The mistress of the house had resolved not to sleep. Sitting near Maria, she was spinning, feeding the small light in the room with wood shavings. The other inhabitants had retired to rest. The man who had sought hospitality had still not taken the place prepared for him; he had merely cast part of his clothing upon it. Now he stood beside the young woman. In this Finnish farmhouse, during the night of April 30 to May 1, 1852, marriage was still being spoken of. Yet for several days, Maria had sought above all else a door behind which she might believe herself safe.
She had taken refuge with Thomas Dütinen, where her sister Eva was employed as a maidservant. To reach it, she had traveled by circuitous paths. Her brother-in-law, the joiner Gustav Luoranen, forbade her to marry Henrik, a man she had met after entering service in another village. Maria was with child by her betrothed, according to the confidences recorded in the chronicle. The household she wished to establish was meant to deliver her from the one in which Luoranen intended to keep her. The affair recounted by the Neue Pitaval thus began with wedding preparations known to all, and with a consent that one man arrogated to himself the right to withhold.
Luoranen provided for his mother-in-law and Maria. He had first labored for eleven years in the family’s service, then married the eldest daughter, Anna. Three children were born of this union. The narrative portrays him as a robust laborer who had become master of a house after an impoverished childhood and the early death of his mother. In the village, certain virtues were granted him; this reputation would endure even into the depositions detailing his acts of violence. It was possible to call him peaceable while knowing he had struck his sister-in-law. The witnesses testified to both. One neighbor, however, had spoken loudly enough to incur his wrath. She denounced his relentless attentions toward Maria and his infidelity to Anna. Luoranen lodged a complaint for defamation; the proceedings concluded with an amicable settlement. Before the murder led the inhabitants to recount his threats, the man had thus already resorted to the law to defend his own reputation.
Maria had already attempted to flee. Her mother recounted that an earlier search for a place of service had earned her blows from a fire-iron. On another occasion, the young woman had obtained from the pastor the certificate required for her departure; Luoranen had met her upon her leaving, tore the paper to pieces, and forced her to remain. These attempts had thus left behind witnesses, wounds, and even the memory of a destroyed document. They were not invented after her death to furnish the crime with a past. The inquest gathered them from those who had seen, heard, or received Maria’s confidences.
In the summer of 1851, she nonetheless succeeded in entering service in a distant village. There she became betrothed to Henrik, the brother of her employer. Having returned in November to prepare for the nuptials, she was met once more with her brother-in-law’s refusal. The Sundays passed; the reading of the banns was continually deferred. On April 25, 1852, while Luoranen was attending a feast, the couple was at last proclaimed in church without his having been warned. He learned the news before rising from the table and returned home immediately. Maria had sought refuge with neighbors.
He first sent Anna to fetch her. His wife returned alone: her sister refused to follow. Luoranen then went in person to take her back, reaching into the very bed where she had placed herself between her two hosts. He brought her back by force. Later, in the darkened house, Anna heard her sister entreating her husband and promising to break the betrothal. Maria explained the following day that he had wrested this promise from her by threatening her with his knife. At the trial, Luoranen would present an entirely different version: he claimed he had asked only for a delay, the time needed to prepare a shared dwelling for the future spouses.
On April 27, work drew him away from the house until the evening of the 28th. Maria seized upon his absence and joined Eva at Dütinen’s farm. On the 29th, Luoranen discovered her disappearance, searched for her at the betrothed’s home, and then declared he would seek her out at that farm. His wife and his mother-in-law attempted to dissuade him. The following day, he departed after whetting his knife and uttering threats. When the inhabitants of the farm saw him through the window, they concealed Maria behind the great stove. He inquired whether she was there. They replied that she was not. He set out again.
This first protective lie might have sufficed. Along the road, however, Luoranen caught sight of a peasant woman whose figure reminded him of Maria. He returned toward the house almost at the same time she did. The woman was not the one he sought, but Maria, believing the danger past, had emerged from her hiding place. He saw her. Evening was drawing on; the hosts made him understand that he ought to resume his journey. He declared that he would stay. The chronicler here invokes a custom of hospitality that forbade turning away a guest. The house now sheltered the very man from whom it had sought to protect the young woman.
All partook of the meal, and the inhabitants then lay down in the same chamber. The mistress of the house remained awake. She knew Maria’s terror; she watched Luoranen sit beside her, speaking low, kissing her, wrapping his arms about her body. When she urged him to let the young woman finally sleep, he replied that they were discussing the wedding. Toward one o’clock in the morning, the watcher saw him rise abruptly and strike Maria with his knife. At the cry of the wounded woman, the others started awake. He went out; the door was barred behind him. He returned to demand his clothes and to ask whether Maria was dead. His belongings were flung to him through the window.
Maria was still alive. On May 1, she was transported to the neighboring parsonage; the following day, she was conveyed to the hospital of the provincial town. On May 5, she gave birth to a daughter. She died on May 6; the infant died the following day. In the meantime, Luoranen had returned home, declaring that he had accomplished what he had long planned. He asked to be arrested. His kin did not believe him. He repeated the demand on May 2, with no greater success, then returned on May 3 to Dütinen’s farm, allowing himself to be led, his hands bound, before the local authority.
At his trial, he did not deny the blow. He contested the intent. He suffered, he claimed, from violent headaches capable of clouding his senses; the reproaches heard at the farm and Maria’s hostility had purportedly driven him beside himself. He asserted he had merely wished to retain beside him a person useful to the household, not to prevent out of jealousy that she belong to another. Yet his wife, while confirming his afflictions, stated she had never observed them to cause him to lose his reason. Above all, his earlier threats, the prepared knife, and his own words reported after the assault contradicted the notion of an unthinking impulse.
The depositions also brought to light what the word “liaison” risked concealing. To several women, Maria had confided her terror, her brother-in-law’s sexual demands, and the violence from which she sought to escape. Luoranen denied any coercion. The court found it to be a deliberate murder committed by a man responsible for his actions and pronounced the sentence of death. According to the chronicle, it was commuted to deportation to Siberia. He was therefore not executed. The door barred after his flight had at last held fast; it had closed too late for Maria.