Christmas with Selma Lagerlöf. Selma Lagerlöf
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Saturday, April ninth.
It was a calm and clear night. The wild geese did not trouble themselves to seek shelter in any of the grottoes, but stood and slept upon the mountain top; and the boy had lain down in the short, dry grass beside the geese.
It was bright moonlight that night; so bright that it was difficult for the boy to go to sleep. He lay there and thought about just how long he had been away from home; and he figured out that it was three weeks since he had started on the trip. At the same time he remembered that this was Easter-eve.
"It is to-night that all the witches come home from Blakulla," thought he, and laughed to himself. For he was just a little afraid of both the sea-nymph and the elf, but he didn't believe in witches the least little bit.
If there had been any witches out that night, he should have seen them, to be sure. It was so light in the heavens that not the tiniest black speck could move in the air without his seeing it.
While the boy lay there with his nose in the air and thought about this, his eye rested on something lovely! The moon's disc was whole and round, and rather high, and over it a big bird came flying. He did not fly past the moon, but he moved just as though he might have flown out from it. The bird looked black against the light background, and the wings extended from one rim of the disc to the other. He flew on, evenly, in the same direction, and the boy thought that he was painted on the moon's disc. The body was small, the neck long and slender, the legs hung down, long and thin. It couldn't be anything but a stork.
A couple of seconds later Herr Ermenrich, the stork, lit beside the boy.
He bent down and poked him with his bill to awaken him.
Instantly the boy sat up. "I'm not asleep, Herr Ermenrich," he said.
"How does it happen that you are out in the middle of the night, and how
is everything at Glimminge castle? Do you want to speak with mother
Akka?"
"It's too light to sleep to-night," answered Herr Ermenrich. "Therefore I concluded to travel over here to Karl's Island and hunt you up, friend Thumbietot. I learned from the seamew that you were spending the night here. I have not as yet moved over to Glimminge castle, but am still living at Pommern."
The boy was simply overjoyed to think that Herr Ermenrich had sought him out. They chatted about all sorts of things, like old friends. At last the stork asked the boy if he wouldn't like to go out riding for a while on this beautiful night.
Oh, yes! that the boy wanted to do, if the stork would manage it so that he got back to the wild geese before sunrise. This he promised, so off they went.
Again Herr Ermenrich flew straight toward the moon. They rose and rose; the sea sank deep down, but the flight went so light and easy that it seemed almost as if the boy lay still in the air.
When Herr Ermenrich began to descend, the boy thought that the flight had lasted an unreasonably short time.
They landed on a desolate bit of seashore, which was covered with fine, even sand. All along the coast ran a row of flying-sand drifts, with lyme-grass on their tops. They were not very high, but they prevented the boy from seeing any of the island.
Herr Ermenrich stood on a sand-hill, drew up one leg and bent his head backward, so he could stick his bill under the wing. "You can roam around on the shore for a while," he said to Thumbietot, "while I rest myself. But don't go so far away but what you can find your way back to me again!"
To start with, the boy intended to climb a sand-hill and see how the land behind it looked. But when he had walked a couple of paces, he stubbed the toe of his wooden shoe against something hard. He stooped down, and saw that a small copper coin lay on the sand, and was so worn with verdigris that it was almost transparent. It was so poor that he didn't even bother to pick it up, but only kicked it out of the way.
But when he straightened himself up once more he was perfectly astounded, for two paces away from him stood a high, dark wall with a big, turreted gate.
The moment before, when the boy bent down, the sea lay there—shimmering and smooth, while now it was hidden by a long wall with towers and battlements. Directly in front of him, where before there had been only a few sea-weed banks, the big gate of the wall opened.
The boy probably understood that it was a spectre-play of some sort; but this was nothing to be afraid of, thought he. It wasn't any dangerous trolls, or any other evil—such as he always dreaded to encounter at night. Both the wall and the gate were so beautifully constructed that he only desired to see what there might be back of them. "I must find out what this can be," thought he, and went in through the gate.
In the deep archway there were guards, dressed in brocaded and purred suits, with long-handled spears beside them, who sat and threw dice. They thought only of the game, and took no notice of the boy who hurried past them quickly.
Just within the gate he found an open space, paved with large, even stone blocks. All around this were high and magnificent buildings; and between these opened long, narrow streets. On the square—facing the gate—it fairly swarmed with human beings. The men wore long, fur-trimmed capes over satin suits; plume-bedecked hats sat obliquely on their heads; on their chests hung superb chains. They were all so regally gotten up that the whole lot of them might have been kings.
The women went about in high head-dresses and long robes with tight-fitting sleeves. They, too, were beautifully dressed, but their splendour was not to be compared with that of the men.
This was exactly like the old story-book which mother took from the chest—only once—and showed to him. The boy simply couldn't believe his eyes.
But that which was even more wonderful to look upon than either the men or the women, was the city itself. Every house was built in such a way that a gable faced the street. And the gables were so highly ornamented, that one could believe they wished to compete with each other as to which one could show the most beautiful decorations.
When one suddenly sees so much that is new, he cannot manage to treasure it all in his memory. But at least the boy could recall that he had seen stairway gables on the various landings, which bore images of the Christ and his Apostles; gables, where there were images in niche after niche all along the wall; gables that were inlaid with multi-coloured bits of glass, and gables that were striped and checked with white and black marble. As the boy admired all this, a sudden sense of haste came over him. "Anything like this my eyes have never seen before. Anything like this, they would never see again," he said to himself. And he began to run in toward the city—up one street, and down another.
The streets were straight and narrow, but not empty and gloomy, as they were in the cities with which he was familiar. There were people everywhere. Old women sat by their open doors and spun without a spinning-wheel—only with the help of a shuttle. The merchants' shops were like market-stalls—opening on the street. All the hand-workers did their work out of doors. In one place they were boiling crude oil; in another tanning hides; in a third there was a long rope-walk.
If only the boy had had time enough he could have learned how to make all sorts of things. Here he saw how armourers hammered out thin breast-plates; how turners tended their irons; how the shoemakers soled soft, red shoes; how the gold-wire drawers twisted gold thread, and how the weavers inserted silver and gold into their weaving.
But the boy did not have the time to stay. He just rushed on, so that he could manage to see as much as possible before it would all vanish again.
The high wall ran all around the city and shut it in, as a hedge shuts in a field. He saw it at the end of every street—gable-ornamented and crenelated. On the top of the wall walked warriors in shining armour; and when he had run from one end of the city to the other, he came to still another gate in the wall. Outside of this lay the sea and harbour. The boy saw olden-time ships, with rowing-benches straight across, and high structures fore and aft. Some lay and took on cargo, others were just casting anchor. Carriers and merchants hurried around each other. All over, it was life and bustle.
But not