“You have become damned difficult to find,” panted Peter. But Stellan was already prepared with a smile. It is strange that smiles can thrive so many degrees below freezing point.
“You can meet me as much as you like when you have got decent clothes—and a decent face....”
Peter was unshaven. His overcoat dated from the fat and sentimental period. It now hung on him like a sack. His barge-like shoes were covered with the dirt of the bad roads of Selambshof and he had in his hand, not a stick but a cudgel. And he shook the cudgel and struck the ground with it:
“You are damned smart, you are! But if I take everything 267this fine gentleman possesses perhaps he won’t be quite so smart. Tomorrow I want my seventy-five thousand, or else I’ll make you bankrupt!”
Stellan still smiled. He pointed to the balloon and his tone became exquisitely ironical:
“Come up with me and then we can talk business.”
Peter looked with a ludicrous expression of suspicion and disapproval on the expensive and dangerous ascent in which his seventy-five thousand would soar heavenwards:
“If you were at least decently insured,” he sighed. Then he suddenly grew furious again and shouted, so that he was overheard by the people round about them:
“I must have the money tomorrow. I won’t wait any longer.”
Stellan grew pale and came close up to his brother. It was as if he were abusing some obstinate labourer:
“You lout! You want to get hold of my last share in Selambshof! But I have already put them up another spout. Curse you, there are better and bigger creditors than you! Yes, I have nothing but debts, so my position is really excellent. The only hope for the creditors is that the bubble won’t burst. But do you think it will improve matters for a shabby old moneylender to come and hang on to my coat tails just as I am going up? No, get away and keep quiet and I will show you something to make you think.”
Stellan suddenly had an idea. He pushed aside the astonished and hesitating Peter without further ceremony and went straight towards the steps of the tennis pavilion.
There Miss L?hnfeldt was standing amidst a group of uniforms and allowed Manne von Strelert to pay her his court. Both had taken part in the quadrille on horseback and she was dressed in riding breeches, which at that time was something quite new and bold, and she stood there amongst all the men, slim and slight, but with her head held high and with a proud carriage.
268Stellan ploughed his way through the group. Not a feature betrayed what kind of conversation he had just passed through. The lines round his mouth were gay and slightly cruel. He saluted, kissed her hand, and said aloud, so that everybody round them should hear:
“Miss L?hnfeldt, do you remember I promised you a sensation? Come up with me today.”
Miss L?hnfeldt wanted to appear a sportwoman. She cultivated to the best of her ability the Anglo-Saxon style. Thanks to persistent and expensive training she had really developed her little strength until she was considered a bold rider and a fairly good tennis player. She did not answer Stellan at once, but bit her lip and cast a glance at the officers round her. But Manne protested. One had no right to tempt charming ladies into the clouds, he thought. Charming ladies might get dizzy....
Stellan looked gratefully at Manne, certain that his words would only egg her on. She was not a coward, or at least she was more vain than she was afraid. And a crowd is a bellows to vanity. Elvira L?hnfeldt was one of those women who are excited by a crowd. The thought of some kind of notoriety always occupied her thoughts. In every crowd the desire to be noticed, spoken of, praised and envied, worked like a stinging poison in her veins. When she now looked at the group around her it was in order to measure the effect of the proposal! It would surely create a sensation if she went up, a real sensation....
She did not say “yes” straight out. She answered by the eternal feminine question:
“But what shall I put on?”
“My military fur coat,” said Stellan. “Besides, your riding costume is most suitable. But come along, it is twelve o’clock and the people are waiting.”
She took his arm and they stepped out into the open space. The group behind them applauded. Manne was teased at the cavalry being outdistanced by the air force. 269There were several people there who were interested in seeing the two friends’ position improved. The balloon was already filled. Stellan turned away a poor journalist who had had half a promise to be allowed to go up with him, and amidst a murmur of surprise from the crowd he lifted Miss L?hnfeldt very chivalrously over the edge of the gondola. But he did not give the order to let go at once. He did not grudge his partner a few moments of exquisite joy in the polite and encouraging exclamations of the gentlemen and the little cries of alarm from her lady friends.
Then the attendants let go the ropes and the balloon rose. There was a flutter of white handkerchiefs from the dark group below in the grey oval of the cycle course.
As you know, one need not rise very high before everything down below looks small.
“What mites,” said Miss L?hnfeldt. And her voice sounded a little malicious.
Stellan cast a side-glance at her in order to gauge the effect of the increasing depth beneath them. She looked down with an expression which seemed to say; “This is nothing much.”
“Wait a bit, my dear,” thought Stellan. “You will get as much as you can stand.” He had already made up his mind that this would not be a pleasure trip, but an adventure.
The wind was west south-west. The balloon had not had time to rise much before they were out over Liding?n. Below him Stellan saw the shining green roof of the Hills’ villa.
Hedvig ... yes, he would have to try there too if everything else went wrong. If only Percy had been alive.... But Hedvig alone, no, there wasn’t much chance....
The balloon began to sink very suddenly. One must always be careful when passing over forests, where the air is warmer and lighter. But Stellan purposely neglected 270to cast out any ballast till they almost swept over the tops of the trees. That was a trick that used to impress beginners. Stellan looked again at his partner. She was perhaps a little paler than before and held on a little more tightly to the edge of the gondola. But if he had hoped for any frightened screams and looks of anxious appeal he was doomed to disappointment.
“The balloon must man?uvre badly,” she said.
Stellan flung out ballast, perhaps more than was necessary and they rose quickly into silent and radiant space over the bright and dazzling autumn coast landscape. It was really wonderfully beautiful with the spray of gold that the leafy trees made amongst the dark pines and the deep solemn September blue of the water in the bays—which to the far-penetrating gaze of those above shivered in iridescence of alg?-green, seaweed-brown and shimmering gneiss-red nearer inshore in the shallower water. In a narrow smooth belt of calm water a toy steamer drew behind it a silver shimmering fan of dwarf-like waves. And far away in the east along the strangely banked up horizon the sea stretched like a low endless blue ridge.
But most wonderful of all was the silence and the stillness, the incomparable, mighty calm in a balloon that moved with the wind and in which a candle flame would burn as steadily as in a closed room.
“Strange ... it is like sitting in a glass cupboard,” said Miss L?hnfeldt in a low voice and there was after all involuntary admiration in her voice. But then she added: “Though I must say I thought it would be more exciting....”
Stellan bit his lip: he was not in the mood for enjoying anything beautiful just now. He felt like a stage manager who is responsible for effect before a critical and spoilt public. He thought of Peter, his affairs, marriage—without any enthusiasm for the last.... He felt almost hostile to the woman by his side. Her affected indifference 271irritated him. He could not manage to pay her any sort of attention. He felt like a partner who dances out of time and has nothing to whisper into his partner’s ear. Annoyed, he tapped the barometer. It sank, though the balloon was sinking slowly. It was already three o’clock in the afternoon. The sun suddenly disappeared. Behind them in the west the sky was clouded. The air began to grow a cold, whitish grey, and clouded over, they no longer saw the earth below them. In an incredibly short time they had become enveloped in a dense cloud.
Stellan did not descend, as was his duty with an approaching storm when he was so near the sea. He was a desperado. Miss L?hnfeldt was going to have an experience, that was all. He threw out several sacks of ballast, which disappeared in long brown streaks in the fog below them.
His man?uvring was not quite planless. He had observed that the wind in the upper strata was several degrees more southerly and he began to think of the ?land islands.
Now they were suddenly out in the sunshine again, in the cold dazzling sunlight over an enormous shimmering sea of cloud. They soared alone in a dazzling white, ever changing, chaos of snow mountains and lakes of fog—millions of years before human life existed....
“I have seen this before in Switzerland,” said Miss L?hnfeldt shivering with cold.
The balloon had risen rapidly and lost much gas. It soon began to sink again through the cloud world, which now grew grey. When it cleared up below them they were already out over a nasty grey, white-crested sea. A very strong wind was blowing.
Then the first feminine exclamation escaped from Miss L?hnfeldt:
“But, good heavens, how shall we get back?”
Stellan bowed for the first time with a polite and amiable smile:
272“By steamer,” he said. “We will sleep at Mariehamn tonight.”
As a matter of fact he was not so sure of it. The wind higher up had evidently been a few degrees more in the west than he had counted on. In its present quarter they would pass south of ?land. But the storm lower down might draw them south ... otherwise ... well what otherwise? Well, otherwise they would go to hell....
What does a man like Captain Stellan Selamb feel when he mutters to himself that he might “go to hell”? Nothing really. He has never properly conceived death. His egoism is so hard and polished that the thought of death slips off everywhere.
If you want an opinion of a man, try to find out his views of death. Death comes in life and not after life. And it is what happens in life that makes us really alive. What else are we but our conception of, our defiance of, our struggle against, and our victory over, death? Yes, because there is a real, a living courage which conquers death....
Stellan had the gambler’s courage. It is always better than cowardice. But it is really very superficial. A hard frozen surface with no resilience beneath. Clear but shallow thoughts that have never penetrated to the depths of life. An inner reflection of a blind, pitiless Fate.... How much of the courage that meets us in the wild and bloody history of the world is not of this kind? The great gamblers! Minds and souls are only cards to them, playing cards or trumps in the wild gamble of politics and war. They only know themselves even as trumps in the game. Even their own terrible egoism is really only a mirage. For death has not made them alive....
The balloon drove eastwards with the gale. Stellan sailed low and saved his ballast. In the north they could see ?land and Lernland and Lumparland. The waves washed heavily in the apparent stillness around them. 273They were sinking lower and lower. The last sack of ballast went over. The balloon began to shrink round the valve. There must be a leakage. Now a giant roaring wave attempted to grab the gondola.
Stellan had to throw out everything loose, the ballast sacks themselves, ropes, fur coats, stethoscopes and barometer. He used the momentary respite to assist Miss L?hnfeldt up into the rigging where she sat as on a trapeze and held on to the cordage. She was very pale and looked as if she might faint any moment, so he thought it best to make her fast.
“This is abominable,” she mumbled, as if she had been exposed to some clumsiness on the part of a vulgar partner. But she did not whimper.
They swept in over the breakers and rocks of the wild and deserted skerries of K?kars. The gondola was already trailing in the water, and the balloon began to swing and jerk to and fro. Stellan also climbed up into the rigging. He took the anchor with him. With violent jerks they trailed over a stony rocky island on the skerries. Then again they were carried over an empty roaring bay. But now the wind had really turned into the south and there was some wooded country ahead of them. Stellan cut away the gondola, as it made the balloon dip. Then it rose for the last time. They sat as in a swing over the surging water. Phew! now they were rushing in towards the land. A jetty and a few red-painted outhouses were visible in the grey twilight. Stellan dropped anchor in a damp marshy meadow so that the balloon might trail a little and reduce speed. It caught in an alder with a terrible jerk. Quick as lightning he tore open one of the gores—and the balloon partly fell and was partly flung down into a copse of young birches.
Stellan freed himself at once. He hastened to drag out his fellow passenger from below the torn, flapping and billowing balloon cloth. She had fainted....
274Some people came running up and he made them carry her in. They had had the luck to land just beside a country house. Then he rushed to the telephone and arranged for telegrams....
Miss L?hnfeldt lay ill for a few days, till Stellan one day stepped in to her with a bundle of Swedish newspapers full of highly coloured descriptions of the unique and adventurous balloon flight of the well-known tennis player and rider, Miss L?hnfeldt.
For the first time she looked at Stellan with gratitude and approval.
Stellan was invited to the autumn shoot at Trefvinge. He gave a low whistle when he saw the name of Miss L?hnfeldt and not her father on the invitation card. He understood that the invitation was from her and not from her father.
But he also whistled, though in another key, when he heard from the coachman that Captain von Strelert had already arrived. For it was equally evident that Manne, Baron Manne von Strelert was the guest of the Count.
Count L?hnfeldt had, as a matter of fact, been extremely angry over his daughter’s rash action. Busybodies, of course, telephoned at once to Trefvinge to tell him that his daughter had gone up in a balloon with Captain Selamb. In a balloon! It seemed almost indecent to him. He could not remember any really aristocratic ladies who had gone up in a balloon. And with that Captain Selamb into the bargain! From Selambshof ... brother of Peter Selamb...!
When, later in the day, there came a telephone message from Furusund that the balloon had been driven out to sea in the gale, then he regarded the information as a confirmation of his view that Captain Selamb was not the sort of gentleman that the daughter of Count L?hnfeldt should 275go up in the air with. He was so extremely vexed that he scarcely felt any anxiety for the life of his only child.
Towards evening he calmed down a little when he received a wire that they had landed at a quite respectable Finnish-Swedish country house. And when the following day he read in the papers of the brave and sporting action of a lady moving in the highest circles, and of the courage and the self-control of Miss L?hnfeldt, daughter of the well-known Count L?hnfeldt of the magnificent seat at Trefvinge, well, then he thought at last that perhaps his daughter’s eccentricity had something aristocratic in it after all.
But from that admission to the approval of Captain Selamb as in any sort of capacity suitable company for his daughter was a long step,—So far Stellan had not yet come, in spite of his well arranged stage management and press advertisement. It was therefore with measured dignity and a rather chilly expression that the Lord of Trefvinge received him. And this occurred in the largest and most splendid room of the castle, the great tapestry hall, which might well have subdued even the boldest.
“Good-morning, Captain Selamb! My daughter is just dressing for a ride with Baron von Strelert.”
“Yes, I heard that Manne had promised to come for a few days,” answered Stellan in a light, almost insolent, tone. He read the master of the house quite clearly, so clearly indeed that he sometimes was afraid of not being able to keep a straight face.
Count L?hnfeldt was a very short man, in spite of the high heels and extra soles on his shoes. He had an extremely neat face. His words and his gestures were dignified, slow, and heraldically stiff. But his eyes showed a continual nervousness, the nervousness of the actor: “Do I make an impression—do you believe in me?” they seemed to say.
Alas, nobody believed at all in him. People made most 276impudent fun of him behind his back. He was generally called Count Loanfeldt, and the reason was known to everybody.
The owner of Trefvinge was the son of an unmarried actress, but whilst still very young he married the extremely wealthy widow of a brewer, who died when his only daughter was born. The title of Count was Portuguese. He had received it from King Charles, of the house of Bragan?a, after having on a certain delicate occasion lent him a hundred thousand crowns. This happened in Vienna whilst the monarch was still only Crown Prince. L?hnfeldt, who had quite early begun to imagine that his unknown father was a high-born aristocrat, did everything to correct the unjust fate that had given him a plebeian name, and when travelling he always used to try to come into contact with royalty. And now he had managed to procure rooms at the hotel adjoining the suite of the Crown Prince, Charles. It struck him at once that the Crown Prince received a lot of people who did not behave with becoming reverence at all. When he questioned the porters, he shrugged his shoulders. The callers were simply creditors. A gentleman of his Highness’ suite had gambled away all the funds, and for some incomprehensible reason no money arrived from home. He could not even pay his hotel bill.
Herman Bogislaus L?hnfeldt needed no more. He decided to intervene at once for the salvation of the monarchic principle. Bowing, he stepped up to the Crown Prince Charles and begged that an old admirer of the house of Bragan?a might be allowed to hand over to its present august representative an humble gift of a hundred thousand crowns to be used for some charitable purpose.
The Crown Prince received the cheque with an amazed but gracious smile.
About half a year later, L?hnfeldt received two large letters with seals of State and Portuguese stamps. One 277contained an account of the use to which his money had been put in an Orphanage in Lisbon, the other letter contained the letters patent of his title.
He rushed down to Lisbon and threw himself at the feet of the newly crowned King Charles. Then he rushed home again to buy an estate as a background to his new dignity. And now he sat here at Trefvinge, the ancestral home of the Oxenstierna family, and tried to fill out the magnificent frame.
Such was Count L?hnfeldt’s history.
He had one great grief. The title was not hereditary. Already in Elvira’s childhood he would look at the little plebeian with compassion and melancholy. And when she grew up his only hope lay in a suitable marriage for her.
“You must marry, Elvira,” he preached. “If you don’t marry you will remain plain ‘Miss’ all your life.”
But it had not pleased Miss Elvira to marry yet. She was already nearing thirty. Some suitors she had turned away herself, others had withdrawn of their own accord, to the great astonishment of all but the initiated.
Neither Stellan nor Manne belonged to the initiated. But both were in such miserable circumstances. And they knew only too well each other’s business at Trefvinge. All the same, they kept countenance when they met out in the sunshine on the steps, at least Stellan did. Manne was not quite so happy. The poor boy had of course arrived first at the mill but it hurt him all the same to stand in the way of an old friend. So he cast timid and remorseful glances at Stellan when he helped Miss Elvira into the saddle.
She, on the other hand, seemed in excellent spirits this morning.
“Come on, Captain Selamb,” she said with a little side-glance at her father. “C?sar II is free. We are riding towards the sand pit.”
Stellan’s voice sounded cold:
278“Thank you, but I am too much handicapped.”
She shrugged her shoulders and gave her black mare a light cut with her whip. But Manne sat still and looked as if he could not get going. Stellan was cruel enough to wave a glove, with a meaning wink, to remind his friend of his faithlessness to “The Glove.”
Never before in his life had Manne looked so lost on horseback. He suddenly set his bay to a gallop and followed his companion, who was already disappearing through the park gates.
Stellan had settled on an entirely different plan of action to Manne. He had made up his mind to be indifferent to Miss L?hnfeldt so as to excite her spirit of contradiction, and to try to win the father instead. For that reason he at once began to display immense interest in the history of the castle. Faithfully and indefatigably he accompanied the Count, as he rattled out a whole armoury of dates, and roamed around like a parody of greatness in the many splendid apartments. Patiently he sat for hours in the library amongst peerages, pedigrees, genealogies, and Gotha-almanacs and listened to the anecdotes of the lord of the castle. Count L?hnfeldt knew every anecdote concerning a prince.... Then they walked outside and down the steps, and Stellan duly admired the Oxenstierna coat of arms cut in sandstone over the proud Renaissance doorway. He sat with a becoming thrill of reverence on the seat round the giant oak which Axel Oxenstierna had planted with his own hand and in the shadow of which the Count, like the previous owners of the castle, used to sit and marvel at “the small amount of wisdom that the world is ruled with” and grow horrified at the tendency of the time to level us all “like pigs’ feet.” Stellan was surprised at himself that he need not sit silent at the feast but was also able to say something about Oxenstierna. The moment before he had not suspected his knowledge. It had been the same at school long ago when lazy Stellan 279always knew an answer after all. Perhaps it was some kind of thought reading....
The Count by and by worked himself up into stammering enthusiasm. Oxenstierna! Oxenstierna! It sounded as if he were speaking of his own ancestor. Well, who knows if he had not some such thoughts. Then he took Stellan’s arm and drew him to the small Chapel, of which he had the patronage, whose white-washed gable shone under the yellowing birches on the other side of the garden wall. He took the rather large key of the crypt out of a case he always carried in his pocket, and staggered in front of Stellan down into the dusky vault. And over the richly carved oak and copper coffins he mumbled reverently a string of names of which most were well known in history, and stopped at last in front of a gigantic open coffin of porphyry, the lid of which was leaning against the wall.
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