Выбрать главу

Johan and Lill-Märta were still babbling about “stepping off” the ship and going home. They had not forgotten what they used to eat and drink on land — they wanted to go back and eat cakes and drink milk.

Kristina promised them sweet milk and wheat cookies, as much as they could manage, as soon as they arrived in America. But she soon regretted this promise; now she was beset constantly by the children: When would they arrive in America? Tonight? Or tomorrow morning? They would arrive soon. How far away was soon? It wasn’t far, if they were good and kept quiet, said the mother. If they kept quiet the whole day and didn’t say one word, would they then reach America by tomorrow?

Lill-Märta was satisfied at times, and kept silent, but never Johan: “Shall we always live on the ship, Mother?”

“No, not after we get there.”

“Shall we never live in a house any more?”

“We shall live in a house in America.”

“Is it true, Mother?”

“It is true.”

“I want to live in a house soon.”

“So you shall, if you keep quiet.”

“In a house like the one we slept in at home?”

“In such a one.”

“Where is that house, Mother?”

“We shall see, when we arrive.”

“Is it sure we are to live there?”

“It is sure. Father will build one. Now, keep quiet, boy, otherwise you’ll always have to stay on this ship.”

At times Kristina thought that maybe it wasn’t right to silence the children with promises. What did she know about their new home in North America? Exactly as much as the children! What she knew for sure was that they owned not the smallest patch of ground over there, had not the smallest corner of their own, not the poorest earth hut they could call home. Not the most humble shed awaited them, not the most wretched shelter could they move into. When Karl Oskar and she had set up housekeeping last time they had been able to begin in a well-established home where furniture and household gear awaited them. The second time they were to set up housekeeping they must do so in a foreign country, and they must begin from the very ground, with nothing. She dared not think of the settling that awaited them: they had not a single nail for their walls, not a board for flooring, not a shingle for their roof. When they landed in North America, nothing would be ready for them — no table set, no bed made. They had no bench to sit on, nothing on which to rest their heads. This was the only thing she knew. And as she understood it, they were to travel far away into the wilderness to seek their new home. There, she assumed, they must sit on one stone in the woods and eat from another (if they had any food), and they must sleep on a bolster of moss with spruce bows for a covering.

She did not wish to speak with Karl Oskar about this their second setting up of housekeeping; he would only be annoyed by it. He had promised her nothing. What could he promise? But she could think herself, she could imagine how it would be.

They were to begin from the very beginning — as people at home had begun thousands of years ago; they must live with the earth the way the very first tiller and his wife had done.

— 2—

There had been nineteen children on board the brig Charlotta when she left Karlshamn. But two small canvas bundles had been lowered into the ocean from her deck: one one-year-old boy had died with the whooping cough, one five-year-old girl in ship’s fever. The seventeen children surviving now were considered in good health.

Danjel’s and Inga-Lena’s last-born, little Eva, had been so ill that everyone thought she was going to die. But God let the parents keep their child, she had now gained strength and was completely well. Danjel thought a miracle had taken place, as their daughter had been suffering a much more severe illness than the two who had died.

But the girl was hardly well before the mother sickened. When the seasickness had left Inga-Lena she was often seized by a great dizziness and headache. While she was cooking or attending to heavy chores she would have spells of fainting; then she must go and lie down for a time. Early in the voyage she had suffered from hard bowels — now things had changed and she must run to the roundhouse on the fore-deck at all hours of the day and night. This went on week after week, and no one could have loose bowels such a long time without becoming exceedingly weak and worn out. Now there was blood in her stool, too, and this worried her a great deal.

Inga-Lena did not like to complain, but now she confided in Kristina: maybe she wasn’t quite well. She had prayed God particularly for help against the bloody stool, which frightened her, but she had as yet received no answer to her prayers. Perhaps she had caught the ship-sickness, or what did Kristina think?

During the whole voyage Kristina had felt sorry for her Uncle Danjel’s wife: Inga-Lena never gave herself any rest, but always waited on her husband and children, seeing to it that they had their food regularly and that their clothes were in order. Always she busied herself with something. Inga-Lena was like a ship at sail on the sea, she was in motion every moment. This must not go on, she had become gaunt, worn to the bone. Sometimes she could scarcely walk, she staggered as if every step were her last.

Kristina said that she should go to bed; Danjel must take over her chores.

Inga-Lena looked confounded. “Danjel mustn’t know! He mustn’t know that I am ailing.”

“Why not?”

“He has enough troubles of his own, poor man!”

“But he is well.”

“No-o.” Inga-Lena lowered her voice: “He has sufferings of his own. He must make peace with God.”

“Oh. But he could be useful all the same,” said Kristina. “He doesn’t need to pray every minute.”

“He won’t suffer worldly things. And now he must make all right for himself with the Lord.”

And Inga-Lena spoke almost in a whisper: Kristina must not repeat it to anyone, but her husband had confessed to her that he had committed a great sin, the greatest one of alclass="underline" he had fallen into the temptation of spiritual vanity by thinking himself free of sin, that he had once and for all been forgiven by Christ, that he could sin no more because he believed in the Saviour. He had held himself righteous, and felt above the law. But then one day God had undressed him, unto his naked soul, and shown him what it looked like; he had been dragged down in seasickness among sinners and the unredeemed. Since then he was much changed.

Danjel had said that he had received a severe box on the ear from the Lord because of his vanity and self-righteousness; now he walked about dazed from that box. He had reproached others because they were doubters; now he asked forgiveness from all of them. He had asked Inga-Lena’s forgiveness although he had done nothing but good to her.

Her dear husband had previously held himself better than other sinners, now he considered himself lower. He had told Inga-Lena that there was only one righteous person on the whole ship, and that was Ulrika of Västergöhl. She had gone free of the vermin, and she had escaped seasickness. She was chosen. A hundred times was she guilty of whoredom — yet she was chosen by the Lord.

And for the sake of this one righteous person, for Ulrika’s sake, said Danjel, the Lord had buoyed up their ship in the horrible tempest and saved them all from drowning; all of them had the Glad One to thank for their lives.

“That’s a lie!” exclaimed Kristina excitedly. “I’ll never believe it! That woman isn’t a bit holier than the rest of us!”

“Don’t repeat what I have said,” begged Inga-Lena. “Say nothing to Danjel. And don’t tell him I’m ailing. Please, promise me!”