Read Ebook: Mårbacka by Lagerl F Selma Howard Velma Swanston Translator

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Ebook has 98 lines and 8534 words, and 2 pages

The little Lagerl?f girls think it strange Fru Hedda does not appear. True, she no longer lives at East ?mtervik; but they hope she will come and do something jolly. Somehow, it would not be a real seventeenth of August unless she were there.

And now come the nearest neighbours. Pastor Mil?n and his boys have moved to another parish. To-day, it is the tall, handsome Pastor Lindegren and his sweet little wife who stroll over from the parsonage. From D?r Ner in M?rbacka come Mother Kersten and Father Olof; but they are not the only peasant-folk who want to felicitate the Lieutenant. Old man Larsson of ?s, the richest man in the parish, has come with his daughters; the Senator from B?vik with his wife, and the church warden of V?stmyr with his.

The little girls are in a perfect twitter of excitement as they stand beside their father and see all who come. One whom they most anxiously await is Jan Asker. They do hope he is not hurt about something and will stay away. They try to count heads, but as people keep pouring in from every direction they soon lose the count. Maybe there are already a hundred guests! They hope it will be a gay party. It sounds so grand to the children when somebody says there were a hundred persons gathered at M?rbacka on the seventeenth of August.

But this receiving is merely an introduction to that which is to follow. It is the same with the coffee-drinking on the lawn. The children wish all such things were over.

Ah, at last it is going to begin! The brass sextette line up in position below the steps. A march is struck. The gentlemen offer an arm to the ladies and, led by the band, the couples march through the garden down to the little park.

There they gather round a table on which stand glasses of punch and claret-cup. Obviously, the moment has come for the birthday speech and the toast to Lieutenant Lagerl?f. Engineer Noreen, Senator Nils Andersson, and Herr Nilsson of Visteberg have all come prepared to speak. Each wonderingly looks at the others, and hesitates, not wanting to push forward and take the word from his rivals.

"Well, are we to have something?" the Lieutenant asks. These high-flown set speeches are not to his taste, and he is anxious to have that part of the programme over as quickly as possible. Just then from behind him comes a clear voice, with musical Stockholm intonations, and out of the thicket steps a beautiful Zingara. She asks if she may tell his fortune. Taking his left hand between her two pretty hands, she reads the lines of his palm.

Lieutenant Lagerl?f had been very ill during the winter, and to regain his health had spent part of the summer at Str?mstad. All his exploits and divertissements on that sojourn the Zingara now reads in his hand, and, moreover, she reveals them in lilting verse.

It is a bit pert and naughty, to be sure, but it provokes laughter and the Lieutenant is charmed.

"Anyhow, you're Number One, Hedda!" he says.

But when Fru Hedda has proposed a health to the host, and has led the fourfold hurrahs, and the sextette has tooted a fanfare, she gives the three speakers from East ?mtervik a sweeping glance, and says: "Pray, pardon my intrusion. Now it is the turn of the natives."

"The 'natives' are already beaten, Fru Hedberg," replies Engineer Noreen.

Far back in the garden sounds old Jan Asker's clarinet, and the glitter of helmets and shining armour is seen among the trees. Jan Asker and Sexton Melanoz must have come upon three of the Immortal Ases, Odin, Thor, and Freja, who were bound for M?rbacka but had somehow lost their way. Jan and the Sexton have guided them safely hither, so that the shining gods may speak for themselves.

No, they do not speak. The three gods break into song; they chant to the old familiar melody "Come lovely May," a paean to all that has been wrought here at M?rbacka in the time of Lieutenant Lagerl?f--every word of which is true. Tears glisten in many an eye, and the Lieutenant himself is deeply moved by his old friend's lyric.

"Melanoz is superb to-day!" he says. "After all, Hedda, I believe the natives will carry off the palm."

With this, the f?te has been impressively and happily opened. The guests now scatter about the grounds. Some visit the berry bushes and cherry trees, and others want to see whether the fine M?rbacka peaches are ripening.

In a little while comes another fanfare. The gentlemen now escort the ladies back to the house and up the perilous attic stairs. The loft has been converted into a theatre, its small stage screened off with white draperies. The theatre is the work of Fru Lagerl?f, and is the cutest little place imaginable.

A moment's suspense, and the curtain goes up on a musical allegory written in the forenoon of that very day by Oriel Afzelius. It is entitled, "The Monk and the Dancer." The action takes place on the day of Lieutenant Lagerl?f's birth, August 17, 1819. Beside the cradle of the new-born babe, instead of the usual fairies, stand two symbolical figures, a monk and a dancer.

As the curtain falls there is wild applause. People shout, stamp their feet, and wave their handkerchiefs. Fru Lagerl?f sits in fear and trembling lest the floor give way under the storm. The Lieutenant cries out:

"Yi, yi, Melanoz! It's none of the outlanders winning now!"

The young folk at M?rbacka have rehearsed a little play, but the players feel rather disheartened as they are about to appear; they have nothing to offer comparable to Uncle Oriel's allegory.

Anna Lagerl?f is now fourteen, and this is her first appearance in a regular part. The piece is called "A Cigar," and she is cast for the r?le of the young wife.

Indeed, the performance is far from a failure, thanks to the acting of little Anna Lagerl?f! "How does that child come by her histrionic talent?" people wonder. She acts with such ease, naturalness, and charm, the spectators cannot get over their surprise. "That little girl is going to be a heart-breaker," some are heard to say. "Why, the lass is really pretty!" comes from another quarter. "And how well she acts, too!"

It seemed as if the plaudits and curtain calls would never end.

"Do you see, Lieutenant," shouts Sexton Melanoz above the tumult, "that the natives can hold their own?"

But at last they clamber down the break-neck attic stairs. Then they dance again, and chatter, and drink toddies, and some of them take to story-telling, for which up to then there has been no time.

After supper, at midnight, the Chinese lanterns are lit. This is done every year now, and must never be omitted. For a change, they have the illumination on the front lawn.

Ah! how lovely it looks--as Mamselle Lovisa's flower beds stand out in the vari-coloured light; as the weeping ash, like a huge lamp, sends forth its rays through the lacy branches; as the dark copses gleam as if with fire-flowers!

Now all have come out to see the illuminations. They find themselves in a fairyland. The sweet harmonies of the quartette intensify the spell of enchantment.

Then comes a wonderful thing! It is like the soft caress of a balmy wind. No, one cannot say what it is. But they who have been together these ten hours, chatting, dancing, playing, listening to music and speeches, are now prepared for it. As they drink in the song and the beauty of the night, they are filled with a blissful rapture. Ah, life is so beautiful! How precious the moments! Every breath is a joy!

Hands press hands; eyes meet eyes through a mist of tears. And no one is surprised, for it is such an unspeakable happiness just to be!

At the close of the song, as Fru Hedda withdraws, Herr Noreen steps forward: he, too, would interpret the spirit of the hour.

"Why is it, dear Brother Eric Gustaf, that we must come here to you in order to feel reconciled to our fate, proud of our country, happy with ourselves and with those about us? You are no big important man. You have done no great outstanding thing. But you have within you the best of good-will and an open heart. We know that, were it in your power, you would take the whole world in your embrace. This is why you can give us each year a few hours of bliss, a little glimpse of Paradise, which we of East ?mtervik call the Seventeenth of August."

POSTSCRIPT

POSTSCRIPT

IT WAS the Seventeenth of August, year 1919.

I had had a wreath bound, the prettiest that could be made up at M?rbacka, and with this before me in the victoria, I drove to the church. I was in holiday attire, the victoria shone with a new coat of varnish, and the horses were in their best harness.

It was a perfect day. The earth lay bathed in sunshine, the air was mild, and across the pale blue sky floated a few white wisps of cloud. Not the slightest breeze blew from any direction. It was a Sunday, and I saw little children in holiday dress playing in the yards, and grown folk in their Sunday best setting off for church. No cows or sheep or chickens were seen in the road, as on weekdays, when the victoria passed through the village of ?s.

The crop that year was so abundant, it seemed as if the good old times were back with us again. The haylofts along the way were so full, shutters and doors could not be closed; the rye fields were decked with close rows of shooks; the apple trees in the front yards hung heavy with reddening fruit, and the fallow fields, newly sown, showed a tender crop just turning green.

I sat thinking that here was something Lieutenant Lagerl?f--whose centenary it was that day--would have liked to see. Here was prosperity. It was not as in 1918 and 1917 and 1915 and 1914 and 1911--those dreadful years of drouth! How he would have rejoiced at this! He would have nodded to himself, and averred that nowhere in all V?rmland could they raise such crops as in his parish.

During the whole long drive to the church, my father was in my thoughts. On this very road he had driven many and many a time. I pictured with what keen interest he would have noted all the changes. Every house which had been repainted, every new window, every roof where tiling had replaced the old shingles, he would have pointed out and commented upon. The cottage D?r Fram at ?s, which had remained unaltered, would have delighted him; but he would have been sorry to find Jan Larsson's old house--the finest in the parish in his time--torn down.

Certainly he had never been opposed to changes and improvements, though there were some time-honoured things he had wished to leave undisturbed. Were he here now, he would think us a shiftless lot to have in this day and age the old crooked, sagging fences that were here in his time. He would be shocked to find the road ditches still choked with weeds, the bridges weak and full of holes, and the dung-yards still lying at the edge of the road.

When I came to the crossing where the village road runs into the great highway, how I wished I might have pointed out to him the fine health resort among the hills, and told him that ?s Springs were now visited every year by hundreds of people. It would have gladdened him to know that his idea--that this would some day be a popular watering-place--had not been so far afield. I could have wished he were beside me in the carriage as I drove across the ?mtan Bridge! It would have been a joy to show him that the river had at last been dredged, and now ran in a straight course, no longer overflowing its banks.

As I drove by the Ostenby school, I seemed to see him standing on the playground scattering handfuls of pennies--happy and content as always, when he had a crowd of children about him. I had heard him say, time and time again, that popular education was a calamity, and would bring us to ruin. But all the same, on every examination day, he would drive down to the school to sit for hours while his good friend Melanoz quizzed the children in catechism and history, and let them show how clever they were at arithmetic and composition. I doubt whether there was any one more pleased than he when the youngsters gave correct answers and got good marks and prizes. I had often wondered at this; but now I understand that where children were concerned, all prejudice was thrown to the winds.

I remembered how it had been in the old days when we drove into the church grove. We were hailed with cheery salutations as folk sprang aside to let our carriage pass, and father sat smiling and raising his hand to the brim of his hat. But when I drove in on the same ground, the place looked so empty and deserted.

I was alone in the carriage, and among all who had come to the church only I remembered that this was my father's birthday. I stepped out and went over to the churchyard to place the wreath. My sad heart wept over my loved ones who lay sleeping there. Father and Mother, Grandmother, Aunt Lovisa, and the old housekeeper--I had seen them all laid away.

I longed for them, I wished they might come back and dwell in that M?rbacka which their labours had built up.

But still, silent, inaccessible, they slept on. They seemed not to hear me. Yet, perhaps they did. Perhaps these recollections, which have hovered round me the last few years, were sent forth by them. I do not know, but I love to think so.

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