The Emigrants (16 page)

“Said Dean B.: ‘Your case is now clear, Danjel Andreasson. You have here admitted—in the presence of unbiased witnesses—that you have broken the law by practicing the ministry. You should now receive your punishment in civil court. But I wish your repentance, not your ruin. If you retract your heresy, and promise no longer to preach or to spread your false and ungodly doctrines, I will grant you grace and forgiveness for what you have done.’

“Answered Danjel A.: ‘The grace belongs to God alone. Accordingly, you, Mr. Dean, have no grace to bestow on me, nor can I receive grace from you.’

“Said Dean B.: ‘In the presence of these witnesses I have forbidden you to preach. If you still pursue your illegal activities you will be sued in civil court and be fined or sentenced to bread and water in prison. On a third offense you are liable to two years’ exile.’

“Answered Danjel A.: ‘Mr. Dean, you cannot exile me from the kingdom of God, not even for one moment.’

“In spite of strong admonishments from Dean Brusander, the interrogated Andreasson adhered to his heresy, and refused obstinately to retract any of his false doctrines. The dean consequently administered his first warning against the spreading of heretical doctrines tending to undermine church unity and threaten the order, welfare, and security of the country. The dean instructed the strayed one to remain at his calling and pursue lawful work. Andreasson was then allowed to leave.”

—4—

This interrogation by Dean Brusander had extracted the truth from the very mouth of the questioned one himself.

Danjel Andreasson, a simple man of the rough peasantry, was blown up by self-righteousness and vanity, and in his heart was angry and malicious toward church and clergy. In his arguments he showed a certain cunning and shrewdness not uncommon among peasants. He harbored the most insane opinions concerning man’s spiritual and temporal well-being. And his heresy was particularly dangerous because it attacked the bond of unity between authority and subjects; he incited disobedience of the holy church laws. And even foolish thoughts were easily accepted by an ignorant peasantry, as witnessed in the time of Åke Svensson. Danjel had as yet no proselytes besides a few loose and notorious persons; but well-thought-of people
might
be enticed into his false religious fold.

Brusander felt his high and holy duty: the only true religion must not be besmirched. No blemish must stain it. The evangelical-Lutheran religion—the faith of his fathers—must be preserved untarnished within his parish henceforth as hitherto. During the reign of the devout King Charles XI deviation from the pure religion had been punished by the gauntlet, and sometimes loss of life. Though to a later era this might seem severe, one must keep in mind that it concerned the Augsburg Confession and the purity of evangelical-Lutheran religion. At the present time Sweden had a milder monarch, her inhabitants lived in a tolerant and enlightened century, and milder means must be used against recalcitrant subjects. It would have boded ill for Danjel Andreasson in other times. The dean had thought to bring him to his senses through warnings and kind admonishments alone. He did not wish the poor man’s ruin. He would pray God to enlighten his darkened senses. He wished to force the man to repentance, and free his parish from the abominable contagion of Åkianism, without having to call in the secular authorities.

Dean Brusander duly warned his entrusted flock: three Sundays in succession he read from the pulpit the “wholesome ordinance” which prescribed fines, prison, or exile, for male or female, old or young, few or many, who gathered together in private houses under pretext of devotion. And all parishioners were warned about the farm Kärragärde, which had once more become a forbidden meeting place.

After a short while it was again reported to the dean that Danjel Andreasson persisted in his unlawful Bible explanations. Brusander then resorted to the church ban: homeowner Danjel Andreasson of Kärragärde and all his house folk were excluded from the Lord’s Holy Communion and banished from the sacraments and fellowship of the church. It was the church’s ban against the man who had returned from the insane asylum.

VI

“SUITABLE CHASTISEMENT”

—1—

The wagonloads of oak timbers began rolling toward Karlshamn in the autumn, but Aron of Nybacken himself went with his team. He said that he was so concerned about his little hand that he dared not let him out on long journeys. A door which had seemed open was shut in Robert’s face. There were many closed gates on the road to America.

His master still had no confidence in him. And yet, ever since Robert began his service, he had been obedient and attentive and done all he had been asked to do. Only once during the whole summer had the master been impelled to discipline him: then, when he was told to fetch water for the horses, Aron had thought he didn’t move fast enough or obey quickly enough, and he gave his little hand a kick in the groin. It could have been a harder kick; but as it was it hit his scrotum which swelled up and became sensitive. For a few days he walked slowly and with difficulty, and the maids poked fun at him and wondered what kind of sickness ailed the little man. But that was the only time Aron had been dissatisfied.

One morning about Michaelmas Robert was sent to clean a ditch in a field near the house. He loosed the stones with an iron bar and threw up the earth with a shovel; the ditch was deep, and when he bent down in his work his head was barely visible above the edge. After a few hours’ work he felt hungry. Wouldn’t it soon be time for breakfast? No call for food was heard, he became sweaty and thirsty, his back ached from the bending, the earth became heavier with each shovelful. The drudgery was heavy—interminable. He grew depressed, realizing he hadn’t labored through half his service year; this period with Aron was endless. He saw all his future years as service years with farmers, and all were endless; everything in the world seemed to him wretched and endless. And he wondered if it were worth while to live, if he must remain a farmhand.

At last he put the shovel aside and lay down on his back in the bottom of the ditch, with his arms under his head, and watched the sailing clouds in the sky. During his herdboy days he used to lie like this, sometimes for half a day at a stretch; he enjoyed it now no less.

But in order to rest undisturbed by Aron it must look from the house as if he were still working.

Robert therefore took off his cap and hung it on the spade handle, which he held in such a position that the cap was visible above the ditch’s edge; as he lay there he moved the spade a little now and then, back and forth, up and down, as one might imagine the head of a busy farmhand would move while he cleaned a ditch.

The notion scattered his depressing thoughts, he grew cheerful, almost gay: he could remain lying here, resting and enjoying himself, while from the farm his master kept an eye on his splendid little fellow, working in the ditch. Aron was satisfied and so was he. One could get a rest period now and then if one were clever.

Robert thoroughly enjoyed his rest. Above him was the expanse of the high heaven, stretched out like a blue sea of freedom over all the ditches on earth and over all farmhands who labored in them. He was so filled with joy that he began to whistle and sing.

This, however, he was soon to regret; a master would easily understand that all was not as it should be when one of his hands kept singing and whistling while he worked.

Suddenly the farmer from Nybacken appeared above him. “Are you playing dollhouse, my little fellow?”

Robert had not heard the master’s approach. There he stood and looked down upon his servant, stretched out full length at the bottom of the ditch.

The boy jumped from the ditch in one leap, shovel in hand. He wanted to say that he had taken only five minutes’ rest because breakfast was delayed. But he did not find time to say anything. Aron’s jaws clenched, and he shook his fists in front of him. “So, you are loafing, you damned lazybones!”

And Robert encountered two gnarled clumps, the biggest hands he had ever seen on a human being. Terror-struck, he dropped the shovel and tried to escape; but he took only one step.

The master’s right fist landed on his left ear. He bent like a jack-knife from the blow and fell face down on a pile of dirt. His face was buried in the earth from the impact. The pain cut through his head, red stars sparkled before his eyes, the whole world around him whirled. He heard someone shriek; he did not recognize the voice—could it be his own?

He did not faint; the whole time his head was bursting with pain. He thought his skull was broken, split in two like a piece of wood under the chopping ax; he thought he couldn’t live with his head in two pieces; he wanted to die to escape the pain. He had stopped shrieking and now he heard someone else shouting: the mistress stood on the stoop calling Aron to breakfast.

The master left, and the beaten farmhand rose slowly to a sitting position. His face dirt-covered, he tried to pick pieces of earth from his eyes. A sharp stone had scratched his nose; his mouth was full of dirt—he spat. He was still dizzy, the world around him still heaved, but the pain had abated a little.

Only once before had he received a box on the ear from the master—that day when he had entered the service. That time it was only a small box; today he had experienced a big box on the ear.

As soon as the pain from the blow had subsided, hunger returned. He stood up and attempted a few steps: the ground lay almost still under his feet; he followed his master home to breakfast.

Robert did not mention the box on the ear to anyone. He had been chastised, he was ashamed of it, it was nothing to talk about. He had been lazy in his work and punished for it. He had received what he had earned; there was nothing more to say. If a servant was lazy and disobedient, then his master had the right to discipline him. He knew this well, all others knew it, and if they hadn’t known it, much less work would have been accomplished for the farmers. So it was according to the servant law which Dean Brusander reiterated at the yearly examinations: “If a servant is inclined to laziness” the master must correct this through “suitable chastisement.” There was no other remedy.

Aron of Nybacken was his master, who according to God’s ordinance had fatherly power over him. It was Aron’s right and duty to administer suitable punishment; the little farmhand had nothing to complain about. He was not wronged by anyone; he had been given the box on the ear according to God’s ordinance.

He carried no hatred toward the master who had hit him. Once, when he was standing behind the barn, he had seen Aron beaten by his wife: she gave him a heavy blow across his neck with the byre besom; it was a big, rough besom, filled with cow dung, but Aron endured the blow without attempting to defend himself; he had looked frightened. Robert pitied his master rather than hated him.

When he went to bed that evening he could still hear a buzz in his ear from the hard blow; there was no sound around him, but there was a buzz in his ear. He lay there and listened to the humming sound and wondered what caused it. Outside in the yard as well as inside in the stable room complete silence reigned, but from inside his ear came a strange noise. He lay absolutely quiet and only listened within himself; he did not cause any sound; what could it be that buzzed and hummed so?

He let Arvid put his ear next to his own and listen. But Arvid couldn’t hear anything, not a sound. It was inexplicable: Robert heard a sound which did not exist.

He awoke in the middle of the night. His left ear throbbed and ached intensely, and the noise inside had increased, and sounded by now like the roar of a storm. And his heartbeats were felt in his ear like the piercing of a pointed knife. He lay there on his bed and turned and twisted in agony. Something must have broken inside to cause the throbbing. He counted his heartbeats: the knife’s edge cut and cut and cut in his ear; it felt like the sting in a fresh, open, sensitive wound. The stings did not cease, the ache did not abate. He counted and waited and hoped, but it did not diminish. He was alone in the whole world with his pain and he did not know what to do about it. He began to moan; he didn’t cry but he groaned quietly and at intervals. He folded his hands and prayed to God. He realized that the earache was in punishment for his laziness in the ditch, and he prayed for forgiveness. If God granted absolution He would also remove the earache. He had been a disloyal servant and he also remembered now that he had lately omitted reading “A Servant’s Prayer.” Tonight he recited it again in deep remorse: “Teach me to be faithful, humble, and devoted to my temporal lords. . . . Let me also find good and Christian masters who do not neglect or mistreat a poor servant, but keep me in love and patience. . . .”

After the prayer he lay in darkness and waited. But the ache did not leave him, it throbbed and throbbed and he felt the sting of the knife edge in his sensitive ear a hundred times each minute. God would not remove the ache, he fought his pain alone, and he was helpless and could do nothing to alleviate it. Deep inside his ear in a roaring storm his pain lived on.

He arose and lit the stable lantern. Arvid woke and wondered sleepily what had happened.

“I’ve a bad earache.”

“The hell you have!”

“What shall I do?” Robert moaned pitifully.

The elder farmhand sat up in his bed and scratched his straggly hair. He cogitated.

The best remedy for earache was mother’s milk, he said. But where would they get hold of a suckling woman who had some milk left in her breasts this time of night? The mistress had never even had a child; she was a dried-up woman. And the maids were virgins with unopened breasts.

But Arvid rose and brought forth his brännvin keg. “We’ll try with brännvin on a wool wad.”

He searched for a while in his servant chest and found some sheep’s wool which he soaked in brännvin and put into his friend’s aching ear.