I am a poor creature when it comes to faith. I only understand a little. When I think and muse on spiritual things I must quickly stop. I get so astray and involved, and I mix the spiritual and the worldly.
I am afraid we will be poverty-stricken if this continues. He gives away what we have, to feed and clothe and take care of so many. I am afraid in the end he may give away everything we own, and we will be left there, with our four children, in dire need, without food or clothing. When I think of this — that’s when the doubt assails me. Yet I know that doubt is the bloodiest of sins.
Once I made him very happy. It was when he told me he would go to a new land which God had shown him — after the court had exiled him. He said nothing about his wife and children, but when he looked at me his eyes were as sweet as those of Christ in the altar picture. He asked me with his eyes, and I answered him. I answered and said, with Ruth in the Bible: “Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.” Then his face lit up and he said: “My beloved wife, we will stand together in Christ’s presence on the day of judgment!” And then I cried, and the children cried, because they thought their father was unkind to me and made me sad. But it was the opposite, and I told the children that Father had promised to keep Mother company on the day of resurrection and lead her to God the Father’s right side. And I told them they must never think ill of their father.
And I try to believe that however he acts and whatever he does, he is carrying out the Lord’s errands.
I get so depressed at times, worldly worries take hold of me, I cannot help it. As I count and count I discover we have hardly anything left to begin life with in America. If only I could rely on the Almighty helping us, then I wouldn’t worry. But I do worry, I can’t help it. There are so many things I must look after — I and no one else. If I don’t attend to them, no one else will.
I asked him today how we were to get a house and home in America. “Before I put nail in wall,” he said, “I shall build an altar for the Lord. Before I lay a plank for our floor, God must have His altar.” And then he looked at me as if to reproach me for being so worldly; and I left him for a while. I won’t talk to him when he is in that mood.
I am such a wretched, forgetful creature — I know that. I forget that my beloved husband is the Lord’s new apostle on earth.
Now he has worn out the last pair of socks — I saw it when he pulled off his boots this evening. I must get up before him in the morning, and darn them. The holes must not get too big. Oh, oh, oh, he wears out so many socks!
In the old days, when the apostles went barefooted, there was much less to worry about and attend to.
Ulrika of Västergöhclass="underline"
I felt at once that this is a devil’s ship. I could smell the stink of the Evil One in my nose. The devil is on board. Round about my bed are females who do not have the Spirit. Round about me crawl the brood of Satan. And among the menfolk — it stinks billy goat! I know that odor. But no one shall bite my rump, for I am under the Lord’s protection. The mockery of sinners can’t harm Christ’s body. But I shall pray the Lord to remove the smell of billy goat from my nose — I cannot stand it.
Christ is in me and I am in Him. I’ve eaten His flesh and drunk His blood. That’s why I was punished with bread and water in jail. A priest came and wished to preach to me in prison, but I spat on his black cape — I know those who come in black garments. I ate my bread and drank my water, and I wanted to be left in peace. The priest didn’t come back, either. The last day the jailer brought me a bowl of barley porridge, but I pissed in the bowl while he looked on, and then he had to take it away. I said I was sentenced to water and bread. I did not want to receive favors from the children of the world; I accept no porridge from the devil’s viper-brood, I said. They have no grace to give us, that’s what our apostle says.
Now I have got away from Sweden, that hellhole, where anyone who receives Christ’s body and blood is put in jail on bread and water.
With my old body, my sin-body, I practiced much whoring in my days of error. But I was taught to do it as a child, by my foster father, the peasant in Alarum. I never forget anything. I remember everything, and have since I was four years old, when I was sold at auction. After my parents died, the brat had to be farmed out to someone who was willing to clothe and feed her. A peasant couple in Alarum got me — they offered to take me for the lowest charge, eight daler a year. The farmer regretted afterwards that he had bid so low: I ate too much, and wore out clothes worth more than eight daler a year. So my foster father made me pay for his mistake. When I was fourteen years old he told me I should pay for myself. My body had developed so I could, he said. And what had a fourteen-year-old girl, sold at auction, to pay with? I should spread my legs and lie still, he said. I didn’t want to, I cried and begged him to let me go, but I was only a slight child and he was a big strong man. He knew how to make me mete out pay. The first time — I can never forget it. He caught me in the calf pen in the byre one morning when I was there milking. The farm wife was in childbed, and the farmer himself had been lying in “the ox pen” for so long — Then he reckoned up the pay: I owed him for food and clothes, therefore I must spread myself to him, and lie still. It was like being cut with a slaughter knife, and I cried and prayed to him to let me go. But he said that was out of the question. Afterward, the peasant of Alarum stood there on the stable floor and buttoned his pants, as if he had only been pissing, and mumbled and said: “That’s that, well, now that’s over.” Then he picked up his bucket with the slops for the pigs and went on with his chores.
In this way he requested payment many times, and I grew accustomed to it. But as soon as I could I ran away from my foster home, and soon I met menfolk and found company. I received food to eat, and other things I needed, and when I had to pay I gave the only thing I had — I understood no better. I had been trained by the farmer in Alarum. Since he had insisted on payment so many times, there was little left to save. At last I became Ulrika of Västergöhl; I whored, as they called it. I was excluded from the Lord’s table, and those who had taught me, and used me, passed judgment on me and thought it right that I was under the ban of the church.
But the rich farmer of Alarum, my foster father, was a great friend of the dean, and went to parties with him. And when the devil at last fetched him home, the dean gave a pretty oration at his funeral and praised his good deeds on earth. You may be sure nothing was mentioned about the time in the calf pen when he had raped a fourteen-year-old orphan girl whom he had bought at auction. Perhaps that deed was considered a part of all the others he had performed to get into heaven. But there is one who knows where he landed! And when his coffin had been lowered into the grave, and all the people left the churchyard, there was one who stepped up to the graveside and spat on his coffin. It felt good; damned good.
So I kept up my whoring, and in time I bore four bastards. Three were taken home while they were little — the Lord was good to them. And my Elin is no longer a bastard, she is received among those reborn, she has been confirmed by the Lord’s apostle.
A leprous person can be hated no more than I was in that old peasant village. The women shoveled most of the dirt on me; women never have been able to tolerate me. They cannot forgive me, that I have had more men than they themselves, that I have felt the rod of more men than any other woman in the parish. Go to Ulrika of Västergöhl! they would say; she will grind your seed! And it was true — in my mill everyone could grind. It was true that many women had to share their husbands with me. But why should I turn away those who came? They needed to come to me, it was good for them. It is dry and bare-bitten in the meadow for married men, when their wives get on in years. Some women grow fat as filled grain sacks, so no man can reach them; others grow skinny and bony and sharp as a swingletree, so the men cut themselves on them; and all become as large and bottomless as a peat mine. So one can easily understand why the men are not satisfied in their wedded beds.