International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

"Do so, my child," said the pastor.

"Yes, go, Alete," said Ebba, gaily.

Alete went out, and came in shortly with three young men, who modestly looked down, and twirled their hats between their fingers.

"Good morning, friends," said the pastor. "Alete has told you I had a favor to ask. I have a friend here who does not know our old Swedish songs, and I rely on you to give him a good idea."

The three young men looked toward Ireneus and then toward each other. Then, being encouraged by signs from Ebba, and having drunken a glass of wine which was offered them, they sang a song which was designated.

They sang, one after the other, the romance of Agnete, who was surprised on the shore and borne beneath the water by the amorous Neck. That of fair Carine, the victim of her virtue, the soul of whom flew to heaven in the shape of a white dove, where it was again transformed into a joyous harp, the sweet sounds of which won the crown of queen. Much to his regret, Ireneus could not understand the sense of these songs, which are, so to say, idyls and charming dramas. He however listened with undefinable emotion to those simple and artless melodies, which, in their expression of grief and joy, were so pure that they seemed to spring from the very heart of the people. He begged Ebba to say to the singers how delighted he was, and they then went to the kitchen to tell how pleased the Parisian had been.

After dinner Alete and Ebba went into the drawing-room, and having carefully shut the door, might have been heard going and coming, and giving orders, while the pastor entertained his guests. Alete seemed very busy. She called the servants—had the position of the furniture changed—sometimes talked loudly, and then whispered. Some mysterious scene occupying the thoughts of Ireneus was taking place there.

Toward evening the mystery was explained. Alete came to take the arm of the pastor in triumph, and he, M. de Vermondans, and Ireneus, went toward the room. Drapery of many colors covered the wall, and bouquets of moss and artificial flowers, candelabras reflected from the mirrors, boughs of trees, all made the light soft as that which penetrates the forest. On a large table was the Christmas tree, full of lights, and adorned with bows of ribbon. The pastor had asked Alete to arrange everything as she chose, and to place in the best possible light the presents intended for his friends. With them Alete and Ebba had placed those they intended to make, and all had been arranged most tastefully. Of the pine branch she had made a tree, miraculously bearing silk dresses, portfolios, slippers, embroidered collars, gold ear-rings, &c. The branches bent beneath the weight.

M. de Vermondans gathered a meerschaum mounted with silver: Ireneus several pieces of silk worked by his cousins, and a wooden cup, very beautifully carved by an Angermanian peasant. Exclamations were made as the different objects were detached from the mystic tree, for Alete had taken care to wrap each article with a double and triple envelope, in order to prolong the expectation of the spectators, and to enjoy their surprise. Afterward the servants came in, and also the farmer's boys, none of whom were forgotten, and who kissed the hands of the old priest. The Christmas tree was stripped of its treasures, and all deserted it, as barren and useless. Alas, for human ingratitude!

The pastor, taking advantage of a moment when none were looking, went to the solitary tree, and took from it a letter with a red seal. Then calling his future daughter-in-law, he said, "Since when, dear Alete, have you become so careless of the good things of this world, or so negligent, as to abandon the Christmas tree, without ascertaining all that hangs from it?"

"I do not know that I can get anything from it, except a few pieces of ribbon and half-burnt lights."

"You think so, do you? Well, look here."

"What?" said Alete; "a letter, with Eric's name on it. This is a surprise for him. What is it? That puzzles me. Look, Eric—one day I shall have a right to open your letters, but now be quick and open this yourself."

Eric unsealed the letter; and scarcely had he read it, then casting himself at the feet of the old priest, he said—"Ah, father, how I thank you! Then turning to Alete, he said—

"It is an appointment by the Bishop of Hernos and of myself as vicar of this parish. We waited only for that to be able to marry. Now there is no obstacle to our happiness. We will live here with my father, near your own family. May God grant that our hearts may not be disunited. May God grant us new pleasures without robbing us of those of the past. Now, when shall we be married—tell me?"

"How you go on!" said Alete. "Must I, because it has seemed fit to our venerable prelate to make you a vicar—(after all it is a sensible appointment)—put on my wedding dress and go to the altar? Do you know I expect a letter from Hernosand or Stockholm! Do you know–"

The artless girl, however, sought in vain to conceal, beneath pretended laughter, her deep emotion. She was unable to finish her sentence. She threw herself in her father's arms, then into the old priest's, and gave her hand with dignity to Eric. She said:

"Whenever you please, dear Eric, though I am much amazed. I trust you will never have occasion to repent having given me your love and honor."

This episcopal letter the pastor had received on the previous evening, and he had been courageous enough to keep the secret until Christmas night, in order to give it more solemnity. It was now the sole subject of conversation, and they talked only of preparations for the marriage, and of the day on which it was to be celebrated. At the instance of Alete he consented to prolong the delay, and the wedding was postponed for a fortnight.

"Confess," said Alete to Ireneus, "that you were fortunate in arriving here in the middle of winter, when you could witness our dark tempests, our Christmas festivals, and be present at a Swedish wedding. You will then have only to behold our delicious summer nights; and then, when you return to France, you will be able to speak more learnedly of Sweden than other travelers, who wrote long volumes about it."

"I owe to this country some of the pleasantest hours of my life. I owe to it a calmness which I cannot any longer find in France. I am indebted to it for good and healthful emotions. I owe to it, exile as I am, a tender asylum, a family; and I shall feel your wedding-day one of the happiest of my life."

On the very next day all the house of M. de Vermondans was occupied with preparations for the approaching marriage. Dressmakers were busy, and cabinet-makers were preparing furniture, platforms, &c., for the wedding-day.

Alete had enough to do to watch over the different works. Smiling and merry as she used to be, a change had come over her, and she seemed already dignified and matronly.

Ebba assisted her with great devotion, and ceased to give Ireneus lessons in Swedish.

M. de Vermondans smoked his pipe with an air of thought, and sometimes of sorrow, for the idea of separation from his daughter weighed heavily on him, much as he desired that she should marry so near him.

For the first time since he had reached his uncle's house, Ireneus was alone. A few days before the merry chat of Alete, the philosophical conversation of the old gentleman, the dreamy poetry of Ebba, and the activity and motion of all the household had diverted the young officer's attention from himself. Now his thoughts involuntarily returned, in consequence of news he had received from his country. His mother, who shared all his secrets, sought to encourage him, and to unfold a new horizon. In spite of this, however, every letter increased his unhappiness. Some of his friends also wrote to him; and this correspondence surprised him painfully. He heard, in this manner, of political defections which he, in his chivalric exaggeration looked on as felony, and at which he was most indignant.

"Villains!" said he, one day, as he read to his uncle a letter which he had just received. "Now, this man owed everything to the kindness of Charles X., yet for the sake of office he has cast himself at the foot of a new master. Here is one who, on the 28th of July, applauded the ordinances, and swore that the hydra of liberalism should he destroyed: and said that he would pour out the last drop of his blood in defense of legitimacy. He is now a partisan of the revolution. We live in a scandalous age. All principles of honor and religion are forgotten. Office has great value, indeed, when honor and conscience are sacrificed to it."

As he spoke thus, Ireneus strode up and down the room, and crushed the letter in his hands.

"My boy," said M. de Vermondans, with his kind philosophy, "your feeling springs from a sentiment which does you honor. Unfortunately, however, it can but injure you without benefiting those for whom you have so much sympathy. To-day is not the first time that man has violated his oath, and made a traffic of obligation; one need only open a history, and read on every page amid some noble actions, countless base intrigues and unworthy cowardice. The Roman senate erected statues to monsters it had dignified with the imperial purple. The middle age, which we are pleased to look on as an epoch of faith and chivalric devotion, is everywhere sullied by acts of felony and the consequences of mad ambition. Civilization, while it corrected the gross errors of rude nations, also restrained their virtues. Love of prosperity, the sensations of luxury, bear to the wall the energetic principles of self-denial. Some individuals, who, by their elevated position, attract attention to themselves; here and there break a link of the moral chain; others imitate them, and by fracture after fracture the whole series of austere ideas is interrupted and dislocated. A few of the faithful may attempt to preserve the remnants, but others look on them with pity, and treat this religious faith as an anachronism. The worship of the great is destroyed, and replaced by that of sensual enjoyments. We do not ask God to give us the heavenly manna. We have made another God from which no prophet can win us. We prostrate ourselves before the calf of gold. This, dear Ireneus, must be a sad prospect for a heart like yours. That all the respect for the past, for religion and misfortune, which exists in your heart, should rise at the prospect of what you have read to me, I can well enough understand. Can you however, repress the wrong which offends you? Can the evils of which you complain be prevented? No, do what you will, there must ever be men, over whom the passion for power will exercise vast influence, and this feeling will always induce them to turn from the sinking to the rising star. Even if you go to the depth of a desert, to the jungles of an Indian archipelago, to the woods at Caffraria, to the desert plains of North America, or to the Cordilleras, you will not escape from the miserable spectacles of human hypocrisy. The Turks have a proverb which says, 'Cure the hand you cannot spare.' Now we can add to this maxim, 'Cure the hand which can serve you, satisfy your pride, avarice and egotism.' Young and happy when you first entered on life, dear Ireneus, you have seen much. A sudden revolution has covered your eyes with a cloud, and unexpected treachery has pierced your heart. Time will show you many others, and if you do not give yourself up to useless misanthropy, the most foolish and idle of all maladies, you will learn to resign yourself to chagrins you cannot avoid. In your time of distress you will draw near to those who do not deceive your esteem. You will, without hatred and anger, be able to look at those whom base calculation or cowardice has led astray, and if you congratulate yourself that you have not followed their example, you will be glad that heaven has endowed you with more firmness and a loftier ambition."

The wisdom of these reasonings touched the heart of Ireneus, but could not subdue it. The ardent young man continued to curse those whom he had seen in the ranks of legitimacy, and who now had linked themselves with the revolution. Often, to avoid the remonstrances of his uncle, or not to annoy him by recrimination, he wandered alone across the desert plains, calling all the deserters of the cause he loved by name, and sometimes he even resolved, like a true knight-errant, to set out and demand an account of their crime. When he returned from these solitary walks, his uncle, thinking that all argument would at such times be useless, said nothing. Ebba however looked at him with eager sympathy.

PART IV

The marriage of Alete, for a while, however, diverted him from his moody thoughts. The pastor and M. de Vermondans wished the marriage to be contracted according to the custom of the country. Invitations had already been given to many in the neighborhood, to the friends of the pastor and of the two families. At the appointed time, a great number of carriages had collected at the house of M. de Vermondans. Beds had been made in every room. The house was full of guests, the stable of horses, not to remain a few hours, for a wedding in Sweden lasts a whole week. M. de Vermondans, assisted by Eric and Ireneus, did the honors of the house. Ebba dressed her sister, and this alone was not a trifling task, for in Sweden brides are richly decked, and the daughter of the humblest peasant borrows or hires jewels to dress her like a lady.

The toilet, according to the old usage of the country, was at last finished, under the inspection of the matrons of the village. Alete entered the drawing-room in a dress of rose-colored silk, covered with flounces, rosettes, a mass of ribbons, etc., and with a girdle, suspended to which were many ornaments of different devices, all of silver, and which, as she walked, rang like bells. Nothing can be more ungraceful than such a dress, which, however, Alete wore with grace. When she appeared, a cry of admiration escaped from every mouth, and the spectators' eyes turned involuntarily to Eric to congratulate him.

Alete took her father's arm to walk to the church, and the guests followed her. At the head of the procession were musicians, playing the flute and violin; next came about thirty young girls, two by two, in their richest dresses; then the guests and the women and children of the village.

After the ceremony, the young girls stood on each side of the altar; the bridegroom advanced to the altar; then the bride was led thither by her father, who handed her to Eric, and withdrew a few paces, as if he thus transferred to another all his own rights. The old pastor then, with an earnest voice and with tears in his eyes, pronounced the nuptial benediction, and gave his children a touching exhortation. A religious chant terminated the ceremonies, and the couple left the church amid the sound of horns and the firing of guns. On their return home, M. de Vermondans, after an old custom, handed each a glass of beer, which they drank at the same time, as if to show that thenceforth all was common between them.

Dinner was soon served. The newly-married people sat side by side under a canopy, prepared as if to shelter their happiness. At the end of the repast a carpet was spread representing the nuptial bed. The two knelt together, and the company sang a hymn. Then the priest, speaking to the company, invoked every blessing on the couple about to enter a new walk of life, and bespoke the kind wishes of all their friends. He asked every guest to give them some token of sympathy, and no one sought to avoid this invitation. Each one paid tribute: relations gave the married couple a sum of money; their friends gave them furniture, stuffs, and jewels. In similar cases, at peasants houses, corn, wool, etc., utensils of household use, are presented, so that often the house of the newly-married couple is provided for a long time with provisions in this manner. It is however true, that they are dearly purchased by the hospitality they have to extend for a long time to many guests.

From the house of M. de Vermondans the guests went to that of the Pastor, where similar festivals were gone through with. Alete remained there, and M. de Vermondans returned with Ebba and Ireneus. As he placed his foot on the threshold of the door where he had hitherto always been welcomed by his smiling daughter, he was attacked by a sadness which he could not overcome, and went to his room to weep.

Ebba also was sad, for though her character was very different from Alete's, she loved her sister dearly, and was most unhappy at the idea of a separation.

Ireneus sought to console her.

"I thank you," said the young girl, "for your kind expressions. I am not unhappy only on my own account at this separation. My father will never be able to use himself to it. Alete was always happy. Joy left our household with her. I wish I could replace her. Do however what I may, I never shall succeed. You and all who know me, are aware that my nature is of altogether a different character. I am melancholy."

"Gentle, Ebba, gentle," said Ireneus.

"Gentle perhaps, and surely inoffensive, but I repeat melancholy. Why does this sadness continue? Alas, it is the law of God. Do not look at me, I beg you, as on one of those women whom I have seen and of whom I have read, who create imaginary misfortunes for themselves, and deck themselves with ideal suffering and melancholy. I have neither sorrow nor passionate regrets and I do not know the meaning of deception.

"My life has passed without storms, but without noise, like the spring which bubbles from the hill. Father and mother have sought to make me happy, and no untimely event has interrupted the course of my life. Melancholy, however, I was born, and will die. That is all.

"Listen to me," added she, fixing on Ireneus a look impressed with strange grief and affection. "Heaven which denied me a brother seemed to supply its neglect in yourself. The attachment you evince toward me appeals to my heart, and I will make you a confession.

"When I say nothing has troubled my thoughts, I do not say all. There is one impression which to me has been an event, a circumstance, the influence of which I cannot speak of. I wish, however, to ask you, if you believe in presentiments?"

"What a question!" replied Ireneus, "no one ever addressed me thus before, and I do not know what to say."

"You do not"—said Ebba, with as much evidence of surprise, as if she had said you do not believe in the sun or moon. "I do, and I think this matter plain and evident as the existence of God, to whom we are indebted for all our faculties. God endows us with that intuition of secret events, that species of devotion, sometimes as an act of mercy to prepare us for a misfortune which will overtake us, sometimes in mercy to point out to us the consequences of the concealed peril in which we are engaged.

"Even you, who seem not to believe in presentiments, have more than once been seized with an involuntary apprehension. This dread, this sadness, is the antecedent of the tempest. It announces regret, accident, and unforeseen distress. Nay, I think we thus are informed of dangers which menace one we love. I think there is a real link between souls which love each other, a mysterious tie, an invisible union, so powerful however, that how great soever the distance may be, one cannot suffer without the other being unhappy; I will even say, that I think these bonds exist between the living and the dead, that the chilly grave does not crush all love, that the dead are touched by the tears we shed for them, and by the fidelity of our affections to them. I will not in this connection repeat to you stories of apparitions, ghost stories, etc. If you do not believe what I say, you will also doubt all popular anecdotes. There are sentiments which cannot be demonstrated, inductions and revelations which austere reason rejects, and casts amid the empire of dreams, which exert a great influence over the heart. I saw one night my mother standing at the foot of my bed. She died when I was born. She leaned over me and kissed my forehead. Her lips seemed cold as ice, yet her kiss burned me. She looked at me for a moment in silence, and her large blue eyes were filled with tears. She then slowly withdrew, and as she did so, opened her arms to call me to her. Once again, as I opened a door I saw myself, pale as my father used to describe my mother to me, and clad in a long, white robe, which fell about me like a shroud. Old people will tell you there is no more certain sign of death, and I am sure I shall not live long. For that reason I do not attach myself to this world, nor indulge as others do in reveries about the future."

This conviction of Ebba was evidently deeply rooted that Ireneus knew not how reply to it. He, however, sought to represent to Ebba that these impressions should not be taken too seriously to heart, and that at her age, and with her qualities, she should not anticipate a sacrifice of existence, nor give up the joys and hopes of life.

Ebba said nothing. She, however, looked long and moodily at him, clasped his hand and left him.