Stig Dagerman

In a working-class neighbourhood in 1940s Stockholm, a young man named Bengt falls into deep, private turmoil with the unexpected death of his mother. As he struggles to cope with her loss, his despair slowly transforms to rage when he discovers that his father had a mistress. Bengt swears revenge on behalf of his mother's memory, but he soon finds himself drawn into a fevered and forbidden affair with the very woman he set out to destroy . . . Written in a taut, restrained style, A Moth to a Flame is an intense exploration of heartache and fury, desperation and illicit passion. Set against a backdrop of the moody streets of Stockholm and the Hitchcockian shadows in the woods and waters of Sweden's remote islands, this is a psychological masterpiece by one of Sweden's greatest writers.

A Moth to a Flame

Sarah Christine Gill

The black procession glides silently down the stairs. Neighbors open their doors and look on in grave silence. It is a beautiful performance with fine roles. A child begins to cry and cleaves desperately to the wall as though it were looking at death itself. Once they have passed, all the doors close in compassionate silence. The son goes first, followed by the son's fiancée, then the father, and finally the thirteen others. The stone steps are hard, and the clanging of their heels and the rustling of their black clothes are dreadful. Dreadful is the snow outside as it falls silently and heavily, burying all the living and the dead. Dreadful, too, is the length of the steps. They walk and walk but never reach the bottom. The son reaches for the fiancée's hand but only finds her cold, wet glove. He squeezes it hard, harder, but only to feel how cold she is. He peers down the stairs and continues walking on and on. The grooves are deep in the steps of sorrow and full of salt and sand. 

Most dreadful is the sight awaiting him at the final step. Beautiful yet dreadful. Without realizing it, he has let go of the fiancée's hand and walks alone through the dark entrance to the street door. But just before he opens the door and meets the patient cars glowing dimly like shadows through the snow and glass, it strikes him how still and gloomy it is behind him. He slowly turns around on the doormat and catches a glimpse of something he will never forget, because it is so beautiful and so dreadful. All fifteen of them in black have stopped halfway down the steps. They are obscuring the window with their bodies, making it very dark. The women's faces glisten as hard as bone through their thick veils. Everything else is gloomy: the stairs, the walls, and the somber clothes. Only their faces are white, as well as a single gloveless hand pressed against a coat. For a moment, they stand completely still, as if waiting for an invisible photographer. Then they drift slowly down to him like one giant shadow. 

The words sound so familiar, but he forgot what they mean. He simply thinks it sounds beautiful. He quietly repeats the words to himself for as long as he can. Then he gazes out at the ice and the moon. The moon is white and beautiful, but strangely far away. The ice is also white. The air is very warm. Then he closes his eyes and listens to all the beautiful sounds of the night. The night sings with silence. It's the greatest sound of all. Then there are fainter sounds: the rhythmic slicing of the ice from the spikes; the soft singing of the runners as they race over the black ice; the slight creaking of the kicksled's wood; the harsh scraping as they pass over granular ice. 

She doesn't leave, because she is paralyzed. Not paralyzed with fear, or desire either. What binds her and what binds him, too, is the beauty of the moment. Nothing is ever as beautiful as the first isolated minutes with someone who might be able to love you - with someone you yourself might be able to love. There is nothing as silent as these minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet anticipation. It is for these few minutes that we love, not for the many that follow. Never again, they realize, would anything so beautiful ever happen to them. They might be happier, more impassioned, too, and infinitely satiated with their own bodies and with each other's. But never again would it be so beautiful. 

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