Part 2

«I got this from mamma, too, when she was in the ballet.»

She took a thin, light blue veil with silver spangles and draped it around Martin’s head. Then he was given a red bodice, a shawl of silver gauze, and a white skirt.

«My, but you look funny!» said Ida. «Just like a girl.»

Martin looked at himself in the glass and they both roared with laughter.

«Come here,» said Ida, «and I’ll put mustaches on you.»

Martin didn’t think mustaches would fit, if he was to be a girl. But Ida didn’t mind about that; she blackened a cork over a candle and traced big black mustaches on Martin, then she put black eyebrows on herself. After that they looked into the mirror again and laughed.

«It’s so handsome to have black eyebrows,» said Ida. «Don’t you think I’m handsome?»

«Uhm,» said Martin.

Ida was full of resources.

«If you’ll be terribly nice, we’ll have a banquet.»

She went to a cupboard and hunted out a half-filled bottle of wine and a couple of green glasses. Then she laid the cloth on a toilet table and filled the glasses.

Martin’s eyes grew big.

«Does your papa let you?»

«Oh, yes. He lets me do whatever I like. My papa is nice. Is your papa nice?»

«Yes,» answered Martin.

They clinked glasses and drank. It was a sweet and pleasant wine, and its dark red shone splendidly in the green glasses.

Outside it had begun to snow. There were great heavy flakes; the window sill was already white. It was the first snowfall, and the church bells rang in the black cupola: «Bing bong, bing bong!» Martin and Ida knelt on a chair with their arms around each other’s necks and their noses pressed against the pane.

But Ida poured out more wine and clinked glasses with Martin. Then she took down an old violin from the wall and began to play, and while she played she danced and swayed, wearing a white veil. It sounded very queer the way Ida played the violin. Martin held his ears, laughed, sung, and screamed. But then Martin began to notice a creepy feeling down his back, and he recalled that his mother had said Ida Dupont had fleas.

... Martin was in the sleeping alcove, peeping about. Farthest away in the semi-darkness was an image of the madonna behind two half-burned wax candles, and below hung a crucifix.

Martin stared in astonishment.

«What’s that?» he asked.

Ida became very solemn and answered in a low voice, nearly whispering, «That is our religion.»

Mr. Dupont was a Catholic.

«Wait,» said Ida, «sit over there and be quiet, and I’ll teach you our religion.»

Ida swathed herself in pink tulle with gold spangles. Then she advanced and lighted the candles under the madonna, two calm bright flames. On a little stand below the crucifix she lighted a pastille of incense. In long blue clouds the incense curled from under the curtain of the alcove, and the air grew heavy with a strong spicy fragrance.

The madonna glowed like a theatre queen with red, blue, and gold, and the stars on her mantle blinked and sparkled in the light of the wax candles.

Martin shivered with delight.

But Ida fell on her knees before the madonna. Her thick, dark-red plaits glowed like bright copper in the candlelight. She muttered something which Martin did not understand, and made strange gestures with her hands.

«What’s that?» inquired Martin; «why do you act so?»

«Tst! That is our religion.»

And Ida stayed on in the alcove. Her large black eyes had a sparkling glow. But Martin had an odd feeling of heaviness in the head.

«Come here and join in,» bade Ida. «Don’t you think it’s beautiful?»

Martin sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to imitate Ida’s gestures. But soon he began to nod. His head was so heavy, so heavy.

When Mr. Dupont came home, the two children were lying asleep on the bed. The wax candles had burned out.

--IV--

Autumn advanced over the earth, and in the city where Martin lived the houses were gray and black with rain and smoke, and the days grew shorter.

But when the afternoon came and the dusk fell, Martin Birck’s father often sat by the fire and looked at the embers. He was no longer young. He had a smooth-shaven face with sharply marked features, like an actor’s or a priest’s; and he had a way of laughing to himself without saying anything, which inspired respect and a certain feeling of insecurity. But when he laughed in this way his laugh was not taken for weakness or imbecility by his fellows, for there was nothing satiric in his temperament; he was merely laughing at an anecdote he had read in the morning paper, or at a couple of dogs that had barked at the lions around Charles XIII’s statue when he had passed through the square at noon on his way home from the office. For Martin Birck’s father was a government clerk. Although his salary was not large and he had no private means, he knew how to arrange things so that he and his family could lead a comparatively carefree existence, for his taste was given only to innocent and simple pleasures, and no feeling of vanity drove him to seek association with people who were above him in rank or fortune. He was the son of a mechanic, and when he chanced to think about his lot in life, he did not compare it with that of his superiors or his wealthy comrades but recalled instead the poor home from which he had come. He decided then that he was lucky and only wished that the luck he had should never be dimmed. He was fond of his wife and children and loved nothing in the world as much as his home. When he was free from his official duties he liked to work with his hands. He mended broken furniture; he could in an emergency even repair the old kitchen clock, which had flowers painted on its face and great brass weights on chains. He also manufactured funny and ingenious playthings for his children and neat little ornaments for his wife on her birthday. Among these was a little temple of white cardboard. It was adorned with narrow gold borders, and behind a semicircle of slender columns was a mirror, which seemed to double the number of the pillars. A spiral staircase led to the top of the temple, which was surrounded by a balustrade of marbled paper, the staircase being also of cardboard covered with marble; but in the bottom stair was a little drawer which could be pulled out. In this drawer Martin’s mother found every year on her birthday a folded banknote or a little piece of jewelry.

He also loved music and song. He liked to sing «Gluntar» with an old student comrade, Uncle Abraham, who sometimes came to visit him, and he could improvise on the piano and play by ear various pieces from his favorite operas.

But he seldom read anything except his paper.

* * * * *

Martin Birck’s mother, when twilight fell, often sat at the piano and sang to her own accompaniment. She had the sweetest of voices. The songs she sang were such as no one sings any more. At these times Martin and Maria would stand behind her stool and listen entranced; sometimes they tried to join in. There was a song about a soldier treasuring a canteen from which he had given a dying prince a drink on the field of battle. «’Twas from that His Highness drank,» was the refrain. And there was another song about a shepherdess who was tending her flock in a defile among the Alps. Suddenly she heard the roar of an avalanche and hurried to her charges: «Run fast, run fast, my lambs!» As Martin’s mother sang, her hands glided over the yellowed keys of the instrument. The strings had a brittle, glassy sound, and the pedals sighed and groaned. A string was broken in the bass, and it would buzz now and again.

There was a sense of loneliness when she had stopped singing.

Martin was drifting here and there. The room seemed to grow larger and more empty when twilight came. Finally he turned to grandmother, who was sitting by the window reading the Stockholm _Journal_.

«Tell us a story, please, grandmother,» Martin begged.

But grandmother didn’t know any new stories, and the old ones Martin had heard many times before. Grandmother continued to read the paper with her glasses far down on her nose.

«Lord deliver us,» she suddenly exclaimed, looking up from the paper, «did you see there’s a Miss Oldhusen has died?»

«No, is she dead?» remarked Martin’s father.

«Do you suppose she was a sister of the Secretary?»

«Goodness, no; she was his aunt,» said grandmother. «Her name was Pella, Pella Oldhusen. I remember her very well, I met her at Vaxholm. A plaguy smart and amusing woman she was, but she was a kleptomaniac. Her acquaintances used to say, ‹Be careful, my dear, and don’t leave anything around loose this evening; Pella Oldhusen’s coming!› There was a girl she took up. When the girl was to be got ready for her first communion, Miss Oldhusen stole her old housekeeper’s linen underskirts that hung in the same wardrobe with her own clothes and had them made up for the girl. It’s God’s own truth; I heard it from a lady that knew all about her and the whole family. ‹Look here, Miss Oldhusen,› the housekeeper said to her, for she had been with her many years and knew her peculiarities; ‹look here, Miss Oldhusen, there’s been thieves in the wardrobe! And the mischief’s in it, they’ve stolen all my underskirts, but not yours, though they were hanging side by side.› ‹Could anyone imagine such rascals?› said Pella. ‹That’s frightfully annoying, but what can I do about it?› Just the same she gave the housekeeper money for new linen a while afterward, for she was well off and not stingy neither; but the girl went to the blessed Lord’s Supper in the stolen underskirts.»

Martin and Maria listened with wide-open mouths. Grandmother had told a story, after all. Of such stories she knew plenty.

* * * * *

Father had lighted a cigar and pushed his chair nearer the fire. He now motioned to Martin and Maria: «Come, children, now we’ll play.»

The blaze had almost burned out. Father broke apart two or three empty match boxes and built out of the fragments a house away deep in the porcelain stove. He put in a lot of matches as pillars and beams and lastly twisted up a bit of stiff paper; that was a tower. At the top of the twist he cut a hole for a chimney. All this was now a stately castle like the old Stockholm castles in Dahlberg’s _Swedish Monuments_. When it was done, father set fire to all the corners.

It hissed and sputtered and burned.

«Look--just look how it’s burning!--now the farthest corner is catching--now the eastern gate’s on fire, now it’s falling!--and the tower’s burning, the tower’s tumbling----»

«Now it’s over.»

«Again, papa,» begged Martin. «Oh, again! Just once more!»

«No, not just once more,» said father; «it’s no fun the second time.»

Martin begged and implored. But father went over to the piano and stroked his wife’s hair.

Martin remained sitting in front of the fire. His cheeks burned but he couldn’t tear himself away. It flamed and glowed so finely away in there. It glimmered and glowed and burned.

Finally grandmother came, shut the damper, and put down the slats. Then Martin went to the window.

The sun was gone long ago. It had cleared a while, but murky cloud masses were driving along in broken lines over the thin, glassy blue of the sky. Long Row lay in deep twilight. The lindens and cherry trees of the garden were stripped of leaves, and here and there a light was already gleaming in a window from out the dark net of boughs. Down on the street the lamplighter went about his task; he was old and bent, and had a leather cap which came far down over his forehead. Now he came to the lamp just in front of the window on the opposite side of the street; when he had lighted it, the whole room brightened. The white lace curtains outlined their broken pattern on the ceiling and walls, while the calla lilies and fuchsias painted fantastic shadows.

It grew darker and darker.

One could see so far up above--far off over the low buildings of the old suburb with its wooden houses and gardens. One could see Humlegård Park with the roof of the rotunda between the old naked lindens. And farthest off in the west rose a gray outline, the Observatory on its hill.

The deep and empty blue of the October heavens became still more deep and still more empty. Toward the west it was suffused with a red that looked dirty with mist and soot.

Martin traced outlines with his finger on the pane, which had begun to be damp.

«Will it soon be Christmas, grandma?»

«Oh, not for a good bit, child.»

Martin stood a long while with his nose pressed against the pane staring at the sky, a melancholy twilight sky with clouds of pale red and gray.

--V--

But when the lamp was lighted and they sat around the table, each with his own work or book or paper, Martin went off and sat in a corner. For he had suddenly become sad without knowing why. There he sat in the dark, staring in at the circle of yellow light in which the others sat and talked, while he felt himself outside, abandoned and forgotten.

It did not help that Maria hunted out an old volume of _Near and Far_ to show him Garibaldi and the war in Poland and Emperor Napoleon III with his pointed mustaches; he had seen them all many times. Nor did it help that she gave him a piece of paper and taught him to fold it into the shape of a salt-cellar, a crow, or a catamaran; for, though he did not know it, Martin only longed for some one to say or do something that would make him cry. It was therefore he sat moody and silent, listening to the rain that whipped against the window, for it had begun to rain again, and the wind shook the glass.

What was that? Did he suddenly hear father say to mother: «Perhaps you’re right that we ought to try to sell the piano and buy a pianino on instalment. It goes out of tune in a couple of weeks, and a pianino would be prettier.»

Martin gave a start at the words «sell the piano.» He had no clear idea of what a pianino was, but he didn’t believe it could be a real piano; he pictured it rather as something that was worked with a handle. He didn’t believe any other instrument could sound as beautiful as their piano. He loved every dent and every crack in the red mahogany frame, for he himself had made most of them, and he remembered almost every key from its special color. Sell the piano! To his ears it sounded like something impossible. It was almost as if he had heard his parents calmly sitting and talking about selling grandmother and buying an aunt instead.

Martin began to cry before he knew it.

«Mamma,» said Maria, «Martin’s crying.»

«What are you crying for, Martin?» his mother asked.

Martin only sobbed.

«He’s tired and sleepy,» declared grandmother. «He’d better go to bed.»

* * * * *

While Martin, still sobbing, made the rounds to say good night, Lotta came in with the tea-tray. She had a very solemn expression as she said, «I’m sorry to have to tell you that Heggbom is dead.»

Everything became silent in the room. Martin stopped crying.

Grandmother clasped her hands together: «Well, and has he really passed away? Has it come that suddenly?... Glory be! and has he passed away? Ah, ’twas the brandy!... But it was for the best that he should die, though ’twill be hard for the missus; he was the porter, anyway, and maintained his wife and children.»

«He died just at seven,» said Lotta.

But when no one said anything she went out into the kitchen again.

«It might be a good idea to send out a list to the neighbors and start a little subscription,» said mother.

Martin was sent to bed. His mother sat at the side of his bed and said prayers with him. He was let off with «God Who hast us in Thy care,» because he was so tired. Otherwise he used to say «Our Father» and «Lord, let Thy blessing rest upon us» besides.

* * * * *

Martin lay awake a long time listening to the rain as it plashed against the window, for he was not at all sleepy; he had only said so to get out of the long prayers that he didn’t understand. It is impossible for a little child to associate any idea with such expressions as «hallowed be Thy name» or «Thy kingdom come.» He lay thinking about Heggbom and wondering if he could get to heaven. He always smelled of brandy.

Martin was afraid of the dark. When Lotta came in with a lighted candle to fix something in the room, he asked her to let the candle stay.

«You must sleep, Martin,» said Lotta. «Heggbom will come and bite you if you don’t.»

With that she went out and took the candle.

Martin began to cry afresh. The wind whistled in the window chinks, every now and then a gate was shut with a bang, and a dog howled outside. Before mother drew the curtains Martin thought there was a red glow in the sky. Perhaps there was a fire in South Stockholm....

There was turmoil and clamor down on the street. Drunken men coming out of the tavern--blows and screams. Heavy steps on the pavement, some one running and some one pursuing--and a cry of «Police, police!»

Martin drew the covers over his head and cried himself to sleep.

--VI--

White winter came with sleigh bells and snow and ice-flowers on the windowpane. «They are the dead summer flowers come back again,» said Martin’s mother. Evergreen forests out in the country came from the darkness and solitude into the city streets and squares, and when the Christmas bells rang in the holy day, there stood in Martin’s home a dark and timid fir which smelt of the woods, till evening came and it stood a-glitter with candles, white candles and colored candles, and was covered with winter apples and sugar-plums with mottoes which were so stupid that even Martin and Maria could see how stupid they were. All the glory of Christmas passed--it was like turning the page of a picture-book--and the star of New Year’s Eve was burning across the white roofs, and people said to each other, «Good night, and thanks for the year!» With a shivering sensation Martin thought of the line of gray winter days that were waiting, to which he could see no ending, for it was interminably long till summer, and still longer till next Christmas.

New Year’s morning he was waked while it was still dark to go to early service. Half asleep he scrambled through the snow by the side of his parents, and as they came around the corner, there stood the church like a giant lantern shining out across the white square where people were crawling in across the snow from all directions. Within the church was the organ’s roar and singing and many shining candles, and Martin felt happy and good and thought this was just the right way to begin the new year; and when the minister began to preach, he went straight to sleep. But when he woke up, the pale hue of dawn was shining in through the windows in the cupola and his mother roused him with, «Now we’ll go home and drink our coffee.»

So then they went home, their hearts full of the most beautiful intentions, for Martin understood without telling that it was this sort of thing the minister had preached about. Later in the morning Martin and Maria were sent around on the New Year’s visits to Uncle Jan and Aunt Louisa and other uncles and aunts, where they were given cakes and wine and sugar-plums from the Christmas trees. But at Uncle Abraham’s there was no Christmas tree, for he was a widower and had no children but lived alone with an old housekeeper. Uncle Abraham was a doctor and had often cured Martin and Maria of measles and scarlatina and pains in the chest. He had a black beard and a long crooked nose, for he was a Jew. He had also a parrot that could swear in French, and a black tomcat. The cat was named Kolmodin and he was the cleverest cat in the world, for when he was outside the office door and wanted to get in, he didn’t mew as other cats do, but got up on his hind feet, caught his claws in the bell-cord, and pulled it hard. This year when Martin and Maria came to wish Uncle Abraham a Happy New Year, he was sitting alone with his bottle of wine on the table playing chess with himself.

The room was large and half dark and full of books. Outside the snow was falling in great flakes. Uncle Abraham stuffed their pockets full of goodies, made the parrot swear in French, and was very cordial; but he didn’t say much, and in front of the fire which glowed in the porcelain stove sat the cat Kolmodin staring gloomily at his master. Martin and Maria stood silent and looked at each other with a feeling of oppression. For they had more than once heard their parents say that Uncle Abraham was not a happy man and that he never was really cheerful.

--VII--

So now it was the new year. The almanac which Martin had given his father for Christmas had a red cover, whereas the old one had been blue. Martin also found to his surprise and disappointment that this was the only difference he could see between the new year and the old, that the days passed as they had passed before with ringing of bells and snow and a somber sky, with weariness of the old games and the old stories, and with the longing to be big. He longed for that time but feared it too. For his mother had often pointed at the ragman who had seen better days and said that if Martin wouldn’t eat his porridge or his beer-soup and otherwise be a good and obedient boy, he would come to be just such a ragman when he was big. When he heard his mother talk so, he would feel a tightening of the chest and would see himself slinking in through the gate at dusk with a pack on his back and poking in the ash barrel with a black stick, while father and mother and sister and grandmother were sitting together around the lamp as before. For it never occurred to him to think that his home could be broken up and dispersed.

Snow fell, a great deal of snow. The drifts grew, and it became sparklingly cold. Martin had to keep indoors with his alphabet book and multiplication tables, with his color-box and jumping-jacks and all splendid things--already faded--which Christmas had left behind. Among the jumping-jacks there was one called the Red Turk which he was fonder of than the others, because Uncle Abraham, who had given it to him, had said it was the jolliest jumping-jack in all the world. «You see,» he had said one evening, «in itself it is neither amusing nor remarkable that an old pasteboard man kicks about when one pulls the strings. But the Red Turk is no common pasteboard man; he can think and choose the same as we. And when you jerk the strings and he begins to prance, he says to himself: ‹I am a being with free will, I kick just as I want to and exclusively for my own entertainment. Hoho! there’s nothing so delightful as to kick.› But when you stop jerking the string, he decides that he is tired and says to himself: ‹To the deuce with the kicking! The finest thing there is is to hang on a hook on the wall and stay entirely still.› Yes, he is the jolliest jumping-jack in the world.»

Martin didn’t understand much of this, but he understood that the Red Turk was amusing and set greater store by him than ever.

* * * * *

So the days passed, and with Twelfth Night began small family parties with stripping of Christmas trees and shadow games and doll theaters and magic lanterns with colored pictures on a ghostly white sheet. On the way home the stars sparkled, and father pointed to the heaven and said, «That’s the Milky Way, and there is the Dipper.»

--VIII--