Mårbacka/Part 1, Chapter 7
They had taken for the summer a cosy little cottage at the end of Karlagatan, where they were so happy and content that Lieutenant Lagerlöf and the children named the place Little Mårbacka, which was assuredly the highest title of distinction they could bestow on a house in a strange city.
The little house fronted a bit of a garden enclosed by a picket-fence, and under the spreading trees they had their breakfasts and suppers. At the back of the house were a couple of potato patches, beyond which, over against a high cliff, stood a tiny hut not much larger than the cabin on the Uddeholm.
In that hut lived their hostess, Fru Strömberg, who was the wife of a sea captain. During the winter months she occupied the cottage herself, but summers she always let it to visitors. She now sat in her tiny cabin from morn till night, surrounded by blooming oleanders and tables and shelves laden with curios her husband had brought from foreign parts.
When Fru Lagerlöf and Mamselle Lovisa were having coffee with their friends and the Lieutenant had gone mackerel-fishing, and when Anna had gone over to the candy man's daughters' and Johan to his crabs, Back-Kaisa and Selma would repair to Fru Strömberg's cabin.
Fru Strömberg was their special friend, and to sit with her under the oleanders was as restful as sitting with Grandmother on the corner sofa at Mårbacka. She could not tell stories, but she had many wonderful things to show them: big sea-shells that were full of sound and murmured when you put them to your ear; porcelain men from China with long pig-tails and long moustaches; and she had besides two very big shells, one a cocoanut, the other an ostrich egg.
Back-Kaisa and Fru Strömberg talked mostly of serious and religious things, which the child did not understand; but sometimes they touched on lighter subjects.
Fru Strömberg spoke of her husband and his voyages. He had a fine big ship called the Jacob, and just now he was on a voyage to St. Ypes, Portugal, to take on a cargo of salt. Back-Kaisa wondered how Fru Strömberg could have any peace of mind, knowing that her husband was drifting about on the perilous seas; Fru Strömberg replied that there was One who protected him, and therefore she felt that he was as safe on board his ship as when at home in the streets of Strömstad.
The kindly Fru Strömberg then turned to the little girl and said she hoped the captain would soon be at home, for there was something on the Jacob she thought Selma might like to see. They had a bird of paradise there.
"What is that?" asked the child, all interest now.
"It is a bird from Paradise," Fru Strömberg told her.
"Selma has heard her grandmother talk about Paradise," Back-Kaisa put in.
Yes, of course. She remembered that Granny had told her about Paradise, and that she (Selma) had pictured it as a place that looked like the little rose-garden on the west side of the house at Mårbacka. At the same time it was clear to her that Paradise had something to do with God. And now she somehow got the impression that the one who guarded Fru Strömberg's husband so that he was as safe at sea as on land was the bird of paradise.
She wanted so much to meet that bird. It might be able to help her. Everyone felt so sorry for her mamma and papa because she was not getting well. And to think that they had made this expensive trip only on her account.
She would have liked to ask Back-Kaisa and Fru Strömberg whether they thought the bird of paradise would do something for her, but she was too shy. They might laugh at her, she feared. But she did not forget what Fru Strömberg had told her. Every day she wished the Jacob would come, so that the bird of paradise could fly ashore.
Then one day she heard, to her great joy, that the Jacob had arrived. But she did not speak of this to any one. To her there was something very sacred and mysterious about it all. Remembering how solemn her grandmother had been when telling about Adam and Eve, she did not want to tell Johan and Anna that on the Jacob there was a bird from Paradise which she was going to ask to cure her leg. No, she would not speak of it even to Back-Kaisa.
Now every time she went to see Fru Strömberg she expected to find the bird sitting warbling in one of her oleanders. But he did not appear. How strange! she thought. One day she asked Back-Kaisa about it, and was told the bird was on the ship. "But you'll soon see it," said Back-Kaisa, "for to-morrow we're all going on board the Jacob."
It seems that Captain Strömberg had hardly been home a day before he and Lieutenant Lagerlöf were bosom friends. The Lieutenant had already been out on the Jacob several times, and liked it so well that nothing would do but the whole family must see what a fine ship she was.
When they set out none of them had any real notion as to what boarding the Jacob meant. The little girl thought the ship would be lying alongside the quay like the big steamers. But indeed she lay in the offing. They had to get into a little boat and row out. It was strange to see that the nearer they got to the ship the larger she grew, till at last she loomed high as a mountain. To those in the rowboat it looked quite impossible to clamber up there.
Mamselle Lovisa said straight out that if it was to that high boat they were rowing she could not go aboard.
"Wait a bit, Lovisa," said the Lieutenant, "and you'll see it's easier than you imagine."
Then Mamselle Lovisa declared she would as soon think of climbing the flagpole at Laholmen. She thought they had better turn back at once.
Fru Lagerlöf and Back-Kaisa agreed with her, and were for going home. But Lieutenant Lagerlöf stuck to his point. There was no fear but they'd get aboard all right, he said. This was perhaps their one chance of a lifetime to see how it looked on a merchant vessel; and they ought not to miss such an opportunity.
"But once we're up we'll never be able to get down again," argued Mamselle Lovisa.
They met a boat laden with sacks.
"See that boat, Lovisa?" the Lieutenant said. "Do you know what's in those sacks?"
"My dear Gustaf," returned Mamselle Lovisa wearily, "how should I know?"
"Well, they're sacks of salt from the Jacob" the Lieutenant informed her. "They have neither arms nor legs, yet they've come off the ship; so surely you should be able to do it."
"You ought to dress up once in crinoline and long skirts," snapped Mamselle Lovisa, "then perhaps you'd not be so brave."
They went on like that the whole way out to the ship. The little girl who so longed to meet the bird of paradise wished with all her heart that her father might induce her aunt and the others to go on board; though she, too, thought they could never in the world get up there.
All the same they presently lay-to under a swaying rope-ladder. A couple of sailors jumped into the boat to help them with the climb. The first to be taken was the little sick girl. One of the sailors boosted her to his comrade, who bore her up the ladder and put her down on the deck; here he left her to go and help the others.
She found herself standing quite alone on a narrow strip of deck. Before her opened a great yawning hole, at the bottom of which something white was being put into sacks. She stood there a long while. Some of the folks down in the boat must have raised objections to climbing the ladder, since no one appeared. When the little girl had got her bearings, she glanced about for the bird of paradise. She looked up at the rigging and tackle. She had pictured the bird as being at least as large as a turkey, and easy for the eye to find.
Seeing no sign of it, she turned to the Captain's cabin-boy, who had just come up, and asked him where the bird of paradise was.
"Come along," he said, "and you shall see him." He gave her a hand lest she might fall down the hole; then walking backwards, he led her down the companionway into the Captain's cabin—a fine room, with polished mahogany walls and mahogany furniture.
In there, sure enough, was the bird of paradise!
The bird was even more beautiful than her imagination had pictured it. It was not alive, yet it stood in the middle of the table—whole and perfect in all its gorgeous plumage.
The little girl climbed up on to a chair and from there to the table. Then she sat down beside the bird and regarded its beauty. The cabin-boy, who stood by, showed her its long, light, drooping feathers.
"Look!" he said. "You can see he's from Paradise, for he hasn't any feet."[1]
Now that seemed to fit in very well with her own concept of Paradise: a place where one did not have to walk but moved about on wings. She gazed at the bird in adoration, her hands folded as in prayer. She wondered if the cabin-boy knew it was the bird that protected Captain Strömberg, but dared not ask him.
The child could have sat there all day lost in wonder; but her reverie was suddenly interrupted by loud shouts from the deck. It sounded as if someone were calling, "Selma! Selma!"
Immediately afterwards, they all came rushing into the cabin—Lieutenant Lagerlöf, Back-Kaisa, Fru Lagerlöf. Captain Strömberg, Johan, and Anna. They were so many they quite filled the room.
"How did you get here?" they asked as with one breath—wonder and amazement depicted on their faces.
With that, the little girl remembered that she had walked on the deck, had walked down the stairs and into the cabin—that no one had carried her.
"Now come down off the table," said one, "and let us see whether you can walk."
She crawled from the table to the chair, and from the chair to the floor. Yes, she could both stand and walk.
How they rejoiced! Their hopes had not been in vain; the object of the journey was fulfilled. The little girl was not going to grow up a helpless cripple, but a normal human being.
The grown folk said it was the splendid baths at Strömstad that had wrought the change. With tears of joy and gratitude, they blessed the sea, the air, the city and all therein—glad they had come.
The little girl, meanwhile, had her own thoughts about it. She wondered if it was not the bird of paradise that had helped her. Was it not the little marvel with the quivering wings which had come from that land where feet were not needed that had taught her to walk here on this earth, where it was such a very necessary thing?
- ↑ The first birds of paradise seen in Europe were mounted without feet.—Translator.