Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

“What is it, Kristina?”

“I–I was thinking of the children.”

“They are asleep, all three.”

“I meant something else; I think of the food for the children.**

“The food?”

She whispered close to his ear: “If we didn’t — I thought — Then there wouldn’t be any more.”

There was a sense of shame in her voice. But now she had said it.

“If we didn’t? For the rest of our whole lives? Is that what you mean?”

Kristina wondered herself what she meant. God created as many people as He desired; as many children as He decided were born. That she knew. But she knew this just as surely: if no man came near her, then she would bear no more children. It seemed as if in one way God decided, in another she herself could make the decision. The conflicting thoughts disturbed her.

Karl Oskar went on to say that he could not leave her alone when he had her next to him in bed during the night; no man who slept with his wife was built in such a way; at least not before he became so old that moss grew in his ears.

Kristina had no reply. No, she thought, they could not stay apart throughout life. She too had her desire, which she could not resist forever. But she would never fall so low as to let Karl Oskar know this.

He continued to seek her; he clasped her breasts, which swelled and hardened in his hands. Her own desire awakened. She opened up as a mollusk opens its shells; she gave in.

They were silent during their embrace, as they always were. In the moment of fulfillment she had entirely forgotten what she had said before.

About a month later Kristina knew that she was carrying her fifth child.

— 1—

Robert, Nils’ and Märta’s second son, was ten years younger than Karl Oskar. When he was little he had caused his parents a great deal of trouble by running away as soon as he was outside the house. He would disappear into the woodlands and they might spend hours looking for him among the junipers. They hung a cowbell round his neck so they could locate him, but even this did not always help, for they could not hear the tinkle when the child sat quietly. He did not change as he grew older: if he was not watched he would disappear into the woods and hide; if he was asked to do chores he might run away. And as the boy grew older they were ashamed to hang a bell on him as if he were an animal.

When his parents ceded Korpamoen, Robert was given employment during the summers as herdboy for Åkerby rote (a rote is a parish district with common grazing rights, etc.). Thus there was one mouth less to be fed from the porridge bowl in the spare room. Robert received food from the farmers, and two daler a year in wages (fifty-eight cents). Every fall he received also a cheese and a pair of woolen stockings. He liked it well out in the wastelands, alone with the cattle. During the long summer days, while cows and sheep grazed lazily, he would lie on his back in some glade and stare into the heavens. He learned to whistle, and he sang without even thinking of it. Later, when his shepherd days were over, he realized why he had done these things: he had felt free.

For six weeks every year during three succeeding years he attended the school held by Rinaldo. Schooling came easily to him; the very first year he learned to read and write. Though Rinaldo had only one eye, he had seen more of this world than most of the parishioners with two. Once he had been as far away as Gothenburg, where he had seen the sea, and he told the children about his life’s adventures. They enjoyed this more than the Little Catechism and the Biblical history put together.

The day Robert finished school he received a book as a gift from the schoolmaster. It was a History of Nature. Rinaldo said that when school days were finished, children seldom touched a book; but if they never improved their reading ability, they would soon lose it. He gave this book to Robert so that he might continue reading when he finished school.

The History of Nature was Robert’s first possession. But for more than a year it happened that he didn’t open his book. During the winter he attended confirmation class at the dean’s, and also helped his brother Karl Oskar fell oaks. The oak timbers would later be brought to Karlshamn to be used for shipbuilding. They cut pines, too, the tallest in the forest, for masts on ships. While Robert helped with tree felling and the sawing of timbers which were to travel on the sea, he followed the ships-to-be in thought. The harbor town of Karlshamn was fifty miles away, and the peasants bringing timbers there needed two days and a night for the round trip. Robert thought that he would like to ride with the timbermen to Karlshamn in order to see the sea with his own eyes.

Nils and Märta churned and sold some ten pounds of butter from their own cow in order to raise money for a Bible to give their son at his first Communion. The Bible he received was bound in leather and cost one riksdaler and thirty-two shillings — the same amount as the price of a newborn calf. But it was a Bible that would stand wear and tear; the Holy Writ must be bound in leather to last a lifetime.

Robert now owned two books, one worldly and one religious. Rinaldo had said that all people ought to read these books — from one they learned about the body and all earthly things, from the other about the soul and things spiritual. The History of Nature contained all Robert needed to know about this world; the Bible, about the world hereafter.

But Robert was still in this world, and he must now go out and earn his living. His father made all the decisions for his minor son. Nils had arranged for him to serve one year as farmhand in Nybacken, about a mile from Korpamoen. But Robert did not wish to serve. He argued with his parents that he did not like to have a master; couldn’t he somehow avoid the service in Nybacken?

Nils and Märta were disturbed to hear their younger son speak thus, and reprimanded him soundly: What kind of poor wretch was he, unwilling to work for food and clothing when hale and hearty? Would he like to become one of the tramps on the roads, or a beggar from the squatters’ sheds in the wastelands? Or did he want to remain at home, a burden to his parents who lived but on reserved rights? And he soon fifteen! He ought to be ashamed of himself! His sister Lydia had been a maidservant for several years now. They were too many here in Korpamoen; Karl Oskar could not feed him, he could not afford a servant. Moreover, his father had hired him to Aron in Nybacken, and received the earnest money, according to the servant law — the contract could not be torn up and changed. Aron was to pay good wages: the first year Robert would receive thirty daler in money, one wadmal suit, and one pair of short-legged boots. He should be pleased, and he should also be thankful to his parents who had arranged this service for him.

So one May morning in 1848, at sunup, Robert Nilsson left his parental home to start his first service as farmhand. His mother had made a bundle of his belongings, tied in a woolen kerchief. She had gathered together his leather shoes, his wadmal pants, one Sunday shirt, and one pair of Sunday stockings. In one hand he carried the bundle, in the other three books, the Bible, the History of Nature, and the prayerbook which his mother had given him. The books were wrapped in paper so as not to become soiled.

It had rained during the night but now the sun shone down on the village road. A wet odor rose from the meadows on either side of the road where the rain had fallen on the fresh, new grass. The birches had just burst into leaf and shone green, and from the bushes came the twitter of birds at play. But the boy who wandered along the road with his two bundles felt no joy in the beauty of the spring morning around him. He was on his way to Nybacken, to begin the life of a farmhand, but he had never been asked if he wanted to become a hired hand in Nybacken. He dreaded the confinement of the service, he did not want to have a master. He was walking on the road to Nybacken but he did not wish to arrive. Now that he was grown older he was being pushed out from the home like a fledgling from the nest. He was the younger son, one of those without portion. And still, he did not envy his elder brother, who must poke between the stones, burdened with worries about the mortgage interest.