“Some gift!” said Karl Oskar. “But why the secrecy?”
“If the people in Ljuder had known who gave it they wouldn’t have accepted it.”
She was right in this, he thought. Older people at home were sure to remember the parish whore, Ulrika of Västergöhl. But she might have given it under her present name, for no one would have known who Mrs. Jackson was. No one would have guessed by checking the church records that this was “Unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl, denied the Lord’s table for lewd living, excluded from the parish, banished.” For the donor was now Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, of Stillwater, Minnesota, North America. And the magnificent bridal crown she had presented to Ljuder church could be worn only by virgins, known for chastity, decency, and unquestionable morals.
“Did you yourself stipulate that only chaste women can wear it?”
“They must have their maidenheads, of course. That very word is on the paper. Sure tough, isn’t it?”
Karl Oskar remembered that it was chaste and honorable women, above all, who had looked down on and insulted the parish whore, Ulrika of Västergöhl. Yet that very kind of woman — fine farm daughters and virgins — would wear her silver crown with the precious stones at their weddings in the village church. Perhaps it was Ulrika’s way of taking revenge.
“Why did you donate the crown?”
“I’ll tell you, Karl Oskar: The paper is wrong — I’m not grateful to Sweden. That wasn’t the reason.”
She thought for a few moments, then she added that she was only grateful to Sweden that she had gotten away from that country in order to live the life of a human being in America. At home she had been sold at auction when she was four, and raped by the farmer who bought her when she was fourteen. She had frozen and been hungry, and had been unable to nourish her children at her breast; three of them had died and for this people had spit after her and hated her. Was that treatment something to be grateful for?
Ulrika looked out through the window; her eyes followed the slow stream of the river, as far as they could. They tried to peer into the invisible distance, as it were, as if she wanted to look all the way back to her native country.
But this she must say as welclass="underline" She had no desire to lie on her deathbed with hatred in her heart for the country where she was born. As the Lord had forgiven her all her sins, so she wished to forgive the people of Sweden. Henry had taught her that a person washed clean in the new baptism forgave his neighbors all their wrongdoings. Now she had donated the bridal crown to show God that she did not carry a grudge against any person in the old country. It had taken many years to get over her bitterness but at last she was reconciled in her heart to the Kingdom of Sweden, which hitherto she had always called a hellhole.
“And yet you were right,” said her guest. “Only the upper class lives well in that country.”
Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, the well-to-do widow of Stillwater’s Baptist minister, leaned back in her chair, still looking out at the stream below her window; the St. Croix flowed in the direction whence she had arrived that day when she landed in Stillwater. She was in deep thought.
“At Whitsuntide my crown will be used for the first time! At a church wedding in Ljuder!”
Then she grew silent; she closed her eyes. Whitsuntide would be here in a few days, in a few days her gift to Sweden would be consecrated. There would be a great ceremony in the church there at home. With her eyes closed she could see people filling the pews, her ears could hear the organ play, the congregation sing, as devout reverence filled the church to the very organ loft.
The singing and the music poured out through the open church windows. Outside the leafy elms swayed, there grew the spring blossoms, fragrant roses, tender lilies. The ground itself was potent with green grass and herbs, and a young and green summer soughed in the elm crowns above the earth.
And inside the church the wedding; the new bridal crown is worn for the first time, shown to the congregation. It is a gift from an unknown donor in the New World. Reverently the young bridal couple moves up the aisle. On the brides head rises the silver crown with its precious stones glittering like stars and crystals. The couple kneels at the altar, the congregation rises. As the wedding march dies only the soughing in the elms can be heard from outside.
Then the voice of the minister — the ceremony has begun.
All the people in the pews have their eyes on the beautiful crown. But who is the bride?
The former Ulrika of Västergöhl sits with eyes closed, in deep thought. She has closed her eyes in order to see. And she sees. She does not see Karl Oskar who is sitting in front of her, or the furniture and knickknacks in her comfortable home in Stillwater, nothing of her surroundings. Under her closed eyelids she sees a bride at the altar in Ljuder church at Whitsuntide. She has recognized her. She has recognized not only the crown, which she herself has bought and held in her hands, she also knows the young bride — her body, her features: It is none other than she herself. It is Ulrika herself who wears the silver crown with the precious stones.
Everyone in the church can see that the bride at the altar is beautiful, her cheeks blooming pink from modesty, her eyes radiating health, happiness. She stands straight and proud, her bosom high under the bridal blouse. She is without a doubt the most attractive girl in the parish, and more beautiful than ever in her white gown. Who could have been more suitable to consecrate the crown? The whole congregation can see the young girl, the virgin, the church bride, a chaste young woman married in her home parish at Whitsuntide — Ulrika as a young bride!
The former parish whore, excluded from church and altar in her home parish, had been the first Swedish bride in the St. Croix Valley. But her innermost, secret dream had been from early years to be a bride in her home church. It was her great desire, for a life different from the one she had lived, and she could never smother it.
Now her dream has come true, in the guise of another woman; she has exacted payment for the life she had been denied. Every time a young bride wears her crown in Ljuder church, Ulrika is indemnified.
For each virgin bride in the home village church is she. Other women have a wedding only once in life, but she will celebrate it many times. Again and again she will be dressed and decked and see herself in the dream she has always nourished in secret. At each church wedding she will be resurrected from her youthful degradation as her head again and again carries the crown with the precious stones.
Mrs. Henry O. Jackson, sitting here in her home in Stillwater, is not young any more. She who with closed eyes views the June wedding in her homeland will soon be a woman of many years. Soon her cheeks will be flabby, the wrinkles spreading, and the legs under her heavy body unsteady. But she can sit and dream in this joyful knowledge: Even after her death she will stand as bride in Ljuder church, year in, year out.
Ulrika of Västergöhl has finally been vindicated in Sweden. She has been turned into the eternal crown-bride.
XXII. THE FARMER AND THE OAK
— 1—
Strong, well-muscled young men were growing up at Lake Chisago’s oldest settlement. Four sons had grown into men. Two were as tall as the father, two taller. Any one of them could manage a job requiring a full-grown man. All were broad across the shoulders, strong in limbs, keen and handy. Their growth into manhood was the greatest change that had taken place at this settlement.
Karl Oskar retained a father’s authority over his sons; this must remain his as long as they ate his bread and lived in his house. But the older they grew the less he knew about them. He was together with his boys in work, but outside the home they lived their own lives. He was the hermit, seldom away from home, they were lively, often away, associating with other people. And father and sons already used different languages when they spoke with each other. The children more and more discarded their mother tongue for English — when he addressed them in Swedish they would reply in English. This seemed awkward to him and plainly askew. At first he tried to correct them, but by and by he became accustomed to it and after some time it no longer bothered him. There was nothing he could do about it, so perhaps it was better to say nothing. After all, his children were right; he must not hinder them from speaking their country’s language. In the settlements hereabouts Swedish was all right, but outside the Chisago Lake district they had little use for their mother tongue. The surer they became in English, the easier would be their success in this country.