I

Sakari's Story

By JOHN BERGH

Translated from the Swedish by HANNA ASTRUP LARSEN

T ALL happened in the time when we ate bark bread, in the reign of King Karl the Eleventh-God rest his soul. Famine lay heavy over all the realm and especially over our poor frosty Finland. You might have thought the Lord was angry at the untiring care our thrifty king gave to the good things of this world and did not like his taking so much thought for the morrow. Perhaps Heaven meant to show us that it availed nothing to plan everything, arrange everything, to plough and to sow the fields, without praying for God's blessing. Though the country was perhaps in a better condition, take it altogether, than ever before, want and misery came-worse than we had known them in the days of the old spendthrift, fighting kings. All nature was out of joint. All the plagues of Egypt went over our poor land, and we could not understand the reason; we had no Moses to show us the wound from which our lifeblood was oozing away. We were like children, who only feel the sting of the rod, but don't know why it is lifted, and when I think of it all now, so long afterwards, it seems not impossible that this was the very reason why it brought us nearer to Him who was punishing us.

Our poor Juuriniemi had never been among the richer farms, and in these hard times it yielded scarcely anything. One winter we ate bread made of bark, and when the harvest again failed the next year our servants left us and went to Sweden to beg. Wemy father and mother and I-lived mostly on game and fish, but with daily hunting and fishing the supply soon gave out, and the game especially was almost destroyed by men and wild beasts. When everything else was gone, mother gathered a kind of moss and boiled it.

Yet another year passed, and we went about, silent, pale, and hollow-eyed. We thought God had abandoned us and our land, and to me, young as I was, it seemed that life would never have anything to offer except misery and hunger. On all the neighboring farms, things were about the same as with us, and I began to feel that the highest imaginable bliss would be to eat my fill. My dreams, such as young people dream, dealt only with an earthly paradise where I could have a big dish of porridge and a loaf of clean bread every day. Even the stories that mother told to pass time in winter evenings were all about food and untold riches, and we gorged in fancy, since we never had anything to eat in reality.

I often roamed about for whole days in the forest, looking for game, but seeking even more the treasure of my dreams. Everywhere I seemed just about to reach something mysterious and wonderful that should help us out of our troubles, but the reality was always commonplace or baffling. I caught glimpses of the forest sprites under the dewy bushes, vanishing in the soughing reeds, and heard them laughing in the mountain clefts, but I could never get near enough to demand their hidden treasures of them. It was starvation, for I am not naturally one of those who only go about and wait for the help of others. It is hard to fight against the Lord when he is angry with a people, and that was the reason why I thought only of supernatural help out of the terrible, year-long suffering.

On Sundays, and in the morning and evening, we read the Bible and the book of sermons, but when I was alone in the forest I saw the wood-nymph with her hair down her back, beckoning and luring, and sometimes the Neck sat among the reeds playing as though to call me to him. Robin Goodfellow crept about; I could see his red cap flitting over the grayness, and the elves danced in the glade, caring nothing for the small griefs of men. But as for me I always came too late. They always had time to hide, as they do from our

race.

Fall came. The rye grew sparse on the field with straight, thin straws and white, empty ears. The Black Death lurked about the villages, but we had not yet been visited by the Angel with the Sword. The fog hung thick and heavy over the fields and seemed to smell of sickness and death. In the woods there was not a breath of wind, and nothing stirred but the water that gathered and fell from the limp-hanging leaves. The oats had not had a chance to freeze and stood rotting without getting ripe. All signs pointed to another winter of starvation, but by that time I was so used to it that I hardly looked for anything else. No, the help must come from another quarter.

Again I went out into the woods among the dripping trees and searched with eager eyes for the witching shapes that I had seen flitting about. I walked and walked, until my feet could hardly carry me, and once in a while it came to me that I ought rather to be doing something useful, but I was so tired and hungry that I had not strength left to resolve on anything.

At last I came to the top of a little knoll and went over it to the opposite edge, where I knew there was a view of a small meadow. Many a time had I lain there waiting to see the elves begin their dance down below, and sometimes I had imagined I caught glimpses of them, though they always vanished before I could get down the hill.

When I reached the edge of the knoll, I saw a figure standing down below. It was a woman, a young girl, and she carried something on her arm; yet she could not be a human being, for I had never seen anything like the bodice that shone so bright and red through the mist, and no woman walked with so light and elastic a step in those days.

I lay down on the wet moss and waited for her to come nearer, for she was on her way toward the hill. It was surely the woodnymph; I could see her golden hair falling in waves over her back; she sang in a wonderfully clear voice, and her eyes shone. But what convinced me more than anything else that she was no human being was the fact that her basket was filled to the rim with something which I took to be little bread rolls, such as I could remember from my earliest childhood when my father used to bring them home from market. It seemed to me I could still taste the delicious flavor of them in my mouth, and I felt that I must get the rolls in her basket, no matter by what means, and take them home to my mother, who was getting weaker every day.

If I could only prevent her from vanishing like all the others. I would creep toward her stealthily, but before I could get down from the knoll she might be gone. Still there was nothing for it but to try.

My heart beat, and my knees gave way under me, as I skirted round the cliff and came down upon the meadow. Softly I bent the bushes to one side and looked out. Yes, she was there yet. She stood with her back toward me, and I was surprised to see that she looked so strangely like a human being.

First I crept a little nearer, but then I suddenly became aware that she heard my step, and I rushed forward to catch her. She started and would have run away, but I was too quick and threw my arms about her. There I stood not knowing what to do, simply shaking all over. My arm held a young girl's soft, yielding body, and she, who had first gone pale, was now rosy red, and the eyes that met mine were deep like the lake on a fair summer evening. She smiled on me, and I felt the fragrance of her loosened hair, which had blown against my cheek when she turned so impetuously.

We looked at each other, and a stream of fire ran through my whole body. I forgot why I had caught her, and she did nothing but look at me with her laughing eyes. At last she bent her head back, and I kissed her.

"Boy, boy," she said softly as in a dream, "where did you come from, and why have you caught me?"

Why? I no longer knew. I only knew that all of life seemed changed, and that I had almost become a man in these short seconds. I felt that life meant more than food or hunger, and my blood, which

a moment ago had been weak as sluggish water in a ditch, surged in me like spring torrents. The forest was no longer full of elves and trolls, but seemed like a mighty church, a holy place where only one being ruled, strong and powerful. The swell of organ-music was in the air, and everything in the forest sang the praise of life and love.

I understood that she too had gone about as in a dream, waiting for the miracle which the forest hid in its bosom, but to her this miracle was not food and money, as with me, but love and the fairy prince. That was the meaning of the strange, dreamy smile she had turned on me. That was why she had not torn herself from my grasp, but only kissed me and whispered, "Boy, boy!"

I was still holding her in my arms, when I saw the misty blue light die or rather sink down into the depths of her soul. Her eyes became calm, and she repeated her question in a more distinct voice. Then I had to tell her that I thought she was the wood-nymph, and she smiled again, till her white teeth gleamed.

"A fine wood-nymph," she said, "who is Juryman Peltonen's Lisa from Isokyla."

Isokyla was a village about a mile from our own, and as I had seldom had anything to do there, I scarcely knew the people.

"But what kind of bread is that you have in your basket?" I asked.

Then she no longer smiled but laughed aloud.

"I'll show you," she said, holding out her basket to let me see that it was full of large and small mushrooms, which might easily at a distance be mistaken for bread rolls.

"What in the world are you going to do with those?" I asked her. Then she told me that a Muscovite boyar with his servants and serfs had once visited her father's house, and these strangers had gathered mushrooms and eaten them greedily. They had taught her mother how to prepare them. Her people had been ashamed to eat such stuff before, but now in a time of famine what else could you do? In the fall they gathered enough to last for the winter, and she had come to our parts because the leafy forest, which contained the best mushrooms, grew more plentiful here than around her home.

She looked at me again and noticed my sunken eyes. Without my asking she began to show me from her basket which mushrooms were good to eat, and told me how to cook them, while I listened spellbound by the thought of all the food I had passed indifferently or trodden underfoot.

While she spoke, I looked at her and at the woods and the meadow, and it seemed to me that all was changed. The dreamy haze had vanished as if a fresh breeze had blown away the unhealthy mists, and the sun had begun to shine again. It seemed to me that reality

was more beautiful than the dream and promised a thousand times greater treasures.

We sat down on a mound. I put my arm around her waist again, and she did not draw away. "Lisa," I said in a firm voice, "better days must be in store for us, and then I will come for you. I don't want any mistress of my house but you.'

The misty light came into her eyes again. She leaned her head against my shoulder, nestling close to me, and I heard her crying, and held her tighter against my breast. Again it seemed to me that I understood her thoughts without the need of her uttering them. I knew that she had been longing and sighing for a little sunshine in her life, something that might warm and gladden her heart and help her to bear the terror of the evil years.

"Don't cry," I whispered stroking her fair hair, "now you are my sweetheart, and now I will work for you so hard that the corn must grow on the fields, and you shall smile till the sun can't help shining. Look at me, dearest, look at me. Happiness is coming. I hear the rushing of its wings in the forest.'

She lifted her head to listen, and there was in truth a rushing in the pine-tops. First it shook down over us a glittering rain of drops, but in the next moment the sun burst forth through the clouds; the sun, which we had not seen for months, shone on her golden hair, and a quiver went through all nature as if that, too, were drawing a breath of relief. The sunbeams waxed warmer and warmer, and suddenly the wind carried the sound of church-bells from the village.

"The sun, the sun!" she cried. dearest!"

"May it always shine on us,

We both rose solemnly as if we were standing before the altar in church, and we saw the clouds like vanquished hostile armies fleeing in all directions, while the sun pursued them with its flaming sword, touching the gray brow of the mountain, the bright green of the meadow, and the solemn circle of the forest standing round about. We said never a word but stood there in wonder, until at last I pulled off my cap and threw it toward the blue sky.

"Sun! Sun!" I cried with all my strength. "The future is ours!" But Lisa's eyes were full of tears, though her mouth smiled.

We walked together a little ways, and when we came to the lake, it glittered and shone as I had not seen it for months. Yet a while we sat there, until I remembered that I must bring my mother something to eat.

I looked at the girl, standing there by the shining waves, with the music of church-bells hovering about her, and again I kissed her. We had no need of promises; we only looked into each other's eyes and went hurriedly each our way.