The Emigrants (49 page)

And they soon learned that this water was an important crossroad of the sea, used by many vessels. Every day they saw other ships—they met them, they were in their company, they passed them, they were overtaken by them; they saw vessels both smaller and bigger than their own, with people from foreign lands on board, vessels flying flags in all colors.

Then one morning they discovered land on the starboard side—a glittering white shore rose before them, like a high, steep bank. It was the coast of England, said the seamen. There were knolls and cliffs of chalk, shining white in the sun. Beyond the shore—farther inland—high towers and steeples rose up; those were forts, castles, and churches. And the emigrants stood there and looked over the bank into the foreign land; they beheld England, a land they sailed by, the soil of which they were never to tread on. This was the first foreign country they had seen so close—when they passed Denmark, land had been a long way off—and the vision was strange to them. But strangest of all was this white wall, this beautiful, high-chested shore which rose up in front of them. It looked like a tremendous whitewashed fireplace, a giant stove wall which the sea’s surging waves had been unable to demolish. They thought, this must be a strong kingdom, with such fortifications.

The white wall was to be their abiding memory of England.

In the Channel the ships thickened, masts from many lands were gathered here; here was the meeting place of the seafaring pines. Here rose masts much taller and thicker than the two from Swedish ground which had been transplanted to the
Charlotta;
but perhaps these foreign masts came from other trees than the family of evergreens.

After one day the white cliffs of England disappeared from their view and sank slowly into the choppy sea astern. And with this the emigrants said another farewell: this stretch of shore was the last they were to see of the Old World. Many days would pass before they saw land again. Now the
big
sea opened its expanse to them, now there remained only the ocean.

And when next they espied a shore, it would rise at the prow, it would be the New World.

—2—

The emigrant ship met new storms and bad weather, but her passengers were growing accustomed to them as something inescapably belonging to their new existence.

In their early days on board they had willingly talked about Sweden, and bitter, angry words passed, for the most part, as they compared each other’s lot at home. But as the days after their departure increased, they spoke ill less often of the land they had left. They had left it, once and for all, and that seemed sufficient. Their homeland lay behind them and it was already far away—already a foreign place. And it seemed wrong to them to speak ill of someone or something that was so far away, and couldn’t hear them. Now they did not wish to revile their homeland. They had their relatives there—indeed, the whole country seemed to them a relative. They had left this relative—that was enough; they might never again see what they had left; they had closed their accounts with the kingdom that had borne them—there was no reproach.

But one day they met a ship flying a flag which they recognized: from the stern flew the flag of their homeland. The emigrants stared in amazement, and watched. The time they had been at sea could be measured in weeks only, as yet, but they had already experienced storm and suffered seasickness and endured all the inconveniences of seafarers, and it seemed to them that they had sailed for months. They felt they were immeasurably far out in the world: they had sailed over the unfathomable expanse of sea, their homes seemed to lie in a faraway land behind them. And now, suddenly, that land was close to them—they had encountered it out here on the ocean. Over there, only a few hundred yards away from them, must be people from the same sort of hamlets as their own, people who spoke the same language they did. There might even be someone on that ship whom they knew.

The eyes of the
Charlotta
’s passengers followed the vessel with the known flag waving to them so near. Her course was exactly opposite to their own; she sailed their own route back. Those people sailed home; their own ship sailed away.

Home
—they surprised themselves by still thinking of Sweden as their home. Yet none of them had a home left in the land that they had turned their backs on. They had all deserted their old homes—to seek new ones. And yet—Sweden was
home.
It was inexplicable, and they mused over it.

The brig
Charlotta
was loaded with seekers of new homes. Her passengers were people who had left their old homes but as yet had no new ones. The emigrants were a flock of homeless people, roaming the sea. This ship—forty paces long and eight wide—was their refuge on earth.

They were the tramps of the ocean—the ocean was their path, and this little brig was their lodging. And in the evenings before they crept into their bunks they looked out over the sea which expanded round their shelter. The sea darkened at night, and in the darkness rose the roaring, belligerent wave crests, which became downhill and uphill, which became the depths of the valleys and the heights of the mountains around their ship. Then they felt the great depths under them open up, and over them stole the shiver of insecurity: only this fragile little ship, floating like a feather on the water, was their home and protection. Now they must go to sleep in this restless, tossed-about home—down in this ship they must close their eyes. How dared they? How dared they go to sleep down there, and entrust their lives and their belongings to the brittle planks which surrounded them?

The emigrants no longer felt a bond with the earth, they had been thrown out to sea, pulled away from all footholds; they were lost in the world.

A home to these people of the earth meant a peaceful, stable place on the ground, an unmoving room, a house with sturdy walls and closed doors, with secure bolts and locks—a peaceful cottage on land where in the evening they could seek their beds in security and comfort.

Such a home they had left behind. And now they met a ship which sailed in the direction of this home. They stood and looked long after this home-going vessel. It shrank and grew smaller. Soon it was only a gray speck on the horizon. A home-going Swedish ship disappeared in the direction from which they had come.

The emigrants had met a ship sailing
home.
After this they understood and felt still more strongly that they were sailing
away.

XX

STORIES ON THE AFTERDECK

—1—

Robert and Elin sat on the leeward side of the afterdeck, close together, their backs against a coil of rope. They were reading a textbook in English which Robert had bought in Karlshamn.

It was a pleasant afternoon on the
Charlotta;
she was sailing in a leisurely way with a moderate quartering wind. The emigrants sat in small groups on deck and whiled away the time; the May sun shone over the Atlantic Ocean, and a continuous penetrating odor of fried rancid pork exuded from the galley, as was its wont this time of day. And two young emigrants sat by themselves and read.
About tongue- and lip-position in the use of the English language.

Robert’s narrow textbook was hardly larger than the Little Catechism. It was designed for the average reader among the peasantry:
Guidance for Immigrants Who Wish to Gather Necessary Knowledge in the English Language in Order to Get Along.
It was exactly what Robert wanted. He did not wish to become a linguist—at least not at once. And the bookseller in Karlshamn had said that it was written for simple folk. Simplicity and easy comprehension were emphasized, rather than a scholarly approach. But to Robert this
Guidance
was very difficult to understand: after several weeks at sea he had read only three of the simple and easy pages.

Today he began on the fourth page. Today he and Elin read together for the first time. Fortunately, Elin had no need of learning English, as the Holy Ghost was to visit her and all the Åkians as soon as they landed in America; they would be able to speak the new language without difficulty at the moment of stepping ashore. But she was curious as she heard Robert use words from the foreign language. Even now she did not wish to seem less learned than he; she must participate. He also was of the opinion that it could hardly hurt her if she learned a little in advance about the difficult pronunciation. When she landed she would then have cleared away a little work for the Holy Ghost, and this could not be a sin.

English was a complicated and tricky language for unlearned people. The most difficult thing of all was that the words were spelled in two entirely different ways: first they were printed as words usually are, then the same words appeared in brackets, spelled entirely differently: “Yes, I am a stranger here, (aj am a strehndjer hihr.) What are you looking for? (hoat ahr joh loking far?) What do you wish? (hoat doh joh oisch?)”—Robert could not understand this arrangement; what use was there in writing and spelling the same word in two ways? It caused only unnecessary time and trouble. It was strange that the Americans, who were considered so clever, couldn’t agree on one way of spelling their language. It could hardly have anything to do with the different classes, as all people were equally good in America and no one was above anyone else.

The youth and the girl started with “Conversational Exercises.” They sat with their heads very close together, which they must do as they were reading the same book. And they read aloud about the position of the tongue and the lips in the correct use of English: “When English and American people speak, their tongues are usually pulled back in their mouths a great deal farther than is the case when we Swedes speak our mother tongue. The lips are moved less than in Swedish. They are neither rounded nor pursed as much as with us, nor are they opened as much. It is very important that no protruding of the lips takes place, especially in making the difficult ch-sound.”

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. Every word of it,” she lied.

“Otherwise I’ll show you.”

And then he pursed his lips: this she must not do when she spoke English.

“I don’t make such an ugly mouth when I speak Swedish!” she said.

“Say the ch-sound!” continued Robert. “Say ‘church’!”

“Church,” repeated the girl slowly and seriously.

But he thought she pouted her lips too much.

“Pull in your lips! Say it again!”

She repeated the word “church” a few times while his face was close to hers so he might see the movements of her lips. She wanted to protrude them too far, he thought. She said the word half a score times, but he was still not quite satisfied. At last she succeeded: exactly so must the word be pronounced! He gave her other words with the ch-sound, he continued his instructions with the aid of his fingers, and he thought this was a good way to teach English.

While busy with his lesson he suddenly discovered that Elin had a small and sensitive mouth, and that her lips were downy and a little moist from the spray of the ocean.

And then he must teach the girl to keep her tongue far back in her mouth while using the English language. The Holy Ghost might not remember to tell her all the details. Especially when she used the letters
d, e, l,
and
n,
she must keep her tongue as far back as she could; those were the most important letters, used perhaps every day in America.

In order to administer his instruction more efficiently, he now wanted to see how her tongue was shaped. He asked her to stick it out.

The girl obeyed, and the young man carefully scrutinized her extended tongue, which had the light red color of early wild strawberries, and was narrow and pointed like a cat’s. He thought she would be able to speak English with it if she had the necessary practice. He let her sit there with her tongue extended toward him so long that she finally became tired and pulled it in. Wasn’t he through with his inspection? He told her that the learning of English required great patience; she must not tire from holding her tongue out such a short while; she might have to endure greater hardships before she knew the new language.

Elin had hardly pulled her little tongue into her mouth again before Ulrika of Västergöhl called: Elin must help her mother with the evening meal. The girl obeyed and left Robert at once. And he sat on alone, annoyed and hurt; no sooner was he with Elin than her mother found something urgent for her to do. Ulrika could easily have prepared the food alone and given her daughter an opportunity to learn English, now that she had such a good teacher.

Fredrik Mattsson, the so-called American, strolled by in his loud-checked jacket. Robert showed him the textbook and asked him to read a piece aloud in English. But the American waved him away: Not today! Some other time. He had read in English books for many years, while in America; he was tired of the English language. He was now taking his afternoon stroll to rest himself. Some other day he would read in the book.

Robert had asked him about North America many times—its government, soil conditions, and climate. But the American only answered that he was not allowed to divulge anything; he had promised the President of the United States not to say a word. The President had become one of his close friends while he was over there, they had caroused together, drunk and played cards through many nights, they were the best of friends. And the President had told him in confidence many of the republic’s great secrets—with Fredrik’s assurance of secrecy, of course. That was why he couldn’t say anything, at least not before the President of America released him from this promise of secrecy. For he, Fredrik Mattsson, was an honest man who stood by his word.

But there were some things in the American’s tales which made Robert suspicious.

Now Fredrik went over and sat down among some youths who were sunning themselves on deck, and Robert joined their company. The American told about his various occupations in the United States. For one emigrating there, it was most instructive.