The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson

by Selma Lagerlof

  The boy now led the geese into the cowshed, which was rather large, and placed them in an empty stall, where they immediately fell asleep. For himself he pulled together a little bed of straw and expected that he too would drift off at once.

  But nothing came of that, because the poor cow, who had not had her supper, would not keep quiet for a moment. She shook on her neck chain, moved around in the stall and complained about how hungry she was. The boy could not get a wink of sleep, but instead lay there, going over everything that had happened to him in the past few days.

  He thought about Åsa the Goose-girl and Little Mats, whom he had so unexpectedly encountered, and he worked out that the little cottage he happened to set fire to must have been their old home in Småland. He recalled that he had heard them talk about just that sort of cottage and about the large heather moor below it. Now they had come to see their home again, and it had been in flames, just as they reached it! It was probably a great sorrow he had caused them, and that made him very angry. If he ever became human again, he would try to compensate them for their injury and disappointment.

  Then his thoughts went to the crows, and when he thought about Fumle-Drumle, who had rescued him and met death so soon after having been chosen as chieftain, he became so distressed that tears came to his eyes.

  It had been a very difficult time for him, those past few days. But it had still been good luck that the gander and Downy had found him.

  The gander had told him that as soon as the wild geese had noticed Thumbkin was missing they asked the small animals in the forest about him. They soon found out that a flock of Småland crows had carried him away. But the crows were already out of sight and no one could say where they were headed. In order to find the boy as soon as possible, Akka then ordered the wild geese to take off, two by two, in separate directions and search for him. But after two days of searching, whether they had found him or not, they were to meet in north-west Småland at a high hilltop, which resembled a sheared-off tower and was called Taberg. And after Akka had given them the best signposts and carefully described to them how to get to Taberg, they went their separate ways.

  The white gander had chosen Downy as a travelling companion and they flew around here and there, very worried about Thumbkin. During this roving about they heard a thrush, who was sitting in a treetop, shout and scream about the fact that someone who called himself Abducted-by-Crows had made fun of him. They struck up a conversation with the thrush and he had shown them in which direction this Abducted-by-Crows had gone. Later they encountered a male dove, a starling and a mallard, all of whom complained about a malefactor who had interrupted their song, and whose name was Taken-by-Crows, Captured-by-Crows and Stolen-by-Crows. In this way they had been able to track Thumbkin all the way down to the heather moor in Sunnerbo County.

  As soon as the gander and Downy found Thumbkin, they had taken off for the north to get to Taberg. But it was a long way to go and darkness came over them before they caught sight of the hilltop. ‘But if we just get there tomorrow, all our worries will probably be over,’ the boy thought, burrowing himself deep down in the straw to get warmer.

  The cow had been making a fuss in the stall the whole time. Now she suddenly started talking with the boy. ‘I thought that one of them who came in here said he was a gnome. If that is so, he surely must understand how to take care of a cow.’

  ‘What is it you’re lacking?’ the boy asked.

  ‘I’m lacking everything imaginable,’ the cow said. ‘I haven’t been milked or groomed. I haven’t got any night fodder in the manger, and I haven’t got bedding under me. Mistress came in here at twilight to get things ready for me like she always does, but she felt so sick that she had to go in again right away, and she hasn’t come back.’

  ‘It’s really too bad that I should be so little and powerless,’ the boy said. ‘I don’t think I’m able to help you.’

  ‘Don’t expect me to believe that you’re powerless just because you’re little,’ the cow said. ‘All gnomes that I’ve heard about have been so strong they can pull a whole load of hay and kill a cow with a single punch.’

  The boy could not keep from laughing at the cow. ‘Those were probably gnomes of a different type than me,’ he said. ‘But I’ll loosen your neck chain and open the door for you so that you can go out and drink in one of the puddles in the yard, and then I’ll try to climb up into the hayloft and toss down hay into your manger.’

  ‘Yes, that would be some help,’ the cow said.

  The boy did as he had offered, and when the cow was standing with a full manger in front of her, he thought that he would finally get to sleep. But he had hardly crept down in the bed before she started talking again.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be very tired of me if I ask you for one more thing,’ the cow said.

  ‘I won’t be, just so it’s something I can manage,’ the boy said.

  ‘Then I want to ask you to go into the cottage across from here and see how my mistress is doing. I’m afraid that she’s had an accident.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ the boy said. ‘I don’t dare show myself to people.’

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid of a sick old woman,’ said the cow. ‘But you don’t need to go into the cottage, either. Just stand outside and look in through the chink in the door.’

  ‘Yes, if there isn’t anything else you ask of me, then I suppose I can do that,’ the boy said.

  With this he opened the cowshed door and made his way to the farmyard. It was a terrible night to go out. Neither moon nor stars were shining, the wind howled and the rain was pouring down. But the worst thing was that seven large owls were sitting in a row on the roof ridge of the house. It was eerie just to hear them as they sat and complained about the weather, and it was even worse to think that if a single one of them caught sight of him, it would be the end of him.

  ‘Pity anyone who is small!’ the boy said as he made his way out on to the farmyard. And he had reason to say so. He was blown over two times before he came up to the house, and one time the wind swept him into a puddle so deep that he almost drowned. But he made it there in any event.

  He climbed up a couple of steps, wriggled over a threshold and came on to the landing. The cottage door was closed, but down in one corner a large piece had been removed, so that the cat could go in and out. Thus there was no difficulty for the boy to see what was going on in the cottage.

  He had hardly glanced in before he gave a start and drew back his head. An old, grey-haired woman lay stretched out on the floor inside. She neither moved nor complained, and her face shone strangely white. It was as if an invisible moon had cast a pale light over it.

  The boy remembered that when his grandfather died, his face had also turned strangely white like that. And he understood that the old person who was lying on the floor in the cottage must be dead. Death must have come over her so quickly that she did not even have time to lie down in her bed.

  He became terribly afraid when he found himself in the middle of the dark night alone with a dead person. He threw himself headlong down the steps and rushed back to the cowshed.

  When he told the cow what he had seen in the cottage, she stopped eating. ‘I see, Mistress is dead,’ she said. ‘Then it will probably soon be the end of me too.’

  ‘There will always be someone to take care of you,’ the boy said consolingly.

  ‘You don’t know, do you,’ the cow said, ‘that I am already twice as old as a cow usually is before she is put on the slaughtering block. But I don’t care to live any longer either, since the woman in there can no longer come and look after me.’

  She said no more for a while, but
the boy noticed that she was neither sleeping nor eating. It did not take long before she started talking again. ‘Is she lying on the bare floor?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ the boy said.

  ‘She had the habit of coming out in the cowshed,’ the cow continued, ‘and talking about everything that worried her. I understood what she said, although I could not answer her. These past few days she was saying that she was afraid that she would not have anyone with her when she died. She was anxious that no one would be able to close her eyes or cross her hands over her chest when she was dead. Perhaps you will go in and do that?’

  The boy was hesitant. He remembered that when his grandfather died, his mother had been careful to arrange him. He knew that this was something that had to be done. But on the other hand he felt that he did not dare go to the dead woman in the awful night. He did not say no, but neither did he take a step towards the cowshed door.

  For a few moments the old cow stood silently, as if waiting for an answer. But when the boy said nothing, she did not repeat her request. Instead she started to talk about her mistress.

  There was a lot to talk about. First and foremost, there were all the children she had brought up. They had been in the cowshed every day, and in the summer they tended the cattle in the bog and in the pastures, so the old cow knew them well. All of them had been strong and cheerful and industrious. A cow knew well enough what her keepers were good for.

  And likewise there was plenty to say about the farm. It had not always been as poor as it was now. It was very extensive, although for the most part it consisted of bogs and stony pastures. There was not much room for fields, but there was abundant grazing everywhere. At one time there had been a cow in every stall in the cowshed, and the ox stall, which was now completely empty, had been full of oxen. And then joy and happiness had prevailed in both the cottage and the barns. When the mistress opened the cowshed door, she hummed and sang, and all the cows bellowed with delight when they heard her coming.

  But the farmer died while the children were too small to be of any help, and the mistress had to take over the farm and all the work and worries. She had been as strong as a man and she had both ploughed and harvested. In the evenings, when she came in to the cowshed to milk, she was sometimes so tired that she cried. But when she thought about her children, she became happy again. Then she wiped away the tears in her eyes and said, ‘It’s nothing. I too will have good days, after my children grow up. Yes, after they grow up.’

  But as soon as the children were grown, a strange longing came over them. They did not want to stay at home, but instead they went away to a foreign land. Their mother never got any help from them. A couple of the children had managed to marry before they went and they left their small children behind at home. And these children now followed the mistress into the cowshed, as her own had done. They tended the cows and they were good and fine folk. And in the evenings, when the mistress was so tired that she could fall asleep in the middle of milking, she instilled fresh courage in herself by thinking about them. ‘I’m sure I’ll have good days, even me,’ she said, shaking off sleep, ‘when they grow up.’

  But once these children were grown, they left to go to their parents in the foreign land. No one came back, no one stayed at home. The old mistress remained alone on the farm.

  She probably never asked them to stay behind with her. ‘Do you think, Rödlinna, that I should ask them to stay here with me, when they can go out into the world and do well?’ she used to say when she stood in the stall with the old cow. ‘Here in Småland they can expect only poverty.’

  But when her last grandchild had left, it was all over for the mistress. She suddenly became stooped and grey, and she staggered when she walked, as if she no longer had the energy to move. And she stopped working. She did not want to tend the farm, but instead let everything deteriorate. She no longer improved the buildings and she sold off both oxen and cows. The only one she kept was the old cow, who was now talking with Thumbkin. She let her live, because all the children had gone to pasture with her.

  She probably could have taken maids and farmhands into service, who would have helped her with the work, but she could not tolerate seeing strangers around, since her own kin had abandoned her. And perhaps she was mostly content to let the farm deteriorate, when none of the children were going to take it over. She did not care that she herself became poor because she did not take care of what was hers. But she was anxious that the children might find out how hard it was for her. ‘Just so the children don’t find out! Just so the children don’t find out!’ she sighed as she staggered through the cowshed.

  The children wrote regularly and asked her to come to them, but she did not want to. She did not want to see the country that had taken them from her. She was angry with it. ‘It’s probably stupid of me that I don’t like the country that has been so good for them,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to see it.’

  She never thought about anything other than the children and about the fact that they had to leave. When it was summer, she led the cow out so that she could graze on the big bog. She sat for entire days by the edge of the bog with her hands in her lap, and when she went home she said, ‘You see, Rödlinna, if there had been big, fertile fields instead of this infertile bog here, then they wouldn’t have had to leave.’

  She could get furious at the bog, which was so big and did no one any good. She could sit and say it was the bog’s fault that the children had gone away from her.

  This last evening she had been shakier and weaker than ever before. She could not even manage the milking. She leaned against the stall and said that two farmers had been to see her and asked to buy the bog. They wanted to drain it and sow and harvest on it. This had made her both anxious and happy. ‘Do you hear, Rödlinna,’ she had said, ‘do you hear that they said that rye can be grown on the bog? Now I’ll write to the children, that they should come home. Now they don’t need to stay away any longer, now they can get their bread here at home.’

  This was what she had gone into the cottage to do.

  The boy heard no more of what the cow was telling. He had opened the cowshed door and crossed the yard to the dead woman, of whom he had been so afraid just before.

  First he stood quietly a moment and looked around.

  It was not as poor in the cottage as he had expected. It was richly supplied with the kinds of things that are usually found among those who have relatives in America. In one corner was an American rocking chair, on the table in front of the window was a multicoloured plush cloth, a lovely cover was spread over the bed, on the walls hung photographs of the children and grandchildren who had gone away in fine, carved frames, on the chest of drawers were tall vases and a pair of candlesticks with thick, twisted candles.

  The boy searched for a matchbox and lit those candles, not because he needed to see better than he already did, but because he thought that this was a way of honouring the dead woman.

  Then he went up to her, closed her eyes, crossed her hands over her chest and stroked the thin, grey hair away from her face.

  He no longer thought about being afraid of her. He was so sincerely distressed that she had had to live out her old age in loneliness and longing. Now at least he would watch over her dead body this night.

  He searched for the hymn book and sat down to read a couple of hymns half out loud. But in the midst of reading he stopped, because he happened to think about his mother and father.

  Just think, that parents can long so for their children! He had never known that. Just think, that it can be as if life is over for them when their children are gone! What if those there at home were longing for him the same way as
this old woman had longed!

  That thought made him happy, but he did not dare believe it. He had not been the sort that anyone would long for.

  But what he had not been, perhaps he could become.

  Around him he saw the portraits of those who had left. There were big, strong men and women with serious faces. There were brides in long veils and gentlemen in fine clothes, and there were children who had curly hair and beautiful, white dresses. And he thought that they were all staring blindly out into space and did not want to see.

  ‘You poor things!’ the boy said to the portraits. ‘Your mother is dead. You can no longer make good the fact that you left her. But my mother is alive!’

  Here he interrupted himself and nodded and smiled. ‘My mother is alive,’ he said. ‘Both Father and Mother are alive.’

  Eighteen

  From Taberg to Huskvarna

  Friday, 15 April

  The boy sat awake almost all night, but towards morning he fell asleep, and then he dreamed about his father and mother. He barely recognized them. Both of them had grey hair and old, wrinkled faces. He asked why this was and they answered that they had both aged so much because they had been missing him. He was both moved and surprised, because he thought they would be happy to escape him.

  When the boy woke up, morning had already arrived with beautiful, clear weather. He first had a slice of bread that he found in the cottage, then he gave morning fodder to both the geese and the cow and opened the cowshed door, so that the cow could take off to the nearest farm. When they saw her walking alone, the neighbours would probably understand there was something the matter with her mistress. They would hurry to the deserted farm to see how the old woman was doing, and then they would find her dead body and bury it.

  The boy and the geese had hardly ascended into the air before they caught sight of a tall hill with almost vertical walls and a sheared-off top, and they realized that this must be Taberg. And at the top of Taberg stood Akka with Yksi and Kaksi, Kolme and Neljä, Viisi and Kuusi and all six goslings waiting for them. There was joy and a cackling and flapping and calling impossible to describe when they saw that the gander and Downy had succeeded in finding Thumbkin.