Jerusalem by Selma Lagerloef

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"But if I don't join you I suppose you won't want me to remain
under your roof?" said Ingmar, rising. As they did not reply, it
seemed to him that all at once he had been cut off from everything.
Then he pulled himself together and looked more determined. "Now I
want to know what you're going to do about the sawmill!" he
demanded, thinking it was best to have this matter settled once for
all.

Halvor and Karin exchanged glances; both were afraid of committing
themselves.

"You know, Ingmar, that there is no one in the world who is more
dear to us than you," said Halvor.

"Yes, yes; but what about the sawmill?" Ingmar insisted.

"The principal thing is to get all your timber sawed."

At Halvor's evasive reply, Ingmar drew his own conclusions. "Maybe
Hellgum wants to run the sawmill, too?"

Karin and Halvor were perplexed at Ingmar's show of temper; since
telling him that about Gertrude, they could not seem to get
anywhere near him.

"Let Hellgum talk to you," pleaded Karin.

"Oh, I'll let him talk to me," said Ingmar, "but first I'd like to
know just where I stand."

"Surely, Ingmar, you must know that we wish you well!"

"But Hellgum is to run the sawmill?"

"We must find some suitable employment for Hellgum so that he may
remain in his own country. We have been thinking that possibly you
and he might become business partners, provided you accept the only
true faith. Hellgum is a good worker." This from Halvor.

"Since when have you been afraid to speak plainly, Halvor?" said
Ingmar. "All I want to know is whether Hellgum is to have the
sawmill."

"He is to have it if you resist God," Halvor declared.

"I'm obliged to you for telling me what a good stroke of business
it would be for me to adopt your faith."

"You know well enough it wasn't meant in that way," said Karin
reprovingly.

"I understand quite well what you mean," returned Ingmar. "I'm to
lose Gertrude and the sawmill and the old home unless I go over to
the Hellgumists." Then Ingmar turned suddenly and walked out of the
house.

Once outside, the thought came to him that he might as well end
this suspense, and find out at once where he stood with Gertrude.
So he went straight down to the school-house. When Ingmar opened
the gate a mild spring rain was falling. In the schoolmaster's
beautiful garden all things had started sprouting and budding. The
ground was turning green so rapidly that one could almost see the
grass growing. Gertrude was standing on the steps watching the
rain, and two large bird-cherry bushes, thick with newly sprung
leaves, spread their branches over her. Ingmar paused a moment,
astonished at finding everything down here so lovely and peaceful.
He was already beginning to feel less disquieted. Gertrude had not
yet seen him. He closed the gate very gently, then went toward her.
When he was quite close he stopped and gazed at her in rapt wonder.
When he had last seen her she was hardly more than a child, but in
one short year she had developed into a dignified and beautiful
young lady. She was now tall and slender and quite grown up, her
head was finely poised on a graceful neck; her skin was soft and
fair, shading into a fresh pink about the cheeks; her eyes were
deep and thoughtful, and her mouth, around which mischief and
merriment had once played, now expressed seriousness and wistful
longing.

On seeing Gertrude so changed, a sense of supreme happiness came to
Ingmar. A peaceful stillness pervaded his whole being; it was as
though he were in the presence of something great and holy. It was
all so beautiful that he wanted to go down on his knees and thank
God.

But when Gertrude saw Ingmar she suddenly stiffened, her eyebrows
contracted, and between her eyes there appeared the shadow of a
wrinkle. He saw at once that she did not like his being there, and
it cut him to the quick. "They want to take her from me," he
thought; "they have already taken her from me." The feeling of
Sabbath peace vanished, and the old fear and anxiety returned.
Waving all ceremony, he asked Gertrude if it was true that she
intended to join Hellgum and his followers. She answered that it
was. Then Ingmar asked her if she had considered that the
Hellgumists would not allow her to associate with persons who did
not think as they did. Gertrude quietly answered that she had
carefully considered this matter.

"Have you the consent of your father and mother?" asked Ingmar.

"No," she replied; "they know nothing as yet."

"But, Gertrude--"

"Hush, Ingmar! I must do this to find peace. God compels me."

"No," he cried, "not God, but--"

Gertrude suddenly turned toward him.

Then Ingmar told her that he would never join the Hellgumists. "If
you go over to them, that will part us for ever."

Gertrude looked at him as much as to say that she did not see how
this could affect her.

"Don't do it, Gertrude!" he implored.

"You mustn't think that I'm acting heedlessly, for I have given
this matter very serious thought."

"Then think it over once more before you act."

Gertrude turned from him impatiently.

"You should also think it over for Hellgum's sake," said Ingmar
with rising anger, seizing her by the arm.

She shook off his hand. "Are you out of your senses, Ingmar?" she
gasped.

"Yes," he answered; "these doings of Hellgum are driving me mad.
They must be stopped!"

"What must be stopped?"

"You'll find out before long."

Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.

"Good-bye, Gertrude!" he said in a choking voice. "And remember
what I tell you. You will never join the Hellgumists!"

"What do you intend to do, Ingmar?" asked the girl, for she was
beginning to feel uneasy.

"Good-bye, Gertrude, and think of what I have said!" Ingmar shouted
back, for by that time he was halfway down the gravel walk.

Then he went on his way. "If I were only as wise as my father!" he
mused. "But what can I do? I'm about to lose all that is dearest to
me, and I see no way of preventing it." There was one thing,
however, of which Ingmar was certain: if all this misery was to be
forced upon him, Hellgum should not escape with his skin.

He went down to Strong Ingmar's but in the hope of meeting the
preacher. When he got to the door, he caught the sound of loud and
angry voices. There seemed to be a number of visitors inside, so he
turned back at once. As he walked away he heard a man say in angry
tones: "We are three brothers who have come a long way to call you
to account, John Hellgum, for what has befallen our younger
brother. Two years ago he went over to America, where he joined
your community. The other day we received a letter telling us that
he had gone out of his mind, brooding over your teaching."

Then Ingmar hurried away. Apparently there were others besides
himself who had cause for complaint against Hellgum, and they were
all of them equally helpless.

He went down to the sawmill, which had already been set going by
Strong Ingmar. Above the buzzing noise of the saws and the roar
of the rapids he heard a shriek; but he paid no special heed to it.
He had no thought for anything save his strong hatred of Hellgum.
He was going over in his mind all that this man had robbed him of:
Gertrude and Karin, his home and his business.

Again he seemed to hear a cry. It occurred to him that possibly a
quarrel had arisen between Hellgum and the strangers. "There would
be no harm done if they were to beat the life out of him," he
thought.

Then he heard a loud shout for help. Ingmar dropped his work and
went rushing up the hill. The nearer he approached the hut the
plainer he heard Hellgum's cries of distress, and when he finally
reached the cabin it seemed as if the very earth around it shook
from the scuffling and struggling inside.

He cautiously opened the door and tiptoed in. Over against the wall
stood Hellgum defending himself with an axe. The three strangers--
all of them big, powerful men--were attacking him with clubs.
They carried no guns, so it was evident that they had come simply
to give Hellgum a sound thrashing. But because he had put up a good
fight, they were so enraged that they went at him with intent to
kill. They hardly noticed Ingmar; they regarded him as nothing but
a lank gawk of a boy who had just happened in.

For a moment Ingmar stood quietly looking on. To him it was like
a dream, wherein the thing one desires most suddenly appears
without one's knowing whence or how it came about. Now and again
Hellgum cried for help.

"Surely you can't think I'm such a fool as to help you!" Ingmar
said in his mind.

Suddenly one of the men dealt Hellgum a terrific blow on the head
that made him let go his hold on the axe and fall to the floor.
Then the others threw down their clubs, drew their knives, and cast
themselves upon him. Instantly a thought flashed across Ingmar's
mind. There was an old saying about the folk of his family, to the
effect that every one of them was destined at some time or other
during his lifetime to commit a dastardly and wrong deed. Was it
his turn now, he wondered?

All at once one of the assailants felt himself in the grip of a
pair of strong arms that lifted him off his feet and threw him
bodily out of the house; the second one had hardly time to think of
rising before the same thing happened to him; and the third, who
had managed to scramble to his feet, got a blow that sent him
headlong after the others.

After Ingmar had thrown them all out, he went and stood in the
doorway. "Don't you want to come back?" he challenged laughingly.
He would not have minded their attacking him; testing his strength
was good sport.

The three brothers seemed quite ready to renew the fight, when one
of them shouted that they had better take to their heels he had
seen a figure coming along the path behind the elms. They were
furiously disappointed at not having finished Hellgum, and, as they
turned to go, one of them ran back, pounced upon Ingmar, and
stabbed him in the neck.

"That's for meddling with our affair!" he shouted.

Ingmar sank down, and the man ran off, with a taunting laugh.

A few minutes later Karin came along and found Ingmar sitting on
the doorstep with a wound in his neck, and inside she discovered
Hellgum, who by that time had got to his feet again and was now
leaning against the wall, axe in hand and his face covered with
blood. Karin had not seen the fleeing men; she supposed that
Ingmar was the one who had attacked Hellgum and wounded him. She
was so horrified that her knees shook. "No, no!" she thought, "it
can't be possible that any one in our family is a murderer." Then
she recalled the story of her mother. "That accounts for it," she
muttered, and hurried past Ingmar over to Hellgum.

"Ingmar first!" cried Hellgum.

"The murderer should not be helped before his victim," said Karin.

"Ingmar first! Ingmar first!" Hellgum kept shouting. He was so
excited that he raised his axe against her. "He has fought the
would-be murderers and saved my life!" he said.

When Karin finally understood, and turned to help Ingmar, he was
gone. She saw him stagger across the yard, and ran after him,
calling, "Ingmar! Ingmar!"

Ingmar went on without even turning his head. But she soon caught
up with him. Placing her hand on his arm, she said:

"Stop, Ingmar, and let me bind up your wound!"

He shook off her hand and went ahead like a blind man, following
neither road nor bypath. The blood from his open wound trickled
down underneath his clothes into one of his shoes. With every step
that he made, blood was pressed out of the shoe, leaving a red
track on the ground.

Karin followed him, wringing her hands. "Stop, Ingmar, stop!"
she implored. "Where are you going? Stop, I say!"

Ingmar wandered on, straight into the wood, where there was no
one to succor him. Karin kept her eyes fixed on his shoe, which
was oozing blood. Every second the footprints were becoming
redder and redder.

"He's going into the forest to lie down and bleed to death!"
thought Karin. "God bless you, Ingmar, for helping Hellgum!" she
said gently. "It took a man's courage to do that, and a man's
strength, too!"

Ingmar tramped straight ahead, paying no heed whatever to his
sister. Then Karin ran past him and planted herself in his way. He
stepped aside without so much as glancing at her. "Go and help
Hellgum!" he muttered.

"Let me explain, Ingmar! Halvor and I were very sorry for what
we said to you this morning, and I was just on' my way to Hellgum
to let him know that, whichever way it turned out, you were to keep
the sawmill."

"Now you can give it to Hellgum," was Ingmar's answer. He walked
on, stumbling over stones and tree stumps.

Karin kept close behind, trying her best to conciliate him. "Can't
you forgive me for my mistake of a moment in thinking you had
fought with Hellgum? I could hardly have thought differently."

"You were very ready to believe your own brother a murderer,"
Ingmar retorted, without giving her a look. He still walked on.
When the grass blades he had trampled down came up again, blood
dripped from them. It was only after Karin had noticed the peculiar
way in which Ingmar had spoken Hellgum's name, that she began to
realize how he hated the preacher. At the same time she saw what a
big thing he had done.

"Every one will be singing your praises for what you did to-day,
Ingmar; it will be known far and wide," she said. "You don't want
to die and miss all the honours, do you?"

Ingmar laughed scornfully. Then he turned toward her a face that
was pale and haggard. "Why don't you go home, Karin?" he said. "I
know well enough whom you would prefer to help." His steps became
more and more uncertain, and now, where he had walked, there was a
continuous streak of blood on the ground.

Karin was about beside herself at the sight of all this blood. The
great love which she had always felt or Ingmar kindled with new
ardour. Now she was proud of her brother, and thought him a stout
branch of the good old family tree.

"Oh, Ingmar!" she cried, "you'll have to answer before God and your
fellowmen if you go on spilling your life's blood in this way. You
know, if there is anything I can do to make you want to live, you
have only to speak."

Ingmar halted, and put his arm around the stem of a tree to hold
himself up. Then, with a cynical laugh, he said: "Perhaps you'll
send Hellgum back to America?"

Karin stood looking down at the pool of blood that was forming
around Ingmar's left foot, pondering over the thing her brother
wanted her to do. Could it be that he expected her to leave the
beautiful Garden of Paradise where she had lived all winter, and go
back to the wretched world of sin she had come out of?

Ingmar turned round squarely; his face was waxen, the skin across
his temples was tightly drawn, and his nose was like that of a dead
person; but his under lip protruded with a determination that he
had never before shown, and the set look about the mouth was
sharply defined. It was not likely that he would modify his demand.

"I don't think that Hellgum and I can live in the same parish," he
said, "but it's plain enough that I must make way for him."

"No," cried Karin quickly, "if you will only let me care for you,
so that your life may be spared to us, I promise you that I will
see that Hellgum goes away. God will surely find us another
shepherd," thought Karin, "but for the time being it seems best to
let Ingmar have his way."

After she had staunched the wound, she helped Ingmar home and put
him to bed. He was not badly wounded. All he needed was to rest
quietly for a few days. He lay abed in a room upstairs, and Karin
tended him and watched over him like a baby.

The first day Ingmar was delirious, and lived over all that had
happened to him in the morning. Karin soon discovered that Hellgum
and the sawmill were not the only things that had caused him
anxiety. By evening his mind was clear and tranquil; then Karin
said to him: "There is some one who wishes to speak to you."

Ingmar replied that he felt too tired to talk to any one.

"But I think this will do you good."

Directly afterward Gertrude came into the room. She looked quite
solemn and troubled. Ingmar had been fond of Gertrude even in the
old days, when she was full of fun, and provoking. But at that time
something within him had always fought against his love. But now
Gertrude had passed through a trying year of longing and unrest,
which had wrought such a wonderful change in her that Ingmar felt
an uncontrollable longing to win her. When Gertrude came over to
the bed, Ingmar put his hand up to his eyes.

"Don't you want to see me?" she asked.

Ingmar shook his head. He was like a wilful child.

"I only want to say a few words to you," said Gertrude.

"I suppose you've come to tell me that you have joined the
Hellgumists?"

Then Gertrude knelt down beside the bed and lifted his hand from
his eyes. "There is something which you don't know, Ingmar," she
whispered.

He looked inquiringly at her, but did not speak. Gertrude blushed
and hesitated. Finally she said:

"Last year, just as you were leaving us, I had begun to care for
you in the right way."

Ingmar coloured to the roots of his hair, and a look of joy came
into his eyes; but immediately he became grave and distrustful
again.

"I have missed you so, Ingmar!" she murmured.

He smiled doubtingly, but patted her hand a little as thanks for
her wanting to be kind to him.

"And you never once came back to see me," she said reproachfully.
"It was as if I no longer existed for you."

"I didn't want to see you again until I was a well-to-do man and
could propose to you," said Ingmar, as if this were a self-evident
matter.

"But I thought you had forgotten me!" Gertrude's eyes filled up.
"You don't know what a terrible year it has been. Hellgum has been
very kind, and has tried to comfort me. He said my heart would be
at rest if I would give it wholly to God."

Ingmar now looked at her with a newborn hope in his gaze.

"I was so frightened when you came this morning," she confessed, "I
felt that I couldn't resist you, and that the old struggle would
begin anew."

Ingmar's face was beaming.

"But this evening, when I heard about your having helped the one
man whom you hated, I couldn't hold out any longer." Gertrude grew
scarlet. "I felt somehow that I had not the strength to do a thing
that would part me from you." Then she bowed her head over Ingmar's
hand, and kissed it.

And it seemed to Ingmar as if great bells were ringing in a holy
day. Within reigned Sabbath peace and stillness, while love, honey
sweet, rested upon his lips, filling his whole being with a
blissful solace.

BOOK THREE

LOSS OF "L'UNIVERS"

One misty night in the summer of 1880--about two years before the
schoolmaster's mission house was built and Hellgum's return from
America--the great French liner _L'Univers_ was steaming across the
Atlantic, from New York and bound for Havre.

It was about four o'clock in the morning and all the passengers, as
well as most of the crew, were asleep in their berths. The big
decks were entirely empty of people.

Just then, at the break of day, an old French sailor lay twisting
and turning in his hammock, unable to rest. There was quite a sea
on, and the ship's timbers creaked incessantly; but it was
certainly not this that kept him from falling asleep. He and his
mates occupied a large but exceedingly low compartment between
decks. It was lighted by a couple of lanterns, so that he could see
the gray hammocks, which hung in close rows, slowly swinging to and
fro with their slumbering occupants. Now and again a strong gust of
wind swept in through one of the hatches, which was so searchingly
cold and damp that it brought to his mind's eye a vivid picture of
the vast sea around him, rolling its grayish green waves beneath
its veil of mists.

"There's nothing like the sea!" thought the old sailor.

As he lay there musing, all at once everything became strangely
still around him, he heard neither the churning of the propeller,
nor the rattling of the rudder chains, nor the lapping of the
waves, nor the whistling of the wind, nor any other sound. It
seemed to him that the ship had suddenly gone to the bottom, and
that he and his mates would never be shrouded or laid in their
coffins, but must remain hanging in their gray hammocks in the
depths of the sea till the Day of Judgment.

Before, he had always dreaded the thought that his end might be a
watery grave, but now the idea of it was pleasing to him. He was
glad it was the moving and transparent water that covered him, and
not the heavy, black, suffocating mould of the churchyard. "There's
nothing like the sea," he thought again.

Then he fell to thinking of something that made him uneasy. He
wondered whether his lying at the bottom of the ocean without
having received Extreme Unction would not be bad for his soul; he
began to fear that now his soul would never be able to find its way
up to Heaven.

At that moment his eye caught a faint glimmer of light coming from
the forecastle. He raised himself, and leaned over the side of the
hammock to see what it was. Presently he saw two persons coming,
each of whom was carrying a lighted candle. He bent still farther
forward so as to see who they were. The hammocks were hung so close
together and so near to the floor that any one wanting to pass
through the room, without pushing or knocking against those who
were sleeping there, would have to crawl on hands and knees. The
old seaman wondered who the persons could be that were able to pass
in this crowded place. He soon discovered that they were two
diminutive acolytes, in surplice and cassock, each bearing a
lighted candle.

The sailor was not at all surprised. It seemed only natural that
such little folk should be able to walk with burning candles under
hammocks. "I wonder if there is a priest with them?" he said.
Immediately he heard the tinkling sound of a little bell, and saw
some one following them. However, it was no priest, but an old
woman who was not much bigger than the boys.

The old woman looked familiar to him. "It must be mother," he
thought. "I've never seen any one as tiny as mother, and surely no
one but mother could be coming along so softly and quietly without
waking people."

He noticed that his mother wore over her black dress a long white
linen surplice, edged with a wide border of lace, such as is worn
by priests. In her hand she held the large missal with the gold
cross which he had seen hundreds of times lying on the altar in the
church at home.

The little acolytes now placed their candles at the side of his
hammock and knelt down, each swinging a censer. The old sailor
caught the sweet odour of burning incense, saw blue clouds ascend,
and heard the rhythmical click, click of the censer chains. In the
meantime, his mother had opened the big book and was reading the
prayers for the dead. Now it seemed good to him to be lying at the
bottom of the sea--much better than being in the churchyard. He
stretched himself in the hammock, and for a long time he could hear
his mother's voice mumbling Latin words. The smoke of the incense
curled round him as he listened to the even click, click of the
moving censers.

Then it all ceased. The acolytes took up their candles and walked
away, followed by his mother, who suddenly closed the book with a
bang. He saw all three disappear beneath the gray hammocks.

The instant they had gone the silence was at an end. He heard the
breathing of his comrades, the timbers creaked, the wind whistled,
and the waves swish-swashed against the ship. Then he knew that he
was still among the living, and on top of the sea.

"Jesu Maria! What can be the meaning of the things I have seen this
night?" he asked himself.

Ten minutes later _L'Univers_ was struck amidships. It was as if
the steamer had been cut in two.

"This was what I expected," thought the old seaman.

During the terrible confusion that ensued while the other sailors,
only half awake, rolled out of their hammocks, he carefully dressed
himself in his best clothes. He had had a foretaste of death which
was sweet and mild, and it seemed to him that the sea had already
claimed him as its own.

***

A little cabin boy lay sleeping in the deckhouse near the dining
salon when the collision occurred. Startled by the shock, he sat
up in his bunk, half dazed, and wondering what had happened. Just
over his head there was a small porthole, through which he peered.
All he could see was fog and some shadowy gray object which had, as
it were, sprung from the fog. He seemed to see monstrous gray
wings. A mammoth bird must have swooped down on the ship, he
thought. The steamer rolled and heeled as the huge monster went at
it with claws and beak and flapping wings.

The little cabin boy thought he would die from fright. In a second
he was wide awake. Then he discovered that a large sailing vessel
had collided with the steamer. He saw great sails and a strange
deck, where men in oilskin coats were rushing about in mad terror.
The wind freshened, and the sails became as taut as drums. The
masts bulged, while the yards snapped with a succession of reports
that sounded like pistol shots. A great three-master, which in the
dense fog had sailed straight into _L'Univers_, had somehow got her
bowsprit wedged into the side of the liner, and could not free
herself. The passenger steamer listed considerably, but its
propellers went right on working, so that now both ships moved
along together.

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