Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

— 2—

Kristina was unable to finish her prayer that evening.

She began several times: Our Father in heaven, let me this night rest within thy protection! But after a few sentences the words choked in her throat, clung to her tongue. She stopped. She began again, but couldn’t get any further. The prayer remained stillborn in her thoughts, unspoken by her tongue. She lay awake, her eyes wide open against the room’s darkness.

The hours passed, it was close to midnight, and as yet she had not said her evening prayer.

What was the matter with her tonight? She wasn’t worried because Karl Oskar was away and she was alone with the children. Karl Oskar had been away many nights during the last years and she wasn t afraid; the Indians hereabouts were by now so few that no one feared them any longer; besides, they now had neighbors all around them. It was not fear that kept her awake. What was it then? She always said her evening prayer before she went to sleep. Now she couldn’t go to sleep because she had been unable to finish her prayer.

Something lay heavy on her chest, choking her. She began to imagine a pair of forceful, hard hands held her throat in a vise; she sat up and took a deep breath to rid herself of this feeling of imminent choking, then eased, she lay down. After a short respite the sensation returned.

Finally she rose from her bed, put on a skirt and jacket, and stuck her feet into her soft deerskin moccasins. The choking in her throat was still there. She gasped for air like a fish on dry land. What had come over her tonight? She had never had these choking sensations before. The house felt unbearably close. She must go outside so she could breathe fully.

Cautiously, silently, she unlocked the front door and stepped out on the stoop. It was midnight and so dark she seemed to have stuck her head into a big sack. She could not see the sky or the moon or the stars. It was black at her feet, black above her head, and black all around her. Night had lowered its deepest darkness over the earth. It was as dark as it could possibly be on a November night in Minnesota.

It was cold, perhaps near freezing, but the cold felt fresh and dry; the clear night air rinsed her throat and she breathed more easily. Vaguely she discerned the tall sugar maples, stretching above the roof. She stepped down from the stoop and walked along the side of the building, groping about for the house timbers. The wall guided her through the deep darkness. She felt her way, stumbling a few times, but walked on. She turned the corner; now she was at the back of the house. She was wide awake but moved stiffly, as if walking in her sleep. Her hands lost touch with the wall, but she walked on. She felt the soft ground under her slippers; she was walking through her flower bed. She raised her hands in front of her, fumbling, groping, like a blind man.

She walked a little farther, until her foot hit a large tree stump. Here Karl Oskar had felled the big elm that shaded the field and sucked nourishment from it. The huge stump was all that was left of that tree — it seemed to her now a comfortable seat. She sat down, slumped forward, shivering in the cold; she huddled over, bundling inside her jacket.

It was a silent night, without wind. Above her she could see no heaven, around her no earth. All she was aware of was emptiness and desolate silence. This autumn night was without sound of any kind. No leaves rustled in the trees, not a single crackling noise came from the stripped cornstalks in the field, not one monotonous complaint from the crickets. Even the screech-hoppers’ eternal wailing was silenced. Sitting on the stump, enveloped in night’s black mantle, her eyes could see nothing, her ears hear nothing.

She was inside a black, empty hole. She was abandoned, alone in a desolate world.

She was lightly dressed and she pulled the jacket tighter around her, her limbs trembling: Kristina, what are you doing? Why have you left your warm bed this night to walk out in the dark, to sit on a stump behind the house? You had trouble with your evening prayer, something pressed at your throat and stopped the breath in your windpipe. You could not go on praying to God, who does not listen to you, won’t answer you! Your faith failed you, doubt drove you from your bed into the night.

And out here the same questions assail you:

Why didn’t God listen to you when you prayed to be spared another childbirth? Why didn’t he listen, why didn’t he grant your prayer? If God exists, why doesn’t he hear your prayers, Kristina?

If God exists. .! For the first time in her life Kristina caught herself putting an if before God.

What she had done shocked her. The heavenly father — did he not exist? This had never been possible for her to imagine before. It would never have entered her mind. It would have been absurd, something one never even thought of. But suddenly she was sitting here and thinking: Suppose God didn’t exist?

Here was an answer to her questions. It would explain all. It gave her a definite answer. If it were true, she need not wonder and question and worry any more. Then she need not anxiously ask herself why her prayer hadn’t been granted. If God didn’t exist, then he could not hear the prayers she addressed to him. She would have prayed all these years to a heavenly father who wasn’t in heaven.

Tonight a frightening answer confronted her. Every evening she had prayed: Our Father in heaven. . But if he weren’t in heaven . .?

If God didn’t exist. .? was it reasonable to believe this: that God didn’t exist?

Darkness engulfed her mercilessly as she sat there on the stump. In this November night, heaven was invisible to her, the earth was invisible. The world around her was completely empty. Silently, without a single sound, the night enveloped the lone settler wife. Even the interminable wailing of the crickets had died down. Perhaps they had grown tired of their persistent complaint when no God heard them. This night was only silence and emptiness and darkness. There was no heaven and no earth — and no God.

Kristina, the mother of six living children, carrying still another life in her womb, sat on a stump outside her home in the middle of the night instead of lying asleep in her bed. She was a blessed woman but she felt tonight as if God did not exist.

— 3—

The night air chilled her body; she shivered, her arms and legs trembling. She had come out without a shawl. But she did not go in, she was not aware of the cold. Tonight she was oblivious of her body. She was only aware of her disturbed soul.

What could she do if God didn’t exist? In whom could she trust? Who would help her? Who would protect her against danger? Who would in the future give her strength to take care of her home and her children? Who would help her endure life in this new country, which to her always remained away from home, never home? And who would in the end receive her after death?

If God didn’t exist. .?

No, she couldn’t become reconciled with that idea. She could not be satisfied with the answer that came to her tonight. All the strength of her soul rose in defiance; the answer was unacceptable. The least a person could ask of God was that he existed. It wasn’t something she wished — she demanded it, she required it more surely than any other being on earth could.

She demanded of God that he exist. The creator must assume the responsibility of looking after his creation, as a father was responsible for the children he begot. Without a father in heaven she could not endure living her life on earth.

Stiffly she folded her hands trembling with cold, she clasped them tightly in prayer. She began in a low voice, haltingly. But after a few words, new life informed her tongue. Her voice grew strong, the words flowed from her mouth clear and sure. Her soul’s need was the power driving her to prayer, and she was able to pray again: