—3—
He rested a while, sitting on his sack, his legs trembling with fatigue and cold. He was worn out from the many hours’ struggle with the flour: he had weakened sooner than he had expected because his stomach was empty. Hunger smarted his stomach, in his limbs and back was an ache of fatigue, but most terrible was the pain of cold after he had sat a while. The cold embraced his body from head to heel, crept like icy snakes up his legs, penetrated his groin, dug into chest and throat, pinched his ears, nose, and cheeks. But he remained sitting, letting it overtake him; he was forced to rest.
He had told Kristina he would return well before bedtime. She would be sure to sit up and wait for him, darning stockings or patching clothes. She was waiting, not only for him but also for the flour—she would surely wish to set the dough this very evening, so she could bake tomorrow.
And here he sat on their flour and didn’t know in which direction he should carry it.
He had wandered about in a black forest like a child playing blind-man’s buff. Perhaps he had strayed too much to the left, or to the right; when he thought he had been walking northward, he might have walked southward; hoping to get nearer to his home, he had perhaps gone farther and farther away from it.
There was only one thing to do: He must walk on! He couldn’t camp in the forest, the cold was too intense. He couldn’t make a fire, he had brought no matches. If he lay down to sleep it would surely be his eternal sleep.
Walk on! He must warm himself by moving. Sitting on the sack, his whole body shivered and shook with cold. He rose, stamped his feet, rubbed his nose, ears, and cheeks; he was not going to endure the cold that came with immobility any longer—he must move on.
Karl Oskar resumed his walk at random; he must walk in some direction, and one way was as good as another. Damned bad luck! If only he had been able to reach the lake before dark. He had walked as fast as he could, but that damned sack—it had sagged and delayed him. But now what was he doing? Cursing the sack with their bread flour—the bread that was missing from their table, the bread that would satisfy the hunger of their children! He must be out of his mind, he must be crazy from fatigue and hunger.
“Father is buying flour—Mother will bake bread!”
Put the sack under a tree and walk unhindered? But it would not be easier to find his way without his burden. And he might never again find his flour. Better carry it as far as he was able. . . . But his back felt broken, and his legs wobbled. He had carried it for many hours, an eternal road. He staggered; again and again the burden on his back sagged down, down to his thighs, to his legs, again and again his hold on the sack loosened, his fingers straightened out; his back wanted to throw off the burden, his fingers wanted to let it go.
Karl Oskar no longer walked; he reeled, tottering among the tree trunks. But he dared not sit down to rest in this cold; he dared not remain still because of the frost—yet he could not walk because of exhaustion. Which must he do—sit down, or go on? One he dared not, the other he was barely able to do.
He struggled along at random, stumbling, fumbling, stooping with his burden. He bumped against the trees, he could not see where he was going. He found no landmarks, no lake, no brook; perhaps he had crossed the brook without knowing it? A few times the forest opened up and he walked across a glade—then he was instantly in deep forest again.
Suddenly he hit his head against something hard. He lost hold of the sack and tumbled backward.
Very slowly he struggled to his feet in the snow; above him he vaguely saw an animal, a head appeared a few yards away. A bear, a wolf, or could it be a lynx? The beast was snapping at him with enormous jaws, below fiery red eyes. It was quite close—Karl Oskar crouched backward and pulled out his knife.
He crept a few more steps backward; the beast did not come after him, it did not move. He could discern the upright ears, the sharp nose, the neck—it must be a wolf—the eyes glittered in the dark. He expected a leap, he crouched and held his breath. But the wolf too remained immobile.
He yelled, hoping to frighten the beast: “Go to hell, you devil!”
But the beast did not make the slightest move, it seemed petrified in one position, its ears upright, its eyes peering. And a suspicion rose within Karl Oskar; he approached the animal cautiously. Now he was close enough to touch it—and it wasn’t furry or soft, it was cold and hard: it was a wolf image on a pole.
His body sagged after the tension: an Indian pole, an image with glittering eyes and toothy jaws; it could startle anyone in the dark. Or—was he so far gone from struggling that he could be frightened by wooden poles?
His head ached; he felt a bump on his forehead from the encounter with the post; blood was oozing from his face and hands, torn by branches and thorns. He took off his mittens and licked the blood from his fingers; it felt warm in his mouth. He needed something warm this bitterly cold night.
With great effort he managed to get the sack onto his back again and continued his walk, lurching, stumbling. It had lightened a little in the forest, more stars had come out. High above the snowy forest and the lost settler with his burden glittered a magnificent, starry heaven. The firmament this night seemed like a dark canopy of soft felt spread by God above the frozen earth, and sprinkled with silvery sparks.
The wanderer below walked with bent head, stooped under his sack; he did not look up toward the heavenly lights. He carried the heavy fruit of the earth on his back. His steps were stumbling and tottering, he did not know where they would lead him. Home—in which direction lay the house where wife and children waited for him? Was he carrying their bread home—or away from home?
Suddenly he came upon large boot prints in the snow. They were his own! He felt his heart beat in his throat: then he had walked here in the early morning. He inspected the tracks more closely—and discovered they were quite fresh. He had been here only a short while ago. . . .
He was walking in a circle, in his own tracks. He wasn’t carrying the bread away from his family, neither was he carrying it home.
But he must keep going, no matter where, to escape freezing. He staggered on. His foot caught in something—a root, a windfall, a stump—and he fell again, forward this time, with the hundred-pound sack on top of him. He lay heavily in the snow, sunk down, slumped, like a bundle of rags. After a few minutes he tried to remove the sack. Slowly, with endless effort, he managed to roll it off his back. In a sweet sensation of deliverance he stretched out full length in the snow, with the flour sack for a pillow.
—4—
The fruit of the earth is good and sustaining, the fruit of the earth is indispensable, but heavy to carry on one’s back.
How comfortable to lie on it, instead. Better to lie upon flour than kill oneself by carrying it . . . when one doesn’t know where to carry it. And it has grown overpoweringly heavy, five hundred pounds. There is lead in the sack, five hundred pounds of lead—too much for one’s back—better lie here and rest on the sack . . . better than to carry it . . . when one doesn’t even know the way home. . . .
The cold is dangerous and evil, the cold has sharp teeth, digging like wolf’s fangs into flesh and bone, the cold has tongs that pinch and tear and pierce. The skin burns like fire. But it is good to rest . . . better to be cold a little than struggle with the burden. . . . Don’t be afraid of a little cold! Nothing is worse than to be afraid, Father used to say. Nothing is dangerous to him who is fearless. No, he isn’t afraid. A settler needs courage, good health, good mind. . . . Father didn’t say that—he has learned that himself—he has learned it now. . . .
Father has grown a great deal since he last saw him—that time on the stoop, with Mother. He is six feet tall, entirely straight; the way he stands here, he isn’t a cripple any longer, he must have thrown away his crutches—no, he still has one crutch, but he doesn’t lean on it, he shakes it at his oldest son: “. . . and you take your children with you! You not only take your children, you take my grandchildren, and my grandchildren’s child
ren! You drag the whole family out of the country! You are as stubborn as your nose is long, it will lead you to destruction!”
The sack—that damned flour sack! Here . . . here it is, under . . . how soft it is. Rye flour is the best pillow. With a whole sack of rye flour . . . sustain life until spring . . . not die this winter. Where is the loaf? Why isn’t it on the table?
“Mother! Bake some bread!”
Now Father is speaking sternly, shaking his crutch: What kind of fool are you, Karl Oskar? Why do you wander about here in the forest with such a sack of flour on your back? You have a team of oxen in Korpamoen, why don’t you drive to the mill, like other farmers? Sit up and ride, the way sensible people do, rest on your flour sack the whole way. Wouldn’t that be better than carrying flour miles through the forest? No one can call you a wise farmer, Karl Oskar! Here you struggle like a wretched crofter! You have no sense about providing food for your family. A hell of a fool is what you are! Never satisfied at home, hmm—you must emigrate. . . . People should see you now, lying in a snowdrift! What would they say? No—don’t show yourself to anyone, Karl Oskar. Crawl into the snow, hide yourself in the drift! Hide well. Let no one in the whole parish see you. . . .
“Be careful of your nose in this cold,” Kristina says. She is concerned, she is a good wife. She is thinking of his nose because Jonas Petter’s became frostbitten. But she means: Be careful of your life! Watch out against freezing to death. Don’t stop too long. Don’t lie down in the snow, whatever you do—don’t lie down in the snow! I’m going to bake, this evening, as soon as you get home. I need the flour. . . .
“You’ve come at last!” she says. “Then I’ll set the dough, knead it tonight. We’ll heat the oven tomorrow morning, rake out the coals, put in the bread; you made a good oven for me, even though it doesn’t give quite enough top-heat. . . . A hundred pounds, two bushels, three bushels? It’ll last till spring. But the sack! Where is the sack? Did you forget the sack? You come home without flour?”
“The sack lies back there in the woods, but I know where I hid it—I buried it in the snow. How could I do anything so silly? I must go back at once and find it.”
“Go at once and get the sack. Hurry, Karl Oskar! Hurry before it’s too late!”
“It’s already too late for you,” says Father, and now he leans on both of his crutches; now he is a helpless cripple again, a wizened, dried-up old man. And he complains: “It’s too late, Karl Oskar. You won’t have time, you won’t find the sack, you’ve lost it! How could you forget the sack in the snow, far out in the woods? Don’t you know your children are in it? Don’t you know they are all bundled up in there? How could you take your children to North America and carry them in a sack on your back? You must have known that such a burden would be too heavy. You must have realized you could never get home. That long road. . . . I told you you couldn’t manage. And then you dropped them in the snow. Now it’s too late to find them. They must be frozen to death, starved to death by now. . . . Didn’t I tell you things would go ill with you in North America? But you wouldn’t listen to my warning, you wouldn’t listen to your parents. You were always stubborn and headstrong.”
No! No! He must defend himself, he must tell Father the truth: It was because of the children he had emigrated—above all for their sake. He had brought his wife and three children with him, but he had also brought with him a pair of worn-out little shoes that had belonged to a fourth child. Didn’t Father remember Anna? She died. She was hungry too long. Of her he had only the little shoes left, and he had taken them with him from Korpamoen; they would always remind him of his child, they would make him remember the hunger that snatched her away from him. Father must know, he must remember: the famine year, the famine bread, the poor beggars, all those who starved to death? If not, he would show Father Anna’s shoes. They are here in the sack! I put them into the sack. There isn’t another thing in the sack. . . .
When he lost his little girl he had been in despair. Father must remember how he had searched for knot-free boards for the coffin. It was lowered into the earth, but her shoes were left. At times he picks them up, holds them in his hands: her small feet have been in them, her little feet have romped about in them, she has taken many steps in them, up and down, a thousand times. Anna’s feet. . . . Father, it hurts to die. Don’t let God come and take me! I want to stay here with you. . . . No, it mustn’t happen again, it mustn’t happen to his other children, he must take them away from the tormenting hunger—out here. And now he is here with his sack; and it has grown heavier and heavier, until he has fallen with it. He is crawling on his knees in the snow, with the burden on his back. But it’s burning hot in the snow, it smarts, smarts. . . .
And his own father is also here in America—he hasn’t written a letter, although he learned to write while sitting inside as a cripple. He has come here himself and speaks severe words to his eldest son: “I warned you, your mother warned you, friends and neighbors warned you. But you had to do it. You were self-willed, stubborn, listened to no one. Therefore things went as they did; now you lie here. . . . You dragged away my children, my grandchildren. Where are your own children? Where do you keep them? Have you taken care of them? Have you found them yet? Do you remember the place where you buried them in the snow? Be careful of your nose in this cold!”
Father will buy flour, Mother will bake bread. . . . Where is the bread? . . . It’s my son! But you are my son. And things have come to pass as you wanted them to. Karl Oskar, are you looking for bread on your own table? You’re as stubborn as your nose is long. You couldn’t rest until you got to North America. You wanted to get here to fetch that sack of flour, to wander about with the sack. . . . It wasn’t much to travel so far for—not much for one who wanted to improve things for himself. . . . But I told you it was a long way to travel, that you never would find your way, wouldn’t be able to carry it all the distance, it’s too heavy . . . and what a cold night! Not even a beggar would be out in this weather. . . .
I’ll succeed! I’ll improve myself! And Karl Oskar swings the sack onto his back again and waves good-by to his father and mother, who stand on the stoop looking after him. He walks lightly with his burden, through the narrow gate, onto the road, and then he looks back: Father and Mother stand there. He calls to them but they do not answer. They remain standing on the stoop, deaf, dumb, lame. Never more in his life will they move. They will remain standing there for ever, looking after him, the son who walked out through the gate, who emigrated. For all time they will stand there; they do not hear when he calls, but he must tell them, he must call louder: “It wasn’t because I was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to you, nor was I dissatisfied. That you must remember! I didn’t emigrate because of this, do you hear me, Father and Mother? I didn’t want to make any more coffins. No coffins for my little ones. Remember that! That was why I emigrated.”
But Father and Mother do not listen, they do not hear. And they cannot move. They are only wooden images, put up by the Indians. The red eyes staring at him aren’t human eyes; the Indians have put animal heads on Father’s and Mother’s bodies! They have cut off the heads of his parents and have replaced them with wolf heads! That’s why they stand immobile without hearing him when he shouts at them: “Can you hear me?”
He shouts and yells, he has to, he can no longer endure the intense smarting from the fire, he shrieks as he lies there among the scorching firebrands of the bitter-cold snow. . . .
—5—
Karl Oskar Nilsson sat up and felt his face with his hand: Where was he? Was he at home with his father, defending his emigration? Or had his father come here? Was he in two countries at the same time? Wasn’t he walking homeward with a—the sack!
His befuddled mind cleared: He had gone to sleep on his sack in the snow. But the cold had bitten him badly, and he had shouted himself awake. He jumped to his feet, violently, as if attacked by a swarm of hornets; he was like a madman—he jumped about, kicking, stamping the ground. He flaile
d his arms, slapped his hands and face, beat his body with his fists. For several minutes he pummeled himself—and his blood pumped faster, his body heat was returning.
He must have dozed off for a little while; he might never have awakened! How could he have lain down this bitterly cold night? How could he have forgotten to guard against the treacherous temptation of rest?
He could not have been asleep long, yet he had had time to dream evil dreams, listen to many voices; they had told him things he probably had thought to himself, when alone; and all the while he had felt the smarting cold, burning his skin like firebrands. Thank God, he had not lost sensation—he was not frostbitten yet. But a few moments more, in that hole in the snow. . . . The ice-cold shroud of frost-death was down there—it would soon have soothed his pains, would soon have made him slumber forever!
But he was still alive. He loosened his stiff joints, he forced his body to move again. And once more he swung the flour sack onto his back. Fury boiled within him as he made ready to carry it farther; he gained strength from his seething anger, from adversity’s bitterness. Many times before he had enjoyed the gift of strength from vexation, and this time it was more welcome than ever. Who said he wasn’t able? Those spiteful neighbors in Sweden, how they would enjoy his misfortunes if they knew! He could just hear them say: Karl Oskar couldn’t succeed! What did we tell you?
He was enraged. In a wild frenzy he began to kick the big stump that had tripped him. His feet felt like icicles in his boots. But suddenly he stopped and stood still: Who could have felled a great tree here in the wilderness? The stump was fresh and cut by an ax!
He dropped his sack, bent down, brushed away the snow and examined the stump carefully. It was a low stump, not cut by a straight-standing American. This stump was cut by a Swede! He recognized the stump—he had felled this tree himself. It was the great oak he had cut down here, their food table! And that oak had grown on a knoll close behind their house—only a few hundred yards from home. . . .
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