Part 12

Accustomed to free himself from fear of the unknown, he at once formed suggestions to explain it, but stopped finally at the question, why the helmsman hid himself, for that there must be a helmsman on a sailboat, which did not drift, he had no doubt. Why did he not want to be seen? In usual cases one does not want to be seen when going on a bad errand, wishing to be by oneself, or intending to frighten somebody. That the unknown sailor did not seek solitude was probable, as he held the same course, and if he would frighten an intrepid person, who was not susceptible to superstition, he could find some better way. However he held his course onward towards the buoy, incessantly, doggedly pursued by the haunting boat to the leaward, still at such a distance, that it appeared only as condensed fog.

Upon coming farther out where the wind was stronger the mist seemed to grow somewhat thinner, and like long silver bullion lay the fog-silvered sunlight on the crests of the waves. With the rising of the wind the crying of the buoy increased, and now he steered straight into the sunlight where the mist had parted, and ran at highest speed towards the buoy. There it lay swinging on the wave, cinnabar-red and shining, moist as a taken-out lung with its great black windpipe pointed slanting upwards into the air. And when the wave next time compressed the air, it raised a cry, as though the sea roared after the sun, the bottom chain clinked until it had run out, and now when the waves sank and sucked back the air, there arose a roaring out of the depth as from the giant proboscis of a drowning mastodon.

It was the first mighty impression he had had after a month of prattle and trivialities.

He admired the genius of man, that had hung this buoy on the insidious wolf, the sea, that it should itself caution its defenseless victims. He envied this hermit, who was permitted to lie fettered to a bottom rock in the middle of the sea and with its roaring to beat the wind and wave day and night so that it could be heard miles around; to be the first to give the voyager a welcome to his land; and to wail forth its pain and be heard.

The sight was quickly passed, and the demi-darkness again closed round the boat, which now fell off towards the skerry for which he had started to rest. For half an hour he lay on the same tack until he heard the breakers beating on the strand; then he fell off to leeward and soon sped into a cove where he could land.

It was the last skerry outside the channel and consisted of a couple of acres of red gneiss without any vegetation other than a few lichens on places where the drifting ice had not scraped the rocks perfectly clean. Only sea gulls and mews had their resting place here, and now as the commissioner moored his boat and stepped up on the highest point of the skerry they gave forth cries of alarm. Here he wrapped himself in his blanket, and placed himself in a well-polished crevice, which made him a comfortable arm chair. Here, without witness, without auditors, he gave himself up to thoughts and let them loose, confessed himself, scrutinized himself inwardly and heard his own voice from within. Only two months of rubbing against other beings, and he had through the law of accommodation lost the better part of himself, had become used to acquiescing to avoid disputes, drilled himself to yield to avoid a break, and developed into a characterless, malleable, sociable fellow; with his head full of bagatelles and being urged to speak in an abbreviated, simplified vocabulary, he felt that his scale of language had lost its semi-tones, and that his thoughts had been switching in on old worn rails, which led back to the ballast place. Old lax sophisms about respecting others' belief, that everybody will be happy in his grime, had crept back into him, and he had from pure politeness performed as a wizard and finally got a dangerous competitor on his hands, who every moment threatened to liberate the only soul he would unite with his own.

A smile crossed his lips when he thought of how he had fooled these people, who believed they had fooled him: and with a subdued voice he involuntarily ejaculated, "asses," which made him start, frightened at the thought that somebody might have heard him.

And so the silent thoughts continued: They believed they had caught his soul, and he had caught them! They imagined that he went their errands, and they did not know that he used them as a gymnastical exercise for his soul and to feel the enjoyment of power.

But these thoughts, which he had not dared to acknowledge before as his own, proclaimed themselves now as the children of his soul, big, healthy children, whom he acknowledged as his own. And what had he done otherwise than the others had willed to do, but could not! And this young woman, who believed she had turned a hand organ for herself, did not suspect that she was selected to the sounding board of his soul....

At this moment he jumped up, and interrupted the course of his dangerous thoughts, for he plainly heard footsteps on the flat rocks in the fog, and although he at once guessed that it was an error of hearing, caused by the solitude and fear of being taken unawares, he turned his steps towards his boat. But when he found it in good condition, he decided to go around the skerry to search for the other boat, for there must be one here, since another being had come over. He climbed on the strand bowlders and soon found behind the next point on the lee side a boat with the same sprit sail rig, as he had seen out on the sea. It was thus evident that the sailor must be on the skerry, and now the commissioner began a razzia in the fog, but always kept in the neighborhood of the boats, so that he could cut off retreat. When after having cried out several times without getting an answer he finally saw that he must leave the boats in order to catch the mysterious being, he went down to the boats, and took off the tillers to make every escape impossible, and so he went into the mist again. He heard steps before him and followed them by the sound, but soon heard them in an entirely other direction. Tired of the hunt and provoked by the fruitlessness of the endeavors, he decided to make a short ending to the scene, as he had no mind to wait until the fog had disappeared.

With as loud a voice as he could command, he cried:

"If there is anybody there, answer, for I am going to shoot."

"Lord Jesus! Do not shoot!" was heard in the fog.

The commissioner seemed to have heard this voice before, but a very long time ago, perhaps in his youth. And now when he approached the place, where the unknown stood, and saw its silhouette outlines gray to gray, there awoke old memories of these contours of a human being. The inward bowed knees, the arms all too long and the deformed left shoulder had a counterpart picture in memory's storage of a schoolmate in the third class in the high school. But when he caught sight of the colporteur's American whiskers appearing through the mist, the picture did not correspond longer, and he only saw the man upon the rock, who had applied the Revelation to the mirage.

With a raised cap and a frightened look he approached the commissioner, who did not feel himself safe with this sneaking pursuer, for in reality he carried no firearms. To disguise his uncertainty he assumed a sharp tone, when he asked:

"Why do you hide from me?"

"I have not hidden myself, the mist did it," answered the preacher softly and insinuatingly.

"But why were you not sitting at the tiller in your boat?"

"Hm, I did not know that one was obliged to sit on the stern sheet and therefore I sat to windward to keep the boat buoyant! For you see I had a sheet on the end of the tiller such as we use up in Roslagen."

The explanations were acceptable, but still did not answer the question, why he followed the commissioner out here. And he felt now, that here must be a close fight of souls, for it was not by chance that they had met out here.

"What do you seek out here so early in the morning?" the commissioner took up the broken thread.

"Yes, how shall I say it, I feel sometimes, as though I am in need of being alone with myself." The answer found a certain echo in the questioner, and at the expression of sympathy, which the preacher could read in his face, he added:

"For, you see, when I search myself in meditation and prayer and find myself, even so I find my God."

A naïve confession lay in these words, but the commissioner would not translate the involuntary heresy and draw such conclusions as: God is thus my own self or in my own self, because he held a certain esteem for this man, who could be alone with a fiction, and thus to a certain degree alone.

While the commissioner regarded the preacher's face, which was overgrown with long brown whiskers except on the upper lip as sailors and colporteurs usually wear them, probably to let out the spoken word and still resemble an apostle, he seemed to perceive a face behind this face, and annoyed by this labor which his memory had unconsciously undertaken, he asked bluntly:

"Have we not met each other before?"

"Yes, certainly we have," answered the preacher; "and you, sir commissioner, have, perhaps without knowing it, had such a great influence on my life, that it might be said you determined my path."

"Oh, no! Tell me about it, for I do not remember it!" said the commissioner, and placing himself on the rock, he invited the other to sit down.

"Yes, it is certainly about twenty-five years ago that we were together in the third class at school ...

"What was your name then?" interrupted the commissioner.

"At that time I was called Olsson and nick-named Ox-Olle, because my father was a farmer and I was dressed in homespun clothes."

"Olsson? Wait a moment! You could reckon best of us all."

"Yes, so it was! But there came a day, and it was the principal's fiftieth birthday. We had dressed the school with leaves and flowers, and after the lessons were ended someone proposed that the boys in our class should take the bouquets and carry them home to the principal's wife and daughter. I remember that you thought it unnecessary as the family of the principal had nothing to do with the school, but often encroached on its affairs in a disturbing manner. However, you went--and so did I. As I walked up the steps, you caught sight of my homespun clothes I presume, and noticing that I carried the nicest bouquet, you burst out: 'Is Saul also among the prophets!'"

"That I have entirely forgotten," said the commissioner very shortly.

"But I never forgot it," responded the preacher with trembling voice. "I had had it thrown in my face, that I was the scabby sheep, the intruder, who could never seriously extend homage to a woman of station. I quit school in order to devote myself to business and thereby gain money and fine clothes quickly, and learn manners and refined language. But I never gained a first class position. My exterior, my language, my appearance were against me. Then I began to go alone by myself, and in the solitude I found powers growing in me which I had never suspected. Clergy-man I had first thought to be, but now it was too late. The solitude gave me fears of human beings, and these fears of human beings made me entirely alone, so alone that I must search for my only acquaintance in God, and in the Saviour of the neglected, the scabby, the outcasts, Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. This I have to thank you for!"

The last words were spoken with a certain bitterness, and the commissioner found it prudent to have fair play and broke out.

"Then you have gone on hating me for twenty-five years?"

"Excessively! But no longer since I have left the revenge to God."

"So, you have a God who revenges! Do you believe that He selects you for an implement, or do you think that he will let His electric spark strike me, or that He is going to blow over my boat or mark me with the smallpox?"

"The ways of the Lord are past knowing, but the ways of iniquity are manifest to everybody!"

"Do you see such gross iniquity in a boy's thoughtless talk, that God should persecute him a whole man's age? I wonder if that revenging God is not in your heart, where you lately insisted that you made appointments with Him?"

Snared by his own words the preacher could not longer control himself.

"You blaspheme! Now I know who you are! The apple does not fall far from the tree! Now I understand the whole craft of Satan. You build the Lord a house for a brothel as an offering to a harlot! You play wizard and magician to get people to fall down and worship the denier. But the Lord says: 'Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolators, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie!'"

The last words he had thrown out with an incredible volubility and exaltation, without seeking for them elsewhere than on his lips, and just as though he feared a crushing answer which would weaken their impression, he turned his back and went down to his boat.

Meantime the mist had lifted, and the sea spread its pure blue water soothingly and acquittingly.

The commissioner remained awhile in his rocky chair, and meditated on the subjection of the soul under the same laws that govern the physical forces. The wind tore up a wave down on Esthonia; that wave chased another, and the last which transmitted the motion to the Swedish coast, removed a small pebble, which had afforded support to a rock; and after a man's age the results would be shown in the tumbling down of the rock; and this would be followed by a new undermining of the uncovered rock which now lay exposed.

His brain twenty-five years ago had thrown out what was to him a meaningless word, that word had penetrated an ear and put a brain into such a strong agitation that it still vibrated after having given direction to the whole life of a human being. And who knows, if this innervation current had not again been reënforced by contact and friction, so that it once more with invigorated force would unload itself and bring other counter forces into action, producing disturbances and destruction in the lives of others!

Now when the preacher's boat sped into sight round the point, bearing down to East Skerry, the commissioner got such a sure feeling that there sat a foe who was marching down to his forts, that he arose and went to his boat, to go home and place himself on the defensive.

* * * * *

When he was well seated in the boat and calmed by the gentle rocking of the waves, he was seized by a strong desire to still tarry a few hours on the sea in perfect solitude and let the last disquieting impressions blow away.

Why should he even fear this man's influence on his betrothed, as she would still show herself unsuited to a union for life, if she sunk back to a level with the uneducated. But nevertheless it grieved him that there existed this fear. It reminded of the behavior of those men, who were living in the fear of losses and which is stamped with the name jealousy. Was it the feeling of an inability to keep, which betrayed a frailness in him? Or was it not rather a frailness in her not to be able to retain a hold, when the balloon should ascend, leaving the sheet anchor religion, and throwing away the sacks of ballast, the feelings? Certainly the latter would have been the better way, notwithstanding they had got a certain authority with those, who had nothing to lose.

He now tacked and lay oft the skerry to south-east, a point from which he had not seen his prison before. Highest up on the hill he saw the skeleton of the unfinished chapel with its staging, but he did not see any laborers, although the morning was far advanced. He did not even notice any boats out fishing. There was on the whole a great stillness on the skerry, and no people were to be seen even by the custom house cottage or the pilots' outlook. He turned and stood on another tack to sail round the skerry. But when he came outside of the same, the sea became higher and he gained only a little by the tack, so it took a whole hour before he could scud down to the harbor. Now he saw the cottage where the ladles lived, and as soon as he had sped by the point of the harbor, he observed all the inhabitants of the island gathered round the house, on the porch of which the preacher stood bare-headed, speaking.

With a clear insight, that here impended a battle, he landed, furled the sail and went up to his chamber.

Through the open window he heard the people singing a hymn.

He would have liked now to sit down to his work, but the thought that maybe he would soon be interrupted, hindered him from beginning it.

A painful half hour passed during which he learned more plainly than ever before, that he did not own himself longer, did not rule over two square meters, on which he could lock himself up to avoid the touch of souls, which like barnacles on the whale's hide fastened themselves there to finally by their mass impede his motion.

The door opened now after a short knock, and Miss Mary stood before him, with a new expression in her face, resembling pained reproach and superior compassion.

She came besides with the feeling of being backed by the universal opinion of the people, and therefore felt strong against this solitary man.

He let her speak first so as to have a point to start from.

"Where have you been?" commenced she with an attempt not to sound too arrogant.

"I have been out for a sail!"

"Without inviting me?"

"I did not know that you were particular about that!"

"Yes, you did know it, but surely you would be alone with your dark thoughts!"

"Perhaps!"

"Certainly! Don't you think that I have observed it? Don't you believe that I have seen how you are becoming tired of me?"

"Have I proved tired of you, I who follow you day in and day out, though on a morning, when you usually are asleep, I took the liberty to sail for a couple of hours? But maybe you have become tired of learning to fish, for I have not seen you once out at sea."

"It is not the time to fish now as you well know," answered Miss Mary fully persuaded that she spoke the truth.

"No, I see that!" interposed the commissioner with the purpose of approaching the very mine, with the risk of an explosion. "I see how the people abandon their work to listen to sermons...."

Now an eruption was ready.

"Was it not you, who wished to have a church out here?"

"Yes, Sundays. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh go to church. Here no work is done any day, but there is preaching every day. And instead of making themselves and families an honest income here on this earth, they all race after such an uncertain thing as heaven. The very laborers on the chapel have left their work, so that we shall never see a roof on that church, and I expect every moment to hear that poverty has broken out, so that we must be prepared for charity...."

"That is just what I was going to speak about," interrupted Miss Mary, glad to have avoided taking up the subject herself, still overlooking that it was exhausted in advance by the commissioner.

"I have not come here to exercise charity; I am here to teach the people how to get along without charity."

"You are at the bottom a heartless person, although you appear to be otherwise."

"And you would show your big heart at my expense without being willing to offer a yard of the trimming from your gown."

"I hate you! I hate you!" burst out the girl with a hideous expression on her face. "Surely I know who you are, I know all, all, all!"

"Well, why not leave me then?" asked the commissioner in a steel cold tone.

"I shall leave you! I shall!" cried she and approached the door, but without going.

The commissioner, who had taken a seat at the table, took up a pen and began to write to avoid all temptation of taking up a conversation, which was ended, as everything had been said.

He heard, as in a dream, sobbing and how the door closed, how steps sounded in the hall, and squeakings of the stairs.

When he awoke and read the paper, over which his pen had been flying, he saw that the word Pandora was written there so many times, that he could calculate that a long while had passed since the scene was ended.

But the word struck him, and his inquisitiveness awoke as to its meaning, which he during the lapse of years had forgotten, although he had a faint memory about it from the mythology. He took his dictionary from the table, opened it and read:

"Pandora, the Eve of the ancients, the earth's first woman. Sent by the gods for revenge on account of Prometheus having stolen the fire, and given it to human beings, with all its misfortunes, after which they inhabitated the earth. Represented in poesy under the form of something good, which is an evil illusion, a creation, intended for deceit and surprise."

This was mythology like the tale of Eve, who debarred human beings from Paradise. But when the tale was confirmed from century to century and he had learned himself, how the presence of a woman on this little piece of earth out in the sea had already made dusk, where he would spread light, then there must have lain an idea in the Hellenic and Jewish poet's figurative style.

That she hated him, that he felt and knew, as she took sides with the low crowd down there, but, nevertheless he would not doubt her love, even if this love only consisted of the dandelion's attraction to the sun to borrow beams of light for a poor imitation of the yellow disk. But there existed besides something low as in that which is base, something evil with the desire to injure, a battle for power, which was out of place, as his aim was a victory over the irrational. To tell her this, yes, that would be to break the relation when this depended on his submission or at least his acknowledging her superiority, and this would be to build a life on a white lie, which would grow, wax and perhaps smother all possibility of an honest cohabitation. Just in this lay the deepest reason of all the relative misfortunes of marriage, that the man goes into the union sometimes with a willful lie, often the prey of an hallucination, when he fancies his ego into the being whom he would assimulate. Of this illusion; _second sight,_ Mill had become infatuated to such a degree, that he believed he got all his sharp thoughts from the simple woman whom he had lifted up to himself.

It was love's prize from time immemorial, that the man should conceal what the woman was, and on this secrecy centuries had built a chaos of lies, which science did not dare to disturb, which the bravest statesmen did not dare to touch and which cause the theologian to deny his Paul, when it comes to "women in the churches."

But his love had just begun and taken fire, when he saw her look up to him with beseeching glances; and that love had fled, when she came with the vanquishing smile of stupidity after having trampled down what he would have formed for her happiness and that of many others.

"Ended!" said he to himself, arose and locked the door.

Ended with his youthful hopes of finding the woman he sought. "That woman, who was born with the sense to see her sex's inferiority to the other sex."

He had certainly now and then met one or another, who admitted the fact, but who finally and always reserved themselves as to the reason of the fact, laying the blame on a non-existing oppression, and promising themselves that with greater liberty they would soon surpass the men; and then the battle was in full sway.