CHAPTER XVIII

THE HOME

The Pastor’s daughter was sitting in the kitchen parlour with her Bible and Psalm-book before her, searching God’s Word for comfort in her heavy trouble. It was early morning, and scarcely twenty-four hours had passed since she had found her father lying dead upon the floor. All through the day there had been so much to see to, that she had had no time to think of her loss. But with the night grief had come in all its bitterness and driven sleep from her eyes, so she had risen before anyone else and begun to read.

But very soon she closed her books and with folded hands thanked God that she was no longer lonely and forsaken, but had a true friend who could help and protect her. Her stepmother would be sure to come back now and take possession of the property, and if she had not had him she would be completely in her power--and then she would have needed her tears indeed, not only for her father, but for herself as well. Scarcely had the thought passed through her mind than she heard a soft and beautiful music outside the window that overlooked the garden.

She knew who the player was, for had she not sent a message to him yesterday? She wondered for a moment if it were quite fitting for him to play outside a house of mourning, but in a second she brushed the doubt aside. He did not find it easy to express himself in words, so he had come with his violin. It was no more unfitting for him to tell her of his sympathy in that way than in any other.

She was sitting with her back to the window, so she could not see him, nor did she dare to move. This was the first time she had heard him play, for she could not count the tunes he had fiddled in Svanskog. And even in the midst of her sorrow she could not help a little feeling of joy that he had taken to his bow again. She knew it was his deep love for her that had given him the power to do it.

To think that mortal man could play like that, could conjure forth such sounds of beauty from a bow and strings!

He played so sadly, so very sadly, that great tears began to flow down her cheeks. But just as they did so, the music entirely changed. It was no longer gentle and consoling, but now she felt, although she could not quite understand it, that it had grown wild and full of terrible despair.

She grew more and more astonished. That was no fitting dirge for her father, the father who had always been happy himself and tried to bring happiness to others. He would never dwell on sadness or torment. As soon as he found that life was black and complicated he had left it and gone away. Of course, their own hearts could not but be filled with longing, and a sense of loss, but there must always, too, be brightness in their remembrance of him.

No: she could no longer believe that he was playing to comfort her. He was using his bow now for someone else, to tell of another’s sorrow, another’s despair. How rightly was he called a master! Little as she knew of music, she could understand him as though he were speaking in the plainest words. And what a bitter plaint it was, the plaint of one covered with the blackest night, of one passing through deep waters, and tormented by the consuming fires of affliction. And there was no strong arm to lift him to the light, no redeemer to set him free, no saviour to quench the fires of torture. What sorrow oppressed her heart! In her anguish it seemed as though it must burst. If some great sinner in the nethermost depths of hell had taken the violin in his hands, surely he would have uttered his woe in such tones as these. But this man standing out there! Of whose sorrow was he telling--of his own or another’s?

She waited for a change, for the player to strike a new note, but her hope was vain. He played nothing but an ever-growing misery, no longer in notes of beauty, but in screams of discord. She could not sit and listen any longer; surely he must have met with the most terrible misfortune, so she opened the window to question him. No sooner did he see her than he stopped with a wilder note than any before. His hat had fallen off during his wild music, and his hair lay low across his brow. His face was as pale as a sick man’s, and every feature was drawn with pain.

“You said you wanted to hear me play,” he said. “Now you have had your wish, and know what it sounds like.” His tone was so sharp, alas! and his speech so violent, that she was forced to believe he was angry with her. The very thought was such a shock to her, that she dared not open her lips to ask what had happened.

He went on with the same violence: “You have never heard me before--perhaps you did not even know who it was playing?”

Something prompted her to say: “I thought it was the evil one himself.”

“Have you heard him then?”

“He will surely play like one who longs for salvation, yet knows it can never be his.”

When he heard this he came nearer to her, until he was so close that she could have stroked the lock of hair from his brow if only she had dared. “You are right,” he said; “that is true enough. And for me, too, the gates of heaven are locked!” And covering his face with his hands he sobbed aloud.

How heartbreaking it was! How gladly she would have given her heart’s blood to ease the pain that tortured him. “What is it? What is it?” she asked. “Have you done any wrong? Have you taken anyone’s life by accident?”

She stopped short, conscious that this was the very last thing she should have asked.

He uncovered his face and shook his clenched fist. “I am a murderer, I know. For a time I went through that every night; I played the death-dance for her, and she danced until she fell down and died. So it is plain enough what I am.”

No answer was possible. It was best to let him go on, now he had once begun.

“This last winter I have not played for her, and that is why I have dared to make love to you. I thought it was her wish, but it was not hers, but only my own.”

She did not venture to speak as she stretched out her hand to put it on his forehead to calm him, but he started back beyond her reach.

“You ought never to have asked me to play--never--never! Rather have cut through the strings when you heard me begin, for the notes brought everything back to life again.” And he broke into a wild and terrible laugh. “I came over as soon as I got your message, and brought the violin with me, for I thought it would comfort you better than I could. But once it had begun, all the past came back again. I saw the great room, full of stamping, breathless couples, and amongst them I saw one dancing so lightly, and with such grace, that she seemed to be a different being from the others. And then I played for her--only for her. And I drove her to her death.” And he wrung his hands until every joint and finger cracked. “And to think I could ever forget that! To think I could escape the pangs of remorse and find happiness; escape, too, from the vow I had taken on her grave! I was surely bewitched, and had forgotten everything until the violin brought it back.”

Maia Lisa felt she no longer existed for him. Yet she tried to make one attempt to defend herself and her love.

“Have you quite forgotten me now? I, too, have your vow.”

“You only have it because I thought it was her wish. Now I know better. She wishes to have me for herself alone, you see. You must let me go!”

“Dear heart!” she answered, “how can I let you go? I have no one but you. If it were a living woman who claimed you, I might do it, but I cannot see why I should give you up to a dead one.”

There must have been something in her tone that touched him. He looked up at her, and the dark, terrible expression died out of his face. He still stood holding his violin and bow, and though he evidently felt them a burden he would not put them on the ground but handed them to Maia Lisa. She took them both in silence, and laid them on a table in the room.

When she came back to the window he seized both her hands and held them pressed against his brow, as though to ask her to feel what wild, hot thoughts were chasing through his brain. Then he began to speak in a tone of infinite sorrow, and with many a pause, indeed, but yet somewhat more like his old self again.

“No, Maia Lisa, you must not think I meant what I said just now. It is not in the least for my own sake that I ask you to let me go. I cannot be so lost to all sense of right as to drag you down into my misery. You have seen now what I am like when I am in the grip of this terrible sorrow of remorse, and you cannot still wish to join your life to mine?”

He stopped, as though to hear her answer, but in her grief and terror she knew not what to say, so he continued: “I know so well what your life is like, and I would desire above all else to stand by your side now your father has gone. But you must consider that the harshness you suffer at your stepmother’s hands is nothing in comparison with the misery that awaits you in a union with me. Such remorse sometimes overpowers me that I cannot stay at home, but wander far from the sight of man, for weeks together, in the desolate places of the earth. Sometimes, too, I try to find forgetfulness in the wildest excesses. Alas! alas! you cannot but know, Maia Lisa, that I love you too dearly to drag you down to that. I ought never to have come near you, and I never would have done, had I not thought I was cured!” Again he stopped, but when no answer came he went on again:

“Just now I was almost angry with you, because it was for your sake I had played, and it was playing, that taught me how heavy and dark a fate still hung over me. I wished that I had remained in ignorance, and that I had married you in the belief that all was right. But that, you must know, was only for a moment, for I love you too dearly--alas! too dearly indeed!--to wish you ever to be my wife.”

All the time he was speaking Maia Lisa stood looking down at him. She knew what he said was true, knew he did suffer from such terrible melancholy, that it was quite possible she would be far more unhappy if she married him than if she came once more under her stepmother’s rule. Yet she could think of nothing but that she must stand by his side to help him in his need.

“Alas!” she said, “do you not know that I would far rather bear sorrow and misfortune with you than live a life of unmixed joy with anyone else? You shall never leave me if it is true that you love me. How could I....”

She stopped, for she saw her words had no effect upon him. “Alas!” she thought, “how shall I make him understand that the greatest misery for me would be not to follow him and help him in his need?”

“All this year,” she thought again, “I have been enduring the greatest trouble and anxiety. Surely, I must have learnt something from it? I cannot be any longer such a child as I was when I lost dear Father. I will never complain of my suffering, if only it has taught me how I may keep for my own the man that I love.” She lifted her eyes and looked over the orchard, as if seeking someone to help her. And as she looked, she was filled with astonishment at the sight that lay before her. Perhaps she had had no eyes to notice such things yesterday, or perhaps it had just come to pass in a night. At any rate, she had not seen until now that all her father’s apple-trees were in full blossom. It looked like a great roof of pink and white, stretching from the house right away down to the birch grove that sheltered the orchard from the north wind. Every branch was covered with flowers that opened more and more, so it seemed to her, as she looked at them.

How the bees buzzed and hummed amongst the bright, fragrant blossoms. The sun had reached the mountain heights, and his beams gliding over the tree-tops were dancing over the fields, as if impatient to pour over the gay blossoms even more colour and brightness than they already possessed.

As Maia Lisa looked at them, her heart was ready to burst with sympathy. “Poor man, poor man,” she thought. “Is it any wonder he is melancholy, when he has never had a home since he was fourteen? How different it would be if he came to Lövdala! What a good home I could offer him here. I know what happy days I have had here until this last year. He should walk as happily under the apple-trees as dear Father did in his time--if only I may take care of him!”

Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone at the very thought. If she could only talk to him about Lövdala, and make him understand that it was just such a good home as this that he needed.

She was roused from her thoughts by his dropping her hands, which he had held until then.

“Now give me the violin and let me go,” he said. “I see you feel that I have no choice in the matter.”

She could not wonder that he thought she was willing to let him go. For there she stood, looking for the right words to keep him and not able to find them. “Dear heart,” she said very hurriedly, “stay a little longer. Will you not look round Lövdala a little? Are not the apple-blossoms lovely? See how the golden sunshine falls over the grass. Would you not like----?” But there she stopped. Words failed her. She had wanted to speak of the beautiful home that they two would build together here in Lövdala, but she felt that he set no value on it. His idea of a beautiful home was something very different from hers.

Once more he asked for the violin. Then, he said, he would never cross her path again. She pressed her hand to her heart with a heavy sigh. So now he was going, never to cross her path again! And she could not find words to move him. She could not keep him by her side. She saw nothing for it but to obey him, so she left the window to fetch what he wanted. But when Maia Lisa had picked up the violin she stood still for a moment, her mind filled with new and wonderful thoughts. Here, in her hand, she was holding what had the greatest power over him. This violin had been his strength and comfort in bygone days. She understood--at last she understood. That violin and the music he played upon it were to Sven Liliecrona what Lövdala was to her. Music and music alone was his home, his place of rest. Here only could he find comfort and refreshment. When he played, the tones of his music made a refuge for him brighter than any apple-blossom, than any sunshine even. Then he entered into his true home, a home that had been his refuge through all the years of his lonely life.

In days gone by he had lived through hard days, undismayed because he had his violin, and it had only needed one stroke of his bow to open the door of the world where he was happy. But now he had fallen a prey to melancholy, because for the last few years he had not been able to play, because he had been shut out from his home. Alas, how miserable she would feel if she were driven from Lövdala. How she would pine, away from her own home! And that, of course, was how he felt. He could not settle down, he did not know where to turn for rest and comfort. Maia Lisa felt suddenly reassured. Now she had discovered his sickness, she knew the remedy as well. If she could but open the door of his real home for him once more he would be himself again, and conquer the ill that now possessed him. She stepped up to the window, but kept the violin in her hand.

“Dear friend,” she said, “let me beg for one thing only before you go. Take your violin and play once more. I am certain it was so hard for you just now because it was the first time since that unhappy night. And I cannot think that it will always be like that. Will you not try just once more, that I may hear you properly? I am sure you will conquer yourself and play for my sake. Why, you said but just now that you had been free of this melancholy all the winter, and thought you were cured. And perhaps you are. You must not think the evil has come back for good. You would see, if you would only dare to play once again, that....”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is impossible,” he replied. “It would only be ten times worse.”

But she persisted. “You will never have to do anything for me again,” she urged. “Surely you will not refuse this one thing when we are going to part. If you go away without playing, you will be sorry afterwards that you said ‘No’ to my very last request.”

He did not look any more confident, yet he yielded. “I know how it will end,” he said, “and so do you. Still, I will not refuse you.”

Maia Lisa passed her hand lightly over the violin, whispering, as she handed it to him: “Dear thing, help me, oh help me now!”

As Liliecrona took it, the dark cloud of misery passed across his face, and when he drew his bow across the strings, the notes sounded as wild and discordant as before. He looked up at Maia Lisa, as if to reproach her for enticing him into this fresh misery. Her heart beat so that she could scarcely bear it, but she would show no fear. She kept her place by the window, and forced herself to look down at him with a hopeful smile upon her lips.

And listen! Surely the notes were already less despairing, less unhappy. Light was coming through the clouds, the prison wall was breaking down, and the captive soul was being set free. Up they went in steady flight, but now, alas, down they fell again. What a strife it was, now down in the depths, until it seemed impossible they should ever rise again; then up once more, rising, falling, falling, rising! But then, all at once, the melody soared high as if on angels’ wings, higher, ever higher in its joy and praise, to the very gates of heaven itself; far above all human voice or thought, up to the home of purest light. And once there, how it tried to express the blessedness revealed.

Suddenly Liliecrona let fall his bow as though he could do no more. His music had carried him up and up, until his strength failed him in sight of such light, such power, such glory. He looked up at Maia Lisa. Great heavy tears filled her eyes as she stood with clasped hands and transfigured face, no longer on earth, but risen with him to heaven. He drew a deep breath--no, she had not gone with him, she had flown up before. His music had never before carried him so high; it was her love alone that had lifted him from the darksome pit. It was indeed true that it would be strong enough to lift him above all life’s darkness. He felt it, knew it would conquer all fear, all mistrust.

He drew her hands to his lips and kissed them.

“Have you been in your true home?” she whispered.

“Maia Lisa, dear one, my heart’s love! Never once have I played like this before. It was your heart, your love that played, not I. Whether it bring you joy or misery,” he went on, “here I must stay. You must help me; you must not let me go.”

And how silent it grew in the garden, amidst the apple-trees shedding their blossoms above them like a beauteous bridal veil.

FINIS

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

FOOTNOTES:

[1] An ordinary title of friendly respect amongst Swedish peasants.

[2] Swedish bread is baked in the form of thin biscuits, about nine inches in diameter with a hole in the centre, through which a long pole is run. These poles are kept in the storeroom for three months at a time.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.