THE STORY OF AARON THE BEGGAR.
FROM THE SWEDISH.
Kangas lieth in Sioni; ’tis a homestead that scarce has an equal;
Plenteous in wood and in corn-fields, with rich grassy meadows and moorland.
This won my father, in wedding the farmer’s fair daughter;
And here he grew old, like a summer’s eve calmly declining.
From him came the farm unto me; and here, like my father,
I spent the best years of my life, and dwelt like a king amid plenty.
Servants I had; men servants to plow with my oxen;
And maids in the house, too; and children, the joy of their mother
And the hope of my eye, who grew up like olive-plants round us.
Thus sowing and reaping in comfort, from season to season abode I,
Envied by many, but having the good-will of all men.
At length came misfortune, and so put an end to my gladness.
The frost of one night destroyed all my yet unreaped harvest,
Wolves killed my cattle; and thus passed a winter of sorrow.
Again I sowed rye-crops, looking for profit in autumn;
And again the rye failed, for again was the early ear frosted.
I had men and maid servants no longer. I could not pay land-dues.
Bread we had none; bark dried in the oven sustained us.
So passed the time; and as long as the milch-kine were spared us,
And we had their milk, the bark-bread for us was sufficient.
Thus came and went Christmas; and still we lived on, although famished.
At length, when returning one morning with bark on my shoulder,
I was met on the threshold by strangers—and thus one accosts me:
“Friend, either pay that thou owest, or all that thou hast will be seized on.”
Amazed, I made answer: “Good sir, yet awhile have thou patience,
And I will pay all, Heaven helping! We now are sustained
Alone on bark bread!”
Again they turned into the house, no answer vouchsafing,
Then hastily stripped from the walls our poor store of household utensils,
Seized all that remained of our clothing, and carried them off to their sledge.
Weeping, my wife lay, my excellent wife, on her straw bed,
Watching in silence the men, and all the while soothing the baby,
Which lay on her bosom new-born, and kept up a wailing of sorrow.
I followed them out as they bore thence the last of our chattels,
As stern in my mood as the pine when his axe at its roots lays the woodman.
They cast up the worth of their plunder, and said that it reached not
The half of the sum that they needed. Again spake the bailiff:
“Friend,” said he, “this doth not suffice, but thou hast much kine in the cow-shed.”
Thus saying, with no more ado, they went on to the straw-yard,
Where stood the kine under their shelter lowing for fodder.
They loosened and drove them all forth, one after another;
Still forcing them on by compulsion, unwilling to leave their old homestead.
In this way six cows were secured; the seventh, a starveling,
Dead rather than living, they left me. Thus all that I had was distrained on.
I spake not; in dreary despondence re-crossing my threshold,
And thus from the bed of her sorrow a low voice of misery accosts me;
“Look around if thou canst not find aught for my hunger’s appeasing;
How sweet were a draught of new milk, for I thirst, and the babe findeth nothing!”
Thus spake she; a darkness came over my eyesight, and sorrowing
I went to the cow-shed, where stood the lean, famishing creature,
And chewed a poor mouthful of rye-straw. I pressed the dry udder,
For milk trying vainly, for not a drop answered the pressure.
Despairing, yet dreading a failure, yet harder assayed I,
And blood flowed, a crimson stream, staining the pail of the milker.
As fierce as the mother-bear, struck by the spear of the hunter,
Rushed I indoors, and took up a loaf, which I sundered
By the stroke of the axe, and black flew the bark-fragments round me.
One morsel I gave to my wife, saying: “Take it; ’tis all that is left us;
Eat, and give suck to the infant.” She took the dry morsel;
She turned it about in her hand, looked at it, then pressing
The babe to her bosom, she swooning, fell back on her pillow.
I buckled the skates on my feet, and sped in all haste to the neighbor
Who dwelt nearest to me, and prayed for some help in my sorrow
He willingly gave it, dividing his all as a brother.
Again I sped back with a pailful of milk on my shoulder;
But on reaching my threshold a cry of sad sorrow assailed me;
And entering, I saw by the bedside my two eldest children,
Frantic with terror, and trying to waken their mother;
But silent and motionless lay she, a ghastly death pallor
Spread over her face, and the blackness of night her eyes vailing.
This was the crown of our sorrow—bereaved was the beautiful Kangas.
And ere long, as if Heaven-abandoned, I left it forever,
And, taking my staff in my hand went forth, drawing my children
On a light sledge behind me, and wandered gray-headed a beggar.
From parish to parish we wandered, and God and good Christians sustained us.
But Time doth lighten most sorrows; and now amid strangers
My children are blooming afresh; for myself it contents me
If only my bread I can win, and playing my jew’s-harp
Can sit 'neath the trees in the sunshine, and sing like a cricket.
* * * * *
Translation of M. Howitt. Johann Ludwig Runeberg, a Finlander.
