Robert and Elin’s Romantic Relationship

Robert and Elin’s Romantic Relationship is a tentative courtship aboard the Charlotta, shaped by shared study, social vulnerability, and Ulrika of Västergöhl’s determined opposition. Robert approaches Elin as a young man drawn to her; Elin’s mother sees him as an unsuitable farmhand who might exploit her daughter and leave. Their closeness grows in small, practical encounters, but it remains precarious: Elin is still hurt by Robert’s words about her mother, and Ulrika repeatedly intervenes to keep the two apart.

Attraction and Resistance

The relationship first appears through Ulrika’s anxious, possessive account of the young men aboard ship. She believes Robert, whom she calls a foolish young man, is watching Elin whenever her back is turned. In her view, he has little to offer: his possessions fit into a servant’s bundle, and his interest is only an attempt to take advantage of her daughter and abandon her. Her language casts Robert as a wolf stalking a lamb, while she imagines Elin’s future with a man of higher standing. This is Ulrika’s fearful interpretation, not an account of a confirmed seduction or a settled promise between the young people.

Ulrika’s hostility is inseparable from her hopes for Elin. She believes that capable, beautiful young women can receive marriage proposals as soon as they reach North America, and pictures her daughter marrying a prominent, kind man, living in comfort, and eating from a silver bowl. That vision makes Robert’s poverty and status as a farmhand seem to her not merely unattractive but dangerous to Elin’s prospects. Her insistence that Elin deserves a better match turns the emerging courtship into a conflict over who may shape the girl’s future.

Elin’s own response is more complicated than her mother’s suspicion allows. She remembers that Robert said something about Ulrika that hurt her, and she has not forgiven him. She also thinks he does not understand how deeply his words wounded her. Yet her anger does not erase her attraction or their growing companionship; in their later lessons she chooses to take part, even though she has been told that the Holy Ghost will give the Åkians the ability to speak English when they arrive in America.

Elin’s History and Vulnerability

Elin’s account explains why Robert’s remarks about her mother cut so deeply. She has known since childhood that she was born outside marriage and has been reminded of it repeatedly. Men, but never women, came to visit Ulrika at home. When visitors arrived, Elin was sent out and the door locked; in winter she waited in the woodshed wrapped in a warm sheepskin. Often there was little or nothing to eat, and a visitor could mean that food would soon be available again. Elin recalls that the men were not unkind to her, although some mistreated Ulrika.

As she grew older, Ulrika explained the visitors’ purpose. Elin says that she never thought her mother had done anything wrong, even after she once woke at night and heard what made her understand what was happening. She spoke to Ulrika, who forgave her and then, for the only time Elin had seen, cried as she told her what people had done to her. Since that conversation, Elin says, she has never thought ill of her mother. Her loyalty is founded not on ignorance of Ulrika’s past but on a childhood of hardship, tenderness, and knowledge of the harm others inflicted on her.

Elin does not know who her father was. Ulrika thinks he may have been a cheerful tramp who once stayed in their cottage and played the violin, but she also names Per Persson of Åkerby as a possibility. Elin rejects the latter possibility, describing him as an evil man who called her mother a whore. She and Ulrika believe themselves reborn in Christ and washed clean in His blood; that faith informs Elin’s refusal to accept the degrading judgment attached to her birth. Her desire to defend her mother helps explain why Robert’s earlier comment remains an unresolved injury between them.

The English Lessons on the Afterdeck

The relationship takes a more intimate shape during an afternoon on the Charlotta’s afterdeck. Robert and Elin sit close together on the leeward side, their backs against a coil of rope, sharing an English textbook Robert bought in Karlshamn. The ship moves under a moderate quartering wind while the emigrants gather in small groups on deck. Robert has struggled for weeks with the book and reached only its fourth page; that day is the first time he and Elin read together.

Elin does not need, in her religious understanding, to study English in advance: she expects the Holy Ghost to teach her and the other Åkians when they land in America. Still, she is curious about the unfamiliar words and does not want to seem less learned than Robert. He thinks practice cannot hurt and that she can leave a little less work for the Holy Ghost. Their joint lesson therefore rests on a gently comic compromise: Elin participates in an exercise she considers spiritually unnecessary, while Robert treats the practical labor of learning as useful preparation.

The textbook’s confusing phonetic spellings make the lesson slow and awkward. Robert cannot see the point of printing a word once in ordinary spelling and again in a different phonetic form. They read the conversational exercises with their heads close together because they share the same small book. Robert corrects Elin’s pronunciation, asking her to repeat the word church until he is satisfied with the position of her lips. The instruction gives him a reason to watch her mouth closely, and the narration registers his growing physical awareness of her even as he concentrates on the ostensibly educational task.

The lesson continues from pronunciation to the position of the tongue. Robert asks Elin to stick hers out so he can inspect it; she obeys, then eventually draws it back when she tires of holding it out. His instruction takes on an increasingly personal, flirtatious charge, though it remains framed as teaching. The intimacy is abruptly broken when Ulrika calls Elin to help prepare the evening meal. Elin leaves at once, and Robert sits alone, annoyed and hurt that her mother has again found an urgent task just as he has begun spending time with her.

Interference and Narrative Significance

Ulrika’s interruption makes the obstacle to the courtship concrete. Robert thinks she could have prepared the food herself and allowed Elin to continue learning English with him. That resentment echoes Ulrika’s earlier suspicion: while he sees a stolen opportunity for companionship, she sees the need to guard her daughter from a young man with no standing or resources. The same separation thus carries opposing meanings for the two of them—maternal protection to Ulrika, frustration to Robert.

The relationship remains unsettled in the available scenes. Elin has not forgiven Robert for hurting her by speaking about Ulrika, and Robert’s closeness with her has not overcome the mother’s resistance. Their first shared lesson does, however, establish a genuine point of connection: Elin’s curiosity and willingness to participate meet Robert’s desire to teach, and their faces, words, and attention draw close before Ulrika calls her away. The contrast between their private, hesitant intimacy and the imagined marriage Ulrika plans for Elin keeps the courtship suspended between present attraction and a future imposed from outside.