Vilhelm Moberg - Unto A Good Land

So she would write. And as Ulrika mused on this, walking at Kristina’s side, helping to carry the milk pail through the forest, an expression of deep contentment and happy expectation lighted her face.

“There was something you wanted to tell me,” Kristina reminded her.

“So there is! I’ll tell you.”

And after making Kristina promise to keep it to herself until after the wedding, Ulrika confided in her: She had bought a hat.

The transaction had taken place yesterday in Stillwater; for the time being she had hidden the hat under her bed in the log house. She had wanted to show it to Kristina, but the men had come, and she did not wish Jonas Petter to see it — he would poke fun at her. In Sweden everyone ridiculed a woman of the simple sort if she wore anything but a shawl on her head. The noble women could not bear it if anyone besides themselves wore a hat. But here in North America a woman was not denied a hat, here she could wear whatever she wanted without fear of heckling.

And so for her wedding she had bought a beautiful hat, with long plumes and blooms and ribbon bands. She would show it to Kristina another time. It was so elegant the imagination could not grasp it.

Ulrika would put on her hat the day she was married. And once she had her hat on, unmarried Ulrika of Västergöhl would be no more.

— 4—

Spring found these changes among the new settlers in the St. Croix Valley: Robert’s and Arvid’s whereabouts were unknown, they were on their way to the far-off land of California; Ulrika and her daughter Elin had moved away from Danjel to Stillwater, and Swedish Anna moved to the Lake Gennesaret settlement in Ulrika’s place, to run the household for Danjel and Jonas Petter.

It was a warm, sunny spring day when Ulrika was baptized in the St. Croix River. The following Saturday she was married in the little whitewashed wooden church in Stillwater and became Mrs. Reverend Henry O. Jackson.

She was the first Swedish bride in the St. Croix Valley. She was to be the mother of a flock of children, the founder of a fine new family; a strong, enduring family: One day her great-grandchildren would speak of their descent from the noble family of Västergöhl in Sweden, whence their female ancestor a hundred years earlier had emigrated.

— 1—

The sun’s arc climbed, the days lengthened, but the evenings had not yet begun to lighten. The sun departed, darkness came in its place, but no twilight under a pale heaven lingered over the earth. Kristina waited: Spring was as yet only beginning.

April came and brought sun-warm days to the shores of Lake Ki-Chi-Saga, but the evenings remained almost as dark as in winter. Kristina still waited.

And when at last she realized her waiting was futile, her thoughts wandered to a land where the evenings in spring were light.

After the many chores which each day fell to her with their unchanging sameness, her body was tired as she lay down on her bed in the evening. But her mind and soul would not rest, she lay awake with her thoughts. Outside the small log-house windows the night was dark, but she lay with her eyes wide open and gazed into the darkness where nothing could be seen.

As spring progressed, with darkness still prevailing, her sleepless hours increased. She still gazed through the darkness — toward that land where evenings were light in spring.

Memories reawakened, images stood clear. She and her sisters sat “twilighting” at the window; they used to delay lighting the candles, by the light of the spring evening they would sit talking in hushed voices to each other. They never spoke aloud at “twilighting”—the gathering dusk of an April evening called for whispered talk. Outside by the gable the great rosebush brushed against the window, with its tender green growth and swelling buds. Later in summer the roses would be out, and then the bush would cover the whole window with its fragrant blooms. Against the evening sky the young Astrachan apple tree stood out clearly — she had planted it herself as a companion for the lonely rosebush. Each autumn she had dug around the little tree; it had carried its first apples the last fall they were at home — big juicy apples with transparent skin; how many times she had gone out just to look at the apples; and how delicious they had been.

Would her apple tree bloom this spring? Would it bear apples in the fall? And would there be gooseberries on the bushes she had planted against the cellar wall? Those berries were as big as thumbs, and dark red when ripe; their taste was sweet as sugar.

A year had passed since the April evening she had said good-by to her parents and sisters at the gate of her childhood home. She — the departing one — had stood outside the gate, they — whom she would part from — had stood inside. Her mother had said: “Don’t forget, our dear daughter, we want to meet you with God.” Her father had stood bent against the gatepost, he said nothing, he stood with his face turned away, holding on to the post as if seeking support.

She had left, and they had remained; never more in this world would she see them.

That evening had been light, one whole long twilight that still lit her way home on sleepless nights. . It had rained during the day, but cleared toward evening. There had been a spring fragrance over black fields and green meadows as she walked away from the farm where she was born.

And since that evening a year had completed its cycle, the year’s great wheel had made a complete turn and carried her far away in the world, thousands of miles away. She had emigrated and now she lived so far away that only her thoughts could carry her back. Here she lay in her bed, next to her husband, in her new home, and peered into the darkness, looking for the land where the evenings were light in spring.

She traveled the way back, she traversed the great waters and the immense stretches of land. She retraced the road that separated her from her old home. She could see that road in her mind, bit by bit, mile by mile. And the mile she remembered at home was a long mile, six times as long as the American mile, it took her two or three hours to walk it. And as she gazed into the dark outside the cabin window she felt the distance increase a thousand times. She measured mile after mile, she counted as she traveled, ten, twenty, thirty. . until she tired of her journey, and yet she had retraveled so small a part. Her thoughts would never reach the thousand-mile mark, her journey must end, the immense distance stifled her imagination. And after a while she grew dizzy, her tired eyes vainly penetrating the darkness — she was unable to fathom the road that separated her from her homeland.

That road she would never again travel.

Longing for home gripped Kristina in its vise more forcibly as spring came with no twilight. And the evening hours when she lay awake became the time of day she most feared.

— 2—

What was the matter with Kristina? What did she long for? Didn’t she live here, have her home here — wasn’t she at home? How could she long for home when she was already at home?

Karl Oskar had said, “Here at home on Lake Ki-Chi-Saga I’ll build a large house next time!” Here at home —but she felt as though she were away, as though she were in a foreign place. She always said, “Away here in America — back home in Sweden” So she thought, so she spoke. But this was not right, and her saying it wasn’t right, when her home would be here forever. She should say just the opposite, exchange the countries: This was home, Sweden was away.