The Dwarf

by Pär Lagerkvist

  With this judgment I left her, lying there on the floor as though in a swoon.

  I went home. With thudding heart I mounted the stairs to the dwarfs’ apartment and shut the door behind me.

  While writing this, my agitation has subsided, and I experience nothing but an endless void and boredom. My heart thuds no longer, I cannot feel it at all. I stare in front of me and my lonely countenance is dark and joyless.

  Maybe she was right when she said that I was a scourge of God.

  IT IS the evening of the same day and I am sitting here looking out over the town below. It is twilight and the bells have ceased their tolling and the domes and houses are beginning to fade away. In the half-light I can see the smoke from the funeral pyres coiling between them and the pungent smell reaches up to my nostrils. A thick veil shrouds everything, soon it will be quite dark.

  Life! What is the point of it? What is its meaning, its use? Why does it go on, so gloomy and so absolutely empty?

  I turn its torch downward and extinguish it against the dark earth, and it is night.

  The peasant girl is dead. Her red cheeks could not stop her from dying. The plague took her, though for a long time nobody would believe it because she did not suffer the same pains as the others.

  Fiammetta is dead too. She sickened this morning and after a couple of hours she was gone. I saw her when the phantoms from the Brotherhood came to fetch her. She was a horrible sight: her face was swollen and misshapen and presumably her body likewise. She was no longer a thing of beauty, but merely a disgusting corpse. They laid a cloth over her monstrous features and went away.

  Here at the court they are terrified of the plague and want to get the dead out of the way as quickly as possible. But the order has been given that she is to be buried tonight with special honors. It does not really matter much, since she is dead.

  Nobody mourns her.

  PERHAPS the Prince mourns her, in fact he surely does. Or perhaps he feels slightly relieved. Perhaps both.

  Nobody knows, for he speaks to no one. He goes about pale and worn and is no longer himself. His forehead is furrowed beneath the black fringe and he is a little bent. His dark eyes gleam strangely and are full of unrest.

  I caught a glimpse of him today and it was then I noticed it. I have seen him very seldom of late. I do not serve at his table.

  I have not visited the Princess since that last time. I hear she is in a coma. Now that Fiammetta is dead, they say the Prince visits her frequently, sitting by her bed and watching over her.

  Human beings are so strange, I can never understand their love for each other.

  THE ENEMY raised the siege and went away as soon as the plague began to spread among them. Boccarossa’s mercenaries have no desire to fight such a foe.

  And so, the plague has put an end to the war as nothing else could have done. Both countries are pillaged, particularly our own. The populations are probably too exhausted after two wars to be able to go on. Montanza has achieved nothing and maybe his troops will take the pest home with them.

  More and more people are dying here in the palace. The black hangings in honor of Angelica are still up and match the somber atmosphere.

  I am quite excluded from the service of the court. Nobody summons me any longer, nobody has any orders for me. Least of all the Prince; I never set eyes on him at all.

  I can see on everybody’s faces that there is something in the wind, but I do not know what it can be.

  Has somebody maligned me?

  I have withdrawn altogether to the dwarfs’ apartment where I live quite alone. I do not even go down to eat, but keep myself alive on a little old bread which I have up here. It is quite sufficient, I have never wanted much.

  I sit here alone under the low ceiling, deep in thought.

  I like this utter solitude more and more.

  IT IS a long time since last I wrote anything in this book of mine. That is because things have happened which strongly affected my life and made it impossible for me to continue with my notes. I could not even get hold of them, and only now have I had them brought to me here.

  I am sitting chained to the wall in one of the castle dungeons. Until recently, my hands were also manacled, though that was quite superfluous. I could not possibly escape. But it was meant to aggravate my punishment. Now at last I have been freed from them. I do not know why. I have not asked for it, I have asked for nothing. Thus it is a little more bearable now, though my condition has not changed. I have persuaded Anselmo my jailer to fetch my writing materials and notes from the dwarfs’ apartment so that I may have some slight recreation by occupying myself with them. He may have risked something by getting them for me, for though my hands have been freed it is not at all certain that they do not grudge me this little pastime. As he said, he has no right to grant me anything, however much he may wish it. But he is an obliging and very simple fellow, so at last I managed to persuade him to do it.

  I have read through my notes from the beginning, a little every day. It has been a certain satisfaction thus to relive my own and several others’ lives and once again meditate over everything in the silent hours. I shall now try to continue from where I left off and thus provide myself with a little variety in my somewhat monotonous existence.

  I do not really know how long I have been here. My time in prison has been so utterly uneventful, each day precisely like all the others, that I have stopped reckoning them and take no further interest in the passage of time. But I clearly recall the circumstances which led me to this dungeon and chained me to its wall.

  One morning I was sitting peacefully in my dwarfs’ chamber when one of the assistant torturers suddenly came in through the door and commanded me to follow him. He gave no explanation and I asked him no questions, considering that it was beneath my dignity to address him. He took me down to the torture chamber where stood the executioner, big and ruddy and stripped to the waist. There was a lawyer there too, and after I had been shown the instruments of torture he exhorted me to make a full confession of all that had happened during my visits to the Princess, which, they said, had been the cause of her present deplorable condition. Naturally I refused to do any such thing. Twice he exhorted me to confess, but in vain. Then the executioner seized me and laid me on the rack to torture me. But the rack proved to have been made for bodies of a size different from mine, so I had to scramble down again and stand and wait while they altered it so that it could be used for a dwarf. I had to listen to their obscenities and foolish jests and their assurances that they were going to make a fine tall fellow of me. Then I was put back on the rack and they began to torment me in the most horrible way. Despite the pain I did not utter a sound but gazed scornfully at them as they performed their despicable trade. The man of law bent over me, trying to extract my secret from me, but not a word passed my lips. I did not betray her. I did not want her debasement to be known.

  Why did I behave thus? I do not know. But I preferred to endure the worst rather than reveal anything which might degrade her. I compressed my lips and let them plague me for the sake of that detestable woman. Why? Perhaps I liked suffering for her sake.

  At last they had to give up. They loosened the ropes, swearing vilely all the while. I was taken to a dungeon and loaded with the chains which had been made that time when I gave communion to my oppressed people and which, therefore, now came in very useful. That was a less inhospitable prison than my present one. A couple of days later I was brought up again and went through the same treatment. But again it was all in vain. Nothing could make me speak. I still carry her secret in my heart.

  After a time I was confronted by a kind of court of justice where I learned that I was accused of all manner of crimes, among others that of having caused the death of the Princess. I did not know that she was dead, but I am sure that on hearing it not a muscle of my face betrayed my emotion. She had died without ever awaking from her coma.

  They asked me if I had anything to say in my defense. I did
not deign to answer. Then came the verdict. For all my wicked deeds and as the cause of so many misfortunes, I was condemned to be welded to the wall in the darkest dungeon under the fortress and to remain there in chains for all eternity. I was a viper and the evil genius of his Most Princely Grace, and it was his expressed wish that I should be rendered harmless for all time.

  I listened unmoved to the sentence. My ancient dwarf face showed only scorn and mockery and I noticed that the sight of it filled them with fear. I was taken away from the court and since then I have seen none of these despicable beings except Anselmo who is so puerile that he is beneath my contempt.

  Viper!

  It is true that I mixed the poison, but on whose orders? It is true that I was the death of Don Riccardo, but who was it wished his death? It is true that I scourged the Princess, but who begged and prayed me to do so?

  Human beings are too feeble and exalted to shape their own destiny.

  One might have thought that I should have been condemned to death for all these atrocious crimes, but only the heedless and those who do not know my noble lord can be surprised that this was not so. I knew him far too well ever to fear anything like that; nor has he really so much power over me.

  Power over me! What does it matter if I sit here in the dungeon? What good does it do if they clap me in irons? I still belong to the castle just as much as before! To prove it they have even welded me to it! We are forged together, it and I! We cannot escape from each other, my master and I! If I am imprisoned, then he is imprisoned too! If I am linked to him, then he too is linked to me!

  Here I am in my hole, living my obscure mole life, while he goes about in his fine handsome halls. But my life is also his, and his noble highly respectable life up there really belongs to me.

  IT HAS taken me several days to put this down. I can only write during the short time when a ray of sunlight from the narrow slit falls on the paper: then I must seize the opportunity. The ray moves along the dungeon floor for an hour, but I cannot follow it, owing to the chain which fastens me to the wall. I can only move a tiny bit. Therefore, it also took me a long time to read through what I had written. But that was an advantage, for thereby the distraction lasted that much longer.

  I have nothing to do the rest of the day, and remain seated as before. By three o’clock it gets dark, and I have to spend the greater part of the time in complete darkness. Then the rats come out and creep around, their eyes shining. I see them at once for I too can see in the dark and, like them, I have become more and more of an underground creature. I hate those dirty ugly beasts and hunt them by sitting quite still until they come near enough for me to trample them to death. That is one of the few manifestations of vitality left to me. In the morning I order Anselmo to throw them away. I cannot think where they come from: it must be the door which does not shut properly.

  Moisture drips down the wall and the cell has a musty smell which irritates me more than anything else, I think, for I am very sensitive to such things. The floor is of earth, hardened by the feet of those who have languished here. They cannot have been chained to the wall as I am, at least not all of them, for the whole floor seems to be like stone. At night I rest on a heap of straw, as she did. But it is not foul and stinking like hers, for I make Anselmo change it once a week. I am no penitent. I am a free man. I do not degrade myself.

  Such is my existence in this dungeon. I sit here setting my jaw and thinking my thoughts about life and human beings as I have always done, and I do not change in the least.

  If they think they can subdue me they are wrong!

  I HAVE had some contact with the outer world, thanks to the good man who is my jailer. When he comes with my food he tells me in his guileless way of what has happened, adding lengthy commentaries of his own. He is very much interested in everything and likes to voice the speculations which have caused him such travail. In his mouth everything becomes utterly fatuous: above all he wonders what can be God’s reasons for all that has happened. But my wider knowledge and experience help me to gain an approximate notion of what really took place, of all the circumstances attendant on the decline and death of the Princess and various other occurrences which followed my imprisonment. The Prince sat faithfully by her bed all day long watching her face become more and more transparent and what the court described as spiritualized. As though he had seen her himself, Anselmo maintained that she became as lovely as a madonna. I who really did see her knew how much truth there was in that. But I can quite believe that the Prince sat there and devoted himself entirely to the wife who was about to leave him. Perhaps he relived their youthful love. If so, he had to do it alone, for she was already far from all earthly ties. I know what he is like and undoubtedly he found something very moving in her unearth-liness and remoteness. At the same time he must have been bewildered by her conversion, in which he had had no part, and probably wanted to call her back to life again. But she slipped through his hands, imperceptibly and without any explanations. Doubtless that increased his love; it generally seems to.

  It was in such a mood that he had me jailed and tortured. He loved her because she was so unattainable and, because of that, he let me suffer. It does not surprise me, but then nothing surprises me.

  Bernardo was there with some others, and saw her. The old master is said to have observed that her face was wonderful to look upon and that now he was beginning to understand it, and to comprehend why his portrait of her had been a failure. It is not all certain that it was a failure, though she no longer resembled it. I think he ought to have realized that and pondered on it.

  Then the priests put in their appearance, running in and out, declaring her entry into the eternal life to be a beautiful and elevating sight. Her own confessor must also have been there, telling everybody who would listen that she was without sin. When she was very near the end, the archbishop gave her communion and the last rites with his own hands and the whole room was full of prelates and spiritual dignitaries in full canonicals. But she died all alone, without knowing that anybody was there.

  After her death they found a dirty crumpled paper on which she had written that she wished to have her despicable body burned like that of the plague victims, and the ashes strewn on the street so that all might tread on them. These words, though undoubtedly they were sincerely meant, were looked upon as incoherent wanderings and nobody paid any heed to her last wishes. Instead, they took a middle course, embalmed her corpse and then placed it in a simple iron coffin which was borne unadorned through the streets to the princely crypt in the cathedral. The procession was as meager as was possible where a princess was concerned, and the commonest people walked very devoutly in it, the miserable starved wretches who still survived. Anselmo described this cortege through the plague-smitten city as something very moving and pathetic. It is quite possible that it was.

  The people believed that now they knew everything about her and her last days. They took possession of her as their own rightful property, changing what they had heard according to their own fancy, as happens in such cases. Their imagination was stirred by the plain ugly coffin in the crypt among all the other magnificent princely coffins of silver and skillfully carved marble. Lying there, she seemed somehow to have become one of them. And her penances and scourgings, which the tiring wench had had time to relate to all and sundry, transformed her into one of the elect who, being an exalted personage despite her humiliation, had suffered more than all the others. Inasmuch as He was God’s son, Jesus too suffered more than anybody else even though many others have been crucified, some head downward, and had been killed and martyrized far more painfully than He. By degrees she became a saintly being who had despised and denied this life to such an extent that she had tortured her body to death of her own accord. Thus the legend was going on quite unaffected by reality, and they continued to work at it until it corresponded to their desires. God knows if there were not miracles by the black ugly iron coffin which contained her remains. At least Anselmo
believed that there were. He declared that a light shone about it at night. This is possible. The cathedral is closed at that time so nobody can authentically deny or affirm it, and when believers have the choice between that which is true and that which is not, they always choose that which is not. Lies are far rarer and more impressive than the truth, and so they prefer them.

  When I heard all this I was obliged to tell myself that, quite unsuspectingly, I had been the creator of this saintly halo, or at least contributed largely to its sheen. And because of that, I was now manacled to the wall down here. Of course they knew nothing about that, and had they done so they certainly would have taken no interest in my martyrdom. Nor did I desire anything of that kind. But I was surprised that anyone so unholy as I should be instrumental in bringing about anything like that.

  In due time, I do not quite remember when, Anselmo began to relate how Bernardo was painting a Madonna with the features of the Princess. The Prince and the whole court were very absorbed in the work and greatly pleased with it. The old master explained that he wanted to reproduce her innermost self and all that he had been able to apprehend only vaguely before he saw her on her deathbed. I do not know if he succeeded, not having seen the result but merely having heard it spoken of as an extraordinary masterpiece-however, they say the same of all his work. He took a long time over it but in the end he did finish it. His Holy Communion with Christ breaking bread for those around the table is still incomplete and will remain so, but he really did complete this picture. Maybe that kind of thing is easier. It has been hung in the cathedral at an altar on the left of the nave and Anselmo was full of childish admiration when he saw it. He described it in his simple way and said that everybody felt that such a madonna, such a gracious and celestial Mother of God had never been depicted before. Most entrancing of all was the enigmatic smile which hovered around her lips, which affected everyone as being something quite heavenly, inexplicable and full of divine mysticism. I understood that the artist had taken that smile from his earlier portrait, the one in which she resembled a whore.