And she still enjoyed swinging; a little while ago she had made a swing again in the threshing barn, when no one saw her. She knew that her mother-in-law thought it was ill done by a farm wife who had borne four children — thought she should think of other things.
Kristina had blown out the tallow candle when she went to bed. Through the window she could see the glittering snow which had fallen the last day of April and — as it seemed — might remain.
Karl Oskar lay quietly at her side, but she could hear that he was still awake. She asked: “Are you thinking about something?”
“Aye. About spring. It looks ill for the crops.”
“It’s true. It seems ugly.”
Kristina’s eyes wandered through the window; when she and her husband arose tomorrow morning the month of May would be here — yet it was snowlight outside.
She said: “We must believe God will let things grow — this year as all years.”
“Believe! Yes — if faith were of help, we’d harvest a hundred barrels of rye this fall.”
He had never before shown such anxiety; now he seemed dejected, disheartened. His low spirits were contagious; she too began to worry about the coming days.
He continued: Including his parents there were now seven people who must find their food on this small farmstead — a one-sixteenth. If the year were lean and the crops failed, he would not know what to do.
Kristina thought of the children, now sleeping their sweet sleep in this room. Those who had brought the children into the world were responsible for them and must see to it that their stomachs were satisfied and their bodies clothed. The children’s welfare was much more important to Kristina than her own, and she knew Karl Oskar felt as she did.
Kristina folded her hands and said her usual evening prayer: “Turn Thy Grace to me and let me sweetly go to sleep this night. . ” Before she said her Amen she added tonight a few sentences she remembered from “A Prayer for the Fruit of the Earth”: “Give us favorable weather and protect the crops from all destruction. Bless us with corn and kernel. Through Jesum Christum, our Lord, Amen.”
Karl Oskar seldom said his evening prayer any more; he usually was too tired after he went to bed. But as Kristina prayed and he listened, it might be for both of them. God must look kindly on a farmer in a stone country.
He turned over on his side to go to sleep, and Kristina felt for his hand, for she went to sleep sooner if she held it in her own.
They both lay quiet; Karl Oskar kept hold of his wife’s hand. At her touch the desire of the body was awakened in him. He put his arm around her to pull her closer.
“No-oo, Karl Oskar, I do-on’t know. .” She struggled a little.
“What is it, Kristina?”
“I–I was thinking of the children.”
“They are asleep, all three.”
“I meant something else; I think of the food for the children.**
“The food?”
She whispered close to his ear: “If we didn’t — I thought — Then there wouldn’t be any more.”
There was a sense of shame in her voice. But now she had said it.
“If we didn’t? For the rest of our whole lives? Is that what you mean?”
Kristina wondered herself what she meant. God created as many people as He desired; as many children as He decided were born. That she knew. But she knew this just as surely: if no man came near her, then she would bear no more children. It seemed as if in one way God decided, in another she herself could make the decision. The conflicting thoughts disturbed her.
Karl Oskar went on to say that he could not leave her alone when he had her next to him in bed during the night; no man who slept with his wife was built in such a way; at least not before he became so old that moss grew in his ears.
Kristina had no reply. No, she thought, they could not stay apart throughout life. She too had her desire, which she could not resist forever. But she would never fall so low as to let Karl Oskar know this.
He continued to seek her; he clasped her breasts, which swelled and hardened in his hands. Her own desire awakened. She opened up as a mollusk opens its shells; she gave in.
They were silent during their embrace, as they always were. In the moment of fulfillment she had entirely forgotten what she had said before.
About a month later Kristina knew that she was carrying her fifth child.
II. THE FARMHAND WHO DROWNED IN THE MILL BROOK
— 1—
Robert, Nils’ and Märta’s second son, was ten years younger than Karl Oskar. When he was little he had caused his parents a great deal of trouble by running away as soon as he was outside the house. He would disappear into the woodlands and they might spend hours looking for him among the junipers. They hung a cowbell round his neck so they could locate him, but even this did not always help, for they could not hear the tinkle when the child sat quietly. He did not change as he grew older: if he was not watched he would disappear into the woods and hide; if he was asked to do chores he might run away. And as the boy grew older they were ashamed to hang a bell on him as if he were an animal.
When his parents ceded Korpamoen, Robert was given employment during the summers as herdboy for Åkerby rote (a rote is a parish district with common grazing rights, etc.). Thus there was one mouth less to be fed from the porridge bowl in the spare room. Robert received food from the farmers, and two daler a year in wages (fifty-eight cents). Every fall he received also a cheese and a pair of woolen stockings. He liked it well out in the wastelands, alone with the cattle. During the long summer days, while cows and sheep grazed lazily, he would lie on his back in some glade and stare into the heavens. He learned to whistle, and he sang without even thinking of it. Later, when his shepherd days were over, he realized why he had done these things: he had felt free.
For six weeks every year during three succeeding years he attended the school held by Rinaldo. Schooling came easily to him; the very first year he learned to read and write. Though Rinaldo had only one eye, he had seen more of this world than most of the parishioners with two. Once he had been as far away as Gothenburg, where he had seen the sea, and he told the children about his life’s adventures. They enjoyed this more than the Little Catechism and the Biblical history put together.
The day Robert finished school he received a book as a gift from the schoolmaster. It was a History of Nature. Rinaldo said that when school days were finished, children seldom touched a book; but if they never improved their reading ability, they would soon lose it. He gave this book to Robert so that he might continue reading when he finished school.
The History of Nature was Robert’s first possession. But for more than a year it happened that he didn’t open his book. During the winter he attended confirmation class at the dean’s, and also helped his brother Karl Oskar fell oaks. The oak timbers would later be brought to Karlshamn to be used for shipbuilding. They cut pines, too, the tallest in the forest, for masts on ships. While Robert helped with tree felling and the sawing of timbers which were to travel on the sea, he followed the ships-to-be in thought. The harbor town of Karlshamn was fifty miles away, and the peasants bringing timbers there needed two days and a night for the round trip. Robert thought that he would like to ride with the timbermen to Karlshamn in order to see the sea with his own eyes.
Nils and Märta churned and sold some ten pounds of butter from their own cow in order to raise money for a Bible to give their son at his first Communion. The Bible he received was bound in leather and cost one riksdaler and thirty-two shillings — the same amount as the price of a newborn calf. But it was a Bible that would stand wear and tear; the Holy Writ must be bound in leather to last a lifetime.