In all the rooms of the fishing-village there is the same sort of furniture, on all the window-sills stand the same kinds of flowers, in all the corner-cupboards are the same collections of sea-shells and coral, on all the walls hang the same pictures.  And it is a fixed old custom that all the inhabitants of the fishing-village live the same life.  Since Mattsson, the pilot, had grown old, he had conformed carefully to the conditions and customs; his house, his rooms and his mode of living were like everybody else’s.

On the wall over the bed old Mattsson had a picture of his mother.  One night he dreamed that the portrait stepped down from its frame, placed itself in front of him and said with a loud voice:  “You must marry, Mattson.”

Old Mattsson then began to make clear to his mother that it was impossible.  He was seventy years old.—­But his mother’s portrait merely repeated with even greater emphasis:  “You must marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson had great respect for his mother’s portrait.  It had been his adviser on many debatable occasions, and he had always done well by obeying it.  But this time he did not quite understand its behavior.  It seemed to him as if the picture was acting in opposition to its already acknowledged opinions.  Although he was lying there and dreaming, he remembered distinctly and clearly what had happened the first time he wished to be married.  Just as he was dressing as a bridegroom, the nail gave way on which the picture hung and it fell to the floor.  He understood then that the portrait wished to warn him against the marriage, but he did not obey it.  He soon found that the portrait had been right.  His short married life was very unhappy.

The second time he dressed as a bridegroom the same thing happened.  The portrait fell to the ground as before, and he did not dare again to disobey it.  He ran away from bride and wedding and travelled round the world several times before he dared come home again.—­And now the picture stepped down from the wall and commanded him to marry!  However good and obedient he was, he allowed himself to think that it was making a fool of him.

But his mother’s portrait, which looked out with the grimmest face that sharp winds and salt sea-foam could carve, stood solemnly as before.  And with a voice which had been exercised and strengthened for many years by offering fish in the town marketplace, it repeated:  “You must marry, Mattsson.”

Old Mattsson then asked his mother’s portrait to consider what kind of a community it was they lived in.

All the hundred houses of the fishing-village had pointed roofs and whitewashed walls; all the boats of the fishing-village were of the same build and rig.  No one there ever did anything unusual.  His mother would have been the first to oppose such a marriage if she had been alive.  His mother had held by habits and customs.  And it was not the habit and custom of the fishing-village for old men of seventy years to marry.