Pictures of Sweden

One portrait amongst the many attracts our attention: it looks singular; it is the half-length figure of an old man in a shirt, lying in his bed. It is that of the learned theologian, Oedmann, who after he had been compelled to keep his bed by a fever, found himself so comfortable in it, that he continued to lie there during the remainder of his long life, and was not to be induced to get up. Even when the next house was burning, they were obliged to carry him out in his bed into the street. Death and cold were his two bugbears. The cold would kill him, was his opinion; and so, when the students came with their essays and treatises, the manuscripts were warmed at the stove before he read them. The windows of his room were never opened, so that there was a suffocating and impure air in his dwelling. He had a writing-desk on the bed; books and manuscripts lay in confusion round about; dishes, plates, and pots stood here or there, as the convenience of the moment dictated, and his only companion was a deaf and dumb laughter.

She sat still in a corner by the window, wrapped up in herself, and staring before her, as if she were a figure that had flown out of the frame around the dark, mouldy canvas, which had once shown a picture on the wall.

Here, in the room, in this impure atmosphere, the old man lived happily, and reached his seventieth year, occupied with the translation of travels in Africa. This tainted atmosphere, in which he lay, became, to his conceit, the dromedary's high back, which lifted him aloft in the burning sun; the long, hanging-down cobwebs were the palm-trees' waving banners, and the caravan went over rivers to the wild bushmen. Old Oedmann was with the hunters, chasing the elephants in the midst of the thick reeds; the agile tiger-cat sprang past, and the serpents shone like garlands around the boughs of the trees: there was excitement, there was danger—and yet he lay so comfortably in his good and beloved bed in Upsala.

One winter's day, it happened that a Dalecarlian peasant mistook the house, and came into Oedmann's chamber in his snow-covered skin cloak, and with his beard full of ice. Oedmann shouted to him to go his way, but the peasant was deaf, and therefore stepped quite close up to the bed. He was the personification of Winter himself, and Oedmann fell ill from this visit: it was his only sickness during the many years he lay here as a polypus, grown fast, and where he was painted, as we see his portrait in the assembly-room.

From the hall of learning we will go to its burial-place—that is to say, its open burial-place—the great library. We wander from hall to hall, up stairs and down stairs. Along the shelves, behind them and round about, stand books, those petrifactions of the mind, which might again be vivified by spirit. Here lives a kind-hearted and mild old man, the librarian, Professor Schröder. He smiles and nods as he hears how memory's sprite takes his place here as guide, and tells of and shows, as we see, Tegner's copy and translation of Ochlenschloeger's "Hakon Jarl and Palnatoke." We see Vadstene cloister's library, in thick hog's leather bindings, and think of the fair hands of the nuns that have borne them, the pious, mild eyes that conjured the spirit out of the dead letters. Here is the celebrated Codex Argentius, the translation of the "Four Evangelists."¹⁷ Gold and silver letters glisten from the red parchment leaves. We see ancient Icelandic manuscripts, from de la Gardie's refined French saloon, and Thauberg's Japanese manuscripts. By merely looking at these books, their bindings and names, one at last becomes, as it were, quite worm-eaten in spirit, and longs to be out in the free air—and we are there; by Upsala's ancient hills. Thither do thou lead us, remembrance's elf, out of the city, out on the far extended plain, where Denmark's church stands—the church that was erected from the booty which the Swedes gained in the war against the Danes. We follow the broad high road: it leads us close past Upsala's old hills—Odin's, Thor's and Freia's graves, as they are called.

There once stood ancient Upsala, here now are but a few peasants' farms. The low church, built of granite blocks, dates from a very remote age; it stands on the remains of the heathen temple. Each of the hills is a little mountain, yet each was raised by human hands. Letters an ell long, and whole names, are cut deep in the thin greensward, which the new sprouting grass gradually fills up. The old housewife, from the peasant's cot close by the hill, brings the silver-bound horn, a gift of Charles John XIV., filled with mead. The wanderer empties the horn to the memory of the olden time, for Sweden, and for the heart's constant thoughts—young love!

Yes, thy toast is drunk here, and many a beauteous rose has been remembered here with a heartfelt hurra! and years after, when the same wanderer again stood here, she, the blooming rose, had been laid in the earth; the spring roses had strown their leaves over her coffined clay; the sweet music of her lips sounded but in memory; the smile in her eyes and around her mouth, was gone like the sunbeams, which then shone on Upsala's hills. Her name in the greensward is grown over; she herself is in the earth, and it is closed above her; but the hill here, closed for a thousand years, is open.

Through the passage which is dug deep into the hills, we come to the funereal urns which contain the bones of youthful kindred; the dust of kings, the gods of the earth.

The old housewife, from the peasant's cot, has lighted half a hundred wax candles and placed them in rows in the otherwise pitchy-dark, stone-paved passage. It shines so festally in here over the bones of the olden time's mighty ones, bones that are now charred and burnt to ashes. And whose were they? Thou world's power and glory, thou world's posthumous fame—dust, dust like beauty's rose, laid in the dark earth, where no light shines; thy memorials are but a name, the name but a sound. Away hence, and up on the hill where the wind blows, the sun shines, and the eye looks over the green plain, to the sunlit, dear Upsala, the student's city.

SALA

Sweden's great King, Germany's preserver, Gustavus Adolphus, founded Sala. The little wood, close by, still preserves legends of the heroic King's youthful love—of his meeting here with Ebba Brahe.

Sala's silver mines are the largest, the deepest, and oldest in Sweden: they reach to the depth of one hundred and seventy fathoms, consequently they are almost as deep as the Baltic. This of itself is enough to awaken an interest for a little town; but what is its appearance? "Sala," says the guide-book, "lies in a valley, in a flat, and not very pleasant district." And so truly it is: it was not very attractive approaching it our way, and the high road led directly into the town, which is without any distinctive character. It consists of a long street with what we may term a nucleus and a few fibres. The nucleus is the market-place, and the fibres are the few lanes diverging from it. The long street—that is to say, long in a little town—is quite without passengers; no one comes out from the doors, no one is to be seen at the windows.

It was therefore with pleased surprise that I at length descried a human being: it was at an ironmonger's, where there hung a paper of pins, a handkerchief and two tea-pots in the window. There I saw a solitary shop-boy, standing quite still, but leaning over the counter and looking out of the open door. He certainly wrote in his journal, if he had one, in the evening: "To-day a traveller drove through the town; who he was, God knows, for I don't!"—yes, that was what the shop-boy's face said, and an honest face it was.

In the inn at which I arrived, there was the same grave-like stillness as in the street. The gate was certainly closed, but all the inner doors were wide open; the farm-yard cock stood uplifted in the middle of the traveller's room and crowed, in order to show that there was somebody at home. The house, however, was quite picturesque: it had an open balcony, from which one might look out upon the yard, for it would have been far too lively had it been facing the street. There hung the old sign and creaked in the wind, as if to show that it at least was alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass in the street had got the mastery over the pavement. The sun shone brightly, but shone as into the bachelor's solitary room, and on the old maid's balsams in the flower-pots. It was as still as a Scotch Sunday—and yet it was a Tuesday. One was disposed for Young's "Night Thoughts."

I looked out from the balcony into the neighbouring yard: there was not a soul to be seen, but children had been playing there. There was a little garden made of dry sticks: they were stuck down in the soft soil and had been watered; a broken pan, which had certainly served by way of watering-pot, lay there still. The sticks signified roses and geraniums.

It had been a delightful garden—alas, yes! We great, grown-up men—we play just so: we make ourselves a garden with what we call love's roses and friendship's geraniums; we water them with our tears and with our heart's blood; and yet they are, and remain, dry sticks without root. It was a gloomy thought; I felt it, and in order to get the dry sticks in my thoughts to blossom, I went out. I wandered in the fibres and in the long threads—that is to say, in the small lanes—and in the great street; and here was more life than I dared to expect. I met a herd of cattle returning or going—which I know not—for they were without a herdsman. The shop-boy still stood behind the counter, leaned over it and greeted me; the stranger took his hat off again—that was my day's employment in Sala.

Pardon me, thou silent town, which Gustavus Adolphus built, where his young heart felt the first emotions of love, and where the silver lies in the deep shafts—that is to say, outside the town, "in a flat, and not very pleasant district."

I knew no one in the town; I had no one to be my guide, so I accompanied the cows, and came to the churchyard. The cows went past, but I stepped over the stile, and stood amongst the graves, where the grass grew high, and almost all the tombstones lay with worn-out inscriptions. On a few only the date of the year was legible. "Anno"—yes, what then? And who rested here? Everything on the stone was erased—blotted out like the earthly life of those mortals that here were earth in earth. What life's dream have ye dead played here in silent Sala?

The setting sun shone over the graves; not a leaf moved on the trees; all was still—still as death—in the city of the silver-mines, of which this traveller's reminiscence is but a frame around the shop-boy who leaned over the counter.

THE MUTE BOOK

By the high road into the forest there stood a solitary farm-house. Our way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle within, but in the yard, in an arbour of flowering lilacs, there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood by and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully over him; his face was covered with a white cloth, and under his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which was a whole sheet of grey paper, and between each lay withered flowers, deposited and forgotten—a whole herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A chapter of his life was blended with every flower.

"Who is that dead man?" we asked, and the answer was: "The old student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too; but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the country, where they paid for his board and lodging.

"He was as gentle as a child, when the dark humour did not come over him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would sit the whole day and look at one plant, and then at another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take his peaceful rest in the grave!"

They raised the winding-sheet. There was peace in the face of the dead: a sunbeam fell on it; a swallow in its arrowy flight, darted into the new-made arbour, and in its flight circled twittering over the dead man's head.

How strange it is!—we all assuredly know it—to take out old letters from the days of our youth and read them: a whole life, as it were, then rises up with all its hopes, and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them for many years—them whom we once thought we should always cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with.

The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of the friend—the friend of his school-days—the friend for life. He fixed this leaf on the student's cap in the green wood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the whole of life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved; friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory-plant, too fine for the gardens of the North—it looks as if there still were fragrance in these leaves!—she gave it to him—she, the young lady of that noble garden.

Here is the marsh-lotus which he himself has plucked and watered with salt tears—the marsh-lotus from the fresh waters. And here is a nettle: what does its leaf say? What did he think on plucking it—on preserving it? Here are lilies of the valley from the woodland solitudes; here are honeysuckle leaves from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here the bare, sharp blade of grass.

The flowering lilac bends its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man's head; the swallow again flies past; "quivit! quivit!" Now the men come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head rests on the Mute-Book—preserved—forgotten!

THE ZÄTHER DALE

Everything was in order, the carriage examined, even a whip with a good lash was not forgotten. "Two whips would be best," said the ironmonger, who sold it, and the ironmonger was a man of experience, which travellers often are not. A whole bag full of "slanter"—that is, copper coins of small value—stood before us for bridge-money, for beggars, for shepherd's boys, or whoever might open the many field-gates for us that obstructed our progress. But we had to do this ourselves, for the rain pattered down and lashed the ground; no one had any desire to come out in such weather. The rushes in the marsh bent and waved; it was a real rain feast for them, and it whistled from the tops of the rushes: "We drink with our feet, we drink with our heads, we drink with the whole body, and yet we stand on one leg, hurra! We drink with the bending willow, with the dripping flowers on the bank; their cups run over—the marsh marigold, that fine lady, can bear it better! Hurra! it is a feast! it pours, it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song. Tomorrow the frogs will croak the same after us and say, 'it is quite new!'"

And the rushes waved, and the rain pattered down with a splashing noise—it was fine weather to travel in to Zäther Dale, and to see its far-famed beauties. The whip-lash now came off the whip; it was fastened on again, and again, and every time it was shorter, so that at last there was not a lash, nor was there any handle, for the handle went after the lash—or sailed after it—as the road was quite navigable, and gave one a vivid idea of the beginning of the deluge.

One poor jade now drew too much, the other drew too little, and one of the splinter bars broke; well, by all that is vexatious, that was a fine drive! The leather apron in front had a deep pond in its folds with an outlet into one's lap. Now one of the linch-pins came out; now the twisting of the rope harness became loose, and the cross-strap was tired of holding any longer. Glorious inn in Zäther, how I now long more for thee than thy far-famed dale. And the horses went slower, and the rain fell faster, and so—yes, so we were not yet in Zäther.

Patience, thou lank spider, that in the ante-chamber quietly dost spin thy web over the expectant's foot, spin my eyelids close in a sleep as still as the horse's pace! Patience? no, she was not with us in the carriage to Zäther. But to the inn, by the road side, close to the far-famed valley, I got at length, towards evening.

And everything was flowing in the yard, chaotically mingled; manure and farming implements, staves and straw. The poultry sat there washed to shadows, or at least like stuck-up hens' skins with feathers on, and even the ducks crept close up to the wet wall, sated with the wet. The stable-man was cross, the girl still more so; it was difficult to get them to bestir themselves: the steps were crooked, the floor sloping and but just washed, sand strewn thickly on it, and the air was damp and cold. But without, scarcely twenty paces from the inn, on the other side of the road, lay the celebrated valley, a garden made by nature herself, and whose charm consists of trees and bushes, wells and purling brooks.

It was a long hollow; I saw the tops of the trees looming up, and the rain drew its thick veil over it. The whole of that long evening did I sit and look upon it during that shower of showers. It was as if the Venern, the Vettern and a few more lakes ran through an immense sieve from the clouds. I had ordered something to eat and drink, but I got nothing. They ran up and they ran down; there was a hissing sound of roasting by the hearth; the girls chattered, the men drank "sup,"¹⁸ strangers came, were shown into their rooms, and got both roast and boiled. Several hours had passed, when I made a forcible appeal to the girl, and she answered phlegmatically: "Why, Sir, you sit there and write without stopping, so you cannot have time to eat."

It was a long evening, "but the evening passed!" It had become quite still in the inn; all the travellers, except myself, had again departed, certainly in order to find better quarters for the night at Hedemore or Brunbeck. I had seen, through the half-open door into the dirty tap-room, a couple of fellows playing with greasy cards; a huge dog lay under the table and glared with its large red eyes; the kitchen was deserted; the rooms too; the floor was wet, the storm rattled, the rain beat against the windows—"and now to bed! said I."

I slept an hour, perhaps two, and was awakened by a loud bawling from the high road. I started up: it was twilight, the night at that period is not darker—it was about one o'clock. I heard the door shaken roughly; a deep manly voice shouted aloud, and there was a hammering with a cudgel against the planks of the yard-gate. Was it an intoxicated or a mad man that was to be let in? The gate was now opened, but many words were not exchanged. I heard a woman scream at the top of her voice from terror. There was now a great bustling about; they ran across the yard in wooden shoes; the bellowing of cattle and the rough voices of men were mingled together. I sat on the edge of the bed. Out or in! what was to be done? I looked from the window; in the road there was nothing to be seen, and it still rained. All at once some one came up stairs with heavy footsteps: he opened the door of the room adjoining mine—now he stood still! I listened—a large iron bolt fastened my door. The stranger now walked across the floor, now he shook my door, and then kicked against it with a heavy foot, and whilst all this was passing, the rain beat against the windows, and the blast made them rattle.

"Are there any travellers here?" shouted a voice; "the house is on fire!"

I now dressed myself and hastened out of the room and down the stairs. There was no smoke to be seen, but when I reached the yard, I saw that the whole building—a long and extensive one of wood—was enveloped in flames and clouds of smoke. The fire had originated in the baking oven, which no one had looked to; a traveller, who accidently came past, saw it, called out and hammered at the door: and the women screamed, and the cattle bellowed, when the fire stuck its red tongue into them.

Now came the fire-engine and the flames were extinguished. By this time it was morning. I stood in the road, scarcely a hundred steps from the far-famed dale. "One may as well spring into it as walk into it!" and I sprang into it; and the rain poured down, and the water flowed—the whole dale was a well.

The trees turned their leaves the wrong side out, purely because of the pouring rain, and they said, as the rushes did the day before: "We drink with our heads, we drink with our feet, and we drink with the whole body, and yet stand on our legs, hurra! it rains, and it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song—and it is quite new!"

Yes, that the rushes also sang yesterday—but it was the same, ever the same. I looked and looked, and all I know of the beauty of Zäther Dale is, that she had washed herself!