The Emigrants (8 page)

For six weeks every year during three succeeding years he attended the school held by Rinaldo. Schooling came easily to him; the very first year he learned to read and write. Though Rinaldo had only one eye, he had seen more of this world than most of the parishioners with two. Once he had been as far away as Gothenburg, where he had seen the sea, and he told the children about his life’s adventures. They enjoyed this more than the Little Catechism and the Biblical history put together.

The day Robert finished school he received a book as a gift from the schoolmaster. It was a
History of Nature.
Rinaldo said that when school days were finished, children seldom touched a book; but if they never improved their reading ability, they would soon lose it. He gave this book to Robert so that he might continue reading when he finished school.

The
History of Nature
was Robert’s first possession. But for more than a year it happened that he didn’t open his book. During the winter he attended confirmation class at the dean’s, and also helped his brother Karl Oskar fell oaks. The oak timbers would later be brought to Karlshamn to be used for shipbuilding. They cut pines, too, the tallest in the forest, for masts on ships. While Robert helped with tree felling and the sawing of timbers which were to travel on the sea, he followed the ships-to-be in thought. The harbor town of Karlshamn was fifty miles away, and the peasants bringing timbers there needed two days and a night for the round trip. Robert thought that he would like to ride with the timbermen to Karlshamn in order to see the sea with his own eyes.

Nils and Märta churned and sold some ten pounds of butter from their own cow in order to raise money for a Bible to give their son at his first Communion. The Bible he received was bound in leather and cost one riksdaler and thirty-two shillings—the same amount as the price of a newborn calf. But it was a Bible that would stand wear and tear; the Holy Writ must be bound in leather to last a lifetime.

Robert now owned two books, one worldly and one religious. Rinaldo had said that all people ought to read these books—from one they learned about the body and all earthly things, from the other about the soul and things spiritual. The
History of Nature
contained all Robert needed to know about this world; the Bible, about the world hereafter.

But Robert was still in this world, and he must now go out and earn his living. His father made all the decisions for his minor son. Nils had arranged for him to serve one year as farmhand in Nybacken, about a mile from Korpamoen. But Robert did not wish to serve. He argued with his parents that he did not like to have a master; couldn’t he somehow avoid the service in Nybacken?

Nils and Märta were disturbed to hear their younger son speak thus, and reprimanded him soundly: What kind of poor wretch was he, unwilling to work for food and clothing when hale and hearty? Would he like to become one of the tramps on the roads, or a beggar from the squatters’ sheds in the wastelands? Or did he want to remain at home, a burden to his parents who lived but on reserved rights? And he soon fifteen! He ought to be ashamed of himself! His sister Lydia had been a maidservant for several years now. They were too many here in Korpamoen; Karl Oskar could not feed him, he could not afford a servant. Moreover, his father had hired him to Aron in Nybacken, and received the earnest money, according to the servant law—the contract could not be torn up and changed. Aron was to pay good wages: the first year Robert would receive thirty daler in money, one wadmal suit, and one pair of short-legged boots. He should be pleased, and he should also be thankful to his parents who had arranged this service for him.

So one May morning in 1848, at sunup, Robert Nilsson left his parental home to start his first service as farmhand. His mother had made a bundle of his belongings, tied in a woolen kerchief. She had gathered together his leather shoes, his wadmal pants, one Sunday shirt, and one pair of Sunday stockings. In one hand he carried the bundle, in the other three books, the Bible, the
History of Nature,
and the prayerbook which his mother had given him. The books were wrapped in paper so as not to become soiled.

It had rained during the night but now the sun shone down on the village road. A wet odor rose from the meadows on either side of the road where the rain had fallen on the fresh, new grass. The birches had just burst into leaf and shone green, and from the bushes came the twitter of birds at play. But the boy who wandered along the road with his two bundles felt no joy in the beauty of the spring morning around him. He was on his way to Nybacken, to begin the life of a farmhand, but he had never been asked if he wanted to become a hired hand in Nybacken. He dreaded the confinement of the service, he did not want to have a master. He was walking on the road to Nybacken but he did not wish to arrive. Now that he was grown older he was being pushed out from the home like a fledgling from the nest. He was the younger son, one of those without portion. And still, he did not envy his elder brother, who must poke between the stones, burdened with worries about the mortgage interest.

Robert stopped as he reached the bridge over the mill brook. What did it matter if he began his service half an hour earlier or later, at five o’clock or half-past? There would be ample time for work during the whole long year. He left the road and sat down at the edge of the brook. He took off his wooden shoes and his stockings and dangled his feet in the water. The brook rushed by, swollen with the spring rains. At last spring had come, and the water felt warm. It rippled around his feet, it whirled and bubbled between his toes, and he sat and watched it run away, passing by him, flowing under the bridge and hastening farther on. He saw the white bubbles of foam float on and disappear in the thicket of willows where the brook’s bed made a curve. This water was free; the water in the brook was not hired in Nybacken; it needn’t stay in the same place a whole year. It never remained in one place, it could travel anywhere. It could run all the way down to the sea, and then the way was open around the world, around the whole globe.

There would be no harm if he sat half an hour and watched the brook, a last half-hour before he became a hired hand.

In front of him in the creek bed there was a deep, black pool near a large stone. In this pool he had once drowned a cat, a gruesome memory. And there, beside the stone, a maid from Nybacken had drowned a few years ago. She had not drowned by will, she had slipped and fallen into the water as she stood on the stone and rinsed washing. The stone was so steep that she was unable to crawl up; her body was found in the pool. On the stone they had seen marks made by her fingernails: she had scratched and scraped with her nails, unable to get hold anywhere. Afterwards Robert had seen the marks and he could never forget them; the scratches told him of human terror at death.

A manservant could drown in that pool as well as a maid. When a hired hand sank into the water of the brook, no service contract would hold, and no earnest money which the servant had accepted on earth would have to be accounted for. A drowned farmhand had no master.

Robert considered this.

He unfolded the paper around his books. His mother had laid a little myrtle branch between the leaves of the prayerbook, and the book opened where the green branch lay: “A Servant’s Prayer.”

“O Lord Jesus Christe, God’s Son. You humbled Yourself in a servant’s shape. . . . Teach me to fear and love You in my daily work, and to be faithful, humble, and devoted to my temporal lords in all honesty. . . . What worldly good may fall to me I leave all to Your mild and fatherly pleasure. Teach me only to be godly at all times, and satisfied, and I will gain sufficiency. . . . Let me also find good and Christian masters who do not neglect or mistreat a poor servant, but keep me in love and patience. . . .”

Through the myrtle branch between the leaves his mother spoke to the young servant: Read this prayer! And Dean Brusander required at the yearly examinations that farmhands and maids should “so act in their poor situation that they could say by heart ‘A Servant’s Prayer.’”

But now Robert had in mind to read a piece from his
History of Nature.
He had turned the corner of the page and he found the place immediately:

“About the Size of the Sea:

“Many might wonder why the Creator has left so little space on the earth as home for man and beasts. For almost three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered by water. But he who learns to understand why water takes so much space shall therein see another proof of the Creator’s omnipotence and kindness.

“These great bodies of water which surround the firm land on all sides, and which have salt water, are called Sea. . . .”

Robert looked up from his book. He thought of the sea which was three times bigger than the firm land on which he sat. No one owned the sea. But the land was divided in homesteads, in quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and the farmers owned them. The one who owned no land became a servant to a landowner.

He thought: On land there were many roads to follow. There were others besides the one which led to Nybacken. There was a parting of the ways close by, at the bridge over the mill brook: the right one led to Nybacken, the left one brought you to Åbro mill—and if you continued on that road you would never reach Nybacken.

If you turned to the left you could disappear from the neighborhood. There were people who had disappeared from the parish; their names were still in the church book, written down under “End of the Parish.” The dean called their names at the yearly examination, and inquired about them. Every year he called the name of the farmhand Fredrik Emanuel Thron from Kvarntorpet; not heard from since 1833. Someone always answered that no one in the village knew where he was. And the dean wrote about him in his book: Whereabouts unknown. This was repeated every year: Fredrik from Kvarntorpet was not heard from. For fifteen years—the whole span of Robert’s life—the lost farmhand’s whereabouts had been unknown. This was the only thing Robert knew about Fredrik Thron from Kvarntorpet, and because he knew naught else he wondered about the lost one’s fate.

It had happened before that a farmhand had disappeared, had taken the wrong road.

When Robert was ready to pull on his stockings he missed one of his wooden shoes. It had fallen into the brook; now it floated on the water near the willow thicket, far out of reach. He stood there, startled that his wooden shoe could float. Now it caught on the branches of the willows where the brook turned. The water gushed and swirled round the shoe and Robert stood there and saw his own foot kick and splash; he saw himself lying there, drowning in the brook.

What he had just now vaguely thought of had begun to happen by itself. It only remained for him to complete it.

He stuffed his stockings into the remaining shoe and threw it into the brook. Then he took off his jacket and let it follow after and was pleased when he saw it float on the water. Then he picked up his two bundles and went up on the bridge. At the parting of the roads on the other side of the bridge he turned to the left; he took the road that did not lead to Nybacken, he took the wrong road.

Caught on a branch of the big willow at the bend of the brook there now could be seen a boy’s little jacket. As the running water in the brook swung the branches back and forth, the arms of the jacket would wave to anyone passing the bridge, telling what had become of the hired hand on his way to Nybacken to begin his service: he had drowned in the mill brook, as the maid had done a few years earlier.

—2—

The ground under Robert’s feet felt cold in the shadow of the wood: it was too early in the year to go barefooted. He had walked only a short distance when someone pulled up behind him. Robert prayed in his heart that it might be a timberman on his way to Karlshamn; then he would ask if he could ride with him. But it was only Jonas Petter of Hästebäck, their nearest neighbor in Korpamoen, on his way to the mill with grain. He stopped. Yes, Robert could sit up on the sacks beside him and ride with him to Åbro mill.

Robert crawled onto the wagon and sat down next to the farmer. Jonas Petter of Hästebäck was a kind man: he did not ask where Robert was going; he said only that it was dangerous to walk barefooted so early in the spring. Robert answered that he walked easier without shoes and stockings. Apparently Jonas Petter had not noticed the jacket as he passed the bridge.

In the mill room at Åbro there were already three farmers, waiting for their grind. They were unknown to Robert. He remained with them in the mill room, where it was nice and warm; a big fire burned in the stove, and the air smelled sweetly of flour and grain.

The peasants ate food which they had brought along and drank brännvin with it, and one of them gave Robert a slice of bread and a dram. He dunked the bread in the brännvin as children were wont to do, and he was a little conscious of this, now that he was almost grown.

The men had driven their grain wagons far alone, and now in company they were conversing loudly and noisily. Jonas Petter of Hästebäck stretched himself full length on some empty sacks in front of the fire. He was a tall-grown man with fine black side whiskers.

Below the mill room the grindstones went their even pace and rumbled softly, like thunder at a distance; it was otherwise peaceful and quiet in here. Robert sat in front of the fire next to Jonas Petter. He was not going to work as a hired man, and his heart was light.

“We all remember old Axelina here at Åbro,” said Jonas Petter, “but does anyone remember how she got the mill and became the richest wench in the parish?”

The answers from the other peasants all were negative. No one had such a good memory as Jonas Petter; he knew all the old stories of the region, and now he must tell about Axelina, whom he remembered as the owner of the mill while he was still a youth.

She was an ingenious and clever woman, this Axelina. She came as a maid to Frans the Miller, who had owned the mill for many years and had had time to steal so much flour from the sacks that he had become as rich as ten trolls. At this time he was old and sickly, and Axelina made up her mind that she was to inherit from him. And now she went about it in the only way a woman can under such circumstances: she tried to inveigle him into carnal connections with her. In the evenings after he had gone to bed she would come into his room in her shift, and as often as she could she displayed her attractions. But Frans was played out, slow in the blood—no longer to be tempted.