The setting of the story is loose and jagged, single huts here and there, bent and worn-out, meandering roads, galleries of trees. The villages are made up of close regiments, which are curled up between the forests, thatched roofs drooping down over the columns, a large part of the year the roads are in such bad condition that going along them is more of an undertaking than going through the forest. A quietness rules around the houses, and there are few people. From time to time a housewife comes out of the house or pulls up her skirt right near the door and lets it out right then and there. Hungry dogs wander by the buildings, chickens run away quickly from them, trash scatters all over.
Those few villages are crammed together on one side of the sea, treeless, deep, and merciless, on the other side of the forest, filled with bushes, deep and merciful. The empty beach, rocky, sharp, prickly, like all plants here that poke, has filtered between them on the border – the beach, whose rocks parse through the individual frequencies in the swarm of the waves like pearls. Going towards Kõpu the shore turns into a sandy beach – a beach, which tries to to go deeper inland sinking its neck into the trees, until movement becomes entirely impossible in the Rattagu forest. From the cape towards midday the atmosphere stands almost in place together with squaking heard miles away, from the cape towards midnight the seals hurry about. Behind the horizon Näckmansgrund’s ceaseless noise answers back.
The sea makes a high-pitched sound through the summer, and from Luidja it answers back more clearly, in Reigi the twisted trees hide its high notes, saving only low frequencies for the villages. After the autumn storms this voice begins to bunch up into narrow cracks, first of all the fibre-like hiss of the reed, then the first snow soaks it, it dries up, finally the last one breaks into pieces – the ice whines. In between this winter storms abruptly swoop down, begin and stop just as abruptly, as the ice convulses and its huge square-kilometer chunks with seals scrape together, unable to restrain the masses. In the summer all of this melts peacefully, the waters are freed, the birds gather in flocks in small places on the cape, bustle about for some time and fly off, leaving only the silence of the swans to the shores.
The forest defending against the sea is not especially high or low. On the inner part of the island there are fields, with freely flying sounds from under the pines flung all around suddenly into the air, depending on the strength and character of the wind, whose form they take there. On crisp nights goats yap under the clouds, their animal sounds are ground into fragile splinters by the millions of thorns – when it is quiet, the sounds of the bittern reach us from far behind Lauka marsh, expanses and the tree tops atomize its sound until it is past the Milky Way – when it is less quiet, the setting sun fulfils its function, which is filled with its shrill, barely audible swish, until the voices that came in the dark and the room become one and the same.
Their villages placed in-between the two halves don’t add anything special – a rooster, or chicken, dog or cat, the creaking of the door, the crackling fire, the chatter of people, a song, crying, shouting, snickering, sighing, laughter. The people’s voices are a little louder than those of the swans, though their unity is much more chaotic then the former.
It is the year 1627.
***
Swedes and Estonians each keep to themselves. Swedes live to some extent better than others – however in the end they are all free farmers, although the feudal baron ruling them from afar repeatedly casts doubt about this – a fact which quite soon becomes their downfall. In their opinion they are first of all probably a little bit better society than those who are named Estonians afterwards – Estonians primarily thanks to their incomprehensible blather.
In any case most Swedes understand that language also, at least on some level. Communication occurs generally on the level of bar fights and shipwrecks, traditions and beliefs have begun to mix together, but they haven’t changed either into a community or a togetherness, and in the end this babbling group of people hasn’t mixed in with the Swedes, who vehemently don’t allow themselves to mix with foreign blood. People lack a kind of characteristic which they could use to process the little bits of information coming from Europe. Native beliefs fulfill this function, the Swedes a little more earthly than Estonians, with Christianity the stories are in any case rather weak in that part. The world outlook of Swedes – their language brought here in the 12th century which, opposite to what is happening across the sea, is stunted in its development, the attitude and music which romaticizes with melisms, things heard elsewhere, embroidery, which they have seen from their forefathers and overdo a bit – while again for Estonians birds, omens, graven images, lamentations, and fundamental rituals for every little event. Just like in Karjala – in the Baltic-Finnic tribes secular marriage as well as divorce, and also having several wives and husbands were acceptable, as there was neither a church or pastor who would have dealt with the overseeing of such rules – not to mention beliefs, which would have given support to the ruling religious order. Through this it is here that the parson is nominated – with especially severe powers, but his work comes with miserable results until the arrival of the Brotherhood1 congregations, and till then there is still much time. In the meanwhile all those who broke these laws run away. No one really is starting to look for them, because there is no one who would especially bother to demand it.
Families rarely talk among themselves, because men are forever at sea. People don’t go to church, because there are none in the surrounding area. Many funerals are left unheld because the horizon doesn’t surrender dead bodies – but souls, who in the form of animals looking at old acquaintances go around or otherwise makes sounds behind the bordering rocks. The situation has made people dependent on each other, but their character doesn’t wish to admit this, and most of the time the majority in terms of the majority are doubtful.
***
Then the Reigi congregation is created. A wooden church is put up on the field of junipers close to the shore, together with a brand-new thatched roofs, not far from the hut that fulfills the function of a kind of old-fashioned bar – and Paulus Andreasepoeg Lempelius is nominated as the parson, born in Lempäälä, now a suburb in Tampere, Finland, a learned man, considerably more than the average man of his times. Coming from a Swedish-speaking family (when the note on Lempelius’s school certificate, that his mother wasn’t of a “lower background” is taken into consideration), but again from a fully Finnish-speaking area. His family had always wanted their son to become a learned man and for this they also put in much effort (a comparision being the story of Tobias or Köler centuries later), again he being raised with a strict moral upbringing almost to a total coldness. His father had died early, or then Paulus had been born to rather old parents, because Paulus was never together with his father as an adult. The last two things together make Lempelius a quiet and earnest boy with little empathy, who only ignores his feelings when dealing with them, demanding more from himself than from others. After Turku Academy he lands in Tallinn, at a promising official post, as the rector of the Dome school, where barely after perservering for a year is dismissed for some unknown reason. Soon after that he marries Catharina Wieck, who is the daughter of a German (supposedly of a lower class-standing) merchant from Haapsalu. They get a house as a dowry from Catharina’s hometown, which is more fuss and problems than happiness. The marriage of Lempelius and Catharina is the regular agreed-upon marriage of those times, strengthening their class standing and men’s doings between themselves. At the time of the marriage Catharina is about 20 years old, not older (she is already slightly late), and Paulus is 15-20 years older (likewise slightly late).
For Catharina’s father Lempelius is a bit over the acceptable limit according to the rules of those times, but Catharina was in her own way also a suspiciously successful party for Lempelius, because with a dismissal in those times Catharina’s family wouldn’t have allowed such a man to make contact so easily. Unclear and confused compromises are playing in the background of the marriage noticeably enough. Why did Lempelius need to get married suddenly after being dismissed? For financial security? Because of some confused relationship in Tallinn that proved disastrous and from which he had to free himself? Because of some sign of fondness? Why did Catharina’s father need to show his daughter precisely to Paulus? Was Catharina pregnant? Or because of her character or looks?
A year after which no news is known (Lempelius and Catharina spending their time for example in Haapsalu), Lempelius is installed at Reigi. On one hand it is being sent to place, on the other hand again Reigi economic conditions are quite solid. Apparently it has something to do assumingly with a very spectacular compensation, similar like a minister sent to be a diplomat. In any case, he is now far from the large power of the lobby noticeable to all forever. Also his stern character is known to those who installed him, and for the den of sins that is Northern Hiiumaa, this fits Lempelius very well, also his knowledge of foreign languages is a plus, because if he didn’t speak Estonian, then at that time those languages hadn’t developed so far away from each other yet – on top of that for Lempäälä the surrounding Finnish dialects are much closer to Estonia’s northern dialects even to this day.
Lempelius is stern, smart and naïve, power doesn’t play an important part in his life, and his exposure in Tallinn with this has led him more towards puzzlement than enticement. Puzzlement is not the right word – he hadn’t understood it correctly, before it was suddenly taken from him.
Through this the first years at Reigi he felt the temptation to put this power into use, using all of the authority empowered to all pastors – like trying to sow all of the unknown seeds here, which he had just now gotten. All of his disillusionment and fury turns him into a vain person – some time after he builds yet another chapel, a bit farther, in Kõpu, behind the singing sands, so the word of the Lord can be brought closer to them and secure his power on the cape full of owls stretching towards Stockholm. The people of the village didn’t catch the enthusiasm, fulfilling their duties with a surface orderliness, but without accepting it inside, which influences Lempelius quite strongly. He had almost no close friends, just a relative of Catharina’s who lives here on Hiiumaa island, is considered part of the family, some bored woman of noble birth allow him to visit, he grows cold together with them in their damp and cold rooms and leaves all the same afterwards, in the Swedish and Estonian groups he is not their own - for the first too educated and too much of a high standing, for the others too foreign and demanding. The closed ring is strong, but not fatal.
At that time Lempelius doesn’t wish to become one of them, he wishes to fulfill his duty. To become one of them here – with who? With the farmers? He has been above their standing long ago. With the slaves? With the nobles? For them he is too intellectual and of an inferior breed, relations with them are limited to forms of politeness and some occassional hunts which are like a huge statement of respect, which leave Lempelius cold. His wage is big, his life is secure, his violence influences the farmers a bit better than non-violence, but there are still no results. Lempelius becomes depressed about this little by little – at first unnoticeably and without any clue, he starts to go around more and more in the forest and on the sea, in the world, in which he had never shown any interest before – as the years pass he starts to become conscious of his resignation, but there is still a long road towards that.
Migrations don’t manage in any case to lighten the feeling he longs for, he uses his instincts going between their wooden cathedrals, like he was looking at nature from behind some wall. He secretly becomes envious of Catharina’s inner understanding of animal-like connection with those owls, larks, and the wind, and he doesn’t manage to understand why he was capable of knowing what Catharina feels, in her area of birth, long ago. Afterwards it doesn’t leave him at peace, he roams and roams and roams, he is compelled here again and again to turn back, from time to time he collects some asthetic –theological experiences, which he consecrates into relic-like memories polishing them, but returning to the forests this charm again fades. This prepares once again a sort of puzzlement for Lempelius, which he doesn’t know how to identify.
Catharina stands next to him like an extra body, she is chunky and moves shakily, with a boasting voice and explosive smile – pastoral work suits her, but as a few years pass by she begins to crush the ends of her sentences togetherdiligently, though without spite, with the phrase “in Haapsalu things were different”. This remains abstract harping without any hidden agenda. Bedroom life for Lempelius and Catharina was orderly and boring, often not succeeding. Catharina relates to this like something which is her husband’s duty and which her roll in is minimal – children are born and grow up, the children run in and out of the house, other times it is dead quiet, if you don’t take into consideration the sound of the sea behind the field of junipers and gusts of fresh wind from under the corners of the roof. In reality the loneliness has yet to start.
In reality loneliness begins for Lempelius when – ten years have past – when he feels that his lessons which he has tried to stuff into the people, are just as fruitless as Greek lessons. The thought of an ordinary life, which he had found for himself painfully after his experiences during his Tallinn days, fade away again, …..change into faded and bland like the fat of a seal, and the same when unexpectedly one day discovers that he is dismissed from the Toom school, the same unexpectedly one morning he discovers himself pondering the question, with whom in the end he has a connection with in this earthly life..
Maybe for the first time in his life he feels a longing for his home, Finland, - somewhere, where they would speak in the same style around him as when he was taking his first steps, somewhere, where he wouldn’t need to leave unspoken things which in some known and unrepeatable style in his head twirled around just so and not in some other form like that which was done in his childhood Lempäälä.
He didn’t want to think like that of course, there are too many aspects to it, not able to be voiced or felt in the whirl of emotions would make him ill, he needs to find the winding road so he could find some explanation offering relief for this situation.
It wasn’t his wife, who would inspire a feeling of connection for him, because his wife is simply his wife. The servants already not for a long time. He had no friends. The only that he manages to lean on, is that –in the middle of those forests and marshes and those bitterns and swans and seals – which makes Paul Lempelius, that, which makes him the parson of Reigi, and that is his intellect.
In order to save his children from the same doom of idiocy, he wishes to give them a good education, and for that a home tutor is needed. A home tutor arrives. And that is Jonas Nicolaus Kempe.
***
This Swede from Sweden arrives in Reigi after graduating from Tartu University and abandoning his wife in Pärnu.
His soul is squeezed together and awry, but he knows how to act. He obtains Lempelius’s trust with little trouble, they find common ground, and Lempelius begins to consider him as his successor and future son-in-law. Conversations with Kempe stimulate Lempelius’s intellect that had come to a halt so much that the latter begins to more and more seriously feel longing for the library, cathedrals of stone together with the music floating inside come to mind, his high intelligence, whatever. Something, which he considered as a boy and youth as a true life. In the end he doesn’t manage to deny his feelings and he goes to Finland, asking the bishop to install Kempe as the replacement parson. As an excuse his own father stays at home transporting books, and taking his sons to Turku Academy.
At that time Kempe discovers the path to Catharina’s empty bedroom, and what happens there makes a huge impression on Catharina. A flame turns into a fire in a second, which throws Lempelius into confusion when he finally comes back from his trip. Lempelius has to deal with his unclear feelings in any case: instead of the awaited numbness the trip puts him into a more severe confrontation with Reigi, he feels the emptiness of the shores on an almost physical level, the hostility of the people against rational thinking, he doesn’t know how to fully explain Catharina’s strange state in any way – his wife gives dodging responses, and being with Catharina in any case till the end of his life strange in a chummy sort of way doesn’t sit well with him.
Kempe’s boil on his soul has become inflamed, and that is a power, which Lempelius has over the people here - which he in the meanwhile has put his hand in. Lempelius doesn’t manage to catch the idea of Kempe’s movements – the Power which for him would be noteworthy, doesn’t exist anymore, and this local power here is something which he can manage with fantastically without losing his mind.
But Kempe doesn’t know where to project this burning sensation. He must be able to beat Lempelius into the cracks of the earth and make him disappear in order to be big enough out of these three in this complex world. He sets about making a written complaint, in order to somehow undermine Lempelius’s position: already just merely watching Lempelius’s movement rubs the buttons of his vest too painfully. He has already snatched his wife for himself, although the parties concerned try to hide this at the beginning – this fact gives additional strength to Kempe’s weak self-confidence. But more is needed. So Kempe writes to the bishop, which is very interesting. The accusations are mostly justified, because it has not remained unnoticed to Lempelius either that his no one controls his activities here behind God’s back. The bishop reacts apathetically and without saying anything. Nothing is left for Kempe to do but to write new letters of complaint like a bad-tempered wasp. The trouble isn’t even taken to reply to them anymore.
This theatre lasts for some time behind Lempelius’s back, exactly so long as Lempelius vaguely suspects something – at that time when he doesn’t doubt it anymore, the activities between Kempe and Catharina don’t interest him anymore. From time to time he has fits of rage, but they pass, and doesn’t have the slightest effect on anyone. His relates to Kempe with a paradoxal stoicism: “in my opinion you are in the wrong position for this fight, and your weapons of fare don’t fade me in the slightest of ways.” Kempe tries everything he can, finally he burns down Lempelius’s chapel in Kõpu. Lempelius is certainly irritated, but in the end he settles down, because the idea of the Kõpu chapel as his exegi monumentumist has already lost colour for him.
This time is the culmination of loneliness in his life, and it lasts hellishly long. His children have distanced themselves from him, he is a stranger in his own house, he is a foreigner in his own country, the group of people he lives among is foreign to him. His excursions past the ice and forest offer him a slight consolace, the studying of books winning over sleep, but the hurt in him won’t give up until the time for it is ripe – relief, which he has no belief in.
After everything he has one thing that is the most important in the situation given – the ability to suffer.
***
Catharina’s nerves break down. The man she is married with doesn’t pay any attention to her, while the man she has passion for uses her shamelessly. The place Catharina considered her home for so long turns into a prison for her, she wishes to get out, but she has no chance for this. She, who has felt the least lonely out of the three, gradually begins to get sick, like her subconscious is announcing that you can’t deal with it. Strong liquors taste better to her more than earlier, much later, plunging already so low that she goes begs for them in the village – she performs a whole line of provocative steps while drunk to press at least some emotions of ownership from Lempelius for her). When people are closeby, then Lempelius attempts to admonish his wife to being proper, it is simply embarrassing for him, but at that moment this speech doesn’t reach Catharina as much as her witnesses. Of course Catharina instinctively comprehends what she could injure Lempelius the best with, and so, in-between the strongest quarrel she tells him off to his face that he’s a Finnish whore, a Finnish dog and a Finnish….what was the third one?
Lempelius collapses from pain, because suddenly he has understood something – and this is the first time, when he has a distinct, clearly graspable feeling.
***
My thoughts circle all the time around the same themes, like someone who feels the necessity of always counting in his own language.
So I walked to the seacoast and looked upon the horison to see the opposite shore in the hope that I would understand that which I have done wrong.
But the horison that I held in my hands was just as vast as all ways and confusion reined in my mind. If this would have been taken from me, then it would be easier for me to bear. But it has come upon me to take it from myself, and therefore I am not able to bear it.
Thus I began to build a boat for myself, though I have never sailed far from my coast, only passing back and forth between these coasts here – looking upon vastness as though no opposite shore would have existed anywhere. I knew that it was somewhere, but knowledge is merely knowledge, and the opposite shore presented itself in me like a fata morgana, an illusion existing nowhere else other than in my head.
***
The triangle of Lempelius, Kempe and Catharina draws its life’s strength from total isolation. The circle of people is small and without alternative, so in whatever way it can be stirred around forever like Finnish Easter dishes.
Isolation.
***
A terrible change occurs in Lempelius. Without trying in any way to solve the question of belonging or not belonging, he forgets it, accepts it, becomes nonchalant about it – the result of which being that he begins to gradually fraternize with the people of the shore, being surprised how much intellegence the primitive beings in any case are capable of carrying in themselves. A missionary doesn’t change belief, but transforms it closer to them, he doesn’t condemn according to the rules of Tallinn, but lives next to their traditions, wishes and customs. Therefore in the end he has reached so var that he sees the relationship of Catharina and Kempe publically, and it doesn’t bother him especially.
Well it might bother him. Sometimes. Also his own shameless using bothers him. But, while admonishing Catharina from time to time, and getting always the same unpleasant answers, he loses himself quietly to his own bedroom and trys to forget it. He has now learned this art very well.
***
But the old winners stay lonely, Catharina and Kempe, in their own way.
Catharina’s passion doesn’t leave him at peace, his body creaks like the last breath before getting old. She can’t even get revenge at her husband, because it doesn’t affect Lempelius in any way. When she tries to provoke him, it becomes clear that Lempelius doesn’t remember anything from those events, which Catharina gives him like bones to chew on. Lempelius is astonished – when could these events find their place, I don’t remember anything? Or then he remembers them entirely differently. Catharina’s rage and anger can’t find any outlet, she stops having dreams and while awake she changes more into something similar to that like drifting harbour girls are known for.
But in her heart the annoying worm of Kempe doesn’t give in. He doesn’t wish to talk with Catharina about those things, Lempelius doesn’t listen to him. Catharina doesn’t have contact with Kempe on a spiritual level, like that which exists for her duty and respect for her husband – she has but an unexplainable and unyielding animal-like urge with Kempe, whch is in and of itself terribly wonderful.
And this lasts again for years.
***
With this life of chaos having quieted down, the rumours of there life are spread, which finally after many years begins to spread to Tallinn as well. The continual indifference of the city masters is replaced with responsibility, how could it be, that we send a pastor to Reigi to enlighten the people and anchor Christianity there, what is the result? Gradually the commissions arrive, and begin to pull witnesses to the front, the people’s natural curiosity for the unclear and unexplainable adds to the fire, the testimonies and pseudo-testimonies rain down randomly with an uneasy silence.
Catharina is scared, Kempe at the beginning sees his wish to see Lempelius in a staggering state fulfilled, but he is scared then and also becomes tranquil, when at one moment discusses with Lempelius about whether it would be for him to go back to Parnu to his wife. Lempelius comes also to a clear thought in line with the Tallinn rules, and thinks that he must at least in some way be respectful of his wife in their eyes. His testimonies to the investigatos are a mixture of the Tallinn-Reigi spirit, neither of which he can understand. The two worlds in his head have suddenly started to rule and he himself is unsteady between them, barely able to stay on his feet.
Promises are made to investigate more effectively, and the threats thunder assumingly seriously. Like dissidents, Kempe and Catharina understand that this time it cannot be suppressed. They decided to run away, just like the farmers, from the demands of the church, hoping that their affair would be left in the dark like in the case of the village people. However for the right of honour now for Tallinn the scapegoats can be gotten and this happens a few years later. Lempelius has a hand in this helpless situation. He doesn’t know anything reasonable to say to the court in Tallinn, and saddles them with making a decision. But the decision is uncharacteristically severe for those times, like in the finding of scapegoats in politics, nor does Lempelius’s position give them protection. The downfall is taken to completion almost right away after the trial, extremely quickly, like a quota was being fulfilled.
Lempelius staggers and just now begins to understand the feelings that have come under the hammer, who Catharina was next to him. Yes, who was she? A wife true to her duties, a little vulgar, someone who next to Lempelius’s slipping power never once managed to put her own life in order. This feeling brings Lempelius further to the bottom, because finally after all he has found capacity of empathy in himself. The realization how lonely his wife must have felt during the last weeks paralyses him. But he must pay the price for this last discovery, which he is not able to anymore.
He achieves peace, he achieves contact with himself and his heart, as well when his mind begins to gradually vanish, he falls into a stream of dreams and unexplained things, with new ones coming all the time and which the commissions coming to Reigi get entangled in. Finally when he is already totally weak, they leave him at peace. His mind is white and softened during his death like wool warmed by the sun.
One of his sons becomes a tailor on Hiiumaa island, who long after Lempelius’s death still fiddles around with the house in Haapsalu received as a dowry.
Foreword to the libretto of "The Opposite Shore". Jüri Reinvere 2002 ©