I have not seen the place for twenty years, but every time the weariness of my life overwhelmed me, I longed to go back there.
I have not wavered. The moment I decided to break away from the capital, that same moment I knew where I was going.
The old town calls me like a mother who faithfully waits at home for her far-away son. In the old town there is nothing to remind me of all I wish to get away from and to forget. The town and I only know each other from the good days when it seemed to me the greatest and the most beautiful, the object of my pride and admiration, and I was one of its most spoiled children.
It calls me like a mother. There also is the grave of my mother. It holds all the mother love I enjoyed in those days more than most children, and which I was to lose so early. Where in the world should I go but to this old town? I, who return to it, to become a child again.
III have neither slept nor been awake during the journey. I have been sitting on deck all through the warm light summer-night, letting my thoughts dreamily follow the golden track of the steamer, rocked gently by the heavy, regular beat of the machinery and the sobbing sound of the dancing waves against the sides of the steamer.
My thoughts wander back along that golden track to the life and the world in which I so lately took part. I feel already so curiously removed from it all, so strangely aloof. How indifferent, empty and unimportant it all seems to me now. And for that I have sacrificed fifteen of my best years. Nobody has been more eager than I, nobody a more fanatical believer. Very young I swore allegiance to the banner of my party, fought bravely and blindly in the ranks, was promoted and won pretty nearly all the distinction my ambition could expect.
I have been in the midst of battle, I have hated and worshipped, I have never broken my banner-oath, and I have never been tempted to do so. I have won friends and enemies, and done good and evil according to my judgment and conscience. And after all what is the result? Happiness for me? Happiness for any one else? Scarcely the last, and certainly not the first. When now, of my own free will, I give up the position I have won—and which many have envied me—it is with a sincere feeling of its hopeless insecurity.
What in heaven's name do we fight for? Why do we pursue each other, suspect and ill-treat each other, always armed to the teeth, always ready for attack? Perhaps far, far away there is a goal to reach—a higher justice, a better distribution of the boons of existence. Perhaps our children's children may experience a new social revolution. But after all will it make mankind happier when that goal is reached, or will they press on with restless hearts and unsatisfied desires to fight and hate onwards towards a new goal? Surely. No, it is an empty illusion that happiness is to be won by strife. Only in peace, peace with oneself, peace with the world is happiness found.
To think that they are fighting on there still. The big town has not yet laid down to rest, the thousand slaves of envy and anger are still busy under the electric light of the streets, are streaming into the cafes, drinking themselves heavy and dumb to wake up to-morrow morning, after a haunted sleep, with feverish brains and bitter hearts. How can they? Why won't they all, on some beautiful summer morn, jump out of bed with the firm resolution to cease fighting, to lay down their weapons, cool their feverish brows in the resh morning air, fill their bitter hearts with nature's sweet joy, and cleanse themselves from all envy and hatred, and make peace all along the line on the simple basis that we are all human creatures who don't want to hurt one another. Thus without bloodshed completing that revolution of peace which makes all other revolutions superfluous. In this way I sit dreaming while on this lovely June night the ship carries me across the quiet sea to my old home. Like an image of my dream I saw, at sunrise, just as we passed the entrance of the fjord, a young woman stand by my side. She was tall and proud, her face shining with peace. As a vision she came, as a vision she disappeared. But if she was an omen I receive her thankfully,—an omen that I am steering the straight course for peace.
evening.
IIIWe arrived in the early morning. My luggage I left on board for the present, not yet knowing where I was going to put up, and sauntered up through the sleeping town. At first it all seemed rather strange: the street I walked in had a name I did not remember, and I saw many new houses with silly, smooth, every-day faces and shop-windows of cold and heartless plate-glass.
But when I reached the square I recognised my old town.
I sat down on the flight of stone steps which projected from the house where my childhood was spent. I closed my eyes to shut out the last seen picture, and saw in my memory a vivid picture of the square as it was years ago.
At the end of the square runs East Stream. In my memory it is not covered over as now, but runs freely through the town under bridges and through banks with leafy, knotted trees. It is full of boats and tiny craft selling fish, wooden shoes, and earthenware pots, and, all through the autumn, fruit. The square, and even the neighbouring streets, are wrapped in a delicious perfume of spicy Bergamotte pears and sweet-smelling apples.
The other end of the square is dominated by the yellow painted King's House with its castellated gables. Here it is that the town's old stork-papas hold their meetings on summer afternoons. They stand one on each of the offsets of the gables. On the highest point is the president, who opens the meeting with a loud cackle. After this they all cackle in chorus, all these worthy storks, and those who only listen stand sometimes on one leg out of pure eagerness. But it happens sometimes that the whole assembly is dissolved in general altercation; they all flap their wings vigorously, and furiously cackle into each other's faces. It may also happen that some energetic stork-mamma or some saucy stork-baby will attempt to force themselves into the discussion, only to be thrust back so roughly that the feathers fly about. The old King's House! What sorrow there was the day it was doomed to death by an irreverent body of town councillors who demanded a new up-to-date bank building. What low intrigues, what poisonous lies were invented to condemn it!
They insinuated that all the legends which had lent fame and splendour to the King's House through centuries were stolen finery. They also asserted that the house was so ruined by age that it could hardly stand, and therefore became a serious danger to the surrounding buildings. A furious dispute was carried on in the council chamber and in the local press between the spokesman of ideals—the teacher of history at the college—and the materialists standing up for the town's well-being. But these last conquered after bank-eager surveyors had pronounced against the security of the King's House. The demolition started. We children, whose patriotic imagination had grown under the shadow of the old house, followed with angry sorrow every beat of the demolisher's pickaxe, and enjoyed with wistful triumph the failure of the workmen to continue their labours by hand—the yard-thick walls of the old house having refused to budge without the added force of gunpowder. At last the old hero fell, but not by human hand. Dying, it mocked its assailants.
In the midst of the square lies the red town-hall with the town's coat-of-arms in gold and colours above the heavy, brown oak door. Round the town-hall gathers all the uncanny quality of the nursery stories. There in front stood, in the old days, the pillory and the post where the offenders were tied to be publicly whipped. It was here amongst others that the famous brigands from the big woods north of the fjord expiated part of their punishment, when at last, after committing numberless crimes, they were caught by the soldiers and the peasants of the countryside. The band consisted of an old woman, her seven reprobate sons, and a beautiful young girl, who was the sweetheart of the eldest brother, Eric, 'hook-finger.' Robberies, abductions, and fires were the least of their crimes. They had various murders on their consciences, and tortures of the most gruesome kind. According to my nurse, they enjoyed themselves by tying little children to burning hot ovens, when they left a farm they had plundered, after having killed the grown-up inhabitants. It was a fête for the town and countryside when they were whipped, naked to the waist, in front of the town-hall, and the following morning taken to gallows-hill and beheaded. Only 'Erik hook-finger's' sweetheart created a certain amount of pity; she was so very beautiful, and so young, and she wept bitterly when she was whipped. But mercy was out of the question, for she had been the most cruel of all in roasting the little children.
Round the square lie all the old merchant houses and inns, where the peasants put up on market days, and where there are the most wonderful places for children's games. Old houses with wooden beams, and a perfect network of little galleries, where herrings are hung to dry on stretched cords, with creaky staircases and tumbled-down outhouses, which lean up against each other like drunken men. Here in the lofts, in the great corn-heaps, we played hide-and-seek; and every Saturday found me behind the counter in the Dutch woman's basement beershop, where I passed foaming beer and dram to the peasants and to my friend the cab-driver. My friend lived in a hole behind the stables, where, in an ever fresh atmosphere of horse-manure, he lived the happiest bachelor existence one can imagine, assisted by a spirit-kettle, a chunk of brown bread, a pot of lard, and a bit of carraway cheese. When the atmosphere grew merry in the low basement it was a special delight to give the aged cab-horse bread dipped in gin, which made it tear round the square like a wild Arab, spreading terror and consternation amongst the peasant women sitting with their stiff, wide skirts about the steps of the town-hall.
I open my eyes once more and look out across the sun-bright square. The town-hall is still there, also the old houses. I see the basement beershop's tiny green windows. I catch a glimpse of the stream winding in and out amongst the tumble-down houses, and over whose dilapidated poetry a single lilac-tree in an adjoining garden spreads its young, blossoming smile. Yes, I know again my old town, and I get up in a light-hearted mood with a tingling feeling that I am at home.
I am at home, and I will go to my mother's grave.
The town is not yet awake. While I wander through its empty streets it seems to me as if I had come to surprise it, and I give resounding greetings to every well-known thing I meet. Fancy! there still hangs the heavy rope along the church-tower, which was the old town's simple fire-alarm. The person who discovered a fire pulled the rope to ring the church-bell. Amongst us children it was said that the fortunate person who in this way announced a fire was paid a shining silver-piece. How busily, but alas, how vainly, did I watch on my walks for signs of flames. I never gained the silver daler! I wonder if the old rope still does service, or merely hangs there as a forgotten remnant of forgotten days.
I stand still and look down the sloping side-street. It was there in the protruding corner-house that we lived during the years of the war. I was only a few years old at the time, yet the events of those days stamped their indelible impression on my mind. The German soldiers quartered on us, who quarrelled with mother about the Danish food, the jolly white-bearded Major Bow-wow, who fell in love with us children, but whom I would not kiss on any account because he was a German. But above all I remembered this scene: mother and my half-grown up sisters, with several little girls, are sitting ravelling lint, when suddenly from the street sounds the tramping of horses. I hurry to the window, but at the same moment the door of father's study is flung open and I am pulled back by a strong hand. 'Pull down the blinds, no one must look out,' father says, pale and moved. 'The Germans are here.' An uncanny silence reigns in the room, and, frightened, I crouch against mother's skirts, while the clattering noise of many horses comes nearer. It stops just outside our windows. We only hear some quick, loud words which sound like scolding, then a whimper, new oaths, curses and rattling of arms, restless stamping of horses, and at last a terrified shriek in Danish. In spite of his own orders, father rushes to the window, mother and we children behind him, and from the chair I see a man, in whom I recognise our shoemaker, being dragged along the road behind a prancing horse, on which sits an officer in a shining, white cloak. The street is filled with grand, uniformed horsemen, who now all move on following the officer, who, with the shoemaker as forced guide, is leading the way down towards the fjord, across which the Danish soldiers have fled.
And then that other scene when the wounded Danish soldiers were driven through the streets after the disastrous fight in the hills west of the town. For once the Danes outnumbered the Germans and the victory seemed certain, but unfortunately the colonel who led our men was over-confident. At full-speed he allowed the soldiers to rush down the hill, at the foot of which the Germans awaited them, sheltered by the banks. From their covered position the Germans were able to shoot down the forward rushing Danes like defenceless game. We children had heard about this, and also about the despair of the colonel who was quartered on a neighbouring family. Father had been told how confidently and proudly he had ridden off in the early morning to seek the Germans, only to return late the same night to lock himself in his rooms, silent, and refusing food. Now it is the next morning, and the long train of the wounded is beginning to arrive. Slowly and mournfully, like a funeral, the carts come through the streets, and on spread-out straw lie the wounded. Some have bandages round their heads, others on arms and legs. Often the bandages are stained with blood, and the faces are whiter than the bandages. Not one of the wounded look to the windows, all are staring straight in front with lifeless, hopeless eyes. At the time I could scarcely have thought of it, but later it seemed to me that these wounded Danish soldiers aroused less pity for their physical pain than for the despair and shame of the defeat, clearly to be read in their tortured faces.
I walk along without thinking of the road I am taking. It is twenty years since I walked through these streets, for twenty years I have not had their names in my thoughts, yet without reflection, without hesitation, as though by an invisible hand, I am led exactly whither I wish. I am in my childhood's home, I am in my father's house, my foot cannot go astray on this familiar ground.
As the cock for the third time crows his morning greeting over the town, I stand in the little street leading to the graveyard. The low, yellow thatched houses, where the wreath-makers live, still frame the street, and, as though it were yet twenty years ago, the simple wreaths of ivy, moss, and immortelles hang over the tiny doors with their old-fashioned latches. In one of the houses a window is opened, and, attracted by the noise of the early morning wanderer, a little, white-capped granny puts out her head. I buy wreaths and put the modest sum into her withered hand, and, followed by her blessing, I pass through the gate into the graveyard, where I am received by bird-twitterings, the perfume of cypresses, and morning fresh flowers.
My mother's grave lies far from the high road in a quiet corner, among hundreds of others. The invisible hand leads me along half-overgrown paths which wind in and out among the grassy mounds, and suddenly I stand in front of the small enclosure where mother rests with a child on either side, a large mound between two smaller. Fresh ivy covers all three and winds itself round the simple, marble cross, and over it a lilac-tree and a laburnum bend their heavy weight of blossoms. In each of the four corners are planted rose-trees, which are just unfolding their pink and white buds to the smile of the morning sun, refreshed by the rain-tears of the night.
I sit down on the green wooden bench, caressing with my eyes the name on the cross in front of me, while I talk to my mother. 'I have come back to you, mother, to find peace. For twenty years I have been away from you, far, far away, amongst strangers. When last I sat here saying good-bye to you I did not realise what I had lost. I was a child and you a young wife. Now you are an old wise woman, and I am a life-weary man with hair already beginning to turn grey. Only give me the peace you won years ago and I will stay with you.'
I seem to see my mother sitting opposite me, an old woman with white hair and gentle, brown eyes. I forget the time while I look into her eyes, until I am awakened from my thoughts by the church-bell striking seven. I take the wreaths which are still hanging on my arm, and kneeling down, I place them on the grave. 'Thank you, mother. Thank you for everything—in the old days and now.'
But my heart holds also another gratitude while I slowly, surrounded by the twittering of birds, the playing of wind in the trees, leave the peaceful, sweetly-scented garden of death. A gratitude for the old town's faithfulness, that has not allowed my mother's grave to lie forgotten, but has guarded and tended it. Is there ever such deep memory and constant faithfulness to be found in the big towns, where each day's news chases noisily along the streets, pushing out everything of the past. There Death is only remembered in the clamouring cries of the newspaper announcements. There the graveyards are so big and so far away. There the dead must take care of themselves. The old town has its dead in its very midst, always present, always living in loving memory. I thank you, my mother's friends in the old town. I don't know you any more, but I send you my heartfelt gratitude.
I finish my morning wandering on Rough-Hill, and there I stay. Rough-Hill lies just outside the old town, and is its pleasure-haunt and its pride. Seldom has a town found such a pleasant spot for a park. A century ago a generous citizen laid out the hill, dividing it into terraces, staircases, and winding alleys, protecting it with pines and fir-trees, in the shelter of which beeches and shrubberies grew up, making powerless the west wind, and letting the sun reign, creating out of the bleak hill a fertile garden. Here come on summer afternoons the old town's inhabitants with their picnic-baskets. From the pavilion on the lowest terrace they get their tea-urns and hot water, and make themselves happy in the little summer-houses. On the terraces above is the wood where the boys play their robber-games.
I approach Rough-Hill with a secret terror of being disappointed. In my childhood's memory it stands as something fairy-tale-like and wonderful. The hill is a mountain, the wood a primeval forest.
With a smile I see its greatness vanish. It seems to me that hill, as well as trees, have shrunk. There is nothing fairy-tale-like nor fantastic about Rough-Hill, but its beauty is real enough. It is a perfect smiling idyl. After all Rough-Hill does not lack greatness, for it has got its wonderful view.
I reach the pavilion, a yellow, wooden building, outside which a waiter and an army of sparrows are busy clearing away from the little tables the remnants of the picnic baskets. I look round and am overwhelmed by the beauty of the view. At my foot I see the entire town, and behind it the fjord, which, like a river clear as a mirror, winds in and out amongst hills and meadows. My glance reaches for miles on both sides. An endless stretch of sky, water, and fertile Danish land and the town, of which the red roofs seem to have slipped down the green slopes of Rough-Hill.
Here I have my entire old town spread out in front of me, and at the same moment I feel that here I must stay. I therefore let the waiter call the landlord, and five minutes afterwards I am installed in the pavilion's two attics. They are not generally let, for it is not a custom of the pavilion to take lodgers, but they are let to me when I also offer to rent them for the winter.
Now I have got my future home in order. Here is no luxury, but everything I need. A good bed in the sleeping-room, and in the sitting-room a large table, some chairs, and even a sofa.
I have unpacked my books and my pipe is filled. Since I was a young student I have not tasted a pipe.
God bless you cigars and cigarettes. But what are you compared to some whiffs of the pure Dutch tobacco which I am smoking at this moment while I sit here in my attic, looking out over my old town.
IVOn the highest point of Rough-Hill, above the wood, on the open hillside, towers the mill, white with black wings on the green sward. It is the best mill for miles around, because there is always enough wind to work it. It serves also as landmark for the ships on the fjord, for it can be seen at several miles distance.
The miller owns the hill as far down as the park. The northern slope towards the fjord is wild and uncultivated, but on the southern slope a large piece of ground is railed in and cultivated as a garden. The miller has followed the example of the man who laid out the park. He has conquered wind and weather by planting a protecting hedge along the western side; he has mixed the sandy earth of the hill with laboriously-carried rich mould from the arable land below; he has watered and manured, digged and delved, until he saw his hanging garden thrive and blossom.
I remember the half-willing respect with which the miller was talked of by the townsfolk. They admired his capabilities, but resented his strange aloofness, In his contract with the town-council from whom he bought the land, it was mentioned that at all times his land should be free for people to enjoy the view. But though he never attempted to break this clause, the inhabitants of the town never felt themselves welcome on his property. At all events they kept at a respectful distance from his house and garden. Even we boys, who hated to forego a pirate's raid on an orchard, allowed the miller's famous apples and pears to ripen in peace. In the town there was also circulated several malicious rumours about the miller. It was said that he treated with tyrannical harshness his beautiful young wife, a farmer's daughter from the south. Perhaps the rumours merely arose from the fact that the miller's wife lived as isolated a life as her husband, a state of affairs the hospitable and sociable townspeople could not believe to be of her own free choice. At all events the rumours did not grow less unkind when the young wife died some few months after the birth of her first baby, leaving her husband a little daughter who had no nurse or maid to look after her, but was taken care of by the miller and his boy. The little girl, an object for the town's pity, was about two or three years old when we went away. With shy curiosity I had often watched the little girl when, in the simple cart, a rough, wooden box on four wheels, she was pulled round the banks of the mill by the old, half-deformed miller's boy.
Each day I have been for a walk round the mill. We have had storms from the west. I have enjoyed the grand view of the fjord in revolt, and I have, when the storm subsided, listened to the far-away thundering of the sea, five miles away.
The mill I found in its usual place, but, to my great astonishment, its wings stood still. I thought: 'The miller must have changed very much in his old age. I suppose he no longer likes the mill to work during the storm….' But to-day, too, when the weather is more calm, and only a gentle wind blows from the wood, the mill rests in silent unconcern. The wind pulled at the reefed-in sails, and the sunshine gaily played through the ribs of the wings. But the mill never moved. But the most wonderful of all was, that, calmly leaning against the wings, as if danger was out of the question, stood a young woman in a tight-fitting, blue linen gown, looking out over the country, with her arms folded over her high bosom. She neither heard me nor saw me. She seemed like a fairy princess dreaming at the foot of the sleeping mill.
I wonder if the miller is dead, and if no one has inherited the mill and the work.
When, a little while after, I returned home, I asked the landlord if the old miller still lived up there, but he answered 'Yes.'
VEvery day I go for walks in the town, scouring it in every direction; for every step an old memory. I feel like an explorer in my own soul. Within me, stone by stone, is once more being built a kingdom of good memories, a kingdom I, for years, have allowed to fall into ruins. The old town, with a childish Sunday feeling, becomes alive within me, peopled with a crowd of dear figures, some of which I still meet walking in the streets. Old teachers, who seemed already old when I was amongst their pupils, walk along in the same slow, or busily-tripping, way to the school. Worthy citizens, whose hospitable, smiling faces I still remember, from the days of their children's parties. Young men, in whose solemn 'breadwinner faces' I suddenly seem to catch a glimpse of a forgotten play-fellow's chubby features. I walk like Haroun al Raschid in the streets of Bagdad. Noticing, recognising, without being myself either noticed or recognised. Only now and again I seem to meet a slanting, curious glance, which says: 'Hulloa! we have got a stranger in the town!'
There are other figures which come to life in my memory as I study the signs in the shops. It seems to me, when I find the same shops with the same grocer, baker, and workmen names in the places where I last saw them, as if the old town had stopped its life and its development when we left. I have to reason with myself and say, 'But after all, it is only twenty years ago! for I feel like a very, very old man, who after having spent ages in the Troll's hill, returns to his home. I am quite unable to understand why everything is not changed, and why everybody I knew is not dead.
Of course many of them are. In some cases I know it from hearsay, in others I guess it through not seeing them in their accustomed corners. These figures also become alive in my thoughts, in the streets where they once walked and which I now walk without meeting them.
But most clearly of all, I see the old maid, who taught the infant boys of the better-class families in the old town. The dear fat old thing, with whom the mothers could so confidently leave their babes, for she did not treat them so much in the usual school-mistress way, but more like a nurse or a favourite aunt. It was she, who with her chubby fingers, assisted us in pulling out our baby teeth, when they began to fall. It was to her we were sent on the days when the storks brought their wonderful presents, or when other disturbing family affairs occurred which made it necessary for us to be got rid of. She gave us our first theatre tickets, and when we paid our four marks on the first of each month, she would return the two to those whose parents were not very well off, so that they could buy themselves something useful. It was she also who, on Shrove Tuesday, stayed late in bed, that we boys could have the pleasure of whipping her up in true Shrove-tide fashion, and be rewarded with one of the buns, of which she kept for that night an enormous basketful under her bed.
You dear good old woman, in your warm heart beat all the old town's innocent simplicity. I build this little monument in your honour, a monument we boys too long have owed you.
'GOD'S PEACE' 291
20* OF JUNE.
THE young woman I saw up at the mill the VI other day is the miller's daughter. How foolish of me not to realise that at once. Of course she is long ago grown up.
I cannot get her out of my thoughts. She stood there so proud, so free, looking so far out over town and wood, yes, even over Rough-Hill itself. What were the dreams which filled her bosom ? What were the longings her crossed arms crushed back ? Did she, from her exalted place, look down with contempt on mankind's earthborn desire, or was it her wish to be one of the stirring crowd ?
I prefer to think of her as the goddess of pro- found peace, the goddess I worship. Here on Rough-Hill stands her temple, and of the mill I make her high-altar. She calls up here, to blessed peace in nature's unsullied kingdom, he, who weary seeks a haven away from life's daily dust and drab. Her bosom has the meadow's scented clover-rest for the tired wanderer's head, her eyes mirror the heaven's blue, and her voice echoes the winds whispering lullaby in the crowns of the trees.
Am I a fool, you beautiful miller's daughter, to fasten my poem's halo round your head, to choose you as the goddess of my dreams ? Or are you merely a little provincial girl who is longing for sweetheart, banns and bridal-bed.' Perhaps you have already found your miller-swain .? Perhaps it was for him you were looking, when you stood on the high-altar ? 292 'GOD'S PEACE'
What matter? Stand where my dream placed you. I do not know you, neither do I want to know you. Let no brutal reality sully your holy image.
25* OF JUNE.
VII •■ I ""O-DAY my letters were forwarded by my J. publisher. Amongst many which were un- important one from my mistress.
She asksj astonished and sad, if earth has swallowed me. In vain she has awaited me and sought me. From a mutual acquaintance she has heard rumours that I have gone abroad with a lady. She now sends her letter out into the blue to my old address, and she writes : ' I don't know if this will reach you. Yet in one way or the other I must know if rumour speaks the truth. I am almost forced to believe it. But have I deserved that you should treat me like this ? What have I done wrong . Have I not always given in to you in everything, done my utmost to behave just as you wished me to, never worried you with importunity and jealousy. Now that you have caused me so bitter a sorrow, I wish I could hate you. But I cannot. Write only two words to say that you will return and I will love you as always.'
She cannot hate me and she imagines she loves me. I don't think that love and hatred necessarily are each other's complement. I feel on the con- trary that the greatest love, how ever sorely it is tortured, never turns into hatred. But she who 'GOD'S PEACE' 293
sends me this turtle-dove letter is only a dove in so far as she can croon in love-sick fashion, she will never become a hawk, she lacks that fanaticism of emotion, which sharpens claws and beak. She only took me for her lover, because it flattered her vanity to be chosen by me. She feels a certain emptiness in her life now I am gone. She wishes to have me back, because it angers her that I have left her of my own free will. But within a very short time the happiness she desires will blossom again, the empty place will be taken by a new lover, who, though he may be different, will have just as many advantages. Her bitterness towards me will vanish, and when in after years we meet again, we will greet each other pleasantly like two friends who have never gone through life's seriousness together, who have scarcely had moments together worthy remembrance or forgetfulness.
That is the naked truth, and that explains why I was able to leave her without finding it necessary to say good-bye. Here was no question of a quarrel. What could I have said to her but a lukewarm ' thanks for a good time.' Here was no gordian knot to cut asunder, only a loosely-twisted cotillon- bow to untie, the red ribbon from the white. I could not persuade myself to say the stereotyped words of comfort and thanks at this mock-funeral. I was ashamed to play a part in a scene of such evident make-believe, to give the cue to her who, without doubt, would have played a great drama in the most approved style. 294, 'GOD'S PEACE'
When I decided to break up my life in town I think, unconsciously, that my strongest motive was not only to get away from my last mistress, but still more from the love-game which is played in the surface society of the big town, and in which I so eagerly took part. I had mostly taken part in it to satisfy my desire to shame love, to tear it down from the giddy pinnacle on which my youth's blind faith had placed it, with the result that I myself one day was lying maimed on the ground.
I had loved and had been deceived. I forced my sorrow back into my own heart and swore a silent oath, that for the first and last time I had been love's fool. As I had been conquered, I would conquer now. As I had been played with, so I would play with others. I had no desire to hurt, as I had been hurt. I merely meant to take love with a high hand, as love once had taken me. And I wished to teach others to do the same, teach them that love is only worthy to be taken as a joke. Certainly not in the least a thing to stake one's life on. But I learned that in love one always stakes one 's life, even if it is not one's intention to do so. I felt my hfe was being ruined, while I believed I was preparing to be love's master. I awoke one morning in terror thinking of the years that are passing. What has become of all the loves I played with? What have I garnered of the feeUngs I carelessly sowed hither and thither ? Drop by drop I let my heart's blood ooze away. I gave little and received nothing, 'GOD'S PEACE' 295
gave so often, that very soon there will be no more to give.
I will answer my angry mistress thus : ' I wish for you, who were so apt a pupil, that once in your life you may meet a man who will teach you to love.'
Perhaps I will in that way, at all events, teach her to hate.
For she is not stupid.
LAST DAYS OF JUNE.
I WILL write a book about the old town. Not VIII as it is, for I don't care about the critical psychological method of modern hterature, which is, of course, at my disposal, nor do I wish to write about the town as it was, but I should like to rebuild it as I see it through the blue haze of childhood's memory, in a sun-mist of peaceful joy and sadness without bitterness. It shall be a book for all those, who, like myself, are longing for a cosy and quiet corner from which the world is barred out, and where the soul, for a short while, can live its flower life in a convent-garden. It will be a book without novelty, without glaring colour- ing ; there will be no excitement and scarcely any action in it. My wish will be fulfilled, if those who read it have the feeling that I have brought them a bunch of single-coloured, single-scented wild flowers into their room.
Three times a week the town library is opened. I spend these in the reading-room looking through yellow folios, where in twisted, pedantic writing 296 'GOD'S PEACE'
the old town's life and events are recorded. I will scarcely find any use for these studies, but through loosing myself in these far-away events I seem to absorb the atmosphere of gentle aloofness, with which I am anxious to fill my book.
It is not only for the old folios' sake I go to the library. The place itself fascinates me. It often happens that I quite forget the book lying open in front of me, to lean back in the broad armchair covered with worn pigskin, and lose myself in dreams. The library is arranged in an old monas- tery, where, during the Catholic times, the monks lived, and where during the iirst centuries after the Reformation the Latin school was held. The room in which I sit was the refectory, a fairly large room with white plaster walls, and a three-arched ceiling. On the one long side is the doorway, so low that a man must stoop to enter. It opens into the library rooms, their shelves filled with faded blue and yellow bindings. On the other long side are the three windows, one in each arch, windows buried in carving and with tiny, mulHoned panes through which the sun shines green and smoke-coloured. The windows reach almost to the ground, and look out on the garden ; a comer of the old monastery's orchard and graveyard. It is fertile ground with abundant shrubberies and glowing splendour of flowers with their rich, shining leaves. Amongst a cluster of heavily laden fruit-trees stands a tall, flat, weather-beaten gravestone with half- obliterated inscription. My eyes rest on the tall. 'GOD'S PEACE' 297
yellow wall, which surrounds the garden along the narrow lane. In one place the wall is double, form- ing a narrow enclosure. On the inner side there are •traces of roughly hewn steps, and in the enclosure an old tree is pining away, with leaves on only a few of its branches.
I look at the steps in the wall, at the tree in the enclosure, and I dream of the young monk, who must have sat where I am sitting now, listening to the old monks gossip after supper. But his thoughts are elsewhere ; he watches the sunset's golden play in the foliage outside the low window and his heart beats wildly. Then the brothers retire to rest and night falls on the monastery- garden. But the young monk carefully opens the door to the refectory, creeps to one of the windows, loosens its fastenings, and swings himself into the garden, feels his way through the dark night to the wall, stands on the topmost step, bends down one of the branches of the tree, lets it swing back, and he is in the enclosure, where his beloved, disguised in man's clothes, awaits him and stays with him, while the nightingale sings in the garden.
I will write a book about the old town and its cloister-peace. I should also like to let the night- ingales sing above the young monk and his secret happiness.
is' OF JULY.
I HAVE had a little adventure. IX
This morning I sat as usual outside the pavilion and fed my sparrows. There were many sparrows 298 'GOD'S PEACE'
on Rough-Hill when I came, but they grow more numerous every day, and more and more fearless. They now even hop straight into my room to see what I have got for them, and if it happens that some morning I let them wait for their food they announce their arrival by tapping on my windows and impatiently twittering on the window-sill.
We had reached the last number of the per- formance, consisting in my placing a large piece of bread in the middle of the table, over which the whole herd scrambles. They peck and tear and scuffle until a special plucky couple, by joining forces, drag off, after various unsuccessful attempts, the last big bite.
At this moment I catch sight of a young girl in a light frock, who stands on the steps of the upper terrace, and who has evidently watched my game with the sparrows. When my glance meets hers, she blushes, and seems slightly embarrassed at having been caught watching me. She makes a movement as if to turn and fly, then she thinks better of it and walks calmly down the steps and straight up to me.
I leave my seat and bow to her, and she gives me a slight nod, and with a self-possession which may be forced, but seems natural, she says : ' I have got something for you,' while she takes a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. I open the paper and look at her in astonishment.
' It is yours, isn't it ? ' she asks. ' I recognised you when I saw you a moment ago.' 'GOD'S PEACE' 299
The paper she gives me is a leaf of my pocket- book which was blown away when I was on the steamer, and on which I had written some very intimate words. ' Yes, it is mine,' I said. ' But how did you know me, and how could you guess that this paper belongs to me ? '
She smiles gaily, saying, ' Don't you know me at all— but of course it is stupid of me to ask ; per- haps you never even saw me ? '
Suddenly I understand, and I exclaim trium- phantly : ' It was you then who, on board, when the sun rose, suddenly stood at my side ? '
' Yes, only I did not suddenly stand there, for I am neither a witch nor an elfin-maid, though I live on a hill.'
How foolish that I did not realise it at once. Of course she was the miller's daughter : my maid from the high-altar.
She stretched out her hand and said, while she looked at me seriously : ' Good-bye, and please for- give me for disturbing you. But I thought you would like to have this paper again, and when I found it on the steamer near the gangway you had already gone.'
I stood and watched her, while she, in her quiet, dignified way, walked up the steps and then quickly ran away, disappearing like a white vision amongst the dark fir-trees.
It was on the tip of my tongue to call her back, and I very nearly started after her. It seemed to me there was so much more I wanted to ask her 300 'GOD'S PEACE'
and to talk to her about. Yet in the same moment I thought : ' Noj after all it is more beautiful as it is. The words we exchanged alter nothing. My goddess has descended from her hill, has appeared to me in a vision for a brief moment, and has again vanished.'
But I stood a long time and watched with dreaming eyes the place where she disappeared.
4"" OF JULY.
X T S she beautiful ? What is she really like } I X will try to make clear to myself the impres- sion she has made on me.
The air becomes rare and pure where she moves. She seems almost new-born in her maturity. She radiates youth, health and unconscious goodness. Her eyes are deep and tender, yet clear and confi- dent as a child's. Whether they smile or darken with seriousness they tell thoughts right out; there is no concealment in the corners. Her bosom is high and round, her waist slender, her hips luxurious. But she carries her youthful bravery as unconcernedly as a tree its summer splendour. If she had to pass through a camp of drunken soldiers they would instinctively make way for her. She seems so unapproachable yet so magnetic. From her hair, which, parted in the middle, falls in two brown waves over her white forehead, to her feet, which, in rhythmical lightness, carry her over the earth, she forms in her own personality the ideal of straightforward security. She knows her way 'GOD'S PEACE' 301
and her goal as day knows light. With her one can feel perfect trust. She knows neither deceit nor bye-path ; she brings with her the air which is high above town and wood. She attracts Hke an altar: one must approach her kneeling. She is Woman as she stepped forth from nature's hand, at the same time virgin and mother.
This is the impression I unconsciously got of her when, at sunrise, she stood on the steamer, and when later I saw her standing near the mill lean- ing on its resting wings. And it was in this light she appeared to me the other day.
On the paper she gave back to me I had written: 'My soul cries in longing for a mother.' Most likely she has read it, but this does not make me ashamed. She is welcome to know my heart's secret. She will neither sneer nor betray me.
Perhaps she will not appear to me again. At all events it is not likely I shall have an opportunity of speaking to her. But it seems to me I have near me an understanding friend and confederate whose silent sympathy surrounds me, one to whom I would not hesitate to go if I was in trouble. When I walk through the wood I seem to see her face smiling on me amongst the trees, and I feel glad and reassured as if I held her strong, warm hand in mine. When now and again I am attacked by disturbing thoughts and feverish desires I summon her image to defend me, and her cooling touch sets my mind at rest.
She is always with me as my patron saint. 302 'GOD'S PEACE'
XI T HAVE a friend in the institution. The insti- X tution is a home for aged spinsters and widows. My friend, a spinster of seventy summers, is one of the youngest inhabitants of the institution, and the other members look upon her as a perfect child. Yet, she is the veteran member of the institution, for she has been there since she was really a child. She was smuggled in with her mother, against all laws and rules, because, according to the doctors, she was so weak and ill, she could not possibly live. She lay in bed for many years, and when she began to recover the mother was dead. Having no other relatives but the institution, the child, now a woman of between thirty aud forty, was allowed to stay.
In her cell, which she shared with three other ladies — they always spoke of each other as ladies — 1 spent some of the happiest days of my childhood. She had numerous talents. No one told such wonderful fairy-tales, of which she had an inex- haustible store, for she made them up herself, and no one knew so many card tricks. Besides that, she was a perfect artist with her fingers : she could cut out all sorts of paper figures, knew how to make the most fascinating things for the Christmas-trees, and platted marvellous little baskets and boxes out of straw. She became a great adept at the last accomplishment during the many years she lay in bed. Her mattress furnished the straw, her fancy and skill did the rest. 'GOD'S PEACE' 303
To visit her meant to a child to go to fairyland. There were always curious things to see and hear, and besides one was given the most lovely coffee, coffee with sugar-candy, which was not put in the cup, but was crunched and sucked while one en- joyed the nectar.
I paid her a visit to-day. In the long sand- strewn corridor stood now, as then, old women who courtesied and put their heads together curiously, and I recognised again the well-known atmosphere of lavender, stuffiness, and prudish cleanliness. I knocked on the door of the room where my friend had lived for half a century, while member after member was laid in her coffin and carried away. In the long, narrow room, with a window looking over the vegetable garden of the institution, sat four old women. Each on her own territory, a quarter of the room which was just lar^e enough to hold a bed on the one wall, a chest of drawers and wash-stand on the other, and in between two chairs. My entrance caused bewildered curiosity amongst the room's inhabitants. The knitting fell from their hands, and they looked up inquiringly to find out which of them the strange gentleman had come to visit. I discovered my friend at once enthroned on the prima-donna's place near the window, withered and grey, and even thinner than before, but she had stilV her bright, clever eyes. She grew quite pink from emotion, and opened her arms to press me to her meagre bosom. 'Yes fancy, it is really he, and he comes here to see me.' 304. 'GOD'S PEACE'
I never dreamt of being such a success. 1 was feted as a prince. My friend was quite beside her- self with excitement. Not only was I introduced to the ' ladies ' in her room, but she fetched round from the other rooms and corridors all the old women who had known my parents, and seen me as a baby. They streamed in, rocking old grannies, and erect-looking spinsters, who shook me by the hand, pushed each other away, and talked against one another to be the first to tell me how clearly they remembered me, how well they had known my parents, and to inquire after every one in the family.
There was coffee to overflowing, but there was a little difficulty about the sugar-candy: the old ladies could not understand that I did not prefer lump- sugar.
When at last I went away I was seen to the door by half the institution. But I left my friend with the understanding that next time I came we should try to have a little more privacy.
XII T FOUND the other day iri the library some _!_ family records which I wanted to verify. I called therefore to-day on the vicar to ask permis- sion to look in the old registers.
He was a tall young man, with sharp features and clear, shining eyes. In the most polite way he helped me, and seemed altogether to be, from his manners, an agreeable man of the world. But we had not talked many minutes before he proved 'GOD'S PEACE' 305
himself to be an eager apostle of the most severe form of Christianity. He took the floor. I sat listening half absent-mindedly. But I understood enough to realise that he was very occupied in clearing up all the old jog-trot routine in which his predecessor had left the town's church affairs. He pictured the old town as a perfect Sodom of un- godliness and indecency. Any number of crimes were committed, such as drunkenness, adultery, gambling and balls at the town-hall. Those who praised the old town did not know it, and were merely taken in by its superficial goodness and amiability. But with God's help the pipe should soon play another tune. Though he had hardly commenced, yet he was already able to notice some effect of his strenuous work.
It was so long ago since I had heard the words of fanaticism. They rattled like stage thunder round my head. How ugly he looked in his furious denunciation, and how absurd it seemed that this angry young man should attempt to teach godliness to these kind-hearted citizens. Once or twice I tried to contradict him, but gave it up. I felt my- self so outside the strife, and never before have I felt so happy to be outside it. To think that here was a man, who imagined himself working for a merciful God, foaming at the mouth with anger, instead of remembering that the world needed peace and gentleness. In truth the wolves devour the Iambs.
When I stood up to go the vicar became again u S06 'GOD'S PEACE'
suddenly the courteous man of the world. He shook my hand cordially, smiled amiable, and joked about his own vehemence.
But as I walked home I pitied my old town. It has had its good time with the old vicars; they understood it; they modified their gospel to its needs. They did not object themselves to take a hand at whist ; they did not snap their fingers at a glass of good wine. They rejoiced to see the young people step gaily in the dance, and they did not condemn when a not quite unsullied bride wore the myrtle-wreath before the altar.
It seems to me the air has become oppressive ; there is no more joy in the sunshine, and the wind makes me shiver. You dear old gay and healthy town now strikes the hour of your evil visitation !
Not until I reached sunny Rough-Hill could I shake off my depression. There a pleasure awaited me which filled me with foolish fancies, and made my heart beat a regular storm march.
On my table stood a bouquet of roses. A boy had brought it with no other message than that they were to be placed on the strange gentleman's writing-table.
From whom could they come but from her? Then she had not forgotten me ; she is still think- ing of me, and has even sent me a greeting. For a moment my joy is darkened by the thought that the flowers might have come from ray old friend in the institution. No, that is impossible; such beautiful flowers do not grow in the old town. 'GOD'S PEACE' 307
'hey can only be gathered on Rough-Hill in the liller's garden.
20™ OF JULY.
THE nightingales are singing in the bushes. XIII I have wandered through the woods with ly miller's daughter, whose name is Greta. How mall a thing it is, how little remarkable, and yet t seems to me that nothing more important has
- ver happened to me.
I walk in the wood and I meet her. We are leighbours, so there is nothing curious in that. !Ve know one another, and it is therefore the most latural thing in the world that I should stop and alk to her. It was, however, she who stopped me.
- n this case also there is nothing extraordinary.
She asked me : How was I getting on ? If I iaw many people? If I were missing the big town?
I answered ; I grow happier every day. I see nobody. I miss nothing, and the day before yes- terday I had a beautiful bunch of roses. She tells me the roses were from her, and I am delighted that she does not make a secret of it. She tells me that she suddenly had an idea to send me some of her flowers. ' I thought it might please you, because they are so rare and beautiful, and I should like to please you.'
I asked her why she felt so kindly towards me, an utter stranger, and she answered, ' Because I understood that you were not very happy, and I — have always been so contented.' 308 'GOD'S PEACE'
I ask her to tell me something ahout her life with her father in the lonely mill. But she shakes her head and says : ' There is not much to tell. I take care of my flowers, my bees, and my fruit, and I read to my father. But if you would care to know more about us, then perhaps you will come up and see for yourself. We — like yourself — see nobody, so we ought to suit each other.' A moment after she added : ' You need not say yes or no at once. If you are happy all alone, there is no reason to seek company. But should you some day need us, then remember that you are welcome.'
We stood looking at each other to say good-bye, when I suddenly realised there was something I wanted explained, and I asked ; ' The other day I saw you standing near the mill; you were leaning against one of its wings. Suppose it had suddenly started to move ? '
' Oh, no,' she answered. ' There is no danger of that. The mill has not moved for years. Father is old and nearly blind. He has quite given up working the mill any longer.'
She nodded good-bye and went. But I stood gazing after her, whispering blessings on her, all the tender music of happiness and gratitude which filled my heart.
Do I love her.' I don't think so, for I don't desire her. There is nothing between us which I wish different. My senses lie at rest like happily- smiling babes listening to her voice's caress. The warm tenderness of her eyes enfolds me, and her 'GOD'S PEACE' 309
handclasp is the evening prayer's angel-guard. If the impossible could be imagined, and she to-night came to my door and asked me to let her in, I should flee as from a desecration and should feel myself accursed. I should feel like one standing at the source of purity who sees it defiled by mirroring his picture.
When once more I sit in my room with her roses in front of me, I suddenly long to show her how much her friendship means to me. I fasten one of the roses on a sheet of paper and write underneath, ' From one, whom it has made sane.' I huny up through the wood to the miller's house and place it over the door. I know it will fall into the right hands, for the father is blind. Again I wander homewards while the nightingales are singing in my heart.
29"! OF JULY.
I SAT this morning down at the harbour, waiting XIV for the arrival of the steamer from the capi- tal. To escape possible acquaintances amongst the passengers, I sat a little apart near the storing- house for lately arrived goods. I amused myself by looking down on the shining-green posts in the water, where crabs crawled amongst firmly-fixed mussels. I thought of old days, of what an ex- citement it was when the steamer, then the only means of communication, brought visitors from the capital. The excitement started at early dawn. Then, as now, the hour for arrival was very uncer- tain. Under normal conditions the steamer sailed 310 'GOD'S PEACE'
into the harbour at five o'clock, and one always had to be prepared at that hour. It sometimes happened that one of the fogs, a speciality of the fjord, would draw its impenetrable veil from shore to shore, which meant that the waiting lasted for hours. We children would often run forwards and backwards five or six times to report to our parents the state of affairs. At last the signal goes up on Fjord Hill, the fog lifts, and the steamer, so anxiously looked for, arrives, bringing aunts, friends, and presents, good things to eat, and an endless vista of pleasures.
It happens to-day, while I am sitting like this recalling old memories, that the fog suddenly falls across the fjord, just as the steamer turns the last point. A grey wall slides down in front of me, and I have to pull myself together, before I quite under- stand what has happened. Far out from the fjord I hear the steamer's fog-signal, which sounds warn- ing and plaintive. But it is evident that the cap- tain, being so near the harbour, is determined to steer his way in. Gradually the fog-signal sounds nearer and nearer, and one can see the top of the masts above the mist. When, just as suddenly as it came, the fog disappears. Is it an illusion? There, on the upper deck of the steamer, which is now only some few hundred yards from land, stands a tall young woman in a long, dark cloak. Do my eyes deceive me ? Is it really she ? Without caring for either Peter or Paul, I rush down to the landing- stage. The young woman has now seen me, and 'GOD'S PEACE' 311
waves to me with her handkerchief. Yes, it is really she !
Heaven be praised for the smile with which she greets me. So she is really delighted to see me — delighted at this unexpected meeting.
We walk up through the town together. I am so overwhelmed with happiness that I cannot speak. I walk through my town at Aer side, and I hear her tell me the reason for her journey. She comes from the same place as that moraing I saw her on the steamer, a small market-town at the mouth of the fjord. She goes there every fortnight to sell the produce of the garden, such as fruit, vegetables, jam, and honey. Her father has a business friend there, with whom he prefers to deal, rather than with the merchants of the old town.
When she has told me all this, and I am still silent, she says : ' But what were you doing down at the harbour ? Did you expect some one ? '
' Yes,' I answered, ' I think so. Ever since my childhood the steamer has always brought me some- body I was fond of. And even to-day it did not fail me.' Seeing that my words do not embarrass her, I continue : ' And you . Tell me, did you expect, when you looked towards the land, that some one was waiting for you ? '
She answers : ' I stood in the fog thinking of you, thinking of the morning I first saw you, and suddenly I saw you there — on the other side of the fog.'
Involuntarily I take her hand, and when she does 312 'GOD'S PEACE'
not withdraw it, I say : ' Yes, now I am on the other side of the fog.'
A little while after, when we parted, she says : 'When are you coming up to the mill? We are expecting you.'
THE NIOHT BETWEEN THE P* AND 2""* OF AUGUST.
XV T WAITED two days before I followed up the i invitation. I thought to myself: I don't suppose she meant me to go at once. But to-night I felt I must go. When I arrived, Greta stood in the door. 'Well, at last,' she said; 'father has already been teasing me and saying that you did not care for our company.' That made me feel at ease and I knew that I was welcome.
The miller's sitting-room, with windows looking out over the fjord, was like a cabin. It was a deep room with low ceiling, furnished with long yellow- polished horsehair sofa, a large folding-table, leather- covered chairs, two maps, and pictures of ships on the wall. In one corner stood an old-fashioned piano, in another the model of a ship, and round the wall, on shelves and cupboards, stuffed, tropical fish and shells, and over the table hung a swinging lamp.
Greta led me into this room to her father, whose broad, gigantic frame I at once recognised, but whose eyes under the bushy, grey brow looked pale and extinguished. He sat in the sofa corner, dressed in a blue pea-jacket, and puffed away at a heavy meerschaum pipe. Greta led me up to him. 'GOD'S PEACE' 313
saying, 'Here's the strange gentleman; you see, father, he has come after all.' His heavy brown hand pressed mine cordially, and immediately I felt at home in the miller's house.
Never have I felt so at home anywhere. I sat thinking : ' Have I seen all this before in a dream, or is it a dream which my soul's longing has con- jured up.' ' It seemed to me I had lived for many years amongst these curious surroundings, in this cabin which looks like a wreck thrown up on the land of this hospitable hill. I seem to have known so long this old blind man with his wise talk, and this young girl who calmly adorns and makes cosy our hermit existence.
I listened to the old man's tales, while filling my joyous soul with Greta's image. Dressed in a simple grey indoor gown and a coloured peasant apron, she went in and out, bringing us sandwiches and fruit-wine of her own making, afterwards filling our pipes and mixing our toddy from old West-Indian rum. Every time she returned, sun- shine seemed to stream into the room. That the old man also felt this I could see from the glint of light which her entrance brought to his eyes.
While Greta was getting these things ready, the miller said : ' Before I settled down here, I travelled far and wide. I steered ships across the seas both for my own and others' benefit. But the day came when I thought I had had enough. I had seen more than I cared to see, times became bad for sailing ships, and I did not think I would make 314 'GOD'S PEACE'
much more out of my journeys. Then it came about that I built the mill here. For after all a mill is also a ship, it needs both sail and wind to bring meal to the sack, and besides it brings it so much more surely. The other millers in the neigh- bourhood crossed themselves for fear of the new miller, who steered his mill like a ship, even in the strongest wind. Gradually the mill had brought enough for my daughter's and my needs. I was old, and my sight was ruined by the strong wind and the flying corn-dust, and then one gets so tired of a mill because of its eternal noise and its con- tinual turning round in the same place. I was tired, and longed to let the mill rest, and get peace round me, which after all is a very natural thing. You are only a young man, but from what Greta tells me, you must already have felt something of the same.
But it is more unnatural in Greta. She seems like a child of the calm up here, and young as she is, she seems to want nothing else. For if you think it is I who keep her here shut up like a bird in a cage, you are very much mistaken. I have often proposed to her that she should see some- thing of the world. I have even suggested that we should move to the capital for a year or two, but she will not leave this place. Here, she says she has got everything that makes her happy, for everything out in the world she seems only to have a curious fear and distaste. As one might imagine, this has not come as she grew older and through 'GOD'S PEACE* 315
reading the unsatisfying modem literature ; no, she seems to have been born with this feeling. When she was a little girl, I thought it would give her pleasure to send her to her mothers relatives in the capital. She behaved nicely enough, and stayed the visit out, but on her return she made me pro- mise her that I would never send her away again. Everybody has been kind to her, and done all in their power to amuse her, but all the time she had longed for Rough-Hill till she had grown pale from longing and loneliness.'
The old man stopped talking, and sat for a while in deep thought. Then he added, ' Well, I suppose the time will come when she will have to leave — when I am dead. Unless she married a man who would live with her here. But of course I cannot say that Rough-Hill is rich in young men, and as far as I know, Greta has never worried her head much about such things. She is different also in this from other young girls, though she has read enough about love and romance.'
I sat very late in the miller's room. When it grew dark, Greta lit the lamp and sat down at the piano. Through the open window one saw the outline of the resting mill against the background of the pale summer sky. Out into the stillness were carried the thin, tinghng notes of the piano with Greta's simple and touching song. Whilst in the sofa-corner the old miller drowsed, the soft lamplight falling on his gently smiling face. 316 'GOD'S PEACE'
XVI T WONDER how the world is getting on ? If a i great war or a great revolution had broken out, I suppose the rumours would have been so noisy, they would even have reached me here. But since no rumours have disturbed my newspaper- less existence, I may conclude that the events have not been of very great importance. On the home 'exchange' the quotations will most probably be restricted to the usual number of engagements and scandals, the usual political soup on a sausage-stick on which there is scarcely left even the least flavour of meat, a little theatrical squabble on account of the approaching season, and the announcement of half a hundred books, of which the three-fouvths will be forgotten the same day they are published, because they tell of nothing there is in the author's or his readers' minds, or because the author has nothing in his mind of interest to anybody, except to himself and a few of his nearest relatives.
It is reflections such as these which retard the progress of my new book. One day the subject will seem too small and unimportant, and I fear that people will scorn my book and turn from it saying: What possible interest can this have for me ? But the next day I wake up full of gratitude and happiness for all the beauty of its old memories, and for all the new impressions round me, and again the feeling is born in me that my book should bring a message to other hearts, which have felt and dreamt the same dreams as my own. 'GOD'S PEACE" 317
In this way my work grows slowly and jerkily through varying moods. Do I tarry because new events are weaving a romance into the old memories, a romance which is still in the making, and of which I at all events do not know the end ? Or do I hesitate out of a certain cowardly fear for the friends, male and female, I have left behind ? Is it the ironical smiles, with which I believe they will read my book about my pilgrimage to child- hood's holy land, which sometimes stops my pen ? Am I really, here in my secure loneliness away from all rumours and remarks, still under the slavish fear of society ?
I confided my fears to-night to Greta, as we went for our evening stroll on the hill. When I had finished my confession, she said simply with bent head, as though apologising for expressing an opinion, 'From what I know of literature, and I have not read so little, and as far as I am able to judge, it is the fear of speaking out, of losing themselves in their subjects, which is the fault of most authors. Whenever I read a book, I have the feeling that even the author, who pretends to be very frank, has always got an eye on the reader's jury, is always thinking of his own dignity, always trimming and adorning his tale, so that no one shall have cause for indignation or scorn. If you care for my advice, which it is perhaps presumptuous of me to give, then write as if you had no other public but me, an ignorant girl, not wise enough for either indignation or scorn.' We had stopped in our walk, and stood looking out over the fjord and town below, when she said, 'Or best of all, write as the man who lives on Rough-Hill.'
23rd OF AUGUST.
VII I HAVE discovered that Greta does not really know the old town, and I have asked her if she would let me be her guide. I want lier to learn to love it as I do. Knowing that it would give me pleasure, she accepted my offer. She seems very interested in what I show her and tell her, but most of all it amuses her to see my eagerness in fulfilling my duty as the showman of the old town.
To-day we went to the castle.
The castle is situated close to the fjord, and now does duty as the residence of the governor of the province. It is a long, grey, two-storied building with a number of tiny, mullioned windows. Only the row of old poplars, standing on guard in front, and the red-cloaked soldier marching up and down show the house to be a more distinguished one, otherwise it does not appear to be either very old or very remarkable. It has only a few ruins left from the time it was a real castle and the seat of the king's vassal.
It draws towards evening as Greta and I walk through the deep, gloomy gateway in the front building into the large, square courtyard, which is surrounded by low, white wings. The grass grows thickly amongst the stones of the courtyard, and 'GOD'S PEACE' 319
against the white buildings, stand, after the style of old manor-houses, short, dome -shaped lime- trees. At the foot of the trees round the yard runs a gutter, deep and broad as a small rivulet, with numerous boards for crossing.
We sit down on a bench under the lime-trees close to the gateway, where the water from the gutter gathers and disappears into a subterranean passage down to the fjord.
While the sun sinks behind the hills north-west of the town, sending its last rays slantwise through the gateway over the grass in the yard, I tell Greta about the cruel knight. Count Esben, who centuries ago reigned over the castle, and who was as famous as a seducer of women as he was as a warrior. For safety's sake in the time of war, his predecessors had built a secret passage from the basement of the castle to the fortifications on the other side of the fjord. Count Esben used this passage mostly for his gallant adventures. In manners he was amiable - and condescending, and it often happened that he asked a citizen and his young wife or sweetheart to feast in the castle. But when the citizen was made dead drunk, he would lure the young woman out of the hall. If she tried to resist she was gagged and carried along the passage under the fjord to a tiny house with voluptuous rooms, where the feast was continued very often to the woman's delight, for Count Esben was a handsome and generous lord, but certainly to the despair of the husband or lover, who, when he woke from his 320 'GOD'S PEACE'
drunken sleep, found the bird flown. But if he saw it would be to his advantage he often held his tongue, and kept his shame to himself. For Count Esben was well known as a jealous master with a hard hand ; besides, there seemed little reason to spread all over the town the indignity one's sweet- heart had suffered, especially as one could never be sure how willing or unwilling she had been. But sooner or later rumours grew out of veiled hints, suddenly broken betrothals and quarrels between married couples who before had been perfectly happy. A cloud of secret fear and whispering hatred descended over castle and town.
Then it happened that Count Esben set his eyes on the lovely seventeen years'-old daughter of the mayor, who was married to the cleverest craftsman in the town, Clas Bryde. For a while Count Esben sighed and coaxed with tempting glances and secret signs when he rode past the young woman's windows. When he was sure that she did not resent his ad- vances he seized the first possible opportunity to invite her and Clas Bryde to the castle. Mean- while the husband had got an inkling of what was going on, and when the time came he only feigned drunkenness. While his head sank lower and lower on his chest, he noticed the tender glances which were being exchanged between his wife and the count. Scarcely had the two disappeared from the hall, where they imagined they had left the husband overcome by drunken sleep, before Clas Bryde stood up, went to one of the windows, and gave the 'GOD'S PEACE' 321
arranged signal to a small band of waiting friends. With weapons in hand they forced their way into the castle, overcame the unsuspecting guard, whom they gagged, found, led by Clas Bryde, the open door to the secret passage, in which they saw, far off, the pale light of vanishing torches, and hastened forward through the darkness. . . .
Of the drama, which was acted deep under the fjord, the legend tells the following: When, next morning, the servants in the castle found the guard, and were frightened by his story, they discovered that the door to the secret passage had slammed to by itself. It took some time before the heavy iron bars could be forced, but as soon as it was opened they found the unhurt bodies of three of Clas Bryde's friends. After a hopeless attempt to force the door they had been suffocated. Further along the passage they found the bodies of other suffo- cated men, and about half-way they came across the Count, the young woman, Clas Bryde, the two torch-bearers, and some others, all badly mutilated. Later it was said that a fisherman, who that night had been spearing eels on the fjord just above the secret passage, spoke of having heard sounds of clashing arms from the deep.
The sun has set. Grey dusk has fallen over the quiet courtyard. In the water behind us there is a heavy splash, and Greta catches my arm nervously. ' What was that .^ ' she asks. ' Look,' I answered, and pointed to one of the boards which crossed the gutter. ' Now is the hour for the old castle-rats. 322 'GOD'S PEACE'
They start on their ghostly journey from the castle to the fjord. Now they are swimming, now they are walking, across the boards. Only keep quiet, they won't come up here, but just follow their accustomed way. They make quite a caravan; they are hastening down to the old secret passage, over which they watch so that nobody shall disturb its haunted sleep in the darkness of mysterious legend.'
' What have the rats to do with the secret passage ? ' asks Greta.
'Come along, and I will tell you.'
I lead her to a trap-door in the corner of the yard. Through the trap, which I open, we look down into a dark, stone vault, from which comes up to us a clammy, misty, funereal atmosphere.
' When these crypt-like vaults — we won't enter them, for at this hour it is scarcely comfortable — were excavated during the last century it is said that they found again the secret passage which for years and years had been lost, and which they had ceased to believe had ever existed. One of the workmen offered to enter, and with great expect- ancy the others awaited the result. They heard his step and his gay song further and further away. It seemed clear that the passage was open. Then everything grew quiet. They waited and waited, but he never came back. The town magistrate promised freedom to a prisoner if he would make another attempt. He was a happy-go-lucky fellow who feared neither God nor devil. He made the 'GOD'S PEACE'
323
bargain. A rope was tied round his waist at which he should pull in case of danger. The fellow went down gaily enough and disappeared. The rope, which dragged after him, showed those watching that he found an open way many yards ahead. Suddenly the rope stopped moving. They thought he had come across some obstacle which he was trying to remove. Meanwhile the time of waiting grew uncannily long. It was thought that perhaps the man had fainted. They began to pull back the rope. It came back without its burden. The rats had gnawed the rope through and kept the man. There is still seen in the vault a rusty iron door, and within some few stone steps leading downwards.'
Again we stood outside, where the poplars and the red-cloaked soldier keep guard. Smiling, Greta looked at the castle and said : ' Who would think that this ugly building could frighten anybody, and yet I felt anything but courageous just now.'
' Yes,' I answered, ' it is like that with the entire old town. To the person who hastens carelessly through it, it seems only an ordinary everyday pro- vincial place. But for him to whom it opens its heart it reveals treasures of rich poetry and weird legends.'
3'^'^ OF SEPTEMBER.
LAST night we had the first autumn storm. I XVJII lay in bed listening to it. High up from the wood a blast of wind comes roaring; it hurles itself against the woodwork of the pavilion till it shakes in every part, and then rushes further on down over the hill to the town. Blast follows blast, over and over again the same game, wilder and more violent. The trees are sigh- ing and moaning. The storm gives no quarter. That which has not the strength to stand must fall.
Storm, the great destroyer and up-rooter, rages round me. But I know no fear. I laugh straight into its face ; you do not frighten me, do not reach me ; once you had your claws in me, but I escaped from you. In happy arrogance I bless the storm. It blows in the autumn, the happy time, when there will be still more quiet on Rough-Hill, the time when Rough-Hill will belong only to Greta and to me. To-night, when I left the miller's house, and she saw me to the door, she said : ' Look, now the sky is full of autumn. The birds of passage are flying south, and folk from the capital are leaving the quiet places. Are you not beginning to long for the big town ? '
' And if I went away,' I asked, ' would you miss me.'
Her eyes grew moist while they looked into mine, and she answered : ' I think it must be so terribly hard to say good-bye. Promise me, that if you go away, you will leave without saying farewell.'
' I shall not leave until you say farewell'
I hurried out into the coming storm, but when from the wood I turned and looked back she still stood in the doorway gazing after me. 'GOD'S PEACE' S25
7tl> OF SEPTEMBER.
WHY don't I tell her that I love her ? Is it xrX through fear that it would make her sad or displease her ? It is certainly not that. From a thousand tiny things she must have understood how dear and precious she is to me. Every day she sees, without my telling her, how my love is growing in strength. She watches it with smiles in her eyes and blushing roses in her cheeks.
I do not speak because I hardly dare to disturb our souls' meeting in this time of trusting stillness. Because I feel as if we sat hand in hand listening to a murmuring song across the waters on a summer evening.
THE END OP SEPTEMBER.
IT is the time of the fruit harvest. The work xx goes apace busily and merrily in the miller's garden.
Amongst the workmen, on the lawn under all the heavily-laden trees, the miller sits in his easy-chair directing the work in spite of his blindness. He knows all the trees in the garden, and points them out in the order in which they have to be taken ; he tells how the fruit of each tree has to be picked, and receives the baskets as they are filled, examining and valuing the contents.
Greta superintends the picking, for which several men and girls have been hired ; she herself takes part in the work and has pressed me into the ser- vice. She and I look after the finest fruit, which grows on glass-covered walls, and which has to be 326 'GOD'S PEACE'
handled with special care. I stand on the steps and pick the fmit ; she stands below with her apron spread out. But she often scolds me for my lazi- ness, for it happens again and again when I hand down the fruit that I lose myself in admiration of her uplifted, blushing face, which seems to me more beautiful than any fruit. But of what use is it for her to scold ; she only looks more charming in her pretended impatience.
When the dew begins to fall the picking stops, and the baskets are carried into the store-rooms, which are filled with shelves from floor to ceiling, and where Greta goes through the difficult task of sorting the fruit. First that which is sent to the fastidious but well-paying merchants of the capital ; next that which the street-venders get at a cheap price ; after that the fruit specially suited for jam- making and preserving, and, last of all, what must be kept for home use during the winter. What a wonderful perfume there is in these store-rooms ! All the sweet and sour scents from baskets and shelves, condensed in the closed-in rooms, are blended into an intoxicating perfume, which long after clings to one's clothes. How splendid Greta looks as, with sleeves turned up from her strong white arms, she takes piece after piece in her sun- burnt hands, and, after quickly examining it, places it according to its rank and value. But best of all I like to think of her as she stood below the steps near the fruit wall. If I wrote poetry that is the picture I should like to describe. 'GOD'S PEACE* 327
'It is the fruit harvest time. In the miller's garden stands his daughter, the high-bosomed maid, with her arms full of luxuriant grapes.'
OCTOBER.
IN the well-garden, which lies between the town XXI and Rough-Hill, the tiny babies have their playground. When the weather is fine they are taken there by mothers, nurses or maids, either riding in their cradle carriages, or tripping on their stumpy legs. A large, circular space, shaded by big trees, and surrounded by long benches, forms the meeting-place. Here there is built a small wooden booth, from which is sold milk and biscuits, liquorice, carob-bean and tempting red-striped sugar-sticks. In the middle of the place stands a forbidding-looking bronze statue of a patriotic hero who looks on with unmoved severity.
On our way to the town Greta and I often pass through the well-garden. For me it means a revival of my very earliest memories from the time I was an impressionable little soul who, in anger, put out my tongue at the wind, and wept with fear every time my nurse-maid, according to the frank custom of the garden, took me to perform a very natural errand at the feet of the warlike general. But first and foremost I enjoy watching Greta's delight over the children. With radiant eyes she follows their gracefully clumsy tumblings about, and she finds them equally fascinating whether they are chattering and laughing, or whether they 328 'GOD'S PEACE'
suddenly start a despairing howl. But most of all, she loves the tiny babies who lie in their carriages looking out into the world with big, astonished eyes. It happened to-day that we saw a young mother take up her tiny baby and lay it at her full, white bosom, which it sucked with greedy mouth and grasped with eager, little hands. With tender adoration Greta's eyes hung on the picture, and when at last she tore herself away, and we continued our walk, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.
Later, when we spoke about her love for children she said : ' My greatest wish is to be the mother of many children and live on Rough-Hill where there is room enough for them to play about. I could not imagine being married, even if I loved my husband ever so much, without having children. Is there anything more beautiful for the woman who loves her husband than to give him children ? Is there anything more wonderful than to be called mother ? 'To^ know and to feel, to hear it in the very sound of the words that one is not living in vain, but that there is some one to whom one is a necessity. My husband would not lose by the love I would give our children. I would love him still more because he was their father. But because I feel like this, I cannot understand, and am quite horrified when I read about the young women in modern literature. It almost seems as though they looked upon children as a danger to their happi- ness. And even more than that, they grumble and rebel against the cruelty of nature which makes 'GOD'S PEACE' 329
them bear their children in pain, as if they were not rewarded tenfold for the bitterest suffering the moment they hold their chi],d in their arms, as if it could possibly be worth while being a mother if one did not pay the penalty of pain.
' At first I thought, " It is the men who in sym- pathetic pity write so foolishly about something they do not understand," but later on I read the same in still stronger words in books written by women who pretended to speak for women. These women writers, often wives and mothers, seem quite offended that nature has laid the burden of motherhood on woman, thus keeping her from taking part in what, they think more important objects of life. I don't understand these women, they terrify me. I see them before me with faces disfigured by their revolt against nature. To read their books makes me ill and sad.'
But Greta added, after a pause : ' You see, I think that why I feel this so strongly is because I lost my mother when I was so tiny. All the unsatisfied longing for a mother's tenderness has developed the mother feeling in me. I, who did not know what it was to sit on a mother's lap, could not bear even as a little girl to see a child without taking it up in my arms and cuddling it.'
Thus talked the motherless about the motherless. And while she walked there in her radiant health, speaking her thoughts so proudly and purely, I felt that I could not give my son a better fate than to be born of such a mother. S30 'GOD'S PEACE'
OCTOBER.
XXII T ^ r E stop outside a long, narrow, dirty yellow
VV house in a narrow side-street. In each
window, sheltered by wall-flowers and geraniums,
sits an old woman with a coloured knitted shawl
round her shoulders.
In this house, I tell Greta, live the poor old women who are not grand enough to become members of the institution. The house consists of one long room, divided by cotton hangings into twenty cubicles, ten on each side, in each of which an old woman lives. When I was a child, one of them was called Ann Marie. She is the only person from whom I ever inherited anything.
Ann Marie was a consumptive sewing-maid. I do not know exactly how old she was, but she must have been pretty well on in years to have got one of the charitable cubicles. The last time I saw her she had still her childlike face, with a smooth, white skin and two smiling, brown eyes. She had the tiniest figure I have ever seen. Like a modest little shadow, she crept along the street, wearing her peasant cap and a green woollen shawl round her slender shoulders. She lived rent free in the house, but had to find her own food. This she did by sewing for people in the town, having a day each week with six different families. Any great ability in the art of the needle Ann Marie did not possess, but nobody excelled her in the way of darning and patching, and there never was a linen or woollen garment ragged enough for her to throw .'GOD'S PEACE' 331
away. The families she worked for were certainly not cheated, and one could not accuse her of being exorbitant in her demands. Her salary, which she refused to have raised, considering it quite sufficient, was six skilling (2|d.) a day. But of course she had her food, and in regard to the food people spoiled Ann Marie by always trying to give her her favourite dishes. One cannot say that this meant any great extravagance on the part of the housewife, and it made her visit doubly welcome for us children, for Ann Marie had also in regard to food retained a decided childishness. If she should have mentioned the menu that tempted her most she would, without hesitation, have answered sweet soup and pancakes.
From my earliest childhood and until we left the town Ann Marie came to our house every Thursday. If she was a little shadow in the street, she became a ray of sunshine in the house. She was always content, always full of gratitude for her happiness, and for everybody's kindness to her,— always smiling with her big, brown child's eyes. But it was only when she was alone with us children that she became talkative. Grown-up people frightened her a little with their seriousness and common sense. But with children she felt in the right element, their little sorrows and joys she understood as though they were her own. Their ideas and interests were also hers. All the afternoon, after we came home from school, we sat with her in the 332 'GOD'S PEACE'
ironing-room, chatting cosily and happily as with one of our own age. But when the day came that we had to leave the old town she stood at the steamer and wept as if her heart would break.
She never forgot her little friends.
Years went by. I was already a big boy who had passed my first exams., when a letter came saying that Ann Marie was dead. This Ann Marie to whom I, with usual childish forgetfulness, had scarcely given a thought, had made my brother and me, with two other children, her heirs. The in- herited capital was fifty daler (£5), to be divided equally, twelve and a half daler to each. Fifty daler ! that meant eight hundred work-days' salary saved together, six skilling by six skilling.
I used my share in travelling. Thanks to Ann Marie's savings I had a delightful fortnight's walk- ing trip after my exams, were finished.
' And therefore, Greta, tears come into my eyes when I look at this poor house where the old women are sitting in the windows behind wall- flowers and geraniums.'
NOVEMBER.
XXIII A /r ^ friend in the institution is the only ac- J_Yj_ quaintance Greta and I visit. A little while ago we invited her to a chocolate party in my attic on Rough-Hill. She was fetched in a cab, had whipped cream on the chocolate, and when she again departed in her carriage she took with her a basket filled with fruit and little pots of 'GOD'S PEACE' 333
jam which Greta had brought her. In short she was, as she herself expressed it, treated exactly like a princess in one of the fairy tales she made herself, when I was a child. We have also visited her, and been her honoured guests.
Greta has completely won my friend who, I am sure, would have great difficulty in saying for which of us her old heart beats the warmest. It annoys and bewilders her not a little that we are not engaged, but she has evidently not yet given up all hope that this may happen. When we visit her she draws first one then the other aside, praising in extravagant words Greta to me and me to Greta.
To me her constant story is, ' Isn't she lovely ? Did he ever see such a heaven - blessed girl ? Doesn't she shine with sheer goodness of heart ? How bright her eyes are when she looks at him. It is certainly easy to see with half an eye whom she likes best.'
Yesterday she had invited us to a big coffee party. To her great soitow we told her not to invite the clergyman, so she had to restrict herself to asking only the more prominent ladies in the institution, but on the whole the party was very successful. The repast was right royal. The coffee kettle never went off the boil, and the plates with cake were refilled the moment they looked a little empty. The conversation could scarcely have been more lively, for the moment one lady finished the description of her troubles and illnesses the next one began. Towards the 334 'GOD'S PEACE'
end my friend proposed to show us an interesting card game, and the other old ladies were already feverishly excited about this performance. But Greta who, from former experience, knew the intention of the game, remembering such hints as ' flutterings near the heart ' with ' secret messages ' and a ' sighing friend,' and all the other parapher- nalias belonging to the trade, showed clearly enough that she wished to be spared this ordeal before such a large company of matchmakers.
She accepted therefore with a grateful glance my proposal that we should leave the game till another day, and that instead she should finish the feast by singing some of her songs in the spinning-room for the old ladies.
In this room they all keep their spinning-wheels, and while the wheels run round the tongues wag about the affairs of the institution. But the spin- ning-room also does service as a chapel, and is therefore furnished with an harmonium. Messages have been sent out of the coming event, and when we, led by my friend, who feels at least as impor- tant as if she was the directrice of the opera, walk into the room, it is already filled. With hastily donned Sunday caps the old women sit in rows, shy and devout, as though they were at communion. Slender and strong, in fair and shining youth, Greta stands amongst them like a bright birch-tree shot up in a thicket of withering, stunted under- growth. But all the wrinkled and worn old women feel, when they see her, a reflex of spring in their 'GOD'S PEACE' 335
own hearts, and their murmured admiration sets all their old heads nodding.
The room grows quiet as the grave when Greta sits down at the harmonium, strikes a few notes and starts her song. The air in the low, crowded room is thick and heavy. Through it the notes ripple clear as dew, ascend like twittering birds, twinkle like merry sunrays, spread around a fra- grance of wood and field, building above the heads of the old women an azure dome. They are old songs, sweetly sentimental, gaily gentle songs from our mothers' and grandmothers' days, that Greta sings. The old people are listening; these songs make strings long since untouched vibrate within them, and gradually all the old lips are moving, and the frilled caps are keeping time to Greta's song. The songs about love's joy and love's pain are those that find the most responsive echo. For every kiss on rosy lips happy smiles pass over the wrinkled faces, but, when pale cheeks are bathed in tears, tears also fill a hundred old eyes.
My seat is at the back of the room, near that of my friend. She, who is otherwise never lacking in words, seems now so moved she can hardly speak, but she pats my hand incessantly. When Greta at last leaves the harmonium and is surrounded by thanking, hand-kissing, courtesying and blessing old women, my friend says these words, for which I could have kissed her : 'Dear me, dear me, how like she is to his blessed mother.' 836 'GOD'S PEACE'
DECEMBER,
XXIV T WALK with Greta to my mother's grave. It is J. winter-dark in the graveyard. In the black garden of death only the white crosses shine. It has just been raining, and noiselessly we walk across the fallen leaves.
Death seems greater and more sinister in his •winter-garment. In summer time we cover his strange terror with multi-coloured flowers and smiling foliage. We try to make death gentle and sweet with the rich offerings of summer. But in winter death stands in all his sinister majesty, spreads out his sombre cloak and fastens his cross- bone mark to every tree in the graveyard.
I walk with Greta through the winter-dark graveyard, but the horror of death does not frighten me. I walk in league with the great Lord of Life, and it seems to me, that Death with- draws as we walk forward.
We sit down on the bench at the grave, and Greta says, ' Though you have often talked to me about your mother, you have never told me what she looked like. Yet when she died, you must have been old enough to have a vivid memory of her.'
' The clearest image I have of my mother is not from her very last years. It is from the time, before illness had ravaged her, from the time she was still young and beautiful, or, at least, seemed so to me. I see her on a beautiful summer day standing in the middle of the lawn in our garden, She wore a ' GOD'S PEACE ' 337
light shawl gracefully draped round her shoulders and stood amongst us children who were playing round her. I have never since seen a woman who knew how to wear a shawl so gracefully. A large garden hat framed the fine oval of her facej and the dark hair was parted smoothly over her brow, a clear and white brow. With radiant eyes she stood amongst her playing children, when suddenly a canary came flying towards her and rested on her shoulder. She lifted her hand warningly. For a while the bird sat on her shoulder, rubbing its beak lovingly against her cheek, then it flew away.'
I took Greta's hand which rested in her lap and continued : ' Yes, Greta, it is like this I remember my mother. But if you wish to know more about her, then ask our old friend in the institution. She says, and I am sure that she is right, that you are her living image.'
Greta looks at me with big, loving eyes, and I feel her arms round my neck, and her lips against mine, and arm-in-arm we stand in quiet thought in front of mother's grave.
But when later we walk homewards to Rough- Hill, I say, ' Do tell me how it happened, that you came to love me,' and she answered : ' I understood you needed me, and from that moment my heart was yours.'
Later she says, 'Promise me that when I die you will bury me near your mother. My own mother's grave is near another town far away from Rough- Hill. And I should like so much to think that Y 338 'GOD'S PEACE'
you could always find your mother and me to- gether.' But when she sees that her words make me sad, she adds with a smile, ' You dear, foolish man, don't think that I am going to die. I have never blessed life more than now.'
DECEMBER.
XXV T~* ACH time in my life when I had gained what I J I called happiness and I searched my own heart to see if happiness really dwelt there, I always found in some corner or other the weak spot, where the worm of doubt secretly worked behind its cover of roses. I knew then, that sooner or later, the moment would come when all my happiness would wither.
Doubt is easily kept alive, a restless glance, a reckless word will nourish it. You sit an evening with your beloved and you suddenly see coming into her eyes a strange thought or a strange memory. You question her and she answers with an absent-minded smile. It is all over in a moment. She forgets it and you forget it while you hold her in your arms. But when, in the lonely night, the picture of your beloved stands clear in your soul, you see her with eyes of cold deceit and with an ironical smile that stiffens your heart. What does it matter that she meets you the following day more lovingly than ever. You may imagine you are safe for a day, a week, or a month, but the worm has bitten its venom into your happiness. You are its prey. 'GOD'S PEACE' 3S9
There are those who in poor blindness try to make themselves contented with such mean happi- ness. There are others who in attempted cynicism insist that security kills happiness. There is only one happiness, to be at peace in happiness. To know that the day rises with the same sun that set yesterday, to desire nothing, to fear nothing, not to wish any day over again or any day different, because each day is equally happy.
That happiness, the only one, is mine. More than most people I have chased happiness. I have sought it out in the world, where men make their fortunes, and I have been up early and out late trying to find it, I have excited myself and tired myself out in the pursuit. Then suddenly it came to me like a gentle song in a quiet, far-away place. I heard it murmuring over the water on a beautiful summer night. I dare not call, fearing to frighten it away, but in humble faith I opened my heart to it, and lo and behold ! one day I found it singing within.
I have searched my heart, but no doubt is hidden there. I have been awake through lonely nights, but no shadow fell across Greta's lovely image.
In a white boat I glide down a sunlit river, and in my hand I hold a golden fruit, pure and perfect.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT.
WHEN this afternoon I arrive at the miller's, XXVI I find two Christmas guests besides myself. They are Greta's god-daughter, the four-year-old 340 'GOD'S PEACE'
Asta, and her two-year-old brother Carl, children of a fisherman down by the fjord, who in his youth helped at the mill. For the first time in their lives they are going to have a Christmas tree, on which occasion they shine with overstarched cleanhness and unnatural good behaviour. On seeing me, a strange man, they seek cover behind Greta, who pulls them out and shakes them up, so that they should be presented to me in all their beauty. And beautiful they are. Asta, an exact copy of a Christmas tree angel, caressing and confiding, with yellow curly head and large blue eyes, and Carl, a stumpy little person, sailor — silent with male conceit and brown eyes, which twinkle with sly humour.
The Christmas supper is over and we walk into the garden room where the tree is lit. Greta has the boy in her arms and Asta she holds by the hand. After them comes the miller and I with our pipes. To begin with the children are mute with astonishment, with wide-open eyes they are gazing at the tree, while Greta dances about with them. I whisper to her : ' I believe you are the happiest of the three.' ' Yes, of course,' she answers; ' fancy spending Christmas with you and two such darlings.'
But it is not long before the children frankly forget themselves in their happiness, and when they discover that the splendours of the tree are fruits that can be picked, they become quite off their heads with joy. They finish by rolling round on the floor like two kittens amongst all their 'GOD'S PEACE' 341
treasures, filling the usually quiet room with laughter and joyous shouts. Until they become tired and sleepy, and with tiny, blinking eyes have to be carried round to say good-bye. But when Greta has put them to bed, she comes back and sits down on the sofa between her father and me.
The candles are still burning on the tree, and the old miller says, ' I fancy there are more candles this year. Last Christmas it was quite dark round me, but this year it seems to me I am able to see the light.'
' Yes, father dear,' Greta says, laying her head on my shoulder, ' there are more lights this year ; last Christmas you and I were alone, and for my own sake I did not care to light so many candles. But this year there has been real Christmas on Rough-Hill with love and children, and every Christmas Eve it will be like this, for this dear one,' and she takes my hand and lays it in the old man's, 'he will stay with us — that is if you will give him and me your consent.'
The old man kisses Greta and presses my hand warmly, while two big tears roll from his blind eyes and he says, ' God bless you my children and give you many bright days on Rough-Hill. You, my son, I have never seen, shall never see, but your voice, when we spoke about Greta, told me that you loved her.'
Before I leave, Greta leads me into the bedroom where Asta and Carl lie in her old cot. They sleep sweetly in each other's arms, Asta sheltering her 342 'GOD'S PEACE'
little brother in motherly fashion. We bend down carefully and kiss them, it does not waken them, but they smile in their sleep, as if they felt the love which is so near to them. Then Greta kisses me and says : ' Think how wonderful it would be, if those two were our very own.'
Greta comes out with me on to the hill. It is the most beautiful, frosty, starlit night. We stand on the crest of the hill looking out over the fjord. On our right slopes down the white wood, it is so quiet that we can hear when a branch cracks in the frost. In front, deep below, the ice-covered fjord and the town, where Christmas lights are shining in all the houses.
' Now, there is peace on earth,' Greta whispers. ' Yes, and peace in the hearts of men,' I answered.
But when we turn the mill stands over us with its large black wings. I notice that a shudder goes through Greta, and I say, 'Did the mill frighten you . '
' No,' she answered, ' but I have been standing here too long and am feeling cold.'
NEW YEAR.
XXVII T^ROST and snow have locked up the old X~^ town. For many days no message from the outside world has reached it. But with well- stocked larders and Christmas cheer in the air the town feels none of the discomforts of a besieged fortress. It lives its own life all the more strongly ; 'GOD'S PEACE' 343
like a hen it gathers its chickens under its maternal wings ; it forgets that it is busily developing into a provincial town with banks and export trade. Once again it becomes its own self, quite the old town.
When I meet the tingling sledge caravans with merry, fur-clad men and women, when I hear the gaily ringing laughter and the shouts from the children tobogganing down the snowy slopes of Rough-Hill, when I see the fjord black with skating figures, and when in the evening I hear songs and dance music pour out through the festively-ht windows, I remember the severe winter of many years ago. After the town had laboriously dug itself out of the snow, it went to the fjord and kept carnival through weeks and weeks.
It stands out in my memory most fantastically, through a large gateway built of evergreens one got into a long ice-street cosily cut out amongst walls of snow. Suddenly one stood on a big, open place, brilliantly lit by torches, and surrounded by tents illuminated with coloured lanterns. Tents, in which they ate and drank, sung and danced. From the square other streets have been cut into the snow mountains. One passes by caves shining with blue lights, snow-men with glaring fire-eyes, tiny booths with train-oil lamps, and old women frying eels and pancakes, also a big warming place called 'The Glowing Oven.' Afterwards one got into a wood of fir-trees, where people crowded round a merry-go-round with sledges, which pos- sessed the enlivening quality that on each round a 344 'GOD'S PEACE'
sledge turned a somersault in the snow. The snow-town stretched further and further ; we chil- dren never reached the end of it, for we heard rumours of brawling and drunken quarrels going on in its furthest suburbs, where the working men of the old town met their enemies and rivals from the other side of the fjord.
We children stayed where lights and innocence reigned, where our sisters and their school friends flew past us with their cavaliers, and where they danced the Lancers on skates, all the more amusing for not being very perfect. About supper-time the entire town would be on the fjord. Then came the parents to fetch their young daughters and children, or they brought the supper out in baskets. One joined forces with friends and acquaintances and made up a big table with all the delicacies of the various picnic baskets. When afterwards we walked home we saw rockets shoot up across the fjord, where the noisy carnival gaiety continued far into the night.
To-day Greta and I went for a drive in a sledge. Down by the fjord we stopped and went out on the ice amongst the skaters. There was laughter and life, but none of the fairy-tale scenes from the old days. I felt disappointed in watching the smooth, well-swept surface, where everything was arranged in true sportsmanlike fashion. More eagerly therefore I turned to the memories of old days. It was some time before I discovered that Greta, who is usually so bright, walked silent at my 'GOD'S PEACE' 345
side, an expression of wistful sadness in her eyes. Anxiously 1 asked her what was the matter, and she said: 'Forgive me, dear, it is sheer childishness. But while we walked here amongst all these people, who breathlessly seem to chase pleasure, a fear of losing you overcame me. It seemed to me that they would take you away from me. It was as if your talk hurried along with them, far, far away. Forgive me, please remember how little I am accustomed to be amongst the many. Remember it is the first time we have left our quiet places.'
She smiled tenderly again to me, pressing my arm. But I led her quickly away from the skating throng, mounted again into the waiting sledge, and returned to our quiet places.
7"' OF JANUARY.
T 0-day the post arrived by sleigh. It brought XXVIII me a letter from my publisher, who teasingly asked if I was not tired of my hermit life, and if he could not tempt me to return by offering me the management of a large literary undertaking he contemplates starting. The conditions he offered me were so good that I need not fear financial difficulties for the future.
Some months ago I would perhaps have hesitated, now my answer needs no reflection. I dip my pen at once and write that I cannot accept his kind offer as I have become here the happiest man in the world, and because my happiness is tied to this corner of the earth. That irrevocably I have 346 'GOD'S PEACE'
given up any thought of returning, and that my part in literary and public life for the future must consist merely in writing books. That the book he expects will soon arrive^ and that it will be followed by others which will just as little resemble my former ones. That I have pitched my tent on Rough-Hill, where the air is pure and clear, where life's meaning is easily understood, where passion is deeper and sensations more simple. Ending by saying that my happiness is so sure that it needs neither repentance nor accusations, but that on the contrary it can afford to be thankful for all past things, for without these it would not be so great.
Before sending off my answer, I showed the pub- lisher's letter to Greta. After reading it, and waiting for a minute, she said : ' This gives me a chance of telling you something I have been think- ing ever since that day on the ice. I dare not keep you here ; for a short time you will be con- tent, but sooner or later all that you came from will call you back. This is both right and natural, and therefore you ought to know that I don't want to be a hindrance to you. Do as you will and as you must, and do with me as you please. Leave me here, if you fear that I should become a stumb- ling block in your career, which you have every reason to think after my silly behaviour the other day. Or take me with you, if you think I can be of use to you; and if you can trust my word that I am quite cured from my foolishness I am willing to go with you wherever you wish. 'GOD'S PEACE' 347
Hitherto Rough-Hill has been my home, but now without you I should be homeless even there. The life and the world outside frightened me be- fore, but with you I know no fear. If you tell me that I ought to stay here for father's sake, then I must tell you that it is not father who has kept me here. Sometimes I even think that he himself would like to leave, and perhaps it would be better for him. After all he is old, and of late his mind has often been worried by curious thoughts he gets here in the stillness. It seems he is afraid of the mill ; he fancies it calls him, that it reproaches him for having stopped it. No, indeed, I am doing father no wrong in leaving ; but if you prefer me to stay here and wait for you, that also would be right. Perhaps you would like to be alone for some time to try your own heart and see whether it was the loneliness only that made you need me. Anything you decide I will do ; I know it would be for the best, for I love you.'
I allowed Greta to speak out. Was it cruel and hard of me, dear love ? Was it selfish of me that my soul could not bear to lose one of the blessed words which fell like blood from your anxious heart ? I trust you will forgive me on account of the greater joy my answer gave you; my answer, which you had in black and white, in the letter to the publisher. 348 'GOD'S PEACE'
THE END OF JANUARY.
XXIX ^ RETA has never asked me about my past, VJ generally the first question a man has to answer his beloved. I asked myself could it be due to ignorance? No, I think not. Greta's knowledge of life is clear and distinct. She speaks frankly about things that other young girls think it a sign of innocence to blush over. Could it then be due to excess of faith in me ?
I did not wish to have any doubt or misconcep- tion about this, so one day I asked her.
I have never seen Greta so amused. She laughed so heartily in such an exuberant way that she could hardly stop. At last she cried ; ' Really, you are too funny. In a half-offended way you ask me whether I believe you have lived like the old ladies in the institution. No, my dear boy, you need not worry about that. You have too forcibly impressed the public with your dissipations for anybody to be ignorant of what a terrible person you are.'
She laughed again so that I became quite em- barrassed. But as she became more serious she said, as we went through the wood : ' Let us sit down on this bench and I will tell you why your terrible past does not worry me, but on the con- trary reassures me, and shows me that this is the first time you feel what I at all events call real love. Afterwards you can tell me if I am right or wrong. ' First, I should like to say that my confidence has nothing to do with the common belief that a man must always use a great deal of his youth in 'GOD'S PEACE' 349
sowing his wild oats. To begin with, I don't be- lieve they have as many to sow as people imagine. No, my confidence has quite another reason, which I thought out for myself, and which I think is true enough. In all your confessions I have sought in vain for— /Ae child. You have spent many en- thusiastic words in describing the beauty of your mistresses. You have furnished them with all the virtues. But one thing you denied them — the right to bear your children. Perhaps you did this quite unconsciously, but to me it seems that you most carefully avoided the question of children, in which I see the beginning and end of all true love. What value can a woman have for a man when he does not wish her to give him the fruit of their embrace. For after all this is the great wonder, the joy beyond all joy, in the embrace between man and woman, that there meets their love's longing for eternity, the longing to know them- selves united into a far future through the children, and again their children, and so on through the ages. If I lay in your arms and felt your love waver for fear of the child, I should feel it a deep shame. I should think you found me good enough for sensual pleasure and for fleeting passion, but that you would not honour me by allowing me to bear your embodiment of eternity.
' While now I can be proud and confident, be- cause I believe I am the first whom you have wished to see as your children's mother, and I feel no envy of your past, or of the women who 350 'GOD'S PEACE'
filled it. If they loved you I would pity them, for their hearts mustj even while you gave them the most passionate words, have felt the disappointment of the void. If they did not love you no pity need be wasted on them. They found what they sought. Not one of them took anything of the happiness your love promises me.
' Have I,' asked Greta, ' been wrong in not worry- ing about your past .-' '
But without answering, I knelt down and laid my head in her lap.
FEBHUARY.
XXX T T is, as Greta says, there is something viTong J. with the old miller.
We have discovered that several times of late while we have been out, he has crept over to the mill. We became suspicious from some vague words he said, and the other day we saw him just as he came out. He crept along hke one afraid of being surprised, turned the key very quietly, and listened to every step.
We have been inside the mill to see if we can discover what he is doing, but everything was apparently untouched.
In reality there is nothing curious in the fact that the old man now and again wishes to move about in the mill, which holds so many memories for him. But what is curious is the way in which he pays his secret visits, and the care with which he tries to hide them from us. At the same time, saying things which betray him. 'GOD'S PEACE' 35 1
One day, when Greta had left the room, and he and I sat on the sofa together, he moved close to me and whispered : ' I think you must have noticed that Greta does not like my going over to the mill. Has she told you her reason ? No. Well, shall I tell you what I think ? She is afraid because I am old and blind ; she fears I cannot any longer take care of myself, and that an accident might happen. Greta is a good daughter and takes such care of me that I don't like to upset her. But if I had any- thing to do I am sure I should find my way on Rough-Hill and in the mill as well as any young person with two strong eyes.'
On the whole his mind dwells in an unhealthy fashion on the mill. It is not only when he talks in his sleep at night, to which Greta has sometimes listened, but in broad daylight, that his thoughts hover about it. He talks about it as though the mill were a human being who had a grudge against him, and whose revenge he fears.
The other night he said to me : ' Don't you think that a mill that stands still in this way is a curious thing.? If it was old and dilapidated, it would be different, but nothing is amiss with this mill, it has got its machinery in order inside as well as out, and its meaning in this world is, after all, to work as long as it is able. You see there is something humiliating in the fact that people who do not know better, who^did not know it when it was the best mill in the neighbourhood, might think that it could not work at all. No, I have not treated the mill fairly. 352 'GOD'S PEACE'
I ought either to have sold it to a younger man when I got old and tired, or I should have shot it like a master does his hound when he is no longer able to take it into field and forest, and does not wish to see it another man's property.'
Greta who had entered and heard the last words, made a sign to me and I answered : ' Yes, miller, I agree with you, it seems a pity for the mill. You would do well to have it pulled down. Then it would be dead and gone, and at peace, and you would have more peace too.'
'Yes, I suppose it will come to that,' said the miller. ' But though it may be right, it is not an easy thing to do. One never knows if there might not be more work for it to do, if not in my time, then when another man takes my place.'
' Yes, father dear,' interrupted Greta, ' but the new man has come and he has no use for the mill either.'
'No, that is true enough,' said the old man smilingly. ' The new man has also left his mill.'
But later Greta and I talked it over and came to the conclusion, that come what may, we must get the old man's permission for the destruction of the mill.
LAST DAYS OF FEBRUARY.
XXXI ^ ^ 7^ ^ ^^^^ decided to get married in May. Why
VV should we wait.' In the miller's house
there is room enough and food enough. The little
more we need I can get by writing. For the present 'GOD'S PEACE' 353
the remaining part of the money I got for my last book shall be used for Greta's bridal-dress. She scolds me for my extravagance, but I want her to be the finest and most beautiful bride the old town has ever seen. The wedding is going to be solemnised in the little village - church close to the institution, and no one will be admitted but the old ladies. Our friend and three other good virgins from the institution are going to be bridesmaids and accompany ray Greta to the altar. After the cere- mony is over, we are going to drink a glass of champagne in the institution with the wedding guests, but there is also to be sweet French wine for those who prefer it. On our way home we will let the carriage Stop outside the graveyard, for Greta wishes to lay her bridal wreath on my mother's grave — the grave that united us. After that we shall make our entrance at Rough-Hill as husband and wife, and shall move into the upper story of the miller's house, which has been empty and unoccupied ever since Greta's mother died. It will be in May, the beech-trees will just be out, the air full of fragrance, and in the wood, on Rough- Hill, the nightingale will be singing his songs of love.
The days pass quickly, while Greta and I are living our great happiness, dreaming of the still greater which awaits us in the spring. In the morning we generally go for a long walk. Some- times we walk through the remote lanes and streets of the town, their sight alone takes me back to far354. 'GOD'S PEACE'
away times, and some of them, especially the very old Students Lane, wind in and out amongst steps, tumbled-down cottages, and crumbling walls, and are so narrow that we must walk along them in single file.
Sometimes we walk along the open country roads, where one can see far out over the land, and one's thoughts take long journeys into the future. Refreshed by the cold air, warm and flushed with the healthy exercise we return home to our work. I to my book, which is now well advanced, and Greta to her outfit.
From her mother's time the chests and cupboards are well stocked with all kinds of linen, strong homespun goods. But Greta will not go a lazy bride to her bridal bed, she will furnish it with sheets, which are hemmed, stitched, and initialled by her own hands. And as the bed, so the bridal house shall be. All day long the sewing machine is going, and in the evenings the needle flies in and out, while I sit by and often interrupt the work by kissing the dear, busy hands.
One evening I found Greta occupied by cutting some fine linen into tiny pieces. I sit brooding over what in the world they could be for, and Greta, who notices my astonishment, smiles slyly. At last my curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask : ' Is it you or me who is going to be trimmed up with these dolls' clothes ? '
' No,' she answers, ' they are going to be shirts for our first born.' ' GOD'S PEACE ' 355
Half-laughingly, half-seriously I say, 'Take care, dearest, that you are not too sure in your hope. Don't you think there would be time enough later to make our child's garments.'
She looks at me with tears in her eyes. ' You must not talk like that. I won't even think of anything so sad. What is the meaning of all our love, if I should not be able to bear your child, and your child must not come to a poor and unprepared home. Neither shall he wear clothes bought in the shops, strange clothes in which no loving thoughts are hidden. That is the reason I make his clothes now, while I am strong enough and quite well. What later will happen one never knows. But should I happen to die when he comes, you will, later on, when he is old enough to understand, be able to tell him that his mother had looked after him as far as she was able.
'Therefore don't be angry with me and don't think that I am either sentimental or over-confident. Could God possibly be envious of the woman who thinks beforehand of the welfare of the child for A iiom she is ready to give her life.'
These last words she said to me, when in the dark evening we stood together on Rough-Hill, and she gave me her hand in farewell. I drew her towards me and whispered in her ear: 'You dearest of all mothers.' 356 'GOD'S PEACE'
8'^ OF MARCH.
XXXII TT is now decided that the mill shall be X demolished. The old man has given his consent, and in a fortnight the work is to be started. After at last having taken the decision, the miller seems more tranquil, and during the last few days, as far as we know, he has not paid any secret visits to the mill.
The decision about the mill has brought peace to us all. Without mentioning it to one another, Greta and I have both been afraid of an accident. How easily it might happen that the old blind man, moving about alone in the mill, might stumble on one of the steep ladders, fall through a trap, or hurt himself in the machinery. Now Greta has admitted, that often when she has refused a walk under the pretext that she was too busy, it was fear of leaving the father, which kept her at home.
Now everything is cosy and peaceful as before, and during the evening we all three sit talking about what the mount on which the mill is built shall be used for, when the mill has gone. The old man says that as the mill has hitherto served many of the sailors as a landmark, he ought to offer the site for the erection of some conspicuous object to serve the same purpose. But Greta thinks that many other points on Rough-Hill would be just as suitable for that, and that the mount being their very own, they have every right to use it as they please. She and I have a plan to which we hope her father will agree. 'GOD'S PEACE' 357
We want to build there a summer house in the style of an antique temple. Round it we will plant a row of sheltering fir-trees, but round the temple and its columns Virginia creeper, eglantines, and caprifolium shall cluster as time goes on, and above its portal we will write in golden letters : To the God of Rough-Hill.
To the God of Rough-Hill, the God of peace, the God of our happiness, we will build our floral temple. Here we will sit together, gazing far out over the land and let the world go by in its noisy way ; we will hear the hurricane roar, and see the storm break round us, sheltered by our quiet tent of peace. Here we will sit, while we are young and roses grow in our hearts ; here we will sit when the old years come and the fragrance of memories are round us. Up here we will lead our children, while they are young and teach them to kneel to our God, and here we will await them, when tried in the battle of Ufe, they seek rest in the temple of their childhood's home. But we think it would be most beautiful of all — and we smile at the ambitious flight of our dreams — when the day comes, when our son and his bride take our places amongst the roses and caprifoliums.
Together we will build our temple. But the day it is finished and we stand there together, I shall tell Greta, how long before I knew her, and long before I loved her, I had worshipped her as the goddess of peace, and built her a high-altar of the mill. 19th March
XXXIII
SPRING is early this year. The last week's O warm rain and hot sun have already helped the flowers in the wood to creep out from their coverlet of fallen leaves, and called forth the song of birds. It is just after sunrise when I fetched Greta for our walk. The morning sun has wakened me; I could not bear to sleep away the lovely hours, and whistling I stand outside the miller's house where everything is still closed. A curtain is pulled back and I catch sight of Greta in her white night-gown, with rich brown hair hanging over her shoulders, shining golden in the sun. She nods smilingly to me, and sends me such a merry good morning that the air seems filled with happi- ness. But when I think that all her radiant youth is mine, and that within a short time her white and lovely body will rest in my arms, I grow faint with joy.
We walk through the wood drinking the strong wine of spring, which the sun draws out of a thousand intoxicating essences. I see the blood mount in Greta's cheeks, I feel it throb in her hand as I hold it in mine. The wine of spring is in us, its enchanting drowsiness pours through our veins. Greta comes closer to me, and with her head against my shoulder, in a tired way she seeks my arm for support, and she whispers softly : ' Do you hear the same song as I do? '
' Which song do you hear? '
' I hear voices that call, and voices that tempt ; 'GOD'S PEACE' 359
they play with each other, now plaintive and far, now sighing and near, now questioning, now answering, now melting together in joyous meeting of all harmonies. It seems to be nature's bridal song which sings about us. Do you not hear it too ? ' 'I hear nature call to a festival: spring out, ye flowers, sing out, ye birds, unfold, trees ! Awake, adorn thyselves, and hasten lest ye be too late. Spring is already here, and when May-day dawns the princess of Rough-Hill will be a bride. I hear nature chant your wedding hymn.'
We are stopped in our walk by a river, which ordinarily is a shallow stream amongst big stones, but which the spring rains have filled to over- flowing, only here and there a stone stands out. ' I suppose we shall have to turn back?' I asked.
Greta leant tenderly towards me and said : ' The spring makes me lazy, don't let us go a round- about way ; don't you think you can carry me ? '
She puts her arms round my neck and I lift her and carry her out into the stream. I feel her soft body against mine, her warm breath on my face. I feel her no burden, but I grow faint and giddy, and must use my utmost will-power not to stagger and fall.
We sit down, both a little out of breath, on the bench on the other side of the river, but Greta leans her head against mine, saying in a murmur: 'You, my strong bridegroom, how happy I was in your arms.'
Spring is early this year. Nature is ringing her wedding bells. The bridal folk are longing for the marriage morn. 360 'GOD'S PEACE-
21°' OF MARCH.
- XXIV T HAVE got my papers from the capital, the
X papers without which one cannot marry even on Rough-Hill. ' I see from these necessary papers that during the first years of my life I was vaccinated, and that the operation was considered successful. Heaven be praised, or I might otherwise not have been permitted to enter into holy wedlock.
To-morrow, or the day after, begins the demoli- tion of the mill. The old man was quite in good spirits this evening.
22° OF MARCH.
SfXXV /^~^ RETA has been hurt this morning by the V_T mill. The doctor gives fair hope.
THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY.
XXVI A FRESH storm blew up last night, though it jTy did not seem very windy to me when I went up to the mill this morning, but perhaps I did not take much notice of the weather.
When from the wood I reached the crest of the hill, I saw Greta standing near the mill between the wings, just as I saw her that first day I came to Rough-Hill. I thought to myself, ' Then the work- men have not come yet ; but it was perhaps too early.' And I thought further that Greta had probably gone up to the mill to say good-bye. She did not see me ; she gazed out over the fjord. I swung my hat and called to her, but she did not hear me ; she stood in deep thought, and most likely the wind carried away my words. 'GOD'S PEACE' 361
Suddenly the wings gave a jerk. I believe I shrieked. She either heard my shriek, or her- self felt the danger. She turned her head, and our eyes met. She made a movement as if to rush forward, but in the same moment she fell to the ground without a sound, struck by one of the wings. The next wing followed over her body, and again the next. Round and round, with stronger and stronger speed, the wings went over Greta. While I rushed along, I thought to myself I have gone mad ; it is the giddiness in my head which makes the mill seem to be turning round. But then I saw clearly that Greta's body never moved. On the side of the mill, just in front of the steps, I found Greta's father. He stood fastening the rope. He smiled in such a curious way. The thought rushed through my mind, ' In madness he has killed his daughter ! ' What a wild thought ! In a flash I understood everything, and in passing him I said as calmly as possible : ' Greta has been struck by one of the wings.' When I reached her the mill was quiet; her father had stopped it. I bent over her; she did not move. Her face was white, but I saw neither wound nor blood. I called her name again and again. She opened her eyes and smiled, but closed them again at once, while the smile stayed on her lips. She had seen me and she smiled. O my God, she was not dead !
Sobbing sounded behind me, and a trembling hand touched my shoulder. It was the old man. 'She is alive,' I said, 'but we must carry her in.' 362 'GOD'S PEACE'
I looked up, at a little distance stood three or four workmen gazing at us with pitiful eyes. They came quietly forward to help. One of them said : ' We have sent a message for the doctor.'
We carried her in and the doctor came.
This evening her condition is unaltered. She lies unconscious. The wing struck her on the right side of the head. There is only a scratch and a small swelling to be seen ; but the doctor fears either concussion of the brain or a fracture.
My fear as to the cause of the accident has proved to be true. Greta's father had wished to let the mill work once more before it was stilled for ever. At his secret visits he had made sure that the machinery was in order. Early this morn- ing he went over to the mill, and was most likely inside, when Greta came. Owing to the noise of the strong wind she has not heard him moving about, or going out on the opposite side. Then he pulled the beam, and in the same moment the wind moved the wings and the accident happened.
So much I have been able to gather from the few words he has said. Most of the time he sits in mute despair. It is pitiful to see him — almost more painful than to be at Greta's quiet bedside. But when the workmen came and asked if they should start the work of demolition he let them go awa}'. He would send for them when he needed them, he said. 'GOD'S PEACE' 36s
24* OF MARCH.
SHE is dead. Greta, my dear, dear one is XXXVII dead. All day yesterday we knew that there was no hope. Fever and delirium began during the night and in the morning the doctor left without a word. I could not ask; I understood it was hopeless.
I have been sitting at her bedside, and had to force my face to smile and look happy.
She fancied she was lying ill because she had given birth to our child. She was very happy, but wept now and again because she was not allowed to have the baby by her side. When I did not smile, she became more unhappy, saying that we were not telling her the truth, that the babe was dead and lost to her. During such moments the mill played an uncanny part in her halludnations. She believed her father had carried her child over to the mill, and she implored me again and again to go and fetch it.
Towards evening the fever grew worse. The doctor came, but left very soon. I did not speak to him. Again I took my place at Greta's side. She did not recognise me. Most of the time she lay with closed eyes, murmuring indistinct, be- wildering words, her face twitching with pain. I thought it was almost better thus. Then I did not need to hide my sorrow, I could hold her poor feverish hand in mine and weep.
Suddenly she opened her eyes, — they were large 364 'GOD'S PEACE-
and clear : • Are you crying, because I am going to die ? ' she asked.
I knelt down on the floor and laid my head on her pillow. Many times she stroked me tenderly with her hand and said :
' You must not cry for my sake ; I am not un- happy. It is not so bad to die. Both your mother and mine are calling me. They smile lovingly to me, and show me that there is a place for me between them.'
A dark shadow crept into her eyes. She raised herself up in bed and cried out : ' My child, where is my child ? It is cruel of you to keep me waiting so long.'
Then she fell back again, and again her eyes were clear, but big tears rolled down her face. ' My dear love, lay your head close to mine,' she said, ' there is something I want to tell you before I die, and while I can see clearly.'
I did as she asked me, and she whispered: ' I am not afraid to die, but I think it so terribly sad that I have to leave you before I have borne you the child we dreamt of. Now it seems so little you have as a memory of me, so little you have to thank me for. I gave myself to you only for such a short time, and even not that altogether. No, no, don't interrupt me : do let me be allowed to say just what I feel. I reproach myself that I kept you waiting. I suppose I thought it was for you to ask me, but you must know that anything you could have asked me I would have done for 'GOD'S PEACE' 365
you. You must know that the day in the wood, when we heard the bridal song about us, I was, with all my heart, with all my desire, your bride. And when I stand before God on His Throne I will tell Him, without shame, that I left earth weep- ing because I never lay as a bride in your arms.'
A little later she said : ' Now it is time to call my father.'
When she had kissed the old man, she asked to be allowed to sleep, she smiled to me and closed her eyes. She never opened them again.
SPRING continues his triumphant march up XXXVI H over Rough-Hill, with a great following of happy people from the town. Old and young, children and lovers, worthy men and matrons, yes, even the poor and the crippled, must all climb to Rough-Hill to greet the Spring.
Spring meets them, throwing golden sunshine on every side,and the happy people from the town point out exultantly to each other his wondrous deeds.
'Look, look, the hedgerow is budding, and violets are out on the bank. Do gather me some to put in ray belt.'
' Take care, dear, don't step on that snail, and see the butterflies there, the yellow ones, and the red with black spots, do let them fly in peace ; let them enjoy the Spring as we do.'
'Did you hear the starling, children .> Did you see the little bird gathering straw for its nest > ' 366 'GOD'S PEACE'
The crowd stops at the pavilioiij now awaked from its winter sleep by spring. All through the winter a lonely stranger has been its only guest.
' Let us drain our glasses to Spring, for Spring is life, for life is joy '
' What you don't eat throw to the sparrows, children. We must not forget the winter birds, now Spring is here.'
Up through the wood the happy people from the town follow the Spring.
' How delicious the scent of the pines and the earth is ; but don't walk on the grass, for it rained last night.'
' I must go into the grass, for I have found a blue anemone, and look at those white ones. How many there are, when one looks closely.'
■ And look at the beeches, how large the buds are already. I am sure they will be out before May, if this weather lasts.'
' Of course it will last. Just listen to the birds, how happy they are; they know all about it.'
Spi-iiig stands triumphant on the very crest of Rough-Hill, and the happy people break into joyous cries.
' Spring has reached even here. Look ! the mount of the mill is covered with new grass, and the wings are shining like gold in the sunshine. In the miller's garden the fruit-trees are budding. I wonder if we dare steal a branch ? I am sure it would blossom if we took it home.' 'GOD'S PEACE' 367
Then suddenly the door of the miller's house openSj and a cold air sweeps over the many happy people, for a young woman lies cold and pale on her white bed. A man stands at her side. It is the stranger from Rough-Hill. His eyes do not weep any longer; he has no tears left. But he says, as he bends over his cold, pale bride : ' Spring is dead ! '
30"" OF MARCH.
TO-DAY Greta was laid to rest in the grave- XXXIX yard. In the small church of the Institution the service took place. All the old women sat round and wept tears of real sorrow for Greta, be- cause she, who had brought youth and beauty into their withered hearts, was taken from us in the midst of her youthful joy. On her coffin they had laid wreaths made by their own trembling hands, wreaths of ivy and moss, adorned with immortelles and simple farewell inscriptions in black and white beads. And now they sang for her, who had sung for them, sang in their old quavering voices, the beautiful hymn : 'Think when at last the mist has lifted.' O my God, my God ! It was here she should have stood as a bride, here where she now lay in her coffin, the bride of death clad in the white gown she had made herself for her bridal iMy tired, tortured head sank on my old friend's shoulder. She stroked me and talked to me as to M unhappy child, as she had done so often before m the old days. I think that both she and I 368 'GOD'S PEACE'
forgot that I -was a grown man. It did me good to sit like that close to her innocent heart. It seemed to me my sorrow softened while she whispered : ' And then it must be beautiful for him to think of, that she will not be lying alone, but will be near his dear mother. These two will speak dear and loving words about him, of that he may be certain, and should he meet with sorrow and misfortune, he will feel their dear shadows comfortingly near him.'
The clergyman, the church's strong scourge for the old town's wickedness, stood in front of Greta's coffin. He cast a severe and searching glance over the congregation, but it was as if he involuntarily understood that here, at this young girl's coffin, in front of these weeping old women and this stricken man, all severity would be sacrilege, and it was as if a light of gentle humanity swept over his sharp features, and when he started to speak his voice trembled.
' I did not personally know this young woman, whom God has taken from us, just as she believed she was to enter on the greatest earthly happiness. But I have heard nothing of her that was not good and beautiful. She seemed, through her own nature, in the high and lonely place where she lived, to have found peace with God and with the world, and she also seems to have had the power of giving peace and strength to those around her. I do not know her nearest friends, those whom her death most affects, and I don't know if they in their sorrow think of the comfort I call the only 'GOD'S PEACE' S69
one. But my heart beats in pity and sympathy with their pain. I pray that the Almighty God will give her and them His peace. Amen.'
Alone with the clergyman I walk behind Greta's soffin through the graveyard. I notice how Spring lias started spreading his beauty over death. I see the flames of Spring, and in my ears still echo the ilergyman's words about God's peace. My soul cries out in torture : ' You lying priest, lying like the Spring on the graves. All the blossoms of the world cannot hide that hideousness of Death that she, my beloved, is given to the worms. All the priests of the world cannot conjure from the grave that God's peace which is buried there with her for ill eternity.'
The cofEn is lowered into the grave. The cere- mony of casting the earth is over. The clergyman presses my hand — and — I am left alone.
But I do not feel quite lonely until I, cold and shivering through sitting for a long time in the sharp, spring air, walk back to Rough-Hill, which Qow does not even shelter Greta's cold clay.
So lonely, oh, so lonely !
APRIL.
I FLED to this place seeking loneliness. I XL found it. Had Greta not crossed my path I feel sure the loneliness would not have frightened ne, for then I should not have known the loss vhich now pursues me like an outlaw. My loneliness makes me an outlaw, Where shall 3a 370 'GOD'S PEACE"
I find the corner that may be my sanctuary ? Either I roam through the empty streets of the old town or I walk myself tired along the steep paths of Rough-Hill. Everywhere my loss follows me like a greedy raven, shrieking hoarsely in my ear, ready to pierce my heart with its sharp beak. I cannot find the house, the place, the tree, which does not cry out to me my loss. ' Remember, last time you were here she was with you ; now you are alone and she will never be with you again. Here you sat with her talking of your happiness, dream- ing of your future, but all you said, thought, and dreamt, was summer and sun, life and joy. Now earth covers her and your dream has vanished with the cold touch of death.'
I have sought peace in the reading-room of the monastery where before my mind was soothed by memories from bygone days. But there again the raven sat on my shoulder : ' Why, young monk, let your eyes rest longingly on the tree behind the wall ? Stay where you are. Nobody waits for you when darkness falls over the monastery. In the garden all the nightingales are silent, and in the old tree only the raven builds his nest."
I have been to the well-garden, but I dare not go there again. It seemed to me the children grew silent when they saw me, and in their big eyes I read sad questions. . . . 'Where is she, she who always came with you before, and who was so sweet to us ? You must never come here alone ; you must go and fetch her.' 'GOD'S PEACE' 371
My friend in the institution mourns my faithless- less. Just now she would like so much to show me der sympathy. She does not understand, and I [lave not the courage to tell her, that my wounded lieart cannot run the gauntlet of all the pitiful glances inside the gates of the institution. They follow me up staircases and along corridors all the way to her door, and they receive me again in her room, greeting me from her own faithful eyes.
But most heartbreaking of all is it to visit Greta's father. To be in the room which she filled with her grace and beauty, where my love mourns like a tortured animal for every step I tread, where the air still trembles with her death sigh, where the old man sits staring like blind folk with his empty eyes at the calamity he has wrought. What can he and I say to one another that will bring comfort ? He hardly listens to the reasonable remarks with which I greet his self-reproach and his bewildered words about Greta's accident being the revenge of the angry spirit of the mill. I wonder if I myself am quite unaffected by his curious imaginings, or is it merely the memory of that terrible morning which awakens fearsome thoughts in my mind and makes me shudder every time I pass the mill? It is still there. Its master has not yet condemned it.
But when my loss has chased me like an outlaw from place to place I try to seek rest in my work — in my book. While I write I forget that Greta is dead. She lives again in my book; in it she is resurrected with that God's peace which she gave 372 'GOD'S PEACE'
me when, as a tired wanderer, I came to the loneliness of Rough-Hill.
30"" OF APRIL.
XLI T HAVE finished my book. I have finished X everything there is for me to do here.
Yesterday evening, when on the last page I had closed Greta's eyes with a farewell kiss and the empty white paper lay before me, then I under- stood that now indeed the lonely days on Rough- Hill had begun. Then I stood up, collected my things, packed my trunk, and told my landlord that I intended to leave by to-morrow's steamer.
What am I going to do ? First and foremost leave this place. Go thither where work awaits me. Tired, because I thought it led to nothing, I gave it up. Without too great expectations I take it up again, because I feel that at all events it has some value in itself. Peace is only for the happy people ; for the unhappy work is a solace.
Besides, let me admit it. When of late 1 have now and again for a little diversion entered one of the cafes in the town to look through a newspaper my fingers itched to once more take up my petij to defend or attack what I read. I understood that as far as my mill was concerned it only needed a very light wind to set it again in motion. It also seemed to me that I understood Greta's father better. It was he himself, and not the spirit of the mill, that needed to hear the noise of the wheels and the swish of the wings. It was in his own heart that 'GOD'S PEACE' 373
e accusation of idleness sounded, and suddenly it eraed that I understood still more. I heard a n-ning cry : accursed be he who in blindness ows his mill to stop.
To-day I have been round the town saying good- e. I have taken leave of the old town^ of Rough- ill, of everything, which holds for me the brightest d bitterest memories of my life. I have said good-bye to my friend in the institu- in. To her faithfulness I entrusted the care of ■eta's grave. For I know that the old miller will t go there until the day he is taken there for srnal rest. I said to my friend : ' Please do not orn the grave with transient blossoms, those lose comfort is only a boasting lie, but cover it th the living memory's modest flowers such as )? and immortelles.' Weeping, my friend gave e this promise. ' Her grave shall be tended as wishes, as long as God lets me live, and when I ive this place others will continue my work. As ig as only one is left who has seen her blessed
- e her grave shall not be neglected ; of that he
Q be quite certain.'
I went also to Greta's father. I found him more sponsive than he has been since the accident, but e news of my departure seemed to make no im- ession on him. What was I to him except in anection with Greta ?
He told me that he had engaged the old woman 10 used to help in the house to come and live sre and look after him. So he will have all he 374 'GODS PEACE'
needs. To move away from Rough-Hill was out of the question. Now more than ever. For now, he told me, he had arranged everything about the mill. Instead of pulling it down it was to stand as a memorial for Greta. All the machinery had been destroyed, and the wings were nailed firmly to the building and stood out in the shape of a cross towards the fjord. ' Neither the mill nor I,' he said, ' are able to do more mischief in this life. Together we stay here in this place, where we com- mitted our crime. Besides, it is my fancy that when I am dead the mill shall be given to the community to serve as a landmark for sailors on the fjord, and on the map it shall be called Greta's Cross.'
From the miller's house I went out through the garden. It stood in Spring's first splendour, but it was evident that nobody any longer gave it thought and care. On the lawns the grass was wild and uncut, and in the beds the weeds grew as luxuri- antly as the plants. I thought of the day it would again return to its primitive wildness and again become a prey to the cold west wind. The gentle hand of love and peace no longer guarded the oasis on Rough-Hill.
My last walk was to the graveyard, to her who was the sunshine of my childhood, and to her, who for a short but unforgettable day, became the sunshine of my manhood.
You two dear mothers, sleep in peace, side by side in the graveyard of my old town.
My trunk is packed. On the top of all my things 'GOD'S PEACE' 375
one of the little garments Greta made for our
1" QF MAY, ON BOARD.
■*HE steamer glided out of the harbour, past XLII the castle with its sombre grey front, round
head of the pier, where my old friend stood ing good-bye. Behind me lay the old town,
and smiling amongst spring green fields and 3, with merry smoke from all the chimneys and ■k-gossiping from the roofs. Slowly it pales in
evening mist. The steamer swung round a [It of land and the town disappeared.
felt as though the curtain had gone down on a ma, in the far-away dream-world of which I had
- d for a short time. Then the steamer followed
aew turn of the fjord, and for a moment I Idenly saw against the horizon the top of ugh-Hill and the mill with its black cross linst the white ground.
For me the old town has vanished, and I return m whence I came, to old friends and old
- mies.
Sas this year been in vain, I wonder ? Will it ve no trace like the fairy-tale dream-world after ! curtain has gone down ?
Certainly it will, for it has brought me that 3uga Dei, for which the world sighs, that God's ice, which even our warlike ancestors did not idge each other, that blessed reconciliation be- sen themselves and others, which purifies the il and strengthens the will. I return from 376 'GOD'S PEACE'
whence I came, though not the same as before. I have nowj what I lacked before, a high and safe landmark for my voyage : Greta's Cross. My friends may receive me with pitiful shrugs of the shoulderSj my enemies perhaps with scornful smiles, but they will soon realise that there is neither reason for pity nor for scorn. The God's peace, which has touched my soul, is not the result of any conversion. The landmark my life has gained does not lead me in any new direction. I only follow now a straighter road with more resolution.
On your death-bed, Greta, you reproached your- self that you died a virgin in my arms. I never doubted your willing generosity. Virgin or wife you would have been the same, and I can dream of no greater joy than to have rested by your side — your bridegroom. But you, my virgin bride, have taught me the hitherto unknown joy of renuncia- tion. You have taught me the joy of being on the road to happiness, even if one never reaches the goal.
Again I set my mill moving. It must be so. It demands its rights from my youth and my talent, and I cannot help thinking that the mill wing, which killed you, deserves perhaps no condemna- tion. Perhaps, after all, it acted for the best when it unheedingly struck you down before the terrible hour had come when I, without wishing it, had again started my mill. The mill against whose wings you had sought rest. Indeed, Greta's Cross has taught me a lesson, My dream is at an end. Through the spring ⟨night⟩ the steamer carries me back to my city of ⟨reality⟩ and work. The dream is at an end, God's ⟨peace⟩ has failed, Greta is dead.
Was it a dream, or am I dreaming still? While ⟨I⟩ write this I seem to feel Greta's hand on my ⟨shoulder⟩, to hear her voice whispering in my ear:
'God's peace can never fail those who love.'
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press