Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

Within himself Karl Oskar added: This sea voyage he would never repeat; for the rest of his life he would live on land.

Kristina was convinced that a creeping, treacherous, dangerous disease had taken hold of her — though she kept her knowledge a secret from her husband. This time life itself within her was assailed — and the anxiety she had experienced the first day on the Charlotta came over her again: this is not seasickness, this illness attacks life itself. This time you cannot get well; but you were warned, you received a warning from God those last days at home: Do not go out to sea! Stay at home! You do not belong at sea! But you didn’t obey, you left. And now you know. That’s why you had the premonition, felt it the moment you came into the hold. It’s like a grave down here, a musty, horrible grave. Something within you told you it would be your grave. One day they will come down with a piece of canvas for you; never, never will you get away from here with life — they will carry you out in a piece of canvas. .

Kristina might have heard the name of the sickness which she and several others suffered from down here: the scurvy. It was a repulsive name, it seemed like a name for something rotten, fallen apart, contaminated — something already dead.

The evil was also called ship-sickness.

— 1—

The passengers on the Charlotta were active people. Their lives had been passed in work; Sundays and weekdays they were accustomed to being occupied. Peasants and their wives always have something to do with their hands. On the ship which now carried them they encountered something new: idleness.

They cleaned their quarters in the hold daily, they prepared food three times a day in the galley, they mended their clothes, mattresses, bolsters, everything that broke, and the mothers attended to their children. But these chores were not sufficient to fill out their time at sea. Almost three-quarters of the day, most of them were inactive — left to themselves without a thing to do. And these toiling people had never learned what to do with spare time.

During their hours of inactivity the emigrants sat listlessly gazing out over the sea. What will we do now? And the endless water, the endless waves that carried their ship, gave them no answer to that question. There was nothing to do but sit and look across the sea. So the days passed, and the days became weeks and months during this long voyage.

The days seemed long and empty. Their lives on the brig Charlotta were monotonous. It had never occurred to them that time itself — life, which they had been given to live — would turn into something unpleasant to get rid of, something they must hasten when it passed too slowly. They were driven inward upon themselves, they were dissatisfied with their idleness; they could be alone but never idle. They began to seek each other’s company.

When the weather at sea was pleasant they gathered around the main hatch. There they formed a thick cluster of bodies, standing, sitting, lying or half lying, occupying every inch of deck space. Wives might sit on their husbands’ knees, children nestled in mothers’ or fathers’ arms. Then they brought forth whatever might be left in their food baskets from home, and offered each other tidbits: one had a whole loaf or bread left, someone else had saved a smoked, dried quarter of lamb, a third had butter left in his tub, and a fourth proudly displayed a whole, uncut cheese. The bread, lamb, and cheese went the rounds; each one took his knife and carved himself a slice of each part of this trinity, then spread butter over the bread and ate. Sometimes it might happen that a gallon of brännvin was brought out, made in the still at home on the farm, from last year’s crop in the barley field.

These were happy moments for the passengers on the Charlotta. They regained something of their old home in these gatherings.

Thus while the sea was smooth and the ship rolled moderately, the emigrants sat gathered around the main hatch and helped each other while away the time, so stubbornly slow in passing. Hymns were played on the psalmodikon, and dance tunes on the violin; someone sang a song — well known at home — and someone told a true strange story.

The ocean was broad, the Charlotta had contrary winds, and so it was that many stories were told while the emigrants sat around on the deck. One day homeowner Jonas Petter Albrektsson related a strange and unusual happening which had taken place in his home parish in Sweden.

— 2—

It had happened about a hundred years earlier, said Jonas Petter.

Dean Drysell, who for many years had been the pastor in Ljuder Parish, had a stroke in the sacristy one Sunday morning before the service, and died before they had time to carry him out of the church. He was nearly seventy years old, and had had two strokes before the last one. Drysell had been a conscientious, fearless pastor, good to the poor and suffering. He was particularly liked by the women in the parish. He had lived his whole life as a bachelor, but it was known far and wide that he had not led a chaste life. It was said that in his days of strength he had used his favor with women in a way which is forbidden in God’s Sixth Commandment. Once in his younger days he had been reprimanded by the bishop, who had heard rumors that the young priest had visited a married woman in her bed. Later, when the bishop came to Ljuder and saw how beautiful the woman was, the minister had received absolution from his whoring-sin.

But now the Ljuder dean had left this earth, on a Sunday, in the midst of fulfilling his duties. The whole week passed — and the dead man was not yet buried! This caused great wonder in the parish, particularly as the death had happened during the dog days of the summer when maggots quickly get into meat, and a corpse soon exudes an evil stench. Eight days was a long time for a corpse to remain above ground at that time of year.

Eight days more passed, and Dean Drysell was still not buried! Through the whole parish people began to wonder, and ask what the trouble might be. Why wasn’t their departed pastor buried within the usual reasonable time? Some complication must have arisen which was being kept secret. But what could hinder a servant of the Lord from going into the earth and receiving Christian burial?

Pastor Stenbeck from Långasjö, who temporarily held the dean’s office, could have answered the question — but no one wished to ask him. On the other hand, many asked Magda, Drysell’s maid, who had served her master faithfully for many years, ever since her youth, and who had been closer to him than anyone else. But when the funeral of her master was hinted at, her mouth closed so firmly that a chisel would have been needed to open it. All felt she must know the secret of the delay in the funeral.

Now there was one other person who knew the reason, and he was the carpenter in the church village who had made the coffin for the dead pastor. He had promised Pastor Stenbeck not to say anything, but in a moment of confidence had shared the secret with his wife, who promised to keep it to herself. The wife in her turn confided in two neighbor wives, with the same promise, and in this way the truth was spread over the whole parish within a few days.

For weeks and months nothing else was spoken of in Ljuder Parish than what had taken place with the corpse of Dean Drysell — that inexplicable sign which after death had appeared on his body.

Magda, the old and faithful maid, had made the discovery in the mangle shed of the parsonage which was used as corpse-house for the dean. She had gone out to wash her master’s body, and had been filled with consternation at her discovery. She had washed the corpses of many men before, but such a sight she had never seen. Her master lay there dead and cold, but his body was ready for a man’s action with a woman! Even with men in their best years, the power of that limb disappeared with the arrival of death; and Drysell had been an old man. At the sight of the sign the old woman became weak in her whole body. She was near fainting, and, unable to continue with the washing of the corpse, she left the mangle shed.