His daughter, whom he had never seen until that day, had taken vengeance on the man who had conquered her father. He felt she was of his blood, and he loved her.
Not that he repented of his confession. He felt clean and easy in mind, happy and respected, almost like a decent man. And he had seen his daughter, whom he would love now all his life, and who would always love him, since he had given up his freedom for her sake.
As for the true confession, the murderer passed it over, erased it from his memory. He was a man who always needed to look at himself in a good light. He was already busy in his mind with a beautiful and touching story of how it was for this daughter's sake alone he had confessed, and prayed to God and man for forgiveness. As long as he lived, he would be able to weave that story over and over again, and he would believe it, and it would serve to maintain his self-respect during the long, hard years that awaited him.
[BOOK II]
[LOTTA HEDMAN]
ONE day toward the end of September 1915 a train came down from Norrland to the south. In a third-class compartment sat a young woman, very simply and decently dressed in black, with a black hat almost devoid of trimmings. She was talking to her fellow travellers. She was not afraid of raising her voice at times, and the voice in itself being somewhat shrill, she could be heard by all those near. It was soon evident that this was the first time she had travelled on the railway. And the strangeness of it all, coming out into the world and meeting strange, kindly people, seemed to have lifted her to a sort of ecstasy. All that she had been unable to find outlet for during years of life in a confined situation broke out now. She talked unceasingly, and always of herself. She was loth to lose an opportunity of letting people know who she was, and what strange message she had to bring.
"And I'm just one that's never studied at all, beyond the Bible," said she. "My head's not heavy with knowledge. Not all confused with doctrines of error. I am as an unwritten page; as the white scroll on which God Himself writes His own thoughts. And I was born far away in Lapland, and live in a little settlement, and every day I go to work at a box factory, and I'm all alone and poor, and neither husband nor child. And nobody asks whether I live or die, and nobody comes to see after me if I'm ill, and there's no one there at home that I can talk to about what's most of all to me. And I know well enough that people make fun of me behind my back, and I'm already getting shy of going about among people."
A kindly old lady sitting opposite, who had entered into conversation with her at first, and got her to speak, now laid a hand on her knee, as if to calm her, but she went on, as if driven by an irresistible inner force.
"And all my days Death has been after me like a ravening wolf. His strivings after me have been manifold. He tried to compass me about while I was yet in my mother's womb. He sent forth a madman to frighten my mother, and I was born into the world too early, and a weak and wretched thing at birth. And once he tried to drown me when I was bathing, and once, out in the forest, he let a tree fall on me, and once he sent a serpent to bite me in the foot when I was out picking berries, and once he threw me down from a scaffold on a building. And he's plagued me with sickness beyond counting."
It was not only her opposite neighbour that listened to her now. A peasant and his wife, sitting next to her, followed her words with the greatest attention. The tone and the choice of words reminded them of mission meetings, and they put on an almost pious expression.