Jerusalem by Selma Lagerloef

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"Grief is a menace, grief is a menace, grief is a menace!"

It was not very clear to her just what she meant by that; but she
felt somehow that her poor heart was like a ravaged garden, in
which all the flowers had been uprooted, and now Grief, as a
gardener, moved about in there, planting thistles and poisonous
herbs.

The whole forenoon of the following day, Gertrude thought that she
was still dreaming. Her dream had seemed so real that she could not
get it out of her mind. Remembering with what satisfaction she had
plunged the needle into Ingmar's eyes, she shuddered. "How dreadful
that I should have become so cruel and resentful! What shall I do
to rid myself of this? I'm really getting to be a very wicked
person!"

After dinner Gertrude went out to milk the cows. She drew her
kerchief down over her face, as usual, and kept her eyes on the
ground. Walking along the narrow paths where she had wandered in
the dream, even the flowers by the wayside looked the same as in
the dream. In her strange state of semi-wakefulness, she could
hardly distinguish between what she actually saw and what she only
seemed to see in fancy.

When she reached the pasturage, there were no cows to be seen. And
she began to search for them, as she had done in the dream--looking
down by the brook, under the birches, and behind the brushwood. She
could not find them, yet she felt quite certain that they must be
thereabout, and that she would probably see them were she only wide
awake. Presently she came upon an opening in the hedge, and knew at
once that the cows had made their escape through this.

Gertrude straightway started in search of the strayed cattle,
following the track which their hoofs had made in the soft earth
of the forest. It was plain that they had turned in on a road
leading to a remote Saeter. "Ah!" she said, "now I know where they
are. I remember that the folks down at Luck Farm were going to
drive their cattle to the Saeter this morning. Our cows, on hearing
the tinkle of their cowbells, must have broken loose and followed
the others."

Gertrude's anxiety had for the moment made her wide awake. So she
determined to go up to the Saeter, and fetch the cows herself;
otherwise there was no telling when they would come back. Now she
walked briskly along the steep and rocky road.

After going uphill for a time there was an abrupt turn in the road,
and she suddenly came upon smooth and even ground that was thick
with pine needles. She recognized it as the road of her dream.
There stood the selfsame towering pines, and on the moss were the
selfsame yellow sun spots.

At sight of the road Gertrude lapsed into the dreamy state in which
she had been most of the day. She moved along, half expecting that
something wonderful would happen to her. She looked under the fir
trees to see if any of the mysterious beings who wander about in
the depths of the forest would suddenly appear to her. However,
none appeared. But in her mind new thoughts were awakened. "What if
I should really take revenge on Ingmar, would that still my fears?
Would I then escape the horrors of insanity? If he were to suffer
what I am suffering, would that be any relief to me?"

The beautiful road seemed interminably long. She walked there a
whole hour, astonished that nothing unusual had happened. The road
finally ended in a forest meadow. It was a lovely spot, covered
with fresh green grass and many wild flowers. On one side rose a
steep mountain; the other sides were covered with high trees--mostly
mountain ash, with thick clusters of white blossoms, and here and
there was a group of birches and alders. A rather broad stream
gushed down the mountainside and wound its way through the meadow,
then went hurling down into a gap that was covered with dwarfed
trees and bushes.

Gertrude stood stock still; she knew the place at once. That stream
was Blackwater Brook, and strange tales were told of it. Sometimes,
when crossing this stream, people had clear visions of events that
were taking place elsewhere. A little lad, in crossing, once saw a
bridal procession which happened just then to be moving toward the
church far down in the village, and a charcoal burner once saw a
king, with crown and sceptre, ride to his coronation.

Gertrude's heart was in her mouth "God have mercy on me for what I
may see here!" she gasped, half tempted to turn back. "Poor little
me!" she wailed, feeling sorry for herself. "But I must--I must
cross here to fetch my cows."

"Dear Lord, don't let me see anything dreadful or bad!" she prayed,
her hands tightly clasped, and shaking from fright. "And don't let
me fall into temptation."

There was no doubt in her mind that she would see something; she
was so sure of it, in fact, that she hardly dared venture out upon
the stones that led across the brook. Yet something made her do it.
When halfway over, all at once she saw something moving in among
the trees on the other side of the brook. It was no bridal
procession, however, but a solitary man, who was slowly coming
toward the meadow.

The man was tall and young, and was dressed in a long black garment
that came to his feet. His head was uncovered, and his hair hung in
long black locks over his shoulders. He had a slender and very
beautiful face. He was coming straight toward Gertrude. In his
eyes, which were clear and radiant, there was a wonderful light;
and when his gaze fell upon Gertrude, she felt that he could read
all her sorrowful thoughts, and she saw that he pitied her whose
mind was haunted by fears of the paltry things of earth, whose soul
had become darkened by thoughts of revenge, and whose heart had
been sown with the thistles and poison flowers of Grief.

As he drew nigh, there came over Gertrude such a blissful sense of
ever growing peace and serenity! And when he had passed by, there
was no longer any fear or resentment in her thought. All that was
not good had vanished like a sickness of which one has been healed.

Gertrude stood rapt for a long while. The vision faded away, but
she was still held by the beauty of it, and the impression of what
she had seen stayed with her. Clasping her hands she raised them in
ecstasy.

"I have seen the Christ!" she cried out with joy. "I have seen the
Christ! He has freed me from my sorrow, and I love Him. Now I can
never again love anyone else in the world."

The trials of life had suddenly dwindled into mere nothings, and
life's long years appeared as but a moment in the Glass of Time,
while earthly joys seemed trivial and shallow and meaningless. All
at once it became clear to Gertrude how she was to order her life;
so that she might never again sink down into the darkness of fear,
nor be tempted into doing anything mean or hateful, she would go
with the Hellgumists to Jerusalem. This thought had come to her
when the Christ passed by. She felt that it had come from Him; she
had read it in His eyes.

***

On the beautiful June day when the daughter of Berger Sven Persson
was given in marriage to Ingmar Ingmarsson, a tall, slender young
woman stopped at the Ingmar Farm early in the morning, and asked if
she might speak to the bridegroom. She wore her kerchief so far
down over her face that nothing could be seen of it save a creamy
cheek and a pair of rosy lips. On her arm was a basket that held
little bundles of handmade trimmings, a few hair chains, and hair
bracelets.

She gave her message to an old maidservant, whom she met in the
yard, and who went in and told the housewife. The housewife
answered sharply:

"Go straight back and tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is just going
to drive to church; he has no time to talk with her."

As soon as the young woman received this curt dismissal, she went
her way. When the bridal party had returned from the church, she
came back, and again asked if she might speak to Ingmar Ingmarsson.
This time she approached one of the menservants who was hanging
round the stable door; he went in and told the master.

"Tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is about to sit down to the
wedding feast," said the master. "He has no time to talk to her."

On receiving this answer, she sighed and went her way. When she
came again it was late in the evening, as the sun was setting. This
time she gave her message to a child that was swinging on the gate.
The child ran straight to the house and told the bride.

"Tell her that Ingmar Ingmarsson is dancing with his wife," said
the bride. "He has no time to talk to anyone else."

When the child came back and repeated what had been told her, the
young woman smiled indulgently, and said: "Now you are telling
something that isn't true. Ingmar Ingmarsson is not dancing with
his bride."

This time she did not go away, but remained standing at the gate.

The bride, meanwhile, thought to herself: "I have told a lie on my
wedding day!" Sorry for what she had done, she went up to Ingmar,
and told him that there was a stranger outside who wished to speak
with him. Ingmar went out, and found Gertrude standing at the gate,
waiting.

When Gertrude saw him coming, she started down the road, Ingmar
following. They walked along in silence till they were some
distance away from the house.

As to Ingmar, it could be truthfully said of him that he had aged
in the short time of a few weeks. At any rate, there was something
about his face that showed added shrewdness and caution. He also
stooped more, and looked more subdued, now that he had acquired
riches, than was the case when he had nothing.

Indeed, he was anything but glad to see Gertrude! Every day since
the auction he had been trying to persuade himself into the belief
that he was satisfied with his bargain. "In fact, we Ingmarssons
care for little else than to plow and to sow the fields on the
Ingmar Farm," was what he had said to himself.

But there was something that troubled him even more than the loss
of Gertrude--the thought that now there was one human being who
could say of him that he had not lived up to his word. Keeping a
little behind Gertrude all the while, he went over in his mind all
the scornful things which she had a right to say to him.

Presently Gertrude sat down on a stone at the roadside, and put her
basket on the ground; then she drew her kerchief still farther over
her face.

"Sit down," she said to Ingmar, pointing to another stone. "I have
many things to talk over with you."

Ingmar sat down, and was glad that he felt quite calm. "This will
be easier than I had expected," he said to himself. "I thought it
was going to be much harder on me to see Gertrude again, and to
hear her speak. I was afraid that my love for her would get the
better of me."

"I should never have come like this, and disturbed you on your
wedding day, had I not been compelled to do so," said Gertrude. "I
shall soon be leaving this part of the world, never to return. I
was ready to start a week ago, when something came up that made it
necessary for me to put off going, that I might speak with you to-day."

Ingmar sat all huddled up, with his shoulders hunched and his head
drawn in, as if he were expecting a tempest, saying to himself,
meanwhile: "Whatever Gertrude may think about it, I'm sure I did
the right thing in choosing the farm. I should have been lost
without it."

"Ingmar," said Gertrude, blushing so that the little corner of her
cheek that could be seen behind the kerchief showed crimson. "You
remember, of course, that five years ago I was ready to join the
Hellgumists. At that time I had given my heart to Christ. But I
took it back, to give it to you. In so doing, I acted wrongly, and
that's why I've had to suffer all this. As I once forsook Christ,
even so have I been forsaken by the one I loved."

When Ingmar perceived that Gertrude was about to tell him that
she was going with the Hellgumists, he at once showed signs of
disapproval. "I can't bear to have her join these Jerusalem people,
and go away to a strange land," he thought. And he opposed her plan
as vehemently as he would have done had he still been engaged to
her. "You mustn't think like that, Gertrude," he protested. "God
never meant this as a punishment to you."

"No, no, Ingmar, not as a punishment, indeed not! but only to show
me how badly I had chosen the second time. Ah, this is no
punishment! I feel so happy, and lack for nothing. All my sorrow
has been turned into joy. You will understand this, Ingmar, when I
tell you that the Lord Himself has chosen me, and called me."

Ingmar was silent; a look of weariness came into his eyes. "Don't
be a fool!" he said to himself. "Let Gertrude go. To put sea and
land between you and her would be the best thing that could happen--
sea and land, yes, sea and land!"

And yet that something within him which did not want to let
Gertrude go was, nevertheless, stronger than himself. So he said:
"I can't conceive of your parents allowing you to leave them."

"That they'll never do!" Gertrude replied. "And I know it so well
that I wouldn't even dare ask them. Father would never give his
consent. He would use force, if necessary, to prevent my going. The
hard part of it is that I shall have to sneak away. They think now
that I'm going about the country selling my handiwork; so they
won't know about it until I have joined the Jerusalem pilgrims at
Gothenburg and am well out of Sweden."

Ingmar was very much distressed to think that Gertrude would be
willing to cause her parents such heavy sorrow. "Can it be that she
realizes how badly she is behaving?" he wondered. He was about to
remonstrate with her, then checked himself. "You're hardly the
proper person to reproach Gertrude for anything that she may do,"
he remarked to himself.

"Indeed, I know it will be hard on father and mother," said
Gertrude, "but I must follow Jesus." And she smiled as she named
the name of the Saviour. "He has saved me from destruction. He has
healed my sick soul!" she said feelingly.

And as if she had only now found courage to do so, she pushed back
her kerchief, and looked Ingmar straight in the eyes. It struck
Ingmar that she was drawing comparisons between him and some one
whose image she carried in her heart, and he felt that she found
him small and insignificant.

"It will be very hard for father and mother," she reiterated.
"Father is an old man now, and must soon give up his school; so
they will have even less to live upon than before. When he has no
work to take up his mind, he will become restless and irritable.
Mother won't have an easy time with him. They'll be very unhappy,
both of them. Of course it would have been quite different could I
have stayed at home to cheer them."

Gertrude paused, as if afraid to come out with what she wanted to
say. Ingmar's throat tightened, and his eyes began to fill. He
divined that Gertrude wanted to ask him to look after her old
parents.

"And I fancied that she had come here to-day only to abuse and
threaten me! And instead she opens her heart to me."

"You won't have to ask me, Gertrude," he said. "This is a great
honour for you to confer upon one who has behaved so badly to you.
Be assured that I shall treat your old parents better than I have
treated you."

When Ingmar said this, his voice trembled, and the wary look was
gone from his face. "How kind Gertrude is to me!" he thought. "She
does not ask this of me only out of consideration for her parents,
but she wants to show me that she has forgiven me."

"I knew, Ingmar, that you wouldn't say no to this. And I have
something more to tell you." She spoke now in a brighter and more
confident tone. "I've got a great surprise for you!"

"How charmingly Gertrude speaks!" Ingmar was thinking. "She has the
sweetest, the cheeriest, and most tuneful voice I have ever heard!"

"About a week ago," Gertrude continued, "I left home intending to
go straight on to Gothenburg, so as to be there when the Hellgumists
arrive. The first night I stopped over at Bergsana with a poor
widow whose name it Marie Boving. That name I want you to remember
Ingmar--_Marie Boving_. If she should ever come to want, you must
help her."

"How pretty Gertrude is!" he thought, as he nodded and promised to
remember Marie Boving's name. "How pretty she is! What will become
of me when she goes? God forgive me if I did wrong in giving her up
for an old farm! Fields and meadows can never be the same to you as
a human being; they can't laugh with you when you're happy, nor
comfort you when you're sad! Nothing on earth can make up for the
loss of one who has loved you."

"Marie Boving," Gertrude went on, "has a little room off her
kitchen, which she let me have for the night. 'You'll surely sleep
well to-night,' she said to me, 'as you are to lie on the bedding
which I bought at the sale on the Ingmar Farm.' But as soon as I
laid down, I felt a hard lump in the pillow under my head. After
all, it wasn't such extra good bedding Marie had bought for herself,
I thought; but I was so tired out from tramping around all day,
that I finally dropped off to sleep. In the middle of the night I
awoke and turned the pillow, so I shouldn't feel that hard lump.
While smoothing out the pillow, I discovered that the ticking had
been cut and clumsily basted together. Inside there was something
hard that crackled like paper. 'I don't have to lie on rocks,' I
said to myself; then I ripped open a corner of the pillow, and
pulled out a small parcel, which was done up in wrapping paper and
tied with string."

Gertrude paused and glanced at Ingmar, to see whether his curiosity
was aroused; but apparently he had not listened very closely to
what she was telling.

"How prettily Gertrude uses her hands when she talks!" he thought.
"I don't think I've ever seen any one as graceful as she is.
There's an old saying that man loves mankind above everything.
However, I believe that I did the right thing, for it wasn't only
the farm that needed me, but the whole parish." Just the same, he
felt to his discomfort that now it was not so easy to persuade
himself that he loved his old home more than he loved Gertrude.

"I put the parcel down beside the bed, thinking that in the morning
I would give it to Marie. But at daybreak I saw that your name was
written on the wrapper. On closer examination I decided to take it
along, and turn it over to you without saying anything about it,
either to Marie or to any one else." Then taking a little parcel
from the bottom of her basket, she said: "Here it is, Ingmar. Take
it; it's your property." She supposed, of course, that he would be
happily surprised.

Ingmar took the parcel, without much thought as to what he was
receiving. He was struggling to ward off the bitter regrets that
were stealing in on him.

"If Gertrude only knew how bewitching she is when she's so sweet
and gentle! It would have been better for me had she come to
upbraid me. I suppose I ought to be glad that she is as she is,"
he thought, "but I'm not. It seems as if she were grateful to me
for having failed her."

"Ingmar," said Gertrude, in a tone that finally made him understand
that she had something very important to tell him. "When Elof lay
sick at the Ingmar Farm, he must have used that very pillow."

She took the parcel from Ingmar and opened it. Then she counted out
twenty crisp, new bank notes, each of which was a thousand-krona
bill. Holding the money in front of his eyes, she said:

"Look, Ingmar! here's every krona of your inheritance money. It was
Elof, of course, who hid it in the pillow!"

Ingmar heard what she said, and he saw the bank notes--but he saw
and heard as in a daze. Gertrude placed the money in his hand, but
his fingers would not close over it, and it fell to the ground.
Then Gertrude picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Ingmar
stood there, reeling like a drunken man. Suddenly he raised his
arm, clenched his fist tight, and shook it, just as a drunken man
might have done. "My God! My God!" he groaned.

Indeed, he wished that he could have had a word with our Lord,
could have asked Him why this money had not been found sooner, and
why it should have turned up now when it was not needed, and when
Gertrude was already lost to him. The next moment his hand dropped
heavily on Gertrude's shoulder.

"You certainly know how to take your revenge!"

"Do you call this revenge, Ingmar?" asked Gertrude, in dismay.

"What else should I call it? Why didn't you bring me this money at
once?"

"I wanted to wait until the day of your wedding."

"If you had only come before, I'm sure I could have bought back the
farm from Berger Sven Persson, and then I would have married you."

"Yes, I knew that."

"And yet you come on my wedding day, when it's too late!"

"It would have been too late in any case, Ingmar. It was too late a
week ago, it is too late now, and it will be too late forever."

Ingmar had again sunk down on the stone. He covered his face with
his hands and wailed:

"And I thought there was no help for it! I believed that no power
on earth could have altered this; but now I find that there was a
way out, that we might all have been happy."

"Understand one thing, Ingmar: when I found the money, I knew at
once that it would be the kind of help to us that you say. But it
was no temptation to me--no, not for a second; for I belong to
another."

"You should have kept it yourself!" cried Ingmar. "I feel as if a
wolf were gnawing at my heart. So long as I believed there was no
other course open to me, it wasn't so bad; but now that I know you
could have been mine, I can't--"

"Why Ingmar! I came here to bring you happiness."

Meanwhile, the folks at the house had become impatient, and had
gone out on the porch, where they were calling: "Ingmar! Ingmar!"

"Yes, and there's the bride, too, waiting for me!" he said
mournfully. "And to think that you, Gertrude, should have brought
all this about! When I had to give you up, circumstances forced me
to do so, while you have spoiled everything simply to make me
unhappy. Now I know how my father felt when my mother killed the
child!"

Then he broke into violent sobs. "Never have I felt toward you
as I do now!" he cried passionately. "I've never loved you half so
much as I do now. Little did I think that love could be so cruelly
bitter!"

Gertrude gently placed her hand on his head. "Ingmar," she said
very quietly, "it was never, never my meaning to take revenge on
you. But so long as your heart is wedded to the things of this
earth, it is wedded to sorrow."

For a long while Ingmar sat motionless, his head bowed. When
he at last looked up, Gertrude was gone. People now came running
from the farm to find him. He struck his clenched fist against the
stone upon which he sat, and a look of determination came into his
face.

"Gertrude and I will surely meet again," he said. "Then maybe it
will be altogether different. We Ingmarssons are known to win what
we yearn for."

THE DEAN'S WIDOW

Everybody tried to dissuade the Hellgumists from going to Jerusalem.
And toward the last, it seemed as though the very hills and vales
echoed the plea, "Do not go! Do not go!"

Even the country gentlemen did their best to get the peasants to
abandon the idea. The bailiff, the judge, and the councilmen gave
them no peace; they asked them how they could feel sure that these
Americans were not imposters; for they had no way of knowing what
sort of folk they would be getting in with. In that far Eastern
country there was neither law nor order; there one was always in
danger of falling into the hands of brigands. Besides, there were
no decent roads in that land--all their goods would have to be
transported by means of pack-horses, as in the wild forests up
North.

The doctor told them they would never be able to stand the climate;
that Jerusalem was full of smallpox and malignant fevers; they were
going away only to die.

The Hellgumists answered that they knew all this, and it was for
that very reason they were going. They were going there in order to
fight the smallpox and the fevers, to build roads and to till the
soil. God's country should no longer lie waste; they would transform
it into a paradise. And no one was able to turn them from their
purpose.

Down in the village lived an old lady, the widow of the Dean. She
was very, very old! She occupied a large chamber above the post
office, just across the street from the church, where she had lived
since the death of her husband.

Some of the more well-to-do peasant women had always made it a rule
to drop in to see the old lady on Sundays, before the service, and
bring her some freshly baked bread, a pat of butter, or a can of
milk. On these occasions she would always have the coffee pot put
on the fire the moment they came in, and the one who could shout
the loudest always talked with her, for she was frightfully deaf.
Of course they would try to tell her about everything that had
happened during the week, but they could never be certain as to how
much she heard of what was told her.

She never left her room, and there were times when it seemed as if
people had forgotten her entirely. Then some one, in passing, would
see her old face back of the draped white curtains at the window,
and think: "I must not forget her in her loneliness; to-morrow when
we have killed the calf, I'll run in to see her, and take her a bit
of fresh meat."

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