Ronneby's dark roofs and white waterfalls she flew forward without alighting.
But a little south of the city and not far from the sea, lies Ronneby
health-spring, with its bath house and spring house; with its big hotel and
summer cottages for the spring's guests. All these stand empty and desolate in
winter ­ which the birds know perfectly well; and many are the bird-companies
that seek shelter on the deserted buildings' balustrades and balconies during
hard storm-times.
Here the wild geese lit on a balcony, and, as usual, they fell asleep at once.
The boy, on the contrary, could not sleep because he hadn't cared to creep in
under the goosey-gander's wing.
The balcony faced south, so the boy had an outlook over the sea. And since he
could not sleep, he sat there and saw how pretty it looked when sea and land
meet, here in Blekinge.
It so happens that sea and land can meet in many different ways. In some places
the land comes down toward the sea with flat, tufted meadows, and the sea meets
the land with flying sand, which piles up into mounds and drifts. It appears as
if both disliked each other so much that they only wished to show the poorest
they possess. But it can also happen that when the land comes toward the sea it
raises a wall of hills in front of it ­ as though the sea were something
dangerous. When the land acts like that, the sea comes up to it with fiery
wrath, and beats and roars and lashes against the rocks, and looks as if it
would tear the land-hill to pieces.
But in Blekinge it is altogether different when sea and land meet. There the
land breaks itself up into points and islands and islets; and the sea divides
itself into fiords and bays and sounds; and it is perhaps this which makes it
appear as if they must meet in happiness and harmony.
Think now first and foremost of the sea! Far out it lies desolate and empty and
big, and has nothing to do but to roll its gray billows. When it comes toward
the land, it happens across the first islet. This it immediately overpowers;
tears away everything green, and makes it as gray as itself. Then it meets still
another islet; this it treats in the same way. And still another ­ yes, the same
thing happens to this also. It is stripped and plundered, as if it had fallen
into robbers' hands. Then the obstacles come nearer and nearer together, and now
the sea must understand that the land sends toward it her littlest children, in
order to move it to pity. It also becomes more friendly the farther in it comes;
rolls its waves less high; moderates its storms; lets the green things stay in
cracks and crevices; separates itself into small sounds and inlets, and becomes
at last so harmless in the land that little boats dare venture out on it. It
hardly knows itself ­ so mild and friendly has it become.
And then think of the hillside! It lies uniform, and looks the same almost
everywhere. It consists of flat grain-fields, with one and another birch-grove
between, or of long stretches of forest ranges. It appears as if it had thought
of nothing but grain and turnips and potatoes and spruce and pine. Then along
comes a fiord that cuts far into it. It doesn't mind that, but borders it with
birch and alder, just as if it were an ordinary fresh-water lake. Then still
another wave comes driving in. Nor does the hillside bother to cringe to this,
but it also gets the dousing as the first one. Then the fiords begin to broaden
and separate, they break up fields and woods and then the hillside cannot help
but notice them. "I believe it is the sea itself that is coming," says the
Hillside, and then it begins to adorn itself. It wreathes itself with blossoms,
travels up and down in hills, and throws islands into the sea. It no longer
cares about pines and spruces, but casts them off like old everyday clothes,
parading later with big oaks and lindens and chestnuts, and with blossoming
leafy bowers, and it becomes as gorgeous as a manor-park. And when it meets the
sea, it is so changed that it doesn't know itself. All this cannot be seen very
well until summertime; but, at any rate, the boy observed how mild and friendly
nature was; and he began to feel calmer than he had felt before that night.
Then, suddenly, he heard a sharp and ugly yowl from the bath-house park; and
when he stood up he saw, in the pale moonlight, a fox standing on the pavement
under the balcony. For Smirre had followed the wild geese once more. But on
finding the place where they were quartered, he understood that it was
impossible to get at them in any way; therefore he had not been able to keep
from yowling with chagrin.
When the fox yowled like that, old Akka, the leader-goose, was awakened.
Although she could see nothing, she thought she recognised the voice. "Is it you
who are out tonight, Smirre?'' said she. "Yes," said Smirre, "it is I; and I
want to ask what you geese think of the night I have brought you?"
"Do you mean to say that it is you who have sent the marten and otter against
us?" asked Akka. "A good turn shouldn't be denied," retorted Smirre. "You once
played the goose-game with me, now I have begun to play the fox-game with you;
and I'm not inclined to let up on it so long as a single one of you still lives,
even if I have to follow you the world over!"
"You, Smirre, ought at least to think whether it is right for you, who are
weaponed with both teeth and claws, to hound us in this way; we, who are
defenceless," said Akka.
Smirre thought that Akka sounded scared, and he promptly said: "If you, Akka,
will take that Thumbietot, who has so often opposed me, and throw him down to
me, I'll promise to make my peace with you. Then I'll never more pursue you or
any of yours." "I'm not going to give you Thumbietot," said Akka. "From the
youngest of us to the oldest, we would willingly give our lives for his sake!"
"Since you're so fond of him," said Smirre, "I'll promise you that he shall be
the first among you that I will wreak vengeance upon."
Akka said no more, and after Smirre had sent up a few more yowls, all was still.
The boy lay all the while awake. Now it was Akka's words to the fox that
prevented his sleeping. Never had he dreamed that he should hear anything so
great as that some one was willing to risk life for his sake. From that moment,
it could no longer be said of Nils Holgersson that he cared for no one.
[Next]
Chapter IX.
"Chapter IX." by Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), translated by Velma Swanston
Howard.
From: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. by Selma Lagerlöf. New York: Doubleday,
Page & Company, 1922, pp. 122-132.
CHAPTER NINE
KARLSKRONA
Saturday, April third.
IT WAS a moonlight evening in Karlskrona ­ calm and beautiful. But earlier in
the day, there had been rain and wind; and the people must have thought that the
bad weather still continued, for hardly a soul had ventured out into the
streets.
While the city lay there so desolate, Akka, the wild goose, and her flock, came
flying toward it over Vemmön and Pantarholmen. They were out in the late evening
to seek a sleeping place on the islands. They couldn't remain inland because
they were disturbed by Smirre Fox wherever they lighted.
As the boy rode along, high up in the air, and looked at the sea and the islands
which spread before him, he thought that everything appeared so strange and
spooky. The heavens were no longer blue, but encased him like a globe of green
glass. The sea was milk-white, and as far as he could see rolled small white
waves tipped with silver ripples. In among all this white lay numerous little
islets, coal black. Whether they were big or little, whether they were even as
meadows, or full of cliffs, they looked just as black. Even dwelling-houses and
churches and windmills, which at other times are white or red, were now outlined
in black against the green sky. The boy thought it was as if the earth had been
transformed, and he was come to another world.
He felt that just for this one night he wanted to be brave, and not afraid ­
when he saw something that really frightened him. It was a high cliff island,
covered with big, angular blocks; and between the dark blocks glittered specks
of bright, shining gold. He couldn't keep from thinking of Maglestone, by
Trolle-Ljungby, which the trolls sometimes raised upon high golden pillars; and
he wondered if this wasn't something of the same sort.
It would have been well enough with the stones and the gold if there hadn't been
so many fiendish things all around the island. They looked like whales and
sharks and other big sea-monsters. But the boy understood that these were
sea-trolls, who had gathered around the island and intended to crawl up on it,
to fight with the land-trolls who lived there. And those on the land were
probably afraid, for he saw how a big giant stood on the highest point of the
island and raised his arms, as if in despair over all the misfortune that was to
come to him and to his island.
The boy was not a little terrified when he noticed that Akka began to descend
right over that particular island! "No, for. pity's sake! We must not light
there," gasped he.
But the geese continued the descent and soon the boy was astonished that he
could have seen things so awry. In the first place, the big stone blocks were
nothing but houses. The whole island was a city; and the shining gold specks
were street lamps and lighted window-panes. The giant standing on the topmost
point of the island with his arms raised was a church with two cross-towers; all
the sea-trolls and monsters, which he thought he had seen, were boats and ships
of every description, lying at anchor all around the island. On the land side
they were mostly row-boats and sail-boats and small coast steamers; but on the
side that faced the sea lay armour-clad battleships; some were broad, with
thick, slanting smoke-stacks; others were long and narrow and so constructed
that they could glide through the water like fishes.
Now what city might this be? That, the boy could guess because he saw all the
battleships. All his life he had loved ships, although he had had nothing to do
with any, except the galleys which he had sailed in the road ditches. He knew
very well that this city, where so many battleships lay, could only be
Karlskrona.
The boy's grandfather had been an old marine; and all his life, he had talked of
Karlskrona ­ of the great warship dock, and of all the other things to be seen
in that city. The boy felt perfectly at home, and was glad that he was going to
see all of which he had heard so much.
But he had only a glimpse of the towers and fortifications which barred the
entrance to the harbour, and the many buildings, and the shipyard, when Akka
sank down to one of the flat church-towers.
This was a pretty safe place for those who wanted to get away from a fox, and
the boy began to wonder if he couldn't venture to crawl in under the
goosey-gander's wing for this one night. Yes, that he might safely do. It would
do him good to get a little sleep. He would try to see more of the dock and the
ships at daybreak.
It seemed strange to the boy that he could keep still and wait until morning to
see the ships. He certainly had not slept five minutes before he slipped out
from under the wing and slid down the lightning-rod and the water-spout all the
way to the ground.
Presently he stood on a big square in front of the church. It was paved with
round stones, and for him it was just as hard to walk there as it is for big
people to walk on a tufted meadow. Those who are accustomed to live in the open,
or far out in the country, always feel uneasy when they come into a city, where
the houses stand straight and forbidding, and the streets are open, so that
every one can see who goes there. And it happened in the same way with the boy.
When he stood on the big Karlskrona square, and looked at the German church, the
town hall, and the cathedral from which he had just descended, he wished himself
back on the tower with the geese.
It was a lucky thing that the square was entirely deserted. There wasn't a human
being about ­ unless a statue on its high pedestal could be counted in. The boy
stared long at the statue, which represented a big, brawny man in a
three-cornered hat, long waistcoat, knee-breeches and coarse shoes ­ and
wondered who he was. The man held a long stick in his hand, and he looked as if
he would know how to make use of it, too ­ for he had an awfully severe
countenance, with a big, hooked nose and an ugly mouth.
"What is that long-lipped thing doing here?" the boy cried at last. Never had he
felt so small and insignificant as he did that night. He tried to jolly himself
up a bit by saying something audacious. Then he thought no more about the
statue, but betook himself to a wide street which led down to the sea.
The boy hadn't gone far when he heard some one following him. Somebody was
walking behind him, who stamped on the stone pavement with heavy footsteps and
pounded on the ground with a hard stick. It sounded as if the big bronze man up
in the square had started on a tramp.
The boy listened for the steps as he ran down the street, and he became more and
more convinced that it was the bronze man. The ground trembled, and the houses
shook. It couldn't be any one but he who walked so heavily. The boy grew
panic-stricken as he thought of what he had just said to him. He did not dare
turn his head to find out if it really was he.
"Perhaps he is only out for a walk," thought the boy. "Surely he can't be angry
with me for the words I spoke. They were not at all badly meant."
