THE 
AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN 
Review 
Volume X July, 1922 Number 7 
Leonard and the Fisherman 
By SlGFRID Si WERTZ 
Translated from the Swedish by Charles Wharton Stork 
After a dinner consisting of an anchovy and four cold potatoes 
Leonard, a needy artist in woodcuts, wandered about aimlessly through 
the city. It was a May day of the grand and dangerous sort. Over 
the heavens voyaged festal white clouds of giant size, bulging with un¬ 
defined expectations. And the cool, prickly wind whistled with seduc¬ 
tive mockery of all that lay behind the horizon: explorations, adven¬ 
tures, visions of beauty. It was a day of lightness and oppression; of 
futile longing for action; of cold, far-reaching perfidy; and deep, ex¬ 
hausting unrest. How can the breast expand to bursting and at the 
same time feel so horribly empty? thought Leonard. Spring is the 
time when we not only make solemn confession but are merged into a 
new vital existence; whence, then, in the name of all the devils, is this 
emptiness, this lack in the midst of plenty, this criminal tendency to 
put all the glory behind one as quickly as possible? 
Brooding painfully over these things, Leonard reeled about, half 
blind and with aching eyes, through Gustavus Adolphus Place. Finally 
lie succeeded in making a resolution: to go down to the River Terrace 
and see whether the apple trees had begun to blossom yet. 
It proved that they had not gone beyond the budding stage. 
Leonard then dragged himself up to the railing and stood there a 
long while under the branches of a large poplar, watching the North- 
stream tumble its waters between the piers. 
There is a certain immobility in the midst of motion in rushing 
water. The same foaming, roaring wave stays there hour after hour, 
year and year, indicating a stone in the uneven bed of the torrent. 
Leonard sought to calm himself with philosophizing over this wave. 
So does life go on through its forms, he thought. Yonder fettered 
