The Emigrants (40 page)

Christ, yes, what a good life! No damn farmer gets me up in the middle of the night to feed the horses. No devil gives me hell because I work too little. No one says a word because I take it easy. It’s a hell of a fine thing. I am a passenger with a che-sound like in shit!

Our boat holds together—not a drop of water has come in through ceiling or walls. That hole on the side—that was made, it’s good with water running through it. But the boat does wobble at times, and I feel it might turn over. It looks warped, up on one side and down at the other. Happily, it gets back in position. But if it did fall over, and sink in the sea, one would never get up again.

When I think that the boat actually can drown, I feel a kind of sickness in my breast. Mother gave me the prayerbook and she knows I can’t read. “You must take God’s word with you to America, in any case,” she said. “You can read those prayers by heart which I taught you when you were a little tyke.” Oh, yes, I do know prayers by heart. The book has one prayer for each morning and each night, the whole week. I try to read as best I can remember—I am out at sea and the ship is rickety and totters at times, and I don’t know how to swim. I know neither cat-swim nor dog-swim, and it may be useful with God’s word: “. . . help me sweetly to go to sleep this night . . . help me this night that my soul does not go to sleep in sin, and no calamity befalls my body . . . if I live on land or sea . . . receive me at last in the safe harbor, my dear Father. . . .”

Perhaps I mix the evening prayers. But God wouldn’t care if I said a few words from the Tuesday prayer on Monday evening. He couldn’t be that persnickety, not with me who only read by heart. But it feels safer and easier in my chest when I have said my prayer and put myself in the hands of God. What luck that I can leave myself to the Lord on this wild, un-Christian sea.

We must have been traveling very long on this boat. Today I asked one of the seamen how much was left to sail. He said it was nearly as far from here to North America as it is from North America to here, perhaps only fifty miles’ difference. I thought a lot about that, it seemed so far. Then he laughed, the devil, and the others around him too, and I got so mad I wanted to give him one in the snout so his shit would run out. I told him it was the same to me how far it was. If a seaman who had traveled that way before couldn’t give information, then he needn’t poke fun at honest people. “You must not think, you sheep-coint,” I said, “that we who come from the farm country are any dumber than you who fare around on the sea. We understand when anyone tries to make a spectacle of us.”

However far it is, I think we’ll get there, for the boat sails every day, Sundays and weekdays, and Danjel says that God’s breath blows on the sails. And when I get to America I shall ask all those old, tight peasant shits at home to kiss my ass. No one has ever had such luck as I on my America journey—a free-week in April, a free-week in May, free-weeks throughout the whole damn spring! And three meals on every one of God’s days!

I am damn lucky to be here.

Danjel Andreasson:

The Almighty has so far given us fine weather at sea, and He helps us all He can.

Our ship sails with the Lord’s chosen ones to a land which He has designated. She is a little, fragile ship, the work of faulty human hands, but she is the Lord’s vessel. One night I saw two of God’s angels standing at the helm. They helped the seamen steer the ship on the right course.

I was dubious at first, I worried about the great undertaking: to leave my land and all my kinfolk and voyage with my wife and children over the sea—when I am no longer in the days of my youth. But I drove fear away from my heart, and followed the call of God: His word is the lantern of my feet and a light on my path.

But I observe that doubt and fear assail my little flock: Inga-Lena, my beloved wife, our four dear children, and Ulrika of Västergöhl, and her tender daughter. The Evil One whispers tempting words in their ears to test their faith. My beloved wife fears the language of North America. She is afraid she will have to go about like a deaf-mute among the people of the foreign land. But I assure you, Inga-Lena, as I have done so many times, as soon as we arrive in the land the Holy Ghost will fill us so that we may speak the unknown tongue at once, as if we were born children of the American hamlets. We have the Lord’s promise and the Bible’s words about the miracle on the first Whitsuntide. I have read it many times for you, Inga-Lena: “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

You must remember what I have so often told you, my dear wife: the Galileans, too, were simple unlearned men and women; yet they were able at once to speak Greek and Arabic, and the languages of the Medes and Elamites, Egyptians and Parthians and Libyans. They arose and spoke these tongues and praised the wonderful works of God. And according to God’s promise, the same miracle will happen to all who are reborn in Christ. As soon as we land on the North American shore, the words of the Holy Ghost will shine over us and our tongues will leap as if we were drunk and the American language will be as accustomed to our lips as if we were children of that land. Sinners and nonrepenters may suffer hardship with the strange language. But we shall be able to stand up at once and praise our new land in our new tongue. And however far we may travel among other races—black, red, or mixed—the Spirit shall have power over our tongues so that we can use their languages.

Yes, no one in my flock need doubt that over us—the Lord’s chosen—the prophecy will be fulfilled about the Spirit filling all flesh: “. . . and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your youth shall see visions and your elders shall dream dreams. . . .” And mockers and deriders will say of us that we are drunk from sweet wine.

The Lord has taken us away from evil spiritual powers at home. The church, that wicked harlot, snatched at us, wanted to swallow us in her sour, stinking mouth. But now we sail on the Lord’s ship, and the ministers in their black capes cannot reach us with their talons here at sea. Evil has passed, my heart is joyous, and my tongue is glad.

All lands in North America will open up to me and be given to me and my seed. There we shall build our new church, which will be like the one of the first Christians. We shall gather together and break bread and drink wine, as the apostles used to do. And we shall have everything in common, as it is written: “They sold their chattels and divided, each what he needed.” And no sheriff will bother us—we shall live in peace.

In the land of North America I shall build an altar of thanks for you, my Lord! And I will sing and play and praise Thee with my tongue and my strings, as once King David did. I am a simple man, I have no gilded harp, but I know You will listen to me when I string my old
psalmodikon.

You give us good weather, Lord, and us old ones, all your chosen ones, you have protected from the evils of seasickness—for the sake of our faith. The unbelievers and the lost ones you have punished with this plague.

Last night I beheld one of your angels at the mainmast, and two at the helm. The angel at the mast greeted me before he vanished—I do not fear. You are carrying us in this night over the dark depths! The Lord is our captain, no want shall we know.

Blow, Lord’s wind, fill the sails of the Lord’s ship!—“And your elders shall dream dreams. . . .”

Inga-Lena:

Tomorrow I must darn his socks. He wears out so many socks; he always has—during our whole marriage. I don’t know why. He doesn’t walk heavily on earth. Perhaps it is because he has foot-sweat. Yes, that has always been a nuisance to him—and he doesn’t bother to wash his feet. I always have to tell him to. He had three pairs of newly mended whole socks when we left home—besides the pair he had on. All his socks now have holes in them, and I haven’t had time to mend them; and today I noticed he had a hole in the ones he wears with his high boots. Children must be chastised and holes must be darned while they are small; a hole should never be larger than the width of the little finger.

I must see to it that he has socks on his feet in North America—they say there is a scarcity of woolen things there.

They say that the Saviour always went about barefooted when He preached here on earth. But I suppose the ground is warm in the Holy Land. Figs and vines and sweet fruits grow there, they say. I can understand that the Saviour and His apostles didn’t need socks. But my dear husband always gets an ache in his throat when his feet are cold. And he doesn’t attend to his bowels the way he ought to. He says he doesn’t have openings every day. “Empty your guts, keep your feet warm!” That’s a wise saying.

Today when I was sitting on deck with my darning needle and my woolen yarns, trying to mend my black jacket, he came to me and said: “Come with me downstairs—we must pray together.” “I’ll only fasten the lining,” I said, “there are but a few stitches left.” Then he looked at me the longest while, without saying a word, and his eyes were so sad I suspected I had done something wrong. I had preferred worldly duties to the Lord’s service, I was thinking of darning and mending. I could feel his sadness, and I did not want him to speak to me while in that mood, so I went down with him at once.

I am a poor creature when it comes to faith. I only understand a little. When I think and muse on spiritual things I must quickly stop. I get so astray and involved, and I mix the spiritual and the worldly.

I am afraid we will be poverty-stricken if this continues. He gives away what we have, to feed and clothe and take care of so many. I am afraid in the end he may give away everything we own, and we will be left there, with our four children, in dire need, without food or clothing. When I think of this—that’s when the doubt assails me. Yet I know that doubt is the bloodiest of sins.

Once I made him very happy. It was when he told me he would go to a new land which God had shown him—after the court had exiled him. He said nothing about his wife and children, but when he looked at me his eyes were as sweet as those of Christ in the altar picture. He asked me with his eyes, and I answered him. I answered and said, with Ruth in the Bible: “Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.” Then his face lit up and he said: “My beloved wife, we will stand together in Christ’s presence on the day of judgment!” And then I cried, and the children cried, because they thought their father was unkind to me and made me sad. But it was the opposite, and I told the children that Father had promised to keep Mother company on the day of resurrection and lead her to God the Father’s right side. And I told them they must never think ill of their father.

And I try to believe that however he acts and whatever he does, he is carrying out the Lord’s errands.

I get so depressed at times, worldly worries take hold of me, I cannot help it. As I count and count I discover we have hardly anything left to begin life with in America. If only I could rely on the Almighty helping us, then I wouldn’t worry. But I do worry, I can’t help it. There are so many things I must look after—I and no one else. If I don’t attend to them, no one else will.

I asked him today how we were to get a house and home in America. “Before I put nail in wall,” he said, “I shall build an altar for the Lord. Before I lay a plank for our floor, God must have His altar.” And then he looked at me as if to reproach me for being so worldly; and I left him for a while. I won’t talk to him when he is in that mood.

I am such a wretched, forgetful creature—I know that. I forget that my beloved husband is the Lord’s new apostle on earth.

Now he has worn out the last pair of socks—I saw it when he pulled off his boots this evening. I must get up before him in the morning, and darn them. The holes must not get too big. Oh, oh, oh, he wears out so many socks!

In the old days, when the apostles went barefooted, there was much less to worry about and attend to.

Ulrika of Västergöhl:

I felt at once that this is a devil’s ship. I could smell the stink of the Evil One in my nose. The devil is on board. Round about my bed are females who do not have the Spirit. Round about me crawl the brood of Satan. And among the menfolk—it stinks billy goat! I know that odor. But no one shall bite my rump, for I am under the Lord’s protection. The mockery of sinners can’t harm Christ’s body. But I shall pray the Lord to remove the smell of billy goat from my nose—I cannot stand it.

Christ is in me and I am in Him. I’ve eaten His flesh and drunk His blood. That’s why I was punished with bread and water in jail. A priest came and wished to preach to me in prison, but I spat on his black cape—I know those who come in black garments. I ate my bread and drank my water, and I wanted to be left in peace. The priest didn’t come back, either. The last day the jailer brought me a bowl of barley porridge, but I pissed in the bowl while he looked on, and then he had to take it away. I said I was sentenced to water and bread. I did not want to receive favors from the children of the world; I accept no porridge from the devil’s viper-brood, I said. They have no grace to give us, that’s what our apostle says.

Now I have got away from Sweden, that hellhole, where anyone who receives Christ’s body and blood is put in jail on bread and water.

With my old body, my sin-body, I practiced much whoring in my days of error. But I was taught to do it as a child, by my foster father, the peasant in Alarum. I never forget anything. I remember everything, and have since I was four years old, when I was sold at auction. After my parents died, the brat had to be farmed out to someone who was willing to clothe and feed her. A peasant couple in Alarum got me—they offered to take me for the lowest charge, eight daler a year. The farmer regretted afterwards that he had bid so low: I ate too much, and wore out clothes worth more than eight daler a year. So my foster father made me pay for his mistake. When I was fourteen years old he told me I should pay for myself. My body had developed so I could, he said. And what had a fourteen-year-old girl, sold at auction, to pay with? I should spread my legs and lie still, he said. I didn’t want to, I cried and begged him to let me go, but I was only a slight child and he was a big strong man. He knew how to make me mete out pay. The first time—I can never forget it. He caught me in the calf pen in the byre one morning when I was there milking. The farm wife was in childbed, and the farmer himself had been lying in “the ox pen” for so long—Then he reckoned up the pay: I owed him for food and clothes, therefore I must spread myself to him, and lie still. It was like being cut with a slaughter knife, and I cried and prayed to him to let me go. But he said that was out of the question. Afterward, the peasant of Alarum stood there on the stable floor and buttoned his pants, as if he had only been pissing, and mumbled and said: “That’s that, well, now that’s over.” Then he picked up his bucket with the slops for the pigs and went on with his chores.