PART II.
Even if Ireneus had not willingly accepted the plan worked out for the Employment of his leisure in study, the rigorous climate of Sweden would, in some manner, have made it compulsory for him to do so. To the cold and dry days, which, during the winter, enlightened and animated the people of the north, succeeded storms and hurricanes. Tempests of snow floated in the air, covered the paths, and blocked up the doors of the houses. A cloudy horizon and black sky seemed to close around every house, like a girdle of iron. At a little distance not even a hill could be distinguished from a forest; all was, as it were, drowned and overwhelmed in a misty ocean, in movable columns of snow, which were impetuous, and irresistible as the sand-whirlpools of the desert. About midday a light purple tint, like a dying twilight, glittered in somber space: a ray thrown by the sun across the clouds, gave an uncertain light. All, however, soon became dark again. One might have fancied that the god of day had retired over-wearied from regions he had in vain attempted to subdue. Nowhere does the symbolical dogma of the contests of darkness and light manifest itself in more characteristic traits than in the Scandinavian mythology; and nowhere does it appear physically under a more positive image than in the regions which have been for centuries devoted to this mythology. During the summer at the north, the sun reigns like an absolute sovereign over nature, and ceaselessly lights it with his crown of fire; he ever watches it, like a jealous lover. If he inclines toward the horizon, if his burning disk disappears behind the purple mountain brows, he leaves for only a moment those polar regions, and leaves even then a clearness behind like the dawn. He soon reappears in his spotless splendor.
In the winter, however, he yields to night, which, with her dark cortege, occupies the northern world. She envelops space with her black wings, and casts the ice and snow from her bosom. Sometimes, for weeks, the storms are so violent, that one cannot, without danger, venture into the fields; and cruel necessity alone induces the peasant to take the road, either to offer something for sale in the nearest market, or to gain a few shillings as a guide to some adventurous traveler. Sometimes, even the peasants of this country are afraid to cast their nets in the river, and gulf, which in the greatest degree contribute to their subsistence. During the greater portion of the time, the poor people of the north, secluded in their homes by masses of snow, isolated from their neighbors, pass whole winters by the fireside. The men occupy themselves in repairing the harness of their horses, in mending the iron work of their carriages—for in that country the homes of people are so far from each other, that each family is forced to provide for its daily wants, and every peasant is at once saddler, wagon-maker, and carpenter. Women are busy in weaving and spinning. In many provinces, especially in that in which the uncle of Ireneus had established himself, there was in existence an industry, which, during the last twenty years, has been much developed. Every peasant's house is a perfect workshop, for the manufacture of linen. Woofs, white and fine as those of Holland, and quite as good, are there produced. This variety of work commences after harvest. In the autumn evenings, women, young girls, &c., assemble at different houses, with their distaff or bundle of flax, which they place before the hearth. It is pleasant, indeed, to see this collection of industrious women, busied in the performance of the task prescribed to them, laughing, talking, without sometimes taking time even to listen to the young lovers who hover around them.
Often a respectable grandmother, the fingers of whom were wrinkled by age, and which neither weave nor spin, would bid the wild troop be silent, as she told one of the mad histories of old times. Then, one of the work-women would merrily ring out the peasant songs, the chorus of which her companions would re-echo. After a few hours of toil, a young man would arise, and give a pleasant signal. All chairs and benches would at once be removed; the work-shop would be changed into a ball-room. To supply the deficiency of an orchestra, one of the spectators defined the modulations of a dance by some old traditionary song. Young men and women took each other by the hand, and formed together one of those country groups which are the elements of the chorographic art. They then parted, making a rendezvous for the next day, for another hearth-side, but for similar amusements. All the work-women, returned to their own houses, where they gaily retailed all the episodes of the evening's events, some recording merely a silent glance, which met their own, or a furtive clasp of the hand which had aroused a blush. More than one happy acquaintance originates in one of those northern evenings—and more than one girl, who, in the autumn, has a heart free as air, in the spring wears on her finger the ring of a promised bride.
When the weather was good, Ebba went out sometimes alone, to be present at these re-unions. All rose to welcome her with a sentiment of respect and attention, for she was kind to the poor.
The young people silently withdrew, and the matron of the house gave her the most pleasant seat by the hearth-side. The children, however, to whom she brought every day fruits and presents, leaped and danced around her. The old village story-tellers were also glad when she came, for no one Questioned them with more kindness, or listened with more attention to their popular tales. Her delicate tournure, her graceful form, her pale and melancholy look, were in striking contrast with those around her. To see her motionless and mute amid the merry girls and the robust young persons, would have induced a belief that she was one of those supernatural beings, one of those fairy inhabitants of woods and waters—strange legends about whom she so much delighted in. She entered and retired silently, and her light feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground. She flitted away like an aerial being, leaving with all those whom she visited an indefinable impression, and arousing in some the vague remembrance of a superstitious being.
One evening, when she was about to leave, a woman, who had looked Attentively at her, said, "Dear young lady; how feeble and ill she seems!"
"Yes," said a timid voice, "one might almost think she had joined in the elfin dance."
"What is the elfin dance?" asked a young man; "I have seen many, but never that."
"God grant you never may," said the one to whom he spoke; "the elves are wonderful beings, who come we know not whence; and live, we know not how, in the mountain gorges and woods. Probably they are the descendants of some race accursed of God, and sentenced to live on earth, deprived of every joy and hope. They never enter towns; do not associate with us; but when they see a solitary wanderer, they seek to win him to them, and exercise a most unhappy influence over him.
"You sometimes have seen large circles of grass in the meadows trampled down. They are traced by the elves, as they dance in the summer night when the moon is shining. Wo to the wanderer, wo to the young girl, who at that time passes near them. The elves invite them to join in the dance, and sometimes drag them by force away. Into the veins of any one who comes within their circle, a secret poison is infused, which makes him languish and die. I tell you, I fear that Ebba, good and charitable as she is, has been surprised by those accursed beings; for she has the pale face and languid air of those who suffer from philtre of the elves."
Sitting one morning in the room of her father, Ebba was discharging the task she had proposed to herself in jest. She was teaching Ireneus the elements of the beautiful Swedish language, of the Islandic from which it is derived, and which has its ulterior origin in the old tongues of India, the cradle of the great Gothic races. "It is pleasant," says Byron, "to learn a foreign tongue from the eyes and lips of a woman." Ireneus enjoyed all the luxury of such a system of instruction.
Without having what is called a poetical nature, he was not a little under the influence of the poetry of his situation, of the beautiful girl who taught him, of her sweet smile, and the affectionate voice which stimulated his zeal or reproved his mistakes. Any accidental question, any quotation, a single word often would hurry the young girl's mind to her favorite theme, the mythology of the north.
In her early youth, she had studied the curious dogmas of the old Scandinavians, a singular assemblage of terrible symbols and smiling images borrowed from the flowery regions of the east, and of dark conceptions produced in the cloudy north.
Not only did she know all the tales, but in some sort she lived in the memory of the heroic and religious traditions sung in the solemn dithyrambics of the Edda, and met with in every page of the Islandic sagas. Though her heart was always Christian, she was amazed, from time to time, at hearing herself speak, like a pagan, of the beneficent Baldus, of Loki, the spirit of evil, and of Freya, the golden tears of whom formed the Baltic amber. To her, the world was yet peopled by the mythological beings, created by the naïve faith of the north, and to them she had learned to adapt the phenomena of nature. When she heard the thunder, she thought of Thor, and his mighty hammer, driving across the heavens in his iron car. If the sky was clear, she thought the luminous Alfis lighted up the horizon.
In the pantheism of Scandinavian mythology, which, though less seductive, is less comprehensive than that of the Greeks, all that she heard assumed a mysterious existence. Plants were watered by the foam the horse of night shakes on the earth, as he tosses his mane and champs his bit.
Crows had a prophetic power. The eagle sailing through the air, recalled to her that deathless bird which sits on the boughs of Ygdrasil, the tree of the world. A secret spring, hidden amid the woods, seemed to her the emblem of that deep spring in which the Nornas spin and cut the thread of life. To these traditions, far older than Christianity, she united the popular legends of the middle age. If night, the whistling of the wind, the rattling of the rain, the murmur of the trees, made a confused murmur in her ears, she fancied that she heard the barking of dogs, the sound of horns, and the cry of the wild huntsman sentenced to wander forever from vale to vale, from mountain to mountain, because he had violated a Sabbath or saints' day. If, on some calm day, she looked at the golden and purple surface of the lake, she fancied that she saw, in the depth of the water, the spires and roofs of the houses of some city which God had punished for impiety, by burying it beneath the waves.
If she stood on the banks of a rapid stream, at the foot of a cascade, she said that the sounds she heard came from Stromkarl. The Stromkarl has a silver harp, on which he plays wild melodies. If his favor be gained, by any present, he teaches the listener his songs. Wo, however, to the man who hears him for the ninth time. He cannot shake off the supernatural charm, and becomes a victim to his imprudent temerity.
One evening all the family was collected around the earthen stove. Eric was there. Suddenly the sky, which in the morning had been dark and cloudy, was lit up as if by the blaze of a immense conflagration. The aurora-borealis, that wonderful phenomenon of the north, glittered in the horizon, and gradually extended its evolutions from the east to the west. Sometimes all the colors of the rainbow were visible, and again it glittered like a mass of fusees, or transformed itself into a vast white cloud, sparkling like the milky-way. Again it would assume the most splendid blaze, and appear like a mantle of purple and gold. For one moment the rays would be alligned, and gradually disappear in the distance; then they would cross each other like network. Again they would arrange themselves in bows, dart out with arrowing points, shoot into towers and form crowns. It might have been fancied the creation of a kaleidescope, into which the hand of a magician had cast jets of life, oscillating and floating under every form. At the same time, there was heard in the air a sound like that accompanying the discharge of fireworks.
Eric, who had been asked to give an explanation of this phenomenon, analyzed the various theories of philosophers on the subject. He especially referred to those of the Society of Copenhagen. He said this was one of the phenomena which no philosopher had as yet explained; that of all the hypotheses on the matter, the most specious was that which ascribes the aurora-borealis to the reflection of the northern ices.
"My wise daughter, what do you think of it?" said M. Vermondans, speaking to Ebba, who, with her hands crossed over her chest with religious silence, sat looking at a phenomenon she had witnessed every winter, and which on every occasion awakened a new emotion.
Ebba said, "I do not know the dissertations of academies, like Eric. Since, however, they do not explain the cause and motion of the aurora borealis, I had rather rely on the simple and religious traditions of an ignorant people, to that of the Greenlanders, who say that the rays of the aurora come from the glare of souls which wander over the skies."
"On my soul," said M. Vermondans, "that idea pleases me. Like the problems of the natural philosophers, it does not explain the problem of the aurora-borealis, but it is much more poetical. This tradition contributes to the assistance of an idea I advanced the other day, on the vanity of scientific speculations, especially when we compare them with the delicious conceptions of the ignorant."
"True," replied Eric, "in the infancy of nations, as in the childhood of the individual, there is a graceful poetry, an ideal and intellectual understanding of nature, which does not resist grave impressions or the reason of mature age. Thus, amid the wild nations of North America, the poor mother who has lost a child, fancies that she scents the perfume of its breath in the flowers, and hears its sigh in the voices of the birds. Thus is it that our Lapland neighbors attach a touching faith to many physical incidents.
"When one of them becomes ill, they say that his soul has been called to a better world by the loving beings he has lost; and that his soul is about to depart to yield to their prayers, and seek its final home with them. Then they send for a sorcerer, who casts himself on his face on the ground, and in mysterious words beseeches the wandering soul to return. If it yields to the supplications, if it returns to the tabernacle it has inhabited, the invalid recovers breath and strength; if not, he dies. Such, and a variety of other examples, we find in every direction, in the wonderful tales of the east, in the popular traditions of the north, and they prove clearly enough that there are flowers of poetry and spring-like perfumes full of inimitable grace in all primitive societies, even where gross ignorance and coarse usages distress us.
"Think you though that science also is without poetry? If you understand by poetry, what I think you do, every ennobling of thought, every exaltation of mind, do you think there is no lofty and grand poetry in that geology which searches into the bowels of the earth, and exhibits to you the different layers of which it is composed, and the revolutions it has undergone; in the researches of the naturalist, who exhibits the creations of an antediluvian world; in the observations of the astronomer, who explains the configuration and harmonious movements of those luminous orbs removed millions of miles from that on which we dwell? Do you think there is no poetry in the material development of civilized societies, in the industrious activity which digs canals, pierces mountains, subdues the elements, and moves all to man's will?"
"Ah, certainly I experience a very agreeable emotion, when in an old custom I find the traces of the religious spirit of our fathers, and listen to their legends and songs. This emotion, however, does not prevent me from thinking of that which should be created by the imposing spectacle of the progress of civilization, more than the pleasure I would enjoy if I reposed by the side of a fresh spring, mysteriously concealed amid a forest, would prevent me from loving to look on a majestic river, down which floated the canvas of some ship, or the boilers of a steamer. The perfection of matters would be to kindle our soul with the lights of science, and at the same time preserve the innocent candor of our hearts. Thus will we obey the Bible-text which says, 'You shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven, unless you be as little children.' To be a child in simple-heartedness, a man in toil and labor, is the end we should propose to ourselves."
"Yes," said M. de Vermondans, "that is a truly noble object. We cannot however expect to attain it. Pride unnoticed, is created by the very labor of our minds, and when that poison has inoculated our hearts, farewell to innocence. I will agree with you as to the indisputable benefits of science. Confess, however, that all the learning of your philosophers and mathematicians can I never confer on any people the precious customs of the days of old. When we look back on what has been done by the would-be wise men of antiquity to ennoble the moral state of man, I will not speak of the mad ceremonial of the burlesque festivals invented by the revolutionists of 1793. They were but scenes of disorder and frenzy. Imagine, however, the purest and most solemn of the discoveries of science, and compare it with the Christmas festival which the Swedish peasant will celebrate in a few days, and tell me which contributes to true emotion, to the moral good. Alete, give me my pipe."
The last words were the usual signal given by the good old man when he felt the length of the conversation fatiguing, or felt his favorite ideas paradoxical, though they sometimes were pressed on by arguments the tenor of which he found it difficult to resist.
Alete went to get the long pipe, with its stem of maple-root, and filled it with tobacco with her own pretty fingers. A sweet smile and a deferential look from Eric recompensed her. When he saw M. de Vermondans seated in his chair, and inhaling the aroma of tobacco through the amber mouthpiece, he said,
"Since you remember our Christmas festival, you will not forget that we expect you, Ebba, Alete, and Ireneus to keep it at our house."
"Yes, Eric," said M. de Vermondans, "I like your father, and shall be happy to pass a day with him."
"Yes, dear Eric," said Alete, "I love your father. Pay however some attention to old Marguerite's preparations. I wish to be received like a princess, and if all the plate is not produced to do me honor, if the table be not covered with the finest linen and loaded with delicacies, if the furniture does not glitter like glass, and the passage-hall and corridor are not bright as if for a wedding, I will turn all the house upside down."
"Well well," said Eric, "there you are a queen. My father will turn over all power to you, and you may make as many reforms as you please."