Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

How could the tiny flying creature find its way to their lonely little ship? Birds lived on land — in trees or on the ground, in the reeds along the shores, or in the mountain crags. No bird could build his nest on the ocean waves. And it was many hundreds of miles to the nearest land. How had those delicate wings been able to carry the bird this great distance, through darkness and tempest, through rain and storm? From where had the bird come? What was his errand?

It struck the emigrants at once that there was something supernatural about the arrival of the bird; he was not one bird among others. The long loneliness at sea was a fertile breeding ground for thoughts of the supernatural and such strange things as one spoke of in low tones around the hearth in the evenings.

The eyes of the bird gleamed black and deep as riddles which no one could solve. He made no sound, he never sang. He was completely mute. And his silent beak was still another riddle. They had heard about birds with cut-off tongues, birds which could not sing; was he perhaps such a one?

The new passenger on board became the most cared for among them. All wanted to feed him. The emigrants generously crumbled their bread and ship’s biscuits. The bird was treated to so much food that it would have sufficed to burst a thousand stomachs like his. He had the privilege of eating his sufficiency from the hands of human beings, and soon he became choosy, he didn’t bother to pick up crumbs from the deck. Unafraid, he wandered about among his feeders. When a wave washed onto deck he fled away on his thread-thin legs — he was so quick that a drop of water never wet his feet. Now and then he went on a flying jaunt beyond the rail, as if he wanted to inspect the sea a moment, but he always returned to deck. The brig Charlotta was his home.

A little bird had entered into the world of the people on the emigrant ship, transforming their thoughts and dreams, their very lives. He came with a message from the sprouting ground, from the flowers, from the trees in the forest and the seed in the fields. His wings were green as the newly opened leaves of the birch, his neck was white as the cotton-grass in the marshy bogs. The colors of his feathers came from the earth and that which grew thereon. He came from that part of the globe which God had destined to be home for men and beasts, and because of this he belonged to them. In their loneliness and forsakenness at sea the emigrants were visited by one of their own.

Many days had passed since they last stood on a firm and steady spot. Now the bird reminded them that firm land still existed.

Some among the emigrants had read fairy tales, and they were convinced that this was an enchanted bird. How could he have arrived here, so far out at sea, where no other flying creatures lived, if it were not through magic? Perhaps it was a princess walking here among them on a pair of bird legs. Perhaps it was a king or a prince they fed with their hard ship’s biscuits. No one could know for sure. Perhaps the enchantment would end one day, so that he could lay off his feather shroud and put on a golden mantle and a glittering golden crown. Such things had been heard of, they happened rather often. And even if the bird were not a royal person, he was at least of great importance, maybe a duke or a count. Because only people of high station were enchanted into birds; ordinary, simple people became wolves and snakes and similar beasts. Thus the little bird was held in superstitious awe among certain of the passengers, and they felt some fear in his presence. He might do them good, but he could also bring them harm. Still, they wished to be friends with their messenger from the earth, because deep within them they could not help but feel that his arrival was meant as a blessing to them.

The crew men, too, pointed out that the wind had been with them ever since the day the bird first appeared on deck — no one was more careful about his well-being than the seamen, no one took more care that harm should not come to the little creature.

During the days the bird spent his time on deck; at night he found protection behind the sail near the mainmast. The sailmaker had prepared a soft nest for him from sewn-together pieces of wadmal. Each one did his bit to make the bird feel at home on the ship, and every one of his movements was followed by someone’s eyes — when he dodged the spray, when he flew along the rail. To the peasants at sea he was a reminder of their mutual home. When they looked at him they were cheered and remembered they were not to remain imprisoned on this ship forever. Another life existed. Tree trunks existed, where birds built their nests, there were fields covered with blossoms, there were forests where the woodcocks flew about in the spring evenings.

Never had a little creature brought so much joy to so many mature human beings as this little bird did on the emigrant ship Charlotta during a few days of her voyage to North America. And everyone hoped and wished that the messenger from land would remain with them for the rest of their crossing. But if he were — as many thought — an enchanted king or prince, then he could not be held by anything. This they understood.

And one morning the bird was indeed gone. There was much excitement on board — the whole ship was searched but no sign was seen of the lost one, not a feather, not a dropping, nothing. The puzzling guest had left the ship as mysteriously as he had arrived. If he had died his body would have been found; no, they knew he had deserted them.

Would he ever reach land? The emigrants did not worry about this. They felt that weather and wind and distance had no power over this bird. They were convinced now that he was no real bird.

He had flown away, and he never returned. For many days sorrow reigned on the ship. The people on board had lost a near relative, and they mourned him as one of their own. And they mused and wondered and asked: Why did he not wish to remain with them? Why did he not stay long enough to see the fulfillment of the miracle? He had been a messenger from land; what had he wished to tell them? This they would never know.

Old seamen who had sailed thirty or forty years were serious and said it was an evil omen that the little bird had left. It seemed they might be right: the day after his disappearance another storm broke.

And with the bird gone there was nothing on board to remind the peasants at sea of the green earth.

— 5—

So the Charlotta of Karlshamn sailed on — a cargo ship loaded with sundries, an emigrant ship loaded with human beings. She sailed over the boundless Atlantic Ocean through all winds and weathers, through storm and fog, rain and sunshine. But for the most part the wind blew against her, bracing the ship’s bow and rigging, hindering her progress. And to the impatient, earth-bound passengers it seemed as if the same billow lifted them up, again and again, the same eternal wave tossing them about.

The emigrants thought of the endless distance they must have traveled since they had left their place of embarkation. Their thoughts went back over the immense water they had sailed for a space of two months, and they were overawed by this sea without end which they were passing over. At home they had never fathomed the immensity of the sea.

And one conviction took still deeper root in their minds: whatever was in store for them on the new continent, whatever awaited them in the new land they were seeking — a return voyage to their homeland was beyond conception. The move they were now undertaking was to the end of time; never could they sail this eternal distance back again, never again would they cross this endless water.

Theirs was a voyage which people took only once.