He thought for a moment.
“Will you come over here if I come to fetch you? Then we can go up in the woods where no one can see. Come over on the raft.”
“Yes, I could do that!”
He took up his pole and set the raft loose–a couple of tree trunks, no more, fastened together with withies–and rowed hurriedly across to the opposite bank.
“Like a dear sister she comes,” he thought to himself, as he helped her on to the raft. The girl held his hands and looked deep into his eyes, but without speaking.
“Sit there on the crosspiece–you can’t stand up when it begins to move.”
She sat down obediently, and he rowed across.
“I never thought you could be such a friend,” he said, as they stepped ashore.
“Friend?” said the girl, with a tender, grateful glance–grateful that he had found the very word for the feeling that had brought her thither, and which had cost her so much already.
* * * * *
The sun was setting. A youth and a girl walked down from the woods towards the river bank, talking together.
Then suddenly they awoke from their dreams, and looked at each other in dismay. The river was a waste of water only, the banks deserted, the raft gone–neither of them had thought of how they were to get back.
“What are we to do?” The mute question was in the eyes of both.
“You can’t get back along this bank?” said the young man at last.
“All through Vaha-Kohiseva village and over the bridge–no. And I ought to bring the calves home, too.”
“There’s no boat anywhere near?”
“No.”
A gleam of resolution shone in the young man’s eyes.
“Can you swim?” he asked suddenly, turning towards her.
“Swim?” she repeated in surprise. Then her face lit up as she grasped his meaning. “Yes, indeed!”
“And _would_ you swim across with me if I carry your clothes?”
She trembled slightly–it was a daring plan, yet there was a certain secret fascination in the thought.
“With you? Yes!” she cried.
“Good. You can undress here. Then roll up all your clothes in your blouse, and tie it round with the sleeves. I’ll go a little way off and get ready. We’ll manage all right, you see.”
And he strode off with rapid steps.
But the girl flushed, and looked anxiously around, as if she had promised more than she could fulfil. She glanced along the shore–Olof was sitting a little distance away, with his back to her, already undressing.
“How childish I am!” she thought. And stepping briskly down to the water’s edge, she began hastily taking off her clothes.
* * * * *
A splash in the water–Olof was almost lost to sight in the reeds. He took off his boots and hung them by one lace round his neck, then he fixed his bundle of clothes above, and tied it with the remaining lace.
“Ready?” he called over his shoulder, glancing down the stream.
Hurriedly the girl rolled her garments up in the blouse. Her white body shivered–in womanly embarrassment at her position, and with an ecstatic delight. Then with a splash the white figure dipped beneath the water, swam up, and hid in the reeds.
Olof swam upstream, his eyes fixed on the heap of clothing, and a faint smile on his lips. He took the bundle, tied his belt round it, and fastened it above his own. The double load stood up high above his head.
“They’ll be all right now–if I don’t make a mess of it,” he assured her.
With long, slow strokes he made for the opposite shore. The girl stood motionless in the reeds, watching him as he swam.
“How strong and bold he is!” she thought. “And the wonderful things he does! What does he care for the river?–water between us is nothing to him. He makes everything do his will. How could one be afraid with him?”
“_Her_ clothes!” thought Olof. “And I am carrying them.”
He reached the bank, untied the girl’s bundle, and set it carefully ashore. Then swimming a little farther down, he flung his own things up on land.
“Haven’t you started yet?” he called across to the girl–though he had been hoping all the time that she had not.
“No–I was just going to,” she replied. “I–I forgot. It was such fun watching you.”
“I’ll come and meet you, if you like. It’ll be safer perhaps….”
“Ye–es,” said the girl.
She felt no shame now, though he was looking straight at her. He was filled with the strange delight that comes with any stepping over the bounds of everyday life into a world of fairyland, where all is pure, and nothing is forbidden, where the sense of being _two_ that go their own ways unseen is like a purging, fusing flame.
Olof swam rapidly across.
“You look like a water-witch there in the reeds,” he cried delightedly, checking his stroke.
“And you’re the water-sprite,” she answered, with a joyous smile, as she struck out.
“Bravo, water-witch, you’re swimming splendidly!” he cried. They were swimming side by side now, straight across the river.
The water rippled lightly about them; now and again the girl’s white shoulder lifted above the surface, her long hair trailed behind over the water, that shone like gold in the sunset light.
“Wonderful!” he cried. “I’ve never seen anything so lovely.”
“Nor I!” said the girl.
“Nor we!” laughed the trees behind them.
“Nor we!” nodded the bushes on the bank in front.
“It is like swimming in the river of forgetfulness,” he went on. “All the past disappears, all that was bitter and evil is washed away, and we are but two parts of the same beautiful being that surrounds us.”
“Yes, it is like that,” said the girl, with feeling.
Slowly they came to land.
“It was very narrow, after all,” said Olof regretfully, as he turned from her and went down to fetch his clothes. He dressed as quickly as he could, and hurried up to her again.
“Let me wring the water from your hair,” he begged. She smiled permission. The water fell like drops of silver from his hands.
“Must you go now?” asked Olof sadly. “Let me go with you as far as the road at least.”
Once more he looked regretfully at the river–as if to fix the recollection in his mind.
They walked up to the road without speaking, and stopped.
“It’s ever so hard for me to say good-bye to you,” he said, grasping her hands.
“Harder still for me,” she answered in a low voice.
“Shall I ever forget you–you, and this evening?”
Her eyelids quivered, and she bowed her head.
“Kyllikki!” he cried desperately. “Would you hide your eyes from me?–Kyllikki….” There was hope and doubt in his eyes; he loosed his hold of her hands, and clasped his own as if questioningly about her waist.
The girl was trembling. She laid her hands on his shoulders, and then slowly twined her arms about his neck.
A tumult of delight came over him. He pressed her to him fervently, lifting her off her feet–her arms drew closer round him.
He saw the look in her eyes change–giddiness seized him, and he set her down.
“May I…?” he asked, with his eyes.
Her eyes consented–and their lips met….
When at last he let her go, the girl’s face was changed almost beyond recognition. On her under lip showed a tiny drop of blood.
A cry of dismay rose up in him, but remained unuttered. A strange intoxication overpowered him–the red drop there was the seal of a friendship deeper and more mysterious than all else–in a wild kiss he drank the blood from her lip. He felt himself on the point of swooning–and wished the world would end there, in that moment.
He could not speak–he did not know whether to stay or go. A darkness seemed to close about him, and he staggered off like a drunken man, without looking back.
THE CAMP-FIRE AT NEITOKALLIO
A league of swift-flowing river, almost straight, with gently sloping meadows, forest-crowned, on either hand.
A grand, impressive sight at all seasons. In autumn, the swollen waters pour down as from a cornucopia; in winter, folk from the town come driving over the frozen flood, racing one against another; in spring, the river overflows its banks, spreading silt on the meadows as in the land of the Nile; and in summer, the haymakers are lulled by the song of the grasshoppers and the scent of the hay to dream of paradise, where the children of men even now may enter in for some few days in every year.
A league of river, a league of meadow land–but at one spot two great rocks stand out as if on guard.
One rises from the very verge, the water lapping its foot as it stands dreaming and gazing over to its fellow of the farther side. Neitokallio is its name.
The other is more cold and proud. It stands drawn back a little way from the bank, with head uplifted as in challenge, looking out through the treetops across the plain. And this is Valimaki.
At the foot of Valimaki a camp-fire was burning. It was midnight. A group of lumbermen were gathered round the fire, some lying stretched out with knapsacks under their heads, some leaning one against another. Blue clouds of smoke curled up from their pipes.
The red fire glowed and glowed, flaring up now and again into bright flame, tinging the fir stems on the slope as if with blood, and throwing weird reflections out on to the dark waters of the river. The men sat in silence over their pipes.
“Look!” said one at last, nodding up towards the head of the rock. “Looks almost as if she was sitting there still, looking down into the river.”
Several nodded assent.
“Maybe there _is_ someone sitting there.”
“Nay, ’tis only a bit of a bush or something. But ’tis the very same spot where she sat, that’s true.”
“What’s the story?” asks one–a newcomer, on his first trip to Nuolijoki. “Some fairy tale or other?”
“Fairy tale?” one of the elders breaks in. “You’re a stranger, young man, that’s plain to see. ‘Tis a true story enough, and not so long since it all happened neither.”
“Fourteen years,” says Antti, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I remember it all as plain as yesterday. Ay, there’s queer things happen in life.”
“Did you see it yourself, then?”
“Ay, I did that–and not likely to forget it. ‘Twas on that rock I saw her first time, and a young lad with her.”
Some of the men sat up and began filling their pipes afresh.
“Her betrothed, maybe?”
“Ay–or something like it. I didn’t know at the time. I was clearing stray logs here on the shore, and saw them sitting up there together, looking at the water. I sat down too for a bit, and lit a pipe, and thinking to myself; well, water’s water, and water it’ll be for all their looking. Anyhow, I doubt they must look at something, just to pass the time.”
“Well, and what then? What happened?”
“Nay, they did but sit there a bit and then went away. But next day again, I was working there same as before, and there’s my young miss a-sitting there in the very spot–only nobody with her this time.”
Olof had been lying on his back, hands under his head, looking up into the darkness. All at once he sat up, and stared at the speaker.
“‘Twas a queer girl, thinks I, and lights my pipe. Walking all those miles out from the town to sit on a rock–as if there wasn’t rocks enough elsewhere. Anyway, ’twas no business of mine. And after that she was there every day–just about midday, always the same time, and always sitting just there in one place.”
“But what was she doing there?”
“Doing? Nay, she wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting there, and staring like.”
“‘Twas Antti she was staring at–that’ll be it,” laughed one. “You must have been a fine young fellow those days, Antti!”
“You keep your tongue between your teeth, young fellow; ’tis no laughing matter I’m telling you.”
The men looked at one another, and nodded. A faint breath of wind sighed through the trees on the slope, a pair of twin stems creaked one against the other with a melancholy sound. The men puffed at their pipes.
“Well, there she sits, and never song nor word to hear. Lord knows what she’d be thinking of all the time. Then one day I came down to the river, and was going over to Metsamantila for some butter. Just passing by the rock I was, and there she is all of a sudden, coming towards me, and all dressed in black from top to toe.”
“Ho!”
“I was all taken aback, you can think. She’d a black veil over her face, and all. But a sweet, pretty thing to see, ay, that she was–like a blessed angel. I pulled off my cap, and she looks up at me and nods. And it gave me such a queer sort of feeling, I just turned round and stood staring after her.”
“Was it just a young girl?”
“Young? Ay, no more than twenty, at most. Well, I stood there watching her till she’s out of sight among the trees. And then it all seemed clear enough. ‘Twas her father or mother was dead, no doubt, and that’s why she came out here all alone, for comfort, like. Anyway, I was going on. Then, just past the rock there’s a man calls out, ‘She’s gone!’
“I was near falling backwards at that. I called out to see what was the matter, and ran down to the shore.
“‘Thrown herself down!’ cries out the other man, and goes racing off down to the water.
“We both ran all we could, but there was nothing to see. We waited a bit, but she didn’t come up. So I went off to the village, and the other man to the town.
“They got her up after–at the first haul. She’d gone down like a stone to the bottom, just at the spot. But there was no getting her to life again, try all we could. Just as beautiful to look at she was, for all she was dead. Ay, a lovely thing, a lovely thing. We’d had to undo her clothes a bit, trying to bring her round, and her skin–’twas like white silk. Seemed almost a sin to touch her with our rough hands and all….”
* * * * *
No one spoke for a while.
“And was it just for sorrow, like?” asked one at last.
“Ay, sorrow enough. But ’twas neither father nor mother she was sorrowing for.”
“Ah!… ‘Twas a lover, then? Maybe she’d got into trouble.”
“Nay, ’twas none of that sort. Just set on him–the young lad she’d been sitting there with at first–and he’d left her, that was all.”
The men sat in silence. Olof’s heart was beating so that he almost feared the rest must hear it. His eyelids quivered, and his brow was furrowed deep as he sat staring into the fire.
“‘Tis that way sometimes with fine folk when they’re in love,” murmured one.
“‘Tis a woman’s way altogether,” put in another, with an attempt at gaiety, as if to dispel the feeling of gloom. “Their heart’s like a flimsy fairing–little watch looks all right, but just shake it a bit, and ’tis all to pieces.”
“Maybe ’tis so with fine folk and ladies and such, but peasant girls are not so foolish. More like a grandfather’s clock, say. Anything goes wrong, you’ve only to give it a shake, let it stop for an hour or so, and shake it again, and scold it a bit–and it’s as right as ever. Go any way you like.”
The men laughed–it was a relief to turn to something lighter.
“Ay, you’re right there,” put in a stout fellow with a loud voice. “‘Twas so with my old woman once when she was young. Got set on a bit of a greenhorn chap, all soft as butter, and took it badly. But I saw ’twas no good for her nor anyone, and heaved him out of the way and took her myself. And well I did, for she’s never troubled a thought about him since.”
A shout of laughter went up from the men. They had recovered their spirits now.
“Ay, you may laugh,” said an elderly man. “But ’tis not every man that troubles if what he thinks best is best for a woman herself.” He paused a moment, and sat cleaning his pipe with a straw. “There’s girls of our own sort that can’t be handled that way to any good–and there’s both men and girls that don’t take things so lightly.”
There was an earnest ring in his voice, a note almost of pain, and the men ceased to smile. Olof turned in surprise, and looked at the speaker–some of the others were making signs behind the old man’s back.
“I know one man at least,” he went on, “that loved a girl when he was young, and couldn’t marry her. He didn’t go off and kill himself–but it marked him, none the less, for all he was only a peasant himself. Sold his place, he did, and drank away the money, and wandered about the rest of his life to this day–and never forgotten her.”
The old man was silent.
“Ay, ’tis plain to see she’s in his mind now that he’s old and grey,” said one who had pointed to the speaker before.
The old man bowed his head, and pulled his cap down over his eyes; but they could see a quiver in his face, and the brass-bound pipe-stem trembled in his hand.
The men exchanged glances; none seemed wishful to speak.
“Ay, ’tis no light thing to play with,” said one at last. “And each knows best what he’s learned for himself.”
Again a sighing of the trees on the hillside, and a mournful sound from the straining stems. The coming dawn threw a grey light on the rocky face of Neitokallio; far over the meadows a bird was calling.
“Getting light–’tis time we were about,” said Olof, rising to his feet.
The men stared at him in wonder; his voice was strange and hard as that of the old man who had spoken before.
“Up with you–come!” said Olof, with sudden impatience. And, turning abruptly, he strode down to the shore.
The men stared after him, then, rising, covered their fire, and followed down to the river.
HAWTHORN
No! I must live while I am young; breathe freely while I can! But you, Hawthorn–do you know what life is?”
“Yes,” the girl answered fervently; “it is love!”
“It is something else besides. Youth and spring and courage–and fate, that brings the children of men together.”
“Yes…? I wonder why I never thought of that myself.”
“What does it matter what we think? We drift along, knowing nothing of one another, like the errant winds or the stars in the skies. We pass by hundreds, without so much as a glance, until fate as in a lightning flash brings us face to face with the one appointed. And then–in a moment we know that we belong to each other, we are drawn together by magnetic force–for good or ill.”
“I have felt the same–and I feel it more keenly now than ever,” answered the girl, nestling trustingly close to him. “Each minute in your arms is worth more than all the rest of my life before.”
“And you are to me as the sap of the trees in spring, that thrills me with ecstasy and makes me forget all else. And I _will_ feel it so!–drown my sad autumn and my joyless winter in the delight of spring. And I bless the fate that led you to me–there is none like you!”
“None?” the girl repeated happily, and yet in doubt. “Oh, if only I could be as you think.”
“You are so! Every drop of blood in you is love and fire. The lightest touch of your shoe against my foot is more than the warmest embrace from any other–your breath is like a secret caress; you bring a scent of hawthorn with you everywhere that lifts me almost to madness.”
“Do not talk like that, Olof. I am nothing–it is you that are all. Tell me–are all lovers as happy as we?”
“No.”
“Why not? Is it because they–they can’t love as we do?”
“They _dare_ not! They fear to be happy. Oh, how blind the world is! Wandering sadly with prayer, book and catechism in hand, when love and spring are waiting for all who will. And those who have grown old, when their blood is as lead in their veins, and they can but gaze with beggars’ eyes on their own youth–they would have us too slaves of the prayer book and catechism like themselves.”
“Is it really so…?”
“Yes, it is true. Only while we are young, only while the flood of youth runs free and bright in our veins can we be happy. And they are the greatest who dare to demand their share of life in full, to plunge unafraid into the waters, letting the waves break on their temples and life’s salt flood wash their cheeks.”
“And have I dared all this, Olof? Tell me, have I not?”
“Yes, you have. And it is just that which makes you lovely and bewitching as you are. It is a glorious thing to give oneself lip entirely to another, without question, without thought of return or reckoning–only to bathe body and soul in the deep wells of life!”
“Yes, yes…. And, do you know, Olof…?” The girl spoke earnestly, with a quiver in her voice.
“What? Tell me?”
But she could say no more, and, bursting into tears, hid her burning cheek against his breast, her body shaking with sobs.
“What–child, you are crying? What is it?”
“I don’t know….” The girl was sobbing still. “Only that I can’t–can’t give you all I would.”
“But you have given me more than I ever dared to hope for!”
“Not so much as I gladly would! Why do you not ask more of me? Tell me to die with you, and I am ready–I could die by fire with you. Or take my life now, here, this moment….”
The fire of her increasing passion seemed to have sent out a spark that glowed and burned in his soul.
“How can you speak so?” he asked, almost in dread. “It is madness, child.”
“Madness–yes. But if you knew how I love you…. Say but one word and I will leave home–father and mother and all–and follow you like a beggar girl from place to place.”
“And never care what people said?”
“Care? Why should I care for them? What do they know of love?”
“Little Hawthorn….” Olof bent her head back and looked straight into her eyes. “Was that a nice thing to say, now?”
The girl bowed her head. “No–but I wanted to do something, to make some sacrifice for your sake.”
She was silent for a moment, then her eyes brightened once more. “Olof, now I know! I’ll cut off one of the prettiest locks of my hair and you shall keep it for remembrance–that’s what people do, isn’t it? And you must keep it always–and think of me sometimes, even when you love someone else.”
“Oh, my love! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when you say such things. But it is only now, in the gloom of the spring night. By daylight you will think differently.”
“No, never! Not even in the grave!”
“And then–it’s so childish. Must you have a keepsake from me too, to help you to remember?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why should I need one?”
“No, no–it’s childish of me, of course. Forgive me, Olof–and don’t be sorry any more. I ask nothing but to go on loving you.”
“And I you–without thought or question.”
“Yes. And I shall remember all my life how happy you have made me; I shall keep the memory of it all as a secret treasure till I die, and bless you….”
She rose up suddenly on her elbow.
“Olof–tell me something. Did you ever hear of anyone dying of happiness?”
“No–I have never heard of it. Why?”
“But when they are really, really happy…?”
“I don’t think anyone could, even then.”
“But they can die of sorrow sometimes, I’ve heard. And then if one really wants to….”
“Hawthorn!” He clasped her in a wild embrace. “There is no one like you in all the world. If _that_ were possible, I would ask nothing else.”
“Would you–would you really care to … with me?”
“Yes, yes … to swoon in the scent of you and die … to feel the strands of your hair twined round my throat, and die…. Well for me if I could, perhaps–and for others….”
SISTER MAYA
Sadness pervaded his soul, and he spoke to the evening gloom that stole in through the window and hovered about his pale face like a watcher.
“I too should have had a sister–sister Maya,” he said dreamily.
“You had one–and the best that one could wish for,” said the evening gloom.
“I don’t remember–I was too young to know…. But mother always spoke so nicely of her … the time I was ill, for instance.”
“So your mother spoke of that. Yes, yes, she would….”
“It was when I was a child. I was very ill–on the point of death, she said. And mother and all the others were crying, and comforting themselves with the thought that little Olof would be an angel soon, and wear a crown. And sister Maya said then I should sit by her bedside with wings outspread, warding off evil dreams.”
“Well if it had been so,” said the evening gloom.
“But the girl, my sister, burst into tears, and cried that I should not be an angel, but a big man, bigger than father–ever so big and strong. And she threw her arms round my neck and said no one should ever come and take away Olof–no!”
“Ay,” nodded the gloom, “so it was–yes.”
“And my sister tried her own way to make me well again–fondling me and blinking her eyes and stroking me under the chin. And I began laughing, for all that I was ill. And she was all overjoyed at that, and more certain than ever that I was to get well again and grow a big strong man. And I laughed again, and life began laughing too–and after that, I gradually got well.”
“Ay, ’twas so. And your sister, she looked after you and nursed you all by herself–no one else was allowed to touch you; yes, that was your sister Maya!”
“Then Maya was taken ill herself. And weak as she was, she would have me near her all the time, and made me sit by her bedside. And I only laughed at it all–I did not understand that my only sister was at death’s door. Ay, sometimes I pinched her thin cheek, or pulled her hair, or flicked her ear in play….”
“So you have done since with many other girls–ay, and laughed at them.”
“And then the others came and wanted to take me away, out of her sight, because I was so cruel.”
“Ay, just so. If only someone had done the same thing afterwards, with the rest….”
“But Maya held my hand and would not let them. And even when she was dying I had to stay there, and with her last words she hoped that Olof would grow up and be a fine strong fellow, and a good man.”
He relapsed into thought.
“And now … here you are, a fine strong fellow, and….” The voice seemed urging him to go on.
“Why did my sister die? Oh, if only she were alive now!”
“Who can say–perhaps it is better for her as it is.”
“If she were alive now, she would be in her best years. And she could live with me, we two together, and never caring about anyone else. Keep house together–and she should be my friend and sister–and all else! I know just what she would look like. Tall and slender, with fair hair, light as the flax at home, and all curling down over her shoulders. And she would carry her head high–not vain and proud, but noble and stately. And her eyes all fire and mischief. Deep eyes, with a reflection of strange worlds, and none could face them with so much as a thought of deceit. Like mother’s eyes–only with all, all the fire of youth–almost like Kylli….”
“So ho!” laughed the gloom. “So that’s what your sister’s to be like…. Well, go on!”
“And her nature, too, would be strange. Independent, choosing her own way–such a nature as old folks say is no good thing for a lad, far less for a girl. But for her…. And in winter-time she would come racing home on ski–rushing into the place and making the doors shake. Then she would jump on my lap, put her cold hands on my shoulders, and look mischievously: ‘Why, what’s this, brother? As gloomy as a monk again, I declare!’ And I should feel happier then, but still a little earnest, and say, ‘Maya, Maya, what a child you are! As thoughtless as a boy. And such a noise you make about the place.’ ‘Oh, but you’re always in the dumps–sitting here moping like a grey owl. You ought to go out and race through the snow, till it whirls up about your ears … that’s the thing to freshen you up….’ And then she presses cold hands against my cheek, till I shiver, and looks teasingly. And then all my dull humour’s gone, and I can’t help laughing at her, and calling her a little impudent thing….”
Olof stopped, and smiled–as if to fix the picture of this bright young creature indelibly in his mind.
The voice of the gloom spoke again: “So she is to live just for _your_ pleasure–like all the others?”
The smile died from the young man’s face.
“Go on–your sister is sitting on your lap, looking mischievously into your eyes…?”
“No, no–not like that–no. She looks earnestly, with eyes that no deceit can face, and says, ‘Olof, what’s this they are saying about you…?’
“‘Saying–about me…?’
“And she looks at me still. ‘Hard things they say, brother–that you play with women’s hearts…. Is it true?’
“And I cannot meet her eyes, and bow my head.
“‘Olof–remember that _I too am a woman_.’
“And that cuts me to the heart. ‘Sister, sister, if you knew it all; if you knew how I have suffered myself. I never meant to play with them–only to be with them–as I am with you.’
“‘As you are with me?’ She looks at me; wonderingly. ‘But you know–you must know–that you cannot be as a brother to them.’
“‘Yes, I can–sometimes.’
“‘But never quite. And still less can they be sisters to you. Surely you know enough to understand that.’
“‘No!’
“‘But you should know. Oh, think! With some men, perhaps, they might be as sister and brother–but not with you. You, with your dark eyes–I have always feared them. They beckon and call … to evil and disaster.’
“‘Sister–what must you think of me!’ And I hide my head in her lap, as I used to do in mother’s.
“‘I am only sorry–bitterly sorry for you. And I can’t help being fond of you, for I know your heart is good and pure–but you are weak; very, very weak.’ And she strokes my forehead, as mother used to do.
“‘Yes, I am weak, I know it. But I promise you….’
“‘Don’t promise!’ she says almost sternly, and lifts a finger warningly. ‘How many times have you promised, with tears in your eyes, and done the same again? Don’t promise–but try to be stronger.’
“‘I will try, sister–dear, dear sister.’ And I take her hands and kiss them gratefully again and again….”
“Ho! so that’s the way you talk together, is it?” said the gloom. “Well, I’m not sure it might not be a good thing if your sister were alive. Then, perhaps, if she talked like that to you occasionally, you might be a different man altogether.”
The young man sat for a while in thought.
“Then suddenly she jumps up and lights the lamp–it is getting dark. And she comes and puts her hands on my shoulders and says, ‘Let me help you checking those accounts–you know I can.’
“And she sits down at the table, and I watch her little hand gliding over the paper. And I set to work at the books, and so we work for a long time.
“Then suddenly she looks up, and begins talking again. ‘Why, what a great man you’re getting, Olof–keeping the books in an office of your own–and with a secretary into the bargain. There’s never a lumberman risen so far at your age, and never a foreman that looks so fine, with office and clerk and all’
“And I laugh at that. ‘And never one with such a sister to help–that I’m sure.’
“Then she turns serious again, and looks at me strangely. I can’t make out what she means.
“‘Tell me,’ she says at last, ‘how long are you going to go on with this wandering life? It’s three years now.’
“‘Is it so long as that?’ I ask in surprise. ‘Twill be longer yet, I doubt.’
“‘If I were you, I would make an end of it at once. Let us both go home and take over the farm there–mother and father have worked so hard there all their lives–it’s time they were allowed to rest.’
“I look at her without speaking, and she understands. ‘Father? Never fear–he’s forgotten his anger long ago. And mother and he are both waiting for you to come home–for brother Heikki is too young to take over the place….’
“‘Do you really think so?’
“‘Think? I know! And there’s any amount of work all waiting for you. New ground to be sown, and a new barn to build, and we ought to have three times the stock we have now. And there’s all Isosuo marsh–you’ve that to drain and cultivate. When are you going to begin?’
“‘Drain the marsh? How could you think of that?’
“‘Why shouldn’t I? I’m your sister. It will be a big piece of work–father himself never ventured to try it–but you’re a bigger man than your father–a big, strong man….’
“‘Sister! Now I simply must give you a kiss. There’s no one like you in all the world.
“And we go home the very next week. And all turns out just as you said–more live stock, new ground sown, clover where there was but marsh before, and Koskela is grown to a splendid place, known far and wide. And we are so happy–with you to keep house and me to work the land. And the years go by and we grow old, but our children….
“… Oh, misery! What am I dreaming of…?” “That was the best of your dreams so far,” said the gloom, with a full glance of its coal-black eyes. “May it soon come true! But light your lamp now–it is dark as night in here now.”
CLEMATIS
“If I were a poet, I would sing–a strange, wild song.
“And if I could string the quivering _kantele_, I would play on it a melody to my song.
“I would sing of you, and of love. Of clematis with the snow-white flowers. For you are as the clematis, my love, sweet and beautiful as its blossoms, dear as its growth about the windows of a home–and deep, endlessly deep, as life itself.”
“But that is just what you are doing, Olof–for all you say is like a poem and a song,” answered the girl. “Sing for me again–and let me just sit here at your feet and listen.”
“Ah, if only you could sit there always, as now. Clematis–how strange that I should meet you–when I never thought to meet with any flower again–saw only the yellow faded leaves of autumn everywhere around.”
“Autumn … faded leaves….” The girl looked at him, timidly questioning. “Olof, don’t be angry with me. But…. Have you loved others before? They say so many things about you.”
The young man was silent a moment.
“Ay, there are many things to say, perhaps,” he murmured sadly. “But you, Clematis–could you care for me; could you not love me altogether, if you knew I had loved another before?”
“No, no–’twas not meant so,” said the girl hastily, touching his knee with a slight caress. “I was not thinking of myself….”
“But of…?”
They looked at each other in silence.
“Yes–I know what you mean. I can read it in your eyes.” He laid one hand tenderly on the girl’s head.
“Life is so strange. And human beings strangest of all. I have loved–but now I feel as one that had only dreamed strange fancies.”
“But have you loved them really–in earnest? I mean, did you give them all you had to give–and can anyone give that more than once in life?” The girl spoke softly, but with such deep feeling that the young man found no words to answer, and sat silently staring before him.
“Who can tell,” he said, after a while. “I thought I had given all I had long since, and had all that could ever be given me. I felt myself poor as the poorest beggar. Then you came, unlike all the others, a wealth of hidden treasure in yourself–none had ever given me what you gave. And now–I feel myself rich, young and unspoiled, as if I were crossing the threshold of life for the first time.”
“Rich–ay, you are rich–as a prince. And I am your poorest little slave, sitting at your feet. But how can anyone ever be so rich–how can it be? I can never understand.”
“Do you know what I think? I think that human beings are endlessly rich and deep, like Nature itself, that is always young, and only changes from one season to another. All that has happened to me before seems now only the rising of sap in spring. Now summer comes for the first time–all calm and warmth and happiness. I have been like a fairy palace, with a splendid hall to which none could find the key. But you had it all the time–the others could enter this little room or that, but only you had the key to the best of all.”
“Is it really true, Olof? Oh, I shall remember those words for ever!”
“It is true–you were the first that taught me how deep and mysterious, how wonderful, the love of a man and a woman can be. That it is not just a chance meeting, and after that all kisses and embraces and overflow of feeling. But a quiet, calm happiness in the blood, like the sap in the trees, invisible, yet bearing all life in itself; speechless, yet saying everything without a single touch of our lips.”
“Yes,” said the girl earnestly. “But did you not know that before? I have always felt it so.”
“No–I did not realise that it was so intimate a part of our nature; that it was the foundation of life and happiness for all on earth. Now at last I understand that we are nothing without one another–we are as earth without water, trees without roots or mould; or as the sky without sun and moon. And I know now much that I did not know before–the secret of all existence, the power that sustains us all.”
“And you know that it is _love_–the greatest of all! But why does no one ever speak of it–I mean, of love itself, not merely the name?”
“I think it must be because it is too deep and sacred a thing to talk about; we do not understand it ever until we have experienced it each for himself. And those that have–they must be silent–for it is a thing to live on, not to talk about. Do you know, I have just remembered something I once saw. Just a scene in a poor little hut–but it explains it all….”
“Something you have seen yourself?”
“Yes. It was many years ago. It was a cold winter day, and I came to this hut I was speaking of–’twas a miserable place to look at. The windows were covered with frost, and an icy draught came through cracks in the walls. Two children were sitting by the stove, warming their feet that were all red with cold; the other two were quarrelling over the last crust of bread.”
“Were they so poor as that?” asked the girl, her voice quivering with sympathy.
“Poor as could be. And in a heap of rags on the bed lay the mother, with a newborn child–the fifth. The man was sitting at the table. He looked at the children on the floor, and then at the mother and her little one in bed–looked at them–and laughed! And the joy in his pale, thin face–it was a wonderful sight….”
“And the mother?” asked the girl eagerly. “Was she happy too–more than he?”
“Yes, she laughed too for joy at everything–the children, and the rags, and the draughty hut, and all. And I was so astounded I didn’t know where to look. Happy–in all that misery and wretchedness! Were they so utterly without feeling, then, that they could not cry? But now I understand it all. I know what made those poor folk happy in it all: they had found that thing we spoke of–the great secret. And it made the hut a palace for them, and the ragged children as dear as those of any king and queen–yes, they were happy.”
The two sat in silence for a while. Olof felt a slight thrill pass through the girl’s body to his own.
“I see it now,” said the girl at last. “A little while ago I could not see what it was that made life so deep and wonderful. And do you know, Olof–I should like to be just such a poor woman as that–frost on the windows and rags for a bed, but … but….” Bright tears shone in her eyes.
“But–what?” he asked tenderly, taking her head in his hands.
“But with the one I loved–to be mine–all mine, for ever!” she answered, looking straight into his eyes.
Olof started. It was as if something had come between them, something restless and ill-boding that broke the soft swell of the waves on which they drifted happily–something, he knew not what, that made its presence felt.
“Or–not that perhaps–but to have something of his–something he had given me–to lie beside me in a bed of rags and smile,” said the girl. And laying her head in his lap she clung to him as if her body had been one with his.
* * * * *
The lamp was lit, and a little fire was burning on the hearth. The girl sat on the floor, as was her way, holding her lover’s feet in her lap–wrapped in her apron, as if they were her own.
“Go on working–I won’t disturb you,” she said, “only sit here and warm your feet and look at you.”
Olof gave her a quick, warm glance, and turned to his work again.
“Olof,” said the girl, after a pause, “what shall I have to hold in my lap when you are gone?”
She looked up at him helplessly, as if he alone could aid her.
Olof made a movement of impatience, as if he had made an error in his reckoning that was hard to put right.
“Nothing, I suppose,” he said at last, trying to speak lightly. “You had nothing before, you know.”
“Ah, but that was different. Now, I must have something.”
There was a strange ring in her voice–the young man laid down his pen and sat staring into the fire. It was like talking to a child–a queer child, full of feeling, knowing and imagining more than its elders often did. But still and for ever a child, asking simple questions now that were hard to answer without hurt.
The girl watched him anxiously.
“Don’t be angry, Olof,” she said entreatingly. “It’s very silly of me, I know. Go on with your work, and don’t bother about me. Do–or I shall be so sorry.”
“You are so quick to feel things,” said he, pressing her hand. “I’ll talk to you about it all another time–do you understand?”
“Yes–another time. Don’t think any more about it now.”
But the words echoed insistently in his ears, with a hollow ring–as if he had spoken carelessly, to be rid of a child’s questioning for the time. He took up his pen again, but could not work, only sat drawing squares and interrogations on the margin of the paper.
The girl moved closer, laid her cheek against his knee, and closed her eyes. But her mind was working still, and the light of a sudden impulse shone in her eyes when she looked up at him.
“Olof,” she asked eagerly, “are you very busy?”
“No–no. What then?” From the tone of her voice he knew she had something important to say.
“There was just an old story that came into my mind–may I tell it to you, now?”
“Yes, yes, do,” said Olof, with a sense of relief. “You are the only girl I have ever met who could tell fairy tales–and make them up yourself too.”
“This is not one I made up myself. I heard it long ago,” she answered.
“Well, and how does it begin?” said Olof briskly, taking her hands. “‘Once upon a time…’?”
“Yes, those are the very words. Once upon a time there was a boy–and a girl. And they loved each other–especially the girl. No words could ever tell how she loved him.” She looked at Olof as if to see the effect of what she had said.
“That begins well. Go on,” said Olof. But a thought was slowly taking form in his mind.
“And they sat in the woods, under the tall birches, and talked of how happy they were. But the girl could not have the boy for her own–they had to say good-bye. He had to go away, and she knew she would never see him again.”
Olof looked thoughtful–the fancy was taking root. “Go on–what happened then?”
“Then, just as he was going away, the girl said to him, ‘Set a mark on me somehow, so that I shall always feel I belong to you, and no one can tear you from my heart.’
“The boy thought for a moment. ‘Where shall I set the mark?’ he asked.
“‘Here, above my heart,’ said the girl.
“And she bared her breast, and the boy took out his knife and with its sharp point scratched a little heart on her breast.”
The girl shivered a little.
“And then he coloured it where he had cut, like sailors do with anchors on their arms. And when he had finished, he kissed it. And they said good-bye, and he went away.”
Olof was touched–now he understood….
“And what then?” he asked softly. “What happened after, to the girl with a mark above her heart, and to him that made it?”
“The boy….” She stopped, at a loss, and then went on: “There’s no more about him in the story. He went away. Only about the girl….”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Olof. “He went away. And the girl?”
“The girl–she looked at the mark every night when she undressed, and every morning when she dressed herself, for she felt as if he were there all the time, because of the mark. But then the time came when her parents said she must marry. And she didn’t want to, but she had to all the same. But she did not love her husband, and was always looking secretly at the mark her lover had made, as if she were talking with him that way, and it made her happy.”
“And the husband,” asked Olof eagerly, “did he find out?”
“No. Men don’t notice things like that as a rule. But then the girl bore a child–she was still a girl, for she had remained true to her lover. And the child had the very same mark in the same place.
“The husband saw the mark. ‘What’s this?’ he asked in a stern voice.
“‘Tis a birth-mark,’ said the girl. “‘Do not lie to me!’ cried the man. ‘It is more than that. Let me see your breast.’
“Now the girl did not want to do this, for she felt that the mark was nothing to do with him. But her husband’s face grew dark with anger, and he tore away her clothes, and bared her breast. And now she would not try to hide the mark at all, but stood up straight and let him see. And before he could even ask, she told him what it was, ‘That is the mark my lover made when I was a girl,’ she said. ‘For a sign that I should belong to him for ever–and I have.’ And at that the husband’s eyes flashed, and without a word he drew his knife and struck it through the mark deep into her breast….”
She would have said more, but her voice failed–she could feel Olof’s knees trembling against her breast.
“You are good at telling stories,” said he in a stifled voice. “But the end was too horrible.”
“It was not horrible at all,” she replied. “It was just as lovely as could be. The girl herself could have wished for nothing better. She died with a smile on her lips, as only those who are happy ever die.
“But it is not all ended yet–there is more to come.”
“More?” cried Olof in surprise, at a loss to understand how she would go on.
“Yes,” she continued. “For when she was dead, the girl came to the gate of heaven. And there stood St. Peter at the gate, as he always does.
“‘You cannot enter in,’ said St. Peter, ‘for you bear on your breast the mark of sinful lust. ‘But God heard it from His throne, and cried, ‘Open and let her in!’ And God looked at the girl’s breast, and she did not flinch. ‘You should know better,’ He said to St. Peter reproachfully. ‘Here is one that was faithful to her first love…. Enter in, My child.'”
Both were silent. A little blue flame rose from the embers on the hearth.
“Thanks, Clematis,” whispered Olof, and kissed her hands that lay hot in his own. “I know what you meant. And how prettily you said it!”
“Are you sure you knew what I meant?” she asked. “I hadn’t finished, you know….”
“What–not finished yet?”
“No!”
She drew her hands away, and as if summing up all she had said before, she clasped his knees and looked imploringly into his eyes.
“Give me that mark!”
Olof shivered–waves of heat and cold seemed passing through his body.
“No, no–my love! You must not ask that of me–it is more than I can do,” he went on bitterly.
“You can, if you only will. Love can do all things.”
“But now–after what you have said….”
“But you said yourself it was so pretty.”
“Yes–there is a lovely thought in it–but the end was too horrible–you know what I mean.”
“That was the loveliest of all. Oh, won’t you do what I ask?” Her lips trembled, and she looked at him entreatingly.
Olof sighed deeply; drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. “How can I refuse you anything? But–but I could never forget it if I did, and….”
“Oh … I almost thought that was how it would be. You cannot understand–for you are not me. But something I must have!” she went on passionately. “I cannot live without. Look!” She drew from her breast a little case of blue silk, hung by a red cord round her neck, “See–it just reaches to there!”
“It’s very pretty,” said Olof in relief, taking the case in his hand.” And you want something to put in it?”
“Yes.”
“A lock of hair or something? Are you as childish as all that?”
“No–not as childish as all that.”
“A flower, then–or what?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“You want me to write something, then?”
“No, no. I want yourself–your very self!”
Olof looked at her blankly–he could not guess what was in her mind. He felt himself more and more in the power of something he had been striving to escape.
“Oh, don’t you understand? Your portrait.”
“But–but I have only one. And–I have never given anyone my portrait.”
“No,” said the girl confidently. “You have kept it for me.”
Olof felt himself shamed. What a poor creature he was grown! Why could he not rise up and take this strange rare child in his arms, and swear by all he revered that she had touched his inmost heart, that he was hers alone, for ever?
He sprang to his feet, and cried earnestly, “Yes! It was taken for you, and for no other!”
But the words ended in a sob–it was as if his blood were turned to sand. With trembling fingers he took out the portrait, and sank down as if paralysed into his seat.
The girl watched him with a starry gleam of ecstasy in her eyes.
But he could not meet her glance–he bent his head, thinking bitterly to himself, “What have I come to? Why do I cheat her and myself, why do I give these beggar’s crumbs to one that should have all?”
The girl sat still with the same light of wonder in her eyes, looking now at the portrait, now at Olof himself.
“Yes, it is really you,” she said at last, and touching the picture with her lips, she laid it in the case, and slipped it into her bosom.
“Now I have nothing more to ask,” she said. “I shall thank you all my life for this. When you are gone, you will be with me still. I can talk to you at night before I sleep, and in the morning you will be the first thing I see. I can whisper to you just as I used to do. And when I am dead, you shall be buried with me.”
Olof was overwhelmed with emotion–it was as if something within him had been rent asunder. He looked at the girl’s face–how pure and holy it was! Why could not he himself be as she was? What was it that had happened to him?
He felt an impulse to throw himself on the floor at her feet and tell her all–and then rise up young and pure and whole again, able to feel as others did. But he could not; an icy voice within him told that the days of his spring-time were gone for ever. And as he felt her arms about him once more, he could only bend down humbly and touch her hair with his lips in silence, as if begging her to understand.
Warm drops were falling on his knees, warm drops fell on her hair. Welling from deep sources–but unlike, and flowing different ways.
DARK FURROWS
Sunday morning–a calm and peaceful time. Olof was up, and sat combing his hair before the glass.
“Those wrinkles there on the temples are getting deeper,” he thought. “Well, after all, I suppose it looks more manly.”
He laid down the comb, turned his head slightly, and looked in the glass again.
“Paler, too, perhaps,” he thought again. “Well, I’m no longer a boy….”
He moved as if to rise.
“Look once more–a little closer,” urged the glass.
Olof brushed his moustache and smiled.
“Can’t you see anything?” the glass went on, with something like a sneer. “Under the eyes, for instance?”
And suddenly he saw. The face that stared at him from the glass was pale, and marked by the lines and wrinkles of those past years. And under the eyes were two dark grey furrows, like heavy flourishes to underline a word.
“Is it possible?” he cried, with a shudder.
“Is it any wonder?” said the glass coldly.
The face in the glass was staring at him yet, with the dark furrows under the eyes.
“But what–how did they come there?” asked Olof in dismay.
“Need you ask?” said the glass. “Well, you have got your ‘mark,’ anyhow–though it was not one you asked for.”
* * * * *
The face in the mirror stared at him; the dark furrows were there still. He would have turned his head away, or closed his eyes, but could not. He felt as if some great strong man were behind him with a whip, bidding him sternly “Look!”
And he looked.
“Look closer–closer yet!” commanded his tormentor. “A few deep lines–and what more?”
Olof looked again. The plainer furrows tailed off into a host of smaller lines and tiny folds, this way and that, there seemed no end to them. And again he shuddered.
“Count them!” cried the voice behind him.
“Impossible–they–they are so small!”
“Small they may be–but how many are there?”
Olof bent forward and tried to count.
“Well?”
No answer.
“How many are there?” thundered the voice–and Olof saw the whip raised above his head.
“Nine or ten, perhaps,” he answered.
“More! And what do they mean? Can you tell me that?”
“No.”
“No? Then let me tell you, that you may know henceforward. The first…?”
“I–I don’t know.”
“You know well enough. Bright eyes–that is the first.”
He flinched involuntarily as under the lash. And now the strokes followed sharply one on another.
“A fine figure and curling hair … tears and empty promises … a thirst for beauty … false brotherhood … selfishness and the desire for conquest … dying voices of childhood … dreams and self-deceit….”
“Enough!”
“Not yet. There are little extras that you have not called to mind.”
“Leave me in peace!” cried Olof almost threateningly.
“You could not leave yourself in peace. Look again–what more–what more?”
“Go!” Olof sprang up with a cry like that of a wounded beast, took the mirror and flung it against the stove, the pieces scattering with a crash about the floor. His blood boiled, his eyes burned with a dark, boding gleam.
“And what then?” he cried defiantly. “My mark? Why, then, let it be. I’ll go my own way, mark or no mark.”
He picked up his hat and hurried out.
TO THE DREGS
“And now–I’ll drink it to the dregs!
“Why not? I’ve tasted the rarest wine in cups of purest crystal–why not swallow the lees of a baser drink from a tavern stoup? ‘Tis the last that drowns regret. Others have done so–why not I?
“Once we have tasted, we must drink–we must dip down into the murky depths of life if we are to know it to the full–ay, drink with a laugh, and go on our way with lifted head!
“Drink to the dregs–and laugh at life! Life does not waste tears over us!”
Olof strode briskly out toward a certain quarter of the town, a complex of narrow streets and little houses with stuffy rooms, where glasses are filled and emptied freely, and men sit with half-intoxicated women on their knees, sacrificing to insatiable idols.
It was a summer evening, bright and clear. The noise of day had ceased, and few were abroad. It seemed like a Sunday, just before evening service, when all were preparing for devotion, and he alone walked with workaday thoughts in his mind.
A narrow door with a grating in the centre. Olof stood a moment, evidently in doubt, and walked on–his heart was thumping in his breast. The consciousness of it irritated him, and turning back impatiently, he knocked loudly at the door.
No sound from within. He felt as if thousands of eyes were watching him scornfully, and for a moment he thought of flight. He knocked again, hurriedly, nervously.
A pause, that seemed unendurably long, then a sound of movement and steps approaching the door–the panel was moved aside.
“What’s all the noise about?” cried a woman’s shrill voice. “In a hurry, aren’t you? Get along, and that quick–off with you!” The panel closed with a slam.
The blood rushed to Olof’s cheeks; for a moment he felt like breaking down the door and flinging it into the street–he would gladly have pulled the house down in his fury.
Wondering faces appeared here and there at the windows. They were looking at him as if he were a criminal–a burglar trying to force an entry in broad daylight. Half-running, he hastened back to the main streets of the town. Then the fury seized him again–a passion of wounded pride and defiance. “Am I to be taken for a boy?” he said to himself angrily.
He passed a row of waiting cabs. One of the men touched his cap inquiringly, but Olof shook his head–the fellow had an honest face. The last in the row gave him what he sought–a sly red face with shifty eyes.
“Eh? Take you?… That’s easy enough! I know the very house. First-rate girls, all of them, and no trouble. ‘Tis the best sort you’ll be wanting, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the style. Just step in, now, and we’ll be there….”
The cab rumbles away; Olof leans back, feeling himself again.
* * * * *
Through a gateway into a cobbled yard. The driver gets down, and Olof follows suit. The man knocks with the handle of his whip at a door.
“‘Tis no good coming at this time–the girls aren’t here yet.” And the door is slammed in his face.
“Drive on, then! Drive to the devil, only let’s get out of this,” cries Olof.
“Nay, nay, no call to give up now we’re on the way.” The driver swings out into the street again, and tries another entrance of the same sort farther on.
Olof stood half-dazed, waiting.
This time the knock was answered by a girl’s voice, bright and pleasant. The driver and the girl exchanged whispers through the door. “Sober? Ay, he’s sober enough. Young chap, and plenty of money–wants the best sort.”
Olof’s blood boiled. Was he to be bargained for like a beast in the cattle market? He was on the point of calling the man away, when the door opened a little. “Right you are, then,” said the man, with a knowing gleam in his eyes.
“Good evening–won’t you come in?” A young girl, neatly dressed, held the door open for Olof with a smile.
He went through the passage into a little parlour. The heavy-scented air of the place was at once soothing and exciting to his senses.
“Sit down, won’t you? But what are you looking so serious about? Has your girl thrown you over–or what?”
“Now, how on earth did you guess that?” cried Olof in sudden relief, thankful that the girl was so bright and talkative. He felt all at once that he too must talk–of anything, nothing, or he could not stay in the place a minute.
“Guess? Why, that’s easy enough. They always come here when there’s anything wrong with–the others. And there’s always something wrong with some of them. Was she pretty?” The girl looked at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Pretty?–yes, that she was, pretty as you, nearly.”
“Puh!” laughed the girl. “And she kissed you, I suppose?”
“No. Wouldn’t even kiss me.”
“Aha. So you made love to another girl, and then she threw you over–that was it, I’m sure.”
“Right again! Yes–made love to another girl–that was it. And quite enough too.”
“Oh, it’s always the way with–well, that sort of girls. They don’t understand how to make love a bit. There’s heaps of love to be had, if you only know where to look for it.”
They both laughed–the girl in easy, teasing gaiety, Olof still thankful at finding it so easy to suit himself to his company.
“What’ll you have to drink? Sherry, madeira, or stout, perhaps? I like sherry best.”
“Let’s have all three!” cried Olof.
“That’ll be twenty, please.” He gave her the money and she slipped from the room.
Olof looked round. How was this going to end? He was thankful at any rate that the room was neatly, almost tastefully furnished, and that the girl was so easy to talk to.
The bottles and glasses were brought in. “Here’s to us both!” cried the girl, lifting her glass with an enticing glance.
They drank–it was the first time Olof had ever tasted wine. And all the bitterness and unrest in his soul seemed drowned at once.
“I say–is this your first time?” The girl explained her question with a meaning glance.
“Yes.” The word stuck in his throat. “Have some more to drink,” he added hastily.
“That’s right!” The glasses rang. “Got any cigarettes?”
Each lit a cigarette. The girl leaned back in a careless posture, throwing one leg over the other, and watched the smoke curling up in the air.
“First-rate institution, isn’t it?” she said, with a laugh. “Sort of public sanatorium–though the fools of police or Government or whatever you call it won’t make it free. All you men come here when you’re tired and worried and ill, and we cure you–isn’t that it?”
“I dare say….”
“But it is, though, take my word for it. How’d you ever get on without us, d’you think? Like fish out of water! And yet we’re reckoned as outcasts and all that. Devil take all your society women, I say. There’s one I see pass by every day, a judge’s wife, haughty and stuck up as a weathercock on a church spire. Think she’d look at one of us? But her husband, bless you, he….”
“For Heaven’s sake talk of something else,” cried Olof. He swallowed a glass of sherry to cover his disgust.
“Eh? Oh, all right, anything you please. Sing you a song if you like. What d’you say to that.”
“Yes, but nothing….”
“Not a word. Dainty little song. Here you are:
“‘Here’s a corner for you and me,
Room for two–but not for three! A glass for each within easy reach…
Just the place for a spree!'”
“How’s that? Quite nice, isn’t it?”
“Go on.” Olof settled down more comfortably there was something pleasantly fascinating in the dance-like rhythm of the song.
“Cushions are soft, and curtains hide,– What would somebody say if they spied? Kisses and laughter–and what comes after…? Ah…. You never know till you’ve tried!”
Olof could not help laughing.
They sat laughing and talking and telling stories–the girl was never silent for a moment. The glasses were filled and emptied, the smoke grew thicker.
“Oh … it’s too hot. I’m stifling with all these things on!” The girl rose to her feet, her eyes glittered, her cheeks were flushed with wine. “I’ll be back in a second.” And she slipped through into the adjoining room.
“Do, if you like.” Olof sank back idly on the sofa, watching the smoke from his cigarette thoughtfully. Still he was not quite at home in the place.
The girl came in like a vision, tripping daintily in light slippers, her arms bare to the shoulder, her body scarcely veiled by the thinnest, transparent wrap.
“Oh!” Olof could not repress an exclamation.
“Aha…!” The girl laughed mischievously. Watching his face with a coquettish smile, she lifted one foot gracefully on to the sofa, and leaned towards him, her eyes boldly questioning.
Olof felt his senses in a whirl. He saw in her a mingling of human being, beast and angel, of slave and mistress–a creature fascinating and enticing, bewitching, ensnaring. But only for a moment. His mood changed to one of fury at his own susceptibility; the burning thirst in the girl’s eyes, the fumes of wine in her breath, repelled him.
“Sit down and drink–and let that be enough!” He snatched a bottle hastily and filled the glasses to the brim.
“Ho!” said the girl, with a stare. “Drink–is that all you’ve come for?”
“Yes!”
She stepped down from the sofa, her features quivering with scorn.
“Well, you’re a nice one, you are. If they were all like that–drink and pay the bill and off again–and not so much as a … well, you’re the first I’ve met of that sort–hope you’ll enjoy it!”
She drank, and set down the glass, a sneer still quivering about the corners of her mouth.
Then, leaning her elbows on the table, she gazed at him thoughtfully under her lowered lashes. Olof smoked furiously, till his cigarette looked like a streak of fire.
The girl sat down on the sofa, at the farther end, and went on with a maudlin tenderness in her voice:
“Why are you like that–a man like you? I wouldn’t now for money, whatever you offered me. Can’t you see I’m in love with you? Or d’you suppose perhaps a girl–a girl in a place like this–can’t love? Ah, but she can, and more than any of the other sort, maybe. I’d like to love a real man just for once–I’ve had enough of beasts. Stay with me to-night–won’t you…?”
Olof shuddered in disgust.
“Drink!” he cried. “Drink, and don’t sit there talking nonsense.”
Then again a revulsion seized him, and with a feeling of despair and weakness, he went on:
“I can’t stay here, I must go–I must go in a minute. Never mind. Drink.”
“Oh, let’s drink, then,” said the girl bitterly, and, rising, emptied her glass. “Drink–yes, and drink and drink–’tis the only thing when once you’re–here.” She sank down into a seat. “Night and day, morning and night–there’s none of us could stand it if it wasn’t for that stuff there. Ho, the world’s a mad place–what a fool I am!”
She burst into tears, and fell forward with her arms on the table.
Olof felt more miserable than before. The blood was pulsing in his temples, and something choking in his throat, as he looked at the sobbing figure.
“I’ll tell you what this place is,” she said, looking up between sobs. “‘Tis hell–and in hell you’re always wanting something to wet the tip of your tongue–I’ve read that somewhere, haven’t I? Oh, oh…!” She fell to sobbing again.
Olof felt he could bear it no longer. He would have liked to comfort her, but his tongue was dry, he could not speak.
Then suddenly the girl jumped up and struck the table with her fist, shaking the things on the tray. “What the hell am I snivelling about–‘twon’t make it any better.” She took the bottle of beer, filled a tumbler and drank it off at a draught, then flung the glass crashing against the wall behind the stove.
“Puh! Now I’ve got that wretched fit again.” She stood in the middle of the room, looking round. “I can’t help it, I get like that every now and then. Wait a bit, and I’ll bring you better company. A real good girl–she’s younger than me, and only just beginning, but she’s lovely, lovely as an angel. Only don’t go and fall in love with her, or I’ll be jealous.”
“No! Stay where you are!” Olof would have stopped her, but she was out of the door in a moment. He rose to his feet, his head was throbbing, and he could hardly stand.
“Here you are–here’s the beauty!”
A bright-eyed girl, young and slightly built, stood in the doorway smiling.
Olof started as if he had seen a ghost, the blood seemed to stand still in his veins; a cold weight seemed crushing him like an iceberg.
“You–Gazelle!” he cried in horror.
“Olof!”
“Oho, so you’re old friends, it seems? Well, then, shake hands nicely. Come along, man, give her a kiss….”
Olof felt the room growing dark before his eyes.
The girl turned deathly pale. She stood a moment, trembling from head to foot, then turned and fled. There was the sound of a key drawn from a lock, a door was slammed, and then silence.
Olof stood as if rooted to the spot, seeing nothing but a vague glimmer of light through a rent in blackness. Then at last he pulled himself together, snatched up his hat, and rushed out of the place as if pursued by demons.
* * * * *
Morning found him seated on a chair by the window, looking out. The night had been cold. Before him lay a group of housetops, the dark roofs covered with a thin white coating of rime; beyond, a glimpse of a grey, cold sky.
He had been sitting thus all night, deep in thought. His road seemed ending here in a blank wall–or he was grown suddenly old, and could go no farther–or was trying vainly to rise from a bed of sickness. His eyes burned, his head was heavy as lead, and his heart seemed dead and cold, as hands and feet may do in winter when on the point of freezing.
He rose to his feet, and bathed his face again and again with cold water. Then he straightened his hair, put on his clothes, and went out.
He took his way direct to a certain street, reached the house he was seeking, and knocked. There were people moving in the yard, and some children about; but he felt no shame, and knocked as easily as if it had been a church door.
The panel opened, and the harsh voice of an old woman asked:
“What d’you want here at this hour? The girls are not up yet.”
“When will they be up?”
“In a couple of hours or so.”
He looked at his watch, and went out into the street. For a while he wandered up and down, then took the road out from the town, and went straight on.
When he came back his face was pale; his feet were so weary he could hardly drag himself along.
He knocked again; the panel was thrust aside, and a face peeped through, then the door was opened.
“Hallo!” It was the girl of the night before. She was half-dressed, her eyes dull, her face tired and haggard. Olof felt as if he were breathing in the fumes of beer and wine and all unspeakable nastiness.
“Your friend–is she up yet? I want to see her,” he stammered.
“Up–ay, she’s up long ago; you can see for yourself.”
She vanished down the passage, and returned in a moment with a crumpled sheet of notepaper, which she handed him.
Olof glanced at it, and read, hastily scribbled in pencil, these words:
“When you get this I shall be far away. I am going and not coming back. I can’t stay here.–ELLI.”
“There–what’s the meaning of that, if you please?” cried the girl.
Olof made no answer. He held the paper in a trembling hand, and read it again and again; a weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.
“May I–may I keep this?” he asked, with flushing cheeks.
“Keep it–ay, eat it, if you like.”
“Good-bye–and–and….” He pressed the girl’s hand, as if unconscious of what he was doing.
The girl watched him as he hurried away.
“Queer lot,” she murmured. “Something wrong somewhere….”
BY THE ROADSIDE
A man came walking down the sandy, grass-bordered road.
He walked mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without consciousness or effort–without a question or a thought, without a glance to either side–on and on.
He reached the top of a rise from which the road sloped down to the valley. And here he stopped, as if set to go no farther.
Before him spread the landscape of the valley; green woods encircled it on every hand, like a protecting fence about a pleasure-garden. Within the area enclosed were mounds and hilly fields, stretches of meadow, farmsteads, rows of corn-sheaves and haystacks, patches of stubble, a tiny stream with a bridge and a fall, and mills on either bank.
A thrill of emotion seized the wanderer at sight of it all; one glance let loose a flood of memories and thoughts of things long since forgotten.
All seemed as before. He looked at the stream, and followed the line of its course with his eye. The mills stared at one another from bank to bank, as they had always done since the beginning of time. But the mills themselves had changed. The old wooden structures were gone, and in place of them stood modern stone-walled buildings.
A lightning thought came into his mind: was there _anything_ that was unchanged, though the setting seemed as it had been? What might not have happened in the little place during those years?
The wanderer felt uneasy at the thought. Here he was–but who could say what he would find here, now he had come?
Slowly, with heavy steps, he took his way down towards the village. And ever as he neared it, his uneasiness increased.
* * * * *
He came to a turn in the way. From just beyond came the tinkle of a bell, and, as he rounded the bend, he saw a flock of sheep grazing, and a fair-haired lad watching the flock.
The sight gladdened his heart–the sheep and the shepherd lad at least were as he had hoped to find them.
“Good-day!” he said heartily. “And whose lad are you, little man?”
“Just Stina’s boy,” answered the young herdsman easily, from his seat by the wayside.
“Ho, are you? … yes.” The wanderer stepped across the ditch, sat down by the wayside, and lit his pipe.
“And what’s the news in the place? I’ve been here before, d’ye see, and used to know it well. But ’tis long since I heard anything from these parts.”
“News?… H’m.” The lad felt a pleasant sense of importance at being thus asked, and stepped down from his seat. “Well, you’ve heard, maybe, ’twas Mattila’s Tytto won the first prize at the cattle show?”
“You don’t say so? Mattila’s Tytto?” echoed the stranger, with a laugh. “And what else?”
“Why, there’s no more that I know of–let me see….” The wise little eyes grew thoughtful. “Oh, I forgot. Yes, Maya, she’s married, and they’re building a bit of a place over by the clearing there. Shoemaker, he was, and a good match, they say.”
“I see. That’ll be the place. Looks as good as could be.”
“‘Tis a fine place. Going to have a real stove, with a baking oven and all…. Then there’s been another wedding besides, at Niemi–Annikki’s it was. Only just married–though there’s been plenty that asked her these years past, and rich men some of them too.”
“Yes….” The wanderer felt as if something had struck him in the breast. Impatiently he went on:
“And how’s things at Koskela?”
“Koskela–well, old man there he died last spring, and they say….”
“Died?” A heavier stroke this; it seemed to paralyse him.
“Yes–and two horses to the funeral, with white covers and all. And silver stars all over the coffin–like the sky it was.”
The wanderer felt himself gazing helplessly into a darkness where hosts of silver stars danced before his eyes.
“You knew him, maybe?” asked the lad, watching the man’s face.
“Ay, I knew him,” came the answer in a stifled voice.
“And his wife’s like to follow him soon,” went on the boy. “She’s at the last gasp now, they say.”
The wanderer felt as if something were tightening about his heart.
“So there’s neither man nor wife, so to speak, at Koskela now.”
The wanderer would have risen, but his limbs seemed numbed.
“There was a son, they say, was to have taken over the place, but he went away somewhere long ago, and never came back.”
The wanderer rose to his feet. “Thanks, little man.” And he strode off.
The lad stared wonderingly at the retreating figure, whose heavy steps sounded like sighs of pain from the breast of the trodden road.
THE CUPBOARD
“Come in,” said the key invitingly.
But the weary man stood motionless, paralysed by the thought that had come to him as he reached the door.
“Come in–you’ve waited long enough in coming.”
And the weary man grasped the key, but stood holding it helplessly, like a child without strength to turn it.
It rattled in the lock under his trembling fingers. The noise roused him; he opened the door and went in.
* * * * *
It was like entering a church. A solemn, expectant silence hung over the place–it was just as it had been when, as a child, he had first been taken to church.
And now, as then, his glance sought first of all the farthest background of the place. What he saw was like and yet unlike what he had seen there. Then, it had been the figure of a young man, holding out his arms over a group of children; now, it was the figure of an old woman, worn with sickness–but with the same great gentleness in her face.
The woman’s eyes lit up, as though she had seen a miracle; her glance grew keen, as if wishing to be sure, and softened again, in the certainty that the miracle had come.
The trembling head was lifted, the frail body rose up like a bent bow, her mouth opened, and her lips began to move, but no sound came–she could but reach out one thin, trembling hand to the figure by the door.
He moved, and walked over to the bed. And the old woman and the weary man took each other’s hands and pressed them, looked into each other’s eyes and trembled with emotion, unable to speak a word.
Tears rose to the old woman’s eyes, a gleam as of sunset over autumn woods lit her wrinkled face; the thin lips quivered between smiling and weeping.
“So you came after all,” she said at last in a trembling voice. “I knew you would come–some time. And good that you came just now….”
She sank back wearily on the pillow, and the man sat down on a chair at her side, still holding her hands in his.
* * * * *
The old woman lay with her face turned towards her son, looking at him with love in her eyes.
Then her look turned to one of questioning–there was something she had been waiting years to ask.
“Tell me, my son….” Her voice was almost a whisper.