The wonderful adventures of nils

while; but now he happened to raise his eyes. No one can describe his amazement. Before he was aware of it, the wild geese had left the interior of the island and gone westward-toward the sea-coast. Now the wide, blue sea lay before him. However, it was not the sea that was remarkable, but a city which appeared on the sea-shore.
The boy came from the east, and the sun had just begun to go down in the west. When he came nearer the city, its walls and towers and high, gabled houses and churches stood there, perfectly black, against the light evening sky. He couldn`t see therefore what it really looked like, and for a couple of moments he believed that this city was just as beautiful as the one he had seen on Easter night.
When he got right up to it, he saw that it was both like and unlike that city from the bottom of the sea. There was the same contrast between them, as there is between a man whom one sees arrayed in purple and jewels one day, and on another day one sees him dressed in rags.
Yes, this city had probably, once upon a time, been like the one which he sat and thought about. This one, also, was enclosed by a wall with towers and gates. But the towers in this city, which had been allowed to remain on land, were roofless, hollow and empty. The gates were without doors; sentinels and warriors had disappeared. All the glittering splendour was gone. There was nothing left but the naked, gray stone skeleton.
When the boy came farther into the city, he saw that the larger part of it was made up of small, low houses; but here and there were still a few high gabled houses and a few cathedrals, which were from the olden time. The walls of the gabled houses were whitewashed, and entirely without ornamentation; but because the boy had so lately seen the buried city, he seemed to understand how they had been decorated: some with statues, and others with black and white marble. And it was the same with the old cathedrals; the majority of them were roofless with bare interiors. The window openings were empty, the floors were grass-grown, and ivy clambered along the walls. But now he knew how they had looked at one time; that they had been covered with images and paintings; that the chancel had had trimmed altars and gilded crosses, and that their priests had moved about, arrayed in gold vestments.
The boy saw also the narrow streets, which were almost deserted on holiday afternoons. He knew, he did, what a stream of stately people had once upon a time sauntered about on them. He knew that they had been like large workshops-filled with all sorts of workmen.
But that which Nils Holgersson did not see was, that the city-even to-day-was both beautiful and remarkable. He saw neither the cheery cottages on the side streets, with their black walls, and white bows and red pelargoniums behind the shining window-panes, nor the many pretty gardens and avenues, nor the beauty in the weed-clad ruins. His eyes were so filled with the preceding glory, that he could not see anything good in the present.
The wild geese flew back and forth over the city a couple of times, so that Thumbietot might see everything. Finally they sank down on the grass-grown floor of a cathedral ruin to spend the night.
When they had arranged themselves for sleep, Thumbietot was still awake and looked up through the open arches, to the pale pink evening sky. When he had been sitting there a while, he thought he didn`t want to grieve any more because he couldn`t save the buried city.
No, that he didn`t want to do, now that he had seen this one. If that city, which he had seen, had not sunk into the sea again, then it would perhaps become as dilapidated as this one in a little while. Perhaps it could not have withstood time and decay, but would have stood there with roofless churches and bare houses and desolate, empty streets-just like this one. Then it was better that it should remain in all its glory down in the deep.
“It was best that it happened as it happened,” thought he. “If I had the power to save the city, I don`t believe that I should care to do it.” Then he no longer grieved over that matter.
And there are probably many among the young who think in the same way. But when people are old, and have become accustomed to being satisfied with little, then they are more happy over the Visby that exists, than over a magnificent Vineta at the bottom of the sea.
THE LEGEND OF SMALAND
Tuesday, April twelfth.
The wild geese had made a good trip over the sea, and had lighted in Tjust Township, in northern Smaland. That township didn`t seem able to make up its mind whether it wanted to be land or sea. Fiords ran in everywhere, and cut the land up into islands and peninsulas and points and capes. The sea was so forceful that the only things which could hold themselves above it were hills and mountains. All the lowlands were hidden away under the water exterior.
It was evening when the wild geese came in from the sea; and the land with the little hills lay prettily between the shimmering fiords. Here and there, on the islands, the boy saw cabins and cottages; and the farther inland he came, the bigger and better became the dwelling houses. Finally, they grew into large, white manors. Along the shores there was generally a border of trees; and within this lay field-plots, and on the tops of the little hills there were trees again. He could not help but think of Blekinge. Here again was a place where land and sea met, in such a pretty and peaceful sort of way, just as if they tried to show each other the best and loveliest which they possessed.
The wild geese alighted upon a limestone island a good way in on Goose-fiord. With the first glance at the shore they observed that spring had made rapid strides while they had been away on the islands. The big, fine trees were not as yet leaf-clad, but the ground under them was brocaded with white anemones, gagea, and blue anemones.
When the wild geese saw the flower-carpet they feared that they had lingered too long in the southern part of the country. Akka said instantly that there was no time in which to hunt up any of the stopping places in Smaland. By the next morning they must travel northward, over Ostergotland.
The boy should then see nothing of Smaland, and this grieved him. He had heard more about Smaland than he had about any other province, and he had longed to see it with his own eyes.
The summer before, when he had served as goose-boy with a farmer in the neighbourhood of Jordberga, he had met a pair of Smaland children, almost every day, who also tended geese. These children had irritated him terribly with their Smaland.
It wasn`t fair to say that Osa, the goose-girl, had annoyed him. She was much too wise for that. But the one who could be aggravating with a vengeance was her brother, little Mats.
“Have you heard, Nils Goose-boy, how it went when Smaland and Skane were created?” he would ask, and if Nils Holgersson said no, he began immediately to relate the old joke-legend.
“Well, it was at that time when our Lord was creating the world. While he was doing his best work, Saint Peter came walking by. He stopped and looked on, and then he asked if it was hard to do. `Well, it isn`t exactly easy,` said our Lord. Saint Peter stood there a little longer, and when he noticed how easy it was to lay out one landscape after another, he too wanted to try his hand at it. `Perhaps you need to rest yourself a little,` said Saint Peter, `I could attend to the work in the meantime for you.` But this our Lord did not wish. `I do not know if you are so much at home in this art that I can trust you to take hold where I leave off,` he answered. Then Saint Peter was angry, and said that he believed he could create just as fine countries as our Lord himself.
“It happened that our Lord was just then creating Smaland. It wasn`t even half-ready but it looked as though it would be an indescribably pretty and fertile land. It was difficult for our Lord to say no to Saint Peter, and aside from this, he thought very likely that a thing so well begun no one could spoil. Therefore he said: If you like, we will prove which one of us two understands this sort of work the better. You, who are only a novice, shall go on with this which I have begun, and I will create a new land.` To this Saint Peter agreed at once; and so they went to work-each one in his place.
“Our Lord moved southward a bit, and there he undertook to create Skane. It wasn`t long before he was through with it, and soon he asked if Saint Peter had finished, and would come and look at his work. `I had mine ready long ago,` said Saint Peter; and from the sound of his voice it could be heard how pleased he was with what he had accomplished.
“When Saint Peter saw Skane, he had to acknowledge that there was nothing but good to be said of that land. It was a fertile land and easy to cultivate, with wide plains wherever one looked, and hardly a sign of hills. It was evident that our Lord had really contemplated making it such that people should feel at home there. `Yes, this is a good country,` said Saint Peter, `but I think that mine is better.` `Then we`ll take a look at it,` said our Lord.
“The land was already finished in the north and east when Saint Peter began the work, but the southern and western parts; and the whole interior, he had created all by himself. Now when our Lord came up there, where Saint Peter had been at work, he was so horrified that he stopped short and exclaimed: `What on earth have you been doing with this land, Saint Peter?`
“Saint Peter, too, stood and looked around-perfectly astonished. He had had the idea that nothing could be so good for a land as a great deal of warmth. Therefore he had gathered together an enormous mass of stones and mountains, and erected a highland, and this he had done so that it should be near the sun, and receive much help from the sun`s heat. Over the stone-heaps he had spread a thin layer o…