A Story from the Sand Dunes

Shadows of the clouds swept over the water, to be followed by dazzling sunshine; flocks of birds flew screaming overhead while wild ducks, heavily and sleepily drifting on the surface of the water, started into the air in panic at the sight of the swimmer. Jörgen felt his strength going fast when he was only a few cables' lengths from shore. But help was coming - a boat was drawing near! Just then he distinctly saw a white figure in the water. A wave lifted him up; the figure came nearer; he felt a stunning shock, and everything became dark around him.

There on the sand reef lay the wreck of a ship with the sea partly covering it; the white figurehead leaned against an anchor, and only the sharp iron edge projected above the water. Driven on by the fatal force of the current, Jörgen had struck against this figurehead; in a daze he sank with his burden, but the next wave lifted him and the young girl.

The fisherman got them both into his boat; blood was streaming over Jörgen's face, and he looked as if he were dead; but he still held the girl so tightly they had to tear her from his arm. They placed Clara, pale and lifeless, in the boat and rowed toward Grenen. All methods of restoring her were tried, but in vain - she was dead. For some time Jörgen must have been carrying a corpse, struggling and wrestling for the life of one who was already dead.

"Jörgen still breathed, and they carried him to the nearest cottage in the sand dunes. A sort of army surgeon - he was also a smith and a trader - who happened to be on the spot bound up his wound, and the next day a physician was sent for from Hjörring.

But his brain was affected; he lay raving and uttering wild cries until the third day, when he fell into a sort of trance. It seemed his life hung by a thread, and for this thread to give way, the doctor said, was the best wish they could have for him. "Let us pray for our Lord to take him; he will never be a man again."

But life did not leave him; the thread did not break, though memory and all other faculties of the mind were injured.