When I Was a Child
VILHELM MOBERG
Translated by
GUSTAF LANNESTOCK
Original edition published in three volumes as Soldat Med Brutet Gevär, © 1946, 1947 by Albert Bonniers Forlag, Stockholm.
Translated and adapted into a single volume by Gustav Lannestock,
© Alfred A. Knopf, 1956
New material © Minnesota Historical Society, 2014
For information, write to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ANSI Z39.48–1984.
International Standard Book Number
ISBN: 978-0-87351-925-0 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-87351-931-1 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moberg, Vilhelm, 1898–1973.
[Soldat med brutet geviir. English]
When I was a child / Vilhelm Moberg;
Translated by Gustaf Lannestock.
pages cm.
“Adapted by the translator from the original edition, published in Sweden … as Soldat med brutet geviir … 1947”
“Translated and adapted into a single volume by Gustav Lannestock, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.”
ISBN 978-0-87351-925-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-87351-931-1 (ebook)
I. Lannestock, Gustaf, translator. II. Title.
PT9875.M5S5613 2014
839.73′72—dc23
2013039322
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When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
—I Corinthians XIII, II
To my American friend
LUCILE LANNESTOCK,
wife of the translator of this book, who has so
ably aided him in rendering it into English.
CHAPTER I
On March 14, 1885, Nils Gottfried Thor, representing district 128 Strängshult, entered the Uppvidinge Company of the Kalmar Regiment as a recruit. He was the son of August Thor, who had served in the same capacity for Korpahult in Madesjö parish. As a soldier he was given the name Sträng for the district he represented. At the regimental muster in 1887, recruit 128 Sträng is listed as the tallest soldier of his company, being six feet four and a half inches in height.
At the age of twenty Sträng had married Hulda Jacobsdotter; her father had been a cotter at a place called Trångadal, near Strängshult; he had died young, but Hulda’s mother was still living in the cottage.
Sträng and his wife begot seven children, six sons and one daughter. Their youngest child was born in 1897, a son named Karl Artur Valter.
128 Sträng had a poor memory for years and dates, but concerning his youngest son’s birth he had one sure point to rely on: Valter was born the year he received his new gun. One day in October he had returned from maneuvers at Hultsfred with a new gun, which he had hung on the wall above the sofa-bed of his soldier-cottage. In that bed was born a few days later his youngest son.
Valter Sträng was born under a gun, a Swedish Army gun, 6.5 millimeter, model 1896.
It is known about his birth that it took place on a weekday morning, during the potato-picking, while the father was away. The labor was so trying for the mother that Balk-Emma, who was called in to help, sent for Grandmother Mathilda at Trångadal; she in turn thought that perhaps they had better send for the midwife this time. But the soldier’s wife replied that if she had managed without a midwife six times before, she might as well do so the seventh time. Thus it was decided. But she fared so ill that she was unable to leave her bed until the third day after the birth.
The widow Balk predicted that Hulda Sträng after this would be spared further childbeds, and her prediction proved to be right.
Balk-Emma tied the child in a woolen shawl, which she hung on the steelyard to weigh the new life; thus it was discovered that he entered the world fully developed—he weighed eleven pounds and a few ounces. The neighbor-village soldier, Oskar Banda, and his wife were asked as godparents, and on All Saints’ Day they carried him to the minister for christening. While Banda’s wife held him at the baptism he reached for the minister’s book as if he wished himself to perform the ritual. This made the godmother predict that the boy would become a minister. During the drive home from church he cried so loudly and persistently that the godfather predicted he would become choirmaster.
Valter was not denied the child’s first and natural right in this world: from the very first day he could still his hunger at a mother’s breast that gave milk in sufficiency.
Grandmother Mathilda was of the opinion that children who did not receive enough milk from the breast went through life dissatisfied; such children grew into difficult people, penurious and evil in character. A child satisfied at his mother’s breast, on the other hand, became a good-natured, kind, and generous person. The grandmother consequently did not worry about Valter’s character or disposition.
Much of his first years was spent outside in the fields and woodlands. When his mother went haying or harvesting, she would carry the boy in a bundle, in order to suckle him when need be. Thus, he often slept under some bush in the meadows, moors, or clearing-edges. In the bundle with him were the wool shears and a knife as protection against trolls, changelings, and other evil beings. But the steel did not protect him against the pismires that crept into the bundle and bit him until he was red all over like a fox pup.
Years passed him by in memoriless darkness. Only an occasional unusual happening, connected with intense pain or joy, etched itself into his soul and became a memory: he upset a kettle of boiling water, was put to bed with blisters on his legs, and was given an egg to eat. The cow had calved and he was given sweet milk, and butter on his bread. He threw a knife at his sister, Dagmar, which made her forehead bleed; he was spanked until his behind hurt and he cried until he lost his breath.
He would lie in bed and reach for the objects around him. He saw a big blue flower on the wall; he picked the flower, yet it remained; he could pick the wallpaper flower whenever he wanted to, yet it always remained in its place. One of the first objects he reached for in this world was the yellow gun belt over his head. But he could not reach it, and so the belt remained in its place. When he grew old enough so that his arms could reach