The Best Intentions (26 page)

Nordenson himself reminds one of a shaggy bird of prey. He is tall and gangly, with a large nose and rather thin hair. He regards the world around him with quick looks beneath his bushy eyebrows. His ears are hairy, his forehead far too pale, his mouth wide, with narrow lips. His hands are long and thin, with dark brown liver spots on them. The gangling figure stoops, the head thrust forward, the voice deep and resonant.

Mrs. Elin, like her husband, is impeccably elegant without ostentation (one must after all consider the lower social status of their guests). Elin Nordenson is not what one calls beautiful, but she has a winning smile, warm dark eyes, and softly poised movements. She
radiates sensuality and a mild melancholy.

The aging, sluggish doctor and his chattering, florid wife are two of life's first-class supernumeraries, who, without altogether too genuine emotion or altogether too violent participation, testify to our long-drawn-out tragedies and uneasy comedies. I shall waste no words on the Works manager. He dies of a coronary the following week, after helping Nordenson, with uncorruptible loyalty and incompetence, to run the finances of the Works into the ground.

Because Mrs. Magda and Mrs. Elin are both experienced social creatures, the impression given at dinner is almost one of heartfelt and unforced conversation. The meal is served in the small dining room, an eight-sided room with hand-painted wallpaper, crystal chandelier and wall lights, Gustavian furniture, softly shining silver candelabras, autumn flowers, and warm plates. Toasts are given to the
new pastor and his wife-to-be, to the reverend's encyclopedic efforts, and to the doctor's wife, who has just become a grandmother, despite the fact that she is seventy.

However, a ghost suddenly goes through the room and strikes holes in the brittle atmosphere of festivity and assurance. It is the Works manager, who, in answer to a question by the doctor, retorts that the blast furnaces, the rolling mill, the steam hammer, and the forge were out of action that afternoon. The workers had at first gathered in the harbor warehouse, since it was raining heavily, but had been driven out by the guards. Then they had broken into one of the buildings due for demolition down by the rapids. The manager and two office clerks had gone there and threatened the men with the police, but Nordenson said they could stay if they sent away the agitator and returned to work on the third shift.

‘What is happening?” says Henrik. Nordenson turns a surprised face to the pastor: “Not much, really,” he replies, smiling politely. “If you were more aware of the political situation, Pastor, you would know that we haven't had a week's peace since the general strike. For a hundred years or more, here at the Works we have had a core of good, respectable workers who understand our difficulties and want to help us and themselves out of a difficult situation. Now we have a new generation: loudmouths, agitators, criminal elements pushing their way in between us and the workers. They live off class hatred and lying propaganda. They spread terror and uncertainty.

Henrik:
I don't understand how they can get people to listen if they don't speak the truth.

There is a moment's silence. Nordenson's smile deepens as he turns to the Reverend Gransjö.

Nordenson:
One can only regret that young priests are not given any kind of political education before they are let loose on the market. I think that a discerning churchman could be of some importance as an opinion maker, anyhow among the women and indirectly through them . . .

Reverend Gransjö:
My dear brother, it's actually part of our assignment to be troublesome. “I come to you not with peace but with strife” the Master once said, when he was dissatisfied with his bickering disciples.

Nordenson
(
calmly
): Let's not mince words:
Riffraff and rabble!
One should call things by their proper names. That simplifies matters and
clarifies them. Let's also be honest. They want to take my heritage away from me. They want to drive me out onto the highway. Make no mistake. They want to kill me and my family. I accept their hatred. I am even impressed to some degree by the force of their lies and their empathy. But make no mistake: Their hatred is returned in spades! I am perfectly capable of taking my rifle down from the wall and shooting them like mad dogs. You should know, Mr. Pastor, that the time of consensus is past, and strife is upon us. One might possibly wish for an enemy who fought with cleaner weapons, but that's surely too much to ask of a rabble smelling blood. I would have been grateful if this subject had not been brought up. It has undoubtedly disturbed our ladies. At bedtime, I shall be reprimanded by my dear wife for having demanded political awareness of a man of the cloth.

Henrik:
I had no idea the situation was so inflamed.

Nordenson
(laughs):
“Inflamed” is an excellent word, gleaned from the noble art of healing! As if it were a question of a disease of the afflicted and the innocent! But that is not so! It's
revolution,
sir! And we who are sitting here are the losers. It will be our heads that roll!

Elin
(laughs):
My husband is being far too macabre! I suggest we conclude this pointless conversation and leave the table. Coffee will be served in the green drawing room.

Reverend Gransjö:
Allow me first to turn to our hostess and, on behalf of myself and the other guests, thank you for what has been, as usual, an exquisite meal. We do indeed live in times of change and threat — what was it I wanted to say? — a good dinner is and remains a good dinner — I really wanted to say something else and better — I wanted to state that a good dinner, thoroughly enjoyed, is a cornerstone in the barricade that it is incumbent on us to raise against — yes, exactly — to raise against violence, chaos, and disorder — I had really meant to say something cleverer, but it escaped me just as I had it on the tip of my tongue. Ah, well, that will have to do. Here's to you, Elin, and thank you.

Nordenson
(suddenly):
Bravo, brother, bravo. As always, you find the right words. Here's to you, Pastor, and you, the enchanting young fiancee! Forgive a shaggy old wolf whose tail has been bitten once too often. Youth and beauty are things we thirst for out here in the wilderness. Then cleverness can take a back seat.

They all toast one another and the engaged couple. They all rise and repair to the green drawing room. Henrik leans quickly over Anna
and kisses her ear as he takes the letter (with a heart drawn on the envelope) out of his top pocket and presses it into her hand. She smiles conspiratorily and slips it into her bag. “Read it before you go to sleep.” “Are there tedious things in it?” whispers Anna. “Mostly love,” says Henrik.

Elin:
And tomorrow, Pastor, you and your fiancée are to inspect the chapel and the parsonage?

Anna:
That's the program, yes.

Elin:
I'm truly sorry I can't be with you. I'm going to Stockholm to see an old friend who has been taken ill.

Magda:
I shall go with the young people and show them everything there is to show.

Elin:
There are a great many repairs to be done and things to put in order. Please don't be appalled. The chapel has been out of use for two years and the parsonage even longer.

Anna:
We've been both prepared and warned.

Elin:
If Magda's to be with you, I feel better.
(To Magda)
You'll look after our children, won't you, Magda, and see that they don't run away out of sheer horror? I must say in all truth that the parsonage is in a very bad state of disrepair.

Magda:
We have the go-ahead from the Church Council for total repairs. Then we can certainly do the remodeling as we see fit, isn't that right, Elin?

Elin:
Of course, Magda! Ah, I think our daughters have come back from their dancing lessons. Can you imagine, Pastor, we have succeeded in arranging a course in modern ballroom dancing in Älvnäs, ten or so kilometers away from here. Young people of the same age can get together once a week and have some fun. These are my two daughters, Susanna and Helena.

The girls greet them with well-bred politeness. Susanna is fourteen, small, dark, and like her mother. Helena is thirteen, thin and gangling. Mrs. Elin takes Henrik's arm and guides him lightly into an adjoining room, which is dimly lit. “I have something I wish to say to you, Pastor. It is important.”

Elin:
Susanna and Helena don't go to school. They have private tuition. We have a teacher, a kind and competent person. She couldn't join us this evening. She has just had an attack of gastric catarrh and
preferred to have her meal in her room. Susanna is fourteen and Helena thirteen. Eventually they will go to school in Upsala or Gävle, but they are the darlings of their father and he wants them to stay here at the Manor as long as possible. Are you going to have pupils, Pastor? I mean, take confirmation classes?

Henrik:
I presume so. I haven't actually . . .

Elin:
Good. (
Exalted
.) I passionately want the children to be confirmed. It's my
only yearning
!

Henrik
(
surprised
): That should be no problem.

Elin:
But it is, Pastor. Their father does not under any circumstances want the girls to be confirmed. He gets so furious if I bring the subject up, it frightens me. An unreasonable anger, Pastor. I don't understand it.

Henrik:
What do the girls want?

EIin:
Oh, Pastor, there's nothing they want more.

EIin:
I suppose I will have to speak to Mr. Nordenson. There can't be any great . . . ?

Elin:
No, no. You really mustn't speak to my husband. I will speak to him myself. Sooner or later he will have to give in.

Henrik:
Are things that difficult?

Elin:
Yes, they are. Some time, some time . . . (
Stops
.) I can't talk to the Reverend Gransjö. He and my husband are old friends. He's bound to take my husband's side.

Henrik:
How strange.

EIin:
A lot of things have become strange over the years. Come now, we must go back to the others. Someone may begin to wonder.

A minor drama is being enacted in the salon. The Works manager has severe pains in his left side. He is sitting breathing heavily and sweating on a low chair, while the doctor undoes his collar and his wife hunts for the tube of tablets in the inside pocket of his tailcoat. Smiling with embarrassment and stammering apologies, anxious and panting, the man drags himself toward the door, supported by his wife and a servant. Nordenson follows him, patting his arm all the time: “You just forgot to take your pills, you careless old thing. You'll soon recover, you'll see. Have a stiff brandy when you get to bed. No, no, I'll go out to the carriage. I'll be back soon.”

The cheeks of the doctor's wife have become redder and redder throughout the meal, and now she hurries up to Anna and Henrik, presses Magda's hand, assuring them in a whisper that it'll soon be
the end!
Her husband has made a thorough examination and says it could be the end
at any moment.
Drop dead, as they say The Works have broken him. He'll be the first victim, but certainly not the last. Everything's on the brink of ruin, and what'll happen when Nordenson throws in the sponge?

A few hours later, after Anna has retired to the comfortable bishop's room, she takes out Henrik's letter and reads it carefully, at least twice. Then she sits down at the secretary and writes her answer on some pages she tears out of her diary. The moon is as white as ivory and almost circular, its cold light so strong it overpowers the walls and floor of the room. The paraffin lamp shines mildly down on Anna's hands and the words she is forming in her rounded, disciplined handwriting.

Dearest, I can't reply directly to your letter. There's so much I don't understand. Yes, I understand the words, but for obvious reasons, I don't understand the
reality
behind the words. I have lived as a spoiled child and you have lived as an exposed child, and now those children are looking testingly at each other. I don't know why I like you so terribly much. How can one know that? Yes, you have a lovely mouth and kind eyes, and you like me because I am good to hold, that's obvious. But why have I grown together with you? Why do I think I understand you even when I don't understand? Why do I imagine I am thinking your thoughts and feeling your feelings? That's a mystery and perhaps when all is said and done, it is “the mystery of Love.” So you see how philosophical I become as I sit here in the bishop's room writing to you in nothing but my nightgown and a cardigan and bedsocks. It's icy cold along the floor, but the reason I am so solemn may have something to do with all the episcopal thoughts that have got absorbed into the walls over the years. Good night, my darling husband! I also think we live in a dream, but I wake up again and again and realize with a shudder of joy that I've woken to another dream, which is even better than the one I have just dreamed.

She signs the letter without reading it through, turns out the lamp, and plunges into the chaste, magnificent bed. She hasn't pulled down the blinds, and the moonlight is sharp against the square windowpanes.

The day is cold and clear, and there's nothing wrong with the lighting. The sunlight radiates around the yellow house and the birches. The
house sits beautifully on the slope leading down to the swiftly flowing river and the rapids. In the overgrown garden there are fruit trees, berry bushes, and weed-filled beds for flowers and herbs. Against the west wall of the house is a lilac arbor, broken chairs, and a ruined table, and near the kitchen entrance there is a green pump standing on guard, a rusty bucket overturned on the cover of the well. The fire ladder has lost several rungs, and some of the kitchen tiles are missing.