The pastor advised the maid eagerly: Go and do as you say!
She went to the corpse-house that same evening, and people could see a light burning there throughout the night. What she did to the seducer of her youth no one knew, but they all guessed, and probably guessed aright: she protested to God that she forgave Drysell the evil he had once done her; she assured Him that she no longer hated her master but instead loved him and blessed his memory — she retracted her prayer of hate and substituted for it a prayer of love — she prayed for his soul.
And when Pastor Stenbeck came into the corpse-house the following morning, the body of his deceased colleague was the same as all dead men’s bodies. Satan had at last let go his hold of Dean Drysell. What the three learned and experienced ministers, God’s servants, had been incapable of doing, this simple, unlearned woman had performed. What three worthy parish pastors had been unable to effect, the poor maid had managed alone; her sincere love had conquered the sinister power in the corpse-house.
Two days later Dean Drysell was at last given Christian burial. All the people in the parish followed him to his resting place, and the joy was great that Satan finally had been driven from his limb. For he had been a good pastor; so said, in particular, the women of the parish, who now thronged about his grave in great numbers.
And this amazing happening, which had taken place a hundred years ago, was now told by an emigrant to emigrants, when, one day in fine weather, they gathered around the main hatch of the brig Charlotta as she sailed with her storytellers and her listeners to North America.
XXIII. PEASANTS AT SEA
— 1—
The emigrants — the strayed ones in this world — brought with them a small book, Almanac for the Year after the Saviour Christ’s Birth the 1850th, which they consulted daily. In the empty space between the date and the sign of Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, they marked each passing day with a small cross. They wanted at least to know where they were in the calendar year, even though unable to fathom their whereabouts at sea. On the ship all days were the same, weekdays and holidays. The seamen performed their duties on Sundays and weekdays alike. The emigrants would have become lost in time, as they were in space, without the Almanac. The cross marks on the days that had passed gave their lives consistency and meaning. At home on land they had made these crosses only when they took a cow to the bull, so as to know when to expect the calf.
The Almanac also predicted the weather: Clear, Cloudy, Occasional Clouds, Rain, Clear and Beautiful Days. Sometimes it was cloudy, or rained, on Clear and Beautiful Days, and many times the sun shone from morning to night on Rainy Days. It also sometimes happened that the weather and the Almanac agreed.
The wind was mostly westerly; it was against them. And the wind that hindered them, and delayed their landing, this wind came from the land they were trying to reach. They did not know how to interpret this.
— 2—
The emigrants had now been at sea for five weeks. The year had passed far into May — the month of flowers.
But now the people of the land lived on the sea, which showed no signs of the seasons: from its depths no plants shot forth to tell of spring or autumn, sowing or harvesting. The sea had no verdure, did not blossom. When the cold north wind swept down upon them, and the water turned as gray as the skies themselves, then the sea was like old fields with rotting stubble, and then they might guess at winter. When the sun shone and the sea lay there shimmering as blue and as calm as the small tarns at home, then they could guess it was summer. But the water did not divulge the seasons of the year to the people of the land — not so they could be certain.
During the month of flowers, however, there were days when a balmy air flowed over the deck; then they knew that spring had come on land, and they eagerly inhaled this new wind — perhaps (if it were not westerly) it had blown over their fields and meadows at home. These peasants at sea, sailing from tilled fields in the one continent to an unbroken wilderness in the other, drew the air in through their nostrils, wondering: How far advanced was the spring work at home? Were the oats sown? Had the potato field been prepared as yet? Had the sheep pens been cleaned? Did the fields reek of dung after the showers? Were the cattle still in their stalls, bellowing and longing, or had they been let loose in the pastures?
The emigrants came from land, and they were traveling to land. To them, the sea was only a passage which they used, a water which they must cross in order to reach land on the other side — they could not understand the sea folk on board who were traveling nowhere, who lived permanently on this ship, who only voyaged back and forth across this sea. The peasants traveled with a definite purpose in mind, the seamen only traveled.
To the peasants the sea was the same everywhere: there was no difference between the water in this ocean and the water in the inland Baltic Sea. The expanse of sea which their eyes beheld was no greater in one place than in another. And what they saw today was the same as they saw yesterday. Had they actually moved?
The wheels of a wagon never roll over the same stone more than once on a journey. But here it seemed as if the same wave lifted the ship on its shoulders day after day. When they traveled on land they passed through varying landscapes — meadows and forests, hills and valleys, brooks and lakes. But on the sea they were constantly surrounded by the same water. They sat and gazed across a desert water-field where nothing interfered with their vision: everything was alike, everything the same. The sea was great and endless as infinity, yet it was also small — it consisted of only one landscape, it was one region only. It was always the same landscape, it was the SEA.
And this monotonous view aroused a longing within them: they wanted to see a patch of green ground soon, if only a tree or a bush — they would be satisfied with a juniper bush, that weed of the forest; anything that grew green would gladden their hearts.
When, now, during “Clear and Beautiful Days,” a balmy wind blew into their nostrils, they recognized the spring. But their eyes looked in vain for signs of the season. They sat on the worn and splintery deck of a ship and the month of May failed to bring them armfuls of blossoms. Round and about rose the blue-green crests of the waves — the hills at home would now be covered by the cuckoo’s breeches, the buttercups, the rabbit-foot, the dog-ears, and the bumblebee-blossoms. But the fragrance from these blossoms of spring was not carried to them by the wind.
They were to lose this spring, for they were seekers of new homes. They traveled away, and it was still difficult for them to imagine that away, some time in the future, might mean home. Yet they felt this must be so.
The passengers on the brig Charlotta looked out over an empty, barren water-desert, as formidable and tiresome as the one the children of Israel had passed through when they were seeking the Promised Land. The emigrants were a sailing caravan: their ship was the rolling camel, carrying them across this unyielding and empty desert known as the Atlantic Ocean.
— 3—
During some “Clear and Beautiful Days” the ship was enveloped in a thick fog which still further diminished the world of the passengers.
The fog enwrapped the brig Charlotta like a thick gray woolen shawl, so that the passengers’ range of vision narrowed down to a few yards. Now they could see nothing outside the ship’s world; no other world existed. The whole living earth consisted of this old, worn deck. The outside world was only something gray, penetrating, raw, fleeting, impenetrable — it was fog. A sticky, soft wall had been built close to them. They could not see the masts and the sails above them, the wall moved in on deck, it crept into the ship. It increased their irritation to the same degree as it narrowed their space. The downy fog was soft and light, yet it weighed heavily on their minds and caused them to become depressed and short of temper. The world seemed ever more gray and more sad. The emigrants were easily angered now, and quarreled about inconsequentials. As the men talked among themselves all gladness and friendly jesting disappeared, and in the galley the women fought during the preparation of the meals, and used pots and pans as weapons. The people could ill endure themselves, much less each other.