AWAY FROM HOME
Now he stands on the deck of a steamer far out at sea. He has had so much to look at on the journey that he has not felt any tedium. But now it is afternoon, which is always melancholy, like the beginning of old age. The shadows of the sun fall and alter everything without hiding everything, like the night. He begins to miss something. He has a feeling of emptiness, of being deserted, broken off. He wants to go home, but the consciousness that he cannot do so at once fills him with terror and despair and he weeps. When his brothers ask him why, he says he wants to go home to his mother. They laugh at him, but her image recurs to his mind, serious, mild, and smiling. He hears her last words at parting: "Be obedient and respectful to all, take care of your clothes, and don't forget your evening prayer." He thinks how disobedient he has been to her, and wonders whether she may be ill. Her image seems glorified, and draws him with unbreakable cords of longing. This feeling of loneliness and longing after his mother followed him all through his life. Had he come perhaps too early and incomplete into the world? What held him so closely bound to his mother?
To this question he found no answer either in books or in life. But the fact remained: he never became himself, was never liberated, never a complete individuality. He remained, as it were, a mistletoe, which could not grow except upon a tree; he was a climbing plant which must seek a support. He was naturally weak and timid, but he took part in all physical exercises; he was a good gymnast, could mount a horse when on the run, was skilled in the use of all sorts of weapons, was a bold shot, swimmer, and sailor, but only in order not to appear inferior to others. If no one watched him when bathing, he merely slipped into the water; but if anyone was watching, he plunged into it, head-over-heels, from the roof of the bathing-shed. He was conscious of his timidity, and wished to conceal it. He never attacked his school-fellows, but if anyone attacked him, he would strike back even a stronger boy than himself. He seemed to have been born frightened, and lived in continual fear of life and of men.
The ship steams out of the bay and there opens before them a blue stretch of sea without a shore. The novelty of the spectacle, the fresh wind, the liveliness of his brothers, cheer him up. It has just occurred to him that they have come eighteen miles by sea when the steamboat turns into the Nykopingså river.
When the gangway has been run out, there appears a middle-aged man with blond whiskers, who, after a short conversation with the captain, takes over charge of the boys. He looks friendly, and is cheerful. It is the parish clerk of Vidala. On the shore there stands a waggon with a black mare, and soon they are above in the town and stop at a shopkeeper's house which is also an inn for the country people. It smells of herrings and small beer, and they get weary of waiting. The boy cries again. At last Herr Linden comes in a country cart with their baggage, and after many handshakes and a few glasses of beer they leave the town. Fallow fields and hedges stretch in a long desolate perspective, and over some red roofs there rises the edge of a wood in the distance. The sun sets, and they have to drive for three miles through the dark wood. Herr Linden talks briskly in order to keep up their spirits. He tells them about their future school-fellows, the bathing-places, and strawberry-picking. John sleeps till they have reached an inn where there are drunken peasants. The horses are taken out and watered. Then they continue their journey through dark woods. In one place they have to get down and climb up a hill. The horses steam with perspiration and snort, the peasants on the baggage-cart joke and drink, the parish clerk chats with them and tells funny stories. Still they go on sleeping and waking, getting down and resting alternately. Still there are more woods, which used to be haunted by robbers, black pine woods under the starry sky, cottages and hedges. The boy is quite alarmed, and approaches the unknown with trembling.
At last they are on a level road; the day dawns, and the waggon stops before a red house. Opposite it is a tall dark building—a church—once more a church. An old woman, as she appears to him, tall and thin, comes out, receives the boys, and conducts them into a large room on the ground-floor, where there is a cover-table. She has a sharp voice which does not sound friendly, and John is afraid. They eat in the gloom, but do not relish the unusual food, and one of them has to choke down tears. Then they are led in the dark into an attic. No lamp is lit. The room is narrow; pallets and beds are laid across chairs and on the floor, and there is a terrible odor. There is a stirring in the beds, and one head rises, and then another. There are whispers and murmurs, but the new-comers can see no faces. The eldest brother gets a bed to himself, but John and the second brother lie foot to foot. It is a new thing for them, but they creep into bed and draw the blankets over them. His elder brother stretches himself out at his ease, but John protests against this encroachment. They push each other with their feet, and John is struck. He weeps at once. The eldest brother is already asleep. Then there comes a voice from a corner on the ground: "Lie still, you young devils, and don't fight!"
"What do you say?" answers his brother, who is inclined to be impudent.
The bass voice answers, "What do I say? I say—Leave the youngster alone."
"What have you to do with that?"
"A good deal. Come here, and I'll thrash you."