In the dark, Hedvig grew frightened of God. Not even school when it began with its monotonous and mechanical cramming, not even the alleviating joys of companionship, could kill her fear. Amidst the noise of the class-room she sat alone in communion with both the great and the dangerous. Before she could read properly, she spelled out greedily and eagerly the tale of the fall of man and the ten commandments. Especially the seventh commandment made a deep impression on her. Here was the terrible fascination of the unknown. By and by she began to read the Bible for herself. There was much to brood over, much that nourished her fears, which now began to undergo strange transformation. She could sit for hours thinking of such expressions as “circumcision,” “menstruation,” then she imagined she bore a son. Her gaze fastened on passages concerning the sin of fornication, the great Babylonian harlot, Absolom’s exploits on the roof of the house with King David’s concubines.
The darkness enclosing Hedvig’s God began to be oppressive. His too early threats provoked the very sins which he intended to prevent. She brooded over evil till at last it began to stir in her blood. Her ever present fear developed into stealthy, premature curiosity. It was no longer anything so white and innocent as sugar that Hedvig now stole. No! In the forbidden box now lay worm eaten, half rotten fruit fallen from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But there was still the same fatal and even more intimate association of ideas as in the case of the sugar and the Bogey Man.
Soon Hedvig’s curiosity found something different from the shadowy figures of the old rat-eaten family Bible to brood over and to spy out, namely, the bailiff and Frida.
That sultry night when Peter caught her peeping under the blind into Brundin’s window had been a fateful night in her life. The discovery of the secret of the bailiff’s wing was the greatest and most dangerous discovery she had yet made. Hot and cold by turns, tempted, frightened, caught in the act, she had crept to bed. Her soul was outraged. Night and day the memory of that scene remained with her. She was afraid of Peter, disgusted with Frida, but could not get the man out of her thoughts. It was like an obsession. She avoided him, scarcely greeted him, could not for anything in the world look him in the face. But secretly she devoured him with her eyes. His bold, wicked self-assurance had some inexpressible allurement for her. She found herself incessantly following this sinner, and then fled, frightened and ashamed, to her bed. But as she had shaped her God out of fear, he had no pity and could not help her. This girlish love might have been the means of leading her out into the fresh air if it had not been of such a strange and stunted kind. As it was, it only threw her back more and more upon herself.
Such was the Hedvig who now knelt by the altar rails and received the bread and the wine from the hand of the old clergyman. She had grown up in the shadow of her own dreams like one of those long white shoots that grew down in the deep darkness. Not one poor single little bud of her being had been able to open out in the clear sunshine of the busy, living world. In a pew behind sat the genteel farmer, Brundin, with his pert military moustache, not for a moment suspecting that he was a terrible Behemoth, sucking the nourishment out of a poor little woman’s soul.
Communion was over. The girls rose with tear-stained faces and walked slowly, hesitatingly, down the aisle. Hedvig was pale and dry-eyed. Outside it had suddenly begun to snow, wet ice-cold snow, and it was pathetic to see her as she stood amongst these thinly clad, shivering children, slowly and awkwardly bidding each other good-bye, and looking like butterflies that have left their chrysalis too soon and have no flowers to rest on. The girl from Selambshof was better dressed than the poor peasant girls. And she was the prettiest of them too. But she looked more forlorn and colder than the poor lonely little snow-drops that shivered amongst the snowflakes on a poor man’s grave behind her.
Old Hermansson had something to say to the Vicar. Brundin came up to Hedvig and made his compliments.
“Well, Hedvig, that went off splendidly! Now you are a big grown-up lady and I suppose I must call you Miss Hedvig. But we must not let it snow any longer on your white hat.”
He led her to the carriage which was waiting with the hood up, helped her in and fastened the apron. Hedvig drew back as if his touch had scorched her. When he had gone she sat there trembling and with chattering teeth. Will he drive before or after us, she thought. If he drives before us, I can sit and look at him the whole time. But when her guardian at last arrived and they started with Brundin in front, she stared obstinately at a hole in the apron, because she was afraid of God.
Both old Hermansson and Brundin were to stay for dinner. A gloomy snow light filled the dining-room and there was a fire burning, just as in mid-winter. Hedvig sat stiff and silent in the place of honour, and scarcely tasted the food. Then her guardian solemnly drew forth a present from his coat pocket. It was a little watch with Hedvig’s initials engraved on it. He made a short admonitory speech before giving it to her and hoped that she would learn to make the same good use of time as he had done when he was young. He even finished with a little verse: