“You said it was only two hundred and fifty miles!”
“That’s what the captain of the Charlotta said.”
“But our guide says it’s fifteen hundred miles! Six times as far as you said! Landberg doesn’t lie, but you’ve lied to lure us along! Now comes your day of reckoning, Karl Oskar!”
Ulrika’s lips quivered, her eyes flamed, her whole body shook with anger: “Because of your notions the rest of us have to travel many hundreds of miles unnecessarily! Because you lied to us, Karl Oskar! Why have you deceived us? Answer me, you — you — lying—” She called him an obscene name.
His cheeks paled at this insult, and Kristina grew frightened lest he lose his head.
Ulrika did not give him time to reply. She continued to rant: How could he be so low, such a scoundrel, as to cheat his own countrymen in a foreign land, so shabby as to lure them all this way, so deep into America? Not one of them would have followed him had they known what an eternal distance it was. He was certainly the most selfish and cruel and false of all the menfolk she had met. They must sail sea after sea, only because of him! They were all tired to death of this endless traveling! They wanted to settle down somewhere, they wanted to arrive! But now he couldn’t deceive them any longer, now it was over! Now his true colors were discovered! Now he was at an end with his smirking, his lying, his cheating! Now was the time of reckoning, now he must answer!
His anger seethed within him so he could hardly speak. He burst out: “You accuse me? You insult me? You — you — you dirty old sl—”
He stopped short. But Ulrika egged him on: “Yes, say it right out! Say what you started—‘You old slut’! That’s what you meant — say the whole word! Say it quickly!”
By now both of them were shouting at the top of their lungs. Long Landberg hurried to them. Danjel Andreasson and Jonas Petter suddenly appeared.
“Ulrika accuses me of deceiving you about the distance!” Karl Oskar shouted.
Landberg explained soothingly: When Karl Oskar had said it was two hundred and fifty miles from New York to Minnesota, he had spoken the truth, because such was the distance measured in Swedish miles. And when he, Landberg, had told Ulrika that the distance was fifteen hundred miles, then he too had spoken the truth, for he had meant American miles. An American mile was only one sixth of a Swedish mile.
Both Karl Oskar and Ulrika were in the right; they might as well end their quarrel.
But the words uttered on both sides had been too insulting. Karl Oskar was deeply offended: “If anyone thinks I have lied and cheated our group — step up!”
Kristina held on to his elbow: “Be calm, Karl Oskar! It was only a misunderstanding.”
“No! Now I want to tell the truth!”
And Karl Oskar continued angrily: It concerned no one but his family that he had decided to settle in Minnesota. He had never asked anyone to accompany him; the others had followed of their own will. Why? Why did they ape him? They could go and settle wherever in hell they wanted — it didn’t concern him. He had never asked to be the leader of their group. But when they had come to him, he had done their errands gladly. And now he got his reward. Ulrika and the others need only say the word if they wanted to leave him and travel alone. He would not cry over their departure; he wouldn’t shed one single tear for those outside his family. It would be less trouble for him to travel alone with his wife and children. He wanted to hear one word only, if the distance was too great!
“Ulrika was excited, pay no attention to her,” advised Jonas Petter. “We rely on you, we’re grateful to you, all of us.”
Then Danjel Andreasson attempted a reconciliation: “There is no quarrel between the two of you. Shake hands, now!”
“Shake his hand!” sputtered Ulrika. “Did you hear what he called me?”
“You called me a lying—” Karl Oskar could not make himself repeat the obscenity in his wife’s presence.
“Take back your words, both of you,” urged Jonas Petter.
“Be Christian and forgiving,” admonished Danjel. “Forgive each other as our Lord Jesus forgives all of us.”
“If a group of immigrants want to succeed, they must live in harmony,” Landberg said.
Karl Oskar and Ulrika, surrounded by curious fellow travelers, stared fixedly into each other’s eyes, silent, immobile, neither one yielding an inch.
Robert and Arvid had heard the commotion too and approached the group as Long Landberg left, shaking his head and muttering that Swedish peasants found a peculiar enjoyment in personal quarrels, at home and abroad.
“Be at peace, good people,” Danjel entreated once more, deeply concerned. “Won’t you shake hands?”
Karl Oskar and Ulrika remained silent. Both had calmed down and each would have taken a proffered hand. Ulrika knew that Karl Oskar had acted in good faith, and that she had unjustly accused him of skulduggery. Karl Oskar regretted the words he had uttered; there was reason enough to call Ulrika of Västergöhl an old slut, but it was unnecessary and foolish to dig up dirt from home to throw at her in a foreign land. Both admitted inwardly that it would be right to retract; both were ready to shake hands in forgiveness. But neither one offered his hand, each feared the humiliation of refusal from the other.
And so no hand was offered. Danjel bowed his head in sorrow, his shaggy, unkempt beard sweeping his chest.
Elin called her mother from their cabin, and Ulrika departed with long strides, proudly.
Jonas Petter looked after her and said in a low voice to Robert and Arvid: Ulrika of Västergöhl was getting ill-tempered because of lack of close male company; what she needed most of all for a few nights ahead was a man.
Karl Oskar and Kristina walked over to the wheelhouse.
“I can’t stand the Glad One any longer!” he said. “We must part from her.”
“But she is part of Danjel’s family,” protested Kristina. “She is like a foster mother to the children. You don’t want to take her away from the poor motherless children?”
Karl Oskar kept silence gloomily, wondering what to do.
“And how can you get rid of Ulrika?” continued Kristina. “You can’t throw her into the lake.”
“You’ve always disliked Ulrika before. Now you defend the old whore!”
“I didn’t defend the way she acted just now. But I can stand her better in this country.”
Kristina pointed out that Ulrika had softened a little since sharing their food on the train the other day. She was more friendly and talkative, and the two women had these last days talked with each other as if no unfriendly feelings had ever existed between them. Ulrika had spoken many words both true and wise, and Kristina had enjoyed her company. Earlier, she had avoided the Glad One as one avoided vermin, she had thought her full of hatred and ill will, always trying to hurt others. But Ulrika wasn’t entirely wicked and evil; there must be something good in a woman who was so kind to Danjel’s offspring, poor little ones. And perhaps injustice had been done her at home in Sweden, ever since her childhood when they sold her at auction. That was why she always thought the worst of people. If they mistreated her and scorned her, then she acted the same way in return; and she could give ten for two; she could act like a viper if tramped on, biting, spurting out venom. If now they were to be considerate of her, if they made her feel one of them, perhaps. .
“There will be no peace in our group until we get rid of her,” Karl Oskar insisted. But what Kristina had said seemed to him worthy of thought, although he wouldn’t admit it now.
Kristina also harbored an opinion of her own, well hidden from Karl Oskar: she felt the same way as Ulrika about this long journey inland.