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i
Series Editors:
Martin Loughlin, John P. McCormick, and Neil Walker
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde
Professor Emeritus, University of Freiburg
and
Former Judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Edited by
Mirjam Künkler
Research Professor, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
and
Tine Stein
Professor of Political Theory, University of Göttingen
VOLUME II
••
1
iv
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© E.W. Böckenförde, M. Künkler, and T. Stein 2020
© This Translation, Thomas Dunlap 2020
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2020
Impression: 1
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
The translation of this work was supported by Geisteswissenschaften International—Translation Funding
for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the
German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Börsenverein des Deutschen
Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association).
v
Preface
vi • Preface
reception literatures in languages other than German. This led to a further con-
ference, convened in February 2019, on the reception of Böckenförde’s work in
Japan, Korea, Latin America, and Southern and Eastern Europe. Contributions
to this third conference were published as Beiheft Nr. 24, titled ‘Die Rezeption
der Werke Ernst- Wolfgang Böckenfördes in international vergleichender
Perspektive’, of the journal Der Staat, a journal Böckenförde had co-founded
in 1962.
As we prepared the publication of this volume, brilliant friends and col-
leagues once again provided immeasurable help with comments and advice.
They include David Abraham, Markus Böckenförde, Dieter Gosewinkel,
Michael J. Hollerich, Olivier Jouanjan, Oliver Lepsius, Reinhard Mehring, Ulrich
K. Preuß, and Julian Rivers. We are deeply grateful to them.
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde shared his thoughts on the selection of arti-
cles for both volumes and until the end of 2018 was available to meet with us
and communicate in other ways whenever we sought clarification. We are very
grateful for those opportunities. In April 2017 we convened a launch of Volume
I for him at the University of Freiburg, an event which many of his former
colleagues at the university as well as other legal scholars and practitioners
attended, and which appeared to give him great pleasure.
Other launch events were held at New York University Law School, the
Humboldt University Berlin, Uppsala University, the University of Kiel, the
Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the London School of Economics and
Political Science, and at conferences of the German Studies Association and the
International Society for Public Law. We thank our colleagues who hosted these
events and discussed Böckenförde’s writings there, including Robert Alexy,
Andreas von Arnauld, Peter Carl Caldwell, Iain Cameron, Sabino Cassese, Max
Edling, Dieter Gosewinkel, Ludger Hagedorn, Michaela Hailbronner, Anna
Jonsson Cornell, Olivier Jouanjan, Mattias Kumm, Martin Loughlin, Aline-
Florence Manent, Johannes Masing, Ralph Michaels, Kai Möller, Christoph
Möllers, Jo Eric Khushal Murkens, Claus Offe, Julian Rivers, Mark Edward Ruff,
Sascha Somek, Guglielmo Verdirame, Rainer Wahl, and Christian Waldhoff.
As with Volume I, we have been fortunate to employ the services of Thomas
Dunlap for the translation. Due to the range of topics and multiple disciplinary
perspectives involved, the translation was a particularly challenging one. We
thank Thomas Dunlap for mastering this task so skilfully.
We thank Oxford University Press, especially Eve Ryle-Hodges and Imogen
Hill, for guiding this publication along with such generous dedication and sup-
port. We further thank Geisteswissenschaften International for partially fund-
ing the translations for this volume, and Verena Frick and Sven Altenburger,
both of the University of Göttingen, for their assistance in the preparation of
this volume.
Wherever it seemed necessary, we have inserted annotations (indented and
marked with Latin numerals) that include further explanations on the context
of German or European politics and history. A comprehensive list of Ernst-
Wolfgang Böckenförde’s publications is included in the appendix, as well as the
vii
Preface • vii
laudatio given by former Federal President Joachim Gauck on the occasion of
awarding Böckenförde the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of
Germany.
As this project comes to an end, we marvel at the intellectual journey Ernst-
Wolfgang Böckenförde has moved us to undertake. It has been an honour and
inspiration, not only to work closely with his texts and to try to understand
better how he reconciled his identities as a social democrat, a political liberal,
and a Catholic reformer, but also to enter into conversation with so many of his
explicit and implicit interlocutors. These work in disciplines as diverse as legal
theory, legal history, constitutional law, legal education, social history, Catholic
theology, Catholic social thought, canon law, political theory, intellectual his-
tory, social policy, sociology, comparative politics, philosophy, legal ethics, and
diverse geographies. The conversations will continue as Böckenförde continues
to move his readers into profound intellectual engagement. We are grateful to
him, as we editors are to each other, for the exciting journey travelled together.
Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein, December 2019.
viii
ix
Table of Contents
Translator’s Note xi
by Thomas Dunlap
x • Table of Contents
PART III. ON THE THEOLOGY OF LAW
AND POLITICAL THEORY
Böckenförde on the Relationship Between Theology, Law,
and Political Theory 238
by Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein
Translator’s Note
This project has been a team effort from beginning to end. Translating legal
German into English is a notoriously difficult task. I am grateful that I was able
to draw on some previous translations by J. A. Underwood. Mirjam Künkler and
Tine Stein read each chapter very carefully and made many crucial improve-
ments. I was very fortunate, indeed, to have had such conscientious and skilled
collaborators.
Thomas Dunlap, February 2018
xii
1
I. Introduction
The freedom of the individual can always only be defended as the freedom of
all. Thus argued Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde at the age of thirty-one, in an
article he himself later referred to as the article that most shaped his thinking.2
He wrote this apropos the Catholic Church’s approach to democracy in the
postwar years before Vatican II,3 which he regarded as driven by instrumentalist
considerations. The Church was willing to accept majority rule only as long as
the areas relevant to its own interests (education, value debates, the Church’s
status vis-à-vis the state) remained beyond the reach of majority rule. What is
more, it claimed religious freedom for itself, without being willing to grant the
same rights to other religions. Böckenförde had particular trouble understand-
ing such a position as a lawyer. How can one expect to enjoy a right that one is
not willing to grant to others, he asked.4
Freedom is a cornerstone in Böckenförde’s thinking, but what does it entail
precisely? For Böckenförde, it is first and foremost individual freedom, and it
must be protected against both state power and societal power. State power
must be limited by a democratic constitution with strongly enshrined personal
1
This chapter has benefited from numerous discussions with my friend and colleague Tine Stein, as well as
our past joint publications. I thank her as well as Peter C. Caldwell, Michael Hollerich, Otto Kallscheuer, and
Joachim Wieland for excellent comments.
2
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘German Catholicism in 1933’, CrossCurrents 11 (1961), pp. 283–303, included
as Chapter II in this volume. See in this regard in particular his reflections on the article in ‘Vorbemerkung’,
in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Kirche und christlicher Glaube in den Herausforderungen der Zeit, 2nd ed.
(Münster: LIT Publishing House, 2007), p. 114.
3
The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) fundamentally redefined the Church’s doctrinal position in several
areas, notably regarding the issue of religious freedom. See more extensively note 120.
4
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Religionsfreiheit als Aufgabe der Christen [1965]’, in Böckenförde 2007
(note 2), pp. 197–212.
2
5
‘Der Rechtsstaat zielt stets auf die Begrenzung und Eingrenzung staatlicher Macht im Interesse der Freiheit
der Einzelnen’, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Entstehung und Wandel des Rechtsstaatsbegriffs’, in
Horst Ehmke and Carlo Schmid (eds.), Festschrift für Adolf Arndt zum 65. Geburtstag (Hamburg: Europäische
Verlagsanstalt, 1969), pp. 53–76; published in English as ‘The Origin and Development of the Concept of
the Rechtsstaat’ in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, State, Society and Liberty: Studies in Political Theory and
Constitutional Law, transl. by Jim Underwood (New York: Berg Publishers, 1991), pp. 47–70.
6
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘The State as an Ethical State’, included as Chapter III in volume I of this
edition, Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings, ed. Mirjam Künkler
and Tine Stein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 86–107.
7
Hermann Heller, Gesammelte Werke, 2nd ed., vol. II. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992 [1928]). On the extent
to which Böckenförde’s concept of the state relies on Hermann Heller, see Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein,
‘Böckenförde’s Political Theory of the State’, in volume I of this edition, pp. 38–53; and Olivier Jouanjan,
‘Between Carl Schmitt, the Catholic Church, and Hermann Heller: On the foundations of democratic theory
in the work of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic
Theory 45 (2) (2018), pp. 184–195.
8
‘Eigentum, Sozialbindung des Eigentums, Enteignung’, in Konrad Duden, Helmut R. Külz et al. (eds.),
Gerechtigkeit in der Industriegesellschaft. Rechtspolitischer Kongreß der SPD, Mai 1972 in Braunschweig.
3
Introduction • 3
state action, he wrote about the Basic Law, is at the same time constrained by a
concept of the state according to which constitutional principles entail the duty
to provide social services. Constitutionally guaranteed freedom could not be
enjoyed unless specific material needs were met first. If liberty were to be guar-
anteed to all rights holders, specific societal and legal framework conditions had
to be provided for, the most important of which was ‘the constant relativization
of societal inequality that arises continually from the exercise of liberty’. The
Basic Law in fact imposed a ‘social state as a binding constitutional principle on
par with that of the Rechtsstaat’,9 he argued.
On the other hand, Böckenförde is not exclusively a statist, and here again,
his position draws in part on Hegel. For the liberal state needs binding forces
that ‘hold it’. In Hegel, this is an abstract Geist—attitudes and dispositions that
support the liberal state. Böckenförde grounded these attitudes and dispositions
in societal forces and individuals. Like Hegel, he referred to this as an ‘ethos’
that needed to feed the commons. These binding forces needed to emanate
from the citizenry and the citizenry’s willingness to continually work with one
another to formulate and secure the public good. Thus, Böckenförde’s entire
state theory stands and falls with the ethos that emanates from society and that
is needed to sustain the state. As he formulated in his often-quoted dictum: ‘the
liberal, secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself guarantee’.10
What are the sources of this social ethos, in Böckenförde’s eyes? Religion,
that is personal faith, can be an important source and it was certainly the major
source for his own motivation to take on public responsibility as a scholar,
judge, and public intellectual.11 But beside religion, ‘philosophical, political and
social movements can strengthen . . . the willingness to not always look out for
one’s own benefit only, but to act companionably and in solidarity with oth-
ers’.12 Moreover, and this is a crucial point that has been overlooked by some of
his readers, he insists that religion can be a source for a democratic ethos only if
it is placed in the service of the common good, not of particular religious goals,
and not of the interests of individual religious groups,13 a point taken up again
towards the end of this introduction.
Further, it is only in the secular state, wrote Böckenförde in 1957, that
Christianity can be ‘a religion of freedom’ (again implicitly referencing Hegel).14
Dokumentation, C. F. Müller (1972), pp. 215–231. This article was also included in his 1976 Suhrkamp compila-
tion but unfortunately was the only article not included when the collection was published in English in 1991.
9
‘Grundrechtstheorie und Grundrechtsinterpretation’, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (1974), pp. 1529–1538;
published in English as ‘Fundamental Rights: Theory and Interpretation’, Chapter XI in volume I of this edi-
tion, p. 288. Emphasis in the original.
10
‘Die Entstehung des Staates als Vorgang der Säkularisation’, in s.ed., Säkularisation und Utopie. Ebracher
Studien. Ernst Forsthoff zum 65. Geburtstag, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1967, pp. 75-94; included in this volume as
Chapter V, ‘The Rise of the State as a Process of Secularization’.
11
See his article ‘A Christian in the Office of Constitutional Judge’, Chapter XI in this volume.
12
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Freiheit ist ansteckend’. die tageszeitung, 23 September 2009, p. 4.
13
Böckenförde 1961 (note 2).
14
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Das Ethos der modernen Demokratie und die Kirche’, Hochland 50(1) (1957),
pp. 4–19, included as Chapter I in this volume.
4
15
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Das unselige Handeln nach Kirchenraison’, Süddeutsche Zeitung 29 April
2010. ‘The main concern is that the sanctity of the institution is not endangered –this maxim is the real scan-
dal and the reason for the crisis.’
16
According to a declaration by the German bishops of 20 June 2006, Church staff are prohibited from partic-
ipating in Donum Vitae, and all other Catholics involved in ecclesiastical councils, committees, associations,
and organizations are requested to renounce any senior cooperation with the association.
5
A Biographical Synopsis • 5
of excerpts of the biographical interview that historian and legal scholar Dieter
Gosewinkel conducted with Böckenförde in 2009/2010.17
Section II of this introductory chapter provides an abridged overview of
Böckenförde’s academic career and public engagement (a fuller version is con-
tained in the Introduction to Volume I). Section III offers an overview and perio-
dization of his academic writings in seven phases from 1957 to 2012. Section IV
presents some of his key writings and positions as an inner-Catholic critic, as
a theorist of the place of ethos in the public order, and as a thinker of ‘open
encompassing neutrality’ between religion and state. Section V offers a reflec-
tion on the cover images Böckenförde chose for the two volumes, before the
conclusion closes with brief remarks on Böckenförde’s view of religion in
democracy compared to other theorists of democracy and secularism.
17
The 170 page-long interview was published in ‘Biographisches Interview’, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde,
Wissenschaft, Politik, Verfassungsgericht. Aufsätze von Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011), pp.
307–486. Selections are published here in Chapter XVI, as well as in Volume I.
18
Hochland was a Catholic cultural magazine that published contributions by authors regardless of their
denomination and was viewed with scepticism by the Catholic Church for its independence, critical spirit,
and anti-denominationalism.
19
For Böckenförde’s academic biography, see in more detail Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein, ‘State,
Constitution and Law. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s Political and Legal Thought in Context’, in volume I of
this edition, pp. 1–35.
6
20
He did so through the prism of the statutory basis requirement for encroachment (Gesetzesvorbehalt): the
idea that the executive may not encroach upon the citizens’ fundamental rights unless the legislature passes
a law permitting such encroachment. With the introduction of the legal concept of the statutory basis
requirement for encroachment, the balance between monarchy and popular sovereignty had shifted in favour
of the latter. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Gesetz und gesetzgebende Gewalt. Von den Anfängen der deutschen
Staatsrechtslehre bis zur Höhe des staatsrechtlichen Positivismus (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1958).
21
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Die deutsche verfassungsgeschichtliche Forschung im 19. Jahrhundert. Zeitgebundene
Fragestellungen und Leitbilder (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1961).
22
To become eligible for a professorship in Germany, it used to be the case that an applicant needed to have
a doctorate and a second major work, usually in the same field, i.e. the habilitation (combined with the venia
legendi, the authorization to teach the subject at university level). Nowadays a second book is widely regarded
as equivalent to the formal habilitation, although many scholars still seek the formal acquisition of a habilita-
tion as well. To have two doctorates like Böckenförde is rather unusual and testifies to his broad intellectual
interests.
23
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Die Organisationsgewalt im Bereich der Regierung. Eine Untersuchung zum
Staatsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1964).
24
Joachim Ritter, professor in Münster, was one of the most influential German philosophers of the post-
war period. He edited the 13-volume ‘Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie’, a standard work in the
discipline of philosophy. Böckenförde contributed three entries: ‘Normativismus’ in Historisches Wörterbuch
der Philosophie, ed. Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, vol. VI (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1984), p. 931f.;
‘Ordnungsdenken, konkretes’, in ibid, pp. 1311–1313; and ‘Rechtsstaat’, in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie,
ed. Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, vol. VIII (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1993), pp. 332–342.
7
A Biographical Synopsis • 7
posed the questions of how to combine an openness to the people’s will with
political order in the early, conservative and skeptical years of the Federal
Republic. While a graduate student in Münster, Böckenförde was invited to
join the Collegium. The introduction to Hegel, in particular Hegel’s idea of the
state, would profoundly shape Böckenförde’s subsequent intellectual develop-
ment. Beyond the philosophical formation, the Collegium Philosophicum also
had a lasting sociological impact: here Böckenförde met future colleagues, such
as philosopher Robert Spaemann, who would become occasional co-authors
and lifelong companions.
While Ritter's group focused on philosophical thinking, another circle influ-
enced Böckenförde’s development and career as a legal scholar by bringing
him into contact with leading legal thinkers, who were also concerned with
democracy and the state but more skeptical of democratic claims. This was the
‘Ebrach summer seminar’, a twoweek seminar convened every year by legal
scholar Ernst Forsthoff in Ebrach village in Upper Franconia.25 Here aspiring
legal scholars were invited to discuss their papers with established ones—and
Carl Schmitt was a regular participant. Böckenförde’s groundbreaking article
on ‘The Rise of the State as a Process of Secularization’ as well as Schmitt’s ‘The
Tyranny of Values’ go back to lectures given at Ebrach.26
Among the participants in Ebrach was also conceptual historian Reinhart
Koselleck, later Böckenförde’s colleague at the University of Heidelberg, where
the two taught a course in legal history together. Koselleck, too, was concerned
with the relationship between freedom, democracy, and the coercive force of
both state and society in his early work. Both later moved to the newly founded
University of Bielefeld, and Böckenförde contributed an article to Koselleck’s
opus magnum Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (basic historical concepts), one of the
foundational works of conceptual history.27
These ideas about freedom and the state, the social prerequisites for democ-
racy, and even the underlying concern of the conservative liberal intellectuals
from the early republic about the limits to the state in a democracy provided
some of the key themes for Böckenförde’s entire intellectual life. Indeed,
Böckenförde actively embodied some of the problems that they brought up, such
25
Ernst Forsthoff (1902–1974) was a German scholar of constitutional and administrative law, teaching
over the course of his career at the universities of Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Königsberg, Vienna, and
Heidelberg. Like Carl Schmitt (Forsthoff ’s mentor) and many other German legal scholars, he welcomed
the Third Reich and worked on an ideological justification of the totalitarian state. But unlike many other
legal scholars, Forsthoff distanced himself from the regime still during the Nazi period and was banned from
teaching in 1942. Different from Carl Schmitt, he was ultimately permitted to resume teaching in the Federal
Republic and returned to his professorship at the University of Heidelberg in 1952. Forsthoff was a leading
drafter of the Constitution of Cyprus and served as the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court of
Cyprus from 1960 to 1963.
26
Sergius Buve (ed.), Säkularisation und Utopie; Ernst Forsthoff zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
1967, Series: Ebracher Studien).
27
‘Organ, Organismus, Organisation, politischer Körper’ (sections VI–IX), in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe.
Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 4, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and
Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1978), pp. 561–622.
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»Mene heti sisään äitimuorin luo!» sanoi hän. »Etkö ymmärrä, että
heidän täytyy laittaa vuode kuntoon, jotta meillä olisi minne laskea
hänet, kun palaamme takaisin?»
Siitä ei koituisi mitään hyvää, jos Janne yrittäisi auttaa häntä, sen
hän ennestään tiesi, siksipä hän läksi toista asiaa toimittamaan,
renkipoikaa hakemaan. Omituista, ettei Lars ollut käskenyt häntä
pikemmin antamaan sanaa Börjelle, joka oli riihessä puimassa, vaan
lähetti hänet poikaa kutsumaan, joka raivasi nuorta metsää
koivikossa hyvän matkan päässä talosta.
Nyt Lars oli saanut hevosen valjaihin, mutta sitten naisväki tuli
sanomaan, että hänen pitäisi ottaa olkia ja peitteitä mukaan, ja
sehän oli kylläkin hyvä, vaikka tuottihan sekin viivytystä, ennenkuin
kaikki oli järjestyksessä.
Lars alkoi pyrkiä suoraan vaaraa ylös. Mutta Börjekin piti Jannen
puolta, ja silloin Larsin täytyi antaa perään. Joka tapauksessa oli
kulunut aikaa hukkaan heidän kiistellessään, ja Janne tunsi, miten
tuo musta tyhjyys levisi koko hänen ruumiiseensa. Käsivarret ja
kädet tulivat niin ontoiksi ja kohmettuneiksi, että tuskin saattoi niitä
liikutella. »Samapa se», tuumi hän. »Me tulemme kuitenkin liian
myöhään. Fallan Erik ei kaipaa enää meidän apuamme, kun
pääsemme perille.»
Seuraavana aamuna, kun Janne tuli työhön, sai hän kuulla, että
Erikillä oli korkea kuume ja kovia tuskia.
Kun Skrolyckan nuori tyttö oli seitsemäntoista vuoden vanha, tuli hän
eräänä kesäisenä sunnuntaipäivänä vanhempiensa kera kirkkoon.
Sitten pitäjän paras ompelija oli sen ommellut, hän, joka muuten
ompeli vain Lövdalan neideille. Ja kun Klara Gulla sai sen ylleen,
näyttivät he yhdessä niin kauniilta, että olisi voinut luulla tytön
puhjenneen esiin orjantappurapensaasta mäellä.
Mutta sattuipa nyt siten, että sinä sunnuntaina olikin Bron rovastilla
saarnavuoronsa Svartsjössä, eikä tavallisella papilla. Ja rovasti oli
ankara vanhanajan mies, joka paheksui kaikenlaista ylellisyyttä, niin
hyvin puvuissa kuin muussakin.
Rovasti kääntyi pois heistä, sillä nyt hän oli selvästi lausunut
mielipiteensä. Mutta Jannella oli vastaus valmiina, ennenkuin rovasti
ennätti poistua.
»Tämän tytön pitäisi olla hieno kuin aurinko, jotta hän olisi
sopivasti puettu, sillä meidän aurinkomme ja ilomme on hän ollut
aina syntymästään saakka.»
Toinen oli Lars Gunnarsson, joka nyt oli perinyt isännyyden Fallan
Erikin jälkeen, toinen kauppapalvelija eräästä Brobyn
kauppapuodista, josta Katrinalla oli tapana ostaa sokeria ja kahvia.
Janne aavisti aivan selvästi, että heillä oli paha mielessä, ja hän
katsoi ympärilleen ikäänkuin etsien paikkaa, jonne hän olisi voinut
piiloutua. Mutta sitten hänen silmänsä osuivat Klara Gullaan, joka
myös katseli ulos ikkunasta, ja hän sai jälleen rohkeutta.
Mitäpä syytä hänellä oli pelätä, kun hänellä oli sellainen tytär?
Klara Gulla oli viisas ja neuvokas eikä pelännyt mitään. Ja onni
häntä kaikessa suosi, mihin ikänä hän tarttui. Lars Gunnarssonin ei
olisi helppo saada häntä taipumaan.
Velka ei ollut sen vähempi kuin sata riksiä, ja Katrina aivan kalpeni
penkillänsä. »Teidän tarkoituksenne on karkoittaa meidät talosta, sen
minä näen», sanoi hän. — »Ei suinkaan», vastasi Lars, »se ei ole
lainkaan meidän tarkoituksemme, jos te vain maksatte velkanne ‒ ‒
‒». — »Teidän pitäisi toki ajatella vanhempianne, Lars», sanoi
Katrina. »Heillä ei ollut niinkään hyviä päiviä ennenkun te pääsitte
talolliseksi.»
Jannen mielestä kaikki, mitä Katrina sanoi, oli aivan oikein. Tupa
oli rakennettu hylkyhirsistä ja oli kylmä talvella, sen perustus oli
kallellaan, ja ahdas ja pieni se oli, mutta sittenkin heistä tuntui, että
he olisivat mennyttä kalua, jos he sen menettäisivät.
Janne oli lähtenyt kotoa niin kovalla kiiruulla, ettei hän ensinkään
ollut ennättänyt ajatella, miten peloittavan miehen puheille hän aikoi
mennä. Mutta astuessaan Askedalin hakamaiden poikki korpimetsää
kohti, sai entinen pelko hänessä vallan. Miten tyhmää, ettei hän ollut
ottanut Klara Gullaa mukanaan.
Hän ei ollut nähnyt koko tyttöä kotoa lähtiessään. Ehkäpä hän oli
mennyt metsään johonkin yksinäiseen paikkaan itkemään suruaan.
Hän ei koskaan tahtonut näyttäytyä kellekään ollessaan alakuloisella
mielellä.
Mutta hän ei ollutkaan niin lähellä kuin Janne oli luullut. Ei hän
seisonut myöskään paikoillaan, vaan siirtyi yhä kauemmaksi pois,
mitä pitemmälle Janne kulki. Yhä kauemmaksi ja korkeammalle,
joskus Janne oli kuulevinaan laulun äänen aivan yläpuoleltaan.
Varmaankin laulaja pyrki ylös Storsnipan laelle.
Janne arvasi, että hän astui tietä myöten, joka nousi vaaran
rinnettä pitkin melkein äkkijyrkkänä ylös. Tien reunoilla kasvoi niin
tiheää koivumetsää, että sen takaa oli tietenkin aivan mahdotonta
häntä nähdä. Mutta vaikka tie olikin kovin jyrkkä, niin reippaasti hän
sittenkin astui ylöspäin. Jannen mielestä hän kohosi kuin lentävä
lintu yhä ylemmäksi kaiken aikaa laulaen.
Lopulta hän astui niin hitaasti, että hän töin tuskin liikkui
paikaltaan.
Korea näköala avautui sieltä ylhäältä, sen jälkeen kuin metsä oli
kadonnut. Sieltä näkyi Lövenin pitkä järvi koko pituudessansa, järveä
ympäröivä vihreä laakso, kaikki laaksoa suojaavat sinertävät vaarat.
Kun Askedalin nuoriso nousi ahtaasta laaksostansa Snipavaaralle,
tuli heidän mieleensä se vuori, jolle kiusaaja johdatti Herramme
Jeesuksen näyttääkseen hänelle kaikki maailman valtakunnat ja
niiden loiston.
Lopulta hän levitti käsivartensa. Näytti siltä, kuin hän olisi tahtonut
syleillä kaikkea, koko suurta, mahtavaa rikkautta, josta hän aina
tähän saakka oli ollut erossa.
*****
»Ei maksa vaivaa tehdä mitään», sanoi hän yhä uudestaan. Muuta
ei
Katrina saanut hänestä lähtemään.
Ei, sitä hän ei ollut tehnyt, hän oli vain levännyt hetken aikaa
maassa.
Mutta mikä oli pysähtynyt sinä hetkenä, jolloin hän käsitti, ettei
pikku tyttö ollut tarjoutunut pelastamaan tupaa rakkaudesta heihin,
vaan siksi, että hän ikävöi ulos maailmalle, sitä hän ei tahtonut
sanoa.
LÄHTÖILTA.
Koko ajan hän ajatteli vain sitä omituista seikkaa, ettei hän
tuntenut oikeaa surua. Nyt hänen laitansa oli aivan sama kuin
kahdeksantoista vuotta sitten. Hän ei voinut iloita eikä surra. Aivan
kuin kello saadessaan kovan sysäyksen, oli sydän pysähtynyt sinä
hetkenä, jolloin hän näki Klara Gullan ojentavan käsivarsiaan
Snipavaaralla ja syleilevän koko maailmaa.
Kaikki oli nyt aivan kuin kerran ennenkin. Sillä kertaa ihmiset
tahtoivat, että hän iloitsisi pikku tytön tulosta. Mutta hän ei ollut
välittänyt siitä hituistakaan. Ja nyt he kaikki odottivat, että hän olisi
epätoivoissaan ja suruissaan. Mutta ei hän sitäkään ollut.