A Story from the Sand Dunes

It was horrible! Only a living body was left, a body that soon regained health and strength.

Jörgen remained in Merchant Brönne's home. "He lost his mind trying to save our child," said the old man. "He is now our son!"

"Crazy": that was what they called Jörgen now, but it was hardly the right word; he was like a musical instrument with loosened strings that have lost the power of sound. Very rarely, and only for a few moments, would the old power seem to return; then they would give old melodies, or a few chords would be played. Sometimes pictures of the past would seem to rise before his mind, but then they would fade away into the mist, and once more he would sit with a blank, motionless, thoughtless face. We can only hope that he did not suffer. His dark eyes had lost their brightness and looked like black clouded glass.

"Poor crazy Jörgen," people said. And this was he who before he was born, was destined to have such a rich, earthly fortune and such happiness that it would be arrogance, terrible vanity, even to wish for or believe in an afterlife. Were all the fine qualities of his soul wasted? Only cruel days, anguish, and broken hopes had been his lot. He was like a precious root which is torn from its rich soil and flung out to rot in the sand. Could this really be the destiny of a soul created in the image of God - a mere game, battered by the chances of this world? No! The God of love will compensate him in another life for all that he lost and suffered in this. "The Lord is loving unto every man, and his mercy is over all His works." The pious old wife of Merchant Brönne repeated these words from the Psalms of David in faith and comfort, and she prayed that our Lord would soon end Jörgen's life of sorrow and take him to enjoy "God's gift of grace," the life everlasting.

Clara lay buried in the churchyard, where the sand drifted over the walls, but Jörgen did not seem to know this. It never penetrated the narrow world of his thoughts, which lived only in fragments from the past.