Downstream

Part I

I

The Cry

To tell the story of a child as you would tell the story of a grownup would be to commit forgery, for once you are wide awake it costs you a great effort to describe a dream exactly as it occurred.

The tide of events flows remote from the child. Only occasionally do its eddies touch upon the consciousness of the child, and then the latter is unaware of their significance. It is precisely this inability to understand the connection between events which makes the realities of children so dreamlike.

In the long dream of childhood there reigns a capricious, mysterious and yet irresistible Fate, beneficent like the fairy with its wand beside the princess’s cradle, or cruel like the wolf in Red Riding Hood. The shadow of that Fate still casts itself over our riper years. It haunts us, ghostlike, even when we have begun consciously to order our lives. Only a few chosen spirits are able to cast off the spell of these fairies and trolls.

This is a tale of people whose childhood was passed in the shadow of the wolf—and who never could escape from their childhood.

First let me tell you about that evening, many years ago, when Peter and Hedvig heard a strange cry coming from the window of their parents’ bedroom. The whole of that day it had been evident that something was in the air. The children were not allowed to go into the bedroom at all, nor even to play on the stairs. After lunch there arrived an old lady with a bag. And then an old man in spectacles drove up in a small carriage. It was the doctor. Little Laura ran away immediately and hid herself, so that she should not have to show her tongue. But this time the doctor had not come to see her, for he went straight up to Mother, and beds were prepared for the children in the green room downstairs.

Stellan, Laura, and Tord had to go to bed at once, as they were so young. But Peter and Hedvig went out onto the kitchen steps. There old Kristin sat and told stories of former days at Selambshof when “Old Hök” was alive.

The most remarkable thing about Kristin was that she alone survived from the days of the old owner. She was grey, bent, tough, the incarnation of the everlasting ill-humoured peasant soul. Even if she only talked of a pair of grey stockings it still sounded like a fairy tale. And since, moreover, the fatalism of age is closely related to the helplessness of childhood, we can well understand that she had two attentive listeners in Peter and Hedvig. Just now the great and serious event that was about to occur plunged her into a gloomy, solemn mood. And just as her ancestors for hundreds of grey generations before her had huddled together by the hearth on dark stormy nights and had told tales of dangers past, so also she now sat in the autumn twilight on the kitchen stairs at Selambshof and told ghost stories to the maids and the cowherd about the old master. She still looked frightened as she talked of him. It really sounded as if she were talking of some great and notorious criminal.

Hedvig had slipped out as silently as a mouse. Her small face with its dark, hungry eyes was pale. Peter leaned sulkily in an awkward posture against the doorpost. But it is not to be supposed that the presence of the children disturbed Kristin in the very least. She just went on. She was talking now about the old pensioned couple down by the Hökar meadow:—You see the master, Old Hök, had made up his mind to starve out such encumbrances on the estate. They received only some thin whey and a little dust that the miller swept up from the floor. But it is strange how little an old woman can live on. So the old master had to turn to vermin. He put a sofa that was crawling into old Kerstin’s cottage. But Kerstin thought, “If I must die, I shall at least die on his front step”—so one winter morning she trailed herself up to his house and began to take off her rags before the front door. And you may imagine she was not beautiful, because she had smeared tar over her whole body as a protection against lice. It was so awful that even Old Hök had to hurry to his cupboard and take a drop of something strong.

Here Kristin stopped suddenly and caught hold of Hedvig’s hand as it lay anxiously clenched in her lap. Yes, indeed, it clenched a sticky lump of sugar. The temptation had proven too strong as she stole through the empty kitchen. Kristin’s tone now became still more sinister and solemn: “Well, well, that’s what heredity does,” she mumbled. “Keep your fingers out of the sugar jar, Hedvig, otherwise the sugar knife will fall and cut off your hand. Or maybe the Bogey Man will come and take you.”

Hedvig turned quite white. A spasm passed over her face—but she did not cry. She cowered and went on listening to Kristin, who continued in her sombre manner: “Yes, as I always say, everything goes wrong here at Selambshof, both with human beings and with animals, since the old master drove away the good house spirits. And there are strange things both in the forest and in the lake. Would any of you like to be alone at night time in Enoch’s cave? And don’t bubbles rise even today by the big stone beyond the reeds? The master said that Matts fell in whilst he was trying to catch hold of an oar that he had lost. But I know what I know. They didn’t find Matts. But afterwards Old Hök always dropped his hooks just at that spot and caught lots of eels, and beat the young master because he wouldn’t eat them. Yes, he was like that. And he has not gone from this place yet. Tell me, Anders, don’t the horses still jib down there by the grey stone at the corner of the avenue? They have done so ever since Old Hök died there. He sat quite straight with his hands on the knob of his stick and frowned, though he was stone dead. They had to bring four men to straighten him out and lay him in his coffin, so obstinate was he even after death. But he left lots of money.”

At this point, old Kristin lowered her voice and became humble in spite of herself. That was of course the people’s admiration for wealth. It was the unconditional surrender of the old peasant woman to the fact of possession. And both Anders and the maid, who had been peacefully dozing during this recital of well-known horrors, now leant forward with listening eyes as Kristin sat there and spun out her story of all the gold in the chest and all the corn in the barns—“Yes, he did look after the farm, did the old master. In those days there was something like a manure heap for a cock to stand on and crow. And nobody dared to steal even a potato then. Do you hear that, Anders? No, those were different days—for now you do nothing but idle about and steal. Well, I suppose everything will lie waste soon. Yes, yes, we have not seen the end yet—we have not seen the end. And there are lots of children to share it too—and more are coming. It is a real pity. Poor Peter, who is the eldest and will inherit it. Poor Peter, that’s what I say! Are you loafing about there with your hands in your pockets again? Take your hands out of your pockets—otherwise you will lose both house and land. You wait and see if I don’t speak the truth. And don’t climb on the rail and wear out your stockings.”

Kristin had come to this point when they heard a scream from the bedroom upstairs. The silence beneath the bare elms was suddenly and harshly torn asunder. Perhaps it sounded to Peter and Hedvig like one of those strange, petrified screeches which sometimes fill the sleep of grownups with horror.

The little group dissolved instantly. The maid ran into the kitchen for the kettles. Anders strolled hesitatingly towards the lake, and Kristin pushed the children into the dining-room and turned the key. Peter and Hedvig were locked in with Old Hök, whose portrait hung there in the twilight over the leather-covered sofa. They were standing in the middle of the room and dared not look at the picture. They were expecting another scream that would make their hair stand on end again. They supposed it must come since they had been driven in here. But they heard no scream—for many long, long minutes all was still. By and by their eyes were irresistibly drawn to Old Hök. There he stood in a long, black coat. And his nose looked like a bird’s beak, and his fingers were clenched round his stick handle and looked like claws. But worst of all were his eyes, for wherever you stood they stared straight down at you, so that you felt that your blood ran cold. It had, of course, been horrid to listen to Kristin, but then, it was not altogether uncanny, for there was mixed with it a curiously pleasant sensation as when you step into a pool and the cold water oozes into your stockings. But this! Oh this was ever so much worse! Their childish fear, awakened out of its semi-sleep, now fluttered wildly round Old Hök—and Kristin’s superstition and her prophecies of woe hovered over them in new and terrifying shapes.

Peter was perhaps not so sensitive to the more remote horrors. His fears fastened on what was nearest to hand. Very small as he was, he stood there staring at the grey and tattered ghost of poverty. His anxiety was centred on a big signet ring that Old Hök was wearing on his finger. He wore it, of course, because he was awfully rich. But where was the ring now? Old Hök’s eyes pursued him with the question: Where is my ring now? Peter knew nothing of it. His father had not worn it, and it was not in his mother’s jewel box. Supposing Anders had stolen it! Or fat Lotten in the kitchen? Fancy if they should steal everything at Selambshof, so that he, Peter, had to sit without any clothes in the forest and starve and shiver. Fancy if that was why Mamma lay up there and screamed so terribly. Yes, he knew it was Mamma who had screamed.

That was Peter’s fear. But Hedvig’s fear was different, deeper, vaguer. She was afraid of the Bogey Man with whom Kristin used to frighten her. And now he had suddenly assumed Old Hök’s features. Yes the Bogey Man was there in the room, just in front of her. But it never occurred to her to take Peter’s hand. Hedvig was not like that. She was alone from the beginning, alone in her fear and helpless with that complete and profound helplessness that grownups only experience in the dangers and horrors of a nightmare.

And now they heard another scream, fainter but just as dreadful. It came from all sides at once—from the stairs, from the door, from the walls themselves. Hedvig suddenly understood, the Bogey Man had come! He was taking somebody as he passed on his way. Because it was, of course, herself, Hedvig, that he really wanted. She shrank and closed her eyes. Then she looked up again, just for a second. He was no longer there above the sofa. He had climbed down—he was coming towards her! He was stretching out his claws!!

Hedvig dug her nails into the edge of the table and screamed, screamed wildly. She could not bear it. Peter also started screaming. He saw himself standing starving and naked in a big dark forest full of wolves. It is not to be wondered at then that they screamed. But that was not all. The younger children, who slept in the adjoining room, awoke in a fright and started to scream too. So the whole chorus of children’s voices joined with the mother’s groans above.

Kristin suddenly appeared in the door with a candle: “Good gracious—you dreadful children to make such a noise when the mistress is ill!”

She packed Peter and Hedvig into the green room. Oh, what a wonderful, pleasant relief it was to feel Kristin’s bony hands in your back. They undressed with feverish haste, afraid lest she should go before they had had time to pull the bedclothes over their heads.

“Dearest Kristin, please leave the light burning.”—“Nonsense, go to sleep now.”

And the light was gone.

They lay huddled up in terrible darkness like two poor little orphans. Fear kept them long awake and pursued them ever in their dreams, when at last they had fallen asleep. The night of the earth is but a passing shadow, but the night of fear in the heart is evil and long. And for many it seems as if there will be no morning.

The following day the children at Selambshof lost their mother. Both she and the newborn baby died before their father reached home. He had been kept late during a shoot at Kolsnäs.

II

The Robber’s Stronghold

The children were playing up in the big attic at Selambshof. The rain pattered against the tiles of the roof and rushed down the spouts. But inside it was dry and dusty and mysterious in the twilight among the roof-timbers and the chimney pipes. And there were heaps of things that the grownups had thrown aside, but which for that very reason were so tempting: old, worn-out things which had reached their second childhood, and just for that reason suited the children’s games so well.

It was only with great difficulty that Stellan could open the lock of the iron-bound oak chest. Triumphant, he pulled out a torn black skirt and spread it over the pram in which Hedvig lay on her back, pale and with her legs hanging over the edge. He called to Peter, who was the hearse-horse, and the melancholy procession was just about to start, when Hedvig began to sneeze because the skirt was full of red pepper.

“Can’t you pretend to be dead, you silly girl,” shouted Stellan impatiently.

And Laura bent down and giggled in the midst of the procession. Besides these two, the mourners were Herman Hermansson from Ekbacken and little Tord. But Tord did not want to take part in the game any longer, so he crept into a corner and sulked. The outlook was not very promising.

Creakily the pram began to move. They were playing “Mamma’s funeral” for the hundredth time.

The procession stopped before the church, which was the triangle under the staircase up to the ceiling. Herman, with an air of deadly earnest on his open face, stood and chimed a nail on a stove ring. But Stellan drew the black skirt over his shoulders and climbed up on a wooden box and pretended to be the clergyman. He threw his head back and laying his hands on his chest began to hold forth: “From the earth you come, and wipe your feet, and honour your father and mother and sister and brother, and don’t hang on to people’s skirts, and don’t balance yourself on your chair because you will fall, fallevall, appala, mesala, mesinka, meso, sebedi, sebede, and get away now you silly, for now you are dead.”

This long rigmarole was uttered with the utmost solemnity and did not fail to impress the listeners. Hedvig grew frightened of shamming death. She was so frightened that she felt cold shivers down her back. But she did not climb out of the coffin, she remained as quiet as a mouse, for she knew that if she gave up the place of honour Laura would seize it at once. And Hedvig did not want that on any account.

Suddenly the rain stopped pattering on the roof. Silently the shadows crept on in the dust under the heavy beams. It was as if the silence and the emptiness of the big gloomy house had stealthily crept up among these mourners. They really felt the emptiness after their mother’s death, after her dainties and her scolding—perhaps most after her scolding. Yes, formerly when Mamma was in the kitchen scolding, they heard it up in the attic. But with old Kristin it was different. She kept on worrying them the whole time—and they got tired of it—

And then there was something funny about father. Since Mamma died he was always in town, and when sometimes he came home he looked so dull-eyed and shabby, almost as if he was drunk. And then they felt still lonelier. Stellan had overheard Kristin say to the gardener that the master was drinking himself to death—but Stellan could not understand how that could happen. Surely one did not die from being drunk?

Alas, how gloomy and empty it was up there in the big attic! Herman began to long for his home at Ekbacken where it was not at all strange as it was here.

But the Selambshof children felt they must fight against the silence with shouts and noise and quarrelling.

“Let us play drunkards,” shouted Peter and began to slouch and reel and push the others about in his clumsy way.

But Stellan knew better. Both Peter and Herman were stronger than Stellan, but all the same it was usually he who was leader. If a lot of dogs play about on a lawn you will in nine cases out of ten find that there is a small one taking the lead in the game.

“No, let us get out on the roof and play robbers,” he shouted.

With the help of Peter and Herman he managed to open the big trap door and they tumbled out on the roof, which sloped gently and had strong iron bars between the battlements. Selambshof was an old manor house which had been rebuilt, during a period of bad taste, in the gloomy style of a fortress castle, with narrow windows, towers, gables and battlements.

They were on forbidden ground. Hedvig stopped half inside and half outside the trap—she was like that. “Take care you people on the roof,” she whimpered repeatedly to the others, but they took no notice of her.

It was awfully cold up there. And it gave you a queer feeling in the pit of the stomach to be so high over the wet glistening tops of the trees in the park. And she had never seen such a big black cloud as the one which was just passing over the town. Beneath was the black smoke and through the smoke the windows flashed like a shot. But opposite the sky was as green as ice, except in the furthest distance over the dark and ragged edge of the forest, where it was yellow. And the lake looked like a piece of mirror of the sky which had fallen down among the trees. It was quite unbroken except between Kolsnäs and Stonehill, where the steamer was passing and shattered it.

Stellan was the first to reach the railing. Oh, how cold he felt about the forehead. But giddiness changed to recklessness—wild shouting recklessness. How small everything down there looked! Just look at Anders at the corner of the stable! Wasn’t he a mere spot. And Kristin—what did he care about Kristin? No, now they would have some fun!

“Selambshof is a robbers’ stronghold!” he shouted—quite pale with excitement. “We are wild highwaymen! We care for nothing—we just kill and take what we want.”

This seemed to appeal to Peter. He took aim at Ekbacken and pulled the trigger—that is to say he levelled his finger and said: “Bang, I shot Ekbacken! Ekbacken is mine.”

Herman protested: “No—Ekbacken belongs to my father.”

He was severely snubbed: “Blockhead! are we robbers or are we not?”

And then Stellan mercilessly shot to pieces Kolsnäs, the white walls of which peeped out behind the trees on the other side of the lake. Peter reloaded and took aim and shot at Trefvinge, which was the finest place within sight, a real big castle with four copper towers far away beyond the edge of the forest. Things were now getting exciting, for Peter and Stellan and Herman were all aiming at the town itself with all its church towers and chimneys! Bang, Bang, Bang, the shots were fired almost simultaneously.

“The town is mine,” cried Herman. “I shot first.”

“No, I shot first,” lied Peter confidently.

“No, mine was the only one that hit,” cried Stellan stamping on the roof. “Now both Kolsnäs and the town are mine.”

“That’s not fair,” insisted Herman, “I ought to have something, and I shot first.”

“That’s a lie,” insisted Peter quietly, but menacingly.

Stellan was already furious: “Whose idea was it that we should play robbers—eh? I am the chief of the robbers. And now I have taken the town and am king of the castle.”

But Herman would not give way, as he knew that his was the first shot.

“It’s not fair. It’s beastly unfair. I won’t play robbers with you if you are unfair.”

It looked like a fight.

Laura had been watching with her teeth chattering and trying to hide her little fat fingers in the sleeves of her frock. Now she jumped excitedly down towards the infuriated robbers. Unobserved, even Hedvig left her spy hole in the trap.

Stellan and Herman had already come to grips and scratched and tore at each other in the artless way of children. At last they began to wrestle and Stellan, who was the shorter of the two, was underneath.

“You see that I did shoot first,” panted Herman.

Then Peter with his cool cheek intervened. He rolled round this human knot and extricated Stellan, who, rather shamefaced at his defeat, withdrew with feigned contempt from the robber band. Then Peter sat down astride of Herman.

“Now say that the town is mine.”

“No.”

He began to jump on Herman. This hurt Herman, because he was lying athwart the ridge of the roof.

“Say that it is mine!”

“No.”

Peter jumped on him more than ever.

“Is it mine, what?”

Herman did not cry out. But he hit out wildly, and at last, maddened by pain, he bit Peter’s hand. Peter at once uttered a wild scream. Then Herman let go. But Peter was wise and screamed after the pain was gone.

“Take care, you who bite,” piped Hedvig in her thin voice.

Herman suddenly became horrified at his wicked deed. “Dear Peter, please forgive me,” he begged.

“Was it I who took the town then?” hissed Peter.

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

Peter felt better at once, but it suddenly struck him that his victory was not worth much and so he began to moan and cry again: “Oh, Oh, Oh.”

Herman was again alarmed and stricken with remorse: “Dear Peter, don’t cry, please forgive me, Peter, dear.”

“Will you give me your glass marble then?” whimpered Peter pitifully.

Herman pulled the glass marble out of his bag with a sigh and gave it to Peter. So at last Peter had gained something real from his robber’s career. He stood smiling to himself and weighed the five heavy marbles in his right hand but did not trouble to wipe off the blood from his left hand. It might always be useful to leave it there.

During this scene little Tord had also clambered out on to the roof. But he took no notice of the cries and noise of the others. He sat apart and leant over an old green box where nasturtiums had once grown, but which was now half-filled with rain water. Something moved in the depths. Strange little creatures with only heads and tails teemed in it. And they rose to the surface with little jerks and then disappeared again in the black, brown depths. Oh! how wonderfully mysterious it all was! He drew himself up silently. He cast anxious side-glances at the fight which was going on. Soon they would probably come and kick over the whole of his wonderful find. He hated his big brothers and sisters, who never let him enjoy anything in peace.

A voice was heard from the stairs and he crept behind the chimney.

It was Kristin. She emerged from the trap door like an old witch ready for a ride on her broom. She shook her fist, which was covered with gouty lumps, but nevertheless still had an iron grip.

“Were there ever such heathen children. You will break your necks and be good for nothing—that’s what will happen to you. Come down at once from the roof.”

The children slouched back to the trap door. Each one of them felt Kristin’s fingers in his hair. Peter approached cautiously and hunched up, holding his wounded hand like a shield in front of him. Kristin caught sight of it.

“What have you been doing, you naughty boy?”

Peter did not tell any tales himself but he looked beseechingly at Hedvig. He knew that she could not resist.

“It was Herman,” she panted. “He bit Peter until the blood ran. I only went out on the roof to see who was crying.”

In this way both Peter and Hedvig escaped a hair pulling and that was exactly what they had hoped for.

But Herman got a double dose and went home with bitterness in his heart.

Not until the other children were in their beds was Tord missed. It was not at all unusual for him to be lost like that. They looked for him in the usual places: the empty dog kennel, the wood shed, the hollow oak by the stable. But without success. At last Hedvig remembered that he had been with them on the roof and there they found him huddled up on the cold tiles, leaning against the box with the wonderful mosquito larvae, and wet with dew. He was sleeping with his dirty little thumb in his mouth.

Soon everything was silent in the big house. And one of the frosty “iron” nights of June fell with its devastation upon the neglected garden and fields of Selambshof.