Chapter 4

It was headed by a ship, with sailors and everything else belonging to it; next walruses came and polar bears, and all the rest of it; then students in disguise, representing the heroes; the Great Man himself was represented in his fur coat and goggles. It wasn’t quite respectful, of course; it wasn’t a very great honour to be impersonated in this way; but there it was! It was well meant, no doubt. And gradually every member of the expedition passed by, one after the other, all represented by the students.

Last of all came the leadsman. It was true, nobody could ever have dreamt of calling him handsome, but there is no need for a man to be handsome, as long as he is an able leadsman, or anything else able. The students had chosen a hideous old grumbler to impersonate him. That alone would not have mattered; but nature had made one of his arms shorter than the other, and his representative had made a feature of this defect. And that was too bad; for a defect is something for which one ought not to be blamed.

But when the fool who played the leadsman approached the balcony, he said a few words with a provincial accent, intended to cast ridicule on the leadsman, who was born in one of the provinces. It was a silly thing to do, for every man speaks the dialect which his mother has taught him; and it is nothing at all to be ashamed of.

Everybody laughed, more from politeness than anything else, for the entertainment was gratuitous, but the girl was hurt, for she hated to see her future husband laughed at. The leadsman frowned and grew silent. He no longer enjoyed the festivities. But he carefully hid his real feelings, for otherwise he would have been laughed at for a fool unable to appreciate a joke. But still worse things happened, for his impersonator danced and cut all sorts of ridiculous antics, in the endeavour to act the leadsman’s name in dumb charade; first his surname, which he had inherited from his father, and then his Christian name, which his mother had chosen for him at his baptism. These names were sacred to him, and although there may have been a little boastful sound about them, he had always scorned to change them.

He wanted to rise from his chair and leave, but his sweetheart caught hold of his hand, and he stayed where he was.

When, the procession was over and everybody who had been sitting on the balcony had risen, the great man laid a friendly hand on the girl’s shoulder, and said, with his kindly smile:--

“They have a strange way here of celebrating their heroes, one mustn’t mind it!”

In the evening there was a garden party and the leadsman was present, but his pleasure was gone; he had been laughed at, and he had grown small in his own estimation, smaller than the fool, who had made quite a hit as a jester. Therefore he was despondent, felt uneasy at the thought of the future and doubtful of his own capability. And wherever he went he met the fool who was caricaturing him. He saw his faults enlarged, especially his pride and his boastfulness; all his secret thoughts and weaknesses were made public.

For three painful hours he examined the account book of his conscience; what no man had dared to tell him before, the fool had told him. Perfect knowledge of oneself is a splendid thing, Socrates calls it the highest of all goods. Towards the end of the evening the leadsman had conquered himself, admitted his faults, and resolved to turn over a new leaf.

As he was passing a group of people he heard a voice behind a hedge saying:--

“It’s extraordinary, how the leadsman has improved. He’s really quite a delightful fellow!”

These words did him good; but what pleased him more than anything else were a few whispered words from his sweetheart.

“You are so nice to-night,” she said, “that you look quite handsome.”

He handsome? It must have been a miracle then, and miracles don’t happen nowadays. Yet he had to believe in a miracle, for he knew himself to be a very plain man.

Finally the Great Man touched his glass with his knife, and immediately there was silence, for every body wanted to hear what he had to say.

“When a Roman conqueror was granted a triumphal procession,” he began, “a slave always stood behind him in the chariot and incessantly called out, ‘Remember that you are but a man!’ while senate and people paid him homage. And at the side of the triumphal car, which was drawn by four horses, walked a fool, whose business it was to dim the splendour of his triumph by shouting insults, and casting suspicion on the hero’s character by singing libellous songs. This was a good old custom, for there is nothing so fatal to a man than to believe that he is a god, and there is nothing the gods dislike so much as the pride of men. My dear young friends! The success which we, who have just returned home, have achieved, has perhaps been overrated, our triumph went to our heads, and therefore it was good for us to watch your antics to-day! I don’t envy the jester his part--far from it; but I thank you for the somewhat strange homage which you have done us. It has taught me that I have still a good deal to learn, and whenever my head is in danger of being turned by flattery, it will remind me that I am nothing but an ordinary man!”

“Hear! Hear!” exclaimed the leadsman, and the festivities continued, undisturbed even by the fool, who had felt a little ashamed of himself and had quietly withdrawn from the scene.

So much for the Great Man and the leadsman. Now let us see what happened to the fool.

As he was standing close to the table during the Great Man’s speech, he received a glance from the leadsman, which, like a small fiery arrow, was capable of setting a fortress aflame. And as he went out into the night, he felt beside himself, like a man who is clothed in sheets of fire. He was not a nice man. True, fools and jailers are human beings, like the rest of us, but they are not the very nicest specimen. Like everybody else he had many faults and weaknesses, but he knew how to cloak them. Now something extraordinary happened. Through having mimicked the leadsman all day long, and also, perhaps, owing to all the drink he had consumed, he had become so much the part which he had played that he was unable to shake it off; and since he had brought into prominence the faults and weaknesses of the leadsman, he had, as it were, acquired them, and that flash from the leadsman’s eye had rammed them down to the very bottom of his soul, just as a ramrod pushes the powder into the barrel of a gun. He was charged with the leadsman, so to speak, and therefore, as he stepped out into the street he at once began to shout and boast. But this time luck was against him. A policeman ordered him to be quiet. The fool said something funny, imitating the leadsman’s provincial accent. But the policeman, who happened to be a native of the same province, was annoyed and wanted to arrest the fool. Now it is just as difficult for a fool to take a thing seriously as it is for a policeman to understand a joke; therefore the fool resisted and created such a disturbance that the policeman struck him with his truncheon.

He received a sound beating, and then the policeman let him go.

You would think that he had had enough trouble now--far from it!

The chastisement which he had received had only embittered him, and he went on the warpath, like a red Indian, to see on whom he might avenge his wrongs.

Accident, or some other power, guided his footsteps to a locality mainly frequented by peasants and labourers. He entered a brewery and found a number of millers and farmer’s labourers sitting round a table, drinking the health of the explorers. When they saw the fool they took him for the leadsman, and were highly delighted when he condescended to take a glass in their company.

Now the demon of pride entered into the soul of the fool. He boasted of his great achievements; he told them that it was he who had led the expedition, for would they not have foundered if he had not sounded the depth of the sea? Would they ever have returned home if he had not read the stars?

Smack! an egg hit him between the eyebrows.

“Leadsman, you’re a braggart!” said the miller. “We’ve known that for a long time; we knew it when you wrote to the paper saying the Great Man was another Humboldt!”

Now another of the leadsman’s weaknesses gained the upper hand.

“The Great Man is a humbug!” he exclaimed, which was not true.

This was too much for the assembly. They rose from their seats like one man, seized the fool, and with a leather strap bound him to a sack of flour. They covered him with flour until he was white from top to toe, and blackened his face with the wick from one of the lanterns. The millers’ apprentice sewed him to the sack; they lifted him, sack and lantern, on to the cart, and amid shouting and laughter proceeded to the market-place.

There he was exhibited to the passers-by, and everybody laughed at him.

When they let him go at last, he went and sat on some stone stairs and cried. The big fellow sobbed like a little child; one might almost have felt sorry for him.

WHAT THE TREE-SWALLOW SANG IN THE BUCKTHORN TREE

If you are standing at the harbour where all the steamers call, and look out towards the sea, you will see a mountain on your left, covered with green trees, and behind the trees a large house built in the shape of a spider. For in the centre there is a round building from which radiate eight wings, that look very much like the eight legs on the round body of a spider. The people who enter the house do not leave it again at will, and some of them stay there for the rest of their life, for the house is a prison.

In the days of King Oscar I, the mountain was not green. On the contrary, it was grey and cold, for neither moss nor heart’s-ease would grow there, although these plants generally thrive on the bare rock. There was nothing but grey stone and grey people, who looked as if they had been turned into stone, and who quarried stone, broke stone, and carried stone. And among these people there was one who looked stonier than all the others.

He was still a youth when, in the reign of King Oscar I., he was shut up in this prison because he had killed a man.

He was a prisoner for life, and sewn on his grey prison garb was a large black “L.”

He was always on the mountain, in winter days and summer time, breaking stones. In the winter he had only the empty and deserted harbour to look at; the semicircular bridge with its poles had the appearance of a yawning row of teeth, and he could see the wood-shed, the riding-school, and the two gigantic, denuded lime trees. Sometimes an ice-yacht would sail past the islet; sometimes a few boys would pass on skates; otherwise it was quiet and forsaken.

In the summer time it was much jollier. For then the harbour was full of smart boats, newly painted and decorated with flags. And the lime trees, in the shade of which he had sat when he was a child, waiting for his father, who was an engineer on one of the finest boats, were green.

It was many years now since he had heard the rustling of the breeze in the trees, for nothing grew on his cliff, and the only thing in the world he longed for was to hear once again the whispering of the wind in the branches of the lime trees at Knightsholm.

Sometimes, on a summer’s day, a steamer would pass the islet; then he heard the plashing of the waves, or, perhaps, snatches of music; and he saw bright faces which grew dark as soon as their eyes fell on the grey stone men on the mountain.

And then he cursed heaven and earth, his fate and the cruelty of men. He cursed, year in, year out. And he and his companions tormented and cursed each other day and night; for crime isolates, but misfortune draws men together.

In the beginning his fate was unnecessarily cruel, for the keepers ill-treated the prisoners, mercilessly and at their pleasure.

But one day there was a change; the food was better, the treatment was less harsh, and every prisoner was given a cell of his own to sleep in. The king himself had loosened the chains of the prisoners a little; but since hopelessness had petrified the hearts of these unfortunate men, they were unable to feel anything like gratitude, and so they continued to curse; and now they came to the conclusion that it was more pleasant to sleep together in one room, for then they could talk all night. And they continued to complain of the food, the clothes, and the treatment, just as before.

One fine day all the bells of the town were ringing, and those of Knightsholm rang louder than any of the others. King Oscar was dead, and the prisoners had a holiday. Since they could talk to one another now, they talked of murdering the guards and escaping from prison; and they also talked of the dead king, and they spoke evil of him.

“If he had been a just man, he would have set us free,” said one of the prisoners.

“Or else he would have imprisoned all the criminals who are at large.”

“Then he himself would have had to be Governor of the Prison, for the whole nation are criminals.”

It is the way of prisoners to regard all men as criminals, and to maintain that they themselves were only caught because they were unlucky.

But it was a hot summer’s day, and the stone man walked along the shore, listening to the tolling of the bells for Oscar the king. He raised the stones and looked for tadpoles and sticklebacks, but could find none; not a fish was visible in the water, and consequently there was not a sign of a sea-gull or a tern. Then he felt that a curse rested on the mountain, a curse so strong that it kept even the fishes and the birds away. He fell to considering the life he was leading. He had lost his name, both Christian and surname, and was no more now than No. 65, a name written in figures, instead of in letters. He was no longer obliged to pay taxes. He had forgotten his age. He had ceased to be a man, ceased to be a living being, but neither was he dead. He was nothing but something grey moving on the mountain and being terribly scorched by the sun. It burned on his prison garb and on his head with the close-cropped hair, which in days long passed had been curly, and was combed with a tooth-comb every Saturday by his mother’s gentle hand. He was not allowed to wear a cap to-day, because it would have facilitated an attempt at escape. And as the sun scorched his head, he remembered the story of the prophet Jonah, to whom the Lord gave a gourd so that he might sit in its shade.

“A nice gift, that!” he sneered, for he did not believe in anything good; in fact, he did not believe in anything at all.

All at once he saw a huge birch branch tossed about in the surf. It was quite green and fresh and had a white stem; possibly it had fallen off a pleasure-boat. He dragged it ashore, shook the water off and carried it to a gully where he put it up, wedged firmly between three stones. Then he sat down and listened to the wind rustling through its leaves, which smelt of the finest resin.

When he had sat for a little while in the shade of the birch he fell asleep.

And he dreamed a dream.

The whole mountain was a green wood with lovely trees and odorous flowers. Birds were singing, bees and humble-bees buzzing, and butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. But all by itself and a little aside stood a tree which he did not know; it was more beautiful than all the rest; it had several stems, like a shrub, and the branches looked like lacework. And on one of its branches, half hidden by its foliage, sat a little black-and-white bird which looked like a swallow, but wasn’t one.

In his dream he could interpret the language of the birds, and therefore he understood to some extent what the bird was singing. And it sang:

Mud, mud, mud, mud here! We’ll throw, throw, throw here! In mud, mud, mud you died, From mud, mud, mud you’ll rise.

It sang of mud, death, and resurrection; that much he could make out.

But that was not all. He was standing alone on the cliff in the scorching heat of the sun. All his fellows-in-misfortune had forsaken him and threatened his life, because he had refused to be a party to their setting the prison on fire. They followed him in a crowd, threw stones at him and chased him up the mountain as far as he could go.

And finally he was stopped by a stone wall.

There was no possibility of climbing over it, and in his despair he resolved to kill himself by dashing his head against the stones. He rushed down the mountain, and behold! a gate was opened at the same moment--a green garden gate... and... he woke up.

When he thought of his life and realised that the green wood was nothing but the branch of a birch tree, he grew very discontented in his heart.

“If at least it had been a lime tree,” he grumbled. And as he listened he found that it was the birch which had sung so loudly; it sounded as if some one were sifting sand or gravel, and again he thought of the lime trees, which make the soft velvety sounds that touch the heart.

On the following day his birch was faded and gave little shade.

On the day after that the foliage was as dry as paper and rattled like teeth. And finally there was nothing left but a huge birch rod, which reminded him of his childhood.

He remembered the gourd of the prophet Jonah, and he cursed when the sun scorched his head.

***

A new king had come to the throne, and he brought fresh life into the government of the country. The town was to have a new watercourse, and therefore all the prisoners were commanded to dredge.

It was for the first time after many years that he was allowed to leave his cliff. He was in the boat, swimming on the water, and saw much in his native town that was new to him; he saw the railway and the locomotive. And they began dredging just below the railway station.

And gradually they brought up all the corruption which lay buried at the bottom of the sea. Drowned cats, old shoes, decomposed fat from the candle factory, the refuse from the dye works called “The Blue Hand,” tanners’ bark from the tannery, and all the human misery which the laundresses had batted off the clothes for the last hundred years. And there was such a terrible smell of sulphur and ammonia that only a prisoner could be expected to bear it.

When the boat was full, the prisoners wondered what was going to be done with their cargo of dirt? The riddle was solved when the overseer steered for their own cliff.

All the mud was unloaded there and thrown on the mountain, and soon the air was filled with the foulest of smells. They waded ankle-deep in filth, and their clothes, hands, and faces were covered with it.

“This is like the infernal regions!” said the prisoners.

They dredged and unloaded on the cliff for several years, and ultimately the cliff disappeared altogether.

And the white snow fell winter after winter on all the corruption and threw a pure white cover over it.

And when the spring came once again and all the snow had melted, the evil smell had disappeared, and the mud looked like mould. There was no more dredging after this spring, and our stone man was sent to work at the forge and never came near the cliff. Only once, in the autumn, he went there secretly, and then he saw something wonderful.

The ground was covered with green plants. Ugly sappy plants, it was true, mostly bur-marigolds, that look like a nettle with brown flowers, which is ugly because flowers should be white, yellow, blue or red. And there were true nettles with green blossoms, and burs, sorrel, thistles, and notch-weed; all the ugliest, burning, stinging, evil-smelling plants, which nobody likes, and which grow on dust-heaps, waste land, and mud.

“We cleaned the bottom of the sea, and now we have all the dirt here; this is all the thanks we get!” said the prisoner.

Then he was transferred to another cliff, where a fort was to be built, and again he worked in stone; stone, stone, stone!

Then he lost one of his eyes, and sometimes he was flogged. And he remained a very long time there, so long that the new king died and was followed by his successor. On coronation day one of the prisoners was to be released. And it was to be the one who had behaved best during all the time and had arrived at a clear understanding that he had sinned. And that was he! But the other prisoners considered that it would be a wrong towards them, for in their circles a man who repents is considered a fool, “because he has done what he couldn’t help doing.”

And so the years passed. Our stone man had grown very old, and because he was now unable to do hard work, he was sent back to his cliff and set to sew sacks.

One day the chaplain on his round paused before the stone man, who sat and sewed.

“Well,” said the clergyman, “and are you never to leave this cliff?”

“How would that be possible?” replied the stone man.

“You will go as soon as you come to see that you did wrong.”

“If ever I find a human being who does not only do right, but more than is right, I will believe that I did wrong! But I don’t believe that there is such a being.”

“To do more than that which is right is to have compassion. May it please God that you will soon come to know it!”

One day the stone man was sent to repair the road on the cliff, which he had not seen for, perhaps, twenty years.

It was again a warm summer’s day, and from the passing steamers, bright and beautiful as butterflies, came the sounds of music and gay laughter.

When he arrived at the headland he found that the cliff had disappeared under a lovely green wood, whose millions of leaves glittered and sparkled in the breeze like small waves. There were tall, white birch trees and trembling aspens, and ash trees grew on the shore.

Everything was just as it had been in his dream. At the foot of the trees tall grasses nodded, butterflies played in the sunshine, and humble-bees buzzed from flower to flower. The birds were singing, but he could not understand what they said, and therefore he knew that it was not a dream.

The cursed mountain had been transformed into a mountain of bliss, and he could not help thinking of the prophet and the gourd.

“This is mercy and compassion,” whispered a voice in his heart, or perhaps it was a warning.

And when a steamer passed, the faces of the passengers did not grow gloomy, but brightened at the sight of the beautiful scenery; he even fancied that he saw some one wave a handkerchief, as people on a steamer do when they pass a summer resort.

He walked along a path beneath waving trees. It is true, there was not one lime tree; but he did not dare to wish for one, for fear the birches might turn into rods. He had learnt that much.

As he walked through a leafy avenue, he saw in the distance a white wall with a green gate. And somebody was playing on an instrument which was not an organ, for the movement was much jollier and livelier. Above the wall the pretty roof of a villa was visible, and a yellow and blue flag fluttered in the wind.

And he saw a gaily coloured ball rise and fall on the other side of the wall; he heard the chattering of children’s voices, and the clinking of plates and glasses told him that a table was being laid.

He went and looked through the gate. The syringa was in full flower, and the table stood under the flowering shrubs; children were running about, the piano was being played and somebody sang a song.

“This is Paradise,” said the voice within him.

The old man stood a long time and watched, so long that in the end he broke down, overcome by fatigue, hunger, and thirst, and all the misery of life.

Then the gate was opened and a little girl in a white dress came out. She carried a silver tray in her hand, and on the tray stood a glass filled with wine, the reddest wine which the old man had ever seen. And the child went up to the old man and said:

“Come now, daddy, you must drink this!”