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Title: The Story of Gösta Berling
Author: Lagerlöf, Selma
Language: English
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The Story of Gösta Berling
The
Story of Gösta Berling
_Translated from the Swedish of_
Selma Lagerlöf
by
Pauline Bancroft Flach
[Illustration]
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1898
_Copyright, 1898_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
“The Story of Gösta Berling” was published in Sweden in 1894 and
immediately brought its author into prominence.
The tales are founded on actual occurrences and depict the life in the
province of Värmland at the beginning of this century. Värmland is a
lonely tract in the southern part of Sweden, and has retained many of
its old customs, while mining is the principal industry of its sparse
population. It consists of great stretches of forest, sloping down to
long, narrow lakes, connected by rivers.
Miss Lagerlöf has grown up in the midst of the wild legends of her
country, and, deeply imbued with their spirit, interprets them with a
living force all her own.
Her efforts have been materially encouraged by the Crown Prince of
Sweden, and there is every reason to expect that her genius has not
reached its fullest development.
STOCKHOLM, May, 1898.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION:
I THE PRIEST 1
II THE BEGGAR 12
PART I
I THE LANDSCAPE 29
II CHRISTMAS EVE 34
III CHRISTMAS DAY 49
IV GÖSTA BERLING, POET 63
V LA CACHUCHA 79
VI THE BALL AT EKEBY 84
VII THE OLD VEHICLES 106
VIII THE GREAT BEAR IN GURLITTA CLIFF 122
IX THE AUCTION AT BJÖRNE 138
X THE YOUNG COUNTESS 170
XI GHOST-STORIES 199
XII EBBA DOHNA’S STORY 214
XIII MAMSELLE MARIE 236
PART II
I COUSIN CHRISTOPHER 247
II THE PATHS OF LIFE 253
III PENITENCE 268
IV THE IRON FROM EKEBY 280
V LILLIECRONA’S HOME 291
VI THE WITCH OF DOVRE 298
VII MIDSUMMER 304
VIII MADAME MUSICA 309
IX THE BROBY CLERGYMAN 315
X PATRON JULIUS 321
XI THE PLASTER SAINTS 329
XII GOD’S WAYFARER 337
XIII THE CHURCHYARD 350
XIV OLD SONGS 355
XV DEATH, THE DELIVERER 367
XVI THE DROUGHT 374
XVII THE CHILD’S MOTHER 386
XVIII AMOR VINCIT OMNIA 396
XIX THE BROOM-GIRL 403
XX KEVENHÜLLER 417
XXI THE BROBY FAIR 429
XXII THE FOREST COTTAGE 438
XXIII MARGARETA CELSING 456
The Story of Gösta Berling
INTRODUCTION
I
THE PRIEST
At last the minister stood in the pulpit. The heads of the congregation
were lifted. Well, there he finally was. There would be no default this
Sunday, as on the last and on many other Sundays before.
The minister was young, tall, slender, and strikingly handsome. With a
helmet on his head, and girt with sword and shirt of mail, he could have
been cut in marble and taken for an ideal of Grecian beauty.
He had a poet’s deep eyes, and a general’s firm, rounded chin; everything
about him was beautiful, noble, full of feeling, glowing with genius and
spiritual life.
The people in the church felt themselves strangely subdued to see him
so. They were more used to see him come reeling out of the public house
with his good friends, Beerencreutz, the Colonel with the thick, white
moustaches, and the stalwart Captain Christian Bergh.
He had drunk so deeply that he had not been able to attend to his duties
for many weeks, and the congregation had been obliged to complain, first
to the dean, and then to the bishop and the chapters. Now the bishop had
come to the parish to make a strict inquiry. He sat in the choir with the
gold cross on his breast; the clergymen of the neighboring parishes sat
round about him.
There was no doubt that the minister’s conduct had gone beyond the
permissible limit. At that time, in the twenties, much in the matter of
drinking was overlooked, but this man had deserted his post for the sake
of drink, and now must lose it.
He stood in the pulpit and waited while the last verse of the psalm was
sung.
A feeling came over him as he stood there, that he had only enemies in
the church, enemies in all the seats. Among the gentry in the pews,
among the peasants in the farther seats, among the little boys in the
choir, he had enemies, none but enemies. It was an enemy who worked the
organ-bellows, an enemy who played. In the churchwardens’ pews he had
enemies. They all hated him, every one,—from the children in arms, who
were carried into the church, to the sexton, a formal and stiff old
soldier, who had been at Leipsic.
He longed to throw himself on his knees and to beg for mercy.
But a moment after, a dull rage came over him. He remembered well what he
had been when, a year ago, he first stood in this pulpit. He was then a
blameless man, and now he stood there and looked down on the man with the
gold cross on his breast, who had come to pass sentence on him.
While he read the introduction, wave after wave of blood surged up in his
face,—it was rage.
It was true enough that he had drunk, but who had a right to blame him
for that? Had they seen the vicarage where he had to live? Pine forests
grew dark and gloomy close up to his windows. The dampness dripped from
the black roofs and ran down the mouldy walls. Was not brandy needed to
keep the spirits up when rain and driving snow streamed in through the
broken panes, when the neglected earth would not give bread enough to
keep hunger away?
He thought that he was just such a minister as they deserved. For they
all drank. Why should he alone control himself? The man who had buried
his wife got drunk at the funeral feast; the father who had baptized his
child had a carouse afterwards. The congregation drank on the way back
from church, so that most of them were drunk when they reached home. A
drunken priest was good enough for them.
It was on his pastoral visits, when he drove in his thin cloak over miles
of frozen seas, where all the icy winds met, it was when his boat was
tossed about on these same seas in storm and pouring rain, it was when he
must climb out of his sledge in blinding snow to clear the way for his
horse through drifts high as houses, or when he waded through the forest
swamps,—it was then that he learned to love brandy.
The year had dragged itself out in heavy gloom. Peasant and master had
passed their days with their thoughts on the soil, but at evening their
spirits cast off their yokes, freed by brandy. Inspiration came, the
heart grew warm, life became glowing, the song rang out, roses shed their
perfume. The public-house bar-room seemed to him a tropical garden:
grapes and olives hung down over his head, marble statues shone among
dark leaves, songsters and poets wandered under the palms and plane-trees.
No, he, the priest, up there in the pulpit, knew that without brandy life
could not be borne in this end of the world; all his congregation knew
that, and yet they wished to judge him.
They wished to tear his vestments from him, because he had come drunken
into God’s house. Oh, all these people, had they believed, did they want
to believe, that they had any other God than brandy?
He had finished the exordium, and he kneeled to say the Lord’s Prayer.
There was a breathless silence in the church during the prayer. But
suddenly the minister with both hands caught hold of the ribbons which
held his surplice. It seemed to him as if the whole congregation, with
the bishop at the head, were stealing up the pulpit steps to take his
bands from him. He was kneeling and his head was turned away, but he
could feel how they were dragging, and he saw them so plainly, the
bishop and the deans, the clergymen, the churchwardens, the sexton, and
the whole assemblage in a long line, tearing and straining to get his
surplice off. And he could picture to himself how all these people who
were dragging so eagerly would fall over one another down the steps when
the bands gave way, and the whole row of them below, who had not got up
as far as his cape, but only to the skirts of his coat, would also fall.
He saw it all so plainly that he had to smile as he knelt, but at the
same time a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. The whole thing was too
horrible.
That he should now become a dishonored man for the sake of brandy. A
clergyman, dismissed! Was there anything on God’s earth more wretched?
He should be one of the beggars at the roadside, lie drunk at the edge of
a ditch, go dressed in rags, with vagrants for companions.
The prayer was ended. He should read his sermon. Then a thought came to
him and checked the words on his lips. He thought that it was the last
time he should stand in the pulpit and proclaim the glory of God.
For the last time—that took hold of him. He forgot the brandy and the
bishop. He thought that he must use the chance, and testify to the glory
of God.
He thought that the floor of the church with all his hearers sank deep,
deep down, and the roof was lifted off, so that he saw far into the sky.
He stood alone, quite alone in his pulpit; his spirit took its flight to
the heavens opened above him; his voice became strong and powerful, and
he proclaimed the glory of God.
He was inspired. He left what he had written; thoughts came to him like a
flock of tame doves. He felt, as if it were not he who spoke, but he felt
too that it was the best earth had to give, and that no one could reach
a greater height of brilliancy and splendor than he who stood there and
proclaimed the glory of God.
As long as the flame of inspiration burned in him he continued to speak,
but when it died out, and the roof sank down over the church, and the
floor came up again from far, far below, he bowed his head and wept, for
he thought that the best of life, for him, was now over.
After the service came the inspection and the vestry meeting. The bishop
asked if the congregation had any complaints to make against their
clergyman.
The minister was no longer angry and defiant as before the sermon. Now
he was ashamed and hung his head. Oh, all the miserable brandy stories,
which were coming now!
But none came. There was a deep silence about the long table in the
parish-hall.
The minister looked first at the sexton,—no, he was silent; then at the
churchwardens, then at the powerful peasants and mine-owners; they were
all silent. They sat with their lips pressed close together and looked
embarrassed down on the table.
“They are waiting for somebody to begin,” thought the minister.
One of the churchwardens cleared his throat.
“I think we’ve got a fine minister,” he said.
“Your Reverence has heard how he preaches,” interrupted the sexton.
The bishop spoke of repeated absences.
“The minister has the right to be ill, as well as another,” was the
peasants’ opinion.
The bishop hinted at their dissatisfaction with the minister’s mode of
life.
They defended him with one voice. He was so young, their minister; there
was nothing wrong with him. No; if he would only always preach as he had
done to-day they would not exchange him for the bishop himself.
There were no accusers; there could be no judge.
The minister felt how his heart swelled and how swiftly the blood flew
through his veins. Could it be that he was no longer among enemies; that
he had won them over when he had least thought of it; that he should
still be their priest?
After the inspection the bishop and the clergymen of the neighborhood and
the deans and the chief men of the parish dined at the vicarage. The wife
of one of the neighbors had taken charge of the dinner; for the minister
was not married. She had arranged it all so well that it made him open
his eyes, for the vicarage was not so dreadful. The long dining-table was
spread out under the pines and shone with its white cloth, with its blue
and white china, its glittering glass and folded napkins. Two birches
bent over the door, the floor of the entry was strewn with rushes, a
wreath of flowers hung from the rafters, there were flowers in all the
rooms; the mouldy smell was gone, and the green window-panes shone
bravely in the sunshine.
He was glad to the bottom of his heart, the minister; he thought that he
would never drink again.
There was not one who was not glad at that dinner-table. Those who had
been generous and had forgiven were glad, and the priests in authority
were glad because they had escaped a scandal.
The good bishop raised his glass and said that he had started on this
journey with a heavy heart, for he had heard many evil rumors. He had
gone forth to meet Saul, but lo, Saul was already changed to a Paul, who
should accomplish more than any of them. And the worthy man spoke of the
rich gifts which their young brother possessed, and praised them. Not
that he should be proud, but that he should strain every nerve and keep
a close watch over himself, as he must do who bears an exceedingly heavy
and costly burden on his shoulders.
The minister was not drunk at that dinner, but he was intoxicated. All
this great unlooked-for happiness went to his head. Heaven had let the
flame of inspiration burn in him, and these people had given him their
love. His blood was at fever heat, and at raging speed rushed through
his veins still when the evening came and his guests departed. Far into
the night he sat awake in his room, and let the night air stream in
through the open window to cool this fever of happiness, this pleasant
restlessness which would not let him sleep.
He heard a voice.
“Are you awake?”
A man came over the lawn up to the window. The minister looked out and
recognized Captain Christian Bergh, one of his trusty boon-companions. He
was a wayfarer without house or land, this Captain Bergh, and a giant in
stature and strength; big was he as Goliath, malicious and stupid as a
mountain goblin.
“Of course I am up, Captain Christian,” answered the minister. “Do you
think I could sleep to-night?”
And hear now what this Captain Bergh says to him! The giant had guessed,
he had understood, that the minister would now be afraid to drink. He
would never have any peace, thought Captain Christian; for those priests
from Karlstad, who had been here once, could come again and take his
surplice from him if he drank.
But now Captain Christian had put his heavy hand to the good work; now he
had arranged that those priests never should come again, neither they nor
the bishop. Henceforth the minister and his friends could drink as much
as they liked at the vicarage.
Hear what a deed he had done, he, Christian Bergh, the mighty Captain.
When the bishop and the two deans had climbed into their closed carriage,
and the doors had been shut tight on them, then he had mounted on the box
and driven them ten miles or so in the light summer night.
And then had Christian Bergh taught the reverend gentlemen how loose life
sits in the human body. He had let the horses run at the maddest pace.
That was because they would not let an honorable man get drunk in peace.
Do you suppose he followed the road with them; do you believe he saved
them from jolts? He drove over ditches and ploughed fields; he drove in
a dizzy gallop down the hills; he drove along the water’s edge, till the
waves covered the wheels; he almost stuck in a bog; he drove down over
bare rocks, where the horses slid with legs held stiff.
And all the time the bishop and the priests sat with blanched faces
behind the leather curtains and murmured prayers. It was the worst
journey they had ever made.
And think how they must have looked when they came to Rissäter’s inn,
living, but shaken like shot in a leather pouch.
“What does this mean, Captain Christian?” says the bishop, as he opens
the door for them.
“It means that you shall think twice, bishop, before you make a new
journey of inspection to Gösta Berling,” says Captain Christian; and he
had thought that sentence well out beforehand, so as not to get it wrong.
“Tell Gösta Berling,” says the bishop, “that to him neither I nor any
other bishop will ever come again.”
This exploit the mighty Captain Christian stands and relates at the open
window in the summer night. For Captain Christian has only just left the
horses at the inn, and has come directly to the minister with his news.
“Now you can be at rest, comrade,” he says.
Ah, Captain Christian, the clergymen sat with pale faces behind the
leather curtains, but the priest at the window looks in the bright summer
night far, far paler. Ah, Captain Christian!
The minister raised his arm and measured a terrible blow at the giant’s
coarse, stupid face, but checked himself. He shut the window with a bang,
and stood in the middle of the room, shaking his clenched fist on high.
He in whom the fire of inspiration had flamed, he who had been able to
proclaim the glory of God, stood there and thought that God had made a
fool of him.
Would not the bishop believe that Captain Christian had been sent by the
minister? Would he not believe that he had dissembled and lied the whole
day? Now he would investigate everything about him in earnest; now he
would suspend him and dismiss him.
When the dawn broke the minister was far from his home. He did not care
to stay and defend himself. God had mocked at him. God would not help
him. He knew that he would be dismissed. God would have it. He might as
well go at once.
All this happened in the beginning of the twenties in a far-a-way parish
in Western Värmland.
It was the first misfortune which befell Gösta Berling; it was not the
last.
For colts who cannot bear spur or whips find life hard. For every pain
which comes to them they bolt down wild ways to yawning chasms. As soon
as the road is stony and the way hard they know no other remedy than to
cast off their load and rush away in frenzy.
II
THE BEGGAR
One cold December day a beggar came wandering up the slopes of Broby. He
was dressed in the most miserable rags, and his shoes were so worn that
the cold snow wet his feet.
Löfven is a long, narrow lake in Värmland, intersected in several places
by long narrow sounds. In the north it stretches up to the Finn forests,
in the south down to the lake Väner. There are many parishes along its
shores, but the parish of Bro is the largest and richest. It takes up a
large part of the lake’s shores both on the east and west sides, but on
the west side are the largest estates, such as Ekeby and Björne, known
far and wide for wealth and beauty, and Broby, with its large village and
inn, courthouse, sheriff-quarters, vicarage, and market-place.
Broby lies on a steep slope. The beggar had come past the inn, which lies
at the foot of the hill, and was struggling up towards the parsonage,
which lies at the top.
A little girl went in front of him up the hill; she dragged a sledge
laden with a bag of meal. The beggar caught up with the child and began
to talk to her.
“A little horse for such a heavy load,” he said.
The child turned and looked at him. She was a little creature about
twelve years old, with sharp, suspicious eyes, and lips pressed together.
“Would to God the horse was smaller and the load larger; it might last
longer,” answered the girl.
“Is it then your own food you are dragging home?”
“By God’s grace it is; I have to get my own food, although I am so
little.”
The beggar seized the sled rope to drag it up.
The girl turned and looked at him.
“You needn’t think that you will get anything for this,” she said.
The beggar laughed.
“You must be the daughter of the Broby clergyman.”
“Yes, yes, I am indeed. Many have poorer fathers, but none have worse.
That’s the Lord’s truth, although it’s a shame that his own child should
have to say it.”
“I hear he is mean and ill-natured, your father.”
“Mean he is, and ill-natured he is, but they say his daughter will be
worse if she lives so long; that’s what people say.”
“I fancy people are right. What I would like to know is, where you found
this meal-bag.”
“It makes no difference if I tell you. I took the grain out of father’s
store-house this morning, and now I have been to the mill.”
“May he not see you when you come dragging it behind you?”
“You have left school too early. Father is away on his parish visits,
can’t you see?”
“Somebody is driving up the hill behind us; I hear the creaking of the
runners. Think if it were he who is coming!”
The girl listened and peered down, then she burst into tears.
“It is father,” she sobbed. “He will kill me! He will kill me!”
“Yes, good advice is now precious, and prompt advice better than silver
and gold,” said the beggar.
“Look here,” said the child, “you can help me. Take the rope and drag the
sledge; then father will believe it is yours.”
“What shall I do with it afterwards?” asked the beggar, and put the rope
round his shoulders.
“Take it where you like for the moment, but come up to the parsonage with
it when it is dark. I shall be looking out for you. You are to come with
the bag and the sledge, you understand.”
“I shall try.”
“God help you if you don’t come!” called the girl, while she ran,
hurrying to get home before her father.
The beggar turned the sledge with a heavy heart and dragged it down to
the inn.
The poor fellow had had his dream, as he went in the snow with half-naked
feet. He had thought of the great woods north of lake Löfven, of the
great Finn forests.
Here in the parish of Bro, where he was now wandering along the sound
which connects the upper and lower Löfven,—in this rich and smiling
country, where one estate joins another, factory lies near factory—here
all the roads seemed to him too heavy, the rooms too small, the beds too
hard. Here he longed for the peace of the great, eternal forests.
Here he heard the blows echoing in all the barns as they threshed out
the grain. Loads of timber and charcoal-vans kept coming down from the
inexhaustible forests. Endless loads of metal followed the deep ruts
which the hundreds gone before had cut. Here he saw sleighs filled with
travellers speed from house to house, and it seemed to him as if pleasure
held the reins, and beauty and love stood on the runners. Oh, how he
longed for the peace of the forest.
There the trees rise straight and pillarlike from the even ground, there
the snow rests in heavy layers on the motionless pines, there the wind
is powerless and only plays softly in the topmost leaves, there he would
wander deeper and still farther in, until at last his strength would fail
him, and he would drop under the great trees, dying of hunger and cold.
He longed for the great murmuring grave above the Löfven, where he would
be overcome by the powers of annihilation, where at last hunger, cold,
fatigue, and brandy should succeed in destroying his poor body, which had
endured everything.
He came down to the inn to await the evening. He went into the bar-room
and threw himself down on a bench by the door, dreaming of the eternal
forests.
The innkeeper’s wife felt sorry for him and gave him a glass of brandy.
She even gave him another, he implored her so eagerly.
But more she would not give him, and the beggar was in despair. He must
have more of the strong, sweet brandy. He must once again feel his heart
dance in his body and his thoughts flame up in intoxication. Oh, that
sweet spirit of the corn!
The summer sun, the song of the birds, perfume and beauty floated in
its white wave. Once more, before he disappears into the night and the
darkness, let him drink sunshine and happiness.
So he bartered first the meal, then the meal-sack, and last the sledge,
for brandy. On it he got thoroughly drunk, and slept the greater part of
the afternoon on a bench in the bar-room.
When he awoke he understood that there was left for him only one thing to
do. Since his miserable body had taken possession of his soul, since he
had been capable of drinking up what a child had confided to him, since
he was a disgrace to the earth, he must free it of the burden of such
wretchedness. He must give his soul its liberty, let it go to its God.
He lay on the bench in the bar-room and passed sentence on himself:
“Gösta Berling, dismissed priest, accused of having drunk up the food
of a hungry child, is condemned to death. What death? Death in the
snow-drifts.”
He seized his cap and reeled out. He was neither quite awake nor quite
sober. He wept in pity for himself, for his poor, soiled soul, which he
must set free.
He did not go far, and did not turn from the road. At the very roadside
lay a deep drift, and there he threw himself down to die. He closed his
eyes and tried to sleep.
No one knows how long he lay there; but there was still life in him when
the daughter of the minister of Broby came running along the road with a
lantern in her hand, and found him in the drift by the roadside. She had
stood for hours and waited for him; now she had run down Broby hill to
look for him.
She recognized him instantly, and she began to shake him and to scream
with all her might to get him awake.
She must know what he had done with her meal-bag.
She must call him back to life, at least for so long a time that he could
tell her what had become of her sledge and her meal-bag. Her father would
kill her if she had lost his sledge. She bit the beggar’s finger and
scratched his face, and at the same time she screamed madly.
Then some one came driving along the road.
“Who the devil is screaming so?” asked a harsh voice.
“I want to know what this fellow has done with my meal-bag and my
sledge,” sobbed the child, and beat with clenched fists on the beggar’s
breast.
“Are you clawing a frozen man? Away with you, wild-cat!”
The traveller was a large and coarse woman. She got out of the sleigh and
came over to the drift. She took the child by the back of the neck and
threw her on one side. Then she leaned over, thrust her arms under the
beggar’s body, and lifted him up. Then she carried him to the sleigh and
laid him in it.
“Come with me to the inn, wild-cat,” she called to the child, “that we
may hear what you know of all this.”
* * * * *
An hour later the beggar sat on a chair by the door in the best room of
the inn, and in front of him stood the powerful woman who had rescued him
from the drift.
Just as Gösta Berling now saw her, on her way home from the charcoal
kilns, with sooty hands, and a clay-pipe in her mouth, dressed in a
short, unlined sheepskin jacket and striped homespun skirt, with tarred
shoes on her feet and a sheath-knife in her bosom, as he saw her with
gray hair combed back from an old, beautiful face, so had he heard her
described a thousand times, and he knew that he had come across the
far-famed major’s wife of Ekeby.
She was the most influential woman in all Värmland, mistress of seven
iron-works, accustomed to command and to be obeyed; and he was only a
poor, condemned man, stripped of everything, knowing that every road was
too heavy for him, every room too crowded. His body shook with terror,
while her glance rested on him.
She stood silent and looked at the human wretchedness before her, the
red, swollen hands, the emaciated form, and the splendid head, which even
in its ruin and neglect shone in wild beauty.
“You are Gösta Berling, the mad priest?” she said, peering at him.
The beggar sat motionless.
“I am the mistress of Ekeby.”
A shudder passed over the beggar’s body. He clasped his hands and raised
his eyes with a longing glance. What would she do with him? Would she
force him to live? He shook before her strength. And yet he had so nearly
reached the peace of the eternal forests.
She began the struggle by telling him the minister’s daughter had got her
sledge and her meal-sack again, and that she, the major’s wife, had a
shelter for him as for so many other homeless wretches in the bachelor’s
wing at Ekeby.
She offered him a life of idleness and pleasure, but he answered he must
die.
Then she struck the table with her clenched fist and let him hear what
she thought of him.
“So you want to die, that’s what you want. That would not surprise me,
if you were alive. Look, such a wasted body and such powerless limbs and
such dull eyes, and you think that there is something left of you to
die. Do you think that you have to lie stiff and stark with a coffin-lid
nailed down over you to be dead? Don’t you believe that I stand here and
see how dead you are, Gösta Berling?
“I see that you have a skull for a head, and it seems to me as if the
worms were creeping out of the sockets of your eyes. Do you not feel that
your mouth is full of dust? Do you not hear how your bones rattle when
you move?
“You have drowned yourself in brandy, Gösta Berling, and you are dead.
“That which now moves in you is only death spasms, and you will not allow
them to live, if you call that life. It is just as if you grudged the
dead a dance over the graves in the starlight.
“Are you ashamed that you were dismissed, since you wish to die now? It
would have been more to your honor had you made use of your gifts and
been of some use on God’s green earth, I tell you. Why did you not come
directly to me? I should have arranged everything for you. Yes, now you
expect much glory from being wrapped in a winding-sheet and laid on
saw-dust and called a beautiful corpse.”
The beggar sat calm, almost smiling, while she thundered out her angry
words. There was no danger, he rejoiced, no danger. The eternal forests
wait, and she has no power to turn thy soul from them.
But the major’s wife was silent and walked a couple of times up and down
the room; then she took a seat before the fire, put her feet on the
fender, and leaned her elbows on her knees.
“Thousand devils!” she said, and laughed softly to herself. “It is
truer, what I am saying, than I myself thought. Don’t you believe, Gösta
Berling, that most of the people in this world are dead or half-dead? Do
you think that I am alive? No! No, indeed!
“Yes, look at me! I am the mistress of Ekeby, and I am the most powerful
in Värmland. If I wave one finger the governor comes, if I wave with
two the bishop comes, and if I wave with three all the chapter and the
aldermen and mine-owners in Värmland dance to my music in Karlstad’s
market-place. A thousand devils! Boy, I tell you that I am only a
dressed-up corpse. God knows how little life there is in me.”
The beggar leaned forward on his chair and listened with strained
attention. The old woman sat and rocked before the fire. She did not look
at him while she talked.
“Don’t you know,” she continued, “that if I were a living being, and saw
you sitting there, wretched and deplorable with suicidal thoughts, don’t
you believe that I should take them out of you in a second? I should have
tears for you and prayers, which would turn you upside down, and I should
save your soul; but now I am dead.
“Have you heard that I once was the beautiful Margareta Celsing? That was
not yesterday, but I can still sit and weep my old eyes red for her. Why
shall Margareta Celsing be dead, and Margareta Samzelius live? Why shall
the major’s wife at Ekeby live?—tell me that, Gösta Berling.
“Do you know what Margareta Celsing was like? She was slender and
delicate and modest and innocent, Gösta Berling. She was one over whose
grave angels weep.
“She knew nothing of evil, no one had ever given her pain, she was good
to all. And she was beautiful, really beautiful.
“There was a man, his name was Altringer. God knows how he happened to be
travelling up there in Älfdal wildernesses, where her parents had their
iron-works. Margareta Celsing saw him; he was a handsome man, and she
loved him.
“But he was poor, and they agreed to wait for one another five years, as
it is in the legend. When three years had passed another suitor came. He
was ugly and bad, but her parents believed that he was rich, and they
forced Margareta Celsing, by fair means and foul, by blows and hard
words, to take him for her husband. And that day, you see, Margareta
Celsing died.
“After that there was no Margareta Celsing, only Major Samzelius’s wife,
and she was not good nor modest; she believed in much evil and never
thought of the good.
“You know well enough what happened afterwards. We lived at Sjö by the
Lake Löfven, the major and I. But he was not rich, as people had said. I
often had hard days.
“Then Altringer came again, and now he was rich. He became master of
Ekeby, which lies next to Sjö; he made himself master of six other
estates by Lake Löfven. He was able, thrifty; he was a man of mark.
“He helped us in our poverty; we drove in his carriages; he sent food
to our kitchen, wine to our cellar. He filled my life with feasting and
pleasure. The major went off to the wars, but what did we care for that?
One day I was a guest at Ekeby, the next he came to Sjö. Oh, it was like
a long dance of delight on Löfven’s shores.
“But there was evil talk of Altringer and me. If Margareta Celsing had
been living, it would have given her much pain, but it made no difference
to me. But as yet I did not understand that it was because I was dead
that I had no feeling.
“At last the tales of us reached my father and mother, as they went among
the charcoal kilns up in Älfdal’s forest. My mother did not stop to
think; she travelled hither to talk to me.
“One day, when the major was away and I sat dining with Altringer and
several others, she arrived. I saw her come into the room, but I could
not feel that she was my mother, Gösta Berling. I greeted her as a
stranger, and invited her to sit down at my table and take part in the
meal.
“She wished to talk with me, as if I had been her daughter, but I said to
her that she was mistaken, that my parents were dead, they had both died
on my wedding day.
“Then she agreed to the comedy. She was sixty years old; a hundred and
twenty miles had she driven in three days. Now she sat without ceremony
at the dinner-table and ate her food; she was a strong and capable woman.
“She said that it was very sad that I had had such a loss just on that
day.
“‘The saddest thing was,’ I said, ‘that my parents did not die a day
sooner; then the wedding would never have taken place.’
“‘Is not the gracious lady pleased with her marriage?’ she then asked.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said I, ‘I am pleased. I shall always be pleased to obey my
dear parents’ wish!’
“She asked if it had been my parents’ wish that I should heap shame upon
myself and them and deceive my husband. I did my parents little honor by
making myself a byword in every man’s mouth.
“‘They must lie as they have made their bed,’ I answered her. And
moreover I wished her to understand, that I did not intend to allow any
one to calumniate my parents’ daughter.
“We ate, we two. The men about us sat silent and could not lift knife nor
fork.
“She stayed a day to rest, then she went. But all the time I saw her, I
could not understand that she was my mother. I only knew that my mother
was dead.
“When she was ready to leave, Gösta Berling, and I stood beside her on
the steps, and the carriage was before the door, she said to me:—
“‘Twenty-four hours have I been here, without your greeting me as your
mother. By lonely roads I came here, a hundred and twenty miles in
three days. And for shame for you my body is trembling, as if it had
been beaten with rods. May you be disowned, as I have been disowned,
repudiated as I have been repudiated! May the highway be your home, the
hay-stack your bed, the charcoal-kiln your stove! May shame and dishonor
be your reward; may others strike you, as I strike you!’
“And she gave me a heavy blow on the cheek.
“But I lifted her up, carried her down the steps, and put her in her
carriage.
“‘Who are you, that you curse me?’ I asked; ‘who are you that you strike
me? That I will suffer from no one.’
“And I gave her the blow again.
“The carriage drove away, but then, at that moment, Gösta Berling, I knew
that Margareta Celsing was dead.
“She was good and innocent; she knew no evil. Angels had wept at her
grave. If she had lived, she would not have struck her mother.”
The beggar by the door had listened, and the words for a moment had
drowned the sound of the eternal forests’ alluring murmur. For see, this
great lady, she made herself his equal in sin, his sister in perdition,
to give him courage to live. For he should learn that sorrow and
wrong-doing weighed down other heads than his. He rose and went over to
the major’s wife.
“Will you live now? Gösta Berling?” she asked with a voice which broke
with tears. “Why should you die? You could have been such a good priest,
but it was never Gösta Berling whom you drowned in brandy, he as
gleamingly innocent-white as that Margareta Celsing I suffocated in hate.
Will you live?”
Gösta fell on his knees before her.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I cannot.”
“I am an old woman, hardened by much sorrow,” answered the major’s wife,
“and I sit here and give myself as a prize to a beggar, whom I have found
half-frozen in a snow-drift by the roadside. It serves me right. Let him
go and kill himself; then at least he won’t be able to tell of my folly.”
“I am no suicide, I am condemned to die. Do not make the struggle too
hard for me! I may not live. My body has taken possession of my soul,
therefore I must let it escape and go to God.”
“And so you believe you will get there?”
“Farewell, and thank you!”
“Farewell, Gösta Berling.”
The beggar rose and walked with hanging head and dragging step to the
door. This woman made the way up to the great forests heavy for him.
When he came to the door, he had to look back. Then he met her glance, as
she sat still and looked after him. He had never seen such a change in
any face, and he stood and stared at her. She, who had just been angry
and threatening, sat transfigured, and her eyes shone with a pitying,
compassionate love.
There was something in him, in his own wild heart, which burst before
that glance; he leaned his forehead against the door-post, stretched his
arms up over his head, and wept as if his heart would break.
The major’s wife tossed her clay-pipe into the fire and came over to
Gösta. Her movements were as tender as a mother’s.
“There, there, my boy!”
And she got him down beside her on the bench by the door, so that he wept
with his head on her knees.
“Will you still die?”
Then he wished to rush away. She had to hold him back by force.
“Now I tell you that you may do as you please. But I promise you that, if
you will live, I will take to me the daughter of the Broby minister and
make a human being of her, so that she can thank her God that you stole
her meal. Now will you?”
He raised his head and looked her right in the eyes.
“Do you mean it?”
“I do, Gösta Berling.”
Then he wrung his hands in anguish. He saw before him the peering eyes,
the compressed lips, the wasted little hands. This young creature would
get protection and care, and the marks of degradation be effaced from
her body, anger from her soul. Now the way up to the eternal forests was
closed to him.
“I shall not kill myself as long as she is under your care,” he said. “I
knew well enough that you would force me to live. I felt that you were
stronger than I.”
“Gösta Berling,” she said solemnly, “I have fought for you as for myself.
I said to God: ‘If there is anything of Margareta Celsing living in me,
let her come forward and show herself, so that this man may not go and
kill himself.’ And He granted it, and you saw her, and therefore you
could not go. And she whispered to me that for that poor child’s sake you
would give up your plan of dying. Ah, you fly, you wild birds, but our
Lord knows the net which will catch you.”
“He is a great and wonderful God,” said Gösta Berling. “He has mocked me
and cast me out, but He will not let me die. May His will be done!”
From that day Gösta Berling became a guest at Ekeby. Twice he tried to
leave and make himself a way to live by his own work. The first time the
major’s wife gave him a cottage near Ekeby; he moved thither and meant to
live as a laborer. This succeeded for a while, but he soon wearied of the
loneliness and the daily labor, and again returned as a guest. There was
another time, when he became tutor at Borg for Count Henry Dohna. During
this time he fell in love with the young Ebba Dohna, the count’s sister;
but when she died, just as he thought he had nearly won her, he gave up
every thought of being anything but guest at Ekeby. It seemed to him that
for a dismissed priest all ways to make amends were closed.
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE LANDSCAPE
I must now describe the long lake, the rich plains and the blue
mountains, since they were the scene where Gösta Berling and the other
knights of Ekeby passed their joyous existence.
The lake has its sources far up in the north, and it is a perfect country
for a lake. The forest and the mountains never cease to collect water for
it; rivulets and brooks stream into it the whole year round. It has fine
white sand to stretch itself over, headlands and islands to mirror and to
look at, river sprites and sea nymphs have free play room there, and it
quickly grows large and beautiful. There, in the north, it is smiling and
friendly; one needs but to see it on a summer morning, when it lies half
awake under a veil of mist, to perceive how gay it is. It plays first for
a while, creeps softly, softly, out of its light covering, so magically
beautiful that one can hardly recognize it; but then it casts from it,
suddenly, the whole covering, and lies there bare and uncovered and rosy,
shining in the morning light.
But the lake is not content with this life of play; it draws itself
together to a narrow strait, breaks its way out through the sand-hills to
the south, and seeks out a new kingdom for itself. And such a one it also
finds; it gets larger and more powerful, has bottomless depths to fill,
and a busy landscape to adorn. And now its water is darker, its shores
less varying, its winds sharper, its whole character more severe. It has
become a stately and magnificent lake. Many are the ships and the rafts
of timber which pass there; late in the year it finds time to take its
winter rest, rarely before Christmas. Often is it in peevish mood, when
it grows white with wrath and drags down sailing-boats; but it can also
lie in a dreamy calm and reflect the heavens.
But still farther out into the world will the lake go, although the
mountains become bolder and space narrower; still farther down it comes,
so that it once again must creep as a narrow strait between sand-bound
shores. Then it broadens out for the third time, but no longer with the
same beauty and might.
The shores sink down and become tame, gentler winds blow, the lake takes
its winter rest early. It is still beautiful, but it has lost youth’s
giddiness and manhood’s strength—it is now a lake like any other. With
two arms it gropes after a way to Lake Vänern, and when that is found it
throws itself with the feebleness of old age over the slopes and goes
with a last thundering leap to rest.
The plain is as long as the lake; but it has no easy time to find a place
between sea and mountain, all the way from the valley of the basin at the
lake’s northern end, where it first dares to spread itself out, till it
lays itself to easy rest by the Vänern’s shore. There is no doubt that
the plain would rather follow the shore of the lake, long as it is, but
the mountains give it no peace. The mountains are mighty granite walls,
covered with woods, full of cliffs difficult to cross, rich in moss and
lichen,—in those old days the home of many wild things.
On the far-stretching ridges one often comes upon a wet swamp or a pool
with dark water. Here and there is a charcoal kiln or an open patch where
timber and wood have been cut, or a burnt clearing, and these all bear
witness that there is work going on on the mountains; but as a rule they
lie in careless peace and amuse themselves with watching the lights and
shadows play over their slopes.
And with these mountains the plain, which is peaceful and rich, and loves
work, wages a perpetual war, in a friendly spirit, however.
“It is quite enough,” says the plain to the mountains; “if you set up
your walls about me, that is safety enough for me.”
But the mountains will not listen. They send out long rows of hills and
barren table-lands way down to the lake. They raise great look-out towers
on every promontory, and leave the shores of the lake so seldom that the
plain can but rarely stretch itself out by the soft, broad sands. But it
does not help to complain.
“You ought to be glad that we stand here,” the mountains say. “Think of
that time before Christmas, when the icy fogs, day after day, rolled up
from the Löfven. We do you good service.”
The plain complains that it has no space and an ugly view.
“You are so stupid,” answer the mountains; “if you could only feel how it
is blowing down here by the lake. One needs at least a granite back and a
fir-tree jacket to withstand it. And, besides, you can be glad to have us
to look at.”
Yes, looking at the mountains, that is just what the plain is doing. It
knows so well all the wonderful shiftings of light and shade, which pass
over them. It knows how they sink down in the noon-day heat towards the
horizon, low and a dim light-blue, and in the morning or evening light
raise their venerable heights, clear blue as the sky at noon.
Sometimes the light falls so sharply over them that they look green or
dark-blue, and every separate fir-tree, each path and cleft, is visible
miles away.
There are places where the mountains draw back and allow the plain to
come forward and gaze at the lake. But when it sees the lake in its
anger, hissing and spitting like a wild-cat, or sees it covered with
that cold mist which happens when the sea-sprite is busy with brewing or
washing, then it agrees that the mountains were right, and draws back to
its narrow prison again.
Men have cultivated the beautiful plain time out of mind, and have built
much there. Wherever a stream in white foaming falls throws itself down
the slope, rose up factories and mills. On the bright, open places, where
the plain came down to the lake, churches and vicarages were built; but
on the edges of the valley, half-way up the slope, on stony grounds,
where grain would not grow, lie farm-houses and officers’ quarters, and
here and there a manor.
Still, in the twenties, this district was not nearly so much cultivated
as now. Many were the woods and lakes and swamps which now can be tilled.
There were not so many people either, and they earned their living partly
by carting and day labor at the many factories, partly by working at
neighboring places; agriculture could not feed them. At that time they
went dressed in homespun, ate oatcakes, and were satisfied with a wage of
ten cents a day. Many were in great want; but life was often made easier
for them by a light and glad temper, and by an inborn handiness and
capability.
And all those three, the long lake, the rich plain, and the blue
mountains, made the most beautiful scenery, and still do, just as the
people are still to this day, strong, brave and intelligent. Great
progress has been made, however, in prosperity and culture.
May everything go well with those who live far away by the long lake and
the blue mountains! I shall now recall some of their memories.
CHAPTER II
CHRISTMAS EVE
Sintram is the name of the wicked master of the works at Fors, with his
clumsy ape-body, and his long arms, with his bald head and ugly, grinning
face,—he whose delight is to make mischief.
Sintram it is who takes only vagrants and bullies for workmen, and has
only quarrelsome, lying maids in his service; he who excites dogs to
madness by sticking pins in their noses, and lives happiest among evil
people and fierce beasts.
It is Sintram whose greatest pleasure is to dress himself up in the foul
fiend’s likeness, with horns, and tail, and cloven hoof, and hairy body,
and suddenly appearing from dark corners, from behind the stove or the
wood-pile, to frighten timid children and superstitious women.
It is Sintram who delights to change old friendship to new hate, and to
poison the heart with lies.
Sintram is his name—and one day he came to Ekeby.
Drag the great wood-sledge into the smithy, put it in the middle of the
floor, and lay a cart-bottom on the frame! There we have a table. Hurrah
for the table; the table is ready!
Come now with chairs, with everything which will serve for a seat!
Come with three-legged stools and empty boxes! Come with ragged old
arm-chairs without any backs, and push up the runnerless sleigh and the
old coach! Ha, ha, ha, up with the old coach; it shall be the speaker’s
chair!
Just look; one wheel gone, and the whole bottom out! Only the coach-box
is left. The cushion is thin and worn, its moss stuffing coming through,
the leather is red with age. High as a house is the old wreck. Prop it
up, prop it up, or down it will come!
Hurrah! Hurrah! It is Christmas eve at Ekeby.
Behind the broad bed’s silken curtains sleep the major and the major’s
wife, sleep and believe that the bachelors’ wing sleeps. The men-servants
and maids can sleep, heavy with feasting and the bitter Christmas ale;
but not their masters in the bachelors’ wing. How can any one think that
the bachelors’ wing sleeps?
Sleeps, sleeps (oh, child of man, sleeps!), when the pensioners are
awake. The long tongs stand upright on the floor, with tallow candles in
their claws. From the mammoth kettle of shining copper flames the blue
fire of the burning brandy, high up to the dark roof. Beerencreutz’s
horn-lantern hangs on the forge-hammer. The yellow punch glows in the
bowl like a bright sun. The pensioners are celebrating Christmas eve in
the smithy.
There is mirth and bustle. Fancy, if the major’s wife should see them!
What then? Probably she would sit down with them and empty a bumper. She
is a doughty woman; she’s not afraid of a thundering drinking-song or to
take a hand at _kille_.[1] The richest woman in Värmland, as bold as a
man, proud as a queen. Songs she loves, and sounding fiddles, and the
hunting-horn. She likes wine and games of cards, and tables surrounded
by merry guests are her delight. She likes to see the larder emptied, to
have dancing and merry-making in chamber and hall, and the bachelors’
wing full of pensioners.
See them round about the bowl! Twelve are they, twelve men. Not
butterflies nor dandies, but men whose fame will not soon die out in
Värmland; brave men and strong.
Not dried-up parchment, nor close-fisted money-bags; poor men, without a
care, gentlemen the whole day long.
No mother’s darlings, no sleepy masters on their own estates. Wayfaring
men, cheerful men, knights of a hundred adventures.
Now for many years the bachelors’ wing has stood empty. Ekeby is no
longer the chosen refuge of homeless gentlemen. Pensioned officers and
impoverished noblemen no longer drive about Värmland in shaky one-horse
vehicles. But let the dead live, let them rise up in their glad,
careless, eternal youth!
All these notorious men could play on one or several instruments. All
were as full of wit and humor and conceits and songs as an ant-hill is
full of ants; but each one had his particular great quality, his much
esteemed merit which distinguished him from the others.
First of all who sit about the bowl will I name Beerencreutz, the colonel
with the great white moustaches, player of cards, singer of songs; and
next to him, his friend and brother in arms, the silent major, the great
bear hunter, Anders Fuchs; and, as the third in order, little Ruster,
the drummer, who had been for many years the colonel’s servant, but had
won the rank of pensioner through his skill in brewing punch and his
knowledge of thorough-bass. Then may be mentioned the old ensign, Rutger
von Örneclou, lady-killer, dressed in stock and wig and ruffles, and
painted like a woman,—he was one of the most important pensioners; also
Christian Bergh, the mighty captain, who was a stalwart hero, but as
easy to outwit as a giant in the fairy story. In these two men’s company
one often saw the little, round Master Julius, witty, merry, and gifted,
speaker, painter, songster, and storyteller. He often had his joke with
the gout-crippled ensign and the dull giant.
There was also the big German Kevenhüller, inventor of the automatic
carriage and the flying-machine, he whose name still echoes in the
murmuring forests,—a nobleman by birth and in appearance, with great
curled moustaches, a pointed beard, aquiline nose, and narrow, squinting
eyes in a net of intersecting wrinkles. There sat the great warrior
cousin, Christopher, who never went outside the walls of the bachelors’
wing unless there was to be a bear-hunt or some foolhardy adventure; and
beside him Uncle Eberhard, the philosopher, who had not come to Ekeby for
pleasure and play, but in order to be able, undisturbed by concern for
daily bread, to complete his great work in the science of sciences.
Last of all, and the best, the gentle Löwenborg, who sought the good in
the world, and understood little of its ways, and Lilliecrona, the great
musician, who had a good home, and was always longing to be there, but
still remained at Ekeby, for his soul needed riches and variety to be
able to bear life.
These eleven men had all left youth behind them, and several were in old
age; but in the midst of them was one who was not more than thirty years
old, and still possessed the full, undiminished strength of his mind and
body. It was Gösta Berling, the Knight of Knights, who alone in himself
was a better speaker, singer, musician, hunter, drinking companion and
card-player than all of the others together. He possessed all gifts. What
a man the major’s wife had made of him!
Look at him now in the speaker’s chair! The darkness sinks from the black
roof in great festoons over him. His blond head shines through it like a
young god’s. Slender, beautiful, eager for adventure, he stands there.
But he is speaking very seriously.
“Gentlemen and brothers, the time passes, the feast is far advanced, it
is time to drink a toast to the thirteenth at the table!”
“Little brother Gösta,” cries Master Julius, “there is no thirteenth; we
are only twelve.”
“At Ekeby a man dies every year,” continues Gösta with a more and more
gloomy voice. “One of the guests of the bachelors’ wing dies, one of
the glad, the careless, the eternal youth dies. What of that? Gentlemen
should never be old. Could our trembling hands not lift a glass, could
our quenched eyes not distinguish the cards, what has life for us,
and what are we for life? One must die of the thirteen who celebrate
Christmas eve in the smithy at Ekeby; but every year a new one comes to
complete our number; a man, experienced in pleasure, one who can handle
violin and card, must come and make our company complete. Old butterflies
should know how to die while the summer sun is shining. A toast to the
thirteenth!”
“But, Gösta, we are only twelve,” remonstrate the pensioners, and do not
touch their glasses.
Gösta Berling, whom they called the poet, although he never wrote
verses, continues with unaltered calmness: “Gentlemen and brothers! Have
you forgotten who you are? You are they who hold pleasure by force in
Värmland. You are they who set the fiddle-bows going, keep up the dance,
make song and music resound through the land. You know how to keep your
hearts from the love of gold, your hands from work. If you did not exist
the dance would die, summer die, the roses die, card-playing die, song
die, and in this whole blessed land there would be nothing but iron and
owners of iron-works. Pleasure lives while you live. For six years have
I celebrated Christmas eve in the Ekeby smithy, and never before has any
one refused to drink to the thirteenth?”
“But, Gösta,” cry they all, “when we are only twelve how can we drink to
the thirteenth?”
“Are we only twelve?” he says. “Why must we die out from the earth? Shall
we be but eleven next year, but ten the year after. Shall our name become
a legend, our company destroyed? I call upon him, the thirteenth, for
I have stood up to drink his toast. From the ocean’s depths, from the
bowels of the earth, from heaven, from hell I call him who shall complete
our number.”
Then it rattled in the chimney, then the furnace-door opened, then the
thirteenth came.
He was hairy, with tail and cloven-hoof, with horns and a pointed beard,
and at the sight of him the pensioners start up with a cry.
But in uncontrollable joy Gösta Berling cries, “The thirteenth has come—a
toast to the thirteenth!”
Yes, he has come, the old enemy of mankind, come to these foolhardy men
who trouble the peace of the Holy Night. The friend of witches on their
way to hell, who signs his bargains in blood on coal-black paper, he who
danced with the countess at Ivarsnäs for seven days, and could not be
exorcized by seven priests,—he has come.
In stormy haste thoughts fly through the heads of the old adventurers at
the sight of him. They wonder for whose sake he is out this night.
Many of them were ready to hurry away in terror, but they soon saw that
the horned one had not come to carry them down to his dark kingdom, but
that the ring of the cups and their songs had attracted him. He wished
to enjoy a little human pleasure in this holy night, and cast aside his
burden during this glad time.
Oh, pensioners, pensioners, who of you now remembers it is the night
before Christmas; that even now angels are singing for the shepherds in
the fields? Children are lying anxious lest they sleep too soundly, that
they may not wake in time for the beautiful morning worship. Soon it will
be time to light the Christmas candles in the church at Bro, and far away
in the forest homes the young man in the evening has prepared a resin
torch to light his girl to church. In all the houses the mistress has
placed dip-lights in the windows, ready to light as the people go by to
church. The sexton takes up the Christmas psalm in his sleep, and the old
minister lies and tries if he has enough voice left to sing: “Glory be to
God on high, on earth peace, good-will towards men!”
Oh, pensioners, better had it been for you if you had spent this peaceful
night quietly in your beds than to trouble the company with the Prince of
Darkness.
But they greet him with cries of welcome, as Gösta had done. A goblet
filled with burning brandy is placed in his hand. They give him the place
of honor at the table, and they look upon him with gladness, as if his
ugly satyr face wore the delicate features of their youth’s first love.
Beerencreutz invites him to a game of cards, Master Julius sings his best
songs for him, and Örneclou talks to him of lovely women, those beautiful
creatures who make life sweet.
He enjoys everything, the devil, as with princely bearing he leans back
on the old coach-box, and with clawed hand lifts the brimming goblet to
his smiling mouth.
But Gösta Berling of course must make a speech in his honor.
“Your Grace,” he says, “we have long awaited you here at Ekeby, for you
have little access, we suppose, to any other paradise. Here one can
live without toiling or spinning, as your Grace perhaps knows. Here
roasted ortolans fly into one’s mouth, and the bitter ale and the sweet
brandy flow in brooks and rivulets. This is a good place, your Grace!
We pensioners have waited for you, I tell you, for we have never been
complete before. See, we are something finer than we seem; we are the
mighty twelve of the poet, who are of all time. We were twelve when we
steered the world, up there on Olympus’s cloud-veiled top, and twelve
when we lived like birds in Ygdrasil’s green crown. Wherever there has
been poetry there have we followed. Did we not sit twelve men strong
about King Arthur’s Round Table, and were there not twelve paladins at
Charlemagne’s court? One of us has been a Thor, a Jupiter; any one can
see that in us now. They can perceive the divine splendor under our rags,
the lion’s mane under the ass’s head. Times are bad with us, but if we
are there a smithy becomes Olympus and the bachelors’ wing Valhalla.
“But, your Grace, our number has not been complete. Every one knows that
in the poet’s twelve there must always be a Loki, a Prometheus. Him have
we been without.”
“Your Grace, I wish you welcome!”
“Hear, hear, hear!” says the evil one; “such a fine speech, a fine speech
indeed! And I, who have no time to answer. Business, boys, business.
I must be off, otherwise I should so gladly be at your service in any
rôle you like. Thanks for a pleasant evening, old gossips. We shall meet
again.”
Then the pensioners demand where he is going; and he answers that the
noble major’s wife, mistress of Ekeby, is waiting for him to get her
contract renewed.
Great wonder seizes upon the pensioners.
A harsh and capable woman is she, the major’s wife at Ekeby. She can
lift a barrel of flour on her broad shoulders. She follows the loads of
ore from the Bergslagen mines, on the long road to Ekeby. She sleeps
like a waggoner on the stable floor, with a meal-bag under her head.
In the winter she will watch by a charcoal kiln, in the summer follow
a timber-raft down to the Löfven. She is a powerful woman. She swears
like a trooper, and rules over her seven estates like a king; rules her
own parish and all the neighboring parishes; yes, the whole of lovely
Värmland. But for the homeless gentlemen she had been like a mother, and
therefore they had closed their ears when slander had whispered to them
that she was in league with the devil.
So they ask him with wonder what kind of a contract she has made with him.
And he answers them, the black one, that he had given the major’s wife
her seven estates on the condition that she should send him every year a
human soul.
Oh, the horror which compresses the pensioners’ hearts!
Of course they knew it, but they had not understood before.
At Ekeby every year, a man dies, one of the guests in the bachelors’
wing dies, one of the glad, the careless, the ever young dies. What of
that?—gentlemen may not be old! If their trembling fingers cannot lift
the glass, if their dulled eyes cannot see the cards, what has life for
them, and what are they to life? Butterflies should know how to die while
the sun is shining.
But now, now for the first time, they grasp its real meaning.
Woe to that woman! That is why she had given them so many good meals, why
she had let them drink her bitter ale and her sweet brandy, that they
might reel from the drinking-halls and the card-tables at Ekeby down to
the king of hell,—one a year, one for each passing year.
Woe to the woman, the witch! Strong men had come to this Ekeby, had come
hither to perish. For she had destroyed them here. Their brains were as
sponges, dry ashes their lungs, and darkness their spirit, as they sank
back on their death-beds and were ready for their long journey, hopeless,
soulless, virtueless.
Woe to the woman! So had those died who had been better men than they,
and so should they die.
But not long are they paralyzed by weight of terror.
“You king of perdition!” they cry, “never again shall you make a
blood-signed contract with that witch; she shall die! Christian
Bergh, the mighty captain, has thrown over his shoulder the heaviest
sledge-hammer in the smithy. He will bury it to the handle in the hag’s
head. No more souls shall she sacrifice to you.
“And you, you horned thing, we shall lay you on the anvil and let the
forge-hammer loose. We shall hold you quiet with tongs under the hammer’s
blows and teach you to go a-hunting for gentlemen’s souls.”
He is a coward, the devil, as every one knows of old, and all this talk
of the forge-hammer does not please him at all. He calls Christian Bergh
back and begins to bargain with the pensioners.
“Take the seven estates; take them yourselves, gentlemen, and give me the
major’s wife!”
“Do you think we are as base as she?” cries Master Julius. “We will
have Ekeby and all the rest, but you must look after the major’s wife
yourself.”
“What does Gösta say? what does Gösta say?” asks the gentle Löwenborg.
“Gösta Berling must speak. We must hear what he thinks of this important
matter.”
“It is madness,” says Gösta Berling. “Gentlemen, don’t let him make fools
of you! What are you all against the major’s wife? It may fare as it
will with our souls, but with my consent we will not be such ungrateful
wretches as to act like rascals and traitors. I have eaten her food for
too many years to deceive her now.”
“Yes, you can go to hell, Gösta, if you wish! We would rather rule at
Ekeby.”
“But are you all raving, or have you drunk away your wits? Do you believe
it is true? Do you believe that that thing is the devil? Don’t you see
that it’s all a confounded lie?”
“Tut, tut, tut,” says the black one; “he does not see that he will soon
be ready, and yet he has been seven years at Ekeby. He does not see how
far advanced he is.”
“Begone, man! I myself have helped to shove you into the oven there.”
“As if that made any difference; as if I were not as good a devil as
another. Yes, yes, Gösta Berling, you are in for it. You have improved,
indeed, under her treatment.”
“It was she who saved me,” says Gösta. “What had I been without her?”
“As if she did not know what she was about when she kept you here at
Ekeby. You can lure others to the trap; you have great gifts. Once you
tried to get away from her; you let her give you a cottage, and you
became a laborer; you wished to earn your bread. Every day she passed
your cottage, and she had lovely young girls with her. Once it was
Marianne Sinclair; then you threw aside your spade and apron, Gösta
Berling, and came back as pensioner.”
“It lay on the highway, you fool.”
“Yes, yes, of course; it lay on the highway. Then you came to Borg,
were tutor there to Henrik Dohna, and might have been Countess Märta’s
son-in-law. Who was it who managed that the young Ebba Dohna should hear
that you were only a dismissed priest, so that she refused you? It was
the major’s wife, Gösta Berling. She wanted you back again.”
“Great matter!” says Gösta. “Ebba Dohna died soon afterwards. I would
never have got her anyway.”
Then the devil came close up to him and hissed right in his face: “Died!
yes, of course she died. Killed herself for your sake, did she? But they
never told you that.”
“You are not such a bad devil,” says Gösta.
“It was the major’s wife who arranged it all, I tell you. She wanted to
have you back in the bachelors’ wing.”
Gösta burst out laughing.
“You are not such a bad devil,” he cried wildly. “Why should we not make
a contract with you? I’m sure you can get us the seven estates if you
like.”
“It is well that you do not longer withstand your fate.”
The pensioners drew a sigh of relief. It had gone so far with them
that they could do nothing without Gösta. If he had not agreed to the
arrangement it could never have come to anything. And it was no small
matter for destitute gentlemen to get seven estates for their own.
“Remember, now,” says Gösta, “that we take the seven estates in order to
save our souls, but not to be iron-work owners who count their money and
weigh their iron. No dried-up parchments, no purse-proud money-bags will
we become, but gentlemen will we be and remain.”
“The very words of wisdom,” murmurs the black one.
“If you, therefore, will give us the seven estates for one year we will
accept them; but remember that if we do anything during that time which
is not worthy of a gentleman, if we do anything which is sensible, or
useful, or effeminate, then you may take the whole twelve of us when the
year is out, and give the estates to whom you will.”
The devil rubbed his hands with delight.
“But if we always behave like true gentlemen,” continues Gösta, “then you
may never again make any contract about Ekeby, and no pay do you get for
this year either from us or from the major’s wife.”
“That is hard,” says the devil. “Oh, dear Gösta, I must have one soul,
just one little, poor soul. Couldn’t I have the major’s wife? Why should
you spare the major’s wife?”
“I do not drive any bargains with such wares,” roars Gösta; “but if you
must have some one, you can take old Sintram at Fors; he is ready, I can
answer for that.”
“Well, well, that will do,” says the devil, without blinking. “The
pensioners or Sintram, they can balance one another. This will be a good
year.”
And so the contract was written, with blood from Gösta’s little finger,
on the devil’s black paper and with his quill-pen.
And when it was done the pensioners rejoiced. Now the world should belong
to them for a whole year, and afterwards there would always be some way.
They push aside the chairs, make a ring about the kettle, which stands in
the middle of the black floor, and whirl in a wild dance. Innermost in
the circle dances the devil, with wild bounds; and at last he falls flat
beside the kettle, rolls it over, and drinks.
Then Beerencreutz throws himself down beside him, and also Gösta Berling;
and after them all the others lay themselves in a circle round the
kettle, which is rolled from mouth to mouth. At last it is tipped over by
a push, and the hot, sticky drink pours over them.
When they rise up, swearing, the devil is gone; but his golden promises
float like shining crowns over the pensioners’ heads.
CHAPTER III
CHRISTMAS DAY
On Christmas day the major’s wife gives a great dinner at Ekeby.
She sits as hostess at a table laid for fifty guests. She sits there in
splendor and magnificence; here her short sheepskin jacket, her striped
woollen skirt, and clay-pipe do not follow her. She rustles in silk, gold
weighs on her bare arms, pearls cool her white neck.
Where are the pensioners? Where are they who on the black floor of the
smithy, out of the polished copper kettle, drank a toast to the new
masters of Ekeby?
In the corner by the stove the pensioners are sitting at a separate
table; to-day there is no room for them at the big table. To them the
food comes late, the wine sparingly; to them are sent no glances from
beautiful women, no one listens to Gösta’s jokes.
But the pensioners are like tamed birds, like satiated wild beasts. They
had had scarcely an hour’s sleep that night; then they had driven to
morning worship, lighted by torches and the stars. They saw the Christmas
candles, they heard the Christmas hymns, their faces were like smiling
children’s. They forgot the night in the smithy as one forgets an evil
dream.
Great and powerful is the major’s wife at Ekeby. Who dares lift his arm
to strike her; who his voice to give evidence against her? Certainly not
poor gentlemen who for many years have eaten her bread and slept under
her roof. She can put them where she will, she can shut her door to them
when she will, and they have not the power to fly from her might. God be
merciful to their souls! Far from Ekeby they cannot live.
At the big table there was rejoicing: there shone Marianne Sinclair’s
beautiful eyes; there rang the gay Countess Dohna’s low laugh.
But the pensioners are gloomy. Was it not just as easy to have put them
at the same table with the other guests? What a lowering position there
in the corner by the stove. As if pensioners were not fit to associate
with fine people!
The major’s wife is proud to sit between the Count at Borg and the Bro
clergyman. The pensioners hang their heads like shame-faced children, and
by degrees awake in them thoughts of the night.
Like shy guests the gay sallies, the merry stories come to the table in
the corner by the stove. There the rage of the night and its promises
enter into their minds. Master Julius makes the mighty captain, Christian
Bergh, believe that the roasted grouse, which are being served at the big
table, will not go round for all the guests; but it amuses no one.
“They won’t go round,” he says. “I know how many there are. But they’ll
manage in spite of it, Captain Christian; they have some roasted crows
for us here at the little table.”
But Colonel Beerencreutz’s lips are curved by only a very feeble smile,
under the fierce moustaches, and Gösta has looked the whole day as if he
was meditating somebody’s death.
“Any food is good enough for pensioners,” he says.
At last the dish heaped up with magnificent grouse reaches the little
table.
But Captain Christian is angry. Has he not had a life-long hate of
crows,—those odious, cawing, winged things?
He hated them so bitterly that last autumn he had put on a woman’s
trailing dress, and had fastened a cloth on his head and made himself a
laughing-stock for all men, only to get in range when they ate the grain
in the fields.
He sought them out at their caucuses on the bare fields in the spring and
killed them. He looked for their nests in the summer, and threw out the
screaming, featherless young ones, or smashed the half-hatched eggs.
Now he seizes the dish of grouse.
“Do you think I don’t know them?” he cries to the servant. “Do I need to
hear them caw to recognize them? Shame on you, to offer Christian Bergh
crows! Shame on you!”
Thereupon he takes the grouse, one by one, and throws them against the
wall.
“Shame, shame!” he reiterates, so that the whole room rings,—“to offer
Christian Bergh crows! Shame!”
And just as he used to hurl the helpless young crows against the cliffs,
so now he sends grouse after grouse whizzing against the wall.
Sauce and grease spatter about him, the crushed birds rebound to the
floor.
And the bachelors’ wing rejoices.
Then the angry voice of the major’s wife penetrates to the pensioners’
ears.
“Turn him out!” she calls to the servants.
But they do not dare to touch him. He is still Christian Bergh, the
mighty captain.
“Turn him out!”
He hears the command, and, terrible in his rage, he now turns upon the
major’s wife as a bear turns from a fallen enemy to meet a new attack. He
marches up to the horse-shoe table. His heavy tread resounds through the
hall. He stands opposite her, with the table between them.
“Turn him out!” cries the major’s wife again.
But he is raging; none dare to face his frowning brow and great clenched
hand. He is big as a giant, and as strong. The guests and servants
tremble, and dare not approach him. Who would dare to touch him now, when
rage has taken away his reason?
He stands opposite the major’s wife and threatens her.
“I took the crow and threw it against the wall. And I did right.”
“Out with you, captain!”
“Shame, woman! Offer Christian Bergh crows! If I did right I would take
you and your seven hell’s—”
“Thousand devils, Christian Bergh! don’t swear. Nobody but I swears here.”
“Do you think I am afraid of you, hag? Don’t you think I know how you got
your seven estates?”
“Silence, captain!”
“When Altringer died he gave them to your husband because you had been
his mistress.”
“Will you be silent?”
“Because you had been such a faithful wife, Margareta Samzelius. And the
major took the seven estates and let you manage them and pretended not to
know. And the devil arranged it all; but now comes the end for you.”
The major’s wife sits down; she is pale and trembling. She assents in a
strange, low voice.
“Yes, now it is the end for me, and it is your doing, Christian Bergh.”
At her voice Captain Christian trembles, his face works, and his eyes are
filled with tears of anguish.
“I am drunk,” he cries. “I don’t know what I am saying; I haven’t said
anything. Dog and slave, dog and slave, and nothing more have I been for
her for forty years. She is Margareta Celsing, whom I have served my
whole life. I say nothing against her. What should I have to say against
the beautiful Margareta Celsing! I am the dog which guards her door, the
slave who bears her burdens. She may strike me, she may kick me! You see
how I hold my tongue and bear it. I have loved her for forty years. How
could I say anything against her?”
And a wonderful sight it is to see how he kneels and begs for
forgiveness. And as she is sitting on the other side of the table, he
goes on his knees round the table till he comes to her; then he bends
down and kisses the hem of her dress, and the floor is wet with his tears.
But not far from the major’s wife sits a small, strong man. He has shaggy
hair, small, squinting eyes, and a protruding under-jaw. He looks like a
bear. He is a man of few words, who likes to go his own quiet way and
let the world take care of itself. He is Major Samzelius.
He rises when he hears Captain Christian’s accusing words, and the
major’s wife rises, and all the fifty guests. The women are weeping in
terror of what is coming, the men stand dejected, and at the feet of
the major’s wife lies Captain Christian, kissing the hem of her dress,
wetting the floor with his tears.
The major slowly clenches his broad, hairy hands, and lifts his arm.
But the woman speaks first. Her voice sounds hollow and unfamiliar.
“You stole me,” she cried. “You came like a thief and took me. They
forced me, in my home, by blows, by hunger, and hard words to be your
wife. I have treated you as you deserved.”
The major’s broad fist is clenched. His wife gives way a couple of steps.
Then she speaks again.
“Living eels twist under the knife; an unwilling wife takes a lover. Will
you strike me now for what happened twenty years ago? Do you not remember
how he lived at Ekeby, we at Sjö? Do you not remember how he helped us
in our poverty? We drove in his carriages, we drank his wine. Did we
hide anything from you? Were not his servants your servants? Did not his
gold weigh heavy in your pocket? Did you not accept the seven estates?
You held your tongue and took them; then you should have struck, Berndt
Samzelius,—then you should have struck.”
The man turns from her and looks on all those present. He reads in their
faces that they think she is right, that they all believe he took the
estates in return for his silence.
“I never knew it!” he says, and stamps on the floor.
“It is well that you know it now!” she cries, in a shrill, ringing voice.
“Was I not afraid lest you should die without knowing it? It is well that
you know it now, so that I can speak out to you who have been my master
and jailer. You know now that I, in spite of all, was his from whom you
stole me. I tell you all now, you who have slandered me!”
It is the old love which exults in her voice and shines from her eyes.
Her husband stands before her with lifted hand. She reads horror and
scorn on the fifty faces about her. She feels that it is the last hour of
her power. But she cannot help rejoicing that she may speak openly of the
tenderest memory of her life.
“He was a man, a man indeed. Who were you, to come between us? I have
never seen his equal. He gave me happiness, he gave me riches. Blessed be
his memory!”
Then the major lets his lifted arm fall without striking her; now he
knows how he shall punish her.
“Away!” he cries; “out of my house!”
She stands motionless.
But the pensioners stand with pale faces and stare at one another.
Everything was going as the devil had prophesied. They now saw the
consequences of the non-renewal of the contract. If that is true, so is
it also true that she for more than twenty years had sent pensioners
to perdition, and that they too were destined for the journey. Oh, the
witch!
“Out with you!” continues the major. “Beg your bread on the highway! You
shall have no pleasure of his money, you shall not live on his lands.
There is no more a mistress of Ekeby. The day you set your foot in my
house I will kill you.”
“Do you drive me from my home?”
“You have no home. Ekeby is mine.”
A feeling of despair comes over the major’s wife. She retreats to the
door, he following close after her.
“You who have been my life’s curse,” she laments, “shall you also now
have power to do this to me?”
“Out, out!”
She leans against the door-post, clasps her hands, and holds them before
her face. She thinks of her mother and murmurs to herself:—
“‘May you be disowned, as I have been disowned; may the highway be your
home, the hay-stack your bed!’ It is all coming true.”
The good old clergyman from Bro and the judge from Munkerud came forward
now to Major Samzelius and tried to calm him. They said to him that it
would be best to let all those old stories rest, to let everything be as
it was, to forget and forgive.
He shakes the mild old hands from his shoulder. He is terrible to
approach, just as Christian Bergh had been.
“It is no old story,” he cries. “I never knew anything till to-day. I
have never been able before to punish the adulteress.”
At that word the major’s wife lifts her head and regains her old courage.
“You shall go out before I do. Do you think that I shall give in to
you?” she says. And she comes forward from the door.
The major does not answer, but he watches her every movement, ready to
strike if he finds no better way to revenge himself.
“Help me, good gentlemen,” she cries, “to get this man bound and carried
out, until he gets back the use of his senses. Remember who I am and who
he is! Think of it, before I must give in to him! I arrange all the work
at Ekeby, and he sits the whole day long and feeds his bears. Help me,
good friends and neighbors! There will be a boundless misery if I am no
longer here. The peasant gets his living by cutting my wood and carting
my iron. The charcoal burner lives by getting me charcoal, the lumber man
by bringing down my timber. It is I who give out the work which brings
prosperity. Smiths, mechanics, and carpenters live by serving me. Do you
think that man can keep my work going? I tell you that if you drive me
away you let famine in.”
Again are many hands lifted to help the major’s wife; again mild,
persuading hands are laid on the major’s shoulders.
“No,” he says, “away with you. Who will defend an adulteress? I tell you
that if she does not go of her own will I shall take her in my arms and
carry her down to my bears.”
At these words the raised hands are lowered.
Then, as a last resource, she turns to the pensioners.
“Will you also allow me to be driven from my home? Have I let you freeze
out in the snow in winter? Have I denied you bitter ale and sweet
brandy? Did I take any pay or any work from you because I gave you
food and clothes? Have you not played at my feet, safe as children at
their mother’s side? Has not the dance gone through my halls? Have not
merriment and laughter been your daily bread? Do not let this man, who
has been my life’s misfortune, drive me from my home, gentlemen! Do not
let me become a beggar on the highway!”
At these words Gösta Berling had stolen away to a beautiful dark-haired
girl who sat at the big table.
“You were much at Borg five years ago, Anna,” he says. “Do you know if it
was the major’s wife who told Ebba Dohna that I was a dismissed priest?”
“Help her, Gösta!” is the girl’s only answer.
“You must know that I will first hear if she has made me a murderer.”
“Oh, Gösta, what a thought! Help her, Gösta!”
“You won’t answer, I see. Then Sintram told the truth.” And Gösta goes
back to the other pensioners. He does not lift a finger to help the
major’s wife.
Oh, if only she had not put the pensioners at a separate table off there
in the corner by the stove! Now the thoughts of the night awake in their
minds, and a rage burns in their faces which is not less than the major’s
own.
In pitiless hardness they stand, unmoved by her prayers.
Did not everything they saw confirm the events of the night?
“One can see that she did not get her contract renewed,” murmurs one.
“Go to hell, hag!” screams another. “By rights we ought to hunt you from
the door.”
“Fools,” cries the gentle old Uncle Eberhard to the pensioners. “Don’t
you understand it was Sintram?”
“Of course we understand; of course we know it,” answers Julius; “but
what of that? May it not be true, at any rate? Does not Sintram go on the
devil’s errands? Don’t they understand one another?”
“Go yourself, Eberhard; go and help her!” they mock. “You don’t believe
in hell. You can go!”
And Gösta Berling stands, without a word, motionless.
No, from the threatening, murmuring, struggling bachelors’ wing she will
get no help.
Then once again she retreats to the door and raises her clasped hands to
her eyes.
“‘May you be disowned, as I have been disowned,’” she cries to herself
in her bitter sorrow. “‘May the highway be your home, the hay-stack your
bed!’”
Then she lays one hand on the door latch, but the other she stretches on
high.
“Know you all, who now let me fall, know that your hour is soon coming!
You shall be scattered, and your place shall stand empty. How can you
stand when I do not hold you up? You, Melchior Sinclair, who have a heavy
hand and let your wife feel it, beware! You, minister at Broby, your
punishment is coming! Madame Uggla, look after your house; poverty is
coming! You young, beautiful women—Elizabeth Dohna, Marianne Sinclair,
Anna Stjärnhök—do not think that I am the only one who must flee from
her home. And beware, pensioners, a storm is coming over the land. You
will be swept away from the earth; your day is over, it is verily over! I
do not lament for myself, but for you; for the storm shall pass over your
heads, and who shall stand when I have fallen? And my heart bleeds for my
poor people. Who will give them work when I am gone?”
She opens the door; but then Captain Christian lifts his head and says:—
“How long must I lie here at your feet, Margareta Celsing? Will you not
forgive me, so that I may stand up and fight for you?”
Then the major’s wife fights a hard battle with herself; but she sees
that if she forgives him he will rise up and attack her husband; and this
man, who has loved her faithfully for forty years will become a murderer.
“Must I forgive, too?” she says. “Are you not the cause of all my
misfortune, Christian Bergh? Go to the pensioners and rejoice over your
work.”
So she went. She went calmly, leaving terror and dismay behind her. She
fell, but she was not without greatness in her fall.
She did not lower herself to grieving weakly, but in her old age she
still exulted over the love of her youth. She did not lower herself to
lamenting and pitiable weeping when she left everything; she did not
shrink from wandering about the land with beggar’s bag and crutch. She
pitied only the poor peasants and the happy, careless people on the
shores of the Löfven, the penniless pensioners,—all those whom she had
taken in and cared for.
She was abandoned by all, and yet she had strength to turn away her last
friend that he should not be a murderer.
She was a woman great in strength and love of action. We shall not soon
see her like again.
The next day Major Samzelius moved from Ekeby to his own farm of Sjö,
which lies next to the large estate.
In Altringer’s will, by which the major had got the estates, it was
clearly stated that none of them should be sold or given away, but that
after the death of the major his wife and her heirs should inherit them
all. So, as he could not dissipate the hated inheritance, he placed the
pensioners to reign over it, thinking that he, by so doing, most injured
Ekeby and the other six estates.
As no one in all the country round now doubted that the wicked Sintram
went on the devil’s errands, and as everything he had promised had been
so brilliantly fulfilled the pensioners were quite sure that the contract
would be carried out in every point, and they were entirely decided not
to do, during the year, anything sensible, or useful, or effeminate,
convinced that the major’s wife was an abominable witch who sought their
ruin.
The old philosopher, Eberhard, ridiculed their belief. But who paid any
attention to such a man, who was so obstinate in his unbelief that if he
had lain in the midst of the fires of hell and had seen all the devils
standing and grinning at him, would still have insisted that they did
not exist, because they could not exist?—for Uncle Eberhard was a great
philosopher.
Gösta Berling told no one what he thought. It is certain that he
considered he owed the major’s wife little thanks because she had made
him a pensioner at Ekeby; it seemed better to him to be dead than to have
on his conscience the guilt of Ebba Dohna’s suicide.
He did not lift his hand to be revenged on the major’s wife, but neither
did he to help her. He could not. But the pensioners had attained great
power and magnificence. Christmas was at hand, with its feasts and
pleasures. The hearts of the pensioners were filled with rejoicing; and
whatever sorrow weighed on Gösta Berling’s heart he did not show in face
or speech.
CHAPTER IV
GÖSTA BERLING, POET
It was Christmas, and there was to be a ball at Borg.
At that time, and it is soon sixty years ago, a young Count Dohna lived
at Borg; he was newly married, and he had a young, beautiful countess. It
was sure to be gay at the old castle.
An invitation had come to Ekeby, but it so happened that of them all who
were there that year, Gösta Berling, whom they called “the poet,” was the
only one who wished to go.
Borg and Ekeby both lie by the Löfven, but on opposite shores. Borg is in
Svartsjö parish, Ekeby in Bro. When the lake is impassable it is a ten or
twelve miles’ journey from Ekeby to Borg.
The pauper, Gösta Berling, was fitted out for the festival by the old
men, as if he had been a king’s son, and had the honor of a kingdom to
keep up.
His coat with the glittering buttons was new, his ruffles were stiff, and
his buckled shoes shining. He wore a cloak of the finest beaver, and a
cap of sable on his yellow, curling hair. They spread a bear-skin with
silver claws over his sledge, and gave him black Don Juan, the pride of
the stable, to drive.
He whistled to his white Tancred, and seized the braided reins. He
started rejoicing, surrounded by the glitter of riches and splendor,
he who shone so by his own beauty and by the playful brilliancy of his
genius.
He left early in the forenoon. It was Sunday, and he heard the organ in
the church at Bro as he drove by. He followed the lonely forest road
which led to Berga, where Captain Uggla then lived. There he meant to
stop for dinner.
Berga was no rich man’s home. Hunger knew the way to that turf-roofed
house; but he was met with jests, charmed with song and games like other
guests, and went as unwillingly as they.
The old Mamselle Ulrika Dillner, who looked after everything at Berga,
stood on the steps and wished Gösta Berling welcome. She courtesied to
him, and the false curls, which hung down over her brown face with its
thousand wrinkles, danced with joy. She led him into the dining-room, and
then she began to tell him about the family, and their changing fortunes.
Distress stood at the door, she said; it was hard times at Berga. They
would not even have had any horse-radish for dinner, with their corned
beef, if Ferdinand and the girls had not put Disa before a sledge and
driven down to Munkerud to borrow some.
The captain was off in the woods again, and would of course come home
with a tough old hare, on which one had to use more butter in cooking
it than it was worth itself. That’s what he called getting food for the
house. Still, it would do, if only he did not come with a miserable fox,
the worst beast our Lord ever made; no use, whether dead or alive.
And the captain’s wife, yes, she was not up yet. She lay abed and read
novels, just as she had always done. She was not made for work, that
God’s angel.
No, that could be done by some one who was old and gray like Ulrika
Dillner, working night and day to keep the whole miserable affair
together. And it wasn’t always so easy; for it was the truth that for
one whole winter they had not had in that house any other meat than
bear-hams. And big wages she did not expect; so far she had never seen
any; but they would not turn her out on the roadside either, when
she couldn’t work any longer in return for her food. They treated a
house-maid like a human being in that house, and they would one of these
days give old Ulrika a good burial if they had anything to buy the coffin
with.
“For who knows how it will be?” she bursts out, and wipes her eyes, which
are always so quick to tears. “We have debts to the wicked Sintram, and
he can take everything from us. Of course Ferdinand is engaged to the
rich Anna Stjärnhök; but she is tired,—she is tired of him. And what will
become of us, of our three cows, and our nine horses, of our gay young
ladies who want to go from one ball to another, of our dry fields where
nothing grows, of our mild Ferdinand, who will never be a real man? What
will become of the whole blessed house, where everything thrives except
work?”
But dinner-time came, and the family gathered. The good Ferdinand, the
gentle son of the house, and the lively daughters came home with the
borrowed horse-radish. The captain came, fortified by a bath in a hole
in the ice and a tramp through the woods. He threw up the window to get
more air, and shook Gösta’s hand with a strong grip. And his wife came,
dressed in silk, with wide laces hanging over her white hands, which
Gösta was allowed to kiss.
They all greeted Gösta with joy; jests flew about the circle; gayly they
asked him:—
“How are you all at Ekeby; how is it in that promised land?”
“Milk and honey flow there,” he answered. “We empty the mountains of iron
and fill our cellar with wine. The fields bear gold, with which we gild
life’s misery, and we cut down our woods to build bowling-alleys and
summer houses.”
The captain’s wife sighed and smiled at his answer, and her lips murmured
the word,—
“Poet!”
“Many sins have I on my conscience,” answered Gösta, “but I have never
written a line of poetry.”
“You are nevertheless a poet, Gösta; that name you must put up with. You
have lived through more poems than all our poets have written.”
Then she spoke, tenderly as a mother, of his wasted life. “I shall live
to see you become a man,” she said. And he felt it sweet to be urged on
by this gentle woman, who was such a faithful friend, and whose romantic
heart burned with the love of great deeds.
But just as they had finished the gay meal and had enjoyed the corned
beef and horse-radish and cabbage and apple fritters and Christmas ale,
and Gösta had made them laugh and cry by telling them of the major and
his wife and the Broby clergyman, they heard sleigh-bells outside, and
immediately afterward the wicked Sintram walked in.
He beamed with satisfaction, from the top of his bald head down to his
long, flat feet. He swung his long arms, and his face was twisted. It was
easy to see that he brought bad news.
“Have you heard,” he asked,—“have you heard that the banns have been
called to-day for Anna Stjärnhök and the rich Dahlberg in the Svartsjö
church? She must have forgotten that she was engaged to Ferdinand.”
They had not heard a word of it. They were amazed and grieved.
Already they fancied the home pillaged to pay the debt to this wicked
man; the beloved horses sold, as well as the worn furniture which had
come from the home of the captain’s wife. They saw an end to the gay life
with feasts and journeyings from ball to ball. Bear-hams would again
adorn the board, and the young people must go out into the world and work
for strangers.
The captain’s wife caressed her son, and let him feel the comfort of a
never-failing love.
But—there sat Gösta Berling in the midst of them, and, unconquerable,
turned over a thousand plans in his head.
“Listen,” he cried, “it is not yet time to think of grieving. It is the
minister’s wife at Svartsjö who has arranged all this. She has got a
hold on Anna, since she has been living with her at the vicarage. It is
she who has persuaded her to forsake Ferdinand and take old Dahlberg;
but they’re not married yet, and will never be either. I am on my way to
Borg, and shall meet Anna there. I shall talk to her; I shall get her
away from the clergyman’s, from her fiancé,—I shall bring her with me
here to-night. And afterwards old Dahlberg shall never get any good of
her.”
And so it was arranged. Gösta started for Borg alone, without taking any
of the gay young ladies, but with warm good wishes for his return. And
Sintram, who rejoiced that old Dahlberg should be cheated, decided to
stop at Berga to see Gösta come back with the faithless girl. In a burst
of good-will he even wrapt round him his green plaid, a present from
Mamselle Ulrika.
The captain’s wife came out on the steps with three little books, bound
in red leather, in her hand.
“Take them,” she said to Gösta, who already sat in the sledge; “take
them, if you fail! It is ‘Corinne,’ Madame de Staël’s ‘Corinne.’ I do not
want them to go by auction.”
“I shall not fail.”
“Ah, Gösta, Gösta,” she said, and passed her hand over his bared head,
“strongest and weakest of men! How long will you remember that a few poor
people’s happiness lies in your hand?”
Once more Gösta flew along the road, drawn by the black Don Juan,
followed by the white Tancred, and the joy of adventure filled his soul.
He felt like a young conqueror, the spirit was in him.
His way took him past the vicarage at Svartsjö. He turned in there and
asked if he might drive Anna Stjärnhök to the ball. And that he was
permitted.
A beautiful, self-willed girl it was who sat in his sledge. Who would not
want to drive behind the black Don Juan?
The young people were silent at first, but then she began the
conversation, audaciousness itself.
“Have you heard what the minister read out in church to-day?”
“Did he say that you were the prettiest girl between the Löfven and the
Klar River?”
“How stupid you are! but every one knows that He called the banns for me
and old Dahlberg.”
“Never would I have let you sit in my sledge nor sat here myself, if I
had known that. Never would I have wished to drive you at all.”
And the proud heiress answered:—
“I could have got there well enough without you, Gösta Berling.”
“It is a pity for you, Anna,” said Gösta, thoughtfully, “that your father
and mother are not alive. You are your own mistress, and no one can hold
you to account.”
“It is a much greater pity that you had not said that before, so that I
might have driven with some one else.”
“The minister’s wife thinks as I do, that you need some one to take your
father’s place; else she had never put you to pull in harness with such
an old nag.”
“It is not she who has decided it.”
“Ah, Heaven preserve us!—have you yourself chosen such a fine man?”
“He does not take me for my money.”
“No, the old ones, they only run after blue eyes and red cheeks; and
awfully nice they are, when they do that.”
“Oh, Gösta, are you not ashamed?”
“But remember that you are not to play with young men any longer. No more
dancing and games. Your place is in the corner of the sofa—or perhaps
you mean to play cribbage with old Dahlberg?”
They were silent, till they drove up the steep hill to Borg.
“Thanks for the drive! It will be long before I drive again with you,
Gösta Berling.”
“Thanks for the promise! I know many who will be sorry to-day they ever
drove you to a party.”
Little pleased was the haughty beauty when she entered the ball-room and
looked over the guests gathered there.
First of all she saw the little, bald Dahlberg beside the tall, slender,
golden-haired Gösta Berling. She wished she could have driven them both
out of the room.
Her fiancé came to ask her to dance, but she received him with crushing
astonishment.
“Are you going to dance? You never do!”
And the girls came to wish her joy.
“Don’t give yourselves the trouble, girls. You don’t suppose that any
one could be in love with old Dahlberg. But he is rich, and I am rich,
therefore we go well together.”
The old ladies went up to her, pressed her white hand, and spoke of
life’s greatest happiness.
“Congratulate the minister’s wife,” she said. “She is gladder about it
than I.”
But there stood Gösta Berling, the gay cavalier, greeted with joy for his
cheerful smile and his pleasant words, which sifted gold-dust over life’s
gray web. Never before had she seen him as he was that night. He was no
outcast, no homeless jester; no, a king among men, a born king.
He and the other young men conspired against her. She should think over
how badly she had behaved when she gave herself with her lovely face and
her great fortune to an old man. And they let her sit out ten dances.
She was boiling with rage.
At the eleventh dance came a man, the most insignificant of all, a poor
thing, whom nobody would dance with, and asked her for a turn.
“There is no more bread, bring on the crusts,” she said.
They played a game of forfeits. The fair-haired girls put their heads
together and condemned her to kiss the one she loved best. And with
smiling lips they waited to see the proud beauty kiss old Dahlberg.
But she rose, stately in her anger, and said:—
“May I not just as well give a blow to the one I like the least!”
The moment after Gösta’s cheek burned under her firm hand. He flushed a
flaming red, but he conquered himself, seized her hand, held it fast a
second, and whispered:—
“Meet me in half an hour in the red drawing-room on the lower floor!”
His blue eyes flashed on her, and encompassed her with magical waves. She
felt that she must obey.
* * * * *
She met him with proud and angry words.
“How does it concern you whom I marry?”
He was not ready to speak gently to her, nor did it seem to him best to
speak yet of Ferdinand.
“I thought it was not too severe a punishment for you to sit out ten
dances. But you want to be allowed unpunished to break vows and promises.
If a better man than I had taken your sentence in his hand, he could
have made it harder.”
“What have I done to you and all the others, that I may not be in peace?
It is for my money’s sake you persecute me. I shall throw it into the
Löfven, and any one who wants it can fish it up.”
She put her hands before her eyes and wept from anger.
That moved the poet’s heart. He was ashamed of his harshness. He spoke in
caressing tones.
“Ah, child, child, forgive me! Forgive poor Gösta Berling! Nobody cares
what such a poor wretch says or does, you know that. Nobody weeps for
his anger, one might just as well weep over a mosquito’s bite. It was
madness in me to hope that I could prevent our loveliest and richest girl
marrying that old man. And now I have only distressed you.”
He sat down on the sofa beside her. Gently he put his arm about her
waist, with caressing tenderness, to support and raise her.
She did not move away. She pressed closer to him, threw her arms round
his neck, and wept with her beautiful head on his shoulder.
O poet, strongest and weakest of men, it was not about your neck those
white arms should rest.
“If I had known that,” she whispered, “never would I have taken the old
man. I have watched you this evening; there is no one like you.”
From between pale lips Gösta forced out,—
“Ferdinand.”
She silenced him with a kiss.
“He is nothing; no one but you is anything. To you will I be faithful.”
“I am Gösta Berling,” he said gloomily; “you cannot marry me.”
“You are the man I love, the noblest of men. You need do nothing, be
nothing. You are born a king.”
Then the poet’s blood seethed. She was beautiful and tender in her love.
He took her in his arms.
“If you will be mine, you cannot remain at the vicarage. Let me drive you
to Ekeby to-night; there I shall know how to defend you till we can be
married.”
* * * * *
That was a wild drive through the night. Absorbed in their love, they
let Don Juan take his own pace. The noise of the runners was like the
lamentations of those they had deceived. What did they care for that? She
hung on his neck, and he leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
“Can any happiness be compared in sweetness to stolen pleasures?”
What did the banns matter? They had love. And the anger of men! Gösta
Berling believed in fate; fate had mastered them: no one can resist fate.
If the stars had been the candles which had been lighted for her wedding,
if Don Juan’s bells had been the church chimes, calling the people to
witness her marriage to old Dahlberg, still she must have fled with Gösta
Berling. So powerful is fate.
They had passed the vicarage and Munkerud. They had three miles to Berga
and three miles more to Ekeby. The road skirted the edge of the wood; on
their right lay dark hills, on their left a long, white valley.
Tancred came rushing. He ran so fast that he seemed to lie along the
ground. Howling with fright, he sprang up in the sledge and crept under
Anna’s feet.
Don Juan shied and bolted.
“Wolves!” said Gösta Berling.
They saw a long, gray line running by the fence. There were at least a
dozen of them.
Anna was not afraid. The day had been richly blessed with adventure,
and the night promised to be equally so. It was life,—to speed over the
sparkling snow, defying wild beasts and men.
Gösta uttered an oath, leaned forward, and struck Don Juan a heavy blow
with the whip.
“Are you afraid?” he asked. “They mean to cut us off there, where the
road turns.”
Don Juan ran, racing with the wild beasts of the forest, and Tancred
howled in rage and terror. They reached the turn of the road at the same
time as the wolves, and Gösta drove back the foremost with the whip.
“Ah, Don Juan, my boy, how easily you could get away from twelve wolves,
if you did not have us to drag.”
They tied the green plaid behind them. The wolves were afraid of it, and
fell back for a while. But when they had overcome their fright, one of
them ran, panting, with hanging tongue and open mouth up to the sledge.
Then Gösta took Madame de Staël’s “Corinne” and threw it into his mouth.
Once more they had breathing-space for a time, while the brutes tore
their booty to pieces, and then again they felt the dragging as the
wolves seized the green plaid, and heard their panting breath. They knew
that they should not pass any human dwelling before Berga, but worse
than death it seemed to Gösta to see those he had deceived. But he knew
that the horse would tire, and what should become of them then?
They saw the house at Berga at the edge of the forest. Candles burned in
the windows. Gösta knew too well for whose sake.
But now the wolves drew back, fearing the neighborhood of man, and Gösta
drove past Berga. He came no further than to the place where the road
once again buried itself in the wood; there he saw a dark group before
him,—the wolves were waiting for him.
“Let us turn back to the vicarage and say that we took a little pleasure
trip in the starlight. We can’t go on.”
They turned, but in the next moment the sledge was surrounded by wolves.
Gray forms brushed by them, their white teeth glittered in gaping mouths,
and their glowing eyes shone. They howled with hunger and thirst for
blood. The glittering teeth were ready to seize the soft human flesh.
The wolves leaped up on Don Juan, and hung on the saddle-cloth. Anna sat
and wondered if they would eat them entirely up, or if there would be
something left, so that people the next morning would find their mangled
limbs on the trampled, bloody snow.
“It’s a question of our lives,” she said, and leaned down and seized
Tancred by the nape of the neck.
“Don’t,—that will not help! It is not for the dog’s sake the wolves are
out to-night.”
Thereupon Gösta drove into the yard at Berga, but the wolves hunted him
up to the very steps. He had to beat them off with the whip.
“Anna,” he said, as they drew up, “God would not have it. Keep a
good countenance; if you are the woman I take you for, keep a good
countenance!”
They had heard the sleigh-bells in the house, and came out.
“He has her!” they cried, “he has her! Long live Gösta Berling!” and the
new-comers were embraced by one after another.
Few questions were asked. The night was far advanced, the travellers were
agitated by their terrible drive and needed rest. It was enough that Anna
had come.
All was well. Only “Corinne” and the green plaid, Mamselle Ulrika’s
prized gift, were destroyed.
* * * * *
The whole house slept. But Gösta rose, dressed himself, and stole out.
Unnoticed he led Don Juan out of the stable, harnessed him to the sledge,
and meant to set out. But Anna Stjärnhök came out from the house.
“I heard you go out,” she said. “So I got up, too. I am ready to go with
you.”
He went up to her and took her hand.
“Don’t you understand it yet? It cannot be. God does not wish it. Listen
now and try to understand. I was here to dinner and saw their grief over
your faithlessness. I went to Borg to bring you back to Ferdinand. But
I have always been a good-for-nothing, and will never be anything else.
I betrayed him, and kept you for myself. There is an old woman here who
believes that I shall become a man. I betrayed her. And another poor old
thing will freeze and starve here for the sake of dying among friends,
but I was ready to let the wicked Sintram take her home. You were
beautiful, and sin is sweet. It is so easy to tempt Gösta Berling. Oh,
what a miserable wretch I am! I know how they love their home, all those
in there, but I was ready just now to leave it to be pillaged. I forgot
everything for your sake, you were so sweet in your love. But now, Anna,
now since I have seen their joy, I will not keep you; no, I will not. You
could have made a man of me, but I may not keep you. Oh, my beloved! He
there above mocks at our desires. We must bow under His chastising hand.
Tell me that you from this day will take up your burden! All of them rely
upon you. Say that you will stay with them and be their prop and help!
If you love me, if you will lighten my deep sorrow, promise me this! My
beloved, is your heart so great that you can conquer yourself, and smile
in doing it?”
She accepted the renunciation in a sort of ecstasy.
“I shall do as you wish,—sacrifice myself and smile.”
“And not hate my poor friends?”
She smiled sadly.
“As long as I love you, I shall love them.”
“Now for the first time I know what you are. It is hard to leave you.”
“Farewell, Gösta! Go, and God be with you! My love shall not tempt you to
sin.”
She turned to go in. He followed her.
“Will you soon forget me?”
“Go, Gösta! We are only human.”
He threw himself down in the sledge, but then she came back again.
“Do you not think of the wolves?”
“Just of them I am thinking, but they have done their work. From me they
have nothing more to get this night.”
Once more he stretched his arms towards her, but Don Juan became
impatient and set off. He did not take the reins. He sat backwards and
looked after her. Then he leaned against the seat and wept despairingly.
“I have possessed happiness and driven her from me; I myself drove her
from me. Why did I not keep her?”
Ah, Gösta Berling, strongest and weakest of men!
CHAPTER V
LA CACHUCHA
War-horse! war-horse! Old friend, who now stand tethered in the pasture,
do you remember your youth?
Do you remember the day of the battle? You sprang forward, as if you had
been borne on wings, your mane fluttered about you like waving flames, on
your black haunches shone drops of blood and frothy foam. In harness of
gold you bounded forward; the ground thundered under you. You trembled
with joy. Ah, how beautiful you were!
It is the gray hour of twilight in the pensioners’ wing. In the big room
the pensioners’ red-painted chests stand against the walls, and their
holiday clothes hang on hooks in the corner. The firelight plays on the
whitewashed walls and on the yellow-striped curtains which conceal the
beds. The pensioners’ wing is not a kingly dwelling,—no seraglio with
cushioned divans and soft pillows.
But there Lilliecrona’s violin is heard. He is playing the cachucha in
the dusk of the evening. And he plays it over and over again.
Cut the strings, break his bow! Why does he play that cursed dance? Why
does he play it, when Örneclou, the ensign, is lying sick with the pains
of gout, so severe that he cannot move in his bed? No; snatch the violin
away and throw it against the wall if he will not stop.
La cachucha, is it for us, master? Shall it be danced over the shaking
floor of the pensioners’ wing, between the narrow walls, black with smoke
and greasy with dirt, under that low ceiling? Woe to you, to play so.
La cachucha, is it for us,—for us pensioners? Without the snow-storm
howls. Do you think to teach the snow-flakes to dance in time? Are you
playing for the light-footed children of the storm?
Maiden forms, which tremble with the throbbing of hot blood, small sooty
hands, which have thrown aside the pot to seize the castanets, bare feet
under tucked-up skirts, courts paved with marble slabs, crouching gypsies
with bagpipe and tambourine, Moorish arcades, moonlight, and black
eyes,—have you these, master? If not, let the violin rest.
The pensioners are drying their wet clothes by the fire. Shall they swing
in high boots with iron-shod heels and inch-thick soles? Through snow
yards deep they have waded the whole day to reach the bear’s lair. Do you
think they will dance in wet, reeking homespun clothes, with shaggy bruin
as a partner?
An evening sky glittering with stars, red roses in dark hair, troublous
tenderness in the air, untutored grace in their movements, love rising
from the ground, raining from the sky, floating in the air,—have you all
that, master? If not, why do you force us to long for such things?
Most cruel of men, are you summoning the tethered war-horse to the
combat? Rutger von Örneclou is lying in his bed, a prisoner to the gout.
Spare him the pain of tender memories, master! He too has worn sombrero
and bright-colored hair-net; he too has owned velvet jacket and belted
poniard. Spare old Örneclou, master!
But Lilliecrona plays the cachucha, always the cachucha, and Örneclou
is tortured like the lover when he sees the swallow fly away to his
beloved’s distant dwelling, like the hart when he is driven by the
hurrying chase past the cooling spring.
Lilliecrona takes the violin for a second from his chin.
“Ensign, do you remember Rosalie von Berger?”
Örneclou swears a solemn oath.
“She was light as a candle-flame. She sparkled and danced like the
diamond in the end of the fiddle-bow. You must remember her in the
theatre at Karlstad. We saw her when we were young; do you remember?”
And the ensign remembered. She was small and ardent. She was like a
sparkling flame. She could dance la cachucha. She taught all the young
men in Karlstad to dance cachucha and to play the castanets. At the
governor’s ball a _pas de deux_ was danced by the ensign and Mlle. von
Berger, dressed as Spaniards.
And he had danced as one dances under fig-trees and magnolias, like a
Spaniard,—a real Spaniard.
No one in the whole of Värmland could dance cachucha like him. No one
could dance it so that it was worth speaking of it, but he.
What a cavalier Värmland lost when the gout stiffened his legs and great
lumps grew out on his joints! What a cavalier he had been, so slender,
so handsome, so courtly! “The handsome Örneclou” he was called by those
young girls, who were ready to come to blows over a dance with him.
Then Lilliecrona begins the cachucha again, always the cachucha, and
Örneclou is taken back to old times.
There he stands, and there she stands, Rosalie von Berger. Just now they
were alone in the dressing-room. She was a Spaniard, he too. He was
allowed to kiss her, but carefully, for she was afraid of his blackened
moustache. Now they dance. Ah, as one dances under fig-trees and
magnolias! She draws away, he follows; he is bold, she proud; he wounded,
she conciliatory. When he at the end falls on his knees and receives her
in his outstretched arms, a sigh goes through the ball-room, a sigh of
rapture.
He had been like a Spaniard, a real Spaniard.
Just at that stroke had he bent so, stretched his arms so, and put out
his foot to glide forward. What grace! He might have been hewn in marble.
He does not know how it happened, but he has got his foot over the edge
of the bed, he stands upright, he bends, he raises his arms, snaps his
fingers, and wishes to glide forward over the floor in the same way as
long ago, when he wore so tight patent leather shoes the stocking feet
had to be cut away.
“Bravo, Örneclou! Bravo, Lilliecrona, play life into him!”
His foot gives way; he cannot rise on his toe. He kicks a couple of times
with one leg; he can do no more, he falls back on the bed.
Handsome señor, you have grown old.
Perhaps the señorita has too.
It is only under the plane-trees of Granada that the cachucha is danced
by eternally young gitanas. Eternally young, because, like the roses,
each spring brings new ones.
So now the time has come to cut the strings.
No, play on, Lilliecrona, play the cachucha, always the cachucha!
Teach us that, although we have got slow bodies and stiff joints, in our
feelings we are always the same, always Spaniards.
War-horse, war-horse!
Say that you love the trumpet-blast, which decoys you into a gallop, even
if you also cut your foot to the bone on the steel-link of the tether.
CHAPTER VI
THE BALL AT EKEBY
Ah, women of the olden times!
To speak of you is to speak of the kingdom of heaven; you were all
beauties, ever bright, ever young, ever lovely and gentle as a mother’s
eyes when she looks down on her child. Soft as young squirrels you hung
on your husband’s neck. Your voice never trembled with anger, no frowns
ruffled your brow, your white hand was never harsh and hard. You, sweet
saints, like adored images stood in the temple of home. Incense and
prayers were offered you, through you love worked its wonders, and round
your temples poetry wreathed its gold, gleaming glory.
Ah, women of the past, this is the story of how one of you gave Gösta
Berling her love.
Two weeks after the ball at Borg there was one at Ekeby.
What a feast it was! Old men and women become young again, smile and
rejoice, only in speaking of it.
The pensioners were masters at Ekeby at that time. The major’s wife went
about the country with beggar’s wallet and crutch, and the major lived at
Sjö. He could not even be present at the ball, for at Sjö small-pox had
broken out, and he was afraid to spread the infection.
What pleasures those twelve hours contained, from the pop of the first
cork at the dinner-table to the last wail of the violins, long after
midnight.
They have sunk into the background of time, those crowned hours, made
magical by the most fiery wines, by the most delicate food, by the most
inspiring music, by the wittiest of theatricals, by the most beautiful
tableaux. They have sunk away, dizzy with the dizziest dance. Where are
to be found such polished floors, such courtly knights, such lovely women?
Ah, women of the olden days, you knew well how to adorn a ball. Streams
of fire, of genius, and youthful vigor thrilled each and all who
approached you. It was worth wasting one’s gold on wax-candles to light
up your loveliness, on wine to instil gayety into your hearts; it was
worth dancing soles to dust and rubbing stiff arms which had drawn the
fiddle-bow, for your sakes.
Ah, women of the olden days, it was you who owned the key to the door of
Paradise.
The halls of Ekeby are crowded with the loveliest of your lovely throng.
There is the young Countess Dohna, sparklingly gay and eager for game and
dance, as befits her twenty years; there are the lovely daughters of the
judge of Munkerud, and the lively young ladies from Berga; there is Anna
Stjärnhök, a thousand times more beautiful than ever before, with that
gentle dreaminess which had come over her ever since the night she had
been hunted by wolves; there are many more, who are not yet forgotten but
soon will be; and there is the beautiful Marianne Sinclair.
She, the famed queen of beauty, who had shone at royal courts, who had
travelled the land over and received homage everywhere, she who lighted
the spark of love wherever she showed herself,—she had deigned to come to
the pensioners’ ball.
At that time Värmland’s glory was at its height, borne up by many proud
names. Much had the beautiful land’s happy children to be proud of, but
when they named their glories they never neglected to speak of Marianne
Sinclair.
The tales of her conquests filled the land.
They spoke of the coronets which had floated over her head, of the
millions which had been laid at her feet, of the warriors’ swords and
poets’ wreaths whose splendor had tempted her.
And she possessed not only beauty. She was witty and learned. The
cleverest men of the day were glad to talk with her. She was not an
author herself, but many of her ideas, which she had put into the souls
of her poet-friends, lived again in song.
In Värmland, in the land of the bear, she seldom stayed. Her life was
spent in perpetual journeyings. Her father, the rich Melchior Sinclair,
remained at home at Björne and let Marianne go to her noble friends in
the large towns or at the great country-seats. He had his pleasure in
telling of all the money she wasted, and both the old people lived happy
in the splendor of Marianne’s glowing existence.
Her life was a life of pleasures and homage. The air about her was
love—love her light and lamp, love her daily bread.
She, too, had often loved, often, often; but never had that fire lasted
long enough to forge the chains which bind for life.
“I wait for him, the irresistible,” she used to say of love. “Hitherto he
has not climbed over several ramparts, nor swum through several trenches.
He has come tamely, without wildness in his eye and madness in his heart.
I wait for the conqueror, who shall take me out of myself. I will feel
love so strong within me that I must tremble before him; now I know only
the love at which my good sense laughs.”
Her presence gave fire to talk, life to the wine. Her glowing spirit
set the fiddle-bows going, and the dance floated in sweeter giddiness
than before over the floor which she had touched with her feet. She was
radiant in the tableaux, she gave genius to the comedy, her lovely lips—
Ah, hush, it was not her fault, she never meant to do it! It was the
balcony, it was the moonlight, the lace veil, the knightly dress, the
song, which were to blame. The poor young creatures were innocent.
All that which led to so much unhappiness was with the best intentions.
Master Julius, who could do anything, had arranged a tableau especially
that Marianne might shine in full glory.
In the theatre, which was set up in the great drawing-room at Ekeby,
sat the hundred guests and looked at the picture, Spain’s yellow moon
wandering through a dark night sky. A Don Juan came stealing along
Sevilla’s street and stopped under an ivy-clad balcony. He was disguised
as a monk, but one could see an embroidered cuff under the sleeve, and a
gleaming sword-point under the mantle’s hem.
He raised his voice in song:—
“I kiss the lips of no fair maid,
Nor wet mine with the foaming wine
Within the beaker’s gold.
A cheek upon whose rose-leaf shade
Mine eyes have lit a glow divine,
A look which shyly seeketh mine,—
These leave me still and cold.
“Ah, come not in thy beauty’s glow,
Señora, through yon terrace-door;
I fear when thou art nigh!
Cope and stole my shoulders know,
The Virgin only I adore,
And water-jugs hold comfort’s store;
For ease to them I fly.”
As he finished, Marianne came out on the balcony, dressed in black
velvet and lace veil. She leaned over the balustrade and sang slowly and
ironically:
“Why tarry thus, thou holy man
Beneath my window late or long?
Dost pray for my soul’s weal?”
Then suddenly, warmly and eagerly:—
“Ah, flee, begone while yet you can!
Your gleaming sword sticks forth so long.
And plainly, spite your holy song,
The spurs clank on your heel.”
At these words the monk cast off his disguise, and Gösta Berling stood
under the balcony in a knight’s dress of silk and gold. He heeded not
the beauty’s warning, but climbed up one of the balcony supports, swung
himself over the balustrade, and, just as Master Julius had arranged it,
fell on his knees at the lovely Marianne’s feet.
Graciously she smiled on him, and gave him her hand to kiss, and while
the two young people gazed at one another, absorbed in their love, the
curtain fell.
And before her knelt Gösta Berling, with a face tender as a poet’s and
bold as a soldier’s, with deep eyes, which glowed with wit and genius,
which implored and constrained. Supple and full of strength was he, fiery
and captivating.
While the curtain went up and down, the two stood always in the same
position. Gösta’s eyes held the lovely Marianne fast; they implored; they
constrained.
Then the applause ceased; the curtain hung quiet; no one saw them.
Then the beautiful Marianne bent down and kissed Gösta Berling. She did
not know why,—she had to. He stretched up his arms about her head and
held her fast. She kissed him again and again.
But it was the balcony, it was the moonlight, it was the lace veil, the
knightly dress, the song, the applause, which were to blame. They had not
wished it. She had not thrust aside the crowns which had hovered over her
head, and spurned the millions which lay at her feet, out of love for
Gösta Berling; nor had he already forgotten Anna Stjärnhök. No; they were
blameless; neither of them had wished it.
It was the gentle Löwenborg,—he with the fear in his eye and the smile
on his lips,—who that day was curtain-raiser. Distracted by the memory
of many sorrows, he noticed little of the things of this world, and had
never learned to look after them rightly. When he now saw that Gösta and
Marianne had taken a new position, he thought that it also belonged to
the tableau, and so he began to drag on the curtain string.
The two on the balcony observed nothing until a thunder of applause
greeted them.
Marianne started back and wished to flee, but Gösta held her fast,
whispering:—
“Stand still; they think it belongs to the tableau.”
He felt how her body shook with shuddering, and how the fire of her
kisses died out on her lips.
“Do not be afraid,” he whispered; “lovely lips have a right to kiss.”
They had to stand while the curtain went up and went down, and each time
the hundreds of eyes saw them, hundreds of hands thundered out a stormy
applause.
For it was beautiful to see two fair young people represent love’s
happiness. No one could think that those kisses were anything but stage
delusion. No one guessed that the señora shook with embarrassment and the
knight with uneasiness. No one could think that it did not all belong to
the tableau.
At last Marianne and Gösta stood behind the scenes.
She pushed her hair back from her forehead.
“I don’t understand myself,” she said.
“Fie! for shame, Miss Marianne,” said he, grimacing, and stretched out
his hands. “To kiss Gösta Berling; shame on you!”
Marianne had to laugh.
“Everyone knows that Gösta Berling is irresistible. My fault is no
greater than others’.”
And they agreed to put a good face on it, so that no one should suspect
the truth.
“Can I be sure that the truth will never come out, _Herr_ Gösta?” she
asked, before they went out among the guests.
“That you can. Gentlemen can hold their tongues. I promise you that.”
She dropped her eyes. A strange smile curved her lips.
“If the truth should come out, what would people think of me, Herr Gösta?”
“They would not think anything. They would know that it meant nothing.
They would think that we entered into our parts and were going on with
the play.”
Yet another question, with lowered lids and with the same forced smile,—
“But you yourself? What do you think about it, Herr Gösta?”
“I think that you are in love with me,” he jested.
“Think no such thing,” she smiled, “for then I must run you through with
my stiletto to show you that you are wrong.”
“Women’s kisses are precious,” said Gösta. “Does it cost one’s life to be
kissed by Marianne Sinclair?”
A glance flashed on him from Marianne’s eyes, so sharp that it felt like
a blow.
“I could wish to see you dead, Gösta Berling! dead! dead!”
These words revived the old longing in the poet’s blood.
“Ah,” he said, “would that those words were more than words!—that they
were arrows which came whistling from some dark ambush; that they were
daggers or poison, and had the power to destroy this wretched body and
set my soul free!”
She was calm and smiling now.
“Childishness!” she said, and took his arm to join the guests.
They kept their costumes, and their triumphs were renewed when they
showed themselves in front of the scenes. Every one complimented them. No
one suspected anything.
The ball began again, but Gösta escaped from the ball-room.
His heart ached from Marianne’s glance, as if it had been wounded by
sharp steel. He understood too well the meaning of her words.
It was a disgrace to love him; it was a disgrace to be loved by him, a
shame worse than death.
He would never dance again. He wished never to see them again, those
lovely women.
He knew it too well. Those beautiful eyes, those red cheeks burned not
for him. Not for him floated those light feet, nor rung that low laugh.
Yes, dance with him, flirt with him, that they could do, but not one of
them would be his in earnest.
The poet went into the smoking-room to the old men, and sat down by one
of the card-tables. He happened to throw himself down by the same table
where the powerful master of Björne sat and played “baccarat” holding the
bank with a great pile of silver in front of him.
The play was already high. Gösta gave it an even greater impulse. Green
bank-notes appeared, and always the pile of money grew in front of the
powerful Melchior Sinclair.
But before Gösta also gathered both coins and notes, and soon he was the
only one who held out in the struggle against the great land-owner at
Björne. Soon the great pile of money changed over from Melchior Sinclair
to Gösta Berling.
“Gösta, my boy,” cried the land-owner, laughing, when he had played away
everything he had in his pocket-book and purse, “what shall we do now?
I am bankrupt, and I never play with borrowed money. I promised my wife
that.”
He discovered a way. He played away his watch and his beaver coat, and
was just going to stake his horse and sledge when Sintram checked him.
“Stake something to win on,” he advised him. “Stake something to turn the
luck.”
“What the devil have I got?”
“Play your reddest heart’s blood, brother Melchior. Stake your daughter!”
“You would never venture that,” said Gösta, laughing. “That prize I would
never get under my roof.”
Melchior could not help laughing also. He could not endure that
Marianne’s name should be mentioned at the card-tables, but this was so
insanely ridiculous that he could not be angry. To play away Marianne to
Gösta, yes, that he certainly could venture.
“That is to say,” he explained, “that if you can win her consent, Gösta,
I will stake my blessing to the marriage on this card.”
Gösta staked all his winnings and the play began. He won, and Sinclair
stopped playing. He could not fight against such bad luck; he saw that.
The night slipped by; it was past midnight. The lovely women’s cheeks
began to grow pale; curls hung straight, ruffles were crumpled. The old
ladies rose up from the sofa-corners and said that as they had been
there twelve hours, it was about time for them to be thinking of home.
And the beautiful ball should be over, but then Lilliecrona himself
seized the fiddle and struck up the last polka. The horses stood at the
door; the old ladies were dressed in their cloaks and shawls; the old men
wound their plaids about them and buckled their galoshes.
But the young people could not tear themselves from the dance. They
danced in their out-door wraps, and a mad dance it was. As soon as a girl
stopped dancing with one partner, another came and dragged her away with
him.
And even the sorrowful Gösta was dragged into the whirl. He hoped to
dance away grief and humiliation; he wished to have the love of life in
his blood again; he longed to be gay, he as well as the others. And he
danced till the walls went round, and he no longer knew what he was doing.
Who was it he had got hold of in the crowd? She was light and supple, and
he felt that streams of fire went from one to the other. Ah, Marianne!
While Gösta danced with Marianne, Sintram sat in his sledge before the
door, and beside him stood Melchior Sinclair.
The great land-owner was impatient at being forced to wait for Marianne.
He stamped in the snow with his great snow-boots and beat with his arms,
for it was bitter cold.
“Perhaps you ought not to have played Marianne away to Gösta,” said
Sintram.
“What do you mean?”
Sintram arranged his reins and lifted his whip, before he answered:—
“It did not belong to the tableau, that kissing.”
The powerful land-owner raised his arm for a death-blow, but Sintram was
already gone. He drove away, whipping the horse to a wild gallop without
daring to look back, for Melchior Sinclair had a heavy hand and short
patience.
He went now into the dancing-room to look for his daughter, and saw how
Gösta and Marianne were dancing.
Wild and giddy was that last polka.
Some of the couples were pale, others glowing red, dust lay like smoke
over the hall, the wax-candles gleamed, burned down to the sockets, and
in the midst of all the ghostly ruin, they flew on, Gösta and Marianne,
royal in their tireless strength, no blemish on their beauty, happy in
the glorious motion.
Melchior Sinclair watched them for a while; but then he went and left
Marianne to dance. He slammed the door, tramped down the stairs, and
placed himself in the sledge, where his wife already waited, and drove
home.
When Marianne stopped dancing and asked after her parents, they were gone.
When she was certain of this she showed no surprise. She dressed herself
quietly and went out in the yard. The ladies in the dressing-room thought
that she drove in her own sledge.
She hurried in her thin satin shoes along the road without telling any
one of her distress.
In the darkness no one recognized her, as she went by the edge of the
road; no one could think that this late wanderer, who was driven up into
the high drifts by the passing sledges, was the beautiful Marianne.
When she could go in the middle of the road she began to run. She ran as
long as she was able, then walked for a while, then ran again. A hideous,
torturing fear drove her on.
From Ekeby to Björne it cannot be farther than at most two miles.
Marianne was soon at home, but she thought almost that she had come the
wrong way. When she reached the house all the doors were closed, all the
lights out; she wondered if her parents had not come home.
She went forward and twice knocked loudly on the front door. She seized
the door-handle and shook it till the noise resounded through the whole
house. No one came and opened, but when she let the iron go, which she
had grasped with her bare hands, the fast-frozen skin was torn from them.
Melchior Sinclair had driven home in order to shut his door on his only
child.
He was drunk with much drinking, wild with rage. He hated his daughter,
because she liked Gösta Berling. He had shut the servants into the
kitchen, and his wife in the bedroom. With solemn oaths he told them that
the one who let Marianne in, he would beat to a jelly. And they knew that
he would keep his word.
No one had ever seen him so angry. Such a grief had never come to him
before. Had his daughter come into his presence, he would perhaps have
killed her.
Golden ornaments, silken dresses had he given her, wit and learning had
been instilled in her. She had been his pride, his glory. He had been
as proud of her as if she had worn a crown. Oh, his queen, his goddess,
his honored, beautiful, proud Marianne! Had he ever denied her anything?
Had he not always considered himself too common to be her father? Oh,
Marianne, Marianne!
Ought he not to hate her, when she is in love with Gösta Berling and
kisses him? Should he not cast her out, shut his door against her, when
she will disgrace her greatness by loving such a man? Let her stay at
Ekeby, let her run to the neighbors for shelter, let her sleep in the
snow-drifts; it’s all the same, she has already been dragged in the dirt,
the lovely Marianne. The bloom is gone. The lustre of her life is gone.
He lies there in his bed, and hears how she beats on the door. What does
that matter to him? He is asleep. Outside stands one who will marry a
dismissed priest; he has no home for such a one. If he had loved her
less, if he had been less proud of her, he could have let her come in.
Yes, his blessing he could not refuse them. He had played it away. But to
open the door for her, that he would not do. Ah, Marianne!
The beautiful young woman still stood outside the door of her home. One
minute she shook the lock in powerless rage, the next she fell on her
knees, clasped her mangled hands, and begged for forgiveness.
But no one heard her, no one answered, no one opened to her.
Oh! was it not terrible? I am filled with horror as I tell of it. She
came from a ball whose queen she had been! She had been proud, rich,
happy; and in one minute she was cast into such an endless misery. Shut
out from her home, exposed to the cold,—not scorned, not beaten, not
cursed, but shut out with cold, immovable lovelessness.
Think of the cold, starlit night, which spread its arch above her, the
great wide night with the empty, desolate snow-fields, with the silent
woods. Everything slept, everything was sunk in painless sleep; only one
living point in all that sleeping whiteness. All sorrow and pain and
horror, which otherwise had been spread over the world, crept forward
towards that one lonely point. O God, to suffer alone in the midst of
this sleeping, ice-bound world!
For the first time in her life she met with unmercifulness and hardness.
Her mother would not take the trouble to leave her bed to save her. The
old servants, who had guided her first steps, heard her and did not move
a finger for her sake. For what crime was she punished?
Where should she find compassion, if not at this door? If she had been a
murderess, she would still have knocked on it, knowing that they would
forgive her. If she had sunk to being the most miserable of creatures,
come wasted and in rags, she would still confidently have gone up to that
door, and expected a loving welcome. That door was the entrance to her
home; behind it she could only meet with love.
Had not her father tried her enough? Would they not soon open to her?
“Father, father!” she called. “Let me come in! I freeze, I tremble. It is
terrible out here!”
“Mother, mother! You who have gone so many steps to serve me, you who
have watched so many nights over me, why do you sleep now? Mother,
mother, wake just this one night, and I will never give you pain again!”
She calls, and falls into breathless silence to listen for an answer. But
no one heard her, no one obeyed her, no one answered.
Then she wrings her hands in despair, but there are no tears in her eyes.
The long, dark house with its closed doors and darkened windows lay awful
and motionless in the night. What would become of her, who was homeless?
Branded and dishonored was she, as long as she encumbered the earth. And
her father himself pressed the red-hot iron deeper into her shoulders.
“Father,” she called once more, “what will become of me? People will
believe the worst of me.”
She wept and suffered; her body was stiff with cold.
Alas, that such misery can reach one, who but lately stood so high! It
is so easy to be plunged into the deepest suffering! Should we not fear
life? Who sails in a safe craft? Round about us swell sorrows like a
heaving ocean; see how the hungry waves lick the ship’s sides, see how
they rage up over her. Ah, no safe anchorage, no solid ground, no steady
ship, as far as the eye can see; only an unknown sky over an ocean of
sorrow!
But hush! At last, at last! A light step comes through the hall.
“Is it mother?” asked Marianne.
“Yes, my child.”
“May I come in now?”
“Father will not let you come in.”
“I have run in the snow-drifts in my thin shoes all the way from Ekeby.
I have stood here an hour and knocked and called. I am freezing to death
out here. Why did you drive away and leave me?”
“My child, my child, why did you kiss Gösta Berling?”
“But father must have seen that I do not like him for that. It was in
fun. Does he think that I will marry Gösta?”
“Go to the gardener’s house, Marianne, and beg that you pass the night
there. Your father is drunk. He will not listen to reason. He has kept me
a prisoner up there. I crept out when I thought he was asleep. He will
kill me, if you come in.”
“Mother, mother, shall I go to strangers when I have a home? Are you as
hard as father? How can you allow me to be shut out? I will lay myself in
the drift out here, if you do not let me in.”
Then Marianne’s mother laid her hand on the lock to open the door, but at
the same moment a heavy step was heard on the stair, and a harsh voice
called her.
Marianne listened: her mother hurried away, the harsh voice cursed her
and then—
Marianne heard something terrible,—she could hear every sound in the
silent house.
She heard the thud of a blow, a blow with a stick or a box on the ear;
then she heard a faint noise, and then again a blow.
He struck her mother, the terrible brutal Melchior Sinclair struck his
wife!
And in pale horror Marianne threw herself down on the threshold and
writhed in anguish. Now she wept, and her tears froze to ice on the
threshold of her home.
Grace! pity! Open, open, that she might bend her own back under the
blows! Oh, that he could strike her mother, strike her, because she did
not wish to see her daughter the next day lying dead in the snow-drift,
because she had wished to comfort her child!
Great humiliation had come to Marianne that night. She had fancied
herself a queen, and she lay there little better than a whipped slave.
But she rose up in cold rage. Once more she struck the door with her
bloody hand and called:—
“Hear what I say to you,—you, who beat my mother. You shall weep for
this, Melchior Sinclair, weep!”
Then she went and laid herself to rest in the snow-drift. She threw off
her cloak and lay in her black velvet dress, easily distinguishable
against the white snow. She lay and thought how her father would come out
the next day on his early morning tour of inspection and find her there.
She only hoped that he himself might find her.
* * * * *
O Death, pale friend, is it as true as it is consoling, that I never can
escape meeting you? Even to me, the lowliest of earth’s workers, will
you come, to loosen the torn leather shoes from my feet, to take the
spade and the barrow from my hand, to take the working-dress from my
body. With gentle force you lay me out on a lace-trimmed bed; you adorn
me with draped linen sheets. My feet need no more shoes, my hands are
clad in snow-white gloves, which no more work shall soil. Consecrated by
thee to the sweetness of rest, I shall sleep a sleep of a thousand years.
Oh deliverer! The lowliest of earth’s laborers am I, and I dream with a
thrill of pleasure of the hour when I shall be received into your kingdom.
Pale friend, on me you can easily try your strength, but I tell you
that the fight was harder against those women of the olden days. Life’s
strength was mighty in their slender bodies, no cold could cool their
hot blood. You had laid Marianne on your bed, O Death, and you sat
by her side, as an old nurse sits by the cradle to lull the child to
sleep. You faithful old nurse, who know what is good for the children
of men, how angry you must be when playmates come, who with noise and
romping wake your sleeping child. How vexed you must have been when the
pensioners lifted the lovely Marianne out of the bed, when a man laid her
against his breast, and warm tears fell from his eyes on to her face.
* * * * *
At Ekeby all lights were out, and all the guests had gone. The pensioners
stood alone in the bachelors’ wing, about the last half-emptied punch
bowl.
Then Gösta rung on the edge of the bowl and made a speech for you, women
of the olden days. To speak of you, he said, was to speak of the kingdom
of heaven: you were all beauties, ever bright, ever young, ever lovely
and gentle as a mother’s eyes when she looks down on her child. Soft
as young squirrels you hung on your husband’s neck, your voice never
trembled with anger, no frowns ruffled your brow, your white hands were
never harsh and hard. Sweet saints, you were adored images in the temple
of home. Men lay at your feet, offering you incense and prayers. Through
you love worked its wonders, and round your temples poetry wreathed its
gold, gleaming glory.
And the pensioners sprang up, wild with wine, wild with his words, with
their blood raging. Old Eberhard and the lazy Christopher drew back
from the sport. In the wildest haste the pensioners harnessed horses to
sledges and hurried out in the cold night to pay homage to those who
never could be honored enough, to sing a serenade to each and all of
them who possessed the rosy cheeks and bright eyes which had just lighted
up Ekeby halls.
But the pensioners did not go far on their happy way, for when they came
to Björne, they found Marianne lying in the snow-drift, just by the door
of her home.
They trembled and raged to see her there. It was like finding a
worshipped saint lying mangled and stripped outside the church-door.
Gösta shook his clenched hand at the dark house. “You children of hate,”
he cried, “you hail-storms, you ravagers of God’s pleasure-house!”
Beerencreutz lighted his horn lantern and let it shine down on the livid
face. Then the pensioners saw Marianne’s mangled hands, and the tears
which had frozen to ice on her eyelashes, and they wailed like women, for
she was not merely a saintly image, but a beautiful woman, who had been a
joy to their old hearts.
Gösta Berling threw himself on his knees beside her.
“She is lying here, my bride,” he said. “She gave me the betrothal kiss a
few hours ago, and her father has promised me his blessing. She lies and
waits for me to come and share her white bed.”
And Gösta lifted up the lifeless form in his strong arms.
“Home to Ekeby with her!” he cried. “Now she is mine. In the snow-drift
I have found her; no one shall take her from me. We will not wake them
in there. What has she to do behind those doors, against which she has
beaten her hand into blood?”
He was allowed to do as he wished. He laid Marianne in the foremost
sledge and sat down at her side. Beerencreutz sat behind and took the
reins.
“Take snow and rub her, Gösta!” he commanded.
The cold had paralyzed her limbs, nothing more. The wildly agitated heart
still beat. She had not even lost consciousness; she knew all about the
pensioners, and how they had found her, but she could not move. So she
lay stiff and stark in the sledge, while Gösta Berling rubbed her with
snow and alternately wept and kissed, and she felt an infinite longing to
be able only to lift a hand, that she might give a caress in return.
She remembered everything. She lay there stiff and motionless and thought
more clearly than ever before. Was she in love with Gösta Berling? Yes,
she was. Was it merely a whim of the moment? No, it had been for many
years. She compared herself with him and the other people in Värmland.
They were all just like children. They followed whatever impulse came
to them. They only lived the outer life, had never looked deep into
their souls. But she had become what one grows to be by living in the
world; she could never really lose herself in anything. If she loved,
yes, whatever she did, one half of her stood and looked on with a cold
scorn. She had longed for a passion which should carry her away in wild
heedlessness, and now it had come. When she kissed Gösta Berling on the
balcony, for the first time she had forgotten herself.
And now the passion came over her again, her heart throbbed so that she
heard it beat. Should she not soon be mistress of her limbs? She felt a
wild joy that she had been thrust out from her home. Now she could be
Gösta’s without hesitation. How stupid she had been, to have subdued her
love so many years. Ah, it is so sweet to yield to love. But shall she
never, never be free from these icy chains? She has been ice within and
fire on the surface; now it is the opposite, a soul of fire in a body of
ice.
Then Gösta feels how two arms gently are raised about his neck in a weak,
feeble pressure.
He could only just feel them, but Marianne thought that she gave
expression to the suppressed passion in her by a suffocating embrace.
But when Beerencreutz saw it he let the horse go as it would along the
familiar road. He raised his eyes and looked obstinately and unceasingly
at the Pleiades.
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD VEHICLES
If it should happen to you that you are sitting or lying and reading this
at night, as I am writing it during the silent hours, then do not draw a
sigh of relief here and think that the good pensioners were allowed to
have an undisturbed sleep, after they had come back with Marianne and
made her a good bed in the best guest-room beyond the big drawing-room.
They went to bed, and went to sleep, but it was not their lot to sleep in
peace and quiet till noon, as you and I, dear reader, might have done,
if we had been awake till four in the morning and our limbs ached with
fatigue.
It must not be forgotten that the old major’s wife went about the country
with beggar’s wallet and stick, and that it never was her way, when she
had anything to do, to think of a poor tired sinner’s convenience. And
now she would do it even less, as she had decided to drive the pensioners
that very night from Ekeby.
Gone was the day when she sat in splendor and magnificence at Ekeby and
sowed happiness over the earth, as God sows stars over the skies. And
while she wandered homeless about the land, the authority and honor of
the great estate was left in the pensioners’ hands to be guarded by
them, as the wind guards ashes, as the spring sun guards the snow-drift.
It sometimes happened that the pensioners drove out, six or eight of
them, in a long sledge drawn by four horses, with chiming bells and
braided reins. If they met the major’s wife, as she went as a beggar,
they did not turn away their heads.
Clenched fists were stretched against her. By a violent swing of the
sledge, she was forced up into the drifts by the roadside, and Major
Fuchs, the bear-killer, always took pains to spit three times to take
away the evil effect of meeting the old woman.
They had no pity on her. She was as odious as a witch to them as she went
along the road. If any mishap had befallen her, they would no more have
grieved than he who shoots off his gun on Easter Eve, loaded with brass
hooks, grieves that he has hit a witch flying by.
It was to secure their salvation that these unhappy pensioners persecuted
the major’s wife. People have often been cruel and tortured one another
with the greatest hardness, when they have trembled for their souls.
When the pensioners late at night reeled from the drinking-tables to the
window to see if the night was calm and clear, they often noticed a dark
shadow, which glided over the grass, and knew that the major’s wife had
come to see her beloved home; then the bachelors’ wing rang with the
pensioners’ scornful laughter, and gibes flew from the open windows down
to her.
Verily, lovelessness and arrogance began to take possession of the
penniless adventurers’ hearts. Sintram had planted hate. Their souls
could not have been in greater danger if the major’s wife had remained
at Ekeby. More die in flight than in battle.
The major’s wife cherished no great anger against the pensioners.
If she had had the power, she would have whipped them like naughty boys
and then granted them her grace and favor again.
But now she feared for her beloved lands, which were in the pensioners’
hands to be guarded by them, as wolves guard the sheep, as crows guard
the spring grain.
There are many who have suffered the same sorrow. She is not the only one
who has seen ruin come to a beloved home and well-kept fields fall into
decay. They have seen their childhood’s home look at them like a wounded
animal. Many feel like culprits when they see the trees there wither
away, and the paths covered with tufts of grass. They wish to throw
themselves on their knees in those fields, which once boasted of rich
harvests, and beg them not to blame them for the disgrace which befalls
them. And they turn away from the poor old horses; they have not courage
to meet their glance. And they dare not stand by the gate and see the
cattle come home from pasture. There is no spot on earth so sad to visit
as an old home in ruin.
When I think what that proud Ekeby must have suffered under the
pensioners’ rule, I wish that the plan of the major’s wife had been
fulfilled, and that Ekeby had been taken from them.
It was not her thought to take back her dominion again.
She had only one object,—to rid her home of these madmen, these locusts,
these wild brigands, in whose path no grass grew.
While she went begging about the land and lived on alms, she continually
thought of her mother; and the thought bit deep into her heart, that
there could be no bettering for her till her mother lifted the curse from
her shoulders.
No one had ever mentioned the old woman’s death, so she must be still
living up there by the iron-works in the forest. Ninety years old, she
still lived in unceasing labor, watching over her milk-pans in the
summer, her charcoal-kilns in the winter, working till death, longing for
the day when she would have completed her life’s duties.
And the major’s wife thought that her mother had lived so long in order
to be able to lift the curse from her life. That mother could not die who
had called down such misery on her child.
So the major’s wife wanted to go to the old woman, that they might both
get rest. She wished to struggle up through the dark woods by the long
river to the home of her childhood.
Till then she could not rest. There were many who offered her a warm home
and all the comforts of a faithful friendship, but she would not stop
anywhere. Grim and fierce, she went from house to house, for she was
weighed down by the curse.
She was going to struggle up to her mother, but first she wanted to
provide for her beloved home. She would not go and leave it in the hands
of light-minded spendthrifts, of worthless drunkards, of good-for-nothing
dispersers of God’s gifts.
Should she go to find on her return her inheritance gone to waste, her
hammers silent, her horses starving, her servants scattered? Ah, no, once
more she will rise in her might and drive out the pensioners.
She well understood that her husband saw with joy how her inheritance
was squandered. But she knew him enough to understand, also, that if she
drove away his devouring locusts, he would be too lazy to get new ones.
Were the pensioners removed, then her old bailiff and overseer could
carry on the work at Ekeby in the old grooves.
And so, many nights her dark shadow had glided along the black lanes. She
had stolen in and out of the cottagers’ houses, she had whispered with
the miller and the mill-hands in the lower floor of the great mill, she
had conferred with the smith in the dark coal-house.
And they had all sworn to help her. The honor of the great estate should
no longer be left in the hands of careless pensioners, to be guarded as
the wind guards the ashes, as the wolf guards the flock of sheep.
And this night, when the merry gentlemen had danced, played, and drunk
until they had sunk down on their beds in a dead sleep, this very night
they must go. She has let them have their good time. She has sat in the
smithy and awaited the end of the ball. She has waited still longer,
until the pensioners should return from their nocturnal drive. She has
sat in silent waiting, until the message was brought her that the last
light was out in the bachelors’ wing and that the great house slept. Then
she rose and went out.
The major’s wife ordered that all the workmen on the estate should be
gathered together up by the bachelors’ wing; she herself went to the
house. There she went to the main building, knocked, and was let in. The
young daughter of the minister at Broby, whom she had trained to be a
capable maid-servant, was there to meet her.
“You are so welcome, madame,” said the maid, and kissed her hand.
“Put out the light!” said the major’s wife. “Do you think I cannot find
my way without a candle?”
And then she began a wandering through the silent house. She went from
the cellar to the attic, and said farewell. With stealthy step they went
from room to room.
The major’s wife was filled with old memories. The maid neither sighed
nor sobbed, but tear after tear flowed unchecked from her eyes, while she
followed her mistress. The major’s wife had her open the linen-closet
and silver-chest, and passed her hand over the fine damask table-cloths
and the magnificent silver service. She felt caressingly the mighty pile
of pillows in the store-closet. She touched all the implements, the
looms, the spinning-wheels, and winding-bobbins. She thrust her hand into
the spice-box, and felt the rows of tallow candles which hung from the
rafters.
“The candles are dry,” she said. “They can be taken down and put away.”
She was down in the cellar, carefully lifted the beer-casks, and groped
over the rows of wine bottles.
She went into the pantry and kitchen; she felt everything, examined
everything. She stretched out her hand and said farewell to everything in
her house.
Last she went through the rooms. She found the long broad sofas in their
places; she laid her hand on the cool slabs of the marble tables, and on
the mirrors with their frames of gilded dancing nymphs.
“This is a rich house,” she said. “A noble man was he who gave me all
this for my own.”
In the great drawing-room, where the dance had lately whirled, the
stiff-backed arm-chairs already stood in prim order against the walls.
She went over to the piano, and very gently struck a chord.
“Joy and gladness were no strangers here in my time, either,” she said.
She went also to the guest-room beyond. It was pitch-dark. The major’s
wife groped with her hands and came against the maid’s face.
“Are you weeping?” she said, for she felt her hands were wet with tears.
Then the young girl burst out sobbing.
“Madame,” she cried, “madame, they will destroy everything. Why do you
leave us and let the pensioners ruin your house?”
The major’s wife drew back the curtain and pointed out into the yard.
“Is it I who have taught you to weep and lament?” she cried. “Look out!
the place is full of people; to-morrow there will not be one pensioner
left at Ekeby.”
“Are you coming back?” asked the maid.
“My time has not yet come,” said the major’s wife. “The highway is my
home, and the hay-stack my bed. But you shall watch over Ekeby for me,
child, while I am away.”
And they went on. Neither of them knew or thought that Marianne slept
in that very room. But she did not sleep. She was wide awake, heard
everything, and understood it all. She had lain there in bed and sung a
hymn to Love.
“You conqueror, who have taken me out of myself,” she said, “I lay in
fathomless misery and you have changed it to a paradise. My hands stuck
fast to the iron latch of the closed door and were torn and wounded; on
the threshold of my home my tears lie frozen to pearls of ice. Anger
froze my heart when I heard the blows on my mother’s back. In the cold
snow-drift I hoped to sleep away my anger, but you came. O Love, child
of fire, to one who was frozen by much cold you came. When I compare
my sufferings to the glory won by them, they seem to me as nothing. I
am free of all ties. I have no father nor mother, no home. People will
believe all evil of me and turn away from me. It has pleased you to do
this, O Love, for why should I stand higher than my beloved? Hand in hand
we will wander out into the world. Gösta Berling’s bride is penniless;
he found her in a snow-drift. We shall not live in lofty halls, but in a
cottage at the edge of the wood. I shall help him to watch the kiln, I
shall help him to set snares for partridges and hares, I shall cook his
food and mend his clothes. Oh, my beloved, how I shall long and mourn,
while I sit there alone by the edge of the wood and wait for you! But
not for the days of riches, only for you; only you shall I look for and
miss,—your footstep on the forest path, your joyous song, as you come
with your axe on your shoulder. Oh, my beloved, my beloved! As long as my
life lasts, I could sit and wait for you.”
So she lay and sang hymns to the heart-conquering god, and never once had
closed her eyes in sleep when the major’s wife came in.
When she had gone, Marianne got up and dressed herself. Once more must
she put on the black velvet dress and the thin satin slippers. She
wrapped a blanket about her like a shawl, and hurried out once again into
the terrible night.
Calm, starlit, and bitingly cold the February night lay over the earth;
it was as if it would never end. And the darkness and the cold of that
long night lasted on the earth long, long after the sun had risen, long
after the snow-drifts through which Marianne wandered had been changed to
water.
Marianne hurried away from Ekeby to get help. She could not let those men
who had rescued her from the snow-drift and opened their hearts and home
to her be hunted away. She went down to Sjö to Major Samzelius. It would
be an hour before she could be back.
When the major’s wife had said farewell to her home, she went out into
the yard, where her people were waiting, and the struggle began.
She placed them round about the high, narrow house, the upper story
of which was the pensioners’ far-famed home,—the great room with the
whitewashed walls, the red-painted chests, and the great folding-table,
where playing-cards swim in the spilled brandy, where the broad beds are
hidden by yellow striped curtains where the pensioners sleep.
And in the stable before full mangers the pensioners’ horses sleep and
dream of the journeys of their youth. It is sweet to dream when they know
that they never again shall leave the filled cribs, the warm stalls of
Ekeby.
In a musty old carriage-house, where all the broken-down coaches and
worn-out sledges were stored, was a wonderful collection of old vehicles.
Many are the pensioners who have lived and died at Ekeby. Their names
are forgotten on the earth, and they have no longer a place in men’s
hearts; but the major’s wife has kept the vehicles in which they came to
Ekeby, she has collected them all in the old carriage-house.
And there they stand and sleep, and dust falls thick, thick over them.
But now in this February night the major’s wife has the door opened to
the carriage-house, and with lanterns and torches she seeks out the
vehicles which belong to Ekeby’s present pensioners,—Beerencreutz’s old
gig, and Örneclou’s coach, painted with coat of arms, and the narrow
cutter which had brought Cousin Christopher.
She does not care if the vehicles are for summer or winter, she only sees
that each one gets his own.
And in the stable they are now awake, all the pensioners’ old horses, who
had so lately been dreaming before full mangers. The dream shall be true.
You shall again try the steep hills, and the musty hay in the sheds of
wayside inns, and drunken horse-dealers’ sharp whips, and the mad races
on ice so slippery that you tremble only to walk on it.
The old beasts mouth and snort when the bit is put into their toothless
jaws; the old vehicles creak and crack. Pitiful infirmity, which should
have been allowed to sleep in peace till the end of the world, was now
dragged out before all eyes; stiff joints, halting forelegs, spavin, and
broken-wind are shown up.
The stable grooms succeed, however, in getting the horses harnessed; then
they go and ask the major’s wife in what Gösta Berling shall be put, for,
as every one knows, he came to Ekeby in the coal-sledge of the major’s
wife.
“Put Don Juan in our best sledge,” she says, “and spread over it the
bear-skin with the silver claws!” And when the grooms grumble, she
continues: “There is not a horse in my stable which I would not give to
be rid of that man, remember that!”
Well, now the vehicles are waked and the horses too, but the pensioners
still sleep. It is now their time to be brought out in the winter night;
but it is a more perilous deed to seize them in their beds than to lead
out stiff-legged horses and shaky old carriages. They are bold, strong
men, tried in a hundred adventures; they are ready to defend themselves
till death; it is no easy thing to take them against their will from out
their beds and down to the carriages which shall carry them away.
The major’s wife has them set fire to a hay-stack, which stands so near
the house that the flames must shine in to where the pensioners are
sleeping.
“The hay-stack is mine, all Ekeby is mine,” she says.
And when the stack is in flames, she cries: “Wake them now!”
But the pensioners sleep behind well-closed doors. The whole mass of
people begin to cry out that terrible “Fire, fire!” but the pensioners
sleep on.
The master-smith’s heavy sledge-hammer thunders against the door, but the
pensioners sleep.
A hard snowball breaks the window-pane and flies into the room,
rebounding against the bed-curtains, but the pensioners sleep.
They dream that a lovely girl throws a handkerchief at them, they dream
of applause from behind fallen curtains, they dream of gay laughter and
the deafening noise of midnight feasts.
The noise of cannon at their cars, an ocean of ice-cold water were needed
to awake them.
They have bowed, danced, played, acted, and sung. They are heavy with
wine, exhausted, and sleep a sleep as deep as death’s.
This blessed sleep almost saves them.
The people begin to think that this quiet conceals a danger. What if
it means that the pensioners are already out to get help? What if it
means that they stand awake, with finger on the trigger, on guard behind
windows or door, ready to fall upon the first who enters?
These men are crafty, ready to fight; they must mean something by their
silence. Who can think it of them, that they would let themselves be
surprised in their lairs like bears?
The people bawl their “Fire, fire!” time after time, but nothing avails.
Then when all are trembling, the major’s wife herself takes an axe and
bursts open the outer door.
Then she rushes alone up the stairs, throws open the door to the
bachelors’ wing, and calls into the room: “Fire!”
Hers is a voice which finds a better echo in the pensioners’ ears than
the people’s outcry. Accustomed to obey that voice, twelve men at the
same moment spring from their beds, see the flames, throw on their
clothes, and rush down the stairs out into the yard.
But at the door stands the great master-smith and two stout mill-hands,
and deep disgrace then befalls the pensioners. Each, as he comes down, is
seized, thrown to the ground, and his feet bound; thereupon he is carried
without ceremony to the vehicle prepared for him.
None escaped; they were all caught. Beerencreutz, the grim colonel, was
bound and carried away; also Christian Bergh, the mighty captain, and
Eberhard, the philosopher.
Even the invincible, the terrible Gösta Berling was caught. The major’s
wife had succeeded.
She was still greater than the pensioners.
They are pitiful to see, as they sit with bound limbs in the mouldy old
vehicles. There are hanging heads and angry glances, and the yard rings
with oaths and wild bursts of powerless rage.
The major’s wife goes from one to the other.
“You shall swear,” she says, “never to come back to Ekeby.”
“Begone, hag!”
“You shall swear,” she says, “otherwise I will throw you into the
bachelors’ wing, bound as you are, and you shall burn up in there, for
to-night I am going to burn down the bachelors’ wing.”
“You dare not do that.”
“Dare not! Is not Ekeby mine? Ah, you villain! Do you think I do not
remember how you spit at me on the highway? Did I not long to set fire
here just now and let you all burn up? Did you lift a finger to defend me
when I was driven from my home? No, swear now!”
And she stands there so terrible, although she pretends perhaps to be
more angry than she is, and so many men armed with axes stand about her,
that they are obliged to swear, that no worse misfortune may happen.
The major’s wife has their clothes and boxes brought down and has their
hand-fetters loosened; then the reins are laid in their hands.
But much time has been consumed, and Marianne has reached Sjö.
The major was no late-riser; he was dressed when she came. She met him in
the yard; he had been out with his bears’ breakfast.
He did not say anything when he heard her story. He only went in to the
bears, put muzzles on them, led them out, and hurried away to Ekeby.
Marianne followed him at a distance. She was dropping with fatigue, but
then she saw a bright light of fire in the sky and was frightened nearly
to death.
What a night it was! A man beats his wife and leaves his child to freeze
to death outside his door. Did a woman now mean to burn up her enemies;
did the old major mean to let loose the bears on his own people?
She conquered her weariness, hurried past the major, and ran madly up to
Ekeby.
She had a good start. When she reached the yard, she made her way through
the crowd. When she stood in the middle of the ring, face to face with
the major’s wife, she cried as loud as she could,—
“The major, the major is coming with the bears!”
There was consternation among the people; all eyes turned to the major’s
wife.
“You have gone for him,” she said to Marianne.
“Run!” cried the latter, more earnestly. “Away, for God’s sake! I do not
know what the major is thinking of, but he has the bears with him.”
All stood still and looked at the major’s wife.
“I thank you for your help, children,” she said quietly to the people.
“Everything which has happened to-night has been so arranged that no one
of you can be prosecuted by the law or get into trouble for it. Go home
now! I do not want to see any of my people murder or be murdered. Go now!”
Still the people waited.
The major’s wife turned to Marianne.
“I know that you are in love,” she said. “You act in love’s madness. May
the day never come when you must look on powerless at the ruin of your
home! May you always be mistress over your tongue and your hand when
anger fills the soul!”
“Dear children, come now, come!” she continued, turning to the people.
“May God protect Ekeby! I must go to my mother. Oh, Marianne, when you
have got back your senses, when Ekeby is ravaged, and the land sighs in
want, think on what you have done this night, and look after the people!”
Thereupon she went, followed by her people.
When the major reached the yard, he found there no living thing but
Marianne and a long line of horses with sledges and carriages,—a long
dismal line, where the horses were not worse than the vehicles, nor the
vehicles worse than their owners. Ill-used in the struggle of life were
they all.
Marianne went forward and freed them.
She noticed how they bit their lips and looked away. They were ashamed as
never before. A great disgrace had befallen them.
“I was not better off when I lay on my knees on the steps at Björne a
couple of hours ago,” said Marianne.
And so, dear reader, what happened afterwards that night—how the old
vehicles were put into the carriage-house, the horses in the stable, and
the pensioners in their house—I shall not try to relate. The dawn began
to appear over the eastern hills, and the day came clear and calm. How
much quieter the bright, sunny days are than the dark nights, under whose
protecting wings beasts of prey hunt and owls hoot!
I will only say that when the pensioners had gone in again and had found
a few drops in the last punch-bowl to fill their glasses, a sudden
ecstasy came over them.
“A toast for the major’s wife!” they cried.
Ah, she is a matchless woman! What better could they wish for than to
serve her, to worship her?
Was it not sad that the devil had got her in his power, and that all her
endeavors were to send poor gentlemen’s souls to hell?
CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT BEAR IN GURLITTA CLIFF
In the darkness of the forests dwell unholy creatures, whose jaws are
armed with horrible, glittering teeth or sharp beaks, whose feet have
pointed claws, which long to sink themselves in a blood-filled throat,
and whose eyes shine with murderous desires.
There the wolves live, who come out at night and hunt the peasant’s
sledge until the wife must take her little child, which sits upon her
knee, and throw it to them, to save her own and her husband’s life.
There the lynx lives, which the people call “göpa,” for in the woods at
least it is dangerous to call it by its right name. He who speaks of it
during the day had best see that the doors and windows of the sheep-house
are well closed towards night, for otherwise it will come. It climbs
right up the walls, for its claws are strong as steel nails, glides in
through the smallest hole, and throws itself on the sheep. And “göpa”
hangs on their throats, and drinks their blood, and kills and tears, till
every sheep is dead. He does not cease his wild death-dance among the
terrified animals as long as any of them show a sign of life.
And in the morning the peasant finds all the sheep lying dead with torn
throats, for “göpa” leaves nothing living where he ravages.
There the great owl lives, which hoots at dusk. If one mimics him, he
comes whizzing down with outspread wings and strikes out one’s eyes, for
he is no real bird, but an evil spirit.
And there lives the most terrible of them all, the bear, who has the
strength of twelve men, and who, when he becomes a devil, can be killed
only with a silver bullet.
And if one should chance to meet him in the wood, big and high as a
wandering cliff, one must not run, nor defend one’s self; one must throw
one’s self down on the ground and pretend to be dead. Many small children
have imagined themselves lying on the ground with the bear over them.
He has rolled them over with his paw, and they have felt his hot breath
on their faces, but they have lain quiet, until he has gone away to dig
a hole to bury them in. Then they have softly raised themselves up and
stolen away, slowly at first, then in mad haste.
But think, think if the bear had not thought them really dead, but had
taken a bite, or if he had been very hungry and wanted to eat them right
up, or if he had seen them when they moved and had run after them. O God!
Terror is a witch. She sits in the dimness of the forest, sings magic
songs to people, and fills their hearts with frightful thoughts. From her
comes that deadly fear which weighs down life and darkens the beauty of
smiling landscapes. Nature is malignant, treacherous as a sleeping snake;
one can believe nothing. There lies Löfven’s lake in brilliant beauty;
but trust it not, it lures to destruction. Every year it must gather its
tribute of the drowned. There lies the wood temptingly peaceful; but
trust it not! The wood is full of unholy things, beset with evil spirits
and bloodthirsty vagrants’ souls.
Trust not the brook with its gliding waters. It is sudden sickness and
death to wade in it after sunset. Trust not the cuckoo, who sings so
gayly in the spring. In the autumn he becomes a hawk with fierce eyes and
terrible claws. Trust not the moss, nor the heather, nor the rock. Nature
is evil, full of invisible powers, who hate man. There is no spot where
you can set your foot in safety; it is wonderful that your weak race can
escape so much persecution.
Terror is a witch. Does she still sit in the darkness of the woods of
Värmland? Does she still darken the beauty of smiling places, does she
still dampen the joy of living? Great her power has been. I know it well,
who have put steel in the cradle and a red-hot coal in the bath; I know
it, who have felt her iron hand around my heart.
But no one shall think that I now am going to relate anything terrible
or dreadful. It is only an old story of the great bear in Gurlitta Cliff
which I must tell; and any one can believe it or not, as it always is
with hunting stories.
* * * * *
The great bear has its home on the beautiful mountain summit which is
called Gurlitta Cliff, and which raises itself precipitously from the
shores of the Löfven.
The roots of a fallen pine between which tufts of moss are hanging make
the walls and roof of his dwelling, branches and twigs protect it, the
snow makes it warm. He can lie there and sleep a good quiet sleep from
summer to summer.
Is he, then, a poet, a dreamer, this hairy monarch of the forest? Will
he sleep away the cold winter’s chill nights and colorless days to be
waked by purling brooks and the song of birds? Will he lie there and
dream of blushing cranberry bogs, and of ant-hills filled with brown
delicious creatures, and of the white lambs which graze on the green
slopes? Does he want, happy one! to escape the winter of life?
Outside the snow-storm rages; wolves and foxes wander about, mad with
hunger. Why shall the bear alone sleep? Let him get up and feel how the
cold bites, how heavy it is to wade in deep snow.
He has bedded himself in so well. He is like the sleeping princess in
the fairy tale; and as she was waked by love, so will he be waked by the
spring. By a ray of sunlight which penetrates through the twigs and warms
his nose, by the drops of melting snow which wet his fur, will he be
waked. Woe to him who untimely disturbs him!
He hears, suddenly, shouts, noise, and shots. He shakes the sleep out
of his joints, and pushes aside the branches to see what it is. It is
not spring, which rattles and roars outside his lair, nor the wind,
which overthrows pine-trees and casts up the driving snow, but it is the
pensioners, the pensioners from Ekeby, old acquaintances of the forest
monarch. He remembered well the night when Fuchs and Beerencreutz sat
and dozed in a Nygård peasant’s barn, where they awaited a visit from
him. They had just fallen asleep over their brandy-bottle, when he swung
himself in through the peat-roof; but they awoke, when he was trying to
lift the cow he had killed out of the stall, and fell upon him with gun
and knife. They took the cow from him and one of his eyes, but he saved
his life.
Yes, verily the pensioners and he are old acquaintances. He remembered
how they had come on him another time, when he and his queen consort had
just laid themselves down for their winter sleep in the old lair here on
Gurlitta Cliff and had young ones in the hole. He remembered well how
they came on them unawares. He got away all right, throwing to either
side everything that stood in his path; but he must limp for life from a
bullet in his thigh, and when he came back at night to the royal lair,
the snow was red with his queen consort’s blood, and the royal children
had been carried away to the plain, to grow up there and be man’s
servants and friends.
Yes, now the ground trembles; now the snow-drift which hides his lair
shakes; now he bursts out, the great bear, the pensioners’ old enemy.
Look out, Fuchs, old bear-killer; look out now, Beerencreutz; look out,
Gösta Berling, hero of a hundred adventures!
Woe to all poets, all dreamers, all heroes of romance! There stands Gösta
Berling with finger on trigger, and the bear comes straight towards him.
Why does he not shoot? What is he thinking of?
Why does he not send a bullet straight into the broad breast? He stands
in just the place to do it. The others are not placed right to shoot.
Does he think he is on parade before the forest monarch?
Gösta of course stood and dreamed of the lovely Marianne, who is lying at
Ekeby dangerously ill, from the chill of that night when she slept in the
snow-drift.
He thinks of her, who also is a sacrifice to the curse of hatred which
overlies the earth, and he shudders at himself, who has come out to
pursue and to kill.
And there comes the great bear right towards him, blind in one eye from
the blow of a pensioner’s knife, lame in one leg from a bullet from a
pensioner’s gun, fierce and shaggy, alone, since they had killed his
wife and carried away his children. And Gösta sees him as he is,—a poor,
persecuted beast, whom he will not deprive of life, all he has left,
since people have taken from him everything else.
“Let him kill me,” thinks Gösta, “but I will not shoot.”
And while the bear breaks his way towards him, he stands quite still as
if on parade, and when the forest monarch stands directly in front of
him, he presents arms and takes a step to one side.
The bear continues on his way, knowing too well that he has no time to
waste, breaks into the wood, ploughs his way through drifts the height of
a man, rolls down the steep slopes, and escapes, while all of them, who
had stood with cocked guns and waited for Gösta’s shot, shoot off their
guns after him.
But it is of no avail; the ring is broken, and the bear gone. Fuchs
scolds, and Beerencreutz swears, but Gösta only laughs.
How could they ask that any one so happy as he should harm one of God’s
creatures?
The great bear of Gurlitta Cliff got away thus with his life, and he
is waked from his winter sleep, as the peasants will find. No bear has
greater skill than he to tear apart the roofs of their low, cellar-like
cow-barns; none can better avoid a concealed ambush.
The people about the upper Löfven soon were at their wits’ end about him.
Message after message was sent down to the pensioners, that they should
come and kill the bear.
Day after day, night after night, during the whole of February, the
pensioners scour the upper Löfven to find the bear, but he always escapes
them. Has he learned cunning from the fox, and swiftness from the
wolf? If they lie in wait at one place, he is ravaging the neighboring
farmyard; if they seek him in the wood, he is pursuing the peasant, who
comes driving over the ice. He has become the boldest of marauders: he
creeps into the garret and empties the housewife’s honey-jar; he kills
the horse in the peasant’s sledge.
But gradually they begin to understand what kind of a bear he is and why
Gösta could not shoot him. Terrible to say, dreadful to believe, this
is no ordinary bear. No one can hope to kill him if he does not have a
silver bullet in his gun. A bullet of silver and bell-metal cast on a
Thursday evening at new moon in the church-tower without the priest or
the sexton or anybody knowing it would certainly kill him, but such a one
is not so easy to get.
* * * * *
There is one man at Ekeby who, more than all the rest, would grieve over
all this. It is, as one can easily guess, Anders Fuchs, the bear-killer.
He loses both his appetite and his sleep in his anger at not being able
to kill the great bear in Gurlitta Cliff. At last even he understands
that the bear can only be killed with a silver bullet.
The grim Major Anders Fuchs was not handsome. He had a heavy, clumsy
body, and a broad, red face, with hanging bags under his cheeks and
several double chins. His small black moustache sat stiff as a brush
above his thick lips, and his black hair stood out rough and thick from
his head. Moreover, he was a man of few words and a glutton. He was not
a person whom women meet with sunny smile and open arms, nor did he give
them tender glances back again. One could not believe that he ever would
see a woman whom he could tolerate, and everything which concerned love
and enthusiasm was foreign to him.
One Thursday evening, when the moon, just two fingers wide, lingers above
the horizon an hour or two after the sun has gone down, Major Fuchs
betakes himself from Ekeby without telling any one where he means to go.
He has flint and steel and a bullet-mould in his hunting-bag, and his gun
on his back, and goes up towards the church at Bro to see what luck there
may be for an honest man.
The church lies on the eastern shore of the narrow sound between the
upper and lower Löfven, and Major Fuchs must go over a bridge to get
there. He wends his way towards it, deep in his thoughts, without looking
up towards Broby hill, where the houses cut sharply against the clear
evening sky; he only looks on the ground, and wonders how he shall get
hold of the key of the church without anybody’s knowing it.
When he comes down to the bridge, he hears some one screaming so
despairingly that he has to look up.
At that time the little German, Faber, was organist at Bro. He was a
slender man, small in body and mind. And the sexton was Jan Larsson, an
energetic peasant, but poor, for the Broby clergyman had cheated him out
of his patrimony, five hundred rix-dollars.
The sexton wanted to marry the organist’s sister, the little, delicate
maiden Faber, but the organist would not let him have her, and therefore
the two were not good friends. That evening the sexton has met the
organist as he crossed the bridge and has fallen upon him. He seizes him
by the shoulder, and holding him at arm’s length out over the railing
tells him solemnly that he shall drop him into the sound if he does
not give him the little maiden. The little German will not give in; he
struggles and screams, and reiterates “No,” although far below him he
sees the black water rushing between the white banks.
“No, no,” he screams; “no, no!”
And it is uncertain if the sexton in his rage would have let him down
into the cold black water if Major Fuchs had not just then come over the
bridge. The sexton is afraid, puts Faber down on solid ground, and runs
away as fast as he can.
Little Faber falls on the major’s neck to thank him for his life, but
the major pushes him away, and says that there is nothing to thank him
for. The major has no love for Germans, ever since he had his quarters
at Putbus on the Rügen during the Pomeranian war. He had never so nearly
starved to death as in those days.
Then little Faber wants to run up to the bailiff Scharling and accuse the
sexton of an attempt at murder, but the major lets him know that it is of
no use here in the country, for it does not count for anything to kill a
German.
Little Faber grows calmer and asks the major to come home with him to eat
a bit of sausage and to taste his home-brewed ale.
The major follows him, for he thinks that the organist must have a key
to the church-door; and so they go up the hill, where the Bro church
stands, with the vicarage, the sexton’s cottage and the organist’s house
round about it.
“You must excuse us,” says little Faber, as he and the major enter the
house. “It is not really in order to-day. We have had a little to do, my
sister and I. We have killed a cock.”
“The devil!” cries the major.
The little maid Faber has just come in with the ale in great earthen
mugs. Now, every one knows that the major did not look upon women with a
tender glance, but this little maiden he had to gaze upon with delight,
as she came in so neat in lace and cap. Her light hair lay combed so
smooth above her forehead, the home-woven dress was so pretty and so
dazzlingly clean, her little hands were so busy and eager, and her little
face so rosy and round, that he could not help thinking that if he had
seen such a little woman twenty-five years ago, he must have come forward
and offered himself.
She is so pretty and rosy and nimble, but her eyes are quite red with
weeping. It is that which suggests such tender thoughts.
While the men eat and drink, she goes in and out of the room. Once she
comes to her brother, courtesies, and says,—
“How do you wish me to place the cows in the stable?”
“Put twelve on the left and eleven on the right, then they can’t gore one
another.”
“Have you so many cows, Faber?” bursts out the major.
The fact was that the organist had only two cows, but he called one
eleven and the other twelve, that it might sound fine, when he spoke of
them.
And then the major hears that Faber’s barn is being altered, so that the
cows are out all day and at night are put into the woodshed.
The little maiden comes again to her brother, courtesies to him, and says
that the carpenter had asked how high the barn should be made.
“Measure by the cows,” says the organist, “measure by the cows!”
Major Fuchs thinks that is such a good answer. However it comes to pass,
the major asks the organist why his sister’s eyes are so red, and learns
that she weeps because he will not let her marry the penniless sexton, in
debt and without inheritance as he is.
Major Fuchs grows more and more thoughtful. He empties tankard after
tankard, and eats sausage after sausage, without noticing it. Little
Faber is appalled at such an appetite and thirst; but the more the major
eats and drinks, the clearer and more determined his mind grows. The more
decided becomes his resolution to do something for the little maiden
Faber.
He has kept his eyes fixed on the great key which hangs on a knob by the
door, and as soon as little Faber, who has had to keep up with the major
in drinking the home-brewed ale, lays his head on the table and snores,
Major Fuchs has seized the key, put on his cap, and hurried away.
A minute later he is groping his way up the tower stairs, lighted by
his little horn lantern, and comes at last to the bell-room, where the
bells open their wide throats over him. He scrapes off a little of the
bell-metal with a file, and is just going to take the bullet-mould and
melting-ladle out of his hunting-bag, when he finds that he has forgotten
what is most important of all: he has no silver with him. If there
shall be any power in the bullet, it must be cast there in the tower.
Everything is right; it is Thursday evening and a new moon, and no one
has any idea he is there, and now he cannot do anything. He sends forth
into the silence of the night an oath with such a ring in it that the
bells hum.
Then he hears a slight noise down in the church and thinks he hears steps
on the stairs. Yes, it is true, heavy steps are coming up the stairs.
Major Fuchs, who stands there and swears so that the bells vibrate, is a
little thoughtful at that. He wonders who it can be who is coming to help
him with the bullet-casting. The steps come nearer and nearer. Whoever it
is, is coming all the way up to the bell-room.
The major creeps far in among the beams and rafters, and puts out his
lantern. He is not exactly afraid, but the whole thing would be spoiled
if any one should see him there. He has scarcely had time to hide before
the new-comer’s head appears above the floor.
The major knows him well; it is the miserly Broby minister. He, who is
nearly mad with greed, has the habit of hiding his treasures in the
strangest places. He comes now with a roll of bank-notes which he is
going to hide in the tower-room. He does not know that any one sees him.
He lifts up a board in the floor and puts in the money and takes himself
off again.
The major is not slow; he lifts up the same board. Oh, so much money!
Package after package of bank-notes, and among them brown leather bags,
full of silver. The major takes just enough silver to make a bullet; the
rest he leaves.
When he comes down to the earth again, he has the silver bullet in
his gun. He wonders what luck has in store for him that night. It is
marvellous on Thursday nights, as every one knows. He goes up towards
the organist’s house. Fancy if the bear knew that Faber’s cows are in a
miserable shed, no better than under the bare sky.
What! surely he sees something black and big coming over the field
towards the woodshed; it must be the bear. He puts the gun to his cheek
and is just going to shoot, but then he changes his mind.
The little maid’s red eyes come before him in the darkness; he thinks
that he will help her and the sexton a little, but it is hard not to kill
the great bear himself. He said afterwards that nothing in the world had
ever been so hard, but as the little maiden was so dear and sweet, it had
to be done.
He goes up to the sexton’s house, wakes him, drags him out, half dressed
and half naked, and says that he shall shoot the bear which is creeping
about outside of Faber’s woodshed.
“If you shoot the bear, he will surely give you his sister,” he says,
“for then you will be a famous man. That is no ordinary bear, and the
best men in the country would consider it an honor to kill it.”
And he puts into his hand his own gun, loaded with a bullet of silver and
bell-metal cast in a church tower on a Thursday evening at the new moon,
and he cannot help trembling with envy that another than he shall shoot
the great forest monarch, the old bear of Gurlitta Cliff.
The sexton aims,—God help us! aims, as if he meant to hit the Great Bear,
which high up in the sky wanders about the North Star, and not a bear
wandering on the plain,—and the gun goes off with a bang which can be
heard all the way to Gurlitta Cliff.
But however he has aimed, the bear falls. So it is when one shoots with a
silver bullet. One shoots the bear through the heart, even if one aims at
the Dipper.
People come rushing out from all the neighboring farmyards and wonder
what is going on, for never had a shot sounded so loud nor waked so many
sleeping echoes as this one, and the sexton wins much praise, for the
bear had been a real pest.
Little Faber comes out too, but now is Major Fuchs sadly disappointed.
There stands the sexton covered with glory, besides having saved Faber’s
cows, but the little organist is neither touched nor grateful. He does
not open his arms to him and greet him as brother-in-law and hero.
The major stands and frowns and stamps his foot in rage over such
smallness. He wants to explain to the covetous, narrow-minded little
fellow what a deed it is, but he begins to stammer, so that he cannot get
out a word. And he gets angry and more angry at the thought that he has
given up the glory of killing the great bear in vain.
Oh, it is quite impossible for him to comprehend that he who had done
such a deed should not be worthy to win the proudest of brides.
The sexton and some of the young men are going to skin the bear; they go
to the grindstone and sharpen the knives. Others go in and go to bed.
Major Fuchs stands alone by the dead bear.
Then he goes to the church once more, puts the key again in the lock,
climbs up the narrow stairs and the twisted ladder, wakes the sleeping
pigeons, and once more comes up to the tower-room.
Afterwards, when the bear is skinned under the major’s inspection, they
find between his jaws a package of notes of five hundred rix-dollars. It
is impossible to say how it came there, but of course it was a marvellous
bear; and as the sexton had killed him, the money is his, that is very
plain.
When it is made known, little Faber too understands what a glorious deed
the sexton has done, and he declares that he would be proud to be his
brother-in-law.
On Friday evening Major Anders Fuchs returns to Ekeby, after having been
at a feast, in honor of the lucky shot, at the sexton’s and an engagement
dinner at the organist’s. He follows the road with a heavy heart; he
feels no joy that his enemy is dead, and no pleasure in the magnificent
bear-skin which the sexton has given him.
Many perhaps will believe that he is grieving that the sweet little
maiden shall be another’s. Oh no, that causes him no sorrow. But what
goes to his very heart is that the old, one-eyed forest king is dead, and
it was not he who shot the silver bullet at him.
So he comes into the pensioners’ wing, where the pensioners are sitting
round the fire, and without a word throws the bear-skin down among them.
Let no one think that he told about that expedition; it was not until
long, long after that any one could get out of him the truth of it. Nor
did he betray the Broby clergyman’s hiding-place, who perhaps never
noticed the theft.
The pensioners examine the skin.
“It is a fine skin,” says Beerencreutz. “I would like to know why this
fellow has come out of his winter sleep, or perhaps you shot him in his
hole?”
“He was shot at Bro.”
“Yes, as big as the Gurlitta bear he never was,” says Gösta, “but he has
been a fine beast.”
“If he had had one eye,” says Kevenhüller, “I would have thought that you
had killed the old one himself, he is so big; but this one has no wound
or inflammation about his eyes, so it cannot be the same.”
Fuchs swears over his stupidity, but then his face lights up so that he
is really handsome. The great bear has not been killed by another man’s
bullet.
“Lord God, how good thou art!” he says, and folds his hands.
CHAPTER IX
THE AUCTION AT BJÖRNE
We young people often had to wonder at the old people’s tales. “Was there
a ball every day, as long as your radiant youth lasted?” we asked them.
“Was life then one long adventure?”
“Were all young women beautiful and lovely in those days, and did every
feast end by Gösta Berling carrying off one of them?”
Then the old people shook their worthy heads, and began to tell of the
whirring of the spinning-wheel and the clatter of the loom, of work in
the kitchen, of the thud of the flail and the path of the axe through
the forest; but it was not long before they harked back to the old
theme. Then sledges drove up to the door, horses speeded away through
the dark woods with the joyous young people; then the dance whirled and
the violin-strings snapped. Adventure’s wild chase roared about Löfven’s
long lake with thunder and crash. Far away could its noise be heard. The
forest tottered and fell, all the powers of destruction were let loose;
fire flamed out, floods laid waste the land, wild beasts roamed starving
about the farmyards. Under the light-footed horses’ hoofs all quiet
happiness was trampled to dust. Wherever the hunt rushed by, men’s hearts
flamed up in madness, and the women in pale terror had to flee from their
homes.
And we young ones sat wondering, silent, troubled, but blissful. “What
people!” we thought. “We shall never see their like.”
“Did the people of those days never _think_ of what they were doing?” we
asked.
“Of course they thought, children,” answered the old people.
“But not as we think,” we insisted.
But the old people did not understand what we meant.
But we thought of the strange spirit of self-consciousness which had
already taken possession of us. We thought of him, with his eyes of ice
and his long, bent fingers,—he who sits there in the soul’s darkest
corner and picks to pieces our being, just as old women pick to pieces
bits of silk and wool.
Bit by bit had the long, hard, crooked fingers picked, until our whole
self lay there like a pile of rags, and our best impulses, our most
original thoughts, everything which we had done and said, had been
examined, investigated, picked to pieces, and the icy eyes had looked on,
and the toothless mouth had laughed in derision and whispered,—
“See, it is rags, only rags.”
There was also one of the people of that time who had opened her soul to
the spirit with the icy eyes. In one of them he sat, watching the causes
of all actions, sneering at both evil and good, understanding everything,
condemning nothing, examining, seeking out, picking to pieces, paralyzing
the emotions of the heart and the power of the mind by sneering
unceasingly.
The beautiful Marianne bore the spirit of introspection within her. She
felt his icy eyes and sneers follow every step, every word. Her life
had become a drama where she was the only spectator. She had ceased
to be a human being, she did not suffer, she was not glad, nor did
she love; she carried out the beautiful Marianne Sinclair’s rôle, and
self-consciousness sat with staring, icy eyes and busy, picking fingers,
and watched her performance.
She was divided into two halves. Pale, unsympathetic, and sneering, one
half sat and watched what the other half was doing; and the strange
spirit who picked to pieces her being never had a word of feeling or
sympathy.
But where had he been, the pale watcher of the source of deeds, that
night, when she had learned to know the fulness of life? Where was he
when she, the sensible Marianne, kissed Gösta Berling before a hundred
pairs of eyes, and when in a gust of passion she threw herself down in
the snow-drift to die? Then the icy eyes were blinded, then the sneer was
weakened, for passion had raged through her soul. The roar of adventure’s
wild hunt had thundered in her ears. She had been a whole person during
that one terrible night.
Oh, you god of self-mockery, when Marianne with infinite difficulty
succeeded in lifting her stiffened arms and putting them about Gösta’s
neck, you too, like old Beerencreutz, had to turn away your eyes from the
earth and look at the stars.
That night you had no power. You were dead while she sang her love-song,
dead while she hurried down to Sjö after the major, dead when she saw the
flames redden the sky over the tops of the trees.
For they had come, the mighty storm-birds, the griffins of demoniac
passions. With wings of fire and claws of steel they had come swooping
down over you, you icy-eyed spirit; they had struck their claws into your
neck and flung you far into the unknown. You have been dead and crushed.
But now they had rushed on,—they whose course no sage can predict, no
observer can follow; and out of the depths of the unknown had the strange
spirit of self-consciousness again raised itself and had once again taken
possession of Marianne’s soul.
During the whole of February Marianne lay ill at Ekeby. When she sought
out the major at Sjö she had been infected with small-pox. The terrible
illness had taken a great hold on her, who had been so chilled and
exhausted. Death had come very near to her, but at the end of the month
she had recovered. She was still very weak and much disfigured. She would
never again be called the beautiful Marianne.
This, however, was as yet only known to Marianne and her nurse. The
pensioners themselves did not know it. The sick-room where small-pox
raged was not open to any one.
But when is the introspective power greater than during the long hours
of convalescence? Then the fiend sits and stares and stares with his icy
eyes, and picks and picks with his bony, hard fingers. And if one looks
carefully, behind him sits a still paler creature, who stares and sneers,
and behind him another and still another, sneering at one another and at
the whole world.
And while Marianne lay and looked at herself with all these staring icy
eyes, all natural feelings died within her.
She lay there and played she was ill; she lay there and played she was
unhappy, in love, longing for revenge.
She was it all, and still it was only a play. Everything became a play
and unreality under those icy eyes, which watched her while they were
watched by a pair behind them, which were watched by other pairs in
infinite perspective.
All the energy of life had died within her. She had found strength for
glowing hate and tender love for one single night, not more.
She did not even know if she loved Gösta Berling. She longed to see him
to know if he could take her out of herself.
While under the dominion of her illness, she had had only one clear
thought: she had worried lest her illness should be known. She did not
wish to see her parents; she wished no reconciliation with her father,
and she knew that he would repent if he should know how ill she was.
Therefore she ordered that her parents and every one else should only
know that the troublesome irritation of the eyes, which she always had
when she visited her native country, forced her to sit in a darkened
room. She forbade her nurse to say how ill she was; she forbade the
pensioners to go after the doctor at Karlstad. She had of course
small-pox, but only very lightly; in the medicine-chest at Ekeby there
were remedies enough to save her life.
She never thought of death; she only lay and waited for health, to be
able to go to the clergyman with Gösta and have the banns published.
But now the sickness and the fever were gone. She was once more cold and
sensible. It seemed to her as if she alone was sensible in this world
of fools. She neither hated nor loved. She understood her father; she
understood them all. He who understands does not hate.
She had heard that Melchior Sinclair meant to have an auction at Björne
and make way with all his wealth, that she might inherit nothing after
him. People said that he would make the devastation as thorough as
possible; first he would sell the furniture and utensils, then the
cattle and implements, and then the house itself with all its lands, and
would put the money in a bag and sink it to the bottom of the Löfven.
Dissipation, confusion, and devastation should be her inheritance.
Marianne smiled approvingly when she heard it: such was his character,
and so he must act.
It seemed strange to her that she had sung that great hymn to love. She
had dreamed of love in a cottage, as others have done. Now it seemed odd
to her that she had ever had a dream.
She sighed for naturalness. She was tired of this continual play. She
never had a strong emotion. She only grieved for her beauty, but she
shuddered at the compassion of strangers.
Oh, one second of forgetfulness of herself! One gesture, one word, one
act which was not calculated!
One day, when the rooms had been disinfected and she lay dressed on a
sofa, she had Gösta Berling called. They answered her that he had gone to
the auction at Björne.
* * * * *
At Björne there was in truth a big auction. It was an old, rich home.
People had come long distances to be present at the sale.
Melchior Sinclair had flung all the property in the house together in
the great drawing-room. There lay thousands of articles, collected in
piles, which reached from floor to ceiling.
He had himself gone about the house like an angel of destruction on the
day of judgment, and dragged together what he wanted to sell. Everything
in the kitchen,—the black pots, the wooden chairs, the pewter dishes, the
copper kettles, all were left in peace, for among them there was nothing
which recalled Marianne; but they were the only things which escaped his
anger.
He burst into Marianne’s room, turning everything out. Her doll-house
stood there, and her book-case, the little chair he had had made for her,
her trinkets and clothes, her sofa and bed, everything must go.
And then he went from room to room. He tore down everything he found
unpleasant, and carried great loads down to the auction-room. He panted
under the weight of sofas and marble slabs; but he went on. He had thrown
open the sideboards and taken out the magnificent family silver. Away
with it! Marianne had touched it. He filled his arms with snow-white
damask and with shining linen sheets with hem-stitching as wide as one’s
hand,—honest home-made work, the fruit of many years of labor,—and flung
them down together on the piles. Away with them! Marianne was not worthy
to own them. He stormed through the rooms with piles of china, not caring
if he broke the plates by the dozen, and he seized the hand-painted cups
on which the family arms were burned. Away with them! Let any one who
will use them! He staggered under mountains of bedding from the attic:
bolsters and pillows so soft that one sunk down in them as in a wave.
Away with them! Marianne had slept on them.
He cast fierce glances on the old, well-known furniture. Was there a
chair where she had not sat, or a sofa which she had not used, or a
picture which she had not looked at, a candlestick which had not lighted
her, a mirror which had not reflected her features? Gloomily he shook his
fist at this world of memories. He would have liked to have rushed on
them with swinging club and to have crushed everything to small bits and
splinters.
But it seemed to him a more famous revenge to sell them all at auction.
They should go to strangers! Away to be soiled in the cottagers’ huts, to
be in the care of indifferent strangers. Did he not know them, the dented
pieces of auction furniture in the peasants’ houses, fallen into dishonor
like his beautiful daughter? Away with them! May they stand with torn-out
stuffing and worn-off gilding, with cracked legs and stained leaves, and
long for their former home! Away with them to the ends of the earth, so
that no eye can find them, no hand gather them together!
When the auction began, he had filled half the hall with an incredible
confusion of piled-up articles.
Right across the room he had placed a long counter. Behind it stood the
auctioneer and put up the things; there the clerks sat and kept the
record, and there Melchior Sinclair had a keg of brandy standing. In the
other half of the room, in the hall, and in the yard were the buyers.
There were many people, and much noise and gayety. The bids followed
close on one another, and the auction was lively. But by the keg of
brandy, with all his possessions in endless confusion behind him, sat
Melchior Sinclair, half drunk and half mad. His hair stood up in rough
tufts above his red face; his eyes were rolling, fierce, and bloodshot.
He shouted and laughed, as if he had been in the best of moods; and every
one who had made a good bid he called up to him and offered a dram.
Among those who saw him there was Gösta Berling, who had stolen in with
the crowd of buyers, but who avoided coming under Melchior Sinclair’s
eyes. He became thoughtful at the sight, and his heart stood still, as at
a presentiment of a misfortune.
He wondered much where Marianne’s mother could be during all this. And he
went out, against his will, but driven by fate, to find Madame Gustava
Sinclair.
He had to go through many doors before he found her. Her husband had
short patience and little fondness for wailing and women’s complaints. He
had wearied of seeing her tears flow over the fate which had befallen her
household treasures. He was furious that she could weep over table and
bed linen, when, what was worse, his beautiful daughter was lost; and so
he had hunted her, with clenched fists, before him, through the house,
out into the kitchen, and all the way to the pantry.
She could not go any farther, and he had rejoiced at seeing her there,
cowering behind the step-ladder, awaiting heavy blows, perhaps death. He
let her stay there, but he locked the door and stuffed the key in his
pocket. She could sit there as long as the auction lasted. She did not
need to starve, and his ears had rest from her laments.
There she still sat, imprisoned in her own pantry, when Gösta came
through the corridor between the kitchen and the dining-room. He saw her
face at a little window high up in the wall. She had climbed up on the
step-ladder, and stood staring out of her prison.
“What are you doing up there?” asked Gösta.
“He has shut me in,” she whispered.
“Your husband?”
“Yes. I thought he was going to kill me. But listen, Gösta, take the key
of the dining-room door, and go into the kitchen and unlock the pantry
door with it, so that I can come out. That key fits here.”
Gösta obeyed, and in a couple of minutes the little woman stood in the
kitchen, which was quite deserted.
“You should have let one of the maids open the door with the dining-room
key,” said Gösta.
“Do you think I want to teach them that trick? Then I should never have
any peace in the pantry. And, besides, I took this chance to put the
upper shelves in order. They needed it, indeed. I cannot understand how I
could have let so much rubbish collect there.”
“You have so much to attend to,” said Gösta.
“Yes, that you may believe. If I were not everywhere, neither the loom
nor the spinning-wheel would be going right. And if—”
Here she stopped and wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.
“God help me, how I do talk!” she said; “they say that I won’t have
anything more to look after. He is selling everything we have.”
“Yes, it is a wretched business,” said Gösta.
“You know that big mirror in the drawing-room, Gösta. It was such a
beauty, for the glass was whole in it, without a flaw, and there was no
blemish at all on the gilding. I got it from my mother, and now he wants
to sell it.”
“He is mad.”
“You may well say so. He is not much better. He won’t stop until we shall
have to go and beg on the highway, we as well as the major’s wife.”
“It will never be so bad as that,” answered Gösta.
“Yes, Gösta. When the major’s wife went away from Ekeby, she foretold
misfortune for us, and now it is coming. She would never have allowed
him to sell Björne. And think, his own china, the old Canton cups from
his own home, are to be sold. The major’s wife would never have let it
happen.”
“But what is the matter with him?” asked Gösta.
“Oh, it is only because Marianne has not come back again. He has waited
and waited. He has gone up and down the avenue the whole day and waited
for her. He is longing himself mad, but I do not dare to say anything.”
“Marianne believes that he is angry with her.”
“She does not believe that. She knows him well enough; but she is proud
and will not take the first step. They are stiff and hard, both of them,
and I have to stand between them.”
“You must know that Marianne is going to marry me?”
“Alas, Gösta, she will never do that. She says that only to make him
angry. She is too spoiled to marry a poor man, and too proud, too.
Go home and tell her that if she does not come home soon, all her
inheritance will have gone to destruction. Oh, he will throw everything
away, I know, without getting anything for it.”
Gösta was really angry with her. There she sat on a big kitchen table,
and had no thought for anything but her mirrors and her china.
“You ought to be ashamed!” he burst out. “You throw your daughter out
into a snow-drift, and then you think that it is only temper that she
does not come back. And you think that she is no better than to forsake
him whom she cares for, lest she should lose her inheritance.”
“Dear Gösta, don’t be angry, you too. I don’t know what I am saying. I
tried my best to open the door for Marianne, but he took me and dragged
me away. They all say here that I don’t understand anything. I shall not
grudge you Marianne, Gösta, if you can make her happy. It is not so easy
to make a woman happy, Gösta.”
Gösta looked at her. How could he too have raised his voice in anger
against such a person as she,—terrified and cowed, but with such a good
heart!
“You do not ask how Marianne is,” he said gently.
She burst into tears.
“Will you not be angry with me if I ask you?” she said. “I have longed to
ask you the whole time. Think that I know no more of her than that she
is living. Not one greeting have I had from her the whole time, not once
when I sent clothes to her, and so I thought that you and she did not
want to have me know anything about her.”
Gösta could bear it no longer. He was wild, he was out of his
head,—sometimes God had to send his wolves after him to force him to
obedience,—but this old woman’s tears, this old woman’s laments were
harder for him to bear than the howling of the wolves. He let her know
the truth.
“Marianne has been ill the whole time,” he said. “She has had small-pox.
She was to get up to-day and lie on the sofa. I have not seen her since
the first night.”
Madame Gustava leaped with one bound to the ground. She left Gösta
standing there, and rushed away without another word to her husband.
The people in the auction-room saw her come up to him and eagerly whisper
something in his ear. They saw how his face grew still more flushed, and
his hand, which rested on the cock, turned it round so that the brandy
streamed over the floor.
It seemed to all as if Madame Gustava had come with such important news
that the auction must end immediately. The auctioneer’s hammer no longer
fell, the clerks’ pens stopped, there were no new bids.
Melchior Sinclair roused himself from his thoughts.
“Well,” he cried, “what is the matter?”
And the auction was in full swing once more.
Gösta still sat in the kitchen, and Madame Gustava came weeping out to
him.
“It’s no use,” she said. “I thought he would stop when he heard that
Marianne had been ill; but he is letting them go on. He would like to,
but now he is ashamed.”
Gösta shrugged his shoulders and bade her farewell.
In the hall he met Sintram.
“This is a funny show,” exclaimed Sintram, and rubbed his hands. “You are
a master, Gösta. Lord, what you have brought to pass!”
“It will be funnier in a little while,” whispered Gösta. “The Broby
clergyman is here with a sledge full of money. They say that he wants
to buy the whole of Björne and pay in cash. Then I would like to see
Melchior Sinclair, Sintram.”
Sintram drew his head down between his shoulders and laughed internally
a long time. And then he made his way into the auction-room and up to
Melchior Sinclair.
“If you want a drink, Sintram, you must make a bid first.”
Sintram came close up to him.
“You are in luck to-day as always,” he said. “A fellow has come to
the house with a sledge full of money. He is going to buy Björne and
everything both inside and out. He has told a lot of people to bid for
him. He does not want to show himself yet for a while.”
“You might say who he is; then I suppose I must give you a drink for your
pains.”
Sintram took the dram and moved a couple of steps backwards, before he
answered,—
“They say it is the Broby clergyman, Melchior.”
Melchior Sinclair had many better friends than the Broby clergyman. It
had been a life-long feud between them. There were legends of how he
had lain in wait on dark nights on the roads where the minister should
pass, and how he had given him many an honest drubbing, the old fawning
oppressor of the peasants.
It was well for Sintram that he had drawn back a step or two, but he did
not entirely escape the big man’s anger. He got a brandy glass between
his eyes and the whole brandy keg on his feet. But then followed a scene
which for a long time rejoiced his heart.
“Does the Broby clergyman want my house?” roared Melchior Sinclair. “Do
you stand there and bid on my things for the Broby clergyman? Oh, you
ought to be ashamed! You ought to know better!”
He seized a candlestick, and an inkstand, and slung them into the crowd
of people.
All the bitterness of his poor heart at last found expression. Roaring
like a wild beast, he clenched his fist at those standing about, and
slung at them whatever missile he could lay his hand on. Brandy glasses
and bottles flew across the room. He did not know what he was doing in
his rage.
“It’s the end of the auction,” he cried. “Out with you! Never while I
live shall the Broby clergyman have Björne. Out! I will teach you to bid
for the Broby clergyman!”
He rushed on the auctioneer and the clerks. They hurried away. In the
confusion they overturned the desk, and Sinclair with unspeakable fury
burst into the crowd of peaceful people.
There was a flight and wildest confusion. A couple of hundred people were
crowding towards the door, fleeing before a single man. And he stood,
roaring his “Out with you!” He sent curses after them, and now and again
he swept about him with a chair, which he brandished like a club.
He pursued them out into the hall, but no farther. When the last stranger
had left the house, he went back into the drawing-room and bolted the
door after him. Then he dragged together a mattress and a couple of
pillows, laid himself down on them, went to sleep in the midst of all the
havoc, and never woke till the next day.
When Gösta got home, he heard that Marianne wished to speak to him. That
was just what he wanted. He had been wondering how he could get a word
with her.
When he came into the dim room where she lay, he had to stand a moment at
the door. He could not see where she was.
“Stay where you are, Gösta,” Marianne said to him. “It may be dangerous
to come near me.”
But Gösta had come up the stairs in two bounds, trembling with eagerness
and longing. What did he care for the contagion? He wished to have the
bliss of seeing her.
For she was so beautiful, his beloved! No one had such soft hair, such an
open, radiant brow. Her whole face was a symphony of exquisite lines.
He thought of her eyebrows, sharply and clearly drawn like the
honey-markings on a lily, and of the bold curve of her nose, and of her
lips, as softly turned as rolling waves, and of her cheek’s long oval and
her chin’s perfect shape.
And he thought of the rosy hue of her skin, of the magical effect of her
coal-black eyebrows with her light hair, and of her blue irises swimming
in clear white, and of the light in her eyes.
She was beautiful, his beloved! He thought of the warm heart which
she hid under a proud exterior. She had strength for devotion and
self-sacrifice concealed under that fine skin and her proud words. It was
bliss to see her.
He had rushed up the stairs in two bounds, and she thought that he would
stop at the door. He stormed through the room and fell on his knees at
the head of her bed.
But he meant to see her, to kiss her, and to bid her farewell.
He loved her. He would certainly never cease to love her, but his heart
was used to being trampled on. Oh, where should he find her, that rose
without support or roots, which he could take and call his own? He
might not keep even her whom he had found disowned and half dead at the
roadside.
When should his love raise its voice in a song so loud and clear that he
should hear no dissonance through it? When should his palace of happiness
be built on a ground for which no other heart longed restlessly and with
regret?
He thought how he would bid her farewell.
“There is great sorrow in your home,” he would say. “My heart is torn
at the thought of it. You must go home and give your father his reason
again. Your mother lives in continual danger of death. You must go home,
my beloved.”
These were the words he had on his lips, but they were never spoken.
He fell on his knees at the head of her bed, and he took her face between
his hands and kissed her; but then he could not speak. His heart began to
beat so fiercely, as if it would burst his breast.
Small-pox had passed over that lovely face. Her skin had become coarse
and scarred. Never again should the red blood glow in her cheeks, or the
fine blue veins show on her temples. Her eyebrows had fallen out, and the
shining white of her eyes had changed to yellow.
Everything was laid waste. The bold lines had become coarse and heavy.
They were not few who mourned over Marianne Sinclair’s lost beauty. In
the whole of Värmland, people lamented the change in her bright color,
her sparkling eyes, and blond hair. There beauty was prized as nowhere
else. The joyous people grieved, as if the country had lost a precious
stone from the crown of its honor, as if their life had received a blot
on its glory.
But the first man who saw her after she had lost her beauty did not
indulge in sorrow.
Unutterable emotion filled his soul. The more he looked at her, the
warmer it grew within him. Love grew and grew, like a river in the
spring. In waves of fire it welled up in his heart, it filled his whole
being, it rose to his eyes as tears; it sighed on his lips, trembled in
his hands, in his whole body.
Oh, to love her, to protect her, to keep her from all harm!
To be her slave, her guide!
Love is strong when it has gone through the baptismal fire of pain. He
could not speak to Marianne of parting and renunciation. He could not
leave her—he owed her his life. He could commit the unpardonable sin for
her sake.
He could not speak a coherent word, he only wept and kissed, until at
last the old nurse thought it was time to lead him out.
When he had gone, Marianne lay and thought of him and his emotion. “It is
good to be so loved,” she thought.
Yes, it was good to be loved, but how was it with herself? What did she
feel? Oh, nothing, less than nothing!
Was it dead, her love, or where had it taken flight? Where had it hidden
itself, her heart’s child?
Did it still live? Had it crept into her heart’s darkest corner and sat
there freezing under the icy eyes, frightened by the pale sneer, half
suffocated under the bony fingers?
“Ah, my love,” she sighed, “child of my heart! Are you alive, or are you
dead, dead as my beauty?”
* * * * *
The next day Melchior Sinclair went in early to his wife.
“See to it that there is order in the house again, Gustava!” he said. “I
am going to bring Marianne home.”
“Yes, dear Melchior, here there will of course be order,” she answered.
Thereupon there was peace between them.
An hour afterwards he was on his way to Ekeby.
It was impossible to find a more noble and kindly old gentleman than
Melchior Sinclair, as he sat in the open sledge in his best fur cloak and
his best rug. His hair lay smooth on his head, but his face was pale and
his eyes were sunken in their sockets.
There was no limit to the brilliancy of the clear sky on that February
day. The snow sparkled like a young girl’s eyes when she hears the music
of the first waltz. The birches stretched the fine lace-work of their
reddish-brown twigs against the sky, and on some of them hung a fringe of
little icicles.
There was a splendor and a festive glow in the day. The horses prancing
threw up their forelegs, and the coachman cracked his whip in sheer
pleasure of living.
After a short drive the sledge drew up before the great steps at Ekeby.
The footman came out.
“Where are your masters?” asked Melchior.
“They are hunting the great bear in Gurlitta Cliff.”
“All of them?”
“All of them, sir. Those who do not go for the sake of the bear go for
the sake of the luncheon.”
Melchior laughed so that it echoed through the silent yard. He gave the
man a crown for his answer.
“Go say to my daughter that I am here to take her home. She need not be
afraid of the cold. I have the big sledge and a wolfskin cloak to wrap
her in.”
“Will you not come in, sir?”
“Thank you! I sit very well where I am.”
The man disappeared, and Melchior began his waiting.
He was in such a genial mood that day that nothing could irritate him. He
had expected to have to wait a little for Marianne; perhaps she was not
even up. He would have to amuse himself by looking about him for a while.
From the cornice hung a long icicle, with which the sun had terrible
trouble. It began at the upper end, melted a drop, and wanted to have
it run down along the icicle and fall to the earth. But before it had
gone half the way, it had frozen again. And the sun made continual new
attempts, which always failed. But at last a regular freebooter of a
ray hung itself on the icicle’s point, a little one, which shone and
sparkled; and however it was, it accomplished its object,—a drop fell
tinkling to the ground.
Melchior looked on and laughed. “You were not such a fool,” he said to
the ray of sunlight.
The yard was quiet and deserted. Not a sound was heard in the big house.
But he was not impatient. He knew that women needed plenty of time to
make themselves ready.
He sat and looked at the dove-cote. The birds had a grating before the
door. They were shut in, as long as the winter lasted, lest hawks should
exterminate them. Time after time a pigeon came and stuck out its white
head through the meshes.
“She is waiting for the spring,” said Melchior Sinclair, “but she must
have patience for a while.”
The pigeon came so regularly that he took out his watch and followed her,
with it in his hand. Exactly every third minute she stuck out her head.
“No, my little friend,” he said, “do you think spring will be ready in
three minutes? You must learn to wait.”
And he had to wait himself; but he had plenty of time.
The horses first pawed impatiently in the snow, but then they grew sleepy
from standing and blinking in the sun. They laid their heads together and
slept.
The coachman sat straight on his box, with whip and reins in his hand and
his face turned directly towards the sun, and slept, slept so that he
snored.
But Melchior did not sleep. He had never felt less like sleeping. He had
seldom passed pleasanter hours than during this glad waiting. Marianne
had been ill. She had not been able to come before, but now she would
come. Oh, of course she would. And everything would be well again.
She must understand that he was not angry with her. He had come himself
with two horses and the big sledge.
It is nothing to have to wait when one is sure of one’s self, and when
there is so much to distract one’s mind.
There comes the great watch-dog. He creeps forward on the tips of his
toes, keeps his eyes on the ground, and wags his tail gently, as if he
meant to set out on the most indifferent errand. All at once he begins to
burrow eagerly in the snow. The old rascal must have hidden there some
stolen goods. But just as he lifts his head to see if he can eat it now
undisturbed, he is quite out of countenance to see two magpies right in
front of him.
“You old thief!” say the magpies, and look like conscience itself. “We
are police officers. Give up your stolen goods!”
“Oh, be quiet with your noise! I am the steward—”
“Just the right one,” they sneer.
The dog throws himself on them, and they fly away with slow flaps. The
dog rushes after them, jumps, and barks. But while he is chasing one, the
other is already back. She flies down into the hole, tears at the piece
of meat, but cannot lift it. The dog snatches away the meat, holds it
between his paws, and bites in it. The magpies place themselves close in
front of him, and make disagreeable remarks. He glares fiercely at them,
while he eats, and when they get too impertinent, he jumps up and drives
them away.
The sun began to sink down towards the western hills. Melchior looked at
his watch. It is three o’clock. And his wife, who had had dinner ready at
twelve!
At the same moment the footman came out and announced that Miss Marianne
wished to speak to him.
Melchior laid the wolfskin cloak over his arm and went beaming up the
steps.
When Marianne heard his heavy tread on the stairs, she did not even then
know if she should go home with him or not. She only knew that she must
put an end to this long waiting.
She had hoped that the pensioners would come home; but they did not come.
So she had to do something to put an end to it all. She could bear it no
longer.
She had thought that he in a burst of anger would have driven away after
he had waited five minutes, or that he would break the door in or try to
set the house on fire.
But there he sat calm and smiling, and only waited. She cherished neither
hatred nor love for him. But there was a voice in her which seemed to
warn her against putting herself in his power again, and moreover she
wished to keep her promise to Gösta.
If he had slept, if he had spoken, if he had been restless, if he had
shown any sign of doubt, if he had had the carriage driven into the
shade! But he was only patience and certainty.
Certain, so infectiously certain, that she would come if he only waited!
Her head ached. Every nerve quivered. She could get no rest as long as
she knew that he sat there. It was as if his will dragged her bound down
the stairs.
So she thought she would at least talk with him.
Before he came, she had all the curtains drawn up, and she placed herself
so that her face came in the full light.
For it was her intention to put him to a sort of test; but Melchior
Sinclair was a wonderful man that day.
When he saw her, he did not make a sign, nor did he exclaim. It was as
if he had not seen any change in her. She knew how highly he prized her
beauty. But he showed no sorrow. He controlled himself not to wound her.
That touched her. She began to understand why her mother had loved him
through everything.
He showed no hesitation. He came with neither reproaches nor excuses.
“I will wrap the wolfskin about you, Marianne; it is not cold. It has
been on my knees the whole time.”
To make sure, he went up to the fire and warmed it.
Then he helped her to raise herself from the sofa, wrapped the cloak
about her, put a shawl over her head, drew it down under her arms, and
knotted it behind her back.
She let him do it. She was helpless. It was good to have everything
arranged, it was good not to have to decide anything, especially good for
one who was so picked to pieces as she, for one who did not possess one
thought or one feeling which was her own.
Melchior lifted her up, carried her down to the sleigh, closed the top,
tucked the furs in about her, and drove away from Ekeby.
She shut her eyes and sighed, partly from pleasure, partly from regret.
She was leaving life, the real life; but it did not make so much
difference to her,—she who could not live but only act.
* * * * *
A few days later her mother arranged that she should meet Gösta. She sent
for him while her husband was off on his long walk to see after his
timber, and took him in to Marianne.
Gösta came in; but he neither bowed nor spoke. He stood at the door and
looked on the ground like an obstinate boy.
“But, Gösta!” cried Marianne. She sat in her arm-chair and looked at him
half amused.
“Yes, that is my name.”
“Come here, come to me, Gösta!”
He went slowly forward to her, but did not raise his eyes.
“Come nearer! Kneel down here!”
“Lord God, what is the use of all that?” he cried; but he obeyed.
“Gösta, I want to tell you that I think it was best that I came home.”
“Let us hope that they will not throw you out in the snow-drift again.”
“Oh, Gösta, do you not care for me any longer? Do you think that I am too
ugly?”
He drew her head down and kissed her, but he looked as cold as ever.
She was almost amused. If he was pleased to be jealous of her parents,
what then? It would pass. It amused her to try and win him back. She did
not know why she wished to keep him, but she did. She thought that it was
he who had succeeded for once in freeing her from herself. He was the
only one who would be able to do it again.
And now she began to speak, eager to win him back. She said that it had
not been her meaning to desert him for good, but for a time they must for
appearance’s sake break off their connection. He must have seen, himself,
that her father was on the verge of going mad, that her mother was in
continual danger of her life. He must understand that she had been forced
to come home.
Then his anger burst out in words. She need not give herself so much
trouble. He would be her plaything no longer. She had given him up when
she had gone home, and he could not love her any more. When he came home
the day before yesterday from his hunting-trip and found her gone without
a message, without a word, his blood ran cold in his veins, he had nearly
died of grief. He could not love any one who had given him such pain. She
had, besides, never loved him. She was a coquette, who wanted to have
some one to kiss her and caress her when she was here in the country,
that was all.
Did he think that she was in the habit of allowing young men to caress
her?
Oh yes, he was sure of it. Women were not so saintly as they seemed.
Selfishness and coquetry from beginning to end! No, if she could know
how he had felt when he came home from the hunt. It was as though he had
waded in ice-water. He should never get over that pain. It would follow
him through the whole of his life. He would never be the same person
again.
She tried to explain to him how it had all happened. She tried to
convince him that she was still faithful. Well, it did not matter, for
now he did not love her any more. He had seen through her. She was
selfish. She did not love him. She had gone without leaving him a message.
He came continually back to that. She really enjoyed the performance. She
could not be angry, she understood his wrath so well. She did not fear
any real break between them. But at last she became uneasy. Had there
really been such a change in him that he could no longer care for her?
“Gösta,” she said, “was I selfish when I went to Sjö after the major; I
knew that they had small-pox there. Nor is it pleasant to go out in satin
slippers in the cold and snow.”
“Love lives on love, and not on services and deeds,” said Gösta.
“You wish, then, that we shall be as strangers from now on, Gösta?”
“That is what I wish.”
“You are very changeable, Gösta Berling.”
“People often charge me with it.”
He was cold, impossible to warm, and she was still colder.
Self-consciousness sat and sneered at her attempt to act love.
“Gösta,” she said, making a last effort, “I have never intentionally
wronged you, even if it may seem so. I beg of you, forgive me!”
“I cannot forgive you.”
She knew that if she had possessed a real feeling she could have won him
back. And she tried to play the impassioned. The icy eyes sneered at her,
but she tried nevertheless. She did not want to lose him.
“Do not go, Gösta! Do not go in anger! Think how ugly I have become! No
one will ever love me again.”
“Nor I, either,” he said. “You must accustom yourself to see your heart
trampled upon as well as another.”
“Gösta, I have never loved any one but you. Forgive me. Do not forsake
me! You are the only one who can save me from myself.”
He thrust her from him.
“You do not speak the truth,” he said with icy calmness. “I do not know
what you want of me, but I see that you are lying. Why do you want to
keep me? You are so rich that you will never lack suitors.”
And so he went.
And not until he had closed the door, did regret and pain in all their
strength take possession of Marianne’s heart.
It was love, her heart’s own child, who came out of the corner where the
cold eyes had banished him. He came, he for whom she had so longed when
it was too late.
When Marianne could with real certainty say to herself that Gösta Berling
had forsaken her, she felt a purely physical pain so terrible that she
almost fainted. She pressed her hands against her heart, and sat for
hours in the same place, struggling with a tearless grief.
And it was she herself who was suffering, not a stranger, nor an actress.
It was she herself. Why had her father come and separated them? Her love
had never been dead. It was only that in her weak condition after her
illness she could not appreciate his power.
O God, O God, that she had lost him! O God, that she had waked so late!
Ah, he was the only one, he was her heart’s conqueror! From him she could
bear anything. Hardness and angry words from him bent her only to humble
love. If he had beaten her, she would have crept like a dog to him and
kissed his hand.
She did not know what she would do to get relief from this dull pain.
She seized pen and paper and wrote with terrible eagerness. First she
wrote of her love and regret. Then she begged, if not for his love, only
for his pity. It was a kind of poem she wrote.
When she had finished she thought that if he should see it he must
believe that she had loved him. Well, why should she not send what she
had written to him? She would send it the next day, and she was sure that
it would bring him back to her.
The next day she spent in agony and in struggling with herself. What she
had written seemed to her paltry and so stupid. It had neither rhyme nor
metre. It was only prose. He would only laugh at such verses.
Her pride was roused too. If he no longer cared for her, it was such a
terrible humiliation to beg for his love.
Sometimes her good sense told her that she ought to be glad to escape
from the connection with Gösta, and all the deplorable circumstances
which it had brought with it.
Her heart’s pain was still so terrible that her emotions finally
conquered. Three days after she had become conscious of her love, she
enclosed the verses and wrote Gösta Berling’s name on the cover. But they
were never sent. Before she could find a suitable messenger she heard
such things of Gösta Berling that she understood it was too late to win
him back.
But it was the sorrow of her life that she had not sent the verses in
time, while she could have won him.
All her pain fastened itself on that point: “If I only had not waited so
long, if I had not waited so many days!”
The happiness of life, or at any rate the reality of life, would have
been won to her through those written words. She was sure they would have
brought him back to her.
Grief, however, did her the same service as love. It made her a whole
being, potent to devote herself to good as well as evil. Passionate
feelings filled her soul, unrestrained by self-consciousness’s icy chill.
And she was, in spite of her plainness, much loved.
But they say that she never forgot Gösta Berling. She mourned for him as
one mourns for a wasted life.
And her poor verses, which at one time were much read, are forgotten long
ago. I beg of you to read them and to think of them. Who knows what power
they might have had, if they had been sent? They are impassioned enough
to bear witness of a real feeling. Perhaps they could have brought him
back to her.
They are touching enough, tender enough in their awkward formlessness. No
one can wish them different. No one can want to see them imprisoned in
the chains of rhyme and metre, and yet it is so sad to think that it was
perhaps just this imperfection which prevented her from sending them in
time.
I beg you to read them and to love them. It is a person in great trouble
who has written them.
“Child, thou hast loved once, but nevermore
Shalt thou taste of the joys of love!
A passionate storm has raged through thy soul
Rejoice thou hast gone to thy rest!
No more in wild joy shall thou soar up on high
Rejoice, thou hast gone to thy rest!
No more shalt thou sink in abysses of pain,
Oh, nevermore.
“Child, thou hast loved once, but nevermore
Shall your soul burn and scorch in the flames.
Thou wert as a field of brown, sun-dried grass
Flaming with fire for a moment’s space;
From the whirling smoke-clouds the fiery sparks
Drove the birds of heaven with piercing cries.
Let them return! Thou burnest no more!—
Wilt burn nevermore.
“Child, thou hast loved, but now nevermore
Shalt thou hear love’s murmuring voice.
Thy young heart’s strength, like a weary child
That sits still and tired on the hard school-bench,
Yearns for freedom and pleasure.
But no man calleth it more like a forgotten song;
No one sings it more,—nevermore.
“Child, the end has now come!
And with it gone love and love’s joy.
He whom thou lovedst as if he had taught thee
With wings to hover through space,
He whom thou lovedst as if he had given thee
Safety and home when the village was flooded,
Is gone, who alone understood
The key to the door of thy heart.
“I ask but one thing of thee, O my beloved:
‘Lay not upon me the load of thy hate!’
That weakest of all things, the poor human heart,
How can it live with the pang and the thought
That it gave pain to another?
“O my beloved, if thou wilt kill me,
Use neither dagger nor poison nor rope!
Say only you wish me to vanish
From the green earth and the kingdom of life,
And I shall sink to my grave.
“From thee came life of life; thou gavest me love,
And now thou recallest thy gift, I know it too well.
But do not give me thy hate!
I still have love of living! Oh, remember that;
But under a load of hate I have but to die.”
CHAPTER X
THE YOUNG COUNTESS
The young countess sleeps till ten o’clock in the morning, and wants
fresh bread on the breakfast-table every day. The young countess
embroiders, and reads poetry. She knows nothing of weaving and cooking.
The young countess is spoiled.
But the young countess is gay, and lets her joyousness shine on all and
everything. One is so glad to forgive her the long morning sleep and the
fresh bread, for she squanders kindness on the poor and is friendly to
every one.
The young countess’s father is a Swedish nobleman, who has lived in
Italy all his life, retained there by the loveliness of the land and by
one of that lovely land’s beautiful daughters. When Count Henrik Dohna
travelled in Italy he had been received in this nobleman’s house, made
the acquaintance of his daughters, married one of them, and brought her
with him to Sweden.
She, who had always spoken Swedish and had been brought up to love
everything Swedish, is happy in the land of the bear. She whirls so
merrily in the long dance of pleasure, on Löfven’s shores, that one could
well believe she had always lived there. Little she understands what it
means to be a countess. There is no state, no stiffness, no condescending
dignity in that young, joyous creature.
It was the old men who liked the young countess best. It was wonderful,
what a success she had with old men. When they had seen her at a ball,
one could be sure that all of them, the judge at Munkerud and the
clergyman at Bro and Melchior Sinclair and the captain at Berga, would
tell their wives in the greatest confidence that if they had met the
young countess thirty or forty years ago—
“Yes, then she was not born,” say the old ladies.
And the next time they meet, they joke with the young countess, because
she wins the old men’s hearts from them.
The old ladies look at her with a certain anxiety. They remember so well
Countess Märta. She had been just as joyous and good and beloved when
she first came to Borg. And she had become a vain and pleasure-seeking
coquette, who never could think of anything but her amusements. “If she
only had a husband who could keep her at work!” say the old ladies.
“If she only could learn to weave!” For weaving was a consolation for
everything; it swallowed up all other interests, and had been the saving
of many a woman.
The young countess wants to be a good housekeeper. She knows nothing
better than as a happy wife to live in a comfortable home, and she often
comes at balls, and sits down beside the old people.
“Henrik wants me to learn to be a capable housekeeper,” she says, “just
as his mother is. Teach me how to weave!”
Then the old people heave a sigh: first, over Count Henrik, who can think
that his mother was a good housekeeper; and then over the difficulty of
initiating this young, ignorant creature in such a complicated thing.
It was enough to speak to her of heddles, and harnesses, and warps, and
woofs,[2] to make her head spin.
No one who sees the young countess can help wondering why she married
stupid Count Henrik. It is a pity for him who is stupid, wherever he
may be. And it is the greatest pity for him who is stupid and lives in
Värmland.
There are already many stories of Count Henrik’s stupidity, and he is
only a little over twenty years old. They tell how he entertained Anna
Stjärnhök on a sleighing party a few years ago.
“You are very pretty, Anna,” he said.
“How you talk, Henrik!”
“You are the prettiest girl in the whole of Värmland.”
“That I certainly am not.”
“The prettiest in this sleighing party at any rate.”
“Alas, Henrik, I am not that either.”
“Well, you are the prettiest in this sledge, that you can’t deny.”
No, that she could not.
For Count Henrik is no beauty. He is as ugly as he is stupid. They say
of him that that head on the top of his thin neck has descended in the
family for a couple of hundred years. That is why the brain is so worn
out in the last heir.
“It is perfectly plain that he has no head of his own,” they say. “He
has borrowed his father’s. He does not dare to bend it; he is afraid of
losing it,—he is already yellow and wrinkled. The head has been in use
with both his father and grandfather. Why should the hair otherwise be so
thin and the lips so bloodless and the chin so pointed?”
He always has scoffers about him, who encourage him to say stupid things,
which they save up, circulate, and add to.
It is lucky for him that he does not notice it. He is solemn and
dignified in everything he does. He moves formally, he holds himself
straight, he never turns his head without turning his whole body.
He had been at Munkerud on a visit to the judge a few years ago. He had
come riding with high hat, yellow breeches, and polished boots, and
had sat stiff and proud in the saddle. When he arrived everything went
well, but when he was to ride away again it so happened that one of the
low-hanging branches of a birch-tree knocked off his hat. He got off,
put on his hat, and rode again under the same branch. His hat was again
knocked off; this was repeated four times.
The judge at last went out to him and said: “If you should ride on one
side of the branch the next time?”
The fifth time he got safely by.
But still the young countess cared for him in spite of his old-man’s
head. She of course did not know that he was crowned with such a halo
of stupidity in his own country, when she saw him in Rome. There,
there had been something of the glory of youth about him, and they had
come together under such romantic circumstances. You ought to hear the
countess tell how Count Henrik had to carry her off. The priests and the
cardinals had been wild with rage that she wished to give up her mother’s
religion and become a Protestant. The whole people had been in uproar.
Her father’s palace was besieged. Henrik was pursued by bandits. Her
mother and sisters implored her to give up the marriage. But her father
was furious that that Italian rabble should prevent him from giving his
daughter to whomsoever he might wish. He commanded Count Henrik to carry
her off. And so, as it was impossible for them to be married at home
without its being discovered, Henrik and she stole out by side streets
and all sorts of dark alleys to the Swedish consulate. And when she had
abjured the Catholic faith and become a Protestant, they were immediately
married and sent north in a swift travelling-carriage. “There was no time
for banns, you see. It was quite impossible,” the young countess used to
say. “And of course it was gloomy to be married at a consulate, and not
in one of the beautiful churches, but if we had not Henrik would have had
to do without me. Every one is so impetuous down there, both papa and
mamma and the cardinals and the priests, all are so impetuous. That was
why everything had to be done so secretly, and if the people had seen us
steal out of the house, they would certainly have killed us both—only to
save my soul; Henrik was of course already lost.”
The young countess loves her husband, ever since they have come home to
Borg and live a quieter life. She loves in him the glory of the old name
and the famous ancestors. She likes to see how her presence softens the
stiffness of his manner, and to hear how his voice grows tender when he
speaks to her. And besides, he cares for her and spoils her, and she is
married to him. The young countess cannot imagine that a married woman
should not care for her husband.
In a certain way he corresponds to her ideal of manliness. He is honest
and loves the truth. He had never broken his word. She considers him a
true nobleman.
On the 18th of March Bailiff Scharling celebrates his birthday, and many
then drive up Broby Hill. People from the east and the west, known and
unknown, invited and uninvited, come to the bailiff’s on that day. All
are welcome, all find plenty of food and drink, and in the ball-room
there is room for dancers from seven parishes.
The young countess is coming too, as she always does where there is to be
dancing and merry-making.
But she is not happy as she comes. It is as if she has a presentiment
that it is now her turn to be dragged-in in adventure’s wild chase.
On the way she sat and watched the sinking sun. It set in a cloudless sky
and left no gold edges on the light clouds. A pale, gray, twilight, swept
by cold squalls, settled down over the country.
The young countess saw how day and night struggled, and how fear seized
all living things at the mighty contest. The horses quickened their pace
with the last load to come under shelter. The woodcutters hurried home
from the woods, the maids from the farmyard. Wild creatures howled at the
edge of the wood. The day, beloved of man, was conquered.
The light grew dim, the colors faded. She only saw chillness and
ugliness. What she had hoped, what she had loved, what she had done,
seemed to her to be also wrapped in the twilight’s gray light. It was the
hour of weariness, of depression, of impotence for her as for all nature.
She thought that her own heart, which now in its playful gladness clothed
existence with purple and gold, she thought that this heart perhaps
sometime would lose its power to light up her world.
“Oh, impotence, my own heart’s impotence!” she said to herself. “Goddess
of the stifling, gray twilight. You will one day be mistress of my soul.
Then I shall see life ugly and gray, as it perhaps is, then my hair will
grow white, my back be bent, my brain be paralyzed.”
At the same moment the sledge turned in at the bailiff’s gate, and as the
young countess looked up, her eyes fell on a grated window in the wing,
and on a fierce, staring face behind.
That face belonged to the major’s wife at Ekeby, and the young woman knew
that her pleasure for the evening was now spoiled.
One can be glad when one does not see sorrow, only hears it spoken of.
But it is harder to keep a joyous heart when one stands face to face with
black, fierce, staring trouble.
The countess knows of course that Bailiff Scharling had put the major’s
wife in prison, and that she shall be tried for the assault she made on
Ekeby the night of the great ball. But she never thought that she should
be kept in custody there at the bailiff’s house, so near the ball-room
that one could look into her room, so near that she must hear the dance
music and the noise of merry-making. And the thought takes away all her
pleasure.
The young countess dances both waltz and quadrille. She takes part in
both minuet and contra-dance; but after each dance she steals to the
window in the wing. There is a light there and she can see how the
major’s wife walks up and down in her room. She never seems to rest, but
walks and walks.
The countess takes no pleasure in the dance. She only thinks of the
major’s wife going backwards and forwards in her prison like a caged wild
beast. She wonders how all the others can dance. She is sure there are
many there who are as much moved as she to know that the major’s wife is
so near, and still there is no one who shows it.
But every time she has looked out her feet grow heavier in the dance, and
the laugh sticks in her throat.
The bailiff’s wife notices her as she wipes the moisture from the
window-pane to see out, and comes to her.
“Such misery! Oh, it is such suffering!” she whispers to the countess.
“I think it is almost impossible to dance to-night,” whispers the
countess back again.
“It is not with my consent that we dance here, while she is sitting shut
up there,” answers Madame Scharling. “She has been in Karlstad since she
was arrested. But there is soon to be a trial now, and that is why she
was brought here to-day. We could not put her in that miserable cell in
the courthouse, so she was allowed to stay in the weaving-room in the
wing. She should have had my drawing-room, countess, if all these people
had not come to-day. You hardly know her, but she has been like a mother
and queen to us all. What will she think of us, who are dancing here,
while she is in such great trouble. It is as well that most of them do
not know that she is sitting there.”
“She ought never to have been arrested,” says the young countess, sternly.
“No, that is a true word, countess, but there was nothing else to do, if
there should not be a worse misfortune. No one blamed her for setting
fire to her own hay-stack and driving out the pensioners, but the major
was scouring the country for her. God knows what he would have done if
she had not been put in prison. Scharling has given much offence because
he arrested the major’s wife, countess. Even in Karlstad they were much
displeased with him, because he did not shut his eyes to everything which
happened at Ekeby; but he did what he thought was best.”
“But now I suppose she will be sentenced?” says the countess.
“Oh, no, countess, she will not be sentenced. She will be acquitted, but
all that she has to bear these days is being too much for her. She is
going mad. You can understand, such a proud woman, how can she bear to be
treated like a criminal! I think that it would have been best if she had
been allowed to go free. She might have been able to escape by herself.”
“Let her go,” says the countess.
“Any one can do that but the bailiff and his wife,” whispers Madame
Scharling. “We have to guard her. Especially to-night, when so many of
her friends are here, two men sit on guard outside her door, and it is
locked and barred so that no one can come in. But if any one got her out,
countess, we should be so glad, both Scharling and I.”
“Can I not go to her?” says the young countess. Madame Scharling seizes
her eagerly by the wrist and leads her out with her. In the hall they
throw a couple of shawls about them, and hurry across the yard.
“It is not certain that she will even speak to us,” says the bailiff’s
wife. “But she will see that we have not forgotten her.”
They come into the first room in the wing, where the two men sit and
guard the barred door, and go in without being stopped to the major’s
wife. She was in a large room crowded with looms and other implements. It
was used mostly for a weaving-room, but it had bars in the window and a
strong lock on the door, so that it could be used, in case of need, for a
cell.
The major’s wife continues to walk without paying any attention to them.
She is on a long wandering these days. She cannot remember anything
except that she is going the hundred and twenty miles to her mother, who
is up in the Älfdal woods, and is waiting for her. She never has time to
rest She must go. A never-resting haste is on her. Her mother is over
ninety years old. She would soon be dead.
She has measured off the floor by yards, and she is now adding up the
yards to furlongs and the furlongs to half-miles and miles.
Her way seems heavy and long, but she dares not rest. She wades through
deep drifts. She hears the forests murmur over her as she goes. She rests
in Finn huts and in the charcoal-burner’s log cabin. Sometimes, when
there is nobody for many miles, she has to break branches for a bed and
rest under the roots of a fallen pine.
And at last she has reached her journey’s end, the hundred and twenty
miles are over, the wood opens out, and the red house stands in a
snow-covered yard. The Klar River rushes foaming by in a succession of
little waterfalls, and by that well-known sound she hears that she is at
home. And her mother, who must have seen her coming begging, just as she
had wished, comes to meet her.
When the major’s wife has got so far she always looks up, glances about
her, sees the closed door, and knows where she is.
Then she wonders if she is going mad, and sits down to think and to
rest. But after a time she sets out again, calculates the yards and the
furlongs, the half-miles and the miles, rests for a short time in Finn
huts, and sleeps neither night nor day until she has again accomplished
the hundred and twenty miles.
During all the time she has been in prison she has almost never slept.
And the two women who had come to see her looked at her with anguish.
The young countess will ever afterwards remember her, as she walked
there. She sees her often in her dreams, and wakes with eyes full of
tears and a moan on her lips.
The old woman is so pitifully changed, her hair is so thin, and loose
ends stick out from the narrow braid. Her face is relaxed and sunken, her
dress is disordered and ragged. But with it all she has so much still of
her lofty bearing that she inspires not only sympathy, but also respect.
But what the countess remembered most distinctly were her eyes, sunken,
turned inward, not yet deprived of all the light of reason, but almost
ready to be extinguished, and with a spark of wildness lurking in their
depths, so that one had to shudder and fear to have the old woman in the
next moment upon one, with teeth ready to bite, fingers to tear.
They have been there quite a while when the major’s wife suddenly stops
before the young woman and looks at her with a stern glance. The countess
takes a step backwards and seizes Madame Scharling’s arm.
The features of the major’s wife have life and expression, her eyes look
out into the world with full intelligence.
“Oh, no; oh, no,” she says and smiles; “as yet it is not so bad, my dear
young lady.”
She asks them to sit down, and sits down herself. She has an air of
old-time stateliness, known since days of feasting at Ekeby and at the
royal balls at the governor’s house at Karlstad. They forget the rags and
the prison and only see the proudest and richest woman in Värmland.
“My dear countess,” she says, “what possessed you to leave the dance to
visit a lonely old woman? You must be very good.”
Countess Elizabeth cannot answer. Her voice is choking with emotion.
Madame Scharling answers for her, that she had not been able to dance for
thinking of the major’s wife.
“Dear Madame Scharling,” answers the major’s wife, “has it gone so far
with me that I disturb the young people in their pleasure? You must not
weep for me, my dear young countess,” she continued. “I am a wicked old
woman, who deserves all I get. You do not think it right to strike one’s
mother?”
“No, but—”
The major’s wife interrupts her and strokes the curly, light hair back
from her forehead.
“Child, child,” she says, “how could you marry that stupid Henrik Dohna?”
“But I love him.”
“I see how it is, I see how it is,” says the major’s wife. “A kind child
and nothing more; weeps with those in sorrow, and laughs with those who
are glad. And obliged to say ‘yes’ to the first man who says, ‘I love
you.’ Yes, of course. Go back now and dance, my dear young countess.
Dance and be happy! There is nothing bad in you.”
“But I want to do something for you.”
“Child,” says the major’s wife, solemnly, “an old woman lived at Ekeby
who held the winds of heaven prisoners. Now she is caught and the winds
are free. Is it strange that a storm goes over the land?
“I, who am old, have seen it before, countess. I know it. I know that the
storm of the thundering God is coming. Sometimes it rushes over great
kingdoms, sometimes over small out-of-the-way communities. God’s storm
forgets no one. It comes over the great as well as the small. It is grand
to see God’s storm coming.
“Anguish shall spread itself over the land. The small birds’ nests shall
fall from the branches. The hawk’s nest in the pine-tree’s top shall be
shaken down to the earth with a great noise, and even the eagle’s nest in
the mountain cleft shall the wind drag out with its dragon tongue.
“We thought that all was well with us; but it was not so. God’s storm
is needed. I understand that, and I do not complain. I only wish that I
might go to my mother.”
She suddenly sinks back.
“Go now, young woman,” she says. “I have no more time. I must go. Go now,
and look out for them who ride on the storm-cloud!”
Thereupon she renews her wandering. Her features relax, her glance turns
inward. The countess and Madame Scharling have to leave her.
As soon as they are back again among the dancers the young countess goes
straight to Gösta Berling.
“I can greet you from the major’s wife,” she says. “She is waiting for
you to get her out of prison.”
“Then she must go on waiting, countess.”
“Oh, help her, Herr Berling!”
Gösta stares gloomily before him. “No,” he says, “why should I help her?
What thanks do I owe her? Everything she has done for me has been to my
ruin.”
“But Herr Berling—”
“If she had not existed,” he says angrily, “I would now be sleeping up
there in the forest. Is it my duty to risk my life for her, because she
has made me a pensioner at Ekeby? Do you think much credit goes with that
profession?”
The young countess turns away from him without answering. She is angry.
She goes back to her place thinking bitter thoughts of the pensioners.
They have come to-night with horns and fiddles, and mean to let the bows
scrape the strings until the horse-hair is worn through, without thinking
that the merry tunes ring in the prisoner’s miserable room. They come
here to dance until their shoes fall to pieces, and do not remember that
their old benefactress can see their shadows whirling by the misty
window-panes. Alas, how gray and ugly the world was! Alas, what a shadow
trouble and hardness had cast over the young countess’s soul!
After a while Gösta comes to ask her to dance.
She refuses shortly.
“Will you not dance with me, countess?” he asks, and grows very red.
“Neither with you nor with any other of the Ekeby pensioners,” she says.
“We are not worthy of such an honor.”
“It is no honor, Herr Berling. But it gives me no pleasure to dance with
those who forget the precepts of gratitude.”
Gösta has already turned on his heel.
This scene is heard and seen by many. All think the countess is right.
The pensioners’ ingratitude and heartlessness had waked general
indignation.
But in these days Gösta Berling is more dangerous than a wild beast in
the forest. Ever since he came home from the hunt and found Marianne
gone, his heart has been like an aching wound. He longs to do some one a
bloody wrong and to spread sorrow and pain far around.
If she wishes it so, he says to himself, it shall be as she wishes. But
she shall not save her own skin. The young countess likes abductions. She
shall get her fill. He has nothing against adventure. For eight days he
has mourned for a woman’s sake. It is long enough. He calls Beerencreutz
the colonel, and Christian Bergh the great captain, and the slow Cousin
Christopher, who never hesitates at any mad adventure, and consults with
them how he shall avenge the pensioners’ injured honor.
It is the end of the party. A long line of sledges drive up into the
yard. The men are putting on their fur cloaks. The ladies look for their
wraps in the dreadful confusion of the dressing-room.
The young countess has been in great haste to leave this hateful ball.
She is ready first of all the ladies. She stands smiling in the middle of
the room and looks at the confusion, when the door is thrown open, and
Gösta Berling shows himself on the threshold.
No man has a right to enter this room. The old ladies stand there with
their thin hair no longer adorned with becoming caps; and the young ones
have turned up their skirts under their cloaks, that the stiff ruffles
may not be crushed on the way home.
But without paying any attention to the warning cries, Gösta Berling
rushes up to the countess and seizes her.
He lifts her in his arms and rushes from the room out into the hall and
then on to the steps with her.
The astonished women’s screams could not check him. When they hurry
after, they only see how he throws himself into a sledge with the
countess in his arms.
They hear the driver crack his whip and see the horse set off. They know
the driver: it is Beerencreutz. They know the horse: it is Don Juan. And
in deep distress over the countess’s fate they call their husbands.
And these waste no time in questions, but hasten to their sledges. And
with the count at their head they chase after the ravisher.
But he lies in the sledge, holding the young countess fast. He has
forgotten all grief, and mad with adventure’s intoxicating joy, he sings
at the top of his voice a song of love and roses.
Close to him he presses her; but she makes no attempt to escape. Her face
lies, white and stiffened, against his breast.
Ah, what shall a man do when he has a pale, helpless face so near his
own, when he sees the fair hair which usually shades the white, gleaming
forehead, pushed to one side, and when the eyelids have closed heavily
over the gray eyes’ roguish glance?
What shall a man do when red lips grow pale beneath his eyes?
Kiss, of course, kiss the fading lips, the closed eyes, the white
forehead.
But then the young woman awakes. She throws herself back. She is like a
bent spring. And he has to struggle with her with his whole strength to
keep her from throwing herself from the sledge, until finally he forces
her, subdued and trembling, down in the corner of the sledge.
“See,” says Gösta quite calmly to Beerencreutz, “the countess is the
third whom Don Juan and I have carried off this winter. But the others
hung about my neck with kisses, and she will neither be kissed by me nor
dance with me. Can you understand these women, Beerencreutz?”
But when Gösta drove away from the house, when the women screamed and the
men swore, when the sleigh-bells rang and the whips cracked, and there
was nothing but cries and confusion, the men who guarded the major’s wife
were wondering.
“What is going on?” they thought. “Why are they screaming?”
Suddenly the door is thrown open, and a voice calls to them.
“She is gone. He is driving away with her.”
They rush out, running like mad, without waiting to see if it was the
major’s wife or who it was who was gone. Luck was with them, and they
came up with a hurrying sledge, and they drove both far and fast, before
they discovered whom they were pursuing.
But Berg and Cousin Christopher went quietly to the door, burst the lock,
and opened it for the major’s wife.
“You are free,” they said.
She came out. They stood straight as ramrods on either side of the door
and did not look at her.
“You have a horse and sledge outside.”
She went out, placed herself in the sledge, and drove away. No one
followed her. No one knew whither she went.
Down Broby hill Don Juan speeds towards the Löfven’s ice-covered surface.
The proud courser flies on. Strong, ice-cold breezes whistle by their
cheeks. The bells jingle. The stars and the moon are shining. The snow
lies blue-white and glitters from its own brightness.
Gösta feels poetical thoughts wake in him.
“Beerencreutz,” he says, “this is life. Just as Don Juan hurries away
with this young woman, so time hurries away with man. You are necessity,
who steers the journey. I am desire, who fetters the will, and she is
dragged helpless, always deeper and deeper down.”
“Don’t talk!” cries Beerencreutz. “They are coming after us.”
And with a whistling cut of the whip he urges Don Juan to still wilder
speed.
“Once it was wolves, now it is spoils,” cries Gösta. “Don Juan, my boy,
fancy that you are a young elk. Rush through the brushwood, wade through
the swamps, leap from the mountain top down into the clear lake, swim
across it with bravely lifted head, and vanish, vanish in the thick
pine-woods’ rescuing darkness! Spring, Don Juan! Spring like a young elk!”
Joy fills his wild heart at the mad race. The cries of the pursuers are
to him a song of victory. Joy fills his wild heart when he feels the
countess’s body shake with fright, when he hears her teeth chatter.
Suddenly he loosens the grip of iron with which he has held her. He
stands up in the sledge and waves his cap.
“I am Gösta Berling,” he cries, “lord of ten thousand kisses and thirteen
thousand love-letters! Hurra for Gösta Berling! Take him who can!”
And in the next minute he whispers in the countess’s ear:—
“Is not the pace good? Is not the course kingly? Beyond Löfven lies Lake
Väner. Beyond Väner lies the sea, everywhere endless stretches of clear
blue-black ice, and beyond all a glowing world. Rolling thunders in
the freezing ice, shrill cries behind us, shooting stars above us, and
jingling bells before us! Forward! Always forward! Have you a mind to try
the journey, young, beautiful lady?”
He had let her go. She pushes him roughly away. The next instant finds
him on his knees at her feet.
“I am a wretch, a wretch. You ought not to have angered me, countess. You
stood there so proud and fair, and never thought that a pensioner’s hand
could reach you. Heaven and earth love you. You ought not to add to the
burden of those whom heaven and earth scorn.”
He draws her hands to him and lifts them to his face.
“If you only knew,” he says, “what it means to be an outcast. One does
not stop to think what one does. No, one does not.”
At the same moment he notices that she has nothing on her hands. He draws
a pair of great fur gloves from his pocket and puts them on her.
And he has become all at once quite quiet. He places himself in the
sledge, as far from the young countess as possible.
“You need not be afraid,” he says. “Do you not see where we are driving?
You must understand that we do not dare to do you any harm.”
She, who has been almost out of her mind with fright, sees that they have
driven across the lake and that Don Juan is struggling up the steep hill
to Borg.
They stop the horse before the steps of the castle, and let the young
countess get out of the sledge at the door of her own home.
When she is surrounded by attentive servants, she regains her courage and
presence of mind.
“Take care of the horse, Andersson!” she says to the coachman. “These
gentlemen who have driven me home will be kind enough to come in for a
while. The count will soon be here.”
“As you wish, countess,” says Gösta, and instantly gets out of the
sledge. Beerencreutz throws the reins to the groom without a moment’s
hesitation. And the young countess goes before them and ushers them into
the hall with ill-concealed malicious joy.
The countess had expected that the pensioners would hesitate at the
proposition to await her husband.
They did not know perhaps what a stern and upright man he was. They were
not afraid of the inquiry he should make of them, who had seized her by
force and compelled her to drive with them. She longed to hear him forbid
them ever again to set their foot in her house.
She wished to see him call in the servants to point out the pensioners to
them as men who thereafter never should be admitted within the doors of
Borg. She wished to hear him express his scorn not only of what they had
done to her, but also of their conduct toward the old major’s wife, their
benefactress.
He, who showed her only tenderness and consideration, would rise in just
wrath against her persecutors. Love would give fire to his speech. He,
who guarded and looked after her as a creature of finer stuff than any
other, would not bear that rough men had fallen upon her like birds of
prey upon a sparrow. She glowed with thirst of revenge.
Beerencreutz, however, walked undaunted into the dining-room, and up to
the fire, which was always lighted when the countess came home from a
ball.
Gösta remained in the darkness by the door and silently watched the
countess, while the servant removed her outer wraps. As he sat and looked
at the young woman, he rejoiced as he had not done for many years. He saw
so clearly it was like a revelation, although he did not understand how
he had discovered it, that she had in her one of the most beautiful of
souls.
As yet it lay bound and sleeping; but it would some day show itself. He
rejoiced at having discovered all the purity and gentleness and innocence
which was hidden in her. He was almost ready to laugh at her, because she
looked so angry and stood with flushed cheeks and frowning brows.
“You do not know how gentle and good you are,” he thought.
The side of her being which was turned towards the outside world would
never do her inner personality justice, he thought. But Gösta Berling
from that hour must be her servant, as one must serve everything
beautiful and godlike. Yes, there was nothing to be sorry for that he
had just been so violent with her. If she had not been so afraid, if she
had not thrust him from her so angrily, if he had not felt how her whole
being was shaken by his roughness, he would never have known what a fine
and noble soul dwelt within her.
He had not thought it before. She had only cared for pleasure-seeking and
amusement. And she had married that stupid Count Henrik.
Yes, now he would be her slave till death; dog and slave as Captain Bergh
used to say, and nothing more.
He sat by the door, Gösta Berling, and held with clasped hands a sort
of service. Since the day when he for the first time felt the flame of
inspiration burn in him, he had not known such a holiness in his soul. He
did not move, even when Count Dohna came in with a crowd of people, who
swore and lamented over the pensioners’ mad performance.
He let Beerencreutz receive the storm. With indolent calm, tried by many
adventures, the latter stood by the fireplace. He had put one foot up on
the fender, rested his elbow on his knee, and his chin on his hand, and
looked at the excited company.
“What is the meaning of all this?” roared the little count at him.
“The meaning is,” he said, “that as long as there are women on earth,
there will be fools to dance after their piping.”
The young count’s face grew red.
“I ask what that means!” he repeated.
“I ask that too,” sneered Beerencreutz. “I ask what it means when Henrik
Dohna’s countess will not dance with Gösta Berling.”
The count turned questioning to his wife.
“I could not, Henrik,” she cried. “I could not dance with him or any of
them. I thought of the major’s wife, whom they allowed to languish in
prison.”
The little count straightened his stiff body and stretched up his
old-man’s head.
“We pensioners,” said Beerencreutz, “permit no one to insult us. She
who will not dance with us must drive with us. No harm has come to the
countess, and there can be an end of the matter.”
“No,” said the count. “It cannot be the end. It is I who am responsible
for my wife’s acts. Now I ask why Gösta Berling did not turn to me to get
satisfaction when my wife had insulted him.”
Beerencreutz smiled.
“I ask that,” repeated the count.
“One does not ask leave of the fox to take his skin from him,” said
Beerencreutz.
The count laid his hand on his narrow chest.
“I am known to be a just man,” he cried. “I can pass sentence on my
servants. Why should I not be able to pass sentence on my wife? The
pensioners have no right to judge her. The punishment they have given
her, I wipe out. It has never been, do you understand, gentlemen. It has
never existed.”
The count screamed out the words in a high falsetto. Beerencreutz
cast a swift glance about the assembly. There was not one of those
present—Sintram and Daniel Bendix and Dahlberg and all the others who had
followed in—who did not stand and smile at the way he outwitted stupid
Henrik Dohna.
The young countess did not understand at first. What was it which should
not be considered? Her anguish, the pensioner’s hard grip on her tender
body, the wild song, the wild words, the wild kisses, did they not exist?
Had that evening never been, over which the goddess of the gray twilight
had reigned?
“But, Henrik—”
“Silence!” he said. And he drew himself up to chide her. “Woe to you,
that you, who are a woman, have wished to set yourself up as a judge of
men,” he says. “Woe to you, that you, who are my wife, dare to insult
one whose hand I gladly press. What is it to you if the pensioners have
put the major’s wife in prison? Were they not right? You can never know
how angry a man is to the bottom of his soul when he hears of a woman’s
infidelity. Do you also mean to go that evil way, that you take such a
woman’s part?”
“But, Henrik—”
She wailed like a child, and stretched out her arms to ward off the angry
words. She had never before heard such hard words addressed to her. She
was so helpless among these hard men, and now her only defender turned
against her. Never again would her heart have power to light up the world.
“But, Henrik, it is you who ought to protect me.”
Gösta Berling was observant now, when it was too late. He did not know
what to do. He wished her so well. But he did not dare to thrust himself
between man and wife.
“Where is Gösta Berling?” asked the count.
“Here,” said Gösta. And he made a pitiable attempt to make a jest of the
matter. “You were making a speech, I think, count, and I fell asleep.
What do you say to letting us go home and letting you all go to bed?”
“Gösta Berling, since my countess has refused to dance with you, I
command her to kiss your hand and to ask you for forgiveness.”
“My dear Count Henrik,” says Gösta, smiling, “it is not a fit hand for
a young woman to kiss. Yesterday it was red with blood from killing an
elk, to-day black with soot from a fight with a charcoal-burner. You have
given a noble and high-minded sentence. That is satisfaction enough.
Come, Beerencreutz!”
The count placed himself in his way.
“Do not go,” he said. “My wife must obey me. I wish that my countess
shall know whither it leads to be self-willed.”
Gösta stood helpless. The countess was quite white; but she did not move.
“Go,” said the count.
“Henrik, I cannot.”
“You can,” said the count, harshly. “You can. But I know what you want.
You will force me to fight with this man, because your whim is not to
like him. Well, if you will not make him amends, I shall do so. You
women love to have a man killed for your sake. You have done wrong, but
will not atone for it. Therefore I must do it. I shall fight the duel,
countess. In a few hours I shall be a bloody corpse.”
She gave him a long look. And she saw him as he was,—stupid, cowardly,
puffed up with pride and vanity, the most pitiful of men.
“Be calm,” she said. And she became as cold as ice. “I will do it.”
But now Gösta Berling became quite beside himself.
“You shall not, countess! No, you shall not! You are only a child, a
poor, innocent child, and you would kiss my hand. You have such a white,
beautiful soul. I will never again come near you. Oh, never again! I
bring death and destruction to everything good and blameless. You shall
not touch me. I shudder for you like fire for water. You shall not!”
He put his hands behind his back.
“It is all the same to me, Herr Berling. Nothing makes any difference to
me any more. I ask you for forgiveness. I ask you to let me kiss your
hand!”
Gösta kept his hands behind his back. He approached the door.
“If you do not accept the amends my wife offers, I must fight with you,
Gösta Berling, and moreover must impose upon her another, severer,
punishment.”
The countess shrugged her shoulders. “He is mad from cowardice,” she
whispered. “Let me do it! It does not matter if I am humbled. It is after
all what you wanted the whole time.”
“Did I want that? Do you think I wanted that? Well, if I have no hands to
kiss, you must see that I did not want it,” he cried.
He ran to the fire and stretched out his hands into it. The flames
closed over them, the skin shrivelled up, the nails crackled. But in the
same second Beerencreutz seized him by the neck and threw him across the
floor. He tripped against a chair and sat down. He sat and almost blushed
for such a foolish performance. Would she think that he only did it by
way of boast? To do such a thing in the crowded room must seem like a
foolish vaunt. There had not been a vestige of danger.
Before he could raise himself, the countess was kneeling beside him. She
seized his red, sooty hands and looked at them.
“I will kiss them, kiss them,” she cried, “as soon as they are not too
painful and sore!” And the tears streamed from her eyes as she saw the
blisters rising under the scorched skin.
For he had been like a revelation to her of an unknown glory. That such
things could happen here on earth, that they could be done for her! What
a man this was, ready for everything, mighty in good as in evil, a man of
great deeds, of strong words, of splendid actions! A hero, a hero, made
of different stuff from others! Slave of a whim, of the desire of the
moment, wild and terrible, but possessor of a tremendous power, fearless
of everything.
She had been so depressed the whole evening she had not seen anything but
pain and cruelty and cowardice. Now everything was forgotten. The young
countess was glad once more to be alive. The goddess of the twilight was
conquered. The young countess saw light and color brighten the world.
* * * * *
It was the same night in the pensioners’ wing.
There they scolded and swore at Gösta Berling. The old men wanted to
sleep; but it was impossible. He let them get no rest. It was in vain
that they drew the bed-curtains and put out the light. He only talked.
He let them know what an angel the young countess was, and how he adored
her. He would serve her, worship her. He was glad that every one had
forsaken him. He could devote his life to her service. She despised him
of course. But he would be satisfied to lie at her feet like a dog.
Had they ever noticed an island out in the Löfven? Had they seen it
from the south side, where the rugged cliff rises precipitously from
the water? Had they seen it from the north, where it sinks down to the
sea in a gentle slope, and where the narrow shoals, covered with great
pines wind out into the water, and make the most wonderful little lakes?
There on the steep cliff, where the ruins of an old viking fortress still
remain, he would build a palace for the young countess, a palace of
marble. Broad steps, at which boats decked with flags should land, should
be hewn in the cliff down to the sea. There should be glowing halls and
lofty towers with gilded pinnacles. It should be a suitable dwelling for
the young countess. That old wooden house at Borg was not worthy for her
to enter.
When he had gone on so for a while, first one snore and then another
began to sound behind the yellow-striped curtains. But most of them swore
and bewailed themselves over him and his foolishness.
“Friends,” he then says solemnly, “I see the green earth covered with the
works of man or with the ruins of men’s work. The pyramids weigh down
the earth, the tower of Babel has bored through the sky, the beautiful
temples and the gray castles have fallen into ruins. But of all which
hands have built, what is it which has not fallen, nor shall fall? Ah,
friends, throw away the trowel and the mortar! Spread your mason’s aprons
over your heads and lay you down to build bright palaces of dreams!
What has the soul to do with temples of stone and clay? Learn to build
everlasting palaces of dreams and visions!”
Thereupon he went laughing to bed.
When, shortly after, the countess heard that the major’s wife had been
set free, she gave a dinner for the pensioners.
And then began hers and Gösta Berling’s long friendship.
CHAPTER XI
GHOST-STORIES
Oh, children of the present day!
I have nothing new to tell you, only what is old and almost forgotten. I
have legends from the nursery, where the little ones sat on low stools
about the old nurse with her white hair, or from the log-fire in the
cottage, where the laborers sat and chatted, while the steam reeked from
their wet clothes, and they drew knives from leather sheaths at their
necks to spread the butter on thick, soft bread, or from the hall where
old men sat in their rocking-chairs, and, cheered by the steaming toddy,
talked of old times.
When a child, who had listened to the old nurse, to the laborers, to
the old men, stood at the window on a winter’s evening, it saw no
clouds on the horizon without their being the pensioners; the stars
were wax-candles, which were lighted at the old house at Borg; and the
spinning-wheel which hummed in the next room was driven by old Ulrika
Dillner. For the child’s head was filled with the people of those old
days; it lived for and adored them.
But if such a child, whose whole soul was filled with stories, should be
sent through the dark attic to the store-room for flax or biscuits, then
the small feet scurried; then it came flying down the stairs, through
the passage to the kitchen. For up there in the dark it could not help
thinking of the wicked mill-owner at Fors,—of him who was in league with
the devil.
Sintram’s ashes have been resting long in Svartsjö churchyard, but no
one believes that his soul has been called to God, as it reads on his
tombstone.
While he was alive he was one of those to whose home, on long, rainy
Sunday afternoons, a heavy coach, drawn by black horses, used to come.
A gentleman richly but plainly dressed gets out of the carriage, and
helps with cards and dice to while away the long hours which with their
monotony have driven the master of the house to despair. The game is
carried on far into the night; and when the stranger departs at dawn he
always leaves behind some baleful parting-gift.
As long as Sintram was here on earth he was one of those whose coming is
made known by spirits. They are heralded by visions. Their carriages roll
into the yard, their whip cracks, their voices sound on the stairs, the
door of the entry is opened and shut. The dogs and people are awakened by
the noise, it is so loud; but there is no one who has come, it is only an
hallucination which goes before them.
Ugh, those horrible people, whom evil spirits seek out! What kind of
a big black dog was it which showed itself at Fors in Sintram’s time?
He had terrible, shining eyes, and a long tongue which dripped blood
and hung far out of his panting throat. One day, when the men-servants
had been in the kitchen and eaten their dinner, he had scratched at
the kitchen door, and all the maids had screamed with fright; but the
biggest and strongest of the men had taken a burning log from the fire,
thrown open the door, and hurled it into the dog’s gaping mouth.
Then he had fled with terrible howls, flames and smoke had burst from his
throat, sparks whirled about him, and his footprints on the path shone
like fire.
And was it not dreadful that every time Sintram came home from a journey
he had changed the animals which drew him? He left with horses, but when
he came home at night he had always black bulls before his carriage.
The people who lived near the road saw their great black horns against
the sky when he drove by, and heard the creatures’ bellowing, and were
terrified by the line of sparks which the hoofs and wheels drew out of
the dry gravel.
Yes, the little feet needed to hurry, indeed, to come across the big,
dark attic. Think if something awful, if he, whose name one may not say,
should come out of a dark corner! Who can be sure? It was not only to
wicked people that he showed himself. Had not Ulrika Dillner seen him?
Both she and Anna Stjärnhök could say that they had seen him.
* * * * *
Friends, children, you who dance, you who laugh! I beg you so earnestly
to dance carefully, laugh gently, for there can be so much unhappiness if
your thin slippers tread on sensitive hearts instead of on hard boards;
and your glad, silvery laughter can drive a soul to despair.
It was surely so; the young people’s feet had trodden too hard on old
Ulrika Dillner, and the young people’s laughter had rung too arrogantly
in her ears; for there came over her suddenly an irresistible longing
for a married woman’s titles and dignities. At last she said “yes” to
the evil Sintram’s long courtship, followed him to Fors as his wife, and
was parted from the old friends at Berga, the dear old work, and the old
cares for daily bread.
It was a match which went quickly and gayly. Sintram offered himself at
Christmas, and in February they were married. That year Anna Stjärnhök
was living in Captain Uggla’s home. She was a good substitute for old
Ulrika, and the latter could draw back without compunction, and take to
herself married honors.
Without compunction, but not without regret. It was not a pleasant place
she had come to; the big, empty rooms were filled with dreadful terrors.
As soon as it was dark she began to tremble and to be afraid. She almost
died of homesickness.
The long Sunday afternoons were the hardest of all. They never came to
an end, neither they nor the long succession of torturing thoughts which
travelled through her brain.
So it happened one day in March, when Sintram had not come home from
church to dinner, that she went into the drawing-room, on the second
floor, and placed herself at the piano. It was her last consolation.
The old piano, with a flute-player and shepherdess painted on the white
cover, was her own, come to her from her parents’ home. To it she could
tell her troubles; it understood her.
But is it not both pitiful and ridiculous? Do you know what she is
playing? Only a polka, and she who is so heart-broken!
She does not know anything else. Before her fingers stiffened round
broom and carving-knife she had learned this one polka. It sticks in her
fingers; but she does not know any other piece,—no funeral march, no
impassioned sonata, not even a wailing ballad,—only the polka.
She plays it whenever she has anything to confide to the old piano. She
plays it both when she feels like weeping and like smiling. When she was
married she played it, and when for the first time she had come to her
own home, and also now.
The old strings understand her: she is unhappy, unhappy.
A traveller passing by and hearing the polka ring could well believe
that Sintram was having a ball for neighbors and friends, it sounds so
gay. It is such a brave and glad melody. With it, in the old days, she
has played carelessness in and hunger out at Berga; when they heard it
every one must up and dance. It burst the fetters of rheumatism about the
joints, and lured pensioners of eighty years on to the floor. The whole
world would gladly dance to that polka, it sounds so gay—but old Ulrika
weeps. Sintram has sulky, morose servants about him, and savage animals.
She longs for friendly faces and smiling mouths. It is this despairing
longing which the lively polka shall interpret.
People find it hard to remember that she is Madame Sintram. Everybody
calls her Mamselle Dillner. She wants the polka tune to express her
sorrow for the vanity which tempted her to seek for married honors.
Old Ulrika plays as if she would break the strings. There is so much to
drown: the lamentations of the poor peasants, the curses of overworked
cottagers, the sneers of insolent servants, and, first and last, the
shame,—the shame of being the wife of a bad man.
To those notes Gösta Berling has led young Countess Dohna to the dance.
Marianne Sinclair and her many admirers have danced to them, and the
major’s wife at Ekeby has moved to their measure when Altringer was still
alive. She can see them, couple after couple, in their youth and beauty,
whirl by. There was a stream of gayety from them to her, from her to
them. It was her polka which made their cheeks glow, their eyes shine.
She is parted from all that now. Let the polka resound,—so many memories,
so many tender memories to drown!
She plays to deaden her anguish. Her heart is ready to burst with terror
when she sees the black dog, when she hears the servants whispering of
the black bulls. She plays the polka over and over again to deaden her
anguish.
Then she perceives that her husband has come home. She hears that he
comes into the room and sits down in the rocking-chair. She knows so well
the sound as the rockers creak on the deal floor that she does not even
look round.
All the time she is playing the rocking continues; she soon hears the
music no longer, only the rocking.
Poor old Ulrika, so tortured, so lonely, so helpless, astray in a hostile
country, without a friend to complain to, without any consoler but a
cracked piano, which answers her with a polka.
It is like loud laughter at a funeral, a drinking song in a church.
While the rocking-chair is still rocking she hears suddenly how the piano
is laughing at her sorrows, and she stops in the middle of a bar. She
rises and turns to the rocking-chair.
But the next instant she is lying in a swoon on the floor. It was not
her husband who sat in the rocking-chair, but another,—he to whom little
children do not dare to give a name, he who would frighten them to death
if they should meet him in the deserted attic.
* * * * *
Can any one whose soul has been filled with legends ever free himself
from their dominion? The night wind howls outside, the trees whip the
pillars of the balcony with their stiff branches, the sky arches darkly
over the far-stretching hills, and I, who sit alone in the night and
write, with the lamp lighted and the curtain drawn, I, who am old and
ought to be sensible, feel the same shudder creeping up my back as when I
first heard this story, and I have to keep lifting my eyes from my work
to be certain that no one has come in and hidden himself in that further
corner; I have to look out on the balcony to see if there is not a black
head looking over the railing. This fright never leaves me when the night
is dark and solitude deep; and it becomes at last so dreadful that I must
throw aside my pen, creep down in my bed and draw the blanket up over my
eyes.
It was the great, secret wonder of my childhood that Ulrika Dillner
survived that afternoon. I should never have done so.
I hope, dear friends, that you may never see the tears of old eyes. And
that you may not have to stand helpless when a gray head leans against
your breast for support, or when old hands are clasped about yours in
a silent prayer. May you never see the old sunk in a sorrow which you
cannot comfort.
What is the grief of the young? They have strength, they have hope. But
what suffering it is when the old weep; what despair when they, who have
always been the support of your young days, sink into helpless wailing.
There sat Anna Stjärnhök and listened to old Ulrika, and she saw no way
out for her.
The old woman wept and trembled. Her eyes were wild. She talked and
talked, sometimes quite incoherently, as if she did not know where she
was. The thousand wrinkles which crossed her face were twice as deep as
usual, the false curls, which hung down over her eyes, were straightened
by her tears, and her whole long, thin body was shaken with sobs.
At last Anna had to put an end to the wailings. She had made up her mind.
She was going to take her back with her to Berga. Of course, she was
Sintram’s wife, but she could not remain at Fors. He would drive her mad
if she stayed with him. Anna Stjärnhök had decided to take old Ulrika
away.
Ah, how the poor thing rejoiced, and yet trembled at this decision! But
she never would dare to leave her husband and her home. He would perhaps
send the big black dog after her.
But Anna Stjärnhök conquered her resistance, partly by jests, partly
by threats, and in half an hour she had her beside her in the sledge.
Anna was driving herself, and old Disa was in the shafts. The road was
wretched, for it was late in March; but it did old Ulrika good to drive
once more in the well-known sledge, behind the old horse who had been a
faithful servant at Berga almost as long as she.
As she had naturally a cheerful spirit, she stopped crying by the time
they passed Arvidstorp; at Hogberg she was already laughing, and when
they passed Munkeby she was telling how it used to be in her youth, when
she lived with the countess at Svaneholm.
They drove up a steep and stony road in the lonely and deserted region
north of Munkeby. The road sought out all the hills it possibly could
find; it crept up to their tops by slow windings, rushed down them in a
steep descent, hurried across the even valley to find a new hill to climb
over.
They were just driving down Vestratorp’s hill, when old Ulrika stopped
short in what she was saying, and seized Anna by the arm. She was staring
at a big black dog at the roadside.
“Look!” she said.
The dog set off into the wood. Anna did not see much of him.
“Drive on,” said Ulrika; “drive as fast as you can! Now Sintram will hear
that I have gone.”
Anna tried to laugh at her terror, but she insisted.
“We shall soon hear his sleigh-bells, you will see. We shall hear them
before we reach the top of the next hill.”
And when Disa drew breath for a second at the top of Elof’s hill
sleigh-bells could be heard behind them.
Old Ulrika became quite mad with fright. She trembled, sobbed, and wailed
as she had done in the drawing-room at Fors. Anna tried to urge Disa
on, but she only turned her head and gave her a glance of unspeakable
surprise. Did she think that Disa had forgotten when it was time to trot
and when it was time to walk? Did she want to teach her how to drag a
sledge, to teach her who had known every stone, every bridge, every gate,
every hill for more than twenty years?
All this while the sleigh-bells were coming nearer.
“It is he, it is he! I know his bells,” wails old Ulrika.
The sound comes ever nearer. Sometimes it seems so unnaturally loud that
Anna turns to see if Sintram’s horse has not got his head in her sledge;
sometimes it dies away. They hear it now on the right, now on the left
of the road, but they see no one. It is as if the jingling of the bells
alone pursues them.
Just as it is at night, on the way home from a party, is it also now.
These bells ring out a tune; they sing, speak, answer. The woods echo
with their sound.
Anna Stjärnhök almost wishes that their pursuer would come near
enough for her to see Sintram himself and his red horse. The dreadful
sleigh-bells anger her.
“Those bells torture me,” she says.
The word is taken up by the bells. “Torture me,” they ring. “Torture me,
torture, torture, torture me,” they sing to all possible tunes.
It was not so long ago that she had driven this same way, hunted by
wolves. She had seen their white teeth, in the darkness, gleam in their
gaping mouths; she had thought that her body would soon be torn to pieces
by the wild beasts of the forest; but then she had not been afraid. She
had never lived through a more glorious night. Strong and beautiful had
the horse been which drew her, strong and beautiful was the man who had
shared the joy of the adventure with her.
Ah, this old horse, this old, helpless, trembling companion. She feels so
helpless that she longs to cry. She cannot escape from those terrible,
irritating bells.
So she stops and gets out of the sledge. There must be an end to it
all. Why should she run away as if she were afraid of that wicked,
contemptible wretch?
At last she sees a horse’s head come out of the advancing twilight, and
after the head a whole horse, a whole sledge, and in the sledge sits
Sintram himself.
She notices, however, that it is not as if they had come along the
road—this sledge, and this horse, and their driver—but more as if they
had been created just there before her eyes, and had come forward out of
the twilight as soon as they were made ready.
Anna threw the reins to Ulrika and went to meet Sintram.
He stops the horse.
“Well, well,” he says; “what a piece of luck! Dear Miss Stjärnhök, let me
move my companion over to your sledge. He is going to Berga to-night, and
I am in a hurry to get home.”
“Where is your companion?”
Sintram lifts his blanket, and shows Anna a man who is lying asleep on
the bottom of the sledge. “He is a little drunk,” he says; “but what does
that matter? He will sleep. It’s an old acquaintance, moreover; it is
Gösta Berling.”
Anna shudders.
“Well, I will tell you,” continues Sintram, “that she who forsakes the
man she loves sells him to the devil. That was the way I got into his
claws. People think they do so well, of course; to renounce is good, and
to love is evil.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” asks Anna, quite
disturbed.
“I mean that you should not have let Gösta Berling go from you, Miss
Anna.”
“It was God’s will.”
“Yes, yes, that’s the way it is; to renounce is good, and to love is
evil. The good God does not like to see people happy. He sends wolves
after them. But if it was not God who did it, Miss Anna? Could it not
just as well have been I who called my little gray lambs from the Dovre
mountains to hunt the young man and the young girl? Think, if it was I
who sent the wolves, because I did not wish to lose one of my own! Think,
if it was not God who did it!”
“You must not tempt me to doubt that,” says Anna, in a weak voice, “for
then I am lost.”
“Look here,” says Sintram, and bends down over the sleeping Gösta
Berling; “look at his little finger. That little sore never heals. We
took the blood there when he signed the contract. He is mine. There is a
peculiar power in blood. He is mine, and it is only love which can free
him; but if I am allowed to keep him he will be a fine thing.”
Anna Stjärnhök struggles and struggles to shake off the fascination which
has seized her. It is all madness, madness. No one can swear away his
soul to the odious tempter. But she has no power over her thoughts; the
twilight lies so heavy over her, the woods stand so dark and silent. She
cannot escape the dreadful terror of the moment.
“You think, perhaps,” continues Sintram, “that there is not much left in
him to ruin. But don’t think that! Has he ground down the peasants, has
he deceived poor friends, has he cheated at cards? Has he, Miss Anna, has
he been a married woman’s lover?”
“I think you are the devil himself!”
“Let us exchange. You take Gösta Berling, take him and marry him. Keep
him, and give them at Berga the money. I yield him up to you, and you
know that he is mine. Think that it was not God who sent the wolves after
you the other night, and let us exchange!”
“What do you want as compensation?”
Sintram grinned.
“I—what do I want? Oh, I am satisfied with little. I only want that old
woman there in your sledge, Miss Anna.”
“Satan, tempter,” cries Anna, “leave me! Shall I betray an old friend
who relies on me? Shall I leave her to you, that you may torture her to
madness?”
“There, there, there; quietly, Miss Anna! Think what you are doing! Here
is a fine young man, and there an old, worn-out woman. One of them I
must have. Which of them will you let me keep?”
Anna Stjärnhök laughed wildly.
“Do you think that we can stand here and exchange souls as they exchange
horses at the market at Broby?”
“Just so, yes. But if you will, we shall put it on another basis. We
shall think of the honor of the Stjärnhöks.”
Thereupon he begins to call in a loud voice to his wife, who is sitting
in Anna’s sledge; and, to the girl’s unspeakable horror, she obeys the
summons instantly, gets out of the sledge, and comes, trembling and
shaking, to them.
“See, see, see!—such an obedient wife,” says Sintram. “You cannot prevent
her coming when her husband calls. Now, I shall lift Gösta out of my
sledge and leave him here,—leave him for good, Miss Anna. Whoever may
want to can pick him up.”
He bends down to lift Gösta up; but Anna leans forward, fixes him with
her eyes, and hisses like an angry animal:—
“In God’s name, go home! Do you not know who is sitting in the
rocking-chair in the drawing-room and waiting for you? Do you dare to let
him wait?”
It was for Anna almost the climax of the horrors of the day to see
how these words affect him. He drags on the reins, turns, and drives
homewards, urging the horse to a gallop with blows and wild cries down
the dreadful hill, while a long line of sparks crackle under the runners
and hoofs in the thin March snow.
Anna Stjärnhök and Ulrika Dillner stand alone in the road, but they do
not say a word. Ulrika trembles before Anna’s wild eyes, and Anna has
nothing to say to the poor old thing, for whose sake she has sacrificed
her beloved.
She would have liked to weep, to rave, to roll on the ground and strew
snow and sand on her head.
Before, she had known the sweetness of renunciation, now she knew its
bitterness. What was it to sacrifice her love compared to sacrificing
her beloved’s soul? They drove on to Berga in the same silence; but when
they arrived, and the hall-door was opened, Anna Stjärnhök fainted for
the first and only time in her life. There sat both Sintram and Gösta
Berling, and chatted quietly. The tray with toddy had been brought in;
they had been there at least an hour.
Anna Stjärnhök fainted, but old Ulrika stood calm. She had noticed that
everything was not right with him who had followed them on the road.
Afterwards the captain and his wife arranged the matter so with Sintram
that old Ulrika was allowed to stay at Berga. He agreed good-naturedly.
“He did not want to drive her mad,” he said.
* * * * *
I do not ask any one to believe these old stories. They cannot be
anything but lies and fiction. But the anguish which passes over the
heart, until it wails as the floor boards in Sintram’s room wailed under
the swaying rockers; but the questions which ring in the ears, as the
sleigh-bells rang for Anna Stjärnhök in the lonely forest,—when will they
be as lies and fiction?
Oh, that they could be!
CHAPTER XII
EBBA DOHNA’S STORY
The beautiful point on Löfven’s eastern shore, about which the bay glides
with lapping waves, the proud point where the manor of Borg lies, beware
of approaching.
Löfven never looks more glorious than from its summit.
No one can know how lovely it is, the lake of my dreams, until he has
seen from Borg’s point the morning mist glide away from its smooth
surface; until he, from the windows of the little blue cabinet, where so
many memories dwell, has seen it reflect a pink sunset.
But I still say, go not thither!
For perhaps you will be seized with a desire to remain in that old
manor’s sorrowful halls; perhaps you will make yourself the owner of
those fair lands; and if you are young, rich, and happy, you will make
your home there with a young wife.
No, it is better never to see the beautiful point, for at Borg no one can
live and be happy. No matter how rich, how happy you may be, who move in
there, those old tear-drenched floors would soon drink _your_ tears as
well, and those walls, which could give back so many moans, would also
glean _your_ sighs.
An implacable fate is on this lovely spot. It is as if misfortune were
buried there, but found no rest in its grave, and perpetually rose from
it to terrify the living. If I were lord of Borg I would search through
the ground, both in the park and under the cellar floor in the house, and
in the fertile mould out in the meadows, until I had found the witch’s
worm-eaten corpse, and then I would give her a grave in consecrated earth
in the Svartsjö churchyard. And at the burial I would not spare on the
ringer’s pay, but let the bells sound long and loud over her; and to the
clergyman and sexton I should send rich gifts, that they with redoubled
strength might with speech and song consecrate her to everlasting rest.
Or, if that did not help, some stormy night I would set fire to the
wooden walls, and let it destroy everything, so that no one more might
be tempted to live in the home of misfortune. Afterwards no one should
be allowed to approach that doomed spot; only the church-tower’s black
jackdaws should build in the great chimney, which, blackened and
dreadful, would raise itself over the deserted foundations.
Still, I should certainly mourn when I saw the flames close over the
roof, when thick smoke, reddened by the fire and flecked with sparks,
should roll out from the old manor-house. In the crackling and the
roaring I should fancy I heard the wails of homeless memories; on the
blue points of the flames I should see disturbed spirits floating. I
should think how sorrow beautifies, how misfortune adorns, and weep as if
a temple to the old gods had been condemned to destruction.
But why croak of unhappiness? As yet Borg lies and shines on its point,
shaded by its park of mighty pines, and the snow-covered fields glitter
in March’s burning sun; as yet is heard within those walls the young
Countess Elizabeth’s gay laughter.
Every Sunday she goes to church at Svartsjö, which lies near Borg, and
gathers together a few friends for dinner. The judge and his family from
Munkerud used to come, and the Ugglas from Berga, and even Sintram. If
Gösta Berling happens to be in Svartsjö, wandering over Löfven’s ice, she
invites him too. Why should she not invite Gösta Berling?
She probably does not know that the gossips are beginning to whisper that
Gösta comes very often over to the east shore to see her. Perhaps he also
comes to drink and play cards with Sintram; but no one thinks so much of
that; every one knows that his body is of steel; but it is another matter
with his heart. No one believes that he can see a pair of shining eyes,
and fair hair which curls about a white brow, without love.
The young countess is good to him. But there is nothing strange in that;
she is good to all. She takes ragged beggar children on her knee, and
when she drives by some poor old creature on the high-road she has the
coachman stop, and takes the poor wanderer up into her sledge.
Gösta used to sit in the little blue cabinet, where there is such a
glorious view over the lake, and read poetry to her. There can be no harm
in that. He does not forget that she is a countess, and he a homeless
adventurer; and it is good for him to be with some one whom he holds high
and holy. He could just as well be in love with the Queen of Sheba as
with her.
He only asks to be allowed to wait on her as a page waits on his noble
mistress: to fasten her skates, to hold her skeins, to steer her sled.
There cannot be any question of love between them; he is just the man to
find his happiness in a romantic, innocent adoration.
The young count is silent and serious, and Gösta is playfully gay. He is
just such a companion as the young countess likes. No one who sees her
fancies that she is hiding a forbidden love. She thinks of dancing,—of
dancing and merry-making. She would like the earth to be quite flat,
without stones, without hills or seas, so that she could dance
everywhere. From the cradle to the grave she would like to dance in her
small, thin-soled, satin slippers.
But rumor is not very merciful to young women.
When the guests come to dinner at Borg, the men generally, after the
meal, go into the count’s room to sleep and smoke; the old ladies sink
down in the easy-chairs in the drawing-room, and lean their venerable
heads against the high backs; but the countess and Anna Stjärnhök go into
the blue cabinet and exchange endless confidences.
The Sunday after the one when Anna Stjärnhök took Ulrika Dillner back to
Berga they are sitting there again.
No one on earth is so unhappy as the young girl. All her gayety is
departed, and gone is the glad defiance which she showed to everything
and everybody who wished to come too near her.
Everything which had happened to her that day has sunk back into the
twilight from which it was charmed; she has only one distinct impression
left,—yes, one, which is poisoning her soul.
“If it really was not God who did it,” she used to whisper to herself.
“If it was not God, who sent the wolves?”
She asks for a sign, she longs for a miracle. She searches heaven and
earth. But she sees no finger stretched from the sky to point out her way.
As she sits now opposite the countess in the blue cabinet, her eyes fall
on a little bunch of hepaticas which the countess holds in her white
hand. Like a bolt it strikes her that she knows where the flowers have
grown, that she knows who has picked them.
She does not need to ask. Where else in the whole countryside do
hepaticas bloom in the beginning of April, except in the birch grove
which lies on the slopes of Ekeby?
She stares and stares at the little blue stars; those happy ones who
possess all hearts; those little prophets who, beautiful in themselves,
are also glorified by the splendor of all the beauty which they herald,
of all the beauty which is coming. And as she watches them a storm of
wrath rises in her soul, rumbling like the thunder, deadening like the
lightning. “By what right,” she thinks, “does Countess Dohna hold this
bunch of hepaticas, picked by the shore at Ekeby?”
They were all tempters: Sintram, the countess, everybody wanted to allure
Gösta Berling to what was evil. But she would protect him; against all
would she protect him. Even if it should cost her heart’s blood, she
would do it.
She thinks that she must see those flowers torn out of the countess’s
hand, and thrown aside, trampled, crushed, before she leaves the little
blue cabinet.
She thinks that, and she begins a struggle with the little blue stars.
Out in the drawing-room the old ladies lean their venerable heads against
the chair-backs and suspect nothing; the men smoke their pipes in calm
and quiet in the count’s room; peace is everywhere; only in the little
blue cabinet rages a terrible struggle.
Ah, how well they do who keep their hands from the sword, who understand
how to wait quietly, to lay their hearts to rest and let God direct! The
restless heart always goes astray; ill-will makes the pain worse.
But Anna Stjärnhök believes that at last she has seen a finger in the sky.
“Anna,” says the countess, “tell me a story!”
“About what?”
“Oh,” says the countess, and caresses the flowers with her white hand.
“Do not you know something about love, something about loving?”
“No, I know nothing of love.”
“How you talk! Is there not a place here which is called Ekeby,—a place
full of pensioners?”
“Yes,” says Anna, “there is a place which is called Ekeby, and there
are men there who suck the marrow of the land, who make us incapable of
serious work, who ruin growing youth, and lead astray our geniuses. Do
you want to hear of them? Do you want to hear love-stories of them?”
“Yes. I like the pensioners.”
So Anna Stjärnhök speaks,—speaks in short sentences, like an old
hymn-book, for she is nearly choking with stormy emotions. Suppressed
suffering trembles in each word, and the countess was both frightened
and interested to hear her.
“What is a pensioner’s love, what is a pensioner’s faith?—one sweetheart
to-day, another to-morrow, one in the east, another in the west. Nothing
is too high for him, nothing too low; one day a count’s daughter, the
next day a beggar girl. Nothing on earth is so capacious as his heart.
But alas, alas for her who loves a pensioner. She must seek him out
where he lies drunk at the wayside. She must silently look on while he
at the card-table plays away the home of her childhood. She must bear to
have him hang about other women. Oh, Elizabeth, if a pensioner asks an
honorable woman for a dance she ought to refuse it to him; if he gives
her a bunch of flowers she ought to throw the flowers on the ground and
trample on them; if she loves him she ought rather to die than to marry
him. There was one among the pensioners who was a dismissed priest; he
had lost his vestments for drunkenness. He was drunk in the church. He
drank up the communion wine. Have you ever heard of him?”
“No.”
“After he had been dismissed he wandered about the country as a beggar.
He drank like a madman. He would steal to get brandy.”
“What is his name?”
“He is no longer at Ekeby. The major’s wife got hold of him, gave him
clothes, and persuaded your mother-in-law, Countess Dohna, to make him
tutor to your husband, young Count Henrik.”
“A dismissed priest!”
“Oh, he was a young, powerful man, of good intelligence. There was
no harm in him, if he only did not drink. Countess Märta was not
particular. It amused her to quarrel with the neighboring clergymen.
Still, she ordered him to say nothing of his past life to her children.
For then her son would have lost respect for him, and her daughter would
not have endured him, for she was a saint.
“So he came here to Borg. He always sat just inside the door, on the very
edge of his chair, never said a word at the table, and fled out into the
park when any visitors came.
“But there in the lonely walks he used to meet young Ebba Dohna. She was
not one who loved the noisy feasts which resounded in the halls at Borg
after the countess became a widow. She was so gentle, so shy. She was
still, although she was seventeen, nothing but a tender child; but she
was very lovely, with her brown eyes, and the faint, delicate color in
her cheeks. Her thin, slender body bent forward. Her little hand would
creep into yours with a shy pressure. Her little mouth was the most
silent of mouths and the most serious. Ah, her voice, her sweet little
voice, which pronounced the words so slowly and so well, but never rang
with the freshness and warmth of youth,—its feeble tones were like a
weary musician’s last chord.
“She was not as others. Her foot trod so lightly, so softly, as if she
were a frightened fugitive. She kept her eyelids lowered in order not
to be disturbed in her contemplation of the visions of her soul. It had
turned from the earth when she was but a child.
“When she was little her grandmother used to tell her stories; and one
evening they both sat by the fire; but the stories had come to an end.
But still the little girl’s hand lay on the old woman’s dress, and she
gently stroked the silk,—that funny stuff which sounded like a little
bird. And this stroking was her prayer, for she was one of those children
who never beg in words.
“Then the old lady began to tell her of a little child in the land of
Judah; of a little child who was born to become a great King. The angels
had filled the earth with songs of praise when he was born. The kings
of the East came, guided by the star of heaven, and gave him gold and
incense; and old men and women foretold his glory. This child grew up to
greater beauty and wisdom than all other children. Already, when he was
twelve years old, his wisdom was greater than that of the chief-priests
and the scribes.
“Then the old woman told her of the most beautiful thing the earth has
ever seen: of that child’s life while he remained among men,—those wicked
men who would not acknowledge him their King.
“She told her how the child became a man, but that the glory surrounded
him still.
“Everything on the earth served him and loved him, except mankind. The
fishes let themselves be caught in his net, bread filled his baskets,
water changed itself to wine when he wished it.
“But the people gave the great King no golden crown, no shining throne.
He had no bowing courtiers about him. They let him go among them like a
beggar.
“Still, he was so good to them, the great King! He cured their
sicknesses, gave back to the blind their sight, and waked the dead.
“But,” said the grandmother, “the people would not have the great King
for their lord.
“‘They sent their soldiers against him, and took him prisoner; they
dressed him, by way of mockery, in crown and sceptre, and in a silken
cloak, and made him go out to the place of execution, bearing a heavy
cross. Oh, my child, the good King loved the high mountains. At night he
used to climb them to talk with those who dwelt in heaven, and he liked
by day to sit on the mountain-side and talk to the listening people.
But now they led him up on a mountain to crucify him. They drove nails
through his hands and feet, and hung the good King on a cross, as if he
had been a robber or a malefactor.
“‘And the people mocked at him. Only his mother and his friends wept,
that he should die before he had been a King.
“‘Oh, how the dead things mourned his death!
“‘The sun lost its light, and the mountains trembled; the curtain in the
temple was rent asunder, and the graves opened, that the dead might rise
up and show their grief.’
“The little one lay with her head on her grandmother’s knee, and sobbed
as if her heart would break.
“‘Do not weep, little one; the good King rose from his grave and went up
to his Father in heaven.’
“‘Grandmother,’ sobbed the poor little thing, ‘did he ever get any
kingdom?’
“‘He sits on God’s right hand in heaven.’
“But that did not comfort her. She wept helplessly and unrestrainedly, as
only a child can weep.
“‘Why were they so cruel to him? Why were they allowed to be so cruel to
him?’
“Her grandmother was almost frightened at her overwhelming sorrow.
“‘Say, grandmother, say that you have not told it right! Say that it did
not end so! Say that they were not so cruel to the good King! Say that he
got a kingdom on earth!’
“She threw her arms around the old woman and beseeched her with streaming
tears.
“‘Child, child,’ said her grandmother, to console her. ‘There are some
who believe that he will come again. Then he will put the earth under
his power and direct it. The beautiful earth will be a glorious kingdom.
It shall last a thousand years. Then the fierce animals will be gentle;
little children will play by the viper’s nest, and bears and cows will
eat together. No one shall injure or destroy the other; the lance shall
be bent into scythes, and the sword forged into ploughs. And everything
shall be play and happiness, for the good will possess the earth.’
“Then the little one’s face brightened behind her tears.
“‘Will the good King then get a throne, grandmother?’
“‘A throne of gold.’
“‘And servants, and courtiers, and a golden crown?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Will he come soon, grandmother?’
“‘No one knows when he will come.’
“‘May I sit on a stool at his feet?’
“‘You may.’
“‘Grandmother, I am so happy,’ says the little one.
“Evening after evening, through many winters, they both sat by the fire
and talked of the good King and his kingdom. The little one dreamed of
the kingdom which should last a thousand years, both by night and by day.
She never wearied of adorning it with everything beautiful which she
could think of.
“Ebba Dohna never dared to speak of it to any one; but from that evening
she only lived for the Lord’s kingdom, and to await his coming.
“When the evening sun crimsoned the western sky, she wondered if he would
ever appear there, glowing with a mild splendor, followed by a host of
millions of angels, and march by her, allowing her to touch the hem of
his garment.
“She often thought, too, of those pious women who had hung a veil over
their heads, and never lifted their eyes from the ground, but shut
themselves in in the gray cloister’s calm, in the darkness of little
cells, to always contemplate the glowing visions which appear from the
night of the soul.
“Such had she grown up; such she was when she and the new tutor met in
the lonely paths of the park.
“I will not speak more harshly of him than I must. I will believe that
he loved that child, who soon chose him for companion in her lonely
wanderings. I think that his soul got back its wings when he walked by
the side of that quiet girl, who had never confided in any other. I think
that he felt himself a child again, good, gentle, virtuous.
“But if he really loved her, why did he not remember that he could not
give her a worse gift than his love? He, one of the world’s outcasts,
what did he want, what did he think of when he walked at the side of
the count’s daughter? What did the dismissed clergyman think when she
confided to him her gentle dreams? What did he want, who had been a
drunkard, and would be again when he got the chance, at the side of her
who dreamed of a bridegroom in heaven? Why did he not fly far, far away
from her? Would it not have been better for him to wander begging and
stealing about the land than to walk under the silent pines and again be
good, gentle, virtuous, when it could not change the life he had led, nor
make it right that Ebba Dohna should love him?
“Do not think that he looked like a drunkard, with livid cheeks and red
eyes. He was always a splendid man, handsome and unbroken in soul and
body. He had the bearing of a king and a body of steel, which was not
hurt by the wildest life.”
“Is he still living?” asks the countess.
“Oh, no, he must be dead now. All that happened so long ago.”
There is something in Anna Stjärnhök which begins to tremble at what she
is doing. She begins to think that she will never tell the countess who
the man is of whom she speaks; that she will let her believe that he is
dead.
“At that time he was still young;” and she begins her story again. “The
joy of living was kindled in him. He had the gift of eloquence, and a
fiery, impulsive heart.
“One evening he spoke to Ebba Dohna of love. She did not answer; she
only told him what her grandmother had told her that winter evening, and
described to him the land of her dreams. Then she exacted a promise from
him. She made him swear that he would be a proclaimer of the word of
God; one of those who would prepare the way for the Lord, so that his
coming might be hastened.
“What could he do? He was a dismissed clergyman, and no way was so closed
to him as that on which she wanted him to enter. But he did not dare to
tell her the truth. He did not have the heart to grieve that gentle child
whom he loved. He promised everything she wished.
“After that few words were needed. It went without saying that some day
she should be his wife. It was not a love of kisses and caresses. He
hardly dared come near her. She was as sensitive as a fragile flower.
But her brown eyes were sometimes raised from the ground to seek his. On
moonlit evenings, when they sat on the veranda, she would creep close to
him, and then he would kiss her hair without her noticing it.
“But you understand that his sin was in his forgetting both the past
and the future. That he was poor and humble he could forget; but he
ought always to have remembered that a day must come when in her soul
love would rise against love, earth against heaven, when she would be
obliged to choose between him and the glorious Lord of the kingdom of the
thousand years. And she was not one who could endure such a struggle.
“A summer went by, an autumn, a winter. When the spring came, and the
ice melted, Ebba Dohna fell ill. It was thawing in the valleys; there
were streams down all the hills, the ice was unsafe, the roads almost
impassable both for sledge and cart.
“Countess Dohna wanted to get a doctor from Karlstad; there was none
nearer. But she commanded in vain. She could not, either with prayers or
threats, induce a servant to go. She threw herself on her knees before
the coachman, but he refused. She went into hysterics of grief over her
daughter—she was always immoderate, in sorrow as in joy, Countess Märta.
“Ebba Dohna lay ill with pneumonia, and her life was in danger; but no
doctor could be got.
“Then the tutor drove to Karlstad. To take that journey in the condition
the roads were in was to play with his life; but he did it. It took him
over bending ice and break-neck freshets. Sometimes he had to cut steps
for the horse in the ice, sometimes drag him out of the deep clay in the
road. It was said that the doctor refused to go with him, and that he,
with pistol in hand, forced him to set out.
“When he came back the countess was ready to throw herself at his feet.
‘Take everything!’ she said. ‘Say what you want, what you desire,—my
daughter, my lands, my money!’
“‘Your daughter,’ answered the tutor.”
Anna Stjärnhök suddenly stops.
“Well, what then, what then?” asks Countess Elizabeth.
“That can be enough for now,” answers Anna, for she is one of those
unhappy people who live in the anguish of doubt. She has felt it a whole
week. She does not know what she wants. What one moment seems right to
her the next is wrong. Now she wishes that she had never begun this story.
“I begin to think that you want to deceive me, Anna. Do you not
understand that I _must_ hear the end of this story?”
“There is not much more to tell.—The hour of strife was come for Ebba
Dohna. Love raised itself against love, earth against heaven.
“Countess Märta told her of the wonderful journey which the young man had
made for her sake, and she said to her that she, as a reward, had given
him her hand.
“Ebba was so much better that she lay dressed on a sofa. She was weak and
pale, and even more silent than usual.
“When she heard those words she lifted her brown eyes reproachfully to
her mother, and said to her:—
“‘Mamma, have you given me to a dismissed priest, to one who has
forfeited his right to serve God, to a man who has been a thief, a
beggar?’
“‘But, child, who has told you that? I thought you knew nothing of it.’
“‘I heard your guests speaking of him the day I was taken ill.’
“‘But, child, remember that he has saved your life!’
“‘I remember that he has deceived me. He should have told me who he was.’
“‘He says that you love him.’
“‘I have done so. I cannot love one who has deceived me.’
“‘How has he deceived you?’
“‘You would not understand, mamma.’
“She did not wish to speak to her mother of the kingdom of her dreams,
which her beloved should have helped her to realize.
“‘Ebba,’ said the countess, ‘if you love him you shall not ask what he
has been, but marry him. The husband of a Countess Dohna will be rich
enough, powerful enough, to excuse all the follies of his youth.’
“‘I care nothing for his youthful follies, mamma; it is because he can
never be what I want him to be that I cannot marry him.’
“‘Ebba, remember that I have given him my promise!’
“The girl became as pale as death.
“‘Mamma, I tell you that if you marry me to him you part me from God.’
“‘I have decided to act for your happiness,’ says the countess. ‘I am
certain that you will be happy with this man. You have already succeeded
in making a saint of him. I have decided to overlook the claims of birth
and to forget that he is poor and despised, in order to give you a chance
to raise him. I feel that I am doing right. You know that I scorn all old
prejudices.’
“The young girl lay quiet on her sofa for a while after the countess
had left her. She was fighting her battle. Earth raised itself against
heaven, love against love; but her childhood’s love won the victory. As
she lay there on the sofa, she saw the western sky glow in a magnificent
sunset. She thought that it was a greeting from the good King; and as she
could not be faithful to him if she lived, she decided to die. There was
nothing else for her to do, since her mother wished her to belong to one
who never could be the good King’s servant.
“She went over to the window, opened it, and let the twilight’s cold,
damp air chill her poor, weak body.
“It was easily done. The illness was certain to begin again, and it did.
“No one but I knows that she sought death, Elizabeth. I found her at the
window. I heard her delirium. She liked to have me at her side those last
days.
“It was I who saw her die; who saw how she one evening stretched out her
arms towards the glowing west, and died, smiling, as if she had seen some
one advance from the sunset’s glory to meet her. It was also I who had to
take her last greeting to the man she loved. I was to ask him to forgive
her, that she could not be his wife. The good King would not permit it.
“But I have never dared to say to that man that he was her murderer.
I have not dared to lay the weight of such pain on his shoulders. And
yet he, who won her love by lies, was he not her murderer? Was he not,
Elizabeth?”
Countess Dohna long ago had stopped caressing the blue flowers. Now she
rises, and the bouquet falls to the floor.
“Anna, you are deceiving me. You say that the story is old, and that the
man has been dead a long time. But I know that it is scarcely five years
since Ebba Dohna died, and you say that you yourself were there through
it all. You are not old. Tell me who the man is!”
Anna Stjärnhök begins to laugh.
“You wanted a love-story. Now you have had one which has cost you both
tears and pain.”
“Do you mean that you have lied?”
“Nothing but romance and lies, the whole thing!”
“You are too bad, Anna.”
“Maybe. I am not so happy, either.—But the ladies are awake, and the men
are coming into the drawing-room. Let us join them!”
On the threshold she is stopped by Gösta Berling, who is looking for the
young ladies.
“You must have patience with me,” he says, laughing. “I shall only
torment you for ten minutes; but you must hear my verses.”
He tells them that in the night he had had a dream more vivid than ever
before; he had dreamt that he had written verse. He, whom the world
called “poet,” although he had always been undeserving of the title, had
got up in the middle of the night, and, half asleep, half awake, had
begun to write. It was a whole poem, which he had found the next morning
on his writing-table. He could never have believed it of himself. Now the
ladies should hear it.
And he reads:—
“The moon rose, and with her came the sweetest hour of the day.
From the clear, pale-blue, lofty vault
She flooded the leafy veranda with her light.
On the broad steps we were sitting, both old and young,
Silent at first to let the emotions sing
The heart’s old song in that tender hour.
“From the mignonette rose a sweet perfume,
And from dark thickets shadows crept over the dewy grass.
Oh, who can be safe from emotion
When the night’s shadows play, when the mignonette sheds its heavy
perfume?
“The last faded petal dropped from the rose,
Although the offering was not sought by the wind.
So—we thought—will we give up our life,
Vanish into space like a sound,
Like autumn’s yellowed leaf go without a moan.
Death is the reward of life; may we meet it quietly,
Just as a rose lets its last faded petal fall.
“On its fluttering wing a bat flew by us,
Flew and was seen, wherever the moon shone;
Then the question arose in our oppressed hearts,—
“The question which none can answer,
The question, heavy as sorrow, old as pain:
‘Oh, whither go we, what paths shall we wander
When we no longer walk on earth’s green pastures?’
Is there no one to show our spirits the way?
Easier were it to show a way to the bat who fluttered by us.
“She laid her head on my shoulder, her soft hair,
She, who loved me, and whispered softly:
‘Think not that souls fly to far-distant places;
When I am dead, think not that I am far away.
Into my beloved’s soul my homeless spirit will creep
And I will come and live in thee.’
“Oh what anguish! With sorrow my heart will break.
Was she to die, die soon? Was this night to be her last?
Did I press my last kiss on my beloved’s waving hair?
“Years have gone by since then. I still sit many times
In the old place, when the night is dark and silent.
But I tremble when the moon shines on the leafy veranda,
For her who alone knows how often I kissed my darling there,
For her who blended her quivering light with my tears,
Which fell on my darling’s hair.
Alas, for memory’s pain! Oh, ’tis the grief of my poor, sinful soul
That it should be her home! What punishment may he not await
Who has bound to himself a soul so pure, so innocent.”
“Gösta,” says Anna, jestingly, while her throat contracts with pain,
“people say of you that you have lived through more poems than others
have written, who have not done anything else all their lives; but do
you know, you will do best to compose poems your own way. That was night
work.”
“You are not kind.”
“To come and read such a thing, on death and suffering—you ought to be
ashamed!”
Gösta is not listening to her. His eyes are fixed on the young countess.
She sits quite stiff, motionless as a statue. He thinks she is going to
faint.
But with infinite difficulty her lips form one word.
“Go!” she says.
“Who shall go? Shall _I_ go?”
“The priest shall go,” she stammers out.
“Elizabeth, be silent!”
“The drunken priest shall leave my house!”
“Anna, Anna,” Gösta asks, “what does she mean?”
“You had better go, Gösta.”
“Why shall I go? What does all this mean?”
“Anna,” says Countess Elizabeth, “tell him, tell him!”
“No, countess, tell him yourself!”
The countess sets her teeth, and masters her emotion.
“Herr Berling,” she says, and goes up to him, “you have a wonderful power
of making people forget who you are. I did not know it till to-day. I
have just heard the story of Ebba Dohna’s death, and that it was the
discovery that she loved one who was unworthy which killed her. Your
poem has made me understand that you are that man. I cannot understand
how any one with your antecedents can show himself in the presence of an
honorable woman. I cannot understand it, Herr Berling. Do I speak plainly
enough?”
“You do, Countess. I will only say one word in my defence. I was
convinced, I thought the whole time that you knew everything about me. I
have never tried to hide anything; but it is not so pleasant to cry out
one’s life’s bitterest sorrow on the highways.”
He goes.
And in the same instant Countess Dohna sets her little foot on the bunch
of blue stars.
“You have now done what I wished,” says Anna Stjärnhök sternly to the
countess; “but it is also the end of our friendship. You need not think
that I can forgive your having been cruel to him. You have turned him
away, scorned, and wounded him, and I—I will follow him into captivity;
to the scaffold if need be. I will watch over him, protect him. You have
done what I wished, but I shall never forgive you.”
“But, Anna, Anna!”
“Because I told you all that do you think that I did it with a glad
spirit? Have I not sat here and bit by bit torn my heart out of my
breast?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Why? Because I did not wish—that he should be a married woman’s lover.”
CHAPTER XIII
MAMSELLE MARIE
There is a buzzing over my head. It must be a bumblebee. And such a
perfume! As true as I live, it is sweet marjoram and lavender and
hawthorn and lilacs and Easter lilies. It is glorious to feel it on a
gray autumn evening in the midst of the town. I only have to think of
that little blessed corner of the earth to have it immediately begin to
hum and smell fragrant about me, and I am transported to a little square
rose-garden, filled with flowers and protected by a privet hedge. In the
corners are lilac arbors with small wooden benches, and round about the
flower-beds, which are in the shapes of hearts and stars, wind narrow
paths strewed with white sea-sand. On three sides of the rose-garden
stands the forest, silent and dark.
On the fourth side lies a little gray cottage.
The rose-garden of which I am thinking was owned sixty years ago by an
old Madame Moreus in Svartsjö, who made her living by knitting blankets
for the peasants and cooking their feasts.
Old Madame Moreus was in her day the possessor of many things. She had
three lively and industrious daughters and a little cottage by the
roadside. She had a store of pennies at the bottom of a chest, stiff silk
shawls, straight-backed chairs, and could turn her hand to everything,
which is useful for one who must earn her bread. But the best that she
had was the rose-garden, which gave her joy as long as the summer lasted.
In Madame Moreus’ little cottage there was a boarder, a little dry old
maid, about forty years of age, who lived in a gable-room in the attic.
Mamselle Marie, as she was always called, had her own ideas on many
things, as one always does who sits much alone and lets her thoughts
dwell on what her eyes have seen.
Mamselle Marie thought that love was the root and origin of all evil in
this sorrowful world.
Every evening, before she fell asleep, she used to clasp her hands and
say her evening prayers. After she had said “Our Father” and “The Lord
bless us” she always ended by praying that God would preserve her from
love.
“It causes only misery,” she said. “I am old and ugly and poor. No, may I
never be in love!”
She sat day after day in her attic room in Madame Moreus’ little cottage,
and knitted curtains and table-covers. All these she afterwards sold to
the peasants and the gentry. She had almost knitted together a little
cottage of her own.
For a little cottage on the side of the hill opposite Svartsjö church was
what she wanted to have. But love she would never hear of.
When on summer evenings she heard the violin sounded from the cross
roads, where the fiddler sat on the stile, and the young people swung in
the polka till the dust whirled, she went a long way round through the
wood to avoid hearing and seeing.
The day after Christmas, when the peasant brides came, five or six of
them, to be dressed by Madame Moreus and her daughters, when they were
adorned with wreaths of myrtle, and high crowns of silk, and glass beads,
with gorgeous silk sashes and bunches of artificial roses, and skirts
edged with garlands of taffeta flowers, she stayed up in her room to
avoid seeing how they were being decked out in Love’s honor.
But she knew Love’s misdeeds, and of them she could tell. She wondered
that he dared to show himself on earth, that he was not frightened away
by the moans of the forsaken, by the curses of those of whom he had made
criminals, by the lamentations of those whom he had thrown into hateful
chains. She wondered that his wings could bear him so easily and lightly,
that he did not, weighed down by pain and shame, sink into nameless
depths.
No, of course she had been young, she like others, but she had never
loved. She had never let herself be tempted by dancing and caresses. Her
mother’s guitar hung dusty and unstrung in the attic; she never struck it
to sentimental love-ditties.
Her mother’s rose bushes stood in her window. She gave them scarcely any
water. She did not love flowers, those children of love. Spiders played
among the branches, and the buds never opened.
There came a time when the Svartsjö congregation had an organ put into
their church. It was the summer before the year when the pensioners
reigned. A young organ-builder came there. He too became a boarder at
Madame Moreus’.
That the young organ-builder was a master of his profession may be a
matter of doubt. But he was a gay young blade, with sunshine in his eyes.
He had a friendly word for every one, for rich and poor, for old and
young.
When he came home from his work in the evening, he held Madame Moreus’
skeins, and worked at the side of young girls in the rose-garden. Then he
declaimed “Axel” and sang “Frithiof.” He picked up Mamselle Marie’s ball
of thread as often as she dropped it, and put her clock to rights.
He never left any ball until he had danced with everybody, from the
oldest woman to the youngest girl, and if an adversity befell him, he
sat himself down by the side of the first woman he met and made her his
_confidante_. He was such a man as women create in their dreams! It
could not be said of him that he spoke of love to any one. But when he
had lived a few weeks in Madame Moreus’ gable-room, all the girls were
in love with him, and poor Mamselle Marie knew that she had prayed her
prayers in vain.
That was a time of sorrow and a time of joy. In the evening a pale
dreamer often sat in the lilac arbor, and up in Mamselle Marie’s little
room the newly strung guitar twanged to old love-songs, which she had
learned from her mother.
The young organ-builder was just as careless and gay as ever, and doled
out smiles and services to all these languishing women, who quarrelled
over him when he was away at his work. And at last the day came when he
had to leave.
The carriage stood before the door. His bag had been tied on behind, and
the young man said farewell. He kissed Madame Moreus’ hand and took the
weeping girls in his arms and kissed them on the cheek. He wept himself
at being obliged to go, for he had had a pleasant summer in the little
gray cottage. At the last he looked around for Mamselle Marie.
She came down the narrow attic-stairs in her best array. The guitar
hung about her neck on a broad, green-silk ribbon, and in her hand she
held a bunch of damask roses, for this year her mother’s rose-bushes had
blossomed. She stood before the young man, struck the guitar and sang:—
“Thou goest far from us. Ah! welcome again!
Hear the voice of my friendship, which greets thee.
Be happy: forget not a true, loving friend
Who in Värmland’s forests awaits thee!”
Thereupon she put the flowers in his buttonhole and kissed him square on
the mouth. Yes, and then she vanished up the attic stairs again, the old
apparition.
Love had revenged himself on her and made her a spectacle for all men.
But she never again complained of him. She never laid away the guitar,
and never forgot to water her mother’s rose-bushes.
She had learned to cherish Love with all his pain, his tears, his longing.
“Better to be sorrowful with him than happy without him,” she said.
* * * * *
The time passed. The major’s wife at Ekeby was driven out, the pensioners
came to power, and it so happened, as has been described, that Gösta
Berling one Sunday evening read a poem aloud to the countess at Borg, and
afterwards was forbidden by her to show himself in her house.
It is said that when Gösta shut the hall-door after him he saw several
sledges driving up to Borg. He cast a glance on the little lady who sat
in the first sledge. Gloomy as the hour was for him, it became still
more gloomy at the sight. He hurried away not to be recognized, but
forebodings of disaster filled his soul. Had the conversation in there
conjured up this woman? One misfortune always brings another.
But the servants hurried out, the shawls and furs were thrown on one
side. Who had come? Who was the little lady who stood up in the sledge?
Ah, it is really she herself, Märta Dohna, the far-famed countess!
She was the gayest and most foolish of women. Joy had lifted her on
high on his throne and made her his queen. Games and laughter were her
subjects. Music and dancing and adventure had been her share when the
lottery of life was drawn.
She was not far now from her fiftieth year, but she was one of the wise,
who do not count the years. “He whose foot is not ready to dance, or
mouth to laugh,” she said, “he is old. He knows the terrible weight of
years, not I.”
Pleasure had no undisturbed throne in the days of her youth, but change
and uncertainty only increased the delight of his glad presence. His
Majesty of the butterfly wings one day had afternoon tea in the court
ladies’ rooms at the palace in Stockholm, and danced the next in Paris.
He visited Napoleon’s camps, he went on board Nelson’s fleet in the blue
Mediterranean, he looked in on a congress at Vienna, he risked his life
at Brussels at a ball the night before a famous battle.
And wherever Pleasure was, there too was Märta Dohna, his chosen queen.
Dancing, playing, jesting, Countess Märta hurried the whole world round.
What had she not seen, what had she not lived through? She had danced
over thrones, played écarté on the fate of princes, caused devastating
wars by her jests! Gayety and folly had filled her life and would always
do so. Her body was not too old for dancing, nor her heart for love. When
did she weary of masquerades and comedies, of merry stories and plaintive
ballads?
When Pleasure sometimes could find no home out in the struggling world,
she used to drive up to the old manor by Löfven’s shores,—just as she
had come there when the princes and their court had become too gloomy
for her in the time of the Holy Alliance. It was then she had thought
best to make Gösta Berling her son’s tutor. She always enjoyed it there.
Never had Pleasure a pleasanter kingdom. There song was to be found and
card-playing, men who loved adventure, and gay, lovely women. She did not
lack for dances and balls, nor boating-parties over moonlit seas, nor
sledging through dark forests, nor appalling adventures and love’s sorrow
and pain.
But after her daughter’s death she had ceased to come to Borg. She
had not been there for five years. Now she had come to see how her
daughter-in-law bore the life up among the pine forests, the bears, and
the snow-drifts. She thought it her duty to come and see if the stupid
Henrik had not bored her to death with his tediousness. She meant to be
the gentle angel of domestic peace. Sunshine and happiness were packed in
her forty leather trunks, Gayety was her waiting-maid, Jest her coachman,
Play her companion.
And when she ran up the steps she was met with open arms. Her old rooms
on the lower floor were in order for her. Her man-servant, her lady
companion, and maid, her forty leather trunks, her thirty hat-boxes,
her bags and shawls and furs, everything was brought by degrees into
the house. There was bustle and noise everywhere. There was a slamming
of doors and a running on the stairs. It was plain enough that Countess
Märta had come.
* * * * *
It was a spring evening, a really beautiful spring evening, although it
was only April and the ice had not broken up. Mamselle Marie had opened
her window. She sat in her room, played on the guitar, and sang.
She was so engrossed in her guitar and her memories that she did not hear
that a carriage came driving up the road and stopped at the cottage. In
the carriage Countess Märta sat, and it amused her to see Mamselle Marie,
who sat at the window with her guitar on her lap, and with eyes turned
towards heaven sang old forgotten love-songs.
At last the countess got out of the carriage and went into the cottage,
where the girls were sitting at their work. She was never haughty; the
wind of revolution had whistled over her and blown fresh air into her
lungs.
It was not her fault that she was a countess, she used to say; but she
wanted at all events to live the life she liked best. She enjoyed herself
just as much at peasant weddings as at court balls. She acted for her
maids when there was no other spectator to be had, and she brought joy
with her in all the places where she showed herself, with her beautiful
little face and her overflowing love of life.
She ordered a blanket of Madame Moreus and praised the girls. She looked
about the rose-garden and told of her adventures on the journey. She
always was having adventures. And at the last she ventured up the attic
stairs, which were dreadfully steep and narrow, and sought out Mamselle
Marie in her gable-room.
She bought curtains of her. She could not live without having knitted
curtains for all her windows, and on every table should she have Mamselle
Marie’s table-covers.
She borrowed her guitar and sang to her of pleasure and love. And she
told her stories, so that Mamselle Marie found herself transported out
into the gay, rushing world. And the countess’s laughter made such music
that the frozen birds in the rose-garden began to sing when they heard
it, and her face, which was hardly pretty now,—for her complexion was
ruined by paint, and there was such an expression of sensuality about
the mouth,—seemed to Mamselle Marie so lovely that she wondered how the
little mirror could let it vanish when it had once caught it on its
shining surface.
When she left, she kissed Mamselle Marie and asked her to come to Borg.
Mamselle Marie’s heart was as empty as the swallow’s-nest at Christmas.
She was free, but she sighed for chains like a slave freed in his old age.
Now there began again for Mamselle Marie a time of joy and a time of
sorrow; but it did not last long,—only one short week.
The countess sent for her continually to come to Borg. She played her
comedy for her and told about all her lovers, and Mamselle Marie laughed
as she had never laughed before. They became the best of friends.
The countess soon knew all about the young organ-builder and about
the parting. And in the twilight she made Mamselle Marie sit on the
window-seat in the little blue cabinet. Then she hung the guitar ribbon
round her neck and got her to sing love-songs. And the countess sat and
watched how the old maid’s dry, thin figure and little plain head were
outlined against the red evening sky, and she said that the poor old
Mamselle was like a languishing maiden of the Middle Ages. All the songs
were of tender shepherds and cruel shepherdesses, and Mamselle Marie’s
voice was the thinnest voice in the world, and it is easy to understand
how the countess was amused at such a comedy.
There was a party at Borg, as was natural, when the count’s mother had
come home. And it was gay as always. There were not so many there, only
the members of the parish being invited.
The dining-room was on the lower floor, and after supper it so happened
that the guests did not go upstairs again, but sat in Countess Märta’s
room, which lay beyond. The countess got hold of Mamselle Marie’s guitar
and began to sing for the company. She was a merry person, Countess
Märta, and she could mimic any one. She now had the idea to mimic
Mamselle Marie. She turned up her eyes to heaven and sang in a thin,
shrill, child’s voice.
“Oh no, oh no, countess!” begged Mamselle Marie.
But the countess was enjoying herself, and no one could help laughing,
although they all thought that it was hard on Mamselle Marie.
The countess took a handful of dried rose-leaves out of a pot-pourri
jar, went with tragic gestures up to Mamselle Marie, and sang with deep
emotion:—
“Thou goest far from us. Ah! welcome again!
Hear the voice of my friendship, which greets thee.
Be happy: forget not a true, loving friend
Who in Värmland’s forests awaits thee!”
Then she strewed the rose-leaves over her head. Everybody laughed; but
Mamselle Marie was wild with rage. She looked as if she could have torn
out the countess’s eyes.
“You are a bad woman, Märta Dohna,” she said. “No decent woman ought to
speak to you.”
Countess Märta lost her temper too.
“Out with you, mamselle!” she said. “I have had enough of your folly.”
“Yes, I shall go,” said Mamselle Marie; “but first I will be paid for my
covers and curtains which you have put up here.”
“The old rags!” cried the countess. “Do you want to be paid for such
rags? Take them away with you! I never want to see them again! Take them
away immediately!”
Thereupon the countess threw the table-covers at her and tore down the
curtains, for she was beside herself.
The next day the young countess begged her mother-in-law to make her
peace with Mamselle Marie; but the countess would not. She was tired of
her.
Countess Elizabeth then bought of Mamselle Marie the whole set of
curtains and put them up in the upper floor. Whereupon Mamselle Marie
felt herself redressed.
Countess Märta made fun of her daughter-in-law for her love of knitted
curtains. She too could conceal her anger—preserve it fresh and new for
years. She was a richly gifted person.
PART II
CHAPTER I
COUSIN CHRISTOPHER
They had an old bird of prey up in the pensioners’ wing. He always sat
in the corner by the fire and saw that it did not go out. He was rough
and gray. His little head with the big nose and the sunken eyes hung
sorrowfully on the long, thin neck which stuck up out of a fluffy fur
collar. For the bird of prey wore furs both winter and summer.
Once he had belonged to the swarm who in the great Emperor’s train swept
over Europe; but what name and title he bore no one now can say. In
Värmland they only knew that he had taken part in the great wars, that he
had risen to might and power in the thundering struggle, and that after
1815 he had taken flight from an ungrateful fatherland. He found a refuge
with the Swedish Crown Prince, and the latter advised him to disappear in
far away Värmland.
And so it happened that one whose name had caused the world to tremble
was now glad that no one even knew that once dreaded name.
He had given the Crown Prince his word of honor not to leave Värmland
and not to make known who he was. And he had been sent to Ekeby with
a private letter to the major from the Crown Prince, who had given him
the best of recommendations. It was then the pensioners’ wing opened its
doors to him.
In the beginning people wondered much who he was who concealed his
identity under an assumed name. But gradually he was transformed into
a pensioner. Everybody called him Cousin Christopher, without knowing
exactly how he had acquired the name.
But it is not good for a bird of prey to live in a cage. One can
understand that he is accustomed to something different than hopping from
perch to perch and taking food from his keeper’s hand. The excitement of
the battle and of the danger of death had set his pulse on fire. Drowsy
peace disgusts him.
It is true that none of the pensioners were exactly tame birds; but in
none of them the blood burned so hot as in Cousin Christopher. A bear
hunt was the only thing which could put life into him, a bear hunt or a
woman, one single woman.
He had come to life when he, ten years ago, for the first time saw
Countess Märta, who was already then a widow,—a woman as changeable as
war, as inciting as danger, a startling, audacious creature; he loved her.
And now he sat there and grew old and gray without being able to ask her
to be his wife. He had not seen her for five years. He was withering and
dying by degrees, as caged eagles do. Every year he became more dried and
frozen. He had to creep down deeper into his furs and move nearer the
fire.
* * * * *
So there he is sitting, shivering, shaggy, and gray, the morning of the
day, on the evening of which the Easter bullets should be shot off and
the Easter witch burned. The pensioners have all gone out; but he sits
in the corner by the fire.
Oh, Cousin Christopher, Cousin Christopher, do you not know?
Smiling she has come, the enchanting spring.
Nature up starts from drowsy sleep, and in the blue sky butterfly-winged
spirits tumble in wild play. Close as roses on the sweet brier, their
faces shine between the clouds.
Earth, the great mother, begins to live. Romping like a child she rises
from her bath in the spring floods, from her douche in the spring rain.
But Cousin Christopher sits quiet and does not understand. He leans his
head on his stiffened fingers and dreams of showers of bullets and of
honors won on the field of battle.
One pities the lonely old warrior who sits there by the fire, without a
people, without a country, he who never hears the sound of his native
language, he who will have a nameless grave in the Bro churchyard. Is it
his fault that he is an eagle, and was born to persecute and to kill?
Oh, Cousin Christopher, you have sat and dreamed long enough in the
pensioners’ wing! Up and drink the sparkling wine of life. You must know,
Cousin Christopher, that a letter has come to the major this day, a royal
letter adorned with the seal of Sweden. It is addressed to the major, but
the contents concern you. It is strange to see you, when you read the
letter, old eagle. Your eye regains its brightness, and you lift your
head. You see the cage door open and free space for your longing wings.
* * * * *
Cousin Christopher is burrowing deep down to the bottom of his chest. He
drags out the carefully laid away gold-laced uniform and dresses himself
in it. He presses the plumed hat on his head and he is soon hastening
away from Ekeby, riding his excellent white horse.
This is another life than to sit shivering by the fire; he too now sees
that spring has come.
He straightens himself up in his saddle and sets off at a gallop. The
fur-lined dolman flutters. The plumes on his hat wave. The man has grown
young like the earth itself. He has awaked from a long winter. The old
gold can still shine. The bold warrior face under the cocked hat is a
proud sight.
It is a wonderful ride. Brooks gush from the ground, and flowers shoot
forth, as he rides by. The birds sing and warble about the freed
prisoner. All nature shares in his joy.
He is like a victor. Spring rides before on a floating cloud. And round
about Cousin Christopher rides a staff of old brothers-in-arms: there is
Happiness, who stands on tiptoe in the saddle, and Honor on his stately
charger, and Love on his fiery Arab. The ride is wonderful; wonderful is
the rider. The thrush calls to him:—
“Cousin Christopher, Cousin Christopher, whither are you riding? Whither
are you riding?”
“To Borg to offer myself, to Borg to offer myself,” answers Cousin
Christopher.
“Do not go to Borg, do not go to Borg! An unmarried man has no sorrow,”
screams the thrush after him.
But he does not listen to the warning. Up the hills and down the hills he
rides, until at last he is there. He leaps from the saddle and is shown
in to the countess.
Everything goes well. The countess is gracious to him. Cousin Christopher
feels sure that she will not refuse to bear his glorious name or to reign
in his palace. He sits and puts off the moment of rapture, when he shall
show her the royal letter. He enjoys the waiting.
She talks and entertains him with a thousand stories. He laughs at
everything, enjoys everything. But as they are sitting in one of the
rooms where Countess Elizabeth has hung up Mamselle Marie’s curtains, the
countess begins to tell the story of them. And she makes it as funny as
she can.
“See,” she says at last, “see how bad I am. Here hang the curtains now,
that I may think daily and hourly of my sin. It is a penance without
equal. Oh, those dreadful knitted curtains!”
The great warrior, Cousin Christopher, looks at her with burning eyes.
“I, too, am old and poor,” he says, “and I have sat for ten years by the
fire and longed for my mistress. Do you laugh at that too, countess?”
“Oh, that is another matter,” cries the countess.
“God has taken from me happiness and my fatherland, and forced me to eat
the bread of others,” says Cousin Christopher, earnestly. “I have learned
to have respect for poverty.”
“You, too,” cries the countess, and holds up her hands. “How virtuous
every one is getting!”
“Yes,” he says, “and know, countess, that if God some day in the future
should give me back riches and power, I would make a better use of them
than to share them with such a worldly woman, such a painted, heartless
monkey, who makes fun of poverty.”
“You would do quite right, Cousin Christopher.”
And then Cousin Christopher marches out of the room and rides home to
Ekeby again; but the spirits do not follow him, the thrush does not call
to him, and he no longer sees the smiling spring.
He came to Ekeby just as the Easter witch was to be burned. She is a big
doll of straw, with a rag face, on which eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn
with charcoal. She is dressed in old cast-off clothes. The long-handled
oven-rake and broom are placed beside her, and she has a horn of oil hung
round her neck. She is quite ready for the journey to hell.
Major Fuchs loads his gun and shoots it off into the air time after time.
A pile of dried branches is lighted, the witch is thrown on it and is
soon burning gayly. The pensioners do all they can, according to the old,
tried customs, to destroy the power of the evil one.
Cousin Christopher stands and looks on with gloomy mien. Suddenly he
drags the great royal letter from his cuff and throws it on the fire. God
alone knows what he thought. Perhaps he imagined that it was Countess
Märta herself who was burning there on the pile. Perhaps he thought that,
as that woman, when all was said, consisted only of rags and straw, there
was nothing worth anything any more on earth.
He goes once more into the pensioners’ wing, lights the fire, and puts
away his uniform. Again he sits down at the fire, and every day he gets
more rough and more gray. He is dying by degrees, as old eagles do in
captivity.
He is no longer a prisoner; but he does not care to make use of his
freedom. The world stands open to him. The battle-field, honor, life,
await him. But he has not the strength to spread his wings in flight.
CHAPTER II
THE PATHS OF LIFE
Weary are the ways which men have to follow here on earth.
Paths through the desert, paths through the marshes, paths over the
mountains.
Why is so much sorrow allowed to go undisturbed, until it loses itself in
the desert or sinks in the bog, or falls on the mountain? Where are the
little flower-pickers, where are the little princesses of the fairy tale
about whose feet roses grow, where are they who should strew flowers on
the weary ways?
Gösta Berling has decided to get married. He is searching for a bride who
is poor enough, humble enough for a mad priest.
Beautiful and high-born women have loved him, but they may not compete
for his hand. The outcast chooses from among outcasts.
Whom shall he choose, whom shall he seek out?
To Ekeby a poor girl sometimes comes from a lonely forest hamlet far away
among the mountains, and sells brooms. In that hamlet, where poverty and
great misery exist, there are many who are not in possession of their
full intellect, and the girl with the brooms is one of them.
But she is beautiful. Her masses of black hair make such thick braids
that they scarcely find room on her head, her cheeks are delicately
rounded, her nose straight and not too large, her eyes blue. She is of a
melancholy, Madonna-like type, such as is still found among the lovely
girls by the shores of Löfven’s long lake.
Well, Gösta has found his sweetheart; a half-crazy broom-girl is just the
wife for a mad priest. Nothing can be more suitable.
All he needs to do is to go to Karlstad for the rings, and then they can
once more have a merry day by Löfven’s shore. Let them laugh at Gösta
Berling when he betroths himself to the broom-girl, when he celebrates
his wedding with her! Let them laugh! Has he ever had a merrier idea?
Must not the outcast go the way of the outcasts,—the way of anger, the
way of sorrow, the way of unhappiness? What does it matter if he falls,
if he is ruined? Is there any one to stop him? Is there any one who would
reach him a helping hand or offer him a cooling drink? Where are the
little flower-pickers, where are the little princesses of the fairy-tale,
where are they who should strew roses on the stony ways?
No, no, the gentle young countess at Borg will not interfere with Gösta
Berling’s plans. She must think of her reputation, she must think of her
husband’s anger and her mother-in-law’s hate, she must not do anything to
keep him back.
All through the long service in the Svartsjö church, she must bend her
head, fold her hands, and only pray for him. During sleepless nights she
can weep and grieve over him, but she has no flowers to strew on the way
of the outcast, not a drop of water to give one who is thirsting. She
does not stretch out her hand to lead him back from the edge of the
precipice.
Gösta Berling does not care to clothe his chosen bride in silk and
jewels. He lets her go from farm to farm with brooms, as her habit is,
but when he has gathered together all the chief men and women of the
place at a great feast at Ekeby, he will make his betrothal known. He
will call her in from the kitchen, just as she has come from her long
wanderings, with the dust and dirt of the road on her clothes, perhaps
ragged, perhaps with dishevelled hair, with wild eyes, with an incoherent
stream of words on her lips. And he will ask the guests if he has not
chosen a suitable bride, if the mad priest ought not to be proud of such
a lovely sweetheart, of that gentle Madonna face, of those blue, dreamy
eyes.
He intended that no one should know anything beforehand, but he did not
succeed in keeping the secret, and one of those who heard it was the
young Countess Dohna.
But what can she do to stop him? It is the engagement day, the eleventh
hour has come. The countess stands at the window in the blue cabinet
and looks out towards the north. She almost thinks that she can see
Ekeby, although her eyes are dim with tears. She can see how the great
three-storied house shines with three rows of lighted windows; she thinks
how the champagne flows in the glasses, how the toast resounds and how
Gösta Berling proclaims his engagement to the broom-girl.
If she were only near him and quite gently could lay her hand on his arm,
or only give him a friendly look, would he not turn back from the evil
way? If a word from her had driven him to such a desperate deed, would
not also a word from her check him?
She shudders at the sin he is going to commit against that poor,
half-witted child. She shudders at his sin against the unfortunate
creature, who shall be won to love him, perhaps only for the jest of a
single day. Perhaps too—and then she shudders even more at the sin he
is committing against himself—to chain fast to his life such a galling
burden, which would always take from his spirit the strength to reach the
highest.
And the fault was chiefly hers. She had with a word of condemnation
driven him on the evil way. She, who had come to bless, to alleviate, why
had she twisted one more thorn into the sinner’s crown?
Yes, now she knows what she will do. She will have the black horses
harnessed into the sledge, hasten over the Löfven and to Ekeby, place
herself opposite to Gösta Berling, and tell him that she does not despise
him, that she did not know what she was saying when she drove him from
her house. No, she could never do such a thing; she would be ashamed and
would not dare to say a word. Now that she was married, she must take
care. There would be such a scandal if she did such a thing. But if she
did not do it, how would it go with him?
She must go.
Then she remembers that such a plan is impossible. No horse can go again
this year over the ice. The ice is melting, it has already broken away
from the land. It is broken, cracked, terrible to see. Water bubbles
up through it, in some places it has gathered in black pools, in other
places the ice is dazzlingly white. It is mostly gray, dirty with melting
snow, and the roads look like long, black streaks on its surface.
How can she think of going? Old Countess Märta, her mother-in-law, would
never permit such a thing. She must sit beside her the whole evening in
the drawing-room and listen to those old stories which are the older
woman’s delight.
At last the night comes, and her husband is away; she is free.
She cannot drive, she does not dare to call the servants, but her anxiety
drives her out of her home. There is nothing else for her to do.
Weary are the ways men wander on earth; but that way by night over
melting ice, to what shall I compare it? Is it not the way which the
little flower-pickers have to go, an uncertain, shaking, slippery way,
the way of those who wish to make amends, the way of the light foot, the
quick eye, and the brave, loving heart?
It was past midnight when the countess reached the shores of Ekeby. She
had fallen on the ice, she had leaped over wide fissures, she had hurried
across places where her footprints were filled with bubbling water, she
had slipped, she had crept on all fours.
It had been a weary wandering; she had wept as she had walked. She was
wet and tired, and out there on the ice, the darkness and the loneliness
had given her terrible thoughts.
At the last she had had to wade in water over her ankles to reach land.
And when she had come to the shore, she had not had the courage to do
more than sit down on a rock and weep from fatigue and helplessness.
This young, high-born lady was, however, a brave little heroine. She had
never gone such ways in her bright mother country. She may well sit by
the edge of that terrible lake, wet, tired, unhappy as she is, and think
of the fair, flowery paths of her Southern fatherland.
Ah, for her it is not a question of South or North. She is not weeping
from homesickness. She is weeping because she is so tired, because she
will not come in time. She thinks that she has come too late.
Then people come running along the shore. They hurry by her without
seeing her, but she hears what they say.
“If the dam gives way, the smithy goes,” one says. “And the mill and the
work-shops and the smith’s house,” adds another.
Then she gets new courage, rises, and follows them.
* * * * *
Ekeby mill and smithy lay on a narrow point past which the Björksjö River
rushes. It comes roaring down towards the point, whipped white in the
mighty falls above, and to protect the land a great break-water was built
before the point. But the dam was old now, and the pensioners were in
power. In their day the dance filled all their thoughts, and no one took
the trouble to see how the current and the cold and time had worn the old
stone-dam.
Now with the spring-floods the dam begins to yield.
The falls at Ekeby are like mighty granite stairs, down which the waves
come rushing. Giddy with the speed, they tumble over one another and
rush together. They rise up in anger and dash in spray over one another,
fall again, over a rock, over a log, and rise up again, again to fall,
again and again, foaming, hissing, roaring.
And now these wild, raging waves, drunken with the spring air, dizzy with
their newly won freedom, storm against the old stone-wall. They come,
hissing and tearing, high up on to it and then fall back again, as if
they had hit their white heads. They use logs as battering-rams, they
strain, they beat, they rush against that poor wall, until suddenly,
just as if some one had called to them, “Look out!” they rush backwards,
and after them comes a big stone, which has broken away from the dam and
sinks thundering down in the stream.
But why are these wild waves allowed to rage without meeting any
resistance? Is every one dead at Ekeby?
No, there are people enough there,—a wild, perplexed, helpless crowd of
people. The night is dark, they cannot see one another, nor see where
they are going. Loud roars the falls, terrible is the din of the breaking
ice and the pounding logs; they cannot hear their own voices. They have
not a thought nor an idea. They feel that the end is coming. The dam is
trembling, the smithy is in danger, the mill is in danger, and their own
poor houses beloved in all their lowliness.
Message after message is sent up to the house to the pensioners.
Are they in a mood to think of smithy or mill? The hundred guests are
gathered in the wide walls. The broom-girl is waiting in the kitchen. The
hour has come. The champagne bubbles in the glasses. Julius rises to
make the speech. All the old adventurers at Ekeby are rejoicing at the
petrifying amazement which will fall upon the assembly.
Out on the ice the young Countess Dohna is wandering a terrible, perilous
way in order to whisper a word of warning to Gösta Berling. Down at the
waterfall the waves are storming the honor and might of Ekeby, but in the
wide halls only joy and eager expectation reign, wax-candles are shining,
wine is flowing; no one thinks of what is happening in the dark, stormy
spring night.
Now has the moment come. Gösta rises and goes out to bring in his
sweetheart. He has to go through the hall, and its great doors are
standing open; he stops, he looks out into the pitch dark night—and he
hears, he hears!
He hears the bells ringing, the falls roaring. He hears the thunder of
the breaking ice, the noise of the pounding logs, the rebellious waves’
rushing and threatening voice.
He hastens out into the night, forgetting everything. Let them inside
stand with lifted glasses till the world’s last day; he cares nothing for
them. The broom-girl can wait, Julius’s speech may die on his lips. There
would be no rings exchanged that night, no paralyzing amazement would
fall upon the shining assembly.
Now the waves must in truth fight for their freedom, for Gösta Berling
has come, the people have found a leader. Terrified hearts take courage,
a terrible struggle begins.
Hear how he calls to the people; he commands, he sets all to work.
“We must have light, light first of all; the miller’s horn-lantern is
not enough. See all those piles of branches; carry them up on the cliff
and set fire to them. That is work for the women and children. Only be
quick; build up a great flaming brush-pile and set fire to it! That will
light up our work; that will be seen far and wide and bring more to help
us. And let it never go out! Bring straw, bring branches, let the flames
stream up to the sky!”
“Look, look, you men, here is work for you. Here is timber, here are
planks; make a temporary dam, which we can sink in front of this breaking
wall. Quick, quick to work; make it firm and solid! Get ready stones and
sand-bags to sink it with! Quick! Swing your axes! To work! to work!”
“And where are the boys? Get poles, get boat-hooks, and come out here in
the midst of the struggle. Out on the dam with you, boys, right in the
waves. Keep off, weaken, drive back their attacks, before which the walls
are cracking. Push aside the logs and pieces of ice; throw yourselves
down, if nothing else helps, and hold the loosening stones with your
hands; bite into them, seize them with claws of iron. Out on the wall,
boys! We shall fight for every inch of land.”
Gösta himself takes his stand farthest out on the dam and stands there
covered with spray; the ground shakes under him, the waves thunder
and rage, but his wild heart rejoices at the danger, the anxiety, the
struggle. He laughs. He jokes with the boys about him on the dam; he has
never had a merrier night.
The work of rescue goes quickly forward, the fire flames, the axes
resound, and the dam stands.
The other pensioners and the hundred guests have come down to the
waterfall. People come running from near and far; all are working, at
the fires, at the temporary dam, at the sand-bags, out on the tottering,
trembling stone-wall.
Now the temporary dam is ready, and shall be sunk in front of the
yielding break-water. Have the stones and sand-bags ready, and boat-hooks
and rope, that it may not be carried away, that the victory may be for
the people, and the cowed waves return to their bondage.
It so happens that just before the decisive moment Gösta catches sight of
a woman who is sitting on a stone at the water’s edge. The flames from
the bonfire light her up where she sits staring out over the waves; he
cannot see her clearly and distinctly through the mist and spray, but his
eyes are continually drawn to her. Again and again he has to look at her.
He feels as if that woman had a special errand to him.
Among all these hundreds who are working and busy, she is the only one
who sits still, and to her his eyes keep turning, he can see nothing else.
She is sitting so far out that the waves break at her feet, and the
spray dashes over her. She must be dripping wet. Her dress is dark, she
has a black shawl over her head, she sits shrunk together, her chin on
her hand, and stares persistently at him out on the dam. He feels as if
those staring eyes were drawing and calling, although he cannot even
distinguish her face; he thinks of nothing but the woman who sits on the
shore by the white waves.
“It is the sea-nymph from the Löfven, who has come up the river to lure
me to destruction,” he thinks. “She sits there and calls and calls. I
must go and drive her away.”
All these waves with their white heads seem to him the black woman’s
hair; it was she who set them on, who led the attack against him.
“I really must drive her away,” he says.
He seizes a boat-hook, runs to the shore, and hurries away to the woman.
He leaves his place on the end of the dam to drive the sea-nymph away.
He felt, in that moment of excitement, as if the evil powers of the deep
were fighting against him. He did not know what he thought, what he
believed, but he must drive that black thing away from the stone by the
river’s edge.
Alas, Gösta, why is your place empty in the decisive moment? They are
coming with the temporary dam, a long row of men station themselves on
the break-water; they have ropes and stones and sand-bags ready to weight
it down and hold it in place; they stand ready, they wait, they listen.
Where is their leader? Is there no voice to command?
No, Gösta Berling is chasing the sea-nymph, his voice is silent, his
commands lead no one.
So the temporary dam has to be sunk without him. The waves rush back, it
sinks into the water and after it the stones and sand-bags. But how is
the work carried out without a leader? No care, no order. The waves dash
up again, they break with renewed rage against this new obstacle, they
begin to roll the sand-bags over, tear the ropes, loosen the stones; and
they succeed, they succeed. Threatening, rejoicing, they lift the whole
dam on their strong shoulders, tear and drag on it, and then they have it
in their power. Away with the miserable defence, down to the Löfven with
it. And then on once more against the tottering, helpless stone-wall.
But Gösta is chasing the sea-nymph. She saw him as he came towards her
swinging the boat-hook. She was frightened. It looked as if she was going
to throw herself into the water, but she changed her mind and ran to the
land.
“Sea-nymph!” cries Gösta, and brandishes the boat-hook. She runs in among
the alder-bushes, gets entangled in their thick branches, and stops.
Then Gösta throws away the boat-hook, goes forward, and lays his hand on
her shoulder.
“You are out late to-night, Countess Elizabeth,” he says.
“Let me alone, Herr Berling, let me go home!”
He obeys instantly and turns away from her.
But since she is not only a high-born lady, but a really kind little
woman, who cannot bear the thought that she has driven any one to
despair; since she is a little flower-picker, who always has roses enough
in her basket to adorn the barrenest way, she repents, goes after him and
seizes his hand.
“I came,” she says, and stammers, “I came to⸺ Oh, Herr Berling, you have
not done it? Say that you have not done it! I was so frightened when you
came running after me, but it was you I wanted to meet. I wanted to ask
you not to think of what I said the other day, and to come to see me as
usual.”
“How have you come here, countess?”
She laughs nervously. “I knew that I should come too late, but I did
not like to tell any one that I was going; and besides, you know, it is
impossible to drive over the ice now.”
“Have you walked across the lake, countess?”
“Yes, yes, of course; but, Herr Berling, tell me. Are you engaged? You
understand; I wish so you were not. It is so wrong, you see, and I felt
as if the whole thing was my fault. You should not have minded a word
from me so much. I am a stranger, who does not know the customs of the
country. It is so dull at Borg since you do not come any more, Herr
Berling.”
It seems to Gösta Berling, as he stands among the wet alder-bushes on the
marshy ground, as if some one were throwing over him armfuls of roses.
He wades in roses up to his knees, they shine before his eyes in the
darkness, he eagerly drinks in their fragrance.
“Have you done that?” she repeats.
He must make up his mind to answer her and to put an end to her anxiety,
although his joy is so great over it. It grows so warm in him and so
bright when he thinks what a way she has wandered, how wet she is, how
frozen, how frightened she must have been, how broken with weeping her
voice sounds.
“No,” he says, “I am not engaged.”
Then she takes his hand again and strokes it. “I am so glad, I am so
glad,” she says, and her voice is shaken with sobs.
There are flowers enough now on the poet’s way, everything dark, evil,
and hateful melts from his heart.
“How good you are, how good you are!” he says.
At their side the waves are rushing against all Ekeby’s honor and glory.
The people have no leader, no one to instill courage and hope into
their hearts; the dam gives way, the waves close over it, and then rush
triumphant forward to the point where the mill and smithy stand. No one
tries any longer to resist the waves; no one thinks of anything but of
saving life and property.
It seems quite natural to both the young people that Gösta should escort
the countess home; he cannot leave her alone in this dark night, nor let
her again wander alone over the melting ice. They never think that he is
needed up at the smithy, they are so happy that they are friends again.
One might easily believe that these young people cherish a warm love
for one another, but who can be sure? In broken fragments the glowing
adventures of their lives have come to me. I know nothing, or next to
nothing, of what was in their innermost souls. What can I say of the
motives of their actions. I only know that that night a beautiful young
woman risked her life, her honor, her reputation, her health, to bring
back a poor wretch to the right way. I only know that that night Gösta
Berling left the beloved Ekeby fall to follow her who for his sake had
conquered the fear of death, the fear of shame, the fear of punishment.
Often in my thoughts I have followed them over the ice that terrible
night, which ended so well for them. I do not think that there was
anything hidden or forbidden in their hearts, as they wandered over the
ice, gay and chatting of everything which had happened during their
separation.
He is once more her slave, her page, who lies at her feet, and she is his
lady.
They are only happy, only joyous. Neither of them speaks a word which can
denote love.
Laughing they splash through the water, they laugh when they find the
path, when they lose it, when they slip, when they fall, when they are
up again; they only laugh.
This blessed life is once more a merry play, and they are children who
have been cross and have quarrelled. Oh, how good it is to make up and
begin to play again.
Rumor came, and rumor went. In time the story of the countess’s
wanderings reached Anna Stjärnhök.
“I see,” she said, “that God has not one string only to his bow. I can
rest and stay where I am needed. He can make a man of Gösta Berling
without my help.”
CHAPTER III
PENITENCE
Dear friends, if it should ever happen that you meet a pitiful wretch on
your way, a little distressed creature, who lets his hat hang on his back
and holds his shoes in his hand, so as not to have any protection from
the heat of the sun and the stones of the road, one without defence, who
of his own free will calls down destruction on his head,—well, pass him
by in silent fear! It is a penitent, do you understand?—a penitent on his
way to the holy sepulchre.
The penitent must wear a coarse cloak and live on water and dry bread,
even if he were a king. He must walk and not ride. He must beg. He must
sleep among thistles. He must wear the hard gravestones with kneeling.
He must swing the thorny scourge over his back. He can know no sweetness
except in suffering, no tenderness except in grief.
The young Countess Elizabeth was once one who wore the heavy cloak and
trod the thorny paths. Her heart accused her of sin. It longed for pain
as one wearied longs for a warm bath. Dire disaster she brought down on
herself while she descended rejoicing into the night of suffering.
Her husband, the young count with the old-man’s head, came home to Borg
the morning after the night when the mill and smithy at Ekeby were
destroyed by the spring flood. He had hardly arrived before Countess
Märta had him summoned in to her and told him wonderful things.
“Your wife was out last night, Henrik. She was gone many hours. She came
home with a man. I heard how he said good-night to her. I know too who
he is. I heard both when she went and when she came. She is deceiving
you, Henrik. She is deceiving you, the hypocritical creature, who hangs
knitted curtains in all the windows only to cause me discomfort. She has
never loved you, my poor boy. Her father only wanted to have her well
married. She took you to be provided for.”
She managed her affair so well that Count Henrik became furious. He
wished to get a divorce. He wished to send his wife home to her father.
“No, my friend,” said Countess Märta, “in that way she would be quite
given over to evil. She is spoiled and badly brought up. But let me take
her in hand, let me lead her to the path of duty.”
And the count called in his countess to tell her that she now was to obey
his mother in everything.
Many angry words the young man let the young woman hear. He stretched his
hands to heaven and accused it of having let his name be dragged in the
dirt by a shameless woman. He shook his clenched fist before her face and
asked her what punishment she thought great enough for such a crime as
hers.
She was not at all afraid. She thought that she had done right. She said
that she had already caught a serious cold, and that might be punishment
enough.
“Elizabeth.” says Countess Märta, “this is not a matter to joke about.”
“We two,” answers the young woman, “have never been able to agree about
the right time to joke and to be serious.”
“But you ought to understand, Elizabeth, that no honorable woman
leaves her home to roam about in the middle of the night with a known
adventurer.”
Then Elizabeth Dohna saw that her mother-in-law meant her ruin. She saw
that she must fight to the last gasp, lest Countess Märta should succeed
in drawing down upon her a terrible misfortune.
“Henrik,” she begs, “do not let your mother come between us! Let me tell
you how it all happened. You are just, you will not condemn me unheard.
Let me tell you all, and you will see that I only acted as you have
taught me.”
The count nodded a silent consent, and Countess Elizabeth told how she
had come to drive Gösta Berling into the evil way. She told of everything
which had happened in the little blue cabinet, and how she had felt
herself driven by her conscience to go and save him she had wronged. “I
had no right to judge him,” she said, “and my husband has himself taught
me that no sacrifice is too great when one will make amends for a wrong.
Is it not so, Henrik?”
The count turned to his mother.
“What has my mother to say about this?” he asked. His little body was now
quite stiff with dignity, and his high, narrow forehead lay in majestic
folds.
“I,” answered the countess,—“I say that Anna Stjärnhök is a clever girl,
and she knew what she was doing when she told Elizabeth that story.”
“You are pleased to misunderstand me,” said the count. “I ask what you
think of this story. Has Countess Märta Dohna tried to persuade her
daughter, my sister, to marry a dismissed priest?”
Countess Märta was silent an instant. Alas, that Henrik, so stupid, so
stupid! Now he was quite on the wrong track. Her hound was pursuing the
hunter himself and letting the hare get away. But if Märta Dohna was
without an answer for an instant, it was not longer.
“Dear friend,” she said with a shrug, “there is a reason for letting all
those old stories about that unhappy man rest,—the same reason which
makes me beg you to suppress all public scandal. It is most probable that
he has perished in the night.”
She spoke in a gentle, commiserating tone, but there was not a word of
truth in what she said.
“Elizabeth has slept late to-day and therefore has not heard that people
have already been sent out on to the lake to look for Herr Berling.
He has not returned to Ekeby, and they fear that he has drowned. The
ice broke up this morning. See, the storm has split it into a thousand
pieces.”
Countess Elizabeth looked out. The lake was almost open.
Then in despair she threw herself on her knees before her husband and
confession rushed from her lips. She had wished to escape God’s justice.
She had lied and dissembled. She had thrown the white mantle of innocence
over her.
“Condemn me, turn me out! I have loved him. Be in no doubt but that I
have loved him! I tear my hair, I rend my clothes with grief. I do not
care for anything when he is dead. I do not care to shield myself. You
shall know the whole truth. My heart’s love I have taken from my husband
and given to a stranger. Oh, I am one of them whom a forbidden love has
tempted.”
You desperate young thing, lie there at your judges’ feet and tell them
all! Welcome, martyrdom! Welcome, disgrace! Welcome! Oh, how shall you
bring the bolt of heaven down on your young head!
Tell your husband how frightened you were when the pain came over you,
mighty and irresistible, how you shuddered for your heart’s wretchedness.
You would rather have met the ghosts of the graveyard than the demons in
your own soul.
Tell them how you felt yourself unworthy to tread the earth. With prayers
and tears you have struggled.
“O God, save me! O Son of God, caster out of devils, save me!” you have
prayed.
Tell them how you thought it best to conceal it all. No one should know
your wretchedness. You thought that it was God’s pleasure to have it so.
You thought, too, that you went in God’s ways when you wished to save the
man you loved. He knew nothing of your love. He must not be lost for your
sake. Did you know what was right? Did you know what was wrong? God alone
knew it, and he had passed sentence upon you. He had struck down your
heart’s idol. He had led you on to the great, healing way of penitence.
Tell them that you know that salvation is not to be found in concealment.
Devils love darkness. Let your judges’ hands close on the scourge! The
punishment shall fall like soothing balm on the wounds of sin. Your heart
longs for suffering.
Tell them all that, while you kneel on the floor and wring your hands in
fierce sorrow, speaking in the wild accents of despair, with a shrill
laugh greeting the thought of punishment and dishonor, until at last your
husband seizes you and drags you up from the floor.
“Conduct yourself as it behooves a Countess Dohna, or I must ask my
mother to chastise you like a child.”
“Do with me what you will!”
Then the count pronounced his sentence:—
“My mother has interceded for you. Therefore you may stay in my house.
But hereafter it is she who commands, and you who obey.”
* * * * *
See the way of the penitent! The young countess has become the most
humble of servants. How long? Oh, how long?
How long shall a proud heart be able to bend? How long can impatient lips
keep silent; how long a passionate hand be held back?
Sweet is the misery of humiliation. When the back aches from the heavy
work the heart is at peace. To one who sleeps a few short hours on a hard
bed of straw, sleep comes uncalled.
Let the older woman change herself into an evil spirit to torture the
younger. She thanks her benefactress. As yet the evil is not dead in her.
Hunt her up at four o’clock every morning! Impose on the inexperienced
workwoman an unreasonable day’s work at the heavy weaving-loom! It is
well. The penitent has perhaps not strength enough to swing the scourge
with the required force.
When the time for the great spring washing comes,[3] Countess Märta has
her stand at the tub in the wash-house. She comes herself to oversee her
work. “The water is too cold in your tub,” she says, and takes boiling
water from a kettle and pours it over her bare arms.
The day is cold, the washerwomen have to stand by the lake and rinse out
the clothes. Squalls rush by and drench them with sleet. Dripping wet and
heavy as lead are the washerwomen’s skirts.
Hard is the work with the wooden clapper. The blood bursts from the
delicate nails.
But Countess Elizabeth does not complain. Praised be the goodness of God!
The scourge’s thorny knots fall softly, as if they were rose-leaves, on
the penitent’s back.
The young woman soon hears that Gösta Berling is alive. Her mother-in-law
had only wanted to cheat her into a confession. Well, what of that? See
the hand of God! He had won over the sinner to the path of atonement.
She grieves for only one thing. How shall it be with her mother-in-law,
whose heart God for her sake has hardened? Ah, he will judge her mildly.
She must show anger to help the sinner to win back God’s love.
She did not know that often a soul that has tried all other pleasures
turns to delight in cruelty. In the suffering of animals and men,
weakened emotions find a source of joy.
The older woman is not conscious of any malice. She thinks she is only
correcting a wanton wife. So she lies awake sometimes at night and broods
over new methods of torture.
One evening she goes through the house and has the countess light her
with a candle. She carries it in her hand without a candlestick.
“The candle is burned out,” says the young woman.
“When there is an end to the candle, the candlestick must burn,” answers
Countess Märta.
And they go on, until the reeking wick goes out in the scorched hand.
But that is childishness. There are tortures for the soul which are
greater than any suffering of the body. Countess Märta invites guests and
makes the mistress of the house herself wait on them at her own table.
That is the penitent’s great day. Strangers shall see her in her
humiliation. They shall see that she is no longer worthy to sit at her
husband’s table. Oh, with what scorn their cold eyes will rest on her!
Worse, much worse it is. Not an eye meets hers. Everybody at the table
sits silent and depressed, men and women equally out of spirits.
But she gathers it all to lay it like coals of fire on her head. Is her
sin so dreadful? Is it a disgrace to be near her?
Then temptation comes. Anna Stjärnhök, who has been her friend, and the
judge at Munkerud, Anna’s neighbor at the table, take hold of her when
she comes, snatch the dish from her, push up a chair, and will not let
her escape.
“Sit there, child, sit there!” says the judge. “You have done no wrong.”
And with one voice all the guests declare that if she does not sit down
at the table, they must all go. They are no executioners. They will
not do Märta Dohna’s bidding. They are not so easily deceived as that
sheep-like count.
“Oh, good gentlemen! Oh, beloved friends! Do not be so charitable. You
force me to cry out my sin. There is some one whom I have loved too
dearly.”
“Child, you do not know what sin is. You do not understand how guiltless
you are. Gösta Berling did not even know that you liked him. Take your
proper place in your home! You have done no wrong.”
They keep up her courage for a while and are themselves suddenly gay as
children. Laughter and jests ring about the board.
These impetuous, emotional people, they are so good; but still they are
sent by the tempter. They want to make her think that she is a martyr,
and openly scoff at Countess Märta as if she were a witch. But they do
not understand. They do not know how the soul longs for purity, nor how
the penitent is driven by his own heart to expose himself to the stones
of the way and the heat of the sun.
Sometimes Countess Märta forces her to sit the whole day long quietly in
the bay window, and then she tells her endless stories of Gösta Berling,
priest and adventurer. If her memory does not hold out, she romances,
only to contrive that his name the whole day shall sound in the young
woman’s ears. That is what she fears most. On those days she feels that
her penance will never end. Her love will not die. She thinks that she
herself will die before it. Her strength begins to give way. She is often
very ill.
“But where is your hero tarrying?” asks the countess, spitefully. “From
day to day I have expected him at the head of the pensioners. Why does
he not take Borg by storm, set you up on a throne, and throw me and your
husband, bound, into a dungeon cell? Are you already forgotten?”
She is almost ready to defend him and say that she herself had forbidden
him to give her any help. But no, it is best to be silent, to be silent
and to suffer.
Day by day she is more and more consumed by the fire of irritation. She
has incessant fever and is so weak that she can scarcely hold herself up.
She longs to die. Life’s strongest forces are subdued. Love and joy do
not dare to move. She no longer fears pain.
* * * * *
It is as if her husband no longer knew that she existed. He sits shut up
in his room almost the whole day and studies indecipherable manuscripts
and essays in old, stained print.
He reads charters of nobility on parchment, from which the seal of Sweden
hangs, large and potent, stamped in red wax and kept in a turned wooden
box. He examines old coats of arms with lilies on a white field and
griffins on a blue. Such things he understands, and such he interprets
with ease. And he reads over and over again speeches and obituary notices
of the noble counts Dohna, where their exploits are compared to those of
the heroes of Israel and the gods of Greece.
Those old things have always given him pleasure. But he does not trouble
himself to think a second time of his young wife.
Countess Märta has said a word which killed the love in him: “She took
you for your money.” No man can bear to hear such a thing. It quenches
all love. Now it was quite one to him what happened to the young woman.
If his mother could bring her to the path of duty, so much the better.
Count Henrik had much admiration for his mother.
This misery went on for a month. Still it was not such a stormy and
agitated time as it may sound when it is all compressed into a few
written pages. Countess Elizabeth was always outwardly calm. Once only,
when she heard that Gösta Berling might be dead, emotion overcame her.
But her grief was so great that she had not been able to preserve her
love for her husband that she would probably have let Countess Märta
torture her to death, if her old housekeeper had not spoken to her one
evening.
“You must speak to the count, countess,” she said. “Good heavens, you are
such a child! You do not perhaps know yourself, countess, what you have
to expect; but I see well enough what the matter is.”
But that was just what she could not say to her husband, while he
cherished such a black suspicion of her.
That night she dressed herself quietly, and went out. She wore an
ordinary peasant-girl’s dress, and had a bundle in her hand. She meant to
run away from her home and never come back.
She did not go to escape pain and suffering. But now she believed that
God had given her a sign that she might go, that she must preserve her
body’s health and strength.
She did not turn to the west across the lake, for there lived one whom
she loved very dearly; nor did she go to the north, for there many of her
friends lived; nor towards the south, for, far, far to the south lay her
father’s home, and she did not wish to come a step nearer; but to the
east she went, for there she knew she had no home, no beloved friend, no
acquaintance, no help nor comfort.
She did not go with a light step, for the thought that she had not yet
appeased God. But still she was glad that she hereafter might bear the
burden of her sin among strangers. Their indifferent glances should rest
on her, soothing as cold steel laid on a swollen limb.
She meant to continue her wandering until she found a lowly cottage at
the edge of the wood, where no one should know her. “You can see what has
happened to me, and my parents have turned me out,” she meant to say.
“Let me have food and a roof over my head here, until I can cam my bread.
I am not without money.”
So she went on in the bright June night, for the month of May had passed
during her suffering. Alas, the month of May, that fair time when the
birches mingle their pale green with the darkness of the pine forest, and
when the south-wind comes again satiated with warmth.
Ah, May, you dear, bright month, have you ever seen a child who is
sitting on its mother’s knee listening to fairy stories? As long as the
child is told of cruel giants and of the bitter suffering of beautiful
princesses, it holds its head up and its eyes open; but if the mother
begins to speak of happiness and sunshine, the little one closes its eyes
and falls asleep with its head against her breast.
And see, fair month of May, such a child am I too. Others may listen to
tales of flowers and sunshine; but for myself I choose the dark nights,
full of visions and adventures, bitter destinies, sorrowful sufferings of
wild hearts.
CHAPTER IV
THE IRON FROM EKEBY
Spring had come, and the iron from all the mines in Värmland was to be
sent to Gothenburg.
But at Ekeby they had no iron to send. In the autumn there had been a
scarcity of water, in the spring the pensioners had been in power.
In their time strong, bitter ale foamed down the broad granite slope of
Björksjö falls, and Löfven’s long lake was filled not with water, but
with brandy. In their time no iron was brought to the forge, the smiths
stood in shirt-sleeves and clogs by the hearth and turned enormous roasts
on long spits, while the boys on long tongs held larded capons over the
coals. In those days they slept on the carpenter’s bench and played cards
on the anvil. In those days no iron was forged.
But the spring came and in the wholesale office in Gothenburg they began
to expect the iron from Ekeby. They looked up the contract made with the
major and his wife, where there were promises of the delivery of many
hundreds of tons.
But what did the pensioners care for the contract? They thought of
pleasure and fiddling and feasting.
Iron came from Stömne, iron from Sölje. From Uddeholm it came, and from
Munkfors, and from all of the many mines. But where is the iron from
Ekeby?
Is Ekeby no longer the chief of Värmland’s iron works? Does no one watch
over the honor of the old estate? Like ashes for the wind it is left in
the hands of shiftless pensioners.
Well, but if the Ekeby hammers have rested, they must have worked at our
six other estates. There must be there enough and more than enough iron.
So Gösta Berling sets out to talk with the managers of the six mines.
He travelled ten miles or so to the north, till he came to Lötafors. It
is a pretty place, there can be no doubt of that. The upper Löfven lies
spread out before it and close behind it has Gurlitta cliff, with steeply
rising top and a look of wildness and romance which well suits an old
mountain. But the smithy, that is not as it ought to be: the swing-wheel
is broken, and has been so a whole year.
“Well, why has it not been mended?”
“The carpenter, my dear friend, the carpenter, the only one in the whole
district who could mend it, has been busy somewhere else. We have not
been able to forge a single ton.”
“Why did you not send after the carpenter?”
“Send after! As if we had not sent after him every day, but he has not
been able to come. He was busy building bowling-alleys and summer-houses
at Ekeby.”
He goes further to the north to Björnidet. Also a beautiful spot, but
iron, is there any iron?
No, of course not. They had had no coal, and they had not been able to
get any money from Ekeby to pay charcoal-burners and teamsters. There had
been no work all winter.
Then Gösta turns to the south. He comes to Hån, and to Löfstafors, far
in in the woods, but he fares no better there. Nowhere have they iron,
and everywhere it seems to be the pensioners’ own fault that such is the
case.
So Gösta turns back to Ekeby, and the pensioners with gloomy looks take
into consideration the fifty tons or so, which are in stock, and their
heads are weighed down with grief, for they hear how all nature sneers at
Ekeby, and they think that the ground shakes with sobs, that the trees
threaten them with angry gestures, and that the grass and weeds lament
that the honor of Ekeby is gone.
But why so many words and so much perplexity? There is the iron from
Ekeby.
There it is, loaded on barges on the Klar River, ready to sail down
the stream, ready to be weighed at Karlstad, ready to be conveyed to
Gothenburg. So it is saved, the honor of Ekeby.
* * * * *
But how is it possible? At Ekeby there was not more than fifty tons of
iron, at the six other mines there was no iron at all. How is it possible
that full-loaded barges shall now carry such an enormous amount of iron
to the scales at Karlstad? Yes, one may well ask the pensioners.
The pensioners are themselves on board the heavy, ugly vessels; they
mean to escort the iron from Ekeby to Gothenburg. They are going to do
everything for their dear iron and not forsake it until it is unloaded on
the wharf in Gothenburg. They are going to load and unload, manage sails
and rudder. They are the very ones for such an undertaking. Is there a
shoal in the Klar River or a reef in the Väner which they do not know?
If they love anything in the world, it is the iron on those barges.
They treat it like the most delicate glass, they spread cloths over it.
Not a bit may lie bare. It it those heavy, gray bars which are going to
retrieve the honor of Ekeby. No stranger may cast indifferent glances on
them.
None of the pensioners have remained at home. Uncle Eberhard has left his
desk, and Cousin Christopher has come out of his corner. No one can hold
back when it is a question of the honor of Ekeby.
Every one knows that often in life occur such coincidences as that
which now followed. He who still can be surprised may wonder that the
pensioners should be lying with their barges at the ferry over the Klar
River just on the morning after when Countess Elizabeth had started
on her wanderings towards the east. But it would certainly have been
more wonderful if the young woman had found no help in her need. It now
happened that she, who had walked the whole night, was coming along the
highway which led down to the ferry, just as the pensioners intended
to push off, and they stood and looked at her while she talked to the
ferryman and he untied his boat. She was dressed like a peasant girl,
and they never guessed who she was. But still they stood and stared at
her, because there was something familiar about her. As she stood and
talked to the ferryman, a cloud of dust appeared on the highway, and in
that cloud of dust they could catch a glimpse of a big yellow coach. She
knew that it was from Borg, that they were out to look for her, and that
she would now be discovered. She could no longer hope to escape in the
ferryman’s boat, and the only hiding-place she saw was the pensioners’
barges. She rushed down to them without seeing who it was on board. And
well it was that she did not see, for otherwise she would rather have
thrown herself under the horses’ feet than have taken her flight thither.
When she came on board she only screamed, “Hide me, hide me!” And then
she tripped and fell on the pile of iron. But the pensioners bade her be
calm. They pushed off hurriedly from the land, so that the barge came
out into the current and bore down towards Karlstad, just as the coach
reached the ferry.
In the carriage sat Count Henrik and Countess Märta. The count ran
forward to ask the ferryman if he had seen his countess. But as Count
Henrik was a little embarrassed to have to ask about a runaway wife, he
only said:—
“Something has been lost!”
“Really?” said the ferryman.
“Something has been lost. I ask if you have seen anything?”
“What are you asking about?”
“Yes, it makes no difference, but something has been lost. I ask if you
have ferried anything over the river to-day?”
By these means he could find out nothing, and Countess Märta had to go
and speak to the man. She knew in a minute, that she whom they sought was
on board one of the heavily gliding barges.
“Who are the people on those barges?”
“Oh, they are the pensioners, as we call them.”
“Ah,” says the countess. “Yes, then your wife is in good keeping, Henrik.
We might as well go straight home.”
On the barge there was no such great joy as Countess Märta believed. As
long as the yellow coach was in sight, the frightened young woman shrank
together on the load motionless and silent, staring at the shore.
Probably she first recognized the pensioners when she had seen the yellow
coach drive away. She started up. It was as if she wanted to escape
again, but she was stopped by the one standing nearest, and she sank back
on the load with a faint moan.
The pensioners dared not speak to her nor ask her any questions. She
looked as if on the verge of madness.
Their careless heads began verily to be heavy with responsibility. This
iron was already a heavy load for unaccustomed shoulders, and now they
had to watch over a young, high-born lady, who had run away from her
husband.
When they had met this young woman at the balls of the winter, one and
another of them had thought of a little sister whom he had once loved.
When he played and romped with that sister he needed to handle her
carefully, and when he talked with her he had learned to be careful not
to use bad words. If a strange boy had chased her too wildly in their
play or had sung coarse songs for her, he had thrown himself on him with
boundless fury and almost pounded the life out of him, for his little
sister should never hear anything bad nor suffer any pain nor ever be met
with anger and hate.
Countess Elizabeth had been like a joyous sister to them all. When she
had laid her little hands in their hard fists, it had been as if she
had said: “Feel how fragile I am, but you are my big brother; you shall
protect me both from others and from yourself.” And they had been courtly
knights as long as they had been with her.
Now the pensioners looked upon her with terror, and did not quite
recognize her. She was worn and thin, her neck was without roundness, her
face transparent. She must have struck herself during her wanderings, for
from a little wound on her temple blood was trickling, and her curly,
light hair, which shaded her brow, was sticky with it. Her dress was
soiled from her long walk on the wet paths, and her shoes were muddy. The
pensioners had a dreadful feeling that this was a stranger. The Countess
Elizabeth they knew never had such wild, glittering eyes. Their poor
little sister had been hunted nearly to madness. It was as if a soul come
down from other spaces was struggling with the right soul for the mastery
of her tortured body.
But there was no need for them to worry over what they should do with
her. The old thought soon waked in her. Temptation had come to her again.
God wished to try her once more. See, she is among friends; does she
intend to leave the path of the penitent?
She rises and cries that she must go.
The pensioners try to calm her. They told her that she was safe. They
would protect her from all persecution.
She only begged to be allowed to get into the little boat, which was
towed after the barge, and row to the land, to continue her wandering.
But they could not let her go. What would become of her? It was better to
remain with them. They were only poor old men, but they would surely find
some way to help her.
Then she wrung her hands and begged them to let her go. But they could
not grant her prayer. She was so exhausted and weak that they thought
that she would die by the roadside.
Gösta Berling stood a short distance away and looked down into the water.
Perhaps the young woman would not wish to see him. He did not know it,
but his thoughts played and smiled. “Nobody knows where she is,” he
thought; “we can take her with us to Ekeby. We will keep her hidden
there, we pensioners, and we will be good to her. She shall be our queen,
our mistress, but no one shall know that she is there. We will guard
her so well, so well. She perhaps would be happy with us; she would be
cherished like a daughter by all the old men.”
He had never dared to ask himself if he loved her. She could not be his
without sin, and he would not drag her down to anything low and wretched,
that he knew. But to have her concealed at Ekeby and to be good to her
after others had been cruel, and to let her enjoy everything pleasant in
life, ah, what a dream, what a blissful dream!
But he wakened out of it, for the young countess was in dire distress,
and her words had the piercing accents of despair. She had thrown herself
upon her knees in the midst of the pensioners and begged them to be
allowed to go.
“God has not yet pardoned me,” she cried. “Let me go!”
Gösta saw that none of the others meant to obey her, and understood that
he must do it. He, who loved her, must do it.
He felt a difficulty in walking, as if his every limb resisted his will,
but he dragged himself to her and said that he would take her on shore.
She rose instantly. He lifted her down into the boat and rowed her to
the east shore. He landed at a little pathway and helped her out of the
boat.
“What is to become of you, countess?” he said.
She lifted her finger solemnly and pointed towards heaven.
“If you are in need, countess—”
He could not speak, his voice failed him, but she understood him and
answered:—
“I will send you word when I need you.”
“I would have liked to protect you from all evil,” he said.
She gave him her hand in farewell, and he was not able to say anything
more. Her hand lay cold and limp in his.
She was not conscious of anything but those inward voices which forced
her to go among strangers. She hardly knew that it was the man she loved
whom she now left.
So he let her go and rowed out to the pensioners again. When he came
up on the barge he was trembling with fatigue and seemed exhausted and
faint. He had done the hardest work of his life, it seemed to him.
For the few days he kept up his courage, until the honor of Ekeby was
saved. He brought the iron to the weighing-office on Kanike point; then
for a long time he lost all strength and love of life.
The pensioners noticed no change in him as long as they were on board. He
strained every nerve to keep his hold on gayety and carelessness, for it
was by gayety and carelessness that the honor of Ekeby was to be saved.
How should their venture at the weighing-office succeed if they came with
anxious faces and dejected hearts?
If what rumor says is true, that the pensioners that time had more sand
than iron on their barges, if it is true that they kept bringing up
and down the same bars to the weighing-office at Kanike point, until
the many hundred tons were weighed; if it is true that all that could
happen because the keeper of the public scales and his men were so well
entertained out of the hampers and wine cases brought from Ekeby, one
must know that they had to be gay on the iron barges.
Who can know the truth now? But if it was so, it is certain that Gösta
Berling had no time to grieve. Of the joy of adventure and danger he felt
nothing. As soon as he dared, he sank into a condition of despair.
As soon as the pensioners had got their certificate of weighing, they
loaded their iron on a bark. It was generally the custom that the captain
of the vessel took charge of the load to Gothenburg, and the Värmland
mines had no more responsibility for their iron when they had got their
certificate that the consignment was filled. But the pensioners would
do nothing by halves, they were going to take the iron all the way to
Gothenburg.
On the way they met with misfortune. A storm broke out in the night, the
vessel was disabled, drove on a reef, and sank with all her precious
load. But if one saw the matter rightly, what did it matter if the iron
was lost? The honor of Ekeby was saved. The iron had been weighed at
the weighing-office at Kanike point. And even if the major had to sit
down and in a curt letter inform the merchants in the big town that he
would not have their money, as they had not got his iron, that made no
difference either. Ekeby was so rich, and its honor was saved.
But if the harbors and locks, if the mines and charcoal-kilns, if the
schooners and barges begin to whisper of strange things? If a gentle
murmur goes through the forests that the journey was a fraud? If it is
asserted through the whole of Värmland that there were never more than
fifty miserable tons on the barges and that the shipwreck was arranged
intentionally? A bold exploit had been carried out, and a real pensioner
prank accomplished. By such things the honor of the old estate is not
blemished.
But it happened so long ago now. It is quite possible that the pensioners
bought the iron or that they found it in some hitherto unknown
store-house. The truth will never be made clear in the matter. The keeper
of the scales will never listen to any tales of fraud, and he ought to
know.
When the pensioners reached home they heard news. Count Dohna’s marriage
was to be annulled. The count had sent his steward to Italy to get proofs
that the marriage had not been legal. He had come back late in the summer
with satisfactory reports. What these were,—well, that I do not know with
certainty. One must treat old tales with care; they are like faded roses.
They easily drop their petals if one comes too near to them. People say
that the ceremony in Italy had not been performed by a real priest. I do
not know, but it certainly is true that the marriage between Count Dohna
and Elizabeth von Thurn was declared at the court at Borg never to have
been any marriage.
Of this the young woman knew nothing. She lived among peasants in some
out-of-the-way place, if she was living.
CHAPTER V
LILLIECRONA’S HOME
Among the pensioners was one whom I have often mentioned as a great
musician. He was a tall, heavily built man, with a big head and bushy,
black hair. He was certainly not more than forty years old at that time,
but he had an ugly, large-featured face and a pompous manner. This made
many think him old. He was a good man, but low-spirited.
One afternoon he took his violin under his arm and went away from Ekeby.
He said no farewell to any one, although he never meant to return. He
loathed the life there ever since he had seen Countess Elizabeth in her
trouble. He walked without resting the whole evening and the whole night,
until at early sunrise he came to a little farm, called Löfdala, which
belonged to him.
It was so early that nobody was as yet awake. Lilliecrona sat down on
the green bench outside the main building and looked at his estate. A
more beautiful place did not exist. The lawn in front of the house lay
in a gentle slope and was covered with fine, light-green grass. There
never was such a lawn. The sheep were allowed to graze there and the
children to romp there in their games, but it was always just as even
and green. The scythe never passed over it, but at least once a week
the mistress of the house had all sticks and straws and dry leaves
swept from the fresh grass. He looked at the gravel walk in front of
the house and suddenly drew his feet back. The children had late in the
evening raked it and his big feet had done terrible harm to the fine
work. Think how everything grew there. The six mountain-ashes which
guarded the place were high as beeches and wide-spreading as oaks. Such
trees had never been seen before. They were beautiful with their thick
trunks covered with yellow lichens, and with big, white flower-clusters
sticking out from the dark foliage. It made him think of the sky and its
stars. It was indeed wonderful how the trees grew there. There stood an
old willow, so thick that the arms of two men could not meet about it.
It was now rotten and hollow, and the lightning had taken the top off
it, but it would not die. Every spring a cluster of green shoots came up
out of the shattered trunk to show that it was alive. That hawthorn by
the east gable had become such a big tree that it overshadowed the whole
house. The roof was white with its dropping petals, for the hawthorn had
already blossomed. And the birches which stood in small clumps here and
there in the pastures, they certainly had found their paradise on his
farm. They developed there in so many different growths, as if they had
meant to imitate all other trees. One was like a linden, thick and leafy
with a wide-spreading arch, another stood close and tall like a poplar,
and a third drooped its branches like a weeping-willow. No one was like
another, and they were all beautiful.
Then he rose and went round the house. There lay the garden, so
wonderfully beautiful that he had to stop and draw a long breath. The
apple-trees were in bloom. Yes, of course he knew that. He had seen it
on all the other farms; but in no other place did they bloom as they did
in that garden, where he had seen them blossom since he was a child.
He walked with clasped hands and careful step up and down the gravel
path. The ground was white, and the trees were white, here and there
with a touch of pink. He had never seen anything so beautiful. He knew
every tree, as one knows one’s brothers and sisters and playmates. The
astrachan trees were quite white, also the winter fruit-trees. But the
russet blossoms were pink, and the crab-apple almost red. The most
beautiful was the old wild apple-tree, whose little, bitter apples nobody
could eat. It was not stingy with its blossoms; it looked like a great
snow-drift in the morning light.
For remember that it was early in the morning! The dew made every leaf
shine, all dust was washed away. Behind the forest-clad hills, close
under which the farm lay, came the first rays of the sun. It was as if
the tops of the pines had been set on fire by them. Over the clover
meadows, over rye and corn fields, and over the sprouting oat-shoots, lay
the lightest of mists, like a thin veil, and the shadows fell sharp as in
moonlight.
He stood and looked at the big vegetable beds between the paths. He knows
that mistress and maids have been at work here. They have dug, raked,
pulled up weeds and turned the earth, until it has become fine and light.
After they have made the beds even and the edges straight they have
taken tapes and pegs and marked out rows and squares. Then they have
sowed and set out, until all the rows and squares have been filled. And
the children have been with them and have been so happy and eager to be
allowed to help, although it has been hard work for them to stand bent
and stretch their arms out over the broad beds. And of great assistance
have they been, as any one can understand.
Now what they had sown began to come up.
God bless them! they stood there so bravely, both peas and beans with
their two thick cotyledons; and how thick and nice had both carrots and
beets come up! The funniest of all were the little crinkled parsley
leaves, which lifted a little earth above them and played bopeep with
life as yet.
And here was a little bed where the lines did not go so evenly and where
the small squares seemed to be an experiment map of everything which
could be set or sowed. That was the children’s garden.
And Lilliecrona put his violin hastily up to his chin and began to play.
The birds began to sing in the big shrubbery which protected the garden
from the north wind. It was not possible for anything gifted with voice
to be silent, so glorious was the morning. The fiddle-bow moved quite of
itself.
Lilliecrona walked up and down the paths and played. “No,” he thought,
“there is no more beautiful place.” What was Ekeby compared to Löfdala.
His home had a thatched roof and was only one story high. It lay at the
edge of the wood, with the mountain above it and the long valley below
it. There was nothing wonderful about it; there was no lake there, no
waterfall, no park, but it was beautiful just the same. It was beautiful
because it was a good, peaceful home. Life was easy to live there.
Everything which in other places caused bitterness and hate was there
smoothed away with gentleness. So shall it be in a home.
Within, in the house, the mistress lies and sleeps in a room which opens
on the garden. She wakes suddenly and listens, but she does not move. She
lies smiling and listening. Then the musician comes nearer and nearer,
and at last it sounds as if he had stopped under her window. It is indeed
not the first time she has heard the violin under her window. He was
in the habit of coming so, her husband, when they had done something
unusually wild there at Ekeby.
He stands there and confesses and begs for forgiveness. He describes to
her the dark powers which tempt him away from what he loves best,—from
her and the children. But he loves them. Oh, of course he loves them!
While he plays she gets up and puts on her clothes without quite knowing
what she is doing. She is so taken up with his playing.
“It is not luxury and good cheer, which tempt me away,” he plays “not
love for other women, nor glory, but life’s seductive changes: its
sweetness, its bitterness, its riches, I must feel about me. But now I
have had enough of it, now I am tired and satisfied. I shall never again
leave my home. Forgive me; have mercy upon me!”
Then she draws aside the curtain and opens the window, and he sees her
beautiful, kind face.
She is good, and she is wise. Her glances bring blessings like the sun’s
on everything they meet. She directs and tends. Where she is, everything
grows and flourishes. She bears happiness within her.
He swings himself up on to the window-sill to her, and is happy as a
young lover.
Then he lifts her out into the garden and carries her down under the
apple-trees. There he explains for her how beautiful everything is, and
shows her the vegetable beds and the children’s garden and the funny
little parsley leaves.
When the children awake, there is joy and rapture that father has come.
They take possession of him. He must see all that is new and wonderful:
the little nail-manufactory which pounds away in the brook, the
bird’s-nest in the willow, and the little minnows in the pond, which swim
in thousands near the surface of the water.
Then father, mother, and children take a long walk in the fields. He
wants to see how close the rye stands, how the clover is growing, and how
the potatoes are beginning to poke up their crumpled leaves.
He must see the cows when they come in from the pasture, visit the
new-comers in the barn and sheep-house, look for eggs, and give all the
horses sugar.
The children hang at his heels the whole day. No lessons, no work; only
to wander about with their father!
In the evening he plays polkas for them, and all day he has been such a
good comrade and playfellow that they fall asleep with a pious prayer
that father may always stay with them.
He stays eight long days, and is joyous as a boy the whole time. He
could stand it no longer, it was too much happiness for him. Ekeby was a
thousand times worse, but Ekeby lay in the midst of the whirl of events.
Oh, how much there was there to dream of and to play of! How could he
live separated from the pensioners’ deeds, and from Löfven’s long lake,
about which adventure’s wild chase rushed onward?
On his own estate everything went on in its calm, wonted way. Everything
flourished and grew under the gentle mistress’s care. Every one was
happy there. Everything which anywhere else could have caused discord
and bitterness passed over there without complaints or pain. Everything
was as it should be. If now the master of the house longed to live as
pensioner at Ekeby, what then? Does it help to complain of heaven’s sun
because it disappears every evening in the west, and leaves the earth in
darkness?
What is so unconquerable as submission? What is so certain of victory as
patience?
CHAPTER VI
THE WITCH OF DOVRE
The witch of Dovre walks on Löfven’s shores. People have seen her there,
little and bent, in a leather skirt and a belt of silver plates. Why
has she come out of the wolf-holes to a human world? What does the old
creature of the mountains want in the green of the valley?
She comes begging. She is mean, greedy for gifts, although she is so
rich. In the clefts of the mountain she hides heavy bars of white silver;
and in the rich meadows far away on the heights feed her great flocks of
black cattle with golden horns. Still she wanders about in birch-bark
shoes and greasy leather skirt soiled with the dirt of a hundred years.
She smokes moss in her pipe and begs of the poorest. Shame on one who is
never grateful, never gets enough!
She is old. When did the rosy glory of youth dwell in that broad face
with its brown greasy skin, in the flat nose and the small eyes, which
gleam in the surrounding dirt like coals of fire in gray ashes? When did
she sit as a young girl on the mountain-side and answer with her horn
the shepherd-boy’s love-songs? She has lived several hundred years. The
oldest do not remember the time when she did not wander through the
land. Their fathers had seen her old when they were young. Nor is she yet
dead. I who write, myself have seen her.
She is powerful. She does not bend for any one. She can summon the hail,
she can guide the lightning. She can lead the herds astray and set wolves
on the sheep. Little good can she do, but much evil. It is best to be on
good terms with her! If she should beg for your only goat and a whole
pound of wool, give it to her; if you don’t the horse will fall, or the
cottage will burn, or the cow will sicken, or the child will die.
A welcome guest she never is. But it is best to meet her with smiling
lips! Who knows for whose sake the bearer of disaster is roaming through
the valley? She does not come only to fill her beggar’s-pouch. Evil omens
go with her; the army worm shows itself, foxes and owls howl and hoot in
the twilight, red and black serpents, which spit venom, crawl out of the
wood up to the very threshold.
Charms can she chant, philters can she brew. She knows all herbs.
Everybody trembles with fear when they see her; but the strong daughter
of the wilderness goes calmly on her way among them, protected by their
dread. The exploits of her race are not forgotten, nor are her own. As
the cat trusts in its claws, so does she trust in her wisdom and in the
strength of her divinely inspired prophecies. No king is more sure of his
might than she of the kingdom of fear in which she rules.
The witch of Dovre has wandered through many villages. Now she has come
to Borg, and does not fear to wander up to the castle. She seldom goes
to the kitchen door. Right up the terrace steps she comes. She plants
her broad birch-bark shoes on the flower-bordered gravel-walks as calmly
as if she were tramping up mountain paths.
Countess Märta has just come out on the steps to admire the beauty of
the June day. Below her two maids have stopped on their way to the
store-house. They have come from the smoke-house, where the bacon is
being smoked, and are carrying newly cured hams on a pole between them.
“Will our gracious Countess feel and smell?” say the maids. “Are the hams
smoked enough?”
Countess Märta, mistress at Borg at that time, leans over the railing and
looks at the hams, but in the same instant the old Finn woman lays her
hand on one of them.
The daughter of the mountains is not accustomed to beg and pray! Is it
not by her grace that flowers thrive and people live? Frost and storm and
floods are all in her power to send. Therefore she does not need to pray
and beg. She lays her hand on what she wants, and it is hers.
Countess Märta, however, knows nothing of the old woman’s power.
“Away with you, beggar-woman!” she says.
“Give me the ham,” says the witch.
“She is mad,” cries the countess. And she orders the maids to go to the
store-house with their burden.
The eyes of the old woman flame with rage and greed.
“Give me the brown ham,” she repeats, “or it will go ill with you.”
“I would rather give it to the magpies than to such as you.”
Then the old woman is shaken by a storm of rage. She stretches towards
heaven her runic-staff and waves it wildly. Her lips utter strange words.
Her hair stands on end, her eyes shine, her face is distorted.
“You shall be eaten by magpies yourself,” she screams at last.
Then she goes, mumbling curses, brandishing her stick. She turns towards
home. Farther towards the south does she not go. She has accomplished her
errand, for which she had travelled down from the mountains.
Countess Märta remains standing on the steps and laughs at her
extravagant anger; but on her lips the laugh will soon die away, for
there they come. She cannot believe her eyes. She thinks that she is
dreaming, but there they come, the magpies who are going to eat her.
From the park and the garden they swoop down on her, magpies by scores,
with claws ready to seize and bills stretched out to strike. They come
with wild screams. Black and white wings gleam before her eyes. She sees
as in delirium behind this swarm the magpies of the whole neighborhood
approaching; the whole heaven is full of black and white wings. In the
bright morning sun the metallic colors of the feathers glisten. In
smaller and smaller circles the monsters fly about the countess, aiming
with beaks and claws at her face and hands. She has to escape into the
hall and shut the door. She leans against it, panting with terror, while
the screaming magpies circle about outside.
From that time on she is shut in from the sweetness and green of the
summer and from the joy of life. For her were only closed rooms and
drawn curtains; for her, despair; for her, terror; for her, confusion,
bordering on madness.
Mad this story too may seem, but it must also be true. Hundreds will
recognize it and bear witness that such is the old tale.
The birds settled down on the railing and the roof. They sat as if they
only waited till the countess should show herself, to throw themselves
upon her. They took up their abode in the park and there they remained.
It was impossible to drive them away. It was only worse if they shot
them. For one that fell, ten came flying. Sometimes great flocks flew
away to get food, but faithful sentries always remained behind. And if
Countess Märta showed herself, if she looked out of a window or only
drew aside the curtain for an instant, if she tried to go out on the
steps,—they came directly. The whole terrible swarm whirled up to the
house on thundering wings, and the countess fled into her inner room.
She lived in the bedroom beyond the red drawing-room. I have often heard
the room described, as it was during that time of terror, when Borg was
besieged by magpies. Heavy quilts before the doors and windows, thick
carpets on the floor, softly treading, whispering people.
In the countess’s heart dwelt wild terror. Her hair turned gray. Her face
became wrinkled. She grew old in a month. She could not steel her heart
to doubt of hateful magic. She started up from her dreams with wild cries
that the magpies were eating her. She wept for days over this fate, which
she could not escape. Shunning people, afraid that the swarm of birds
should follow on the heels of any one coming in, she sat mostly silent
with her hands before her face, rocking backwards and forwards in her
chair, low-spirited and depressed in the close air, sometimes starting up
with cries of lamentation.
No one’s life could be more bitter. Can any one help pitying her?
I have not much more to tell of her now, and what I have said has not
been good. It is as if my conscience smote me. She was good-hearted
and cheerful when she was young, and many merry stories about her have
gladdened my heart, although there has been no space to tell them here.
But it is so, although that poor wayfarer did not know it, that the soul
is ever hungry. On frivolity and play it cannot live. If it gets no other
food, it will like a wild beast first tear others to pieces and then
itself.
That is the meaning of the story.
CHAPTER VII
MIDSUMMER
Midsummer was hot then as now when I am writing. It was the most
beautiful season of the year. It was the season when Sintram, the wicked
ironmaster at Fors, fretted and grieved. He resented the sun’s triumphal
march through the hours of the day, and the overthrow of darkness. He
raged at the leafy dress which clothed the trees, and at the many-colored
carpet which covered the ground.
Everything arrayed itself in beauty. The road, gray and dusty as it was,
had its border of flowers: yellow and purple midsummer blossoms, wild
parsley, and asters.
When the glory of midsummer lay on the mountains and the sound of the
bells from the church at Bro was borne on the quivering air even as far
as Fors, when the unspeakable stillness of the Sabbath day reigned in the
land, then he rose in wrath. It seemed to him as if God and men dared to
forget that he existed, and he decided to go to church, he too. Those who
rejoiced at the summer should see him, Sintram, lover of darkness without
morning, of death without resurrection, of winter without spring.
He put on his wolfskin coat and shaggy fur gloves. He had the red horse
harnessed in a sledge, and fastened bells to the shining horse-collar.
Equipped as if it were thirty degrees below zero, he drove to church. He
believed that the grinding under the runners was from the severe cold. He
believed that the white foam on the horse’s back was hoar-frost. He felt
no heat. Cold streamed from him as warmth from the sun.
He drove over the wide plain north of the Bro church. Large, rich
villages lay near his way, and fields of grain, over which singing larks
fluttered. Never have I heard larks sing as in those fields. Often have I
wondered how he could shut his ears to those hundreds of songsters.
He had to drive by many things on the way which would have enraged him
if he had given them a glance. He would have seen two bending birches at
the door of every house, and through open windows he would have looked
into rooms whose ceilings and walls were covered with flowers and green
branches. The smallest beggar child went on the road with a bunch of
lilacs in her hand, and every peasant woman had a little nosegay stuck in
her neckerchief.
Maypoles with faded flowers and drooping wreaths stood in every yard.
Round about them the grass was trodden down, for the merry dance had
whirled there through the summer night.
Below on the Löfven crowded the floats of timber. The little white sails
were hoisted in honor of the day, although no wind filled them, and every
masthead bore a green wreath.
On the many roads which lead to Bro the congregation came walking. The
women were especially magnificent in the light summer-dresses, which had
been made ready just for that day. All were dressed in their best.
And the people could not help rejoicing at the peace of the day and the
rest from daily work, at the delicious warmth, the promising harvest, and
the wild strawberries which were beginning to redden at the edge of the
road. They noticed the stillness of the air and the song of the larks,
and said: “It is plain that this is the Lord’s day.”
Then Sintram drove up. He swore and swung his whip over the straining
horse. The sand grated horribly under the runners, the sleigh-bells’
shrill clang drowned the sound of the church bells. His brow lay in angry
wrinkles under his fur cap.
The church-goers shuddered and thought they had seen the evil one
himself. Not even to-day on the summer’s festival might they forget evil
and cold. Bitter is the lot of those who wander upon earth.
The people who stood in the shadow of the church or sat on the churchyard
wall and waited for the beginning of the service, saw him with calm
wonder when he came up to the church door. The glorious day had filled
their hearts with joy that they were walking the paths of earth and
enjoying the sweetness of existence. Now, when they saw Sintram,
forebodings of strange disaster came over them.
Sintram entered the church and sat down in his seat, throwing his gloves
on the bench, so that the rattle of the wolves’ claws which were sewed
into the skin was heard through the church. And several women who had
already taken their places on the front benches fainted when they saw the
shaggy form, and had to be carried out.
But no one dared to drive out Sintram. He disturbed the people’s
devotions, but he was too much feared for any one to venture to order him
to leave the church.
In vain the old clergyman spoke of the summer’s bright festival. Nobody
listened to him. The people only thought of evil and cold and of the
strange disaster which the wicked ironmaster announced to them.
When it was over, they saw him walk out on to the slope of the hill where
the Bro church stands. He looked down on the Broby Sound and followed it
with his eyes past the deanery and the three points of the west shore out
into the Löfven. And they saw how he clenched his fist and shook it over
the sound and its green banks. Then his glance turned further south over
the lower Löfven to the misty shores which seemed to shut in the lake,
and northward it flew miles beyond Gurlitta Cliff up to Björnidet, where
the lake began. He looked to the west and east, where the long mountains
border the valley, and he clenched his fist again. And every one felt
that if he had held a bundle of thunderbolts in his right hand, he would
have hurled them in wild joy out over the peaceful country and spread
sorrow and death as far as he could. For now he had so accustomed his
heart to evil that he knew no pleasure except in suffering. By degrees
he had taught himself to love everything ugly and wretched. He was more
insane than the most violent madman, but that no one understood.
Strange stories went about the land after that day. It was said that when
the sexton came to shut up the church, the bit of the key broke, because
a tightly folded paper had been stuck in the keyhole. He gave it to the
dean. It was, as was to be expected, a letter meant for a being in the
other world.
People whispered of what had stood there. The dean had burnt the paper,
but the sexton had looked on while the devil’s trash burned. The letters
had shone bright red on a black ground. He could not help reading. He
read, people said, that Sintram wished to lay the country waste as far
as the Bro church tower was visible. He wished to see the forest grow
up about the church. He wished to see bear and fox living in men’s
dwellings. The fields should lie uncultivated, and neither dog nor cock
should be heard in the neighborhood. He wished to serve his master by
causing every man’s ruin. That was what he promised.
And the people looked to the future in silent despair, for they knew that
his power was great, that he hated everything living, that he wished to
see the wilderness spread through the valley, and that he would gladly
take pestilence or famine or war into his service to drive away every one
who loved good, joy-bringing work.
CHAPTER VIII
MADAME MUSICA
When nothing could make Gösta Berling glad, after he had helped the young
countess to escape, the pensioners decided to seek help of the good
Madame Musica, who is a powerful fairy and consoles many who are unhappy.
So one evening in July they had the doors of the big drawing-room at
Ekeby opened and the shutters taken down. The sun and air were let in,
the late evening’s big, red sun, the cool, mild, steaming air.
The striped covers were taken off the furniture, the piano was opened,
and the net about the Venetian chandelier taken away. The golden griffins
under the white-marble table-tops again reflected the light. The white
goddesses danced above the mirror. The variegated flowers on the silk
damask glistened in the evening glow. Roses were picked and brought in.
The whole room was filled with their fragrance. There were wonderful
roses with unknown names, which had been brought to Ekeby from foreign
lands. There were yellow ones in whose veins the blood shone red as in a
human being’s, and cream-white roses with curled edges, and pink roses
with broad petals, which on their outside edge were as colorless as
water, and dark red with black shadows. They carried in all Altringer’s
roses which had come from far distant lands to rejoice the eyes of lovely
women.
The music and music-stands were brought in, and the brass instruments and
bows and violins of all sizes; for good Madame Musica shall now reign at
Ekeby and try to console Gösta Berling.
Madame Musica has chosen the Oxford Symphony of Hayden, and has had the
pensioners practise it. Julius conducts, and each of the others attends
to his own instrument. All the pensioners can play—they would not
otherwise be pensioners.
When everything is ready Gösta is sent for. He is still weak and
low-spirited, but he rejoices in the beautiful room and in the music he
soon shall hear. For every one knows that for him who suffers and is in
pain good Madame Musica is the best company. She is gay and playful like
a child. She is fiery and captivating like a young woman. She is good and
wise like the old who have lived a good life.
And then the pensioners began to play, so gently, so murmuringly soft.
It goes well, it goes brilliantly well. From the dead notes they charm
Madame Musica herself. Spread out your magic cloak, dear Madame Musica,
and take Gösta Berling to the land of gladness, where he used to live.
Alas that it is Gösta Berling who sits there pale and depressed, and whom
the old men must amuse as if he were a child. There will be no more joy
now in Värmland.
I know why the old people loved him. I know how long a winter evening can
be, and how gloom can creep over the spirit in those lonely farm-houses.
I understand how it felt when he came.
Ah, fancy a Sunday afternoon, when work is laid aside and the thoughts
are dull! Fancy an obstinate north wind, whipping cold into the room,—a
cold which no fire can relieve! Fancy the single tallow-candle, which has
to be continually snuffed! Fancy the monotonous sound of psalms from the
kitchen!
Well, and then bells come ringing, eager feet stamp off the snow in the
hall, and Gösta Berling comes into the room. He laughs and jokes. He is
life, he is warmth. He opens the piano, and he plays so that they are
surprised at the old strings. He can sing all songs, play any tune. He
makes all the inmates of the house happy. He was never cold, he was never
tired. The mourner forgot his sorrows when he saw him. Ah, what a good
heart he had! How compassionate he was to the weak and poor! And what a
genius he was! Yes, you ought to have heard the old people talk of him.
But now, just as they were playing, he burst into tears. He thinks life
is so sad. He rests his head in his hands and weeps. The pensioners
are dismayed. These are not mild, healing tears, such as Madame Musica
generally calls forth. He is sobbing like one in despair. At their wits’
end they put their instruments away.
And the good Madame Musica, who loves Gösta Berling, she too almost loses
courage; but then she remembers that she has still a mighty champion
among the pensioners.
It is the gentle Löwenborg, he who had lost his fiancée in the muddy
river, and who is more Gösta Berling’s slave than any of the others. He
steals away to the piano.
In the pensioners’ wing Löwenborg has a great wooden table, on which
he has painted a keyboard and set up a music-stand. There he can sit
for hours at a time and let his fingers fly over the black and white
keys. There he practises both scales and studies, and there he plays his
Beethoven. He never plays anything but Beethoven.
But the old man never ventures on any other instrument than the wooden
table. For the piano he has a respectful awe. It tempts him, but it
frightens him even more. The clashing instrument, on which so many polkas
have been drummed, is a sacred thing to him. He has never dared to touch
it. Think of that wonderful thing with its many strings, which could give
life to the great master’s works! He only needs to put his ear to it, to
hear andantes and scherzos murmuring there. But he has never played on
such a thing. He will never be rich enough to buy one of his own, and
on this he has never dared to play. The major’s wife was not so willing
either to open it for him.
He has heard how polkas and waltzes have been played on it. But in such
profane music the noble instrument could only clash and complain. No, if
Beethoven should come, then it would let its true, clear sound be heard.
Now he thinks that the moment is come for him and Beethoven. He will take
courage and touch the holy thing, and let his young lord and master be
gladdened by the sleeping harmonies.
He sits down and begins to play. He is uncertain and nervous, but he
gropes through a couple of bars, tries to bring out the right ring,
frowns, tries again, and puts his hands before his face and begins to
weep.
Yes, it is a bitter thing. The sacred thing is not sacred. There are
no clear, pure tones hidden and dreaming in it; there are no mighty
thunders, no rushing hurricanes. None of the endless harmonies direct
from heaven had remained there. It is an old, worn-out piano, and nothing
more.
But then Madame Musica gives the colonel a hint. He takes Ruster with him
and they go to the pensioners’ wing and get Löwenborg’s table, where the
keys are painted.
“See here, Löwenborg,” says Beerencreutz, when they come back, “here is
your piano. Play for Gösta!”
Then Löwenborg stops crying and sits down to play Beethoven for his
sorrowful young friend. Now he would certainly be glad again.
In the old man’s head sound the most heavenly tones. He cannot think but
that Gösta hears how beautifully he is playing. He meets with no more
difficulties. He plays his runs and trills with the greatest ease. He
would have liked that the master himself could have heard him.
The longer he plays, the more he is carried away. He hears every note
with unearthly clearness. He sits there glowing with enthusiasm and
emotion, hearing the most wonderful tones, certain that Gösta must hear
them too and be comforted.
Gösta sat and looked at him. At first he was angry at this foolery, but
gradually he became of milder mood. He was irresistible, the old man, as
he sat and enjoyed his Beethoven.
And Gösta began to think how this man too, who now was so gentle and so
careless, had been sunk in suffering, how he too had lost her whom he
loved. And now he sat beamingly happy at his wooden table. Nothing more
was needed to add to his bliss.
He felt humbled. “What, Gösta,” he said to himself, “can you no longer
bear and suffer? You who have been hardened by poverty all your life,
you who have heard every tree in the forest, every tuft in the meadow
preach of resignation and patience, you who have been brought up in a
land where the winter is severe and the summer short,—have you forgotten
how to endure?”
Ah Gösta, a man must bear all that life offers with a brave heart and
smiling lip, or he is no man. Regret as much as you like if you have lost
what you hold dearest, let remorse tear at your vitals, but show yourself
a man. Let your glance shine with gladness, and meet your friends with
cheerful words!
Life is hard, nature is hard. But they both give courage and cheerfulness
as compensations for their hardness, or no one could hold out.
Courage and cheerfulness! It is as if they were the first duties of life.
You have never failed in them before, and shall not now.
Are you worse than Löwenborg, who sits there at his wooden piano, than
all the other pensioners? You know well enough that none of them have
escaped suffering!
And then Gösta looks at them. Oh, such a performance! They all are
sitting there so seriously and listening to this music which nobody hears.
Suddenly Löwenborg is waked from his dreams by a merry laugh. He lifts
his hands from the keys and listens as if in rapture. It is Gösta
Berling’s old laugh, his good, kind, infectious laugh. It is the sweetest
music the old man has heard in all his life.
“Did I not say that Beethoven would help you, Gösta,” he cries. “Now you
are yourself again.”
So did the good Madame Musica cure Gösta Berling’s hypochondria.
CHAPTER IX
THE BROBY CLERGYMAN
Eros, all-powerful god, you know well that it often seems as if a man
should have freed himself from your might. All the tender feelings which
unite mankind seem dead in his heart. Madness stretches its claws after
the unhappy one, but then you come in all your power, and like the great
saint’s staff the dried-up heart bursts into bloom.
No one is so mean as the Broby clergyman, no one more divided by malice
and uncharitableness from his fellow-men. His rooms are unheated in the
winter, he sits on an unpainted wooden seat, he dresses in rags, lives on
dry bread, and is furious if a beggar enters his door. He lets the horse
starve in the stable and sells the hay, his cows nibble the dry grass at
the roadside and the moss on the wall. The bleating of the hungry sheep
can be heard far along the highway. The peasants throw him presents of
food which their dogs will not eat, of clothes which their poor disdain.
His hand is stretched out to beg, his back bent to thank. He begs of the
rich, lends to the poor. If he sees a piece of money his heart aches with
longing till he gets it into his pocket. Unhappy is he who has not his
affairs in order on the day of payment!
He was married late in life, but it had been better if he had never
been. Exhausted and overworked, his wife died. His daughter serves with
strangers. He is old, but age grants him no relief in his struggling.
The madness of avarice never leaves him.
But one fine day in the beginning of August a heavy coach, drawn by four
horses, drives up Broby hill. A delicate old lady comes driving in great
state, with coachman and footman and lady’s-maid. She comes to meet the
Broby clergyman. She had loved him in the days of her youth.
He had been tutor at her father’s house, and they had loved one another,
although her proud family had separated them. And now she is journeying
up Broby hill to see him before she dies. All that is left to her in life
is to see once again the beloved of her youth.
She sits in the great carriage and dreams. She is not driving up Broby
hill to a poor little pastorage. She is on her way to the cool leafy
arbor down in the park, where her lover is waiting. She sees him; he is
young, he can kiss, he can love. Now, when she knows that she soon shall
meet him his image rises before her with singular clearness. He is so
handsome, so handsome! He can adore, he can burn, he fills her whole
being with rapture.
Now she is sallow, withered, and old. Perhaps he will not recognize her
with her sixty years, but she has not come to be seen, but to see, to see
the beloved of her youth, who has gone through life untouched by time,
who is ever young, beautiful, glowing.
She has come from so far away that she has not heard a word of the Broby
clergyman.
The coach clatters up the hill, and at the summit the pastorage is
visible.
“For the love of God,” whines a beggar at the wayside, “a copper for a
poor man!”
The noble lady gives him a piece of silver and asks where the Broby
pastorage is.
“The pastorage is in front of you,” he says, “but the clergyman is not at
home, there is no one at the pastorage.”
The little lady seems to fade away. The cool arbor vanishes, her lover is
not there. How could she expect, after forty years, to find him there?
What had the gracious lady to do at the vicarage?
She had come to meet the minister. She had known him in the old days.
Forty years and four hundred miles have separated them. And for each ten
miles she has come nearer she has left behind her a year with its burden
of sorrows and memories, so that when she now comes to the vicarage she
is a girl of twenty again, without a care or a regret.
The beggar stands and looks at her, sees her change under his eyes from
twenty to sixty, and from sixty back again to twenty.
“The minister is coming home this afternoon,” he says. The gracious lady
would do best to drive down to the Broby inn and come again later. In the
afternoon, the beggar can answer for it, the minister will be at home.
A moment after, the heavy coach with the little faded lady rolls down the
hill to the inn, but the beggar stands trembling and looks after her. He
feels that he ought to fall on his knees and kiss the wheel tracks.
Elegant, newly shaven, and washed, in shoes with shining buckles, with
silk stockings, with ruffles and frills, the Broby clergyman stands at
noon that same day before the dean’s wife at Bro.
“A fine lady,” he says, “a count’s daughter. Do you think that I,
poor man, can ask her to come into my house? My floors are black, my
drawing-room without furniture, the dining-room ceiling is green with
mildew and damp. Help me! Remember that she is a noble count’s daughter!”
“Say that you have gone away!”
“My dear lady, she has come four hundred miles to see me, poor man. She
does not know how it is. I have not a bed to offer her. I have not a bed
for her servants!”
“Well, let her go again.”
“Dear heart! Do you not understand what I mean? I would rather give
everything I possess, everything that I have gathered together by
industry and striving, than that she should go without my having received
her under my roof. She was twenty when I saw her last, and it is now
forty years ago! Help me, that I may see her in my house! Here is money,
if money can help, but here more than money is needed.”
Oh, Eros, women love you. They would rather go a hundred steps for you
than one for other gods.
In the deanery at Bro the rooms are emptied, the kitchen is emptied, the
larder is emptied. Wagons are piled up and driven to the vicarage. When
the dean comes home from the communion service, he will find empty rooms,
look in through the kitchen door to ask after his dinner and find no one
there. No dinner, no wife, no maids! What was to be done?
Eros has so wished it.
A little later in the afternoon the heavy coach comes clattering up Broby
hill. And the little lady sits and wonders if any new mischance shall
happen, if it is really true that she is now going to meet her life’s
only joy.
Then the coach swings into the vicarage, there comes some one, there he
comes. He lifts her out of the carriage, he takes her on his arm, strong
as ever, she is clasped in an embrace as warm as of old, forty years ago.
She looks into his eyes; which glow as they did when they had only seen
five and twenty summers.
A storm of emotion comes over her—warmer than ever. She remembers that he
once carried her up the steps to the terrace. She, who believed that her
love had lived all these years, had forgotten what it was to be clasped
in strong arms, to look into young, glowing eyes.
She does not see that he is old. She only sees his eyes.
She does not see the black floors, the mildewed ceilings, she only sees
his glowing eyes. The Broby clergyman is a stately man, a handsome man in
that hour. He grows handsome when he looks at her.
She hears his voice, his dear, strong voice; caressingly it sounds. He
only speaks so to her. Why did he need furniture from the deanery for his
empty rooms; why food, why servants? The old lady would never have missed
anything. She hears his voice and sees his eyes.
Never, never before has she been so happy.
She knows that he has been married, but she does not remember it. How
could she remember such a thing? She is twenty, he twenty-five. Shall he
become the mean Broby clergyman, that smiling youth? The wailing of the
poor, the curses of the defrauded, the scornful gibes, the caricatures,
the sneers, all that as yet does not exist for him. His heart burns only
with a pure and innocent love. Never shall that proud youth love gold so
that he will creep after it in the dirt, beg it from the wayfarer, suffer
humiliation, suffer disgrace, suffer cold, suffer hunger to get it. Shall
he starve his child, torture his wife, for that same miserable gold? It
is impossible. Such he can never be. He is a good man like all others. He
is not a monster.
The beloved of his youth does not walk by the side of a despised wretch,
unworthy of the profession he has dared to undertake!
Oh, Eros, not that evening! That evening he is not the Broby clergyman,
nor the next day either, nor the day after.
The day after that she goes.
What a dream, what a beautiful dream! For these three days not a cloud!
She journeyed smiling home to her castle and her memories. She never
heard his name again, she never asked after him. She wanted to dream that
dream as long as she lived.
The Broby clergyman sat in his lonely home and wept. She had made him
young. Must he now be old again? Should the evil spirit return and he be
despicable, contemptible, as he had been?
CHAPTER X
PATRON JULIUS
Patron Julius carried down his red painted wooden chest from the
pensioners’ wing. He filled with fragrant brandy a green keg, which had
followed him on many journeys, and in the big carved luncheon-box he put
butter, bread, and seasoned cheese, deliciously shading in green and
brown, fat ham, and pan-cakes swimming in raspberry jam.
Then Patron Julius went about and said farewell, with tears in his eyes,
to all the glory of Ekeby. He caressed for the last time the worn balls
in the bowling-alley and the round-cheeked youngsters on the estate. He
went about to the arbors in the garden and the grottos in the park. He
was in stable and cow-house, patted the horses’ necks, shook the angry
bull’s horns, and let the calves lick his bare hand. Finally he went with
weeping eyes to the main building, where the farewell breakfast awaited
him.
Woe to our existence! How can it be full of so much darkness? There was
poison in the food, gall in the wine.
The pensioners’ throats were compressed by emotion as well as his own. A
mist of tears dimmed the eyes. The farewell speech was broken by sobs.
Woe to our existence! His life would be, from now on, one long desire.
He would never smile again; the ballads should die from his memory as
flowers die in the autumn ground. He should grow pale and thin, wither
like a frost-bitten rose, like a thirsting lily. Never more should the
pensioners see poor Julius. Heavy forebodings traversed his soul, just as
shadows of wind-swept clouds traverse our newly tilled fields. He would
go home to die.
Blooming with health and well-being, he now stood before them. Never
again should they see him so. Never more should they jestingly ask him
when he last saw his feet; never more should they wish for his cheeks for
bowls. In liver and lungs the disease had already settled. It was gnawing
and consuming. He had felt it long. His days were numbered.
Oh, will the Ekeby pensioners but remember death? Oh, may they never
forget him!
Duty called him. There in his home sat his mother and waited for him. For
seventeen years she had waited for him to come home from Ekeby. Now she
had written a summoning letter, and he would obey. He knew that it would
be his death; but he would obey like a good son.
Oh, the glorious feasts! Oh, the fair shores, the proud falls! Oh, the
wild adventures, the white, smooth floors, the beloved pensioners’ wing!
Oh, violins and horns, oh, life of happiness and pleasure! It was death
to be parted from all that.
Then Patron Julius went out into the kitchen and said farewell to
the servants of the house. Each and all, from the housekeeper to
kitchen-girl, he embraced and kissed in overflowing emotion. The maids
wept and lamented over his fate: that such a kind and merry gentleman
should die, that they should never see him again.
Patron Julius gave command that his chaise should be dragged out of the
carriage-house and his horse taken out of the stable.
His voice almost failed him when he gave that order. So the chaise
might not mould in peace at Ekeby, so old Kajsa must be parted from the
well-known manger. He did not wish to say anything hard about his mother;
but she ought to have thought of the chaise and Kajsa, if she did not
think of him. How would they bear the long journey?
The most bitter of all was to take leave of the pensioners.
Little, round Patron Julius, more built to roll than to walk, felt
himself tragic to his very fingertips. He felt himself the great
Athenian, who calmly emptied the poison cup in the circle of weeping
students. He felt himself the old King Gösta, who prophesied to Sweden’s
people that they some day should wish to tear him up from the dust.
Finally he sang his best ballad for them. He thought of the swan, who
dies in singing. It was so, he hoped, that they would remember him,—a
kingly spirit, which does not lower itself to complaining, but goes its
way, borne on melody.
At last the last cup was emptied, the last song sung, the last embrace
given. He had his coat on, and he held the whip in his hand. There was
not a dry eye about him; his own were so filled by sorrow’s rising mist
that he could not see anything.
Then the pensioners seized him and lifted him up. Cheers thundered about
him. They put him down somewhere, he did not see where. A whip cracked,
the carriage seemed to move under him. He was carried away. When he
recovered the use of his eyes he was out on the highway.
The pensioners had really wept and been overcome by deep regret; still
their grief had not stifled all the heart’s glad emotions. One of
them—was it Gösta Berling, the poet, or Beerencreutz, the card-playing
old warrior, or the life-weary Cousin Christopher?—had arranged it
so that old Kajsa did not have to be taken from her stall, nor the
mouldering chaise from the coach-house. Instead, a big spotted ox had
been harnessed to a hay-wagon, and after the red chest, the green
keg, and the carved luncheon-box had been put in there, Patron Julius
himself, whose eyes were dim with tears, was lifted up, not on to the
luncheon-box, nor on to the chest, but on to the spotted ox’s back.
For so is man, too weak to meet sorrow in all its bitterness! The
pensioners honestly mourned for their friend, who was going away to
die,—that withered lily, that mortally wounded singing swan; yet the
oppression of their hearts was relieved when they saw him depart riding
on the big ox’s back, while his fat body was shaken with sobs, his arms,
outspread for the last embrace, sank down in despair, and his eyes sought
sympathy in an unkind heaven.
Out on the highway the mists began to clear for Patron Julius, and he
perceived that he was sitting on the shaking back of an animal. And then
people say that he began to ponder on what can happen in seventeen long
years. Old Kajsa was visibly changed. Could the oats and clover of Ekeby
cause so much? And he cried—I do not know if the stones in the road or
the birds in the bushes heard it, but true it is that he cried—“The devil
may torture me, if you have not got horns, Kajsa!”
After another period of consideration he let himself slide gently down
from the back of the ox, climbed up into the wagon, sat down on the
luncheon-box, and drove on, deep in his thoughts.
After a while, when he has almost reached Broby, he hears singing.
It was the merry young ladies from Berga, and some of the judge’s pretty
daughters, who were walking along the road. They had fastened their
lunch-baskets on long sticks, which rested on their shoulders like guns,
and they were marching bravely on in the summer’s heat, singing in good
time.
“Whither away, Patron Julius?” they cried, when they met him, without
noticing the cloud of grief which obscured his brow.
“I am departing from the home of sin and vanity,” answered Patron Julius.
“I will dwell no longer among idlers and malefactors. I am going home to
my mother.”
“Oh,” they cried, “it is not true; you do not want to leave Ekeby, Patron
Julius!”
“Yes,” he said, and struck his wooden chest with his fist. “As Lot
fled from Sodom and Gomorrah, so do I flee from Ekeby. There is not a
righteous man there. But when the earth crumbles away under them, and the
sulphur rain patters down from the sky, I shall rejoice in God’s just
judgment. Farewell, girls; beware of Ekeby!”
Whereupon he wished to continue on his way; but that was not at all
their plan. They meant to walk up to Dunder Cliff, to climb it; but the
road was long, and they felt inclined to ride in Julius’ wagon to the
foot of the mountain. Inside of two minutes the girls had got their way.
Patron Julius turned back and directed his course towards Dunder Cliff.
Smiling, he sat on his chest, while the wagon was filled with girls.
Along the road grew daisies and buttercups. The ox had to rest every now
and then for a while. Then the girls climbed out and picked flowers. Soon
gaudy wreaths hung on Julius’ head and the ox’s horns.
Further on they came upon bright young birches and dark alder-bushes.
They got out and broke branches to adorn the wagon. It looked, soon, like
a moving grove. It was fun and play the whole day.
Patron Julius became milder and brighter as the day went on. He divided
his provisions among the girls, and sang ballads for them. When they
stood on the top of Dunder Cliff, with the wide panorama lying below, so
proud and beautiful that tears came into their eyes at its loveliness,
Julius felt his heart beat violently; words poured from his lips, and he
spoke of his beloved land.
“Ah, Värmland,” he said, “ever beautiful, ever glorious! Often, when
I have seen thee before me on a map, I have wondered what thou might
represent; but now I understand what thou art. Thou art an old, pious
hermit, who sits quiet and dreams, with crossed legs and hands resting in
his lap. Thou hast a pointed cap drawn down over thy half-shut eyes. Thou
art a muser, a holy dreamer, and thou art very beautiful. Wide forests
are thy dress. Long bands of blue water and parallel chains of blue hills
border it. Thou art so simple that strangers do not see how beautiful
thou art. Thou art poor, as the devout desire to be. Thou sittest still,
while Vänern’s waves wash thy feet and thy crossed legs. To the left thou
hast thy fields of ore and thy iron-works. There is thy beating heart.
To the north thou hast the dark, beautiful regions of the wilderness, of
mystery. There is thy dreaming head.
“When I see thee, gigantic, serious, my eyes are filled with tears. Thou
art stern in thy beauty. Thou art meditation, poverty, resignation; and
yet I see in thy sternness the tender features of kindness. I see thee
and worship. If I only look into the deep forest, if only the hem of thy
garment touches me, my spirit is healed. Hour after hour, year after
year, I have gazed into thy holy countenance. What mystery are you hiding
under lowered eyelids, thou spirit of resignation? Hast thou solved the
enigma of life and death, or art thou wondering still, thou holy, thou
giant-like? For me thou art the keeper of great, serious thoughts. But I
see people crawl on thee and about thee, creatures who never seem to see
the majesty of earnestness on thy brow. They only see the beauty of thy
face and thy limbs, and are so charmed by it that they forget all else.
“Woe is me, woe to us all, children of Värmland! Beauty, beauty and
nothing else, we demand of life. We, children of renunciation, of
seriousness, of poverty, raise our hands in one long prayer, and ask the
one good: beauty. May life be like a rose-bush, with blossoms of love,
wine, and pleasure, and may its roses be within every man’s reach! Yes,
that is what we wish, and our land wears the features of sternness,
earnestness, renunciation. Our land is the eternal symbol of meditation,
but we have no thoughts.
“Oh, Värmland, beautiful and glorious!”
So he spoke, with tears in his eyes, and with voice vibrating with
inspiration. The young girls heard him with wonder and not without
emotion. They had little guessed the depth of feeling which was hidden
under that surface, glittering with jests and laughter.
When it drew towards evening, and they once more climbed into the
hay-wagon, the girls hardly knew whither Patron Julius drove them, until
they stopped before the steps at Ekeby.
“Now we will go in here and have a dance, girls,” said Patron Julius.
What did the pensioners say when they saw Patron Julius come with a
withered wreath round his hat, and the hay-cart full of girls?
“We might have known that the girls had carried him off,” they said;
“otherwise we should have had him back here several hours earlier.” For
the pensioners remembered that this was exactly the seventeenth time
Patron Julius had tried to leave Ekeby, once for every departing year.
Now Patron Julius had already forgotten both this attempt and all the
others. His conscience slept once more its year-long sleep.
He was a doughty man, Patron Julius. He was light in the dance, gay at
the card-table. Pen, pencil, and fiddle-bow lay equally well in his hand.
He had an easily moved heart, fair words on his tongue, a throat full
of songs. But what would have been the good of all that if he had not
possessed a conscience, which made itself be felt only once a year, like
the dragon-flies, which free themselves from the gloomy depths and take
wings to live only a few hours in the light of day and in the glory of
the sun?
CHAPTER XI
THE PLASTER SAINTS
Svartsjö church is white both outside and in: the walls are white, the
pulpit, the seats, the galleries, the roof, the window-sashes, the
altar-cloth,—everything is white. In Svartsjö church are no decorations,
no pictures, no coats of arms. Over the altar stands only a wooden cross
with a white linen cloth. But it was not always so. Once the roof was
covered with paintings, and many colored images of stone and plaster
stood in that house of God.
Once, many years ago, an artist in Svartsjö had stood and watched the
summer sky and the path of the clouds across the sun. He had seen those
white, shining clouds, which in the morning float low on the horizon,
pile themselves up higher and higher and raise themselves to storm
the heavens. They set up sails like ships. They raised standards like
warriors. They encroached on the whole sky. They placed themselves before
the sun, those growing monsters, and took on wonderful shapes. There was
a devouring lion; it changed into a powdered lady. There was a giant
with outstretched arms; he laid himself down as a dreaming sphinx. Some
adorned their white nakedness with gold-bordered mantles; others spread
rouge over snowy cheeks. There were plains. There were forests. There
were walled castles with high towers. The white clouds were lords of the
summer sky. They filled the whole blue arch. They reached up to the sun
and hid it.
“Oh, how beautiful,” thought the gentle artist, “if the longing spirits
could climb up on those towering mountains and be carried on those
rocking ships ever higher and higher upwards!”
And all at once he understood that the white clouds were the vessels on
which the souls of the blessed were carried.
He saw them there. They stood on the gliding masses with lilies in their
hands and golden crowns on their heads. Space echoed with their song.
Angels circled down on broad, strong wings to meet them. Oh, what a host
there were! As the clouds spread out, more and more were visible. They
lay on the cloud-beds like water-lilies on a pond; they adorned them,
as lilies adorn the meadow. Cloud after cloud rolled up. And all were
filled with heavenly hosts in armor of silver, of immortal singers in
purple-bordered mantles.
That artist had afterwards painted the roof in the Svartsjö church. He
had wished to reproduce there the mounting clouds of the summer day,
which bore the blessed to the kingdom of heaven. The hand which had
guided the pencil had been strong, but also rather stiff, so that the
clouds resembled more the curling locks of a full-bottomed wig than
mountains of soft mist. And the form the holy ones had taken for the
painter’s fancy he was not able to give them again, but instead clothed
them in long, red cloaks, and stiff bishops’ mitres, or in black robes
with stiff ruffles. He had given them big heads and small bodies, and he
had provided them with handkerchiefs and prayer-books. Latin sentences
flew out of their mouths; and for them whom he meant to be the greatest,
he had constructed solid wooden chairs on the backs of the clouds, so
that they could be carried sitting comfortably to the everlasting life.
But every one knew that spirits and angels had never shown themselves
to the poor artist, and so they were not much surprised that he had not
been able to give them celestial beauty. The good master’s pious work had
seemed to many wonderfully fine, and much holy emotion had it wakened. It
would have been worthy to have been looked at by our eyes as well.
But during the pensioners’ year, Count Dohna had the whole church
whitewashed. Then the paintings on the roof were destroyed. And all the
plaster saints were also taken away.
Alas! the plaster saints!
There was a Saint Olof with crown on helm, an axe in his hand, and a
kneeling giant under his feet; on the pulpit was a Judith in a red
jacket and blue skirt, with a sword in one hand and an hour-glass in the
other,—instead of the Assyrian general’s head; there was a mysterious
Queen of Sheba in a blue jacket and red skirt, with a web-foot on one leg
and her hands full of Sibylline books; there was a gray Saint Göran lying
alone on a bench in the choir, for both horse and dragon had been broken
away; there was Saint Christopher with the flowering staff, and Saint
Erik with sceptre and axe, dressed in a flowing brocaded cloak.
These saints were always losing their sceptres or their ears or hands
and had to be mended and cleaned. The congregation wearied of it, and
longed to be rid of them. But the peasants would never have done the
saints any injury if Count Henrik Dohna had not existed. It was he who
had them taken away.
When Count Dohna had caused his marriage to be declared null and
void, instead of seeking out his wife and having it made legal, much
indignation had arisen; for every one knew that his wife had left his
house only not to be tortured to death. It seemed now as if he wanted
to win back God’s grace and men’s respect by a good work, and so he had
Svartsjö church repaired. He had the whole church whitewashed and the
paintings torn down. He and his men carried the images out in a boat and
sank them in the depths of the Löfven.
How could he dare to lay his hand on those mighty ones of the Lord?
Did the hand which struck off Holofernes’ head no longer hold a sword?
Had Sheba’s queen forgotten all secret knowledge, which wounds more
deeply than a poisoned arrow? Saint Olof, Saint Olof, old viking, Saint
Göran, old dragon-killer, the noise of your deeds is, then, dead! But
it was best that the saints did not wish to use force against their
destroyers. Since the Svartsjö peasants would not pay for paint for their
robes and gilding for their crowns, they allowed Count Dohna to carry
them out and sink them in Löfven’s bottomless depths. They would not
stand there and disfigure God’s house.
I thought of that boat with its load of saints gliding over Löfven’s
surface on a quiet summer evening in August. The man who rowed took
slow strokes, and threw timorous glances at the strange passengers which
lay in the bow and stern; but Count Dohna, who was also there, was not
afraid. He took them one by one and threw them into the water. His brow
was clear and he breathed deep. He felt like a defender of the pure
Evangelical religion. And no miracle was performed in the old saints’
honor. Silent and dejected they sank down into annihilation.
But the next Sunday morning Svartsjö church stood gleamingly white. No
images disturbed the peace of meditation. Only with the eyes of the soul
could the virtuous contemplate the glory of heaven and the faces of the
blessed.
But the earth, men’s beloved dwelling, is green, the sky is blue. The
world glows with colors. Why should the church be white? White as winter,
naked as poverty, pale as grief! It does not glitter with hoar-frost like
a wintry wood; it does not shine in pearls and lace like a white bride.
The church stands in white, cold whitewash, without an image, without a
picture.
That Sunday Count Dohna sat in a flower-trimmed arm-chair in the choir,
to be seen and to be praised by all men. He who had had the old benches
mended, destroyed the disfiguring images, had set new glass in all the
broken windows, and had the whole church whitewashed, should now be
honored. If he wished to soften the Almighty’s anger, it was right that
he had adorned His temple as well as he knew how. But why did he take
praise for it?
He, who came with implacable sternness on his conscience, ought to have
fallen on his knees and begged his brothers and sisters in the church
to implore God to suffer him to come into his sanctuary. It would have
been better for him if he had stood there like a miserable culprit than
that he should sit honored and blessed in the choir, and receive praise
because he had wished to make his peace with God.
When the service was over and the last psalm sung, no one left the
church, for the clergyman was to make a speech of thanks to the count.
But it never went so far.
For the doors were thrown open, back into the church came the old saints,
dripping with Löfven’s water, stained with green slime and brown mud.
They must have heard that here the praise of him who had destroyed them,
who had driven them out of God’s holy house and sunk them in the cold,
dissolving waves, should be sung. The old saints wanted to have their
share in the entertainment.
They do not love the waves’ monotonous ripple. They are used to psalms
and prayers. They held their peace and let it all happen, as long as
they believed that it would be to the honor of God. But it was not so.
Here sits Count Dohna in honor and glory in the choir and wishes to be
worshipped and praised in the house of God. They cannot suffer such a
thing. Therefore they have risen from their watery grave and march into
the church, easily recognizable to all. There is Saint Olof, with crown
on hat, and Saint Erik, with gold-brocaded cloak, and the gray Saint
Göran and Saint Christopher; no more; the Queen of Sheba and Judith had
not come.
But when the people have recovered a little from their amazement, an
audible whisper goes through the church,—
“The pensioners!”
Yes, of course it is the pensioners. And they go up to the count without
a word, and lift his chair to their shoulders and carry him from the
church and set him down on the slope outside.
They say nothing, and look neither to the right nor to the left. They
merely carry Count Dohna out of the house of God, and when that is done,
they go away again, the nearest way to the lake.
They used no violence, nor did they waste much time in explanations. It
was plain enough: “We the Ekeby pensioners have our own opinion. Count
Dohna is not worthy to be praised in God’s house. Therefore we carry him
out. Let him who will carry him in again.”
But he was not carried in. The clergyman’s speech of thanks was never
made. The people streamed out of the church. There was no one who did not
think the pensioners had acted rightly.
They thought of the fair young countess who had been so cruelly tortured
at Borg. They remembered her who had been so kind to the poor, who had
been so sweet to look upon that it had been a consolation for them to see
her.
It was a pity to come with wild pranks into the church; but both the
clergyman and the congregation knew that they had been about to play
a greater trick on the Omniscient. And they stood ashamed before the
misguided old madmen.
“When man is silent, the stones must speak,” they said.
But after that day Count Henrik was not happy at Borg. One dark night
in the beginning of August a closed carriage drove close up to the big
steps. All the servants stationed themselves about it, and Countess Märta
came out wrapped in shawls with a thick veil over her face. The count led
her, but she trembled and shuddered. It was with the greatest difficulty
that they could persuade her to go through the hall and down the steps.
At last she reached the carriage, the count sprang in after her, the
doors were slammed to, and the coachman started the horses off at a
gallop. The next morning, when the magpies awoke, she was gone.
The count lived from that time on far away in the South of Sweden. Borg
was sold and has changed owners many times. No one can help loving it.
But few have been happy in its possession.
CHAPTER XII
GOD’S WAYFARER
God’s wayfarer, Captain Lennart, came one afternoon in August wandering
up to the Broby inn and walked into the kitchen there. He was on his way
to his home, Helgesäter, which lies a couple of miles northwest of Broby,
close to the edge of the wood.
Captain Lennart did not then know that he was to be one of God’s
wanderers on the earth. His heart was full of joy that he should see his
home again. He had suffered a hard fate; but now he was at home, and all
would be well. He did not know that he was to be one of those who may not
rest under their own roof, nor warm themselves at their own fires.
God’s wayfarer, Captain Lennart, had a cheerful spirit. As he found no
one in the kitchen, he poked about like a wild boy. He threw the cat at
the dog’s head, and laughed till it rang through the house when the two
comrades let the heat of the moment break through old friendship, and
fought with tooth and nail and fiery eyes.
The innkeeper’s wife came in, attracted by the noise. She stopped on
the threshold and looked at the man, who was laughing at the struggling
animals. She knew him well; but when she saw him last, he had been
sitting in the prison-van with handcuffs on his wrists. She remembered
it well. Five years and a half ago, during the winter fair in Karlstad,
thieves had stolen the jewels of the governor’s wife. Many rings,
bracelets, and buckles, much prized by the noble lady,—for most of them
were heirlooms and presents,—had then been lost. They had never been
found. But a rumor spread through the land that Captain Lennart at
Helgesäter was the thief.
She had never been able to understand how such a rumor had started. He
was such a good and honorable man. He lived happily with his wife, whom
he had only a few years before brought home, for he had not been able to
afford to marry before. Had he not a good income from his pay and his
estate? What could tempt such a man to steal old bracelets and rings?
And still more strange it seemed to her that such a rumor could be so
believed, so proven, that Captain Lennart was discharged from the army,
lost his order of the Sword, and was condemned to five years’ hard labor.
He himself had said that he had been at the market, but had left before
he heard anything of the theft. On the highway he had found an ugly old
buckle, which he had taken home and given to the children. The buckle,
however, was of gold, and belonged to the stolen things; that was the
cause of his misfortune. It had all been Sintram’s work. He had accused
him, and given the condemning testimony. It seemed as if he wanted to
get rid of Captain Lennart, for a short time after a law-suit was opened
against himself, because it had been discovered that he had sold powder
to the Norwegians during the war of 1814. People believed that he was
afraid of Captain Lennart’s testimony. As it was, he was acquitted on the
ground of not proven.
She could not stare at him enough. His hair had grown gray and his back
bent; he must have suffered. But he still had his friendly face and his
cheerful spirit. He was still the same Captain Lennart who had led her
forward to the altar, as a bride, and danced at her wedding. She felt
sure he would still stop and chat with everybody he met on the road and
throw a copper to every child; he would still say to every wrinkled old
woman that she grew younger and prettier every day; and he would still
sometimes place himself on a barrel and play the fiddle for those who
danced about the Maypole.
“Well, Mother Karin,” he began, “are you afraid to look at me?”
He had come especially to hear how it was in his home, and whether they
expected him. They must know that he had worked out his time.
The innkeeper’s wife gave him the best of news. His wife had worked like
a man. She had leased the estate from the new owner, and everything had
succeeded for her. The children were healthy, and it was a pleasure to
see them. And of course they expected him. His wife was a hard woman, who
never spoke of what she thought, but she knew that no one was allowed
to eat with Captain Lennart’s spoon or to sit in his chair while he was
away. This spring, no day had passed without her coming out to the stone
at the top of Broby hill and looking down the road. And she had put in
order new clothes for him, home-woven clothes, on which she herself had
done nearly all the work. By that one could see that he was expected,
even if she said nothing.
“They don’t believe it, then?” said Captain Lennart.
“No, captain,” answered the peasant woman. “Nobody believes it.”
Then Captain Lennart would stop no longer; then he wished to go home.
It happened that outside the door he met some dear old friends. The
pensioners at Ekeby had just come to the inn. Sintram had invited them
thither to celebrate his birthday. And the pensioners did not hesitate
a minute before shaking the convict’s hand and welcoming him home. Even
Sintram did it.
“Dear Lennart,” he said, “were you certain that God had any meaning in it
all?”
“Do you not think I know,” cried Captain Lennart, “that it was not our
Lord who saved you from the block?”
The others laughed. But Sintram was not at all angry. He was pleased when
people spoke of his compact with the devil.
Yes, then they took Captain Lennart in with them again to empty a glass
of welcome; after, he could go his way. But it went badly for him. He had
not drunk such treacherous things for five years. Perhaps he had eaten
nothing the whole day, and was exhausted by his long journey on foot. The
result was that he was quite confused after a couple of glasses.
When the pensioners had got him into a state when he no longer knew what
he was doing, they forced on him glass after glass, and they meant no
harm by it; it was with good intention towards him, who had not tasted
anything good for five years.
Otherwise he was one of the most sober of men. It is also easy to
understand that he had no intention to get drunk; he was to have gone
home to wife and children. But instead he was lying on the bench in the
bar-room, and was sleeping there.
While he lay there, temptingly unconscious, Gösta took a piece of
charcoal and a little cranberry-juice and painted him. He gave him the
face of a criminal; he thought that most suitable for one who came direct
from jail. He painted a black eye, drew a red scar across his nose,
plastered his hair down on his forehead in matted tangles, and smeared
his whole face.
They laughed at it for a while, then Gösta wished to wash it off.
“Let it be,” said Sintram, “so that he can see it when he wakes. It will
amuse him.”
So they left it as it was, and thought no more of the captain. The
feasting lasted the whole night. They broke up at daybreak. There was
more wine than sense in their heads.
The question was what they should do with Captain Lennart. “We will go
home with him,” said Sintram. “Think how glad his wife will be! It will
be a pleasure to see her joy. I am moved when I think of it. Let us go
home with him!”
They were all moved at the thought. Heavens, how glad she would be!
They shook life into Captain Lennart and lifted him into one of the
carriages which the sleepy grooms had long since driven up. And so the
whole mob drove up to Helgesäter; some of them, half-asleep, nearly fell
out of the carriage, others sang to keep awake. They looked little better
than a company of tramps, with dull eyes and swollen faces.
They arrived at last, left the horses in the back-yard and marched with
a certain solemnity up to the steps. Beerencreutz and Julius supported
Captain Lennart between them.
“Pull yourself together, Lennart,” they said to him, “you are at home.
Don’t you see that you’re at home?”
He got his eyes open and was almost sober. He was touched that they had
accompanied him home.
“Friends,” he said, and stopped to speak to them all, “have asked God,
friends, why so much evil has passed over me.”
“Shut up, Lennart, don’t preach!” cries Beerencreutz.
“Let him go on,” says Sintram. “He speaks well.”
“Have asked Him and not understood; understand now. He wanted to show me
what friends I had; friends who follow me home to see mine and my wife’s
joy. For my wife is expecting me. What are five years of misery compared
to that?”
Now hard fists pounded on the door. The pensioners had no time to hear
more.
Within there was commotion. The maids awoke and looked out. They threw on
their clothes, but did not dare to open for that crowd of men. At last
the bolt was drawn. The captain’s wife herself came out.
“What do you want?” she asked.
It was Beerencreutz who answered:—
“We are here with your husband.”
They pushed forward Captain Lennart, and she saw him reel towards her,
drunk, with a prize-fighter’s face; and behind him she saw the crowd of
drunken, reeling men.
She took a step back; he followed with outstretched arms. “You left me as
a thief,” she cried, “and come home as a vagabond.” Whereupon she turned
to go in.
He did not understand. He wished to follow her, but she struck him a blow
on the breast.
“Do you think that I will receive such a man as you as master in my house
and over my children?”
The door slammed and the key turned in the lock.
Captain Lennart threw himself against the door and began to shake it.
The pensioners could not help it, they began to laugh. He had been so
sure of his wife, and now she would have nothing to do with him. It was
absurd, they thought.
When Captain Lennart heard them laughing, he rushed after them and
wished to beat them. They ran away and leaped into their carriages, he
after them; but in his eagerness he stumbled over a stone and fell. He
got up again, but pursued them no farther. A thought struck him in his
confusion. In this world nothing happens without God’s will, nothing.
“Where wilt thou lead me?” he said. “I am a feather, driven by thy
breath. I am thy plaything. Whither wilt thou send me? Why dost thou shut
the doors of my home to me?”
He turned away from his home, believing that it was God’s will.
When the sun rose he stood at the top of Broby hill and looked out over
the valley. Ah, little did the poor people in the valley know that their
rescuer was near. No mothers as yet lifted their children on their arms
that they might see him as he came. The cottages were not clean and in
order, with the black hearth hidden by fragrant juniper. As yet the men
did not work with eager industry in the fields that his eyes might be
gladdened by the sight of cared-for crops and well-dug ditches.
Alas, where he stood his sorrowful eyes saw the ravages of the drought,
how the crops were burned up, and how the people scarcely seemed to
trouble themselves to prepare the earth for the coming year. He looked up
at the blue mountains, and the sharp morning sun showed him the blackened
stretches where the forest-fires had passed. He understood by many small
signs, by the tumble-down fences, by the small amount of wood which
had been carted home and sawed, that the people were not looking after
their affairs, that want had come, and that they sought consolation in
indifference and brandy.
Captain Lennart stood there on Broby hill and began to think that God
perhaps needed him. He was not called home by his wife.
The pensioners could not at all understand what their fault had been;
Sintram held his tongue. His wife was much blamed through all the
neighborhood, because she had been too proud to receive such a good
husband. People said that any one who tried to talk to her of him was
instantly interrupted. She could not bear to hear his name spoken.
Captain Lennart did nothing to give her other thoughts.
It was a day later.
An old peasant is lying on his death-bed. He has taken the sacrament, and
his strength is gone; he must die.
Restless as one who is to set off on a long journey, he has his bed moved
from the kitchen to the bedroom and from the bedroom back to the kitchen.
By that they understand, more than by the heavy rattling and the failing
eyes, that his time has come.
Round about him stand his wife, his children, and servants. He has been
fortunate, rich, esteemed. He is not forsaken on his death-bed. The old
man speaks of himself as if he stood in the presence of God, and with
sighs and confirming words those about him bear witness that he speaks
the truth.
“I have been an industrious worker and a kind master,” he says. “I
have loved my wife like my right hand. I have not let my children grow
up without discipline and care. I have not drunk. I have not moved my
boundary line. I have not hurried my horse up the hills. I have not let
the cows starve in winter. I have not let the sheep be tortured by their
wool in summer.”
And round about him the weeping servants repeat like an echo: “He has
been a kind master. He has not hurried the horse up the hills, nor let
the sheep sweat in their wool in summer.”
But through the door unnoticed a poor man has come in to ask for a little
food. He also hears the words of the dying man from where he stands
silent by the door.
And the sick man resumes: “I have opened up the forest, I have drained
the meadows. I drove the plough in straight furrows. I built three times
as big a barn for three times as big a harvest as in my father’s time.
Of shining money I had three silver goblets made; my father only made
one. God shall give me a good place in his heaven.”
“Our Lord will receive our master well,” say the servants.
The man by the door hears the words, and terror fills him who for five
long years has been God’s plaything.
He goes up to the sick man and takes his hand.
“Friend, friend,” he says, and his voice trembles, “have you considered
who the Lord is before whose face you soon must appear? He is a great
God, a terrible God. The earth is his pasture. The storm his horse. Wide
heavens shake under the weight of his foot. And you stand before him and
say: ‘I have ploughed straight furrows, I have sowed rye, I have chopped
wood.’ Will you praise yourself to him and compare yourself to him? You
do not know how mighty the Lord is to whose kingdom you are going.
“Do not come before your God with big words!” continues the wayfarer.
“The mighty on the earth are like threshed-out straw in his barn.
His day’s work is to make suns. He has dug out oceans and raised up
mountains. Bend before him! Lie low in the dust before your Lord, your
God! Catch like a child at the hem of his garment and beg for protection!
Humble yourself before your Creator!”
The sick man’s eyes stand wide-open, his hands are clasped, but his face
lights up and the rattling ceases.
“Soul, soul,” cries the man, “as surely as you now in your last hour
humble yourself before your God, will he take you like a child on his arm
and carry you into the glory of his heaven.”
The old man gives a last sigh, and all is over. Captain Lennart bends his
head and prays. Every one in the room prays with heavy sighs.
When they look up the old peasant lies in quiet peace. His eyes seem
still to shine with the reflection of glorious visions, his mouth smiles,
his face is beautiful. He has seen God.
“He has seen God,” says the son, and closes the dead man’s eyes.
“He saw heaven opening,” sob the children and servants.
The old wife lays her shaking hand on Captain Lennart’s.
“You helped him over the worst, captain.”
* * * * *
It was that hour which drove Captain Lennart out among the people. Else
he would have gone home and let his wife see his real face, but from that
time he believed that God needed him. He became God’s wayfarer, who came
with help to the poor. Distress was great, and there was much suffering
which good sense and kindness could help better than gold and power.
Captain Lennart came one day to the poor peasants who lived in the
neighborhood of Gurlitta Cliff. Among them there was great want; there
were no more potatoes, and the rye could not be sown, as they had no seed.
Then Captain Lennart took a little boat and rowed across the lake to Fors
and asked Sintram to give them rye and potatoes. Sintram received him
well: he took him to the big, well-stocked grain-houses and down into the
cellar, where the potatoes of last year’s crop were, and let him fill all
the bags and sacks he had with him.
But when Sintram saw the little boat, he thought that it was too small
for such a load. He had the sacks carried to one of his big boats, and
his servant, big Mons, row it across the lake. Captain Lennart had only
his empty boat to attend to.
He came however after Mons, for the latter was a master of rowing and a
giant in strength. Captain Lennart sits and dreams, while he rows across
the beautiful lake, and thinks of the little seed-corns’ wonderful fate.
They were to be thrown out on the black earth among stones and stubble,
but they would sprout and take root in the wilderness. He thinks how the
soft, light-green shoots will cover the earth, and how, finally, when
the ears are filled with soft, sweet kernels, the scythe will pass, and
the straws fall, and the flail thunder over them, and the mill crush the
kernels to meal, and the meal be baked into bread,—ah, how much hunger
will be satisfied by the grain in the boat in front of him!
Sintram’s servant landed at the pier of the Gurlitta people, and many
hungry men came down to the boat.
Then the man said, as his master had ordered:—
“The master sends you malt and grain, peasants. He has heard that you
have no brandy.”
Then the people became as mad. They rushed down to the boat and ran
out into the water to seize on bags and sacks, but that had never been
Captain Lennart’s meaning. He had now come, and he was furious when he
saw what they were doing. He wanted to have the potatoes for food, and
the rye for seed; he had never asked for malt.
He called to the people to leave the sacks alone, but they did not obey.
“May the rye turn to sand in your mouths, and the potatoes to stone in
your throats!” he cried, for he was very angry because they had taken the
grain.
It looked as if Captain Lennart had worked a miracle. Two women, who were
fighting for a bag, tore a hole in it and found only sand; the men who
lifted up the potato-sacks, felt how heavy they were, as if filled with
stones.
It was all sand and stones, only sand and stones. The people stood in
silent terror of God’s miracle-worker who had come to them. Captain
Lennart was himself for a moment seized with astonishment. Only Mons
laughed.
“Go home, fellow,” said Captain Lennart, “before the peasants understand
that there has never been anything but sand in these sacks; otherwise I
am afraid they will sink your boat.”
“I am not afraid,” said the man.
“Go,” said Captain Lennart, with such an imperious voice that he went.
Then Captain Lennart let the people know that Sintram had fooled them,
but they would not believe anything but that a miracle had happened. The
story of it spread soon, and as the people’s love of the supernatural
is great, it was generally believed that Captain Lennart could work
wonders. He won great power among the peasants, and they called him God’s
wayfarer.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CHURCHYARD
It was a beautiful evening in August. The Löfven lay like a mirror, haze
veiled the mountains, it was the cool of the evening.
There came Beerencreutz, the colonel with the white moustaches, short,
strong as a wrestler, and with a pack of cards in his coat pocket, to
the shore of the lake, and sat down in a flat-bottomed boat. With him
were Major Anders Fuchs, his old brother-at-arms, and little Ruster,
the flute-player, who had been drummer in the Värmland _chasseurs_, and
during many years had followed the colonel as his friend and servant.
On the other shore of the lake lies the churchyard, the neglected
churchyard, of the Svartsjö parish, sparsely set with crooked, rattling
iron crosses, full of hillocks like an unploughed meadow, overgrown with
sedges and striped grasses, which had been sowed there as a reminder that
no man’s life is like another’s, but changes like the leaf of the grass.
There are no gravel walks there, no shading trees except the big linden
on the forgotten grave of some old priest. A stone wall, rough and high,
encloses the miserable field. Miserable and desolate is the churchyard,
ugly as the face of a miser, which has withered at the laments of those
whose happiness he has stolen. And yet they who rest there are blessed,
they who have been sunk into consecrated earth to the sound of psalms
and prayers. Acquilon, the gambler, he who died last year at Ekeby,
had had to be buried outside the wall. That man, who once had been so
proud and courtly, the brave warrior, the bold hunter, the gambler who
held fortune in his hand, he had ended by squandering his children’s
inheritance, all that he had gained himself, all that his wife had saved.
Wife and children he had forsaken many years before, to lead the life of
a pensioner at Ekeby. One evening in the past summer he had played away
the farm which gave them their means of subsistence. Rather than to pay
his debt he had shot himself. But the suicide’s body was buried outside
the moss-grown wall of the miserable churchyard.
Since he died the pensioners had only been twelve; since he died no one
had come to take the place of the thirteenth,—no one but the devil, who
on Christmas Eve had crept out of the furnace.
The pensioners had found his fate more bitter than that of his
predecessors. Of course they knew that one of them must die each year.
What harm was there in that? Pensioners may not be old. Can their dim
eyes no longer distinguish the cards, can their trembling hands no longer
lift the glass, what is life for them, and what are they for life? But
to lie like a dog by the churchyard wall, where the protecting sods may
not rest in peace, but are trodden by grazing sheep, wounded by spade
and plough, where the wanderer goes by without slackening his pace, and
where the children play without subduing their laughter and jests,—to
rest there, where the stone wall prevents the sound from coming when the
angel of the day of doom wakes with his trumpet the dead within,—oh, to
lie there!
Beerencreutz rows his boat over the Löfven. He passes in the evening
over the lake of my dreams, about whose shores I have seen gods wander,
and from whose depths my magic palace rises. He rows by Lagön’s lagoons,
where the pines stand right up from the water, growing on low, circular
shoals, and where the ruin of the tumble-down Viking castle still remains
on the steep summit of the island; he rows under the pine grove on Borg’s
point, where one old tree still hangs on thick roots over the cleft,
where a mighty bear had been caught and where old mounds and graves bear
witness of the age of the place.
He rows to the other side of the point, gets out below the churchyard,
and then walks over mowed fields, which belong to the count at Borg, to
Acquilon’s grave.
Arrived there, he bends down and pats the turf, as one lightly caresses
the blanket under which a sick friend is lying. Then he takes out a pack
of cards and sits down beside the grave.
“He is so lonely outside here, Johan Fredrik. He must long sometimes for
a game.”
“It is a sin and a shame that such a man shall lie here,” says the great
bear-hunter, Anders Fuchs, and sits down at his side.
But little Ruster, the flute-player, speaks with broken voice, while the
tears run from his small red eyes.
“Next to you, colonel, next to you he was the finest man I have ever
known.”
These three worthy men sit round the grave and deal the cards seriously
and with zeal.
I look out over the world, I see many graves. There rest the mighty ones
of the earth, weighed down by marble. Funeral marches thunder over them.
Standards are sunk over those graves. I see the graves of those who have
been much loved. Flowers, wet with tears, caressed with kisses, rest
lightly on their green sods. I see forgotten graves, arrogant graves,
lying resting-places, and others which say nothing, but never before did
I see the right-bower and the joker with the bells in his cap offered as
entertainment to a grave’s occupant.
“Johan Fredrik has won,” says the colonel, proudly. “Did I not know it? I
taught him to play. Yes, now we are dead, we three, and he alone alive.”
Thereupon he gathers together the cards, rises, and goes, followed by the
others, back to Ekeby.
May the dead man have known and felt that not every one has forgotten him
or his forsaken grave.
Strange homage wild hearts bring to them they love; but he who lies
outside the wall, he whose dead body was not allowed to rest in
consecrated ground, he ought to be glad that not every one has rejected
him.
Friends, children of men, when I die I shall surely rest in the middle of
the churchyard, in the tomb of my ancestors. I shall not have robbed my
family of their means of subsistence, nor lifted my hand against my own
life, but certainly I have not won such a love, surely will no one do as
much for me as the pensioners did for that culprit. It is certain that
no one will come in the evening, when the sun sets and it is lonely and
dreary in the gardens of the dead, to place between my bony fingers the
many-colored cards.
Not even will any one come, which would please me more,—for cards tempt
me little,—with fiddle and bow to the grave, that my spirit, which
wanders about the mouldering dust, may rock in the flow of melody like a
swan on glittering waves.
CHAPTER XIV
OLD SONGS
Marianne Sinclair sat one quiet afternoon at the end of August in her
room and arranged her old letters and other papers.
Round about her was disorder. Great leather trunks and iron bound boxes
had been dragged into the room. Her clothes covered the chairs and
sofas. From attics and wardrobes and from the stained chests of drawers
everything had been taken out, glistening silk and linen, jewels spread
out to be polished, shawls and furs to be selected and inspected.
Marianne was making herself ready for a long journey. She was not certain
if she should ever return to her home. She was at a turning-point in her
life and therefore burned a mass of old letters and diaries. She did not
wish to be weighed down with records of the past.
As she sits there, she finds a bundle of old verses. They were copies of
old ballads, which her mother used to sing to her when she was little.
She untied the string which held them together, and began to read.
She smiled sadly when she had read for a while; the old songs spoke
strange wisdom.
Have no faith in happiness, have no faith in the appearance of happiness,
have no faith in roses.
“Trust not laughter,” they said. “See, the lovely maiden Valborg drives
in a golden coach, and her lips smile, but she is as sorrowful as if
hoofs and wheels were passing over her life’s happiness.”
“Trust not the dance,” they said. “Many a foot whirls lightly over
polished floor, while the heart is heavy as lead.”
“Trust not the jest,” they said. “Many a one goes to the feast with
jesting lips, while she longs to die for pain.”
In what shall one believe? In tears and sorrow!
He who is sorrowful can force himself to smile, but he who is glad cannot
weep.
But joy is only sorrow disguised. There is nothing real on earth but
sorrow.
She went to the window and looked out into the garden, where her parents
were walking. They went up and down the broad paths and talked of
everything which met their eyes, of the grass and the birds.
“See,” said Marianne, “there goes a heart which sighs with sorrow,
because it has never been so happy before.”
And she thought suddenly that perhaps everything really depended on the
person himself, that sorrow and joy depended upon the different ways of
looking at things. She asked herself if it were joy or sorrow which had
passed over her that year. She hardly knew herself.
She had lived through a bitter time. Her soul had been sick. She had been
bowed down to the earth by her deep humiliation. For when she returned to
her home she had said to herself, “I will remember no evil of my father.”
But her heart did not agree. “He has caused me such mortal pain,” it
said; “he has parted me from him I loved; he made me desperate when he
struck my mother. I wish him no harm, but I am afraid of him.” And then
she noticed how she had to force herself to sit still when her father
sat down beside her; she longed to flee from him. She tried to control
herself; she talked with him as usual and was almost always with him. She
could conquer herself, but she suffered beyond endurance. She ended by
detesting everything about him: his coarse loud voice, his heavy tread,
his big hands. She wished him no harm, but she could no longer be near
him without a feeling of fear and repulsion. Her repressed heart revenged
itself. “You would not let me love,” it said, “but I am nevertheless your
master; you shall end by hating.”
Accustomed as she was to observe everything which stirred within her,
she saw too well how this repulsion became stronger, how it grew each
day. At the same time she seemed to be tied forever to her home. She knew
that it would be best for her to go away among people, but she could not
bring herself to it since her illness. It would never be any better. She
would only be more and more tortured, and some day her self-control would
give way, and she would burst out before her father and show him the
bitterness of her heart, and then there would be strife and unhappiness.
So had the spring and early summer passed. In July she had become engaged
to Baron Adrian, in order to have her own home.
One fine forenoon Baron Adrian had galloped up to the house, riding a
magnificent horse. His hussar jacket had shone in the sun, his spurs and
sword and belt had glittered and flashed, to say nothing of his own fresh
face and smiling eyes.
Melchior Sinclair had stood on the steps and welcomed him when he came.
Marianne had sat at the window and sewed. She had seen him come, and now
heard every word he said to her father.
“Good-day, Sir Sunshine!” cried Melchior. “How fine you are! You are not
out to woo?”
“Yes, yes, uncle, that is just what I am,” he answered, and laughed.
“Is there no shame in you, boy? What have you to maintain a wife with?”
“Nothing, uncle. Had I anything, I would never get married.”
“Do you say that, do you say that, Sir Sunshine? But that fine
jacket,—you have had money enough to get you that?”
“On credit, uncle.”
“And the horse you are riding, that is worth a lot of money, I can tell
you. Where did you get that?”
“The horse is not mine, uncle.”
This was more than Melchior could withstand.
“God be with you, boy,” he said. “You do indeed need a wife who has
something. If you can win Marianne, take her.”
So everything had been made clear between them before Baron Adrian had
even dismounted. But Melchior Sinclair knew very well what he was about,
for Baron Adrian was a fine fellow.
Then the suitor had come in to Marianne and immediately burst out with
his errand.
“Oh, Marianne, dear Marianne. I have already spoken to uncle. I would
like so much to have you for my wife. Say that you will, Marianne.”
She had got at the truth. The old baron, his father, had let himself be
cheated into buying some used-up mines again. The old baron had been
buying mines all his life, and never had anything been found in them.
His mother was anxious, he himself was in debt, and now he was proposing
to her in order to thereby save the home of his ancestors and his hussar
jacket.
His home was Hedeby; it lay on the other side of the lake, almost
opposite Björne. She knew him well; they were of the same age and
playmates.
“You might marry me, Marianne. I lead such a wretched life. I have to
ride on borrowed horses and cannot pay my tailor’s bills. It can’t go on.
I shall have to resign, and then I shall shoot myself.”
“But, Adrian, what kind of a marriage would it be? We are not in the
least in love with one another.”
“Oh, as for love, I care nothing for all that nonsense,” he had then
explained. “I like to ride a good horse and to hunt, but I am no
pensioner, I am a worker. If I only could get some money, so that I could
take charge of the estate at home and give my mother some peace in her
old age, I should be happy. I should both plough and sow, for I like
work.”
Then he had looked at her with his honest eyes, and she knew that he
spoke the truth and that he was a man to depend upon. She engaged herself
to him, chiefly to get away from her home, but also because she had
always liked him.
But never would she forget that month which followed the August evening
when her engagement was announced,—all that time of madness.
Baron Adrian became each day sadder and more silent. He came very often
to Björne, sometimes several times a day, but she could not help noticing
how depressed he was. With others he could still jest, but with her he
was impossible, silent and bored. She understood what was the matter: it
was not so easy as he had believed to marry an ugly woman. No one knew
better than she how ugly she was. She had shown him that she did not
want any caresses or love-making, but he was nevertheless tortured by
the thought of her as his wife, and it seemed worse to him day by day.
Why did he care? Why did he not break it off? She had given hints which
were plain enough. She could do nothing. Her father had told her that her
reputation would not bear any more ventures in being engaged. Then she
had despised them both, and any way seemed good enough to get away from
them. But only a couple of days after the great engagement feast a sudden
and wonderful change had come.
* * * * *
In the path in front of the steps at Björne lay a big stone, which caused
much trouble and vexation. Carriages rolled over it, horses and people
tripped on it, the maids who came with heavy milk cans ran against it and
spilled the milk; but the stone remained, because it had already lain
there so many years. It had been there in the time of Sinclair’s parents,
long before any one had thought of building at Björne. He did not see why
he should take it up.
But one day at the end of August, two maids, who were carrying a heavy
tub, tripped over the stone; they fell, hurt themselves badly, and the
feeling against the stone grew strong.
It was early in the morning. Melchior was out on his morning walk, but as
the workmen were about the house between eight and nine, Madame Gustava
had several of them come and dig up the big stone.
They came with iron levers and spades, dug and strained, and at last got
the old disturber of the peace up out of his hole. Then they carried him
away to the back yard. It was work for six men.
The stone was hardly taken up before Melchior came home. You can believe
that he was angry. It was no longer the same place, he thought. Who had
dared to move the stone? Madame Gustava had given the order. Those women
had no heart in their bodies. Did not his wife know that he loved that
stone?
And then he went direct to the stone, lifted it, and carried it across
the yard to the place where it had lain, and there he flung it down. And
it was a stone which six men could scarcely lift. That deed was mightily
admired through the whole of Värmland.
While he carried the stone across the yard, Marianne had stood at the
dining-room window and looked at him. He was her master, that terrible
man with his boundless strength,—an unreasonable, capricious master, who
thought of nothing but his own pleasure.
They were in the midst of breakfast, and she had a carving-knife in her
hand. Involuntarily she lifted the knife.
Madame Gustava seized her by the wrist.
“Marianne!”
“What is the matter, mother?”
“Oh, Marianne, you looked so strange! I was frightened.”
Marianne looked at her. She was a little, dry woman, gray and wrinkled
already at fifty. She loved like a dog, without remembering knocks and
blows. She was generally good-humored, and yet she made a melancholy
impression. She was like a storm-whipped tree by the sea; she had never
had quiet to grow. She had learned to use mean shifts, to lie when
needed, and often made herself out more stupid than she was to escape
taunts. In everything she was the tool of her husband.
“Would you grieve much if father died?” asked Marianne.
“Marianne, you are angry with your father. You are always angry with him.
Why cannot everything be forgotten, since you have got a new fiancé?”
“Oh, mother, it is not my fault. Can I help shuddering at him? Do you not
see what he is? Why should I care for him? He is violent, he is uncouth,
he has tortured you till you are prematurely old. Why is he our master?
He behaves like a madman. Why shall I honor and respect him? He is not
good, he is not charitable. I know that he is strong. He is capable of
beating us to death at any moment. He can turn us out of the house when
he will. Is that why I should love him?”
But then Madame Gustava had been as never before. She had found strength
and courage and had spoken weighty words.
“You must take care, Marianne. It almost seems to me as if your father
was right when he shut you out last winter. You shall see that you will
be punished for this. You must teach yourself to bear without hating,
Marianne, to suffer without revenge.”
“Oh, mother, I am so unhappy.”
Immediately after, they heard in the hall the sound of a heavy fall.
They never knew if Melchior Sinclair had stood on the steps and through
the open dining-room door had heard Marianne’s words, or if it was only
over-exertion which had been the cause of the stroke. When they came out
he lay unconscious. They never dared to ask him the cause. He himself
never made any sign that he had heard anything. Marianne never dared to
think the thought out that she had involuntarily revenged herself. But
the sight of her father lying on the very steps where she had learnt to
hate him took all bitterness from her heart.
He soon returned to consciousness, and when he had kept quiet a few days,
he was like himself—and yet not at all like.
Marianne saw her parents walking together in the garden. It was always so
now. He never went out alone, grumbled at guests and at everything which
separated him from his wife. Old age had come upon him. He could not
bring himself to write a letter; his wife had to do it. He never decided
anything by himself, but asked her about everything and let it be as she
decided. And he was always gentle and kind. He noticed the change which
had come over him, and how happy his wife was. “She is well off now,” he
said one day to Marianne, and pointed to Madame Gustava.
“Oh, dear Melchior,” she cried, “you know very well that I would rather
have you strong again.”
And she really meant it. It was her joy to speak of him as he was in the
days of his strength. She told how he held his own in riot and revel as
well as any of the Ekeby pensioners, how he had done good business and
earned much money, just when she thought that he in his madness would
lose house and lands. But Marianne knew that she was happy in spite of
all her complaints. To be everything to her husband was enough for her.
They both looked old, prematurely broken. Marianne thought that she
could see their future life. He would get gradually weaker and weaker;
other strokes would make him more helpless, and she would watch over him
until death parted them. But the end might be far distant. Madame Gustava
could enjoy her happiness in peace still for a time. It must be so,
Marianne thought. Life owed her some compensation.
For her too it was better. No fretting despair forced her to marry to get
another master. Her wounded heart had found peace. She had to acknowledge
that she was a truer, richer, nobler person than before; what could she
wish undone of what had happened? Was it true that all suffering was
good? Could everything be turned to happiness? She had begun to consider
everything good which could help to develop her to a higher degree of
humanity. The old songs were not right. Sorrow was not the only lasting
thing. She would now go out into the world and look about for some place
where she was needed. If her father had been in his old mood, he would
never have allowed her to break her engagement. Now Madame Gustava had
arranged the matter. Marianne had even been allowed to give Baron Adrian
the money he needed.
She could think of him too with pleasure, she would be free from him.
With his bravery and love of life he had always reminded her of Gösta;
now she should see him glad again. He would again be that sunny knight
who had come in his glory to her father’s house. She would get him lands
where he could plough and dig as much as his heart desired, and she would
see him lead a beautiful bride to the altar.
With such thoughts she sits down and writes to give him back his
freedom. She writes gentle, persuasive words, sense wrapped up in jests,
and yet so that he must understand how seriously she means it.
While she writes she hears hoof-beats on the road.
“My dear Sir Sunshine,” she thinks, “it is the last time.”
Baron Adrian immediately after comes into her room.
“What, Adrian, are you coming in here?” and she looks dismayed at all her
packing.
He is shy and embarrassed and stammers out an excuse.
“I was just writing to you,” she says. “Look, you might as well read it
now.”
He takes the letter and she sits and watches him while he reads. She
longs to see his face light up with joy.
But he has not read far before he grows fiery red, throws the letter on
the floor, stamps on it, and swears terrible oaths.
Marianne trembles slightly. She is no novice in the study of love; still
she has not before understood this inexperienced boy, this great child.
“Adrian, dear Adrian,” she says, “what kind of a comedy have you played
with me? Come and tell me the truth.”
He came and almost suffocated her with caresses. Poor boy, so he had
cared and longed.
After a while she looked out. There walked Madame Gustava and talked with
her husband of flowers and birds, and here she sat and chatted of love.
“Life has let us both feel its serious side,” she thought, and smiled
sadly. “It wants to comfort us; we have each got her big child to play
with.”
However, it was good to be loved. It was sweet to hear him whisper of the
magical power which she possessed, of how he had been ashamed of what he
had said at their first conversation. He had not then known what charm
she had. Oh, no man could be near her without loving her, but she had
frightened him; he had felt so strangely subdued.
It was not happiness, nor unhappiness, but she would try to live with
this man.
She began to understand herself, and thought of the words of the old
songs about the turtle-dove. It never drinks clear water, but first
muddies it with its foot so that it may better suit its sorrowful spirit.
So too should she never go to the spring of life and drink pure, unmixed
happiness. Troubled with sorrow, life pleased her best.
CHAPTER XV
DEATH, THE DELIVERER
My pale friend, Death the deliverer, came in August, when the nights
were white with moonlight, to the house of Captain Uggla. But he did not
dare to go direct into that hospitable home, for they are few who love
him, and he does not wish to be greeted with weeping, rather with quiet
joy,—he who comes to set free the soul from the fetters of pain, he who
delivers the soul from the burden of the body and lets it enjoy the
beautiful life of the spheres.
Into the old grove behind the house, crept Death. In the grove, which
then was young and full of green, my pale friend hid himself by day,
but at night he stood at the edge of the wood, white and pale, with his
scythe glittering in the moonlight.
Death stood there, and the creatures of the night saw him. Evening after
evening the people at Berga heard how the fox howled to foretell his
coming. The snake crawled up the sandy path to the very house. He could
not speak, but they well understood that he came as a presage. And in the
apple-tree outside the window of the captain’s wife the owl hooted. For
everything in nature feels Death and trembles.
It happened that the judge from Munkerud, who had been at a festival at
the Bro deanery, drove by Berga at two o’clock in the night and saw a
candle burning in the window of the guest-room. He plainly saw the yellow
flame and the white candle, and, wondering, he afterwards told of the
candle which had burned in the summer night.
The gay daughters at Berga laughed and said that the judge had the gift
of second sight, for there were no candles in the house, they were
already burned up in March; and the captain swore that no one had slept
in the guest-room for days and weeks; but his wife was silent and grew
pale, for that white candle with the clear flame used to show itself when
one of her family should be set free by Death.
A short time after, Ferdinand came home from a surveying journey in the
northern forests. He came, pale and ill with an incurable disease of the
lungs, and as soon as his mother saw him, she knew that her son must die.
He must go, that good son who had never given his parents a sorrow. He
must leave earth’s pleasures and happiness, and the beautiful, beloved
bride who awaited him, and the rich estates which should have been his.
At last, when my pale friend had waited a month, he took heart and went
one night up to the house. He thought how hunger and privation had there
been met by glad faces, so why should not he too be received with joy?
That night the captain’s wife, who lay awake, heard a knocking on the
window-pane, and she sat up in bed and asked: “Who is it who knocks?”
And the old people tell that Death answered her:
“It is Death who knocks.”
Then she rose up, opened her window, and saw bats and owls fluttering in
the moonlight, but Death she did not see.
“Come,” she said half aloud, “friend and deliverer! Why have you lingered
so long? I have been waiting. I have called. Come and set my son free!”
The next day, she sat by her son’s sick-bed and spoke to him of the
blissfulness of the liberated spirit and of its glorious life.
So Ferdinand died, enchanted by bright visions, smiling at the glory to
come.
Death had never seen anything so beautiful. For of course there were some
who wept by Ferdinand Uggla’s death-bed; but the sick man himself smiled
at the man with the scythe, when he took his place on the edge of the
bed, and his mother listened to the death-rattle as if to sweet music.
She trembled lest Death should not finish his work; and when the end
came, tears fell from her eyes, but they were tears of joy which wet her
son’s stiffened face.
Never had Death been so fêted as at Ferdinand Uggla’s burial.
It was a wonderful funeral procession which passed under the lindens. In
front of the flower-decked coffin beautiful children walked and strewed
flowers. There was no mourning-dress, no crape; for his mother had wished
that he who died with joy should not be followed to the good refuge by a
gloomy funeral procession, but by a shining wedding train.
Following the coffin, went Anna Stjärnhök, the dead man’s beautiful,
glowing bride. She had set a bridal wreath on her head, hung a bridal
veil over her, and arrayed herself in a bridal dress of white, shimmering
satin. So adorned, she went to be wedded at the grave to a mouldering
bridegroom.
Behind her they came, two by two, dignified old ladies and stately
men. The ladies came in shining buckles and brooches, with strings of
milk-white pearls and bracelets of gold. Ostrich feathers nodded in
their bonnets of silk and lace, and from their shoulders floated thin
silken shawls over dresses of many-colored satin. And their husbands came
in their best array, in high-collared coats with gilded buttons, with
swelling ruffles, and in vests of stiff brocade or richly-embroidered
velvet. It was a wedding procession; the captain’s wife had wished it so.
She herself walked next after Anna Stjärnhök, led by her husband. If she
had possessed a dress of shining brocade, she would have worn it; if she
had possessed jewels and a gay bonnet, she would have worn them too to
do honor to her son on his festival day. But she only had the black silk
dress and the yellowed laces which had adorned so many feasts, and she
wore them here too.
Although all the guests came in their best array, there was not a dry
eye when they walked forward to the grave. Men and women wept, not so
much for the dead, as for themselves. There walked the bride; there the
bridegroom was carried; there they themselves wandered, decked out for
a feast, and yet—who is there who walks earth’s green pathways and does
not know that his lot is affliction, sorrow, unhappiness, and death. They
wept at the thought that nothing on earth could save them.
The captain’s wife did not weep; but she was the only one whose eyes were
dry.
When the prayers were read, and the grave filled in, all went away to
the carriages. Only the mother and Anna Stjärnhök lingered by the grave
to bid their dead a last good-bye. The older woman sat down on the
grave-mound, and Anna placed herself at her side.
“Anna,” said the captain’s wife, “I have said to God: ‘Let Death come
and take away my son, let him take away him I love most, and only tears
of joy shall come to my eyes; with nuptial pomp I will follow him to his
grave, and my red rose-bush, which stands outside my chamber-window,
will I move to him in the graveyard.’ And now it has come to pass my
son is dead. I have greeted Death like a friend, called him by the
tenderest names; I have wept tears of joy over my son’s dead face, and in
the autumn, when the leaves are fallen, I shall plant my red rose-bush
here. But do you know, you who sit here at my side, why I have sent such
prayers to God?”
She looked questioningly at Anna Stjärnhök; but the girl sat silent and
pale beside her. Perhaps she was struggling to silence inward voices
which already there, on the grave of the dead, began to whisper to her
that now at last she was free.
“The fault is yours,” said the captain’s wife.
The girl sank down as from a blow. She did not answer a word.
“Anna Stjärnhök, you were once proud and self-willed: you played with my
son, took him and cast him off. But what of that? He had to accept it, as
well as another. Perhaps too he and we all loved your money as much as
you. But you came back, you came with a blessing to our home; you were
gentle and mild, strong and kind, when you came again. You cherished us
with love; you made us so happy, Anna Stjärnhök; and we poor people lay
at your feet.
“And yet, and yet I have wished that you had not come. Then had I not
needed to pray to God to shorten my son’s life. At Christmas he could
have borne to lose you, but after he had learnt to know you, such as you
now are, he would not have had the strength.
“You know, Anna Stjärnhök, who to-day have put on your bridal dress to
follow my son, that if he had lived you would never have followed him in
that attire to the Bro church, for you did not love him.
“I saw that you only came out of pity, for you wanted to relieve our hard
lot. You did not love him. Do you not think that I know love, that I see
it, when it is there, and understand when it is lacking. Then I thought:
‘May God take my son’s life before he has his eyes opened!’
“Oh, if you had loved him! Oh, if you had never come to us and sweetened
our lives, when you did not love him! I knew my duty: if he had not died,
I should have been forced to tell him that you did not love him, that
you were marrying him out of pity. I must have made him set you free,
and then his life’s happiness would have been gone. That is why I prayed
to God that he might die, that I should not need to disturb the peace of
his heart. And I have rejoiced over his sunken cheeks, exulted over his
rattling breath, trembled lest Death should not complete his work.”
She stopped speaking, and waited for an answer; but Anna Stjärnhök could
not speak, she was still listening to the many voices in her soul.
Then the mother cried out in despair:—
“Oh, how happy are they who may mourn for their dead, they who may weep
streams of tears! I must stand with dry eyes by my son’s grave, I must
rejoice over his death! How unhappy I am!”
Then Anna Stjärnhök pressed her hands against her breast. She remembered
that winter night when she had sworn by her love to be these poor
people’s support and comfort, and she trembled. Had it all been in vain;
was not her sacrifice one of those which God accepts? Should it all be
turned to a curse?
But if she sacrificed everything would not God then give His blessing to
the work, and let her bring happiness, be a support, a help, to these
people?
“What is required for you to be able to mourn for your son?” she asked.
“That I shall not believe the testimony of my old eyes. If I believed
that you loved my son, then I would grieve for his death.”
The girl rose up, her eyes burning. She tore off her veil and spread it
over the grave, she tore off her wreath and laid it beside it.
“See how I love him!” she cried. “I give him my wreath and veil. I
consecrate myself to him. I will never belong to another.”
Then the captain’s wife rose too. She stood silent for a while; her
whole body was shaking, and her face twitched, but at last the tears
came,—tears of grief.
CHAPTER XVI
THE DROUGHT
If dead things love, if earth and water distinguish friends from enemies,
I should like to possess their love. I should like the green earth not
to feel my step as a heavy burden. I should like her to forgive that she
for my sake is wounded by plough and harrow, and willingly to open for my
dead body. And I should like the waves, whose shining mirror is broken by
my oars, to have the same patience with me as a mother has with an eager
child when it climbs up on her knee, careless of the uncrumpled silk of
her dress.
The spirit of life still dwells in dead things. Have you not seen it?
When strife and hate fill the earth, dead things must suffer too. Then
the waves are wild and ravenous; then the fields are niggardly as a
miser. But woe to him for whose sake the woods sigh and the mountains
weep.
Memorable was the year when the pensioners were in power. If one could
tell of everything which happened that year to the people by Löfven’s
shores a world would be surprised. For then old love wakened, then new
was kindled. Old hate blazed up, and long cherished revenge seized its
prey.
From Ekeby this restless infection went forth; it spread first through
the manors and estates, and drove men to ruin and to crime. It ran from
village to village, from cottage to cottage. Everywhere hearts became
wild, and brains confused. Never did the dance whirl so merrily at the
cross-roads; never was the beer-barrel so quickly emptied; never was so
much grain turned into brandy. Never were there so many balls; never
was the way shorter from the angry word to the knife-thrust. But the
uneasiness was not only among men. It spread through all living things.
Never had wolf and bear ravaged so fiercely; never had fox and owl howled
so terribly, and plundered so boldly; never did the sheep go so often
astray in the wood; never did so much sickness rage among the cattle.
He who will see how everything hangs together must leave the towns and
live in a lonely hut at the edge of the forest; then he will learn to
notice nature’s every sign and to understand how the dead things depend
on the living. He will see that when there is restlessness on the earth,
the peace of the dead things is disturbed. The people know it. It is in
such times that the wood-nymph puts out the charcoal-kiln, the sea-nymph
breaks the boat to pieces, the river-sprite sends illness, the goblin
starves the cow. And it was so that year. Never had the spring freshets
done so much damage. The mill and smithy at Ekeby were not the only
offerings. Never had the lightning laid waste so much already before
midsummer—after midsummer came the drought.
As long as the long days lasted, no rain came. From the middle of June
till the beginning of September, the country was bathed in continual
sunshine.
The rain refused to fall, the earth to nourish, the winds to blow.
Sunshine only streamed down on the earth. The grass was not yet high and
could not grow; the rye was without nourishment, just when it should
have collected food in its ears; the wheat, from which most of the bread
was baked, never came up more than a few inches; the late sowed turnips
never sprouted; not even the potatoes could draw sustenance from that
petrified earth.
At such times they begin to be frightened far away in the forest huts,
and from the mountains the terror comes down to the calmer people on the
plain.
“There is some one whom God’s hand is seeking!” say the people.
And each one beats his breast and says: “Is it I? Is it from horror of me
that the rain holds back? Is it in wrath against me that the stern earth
dries up and hardens?—and the perpetual sunshine,—is it to heap coals of
fire on my head? Or if it is not I, who is it whom God’s hand is seeking?”
It was a Sunday in August. The service was over. The people wandered in
groups along the sunny roads. On all sides they saw burned woods and
ruined crops. There had been many forest fires; and what they had spared,
insects had taken.
The gloomy people did not lack for subjects of conversation. There were
many who could tell how hard it had been in the years of famine of
eighteen hundred and eight and nine, and in the cold winter of eighteen
hundred and twelve, when the sparrows froze to death. They knew how to
make bread out of bark, and how the cows could be taught to eat moss.
There was one woman who had tried a new kind of bread of cranberries and
corn-meal. She had a sample with her, and let the people taste it. She
was proud of her invention.
But over them all floated the same question. It stared from every eye,
was whispered by every lip: “Who is it, O Lord, whom Thy hand seeks?”
A man in the gloomy crowd which had gone westward, and struggled up Broby
hill, stopped a minute before the path which led up to the house of the
mean Broby clergyman. He picked up a dry stick from the ground and threw
it upon the path.
“Dry as that stick have the prayers been which he has given our Lord,”
said the man.
He who walked next to him also stopped. He took up a dry branch and threw
it where the stick had fallen.
“That is the proper offering to that priest,” he said.
The third in the crowd followed the others’ example.
“He has been like the drought; sticks and straw are all that he has let
us keep.”
The fourth said: “We give him back what he has given us.”
And the fifth: “For a perpetual disgrace I throw this to him. May he dry
up and wither away like this branch!”
“Dry food to the dry priest,” said the sixth.
The people who came after see what they are doing and hear what they say.
Now they get the answer to their long questioning.
“Give him what belongs to him! He has brought the drought on us.”
And each one stops, each one says his word and throws his branch before
he goes on.
In the corner by the path there soon lies a pile of sticks and straw,—a
pile of shame for the Broby clergyman.
That was their only revenge. No one lifted his hand against the
clergyman or said an angry word to him. Desperate hearts cast off part
of their burden by throwing a dry branch on the pile. They did not
revenge themselves. They only pointed out the guilty one to the God of
retribution.
“If we have not worshipped you rightly, it is that man’s fault. Be
pitiful, Lord, and let him alone suffer! We mark him with shame and
dishonor. We are not with him.”
It soon became the custom for every one who passed the vicarage to throw
a dry branch on the pile of shame.
The old miser soon noticed the pile by the roadside. He had it carried
away,—some said that he heated his stove with it. The next day a new pile
had collected on the same spot, and as soon as he had that taken away a
new one was begun.
The dry branches lay there and said: “Shame, shame to the Broby
clergyman!”
Soon the people’s meaning became clear to him. He understood that they
pointed to him as the origin of their misfortune. It was in wrath at
him God let the earth languish. He tried to laugh at them and their
branches; but when it had gone on a week, he laughed no more. Oh, what
childishness! How can those dry sticks injure him? He understood that
the hate of years sought an opportunity of expressing itself. What of
that?—he was not used to love.
For all this he did not become more gentle. He had perhaps wished to
improve after the old lady had visited him; now he could not. He would
not be forced to it.
But gradually the pile grew too strong for him. He thought of it
continually, and the feeling which every one cherished took root also in
him. He watched the pile, counted the branches which had been added each
day. The thought of it encroached upon all other thoughts. The pile was
destroying him.
Every day he felt more and more the people were right. He grew thin
and very old in a couple of weeks. He suffered from remorse and
indisposition. But it was as if everything depended on that pile. It was
as if his remorse would grow silent, and the weight of years be lifted
off him, if only the pile would stop growing.
Finally he sat there the whole day and watched; but the people were
without mercy. At night there were always new branches thrown on.
* * * * *
One day Gösta Berling passed along the road. The Broby clergyman sat at
the roadside, old and haggard. He sat and picked out the dry sticks and
laid them together in rows and piles, playing with them as if he were a
child again. Gösta was grieved at his misery.
“What are you doing, pastor?” he says, and leaps out of the carriage.
“Oh, I am sitting here and picking. I am not doing anything.”
“You had better go home, and not sit here in the dust.”
“It is best that I sit here.”
Then Gösta Berling sits down beside him.
“It is not so easy to be a priest,” he says after a while.
“It is all very well down here where there are people,” answers the
clergyman. “It is worse up there.”
Gösta understands what he means. He knows those parishes in Northern
Värmland where sometimes there is not even a house for the clergyman,
where there are not more than a couple of people in ten miles of country,
where the clergyman is the only educated man. The Broby minister had been
in such a parish for over twenty years.
“That is where we are sent when we are young,” says Gösta. “It is
impossible to hold out with such a life; and so one is ruined forever.
There are many who have gone under up there.”
“Yes,” says the Broby clergyman; “a man is destroyed by loneliness.”
“A man comes,” says Gösta, “eager and ardent, exhorts and admonishes, and
thinks that all will be well, that the people will soon turn to better
ways.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But soon he sees that words do not help. Poverty stands in the way.
Poverty prevents all improvement.”
“Poverty,” repeats the clergyman,—“poverty has ruined my life.”
“The young minister comes up there,” continues Gösta, “poor as all the
others. He says to the drunkard: Stop drinking!”
“Then the drunkard answers,” interrupts the clergyman: “Give me something
which is better than brandy! Brandy is furs in winter, coolness in
summer. Brandy is a warm house and a soft bed. Give me those, and I will
drink no more.”
“And then,” resumes Gösta, “the minister says to the thief: You shall
not steal; and to the cruel husband: You shall not beat your wife; and
to the superstitious: You shall believe in God and not in devils and
goblins. But the thief answers: Give me bread; and the cruel husband
says: Make us rich, and we will not quarrel; and the superstitious say:
Teach us better. But who can help them without money?”
“It is true, true every word,” cried the clergyman. “They believed in
God, but more in the devil, and most in the mountain goblin. The crops
were all turned into the still. There seemed to be no end to the misery.
In most of the gray cottages there was want. Hidden sorrow made the
women’s tongues bitter. Discomfort drove their husbands to drink. They
could not look after their fields or their cattle. They made a fool of
their minister. What could a man do with them? They did not understand
what I said to them from the pulpit. They did not believe what I wanted
to teach them. And no one to consult, no one who could help me to keep up
my courage.”
“There are those who have stood out,” says Gösta. “God’s grace has been
so great to some that they have not returned from such a life broken men.
They have had strength; they have borne the loneliness, the poverty,
the hopelessness. They have done what little good they could and have
not despaired. Such men have always been and still are. I greet them as
heroes. I will honor them as long as I live. I was not able to stand out.”
“I could not,” added the clergyman.
“The minister up there thinks,” says Gösta, musingly, “that he will be
a rich man, an exceedingly rich man. No one who is poor can struggle
against evil. And so he begins to hoard.”
“If he had not hoarded he would have drunk,” answers the old man; “he
sees so much misery.”
“Or he would become dull and lazy, and lose all strength. It is dangerous
for him who is not born there to come thither.”
“He has to harden himself to hoard. He pretends at first; then it becomes
a habit.”
“He has to be hard both to himself and to others,” continues Gösta; “it
is hard to amass. He must endure hate and scorn; he must go cold and
hungry and harden his heart: it almost seems as if he had forgotten why
he began to hoard.”
The Broby clergyman looked startled at him. He wondered if Gösta sat
there and made a fool of him. But Gösta was only eager and earnest. It
was as if he was speaking of his own life.
“It was so with me,” says the old man quietly.
“But God watches over him,” interrupts Gösta. “He wakes in him the
thoughts of his youth when he has amassed enough. He gives the minister a
sign when His people need him.”
“But if the minister does not obey the sign, Gösta Berling?”
“He cannot withstand it,” says Gösta, and smiles. “He is so moved by the
thought of the warm cottages which he will help the poor to build.”
The clergyman looks down on the little heaps he had raised from the
sticks of the pile of shame. The longer he talks with Gösta, the more
he is convinced that the latter is right. He had always had the thought
of doing good some day, when he had enough,—of course he had had that
thought.
“Why does he never build the cottages?” he asks shyly.
“He is ashamed. Many would think that he did what he always had meant to
do through fear of the people.”
“He cannot bear to be forced, is that it?”
“He can however do much good secretly. Much help is needed this year. He
can find some one who will dispense his gifts. I understand what it all
means,” cries Gösta, and his eyes shone. “Thousands shall get bread this
year from one whom they load with curses.”
“It shall be so, Gösta.”
A feeling of transport came over the two who had so failed in the
vocation they had chosen. The desire of their youthful days to serve God
and man filled them. They gloated over the good deeds they would do.
Gösta would help the minister.
“We will get bread to begin with,” says the clergyman.
“We will get teachers. We will have a surveyor come, and divide up the
land. Then the people shall learn how to till their fields and tend their
cattle.”
“We will build roads and open new districts.”
“We will make locks at the falls at Berg, so that there will be an open
way between Löfven and Väner.”
“All the riches of the forest will be of double blessing when the way to
the sea is opened.”
“Your head shall be weighed down by blessings,” cries Gösta.
The clergyman looks up. They read in one another’s eyes the same burning
enthusiasm.
But at the same moment the eyes of both fall on the pile of shame.
“Gösta,” says the old man, “all that needs a young man’s strength, but I
am dying. You see what is killing me.”
“Get rid of it!”
“How, Gösta Berling?”
Gösta moves close up to him and looks sharply into his eyes. “Pray to God
for rain,” he says. “You are going to preach next Sunday. Pray for rain.”
The old clergyman sinks down in terror.
“If you are in earnest, if you are not he who has brought the drought to
the land, if you had meant to serve the Most High with your hardness,
pray God for rain. That shall be the token; by that we shall know if God
wishes what we wish.”
When Gösta drove down Broby hill, he was astonished at himself and at
the enthusiasm which had taken hold of him. But it could be a beautiful
life—yes, but not for him. Up there they would have none of his services.
* * * * *
In the Broby church the sermon was over and the usual prayers read. The
minister was just going to step down from the pulpit, but he hesitated,
finally he fell on his knees and prayed for rain.
He prayed as a desperate man prays, with few words, without coherency.
“If it is my sin which has called down Thy wrath, let me alone suffer! If
there is any pity in Thee, Thou God of mercy, let it rain! Take the shame
from me! Let it rain in answer to my prayer! Let the rain fall on the
fields of the poor! Give Thy people bread!”
The day was hot; the sultriness was intolerable. The congregation sat as
if in a torpor; but at these broken words, this hoarse despair, every one
had awakened.
“If there is a way of expiation for me, give rain—”
He stopped speaking. The doors stood open. There came a violent gust of
wind. It rushed along the ground, whirled into the church, in a cloud
of dust, full of sticks and straw. The clergyman could not continue; he
staggered down from the pulpit.
The people trembled. Could that be an answer?
But the gust was only the forerunner of the thunderstorm. It came rushing
with an unheard-of violence. When the psalm was sung, and the clergyman
stood by the altar, the lightning was already flashing, and the thunder
crashing, drowning the sound of his voice. As the sexton struck up the
final march, the first drops were already pattering against the green
window-panes, and the people hurried out to see the rain. But they were
not content with that: some wept, others laughed, while they let the
torrents stream over them. Ah, how great had been their need! How unhappy
they had been! But God is good! God let it rain. What joy, what joy!
The Broby clergyman was the only one who did not come out into the rain.
He lay on his knees before the altar and did not rise. The joy had been
too violent for him. He died of happiness.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CHILD’S MOTHER
The child was born in a peasant’s house east of the Klar river. The
child’s mother had come seeking employment one day in early June.
She had been unfortunate, she had said to the master and mistress, and
her mother had been so hard to her that she had had to run away from
home. She called herself Elizabeth Karlsdotter; but she would not say
from whence she came, for then perhaps they would tell her parents that
she was there, and if they should find her, she would be tortured to
death, she knew it. She asked for no pay, only food and a roof over her
head. She could work, weave or spin, and take care of the cows,—whatever
they wanted. If they wished, she could also pay for herself.
She had been clever enough to come to the farm-house bare-foot, with her
shoes under her arm; she had coarse hands; she spoke the country dialect;
and she wore a peasant woman’s clothes. She was believed.
The master thought she looked sickly, and did not count much on her
fitness for work. But somewhere the poor thing must be. And so she was
allowed to stop.
There was something about her which made every one on the farm kind to
her. She had come to a good place. The people were serious and reticent.
Her mistress liked her; when she discovered that she could weave, they
borrowed a loom from the vicarage, and the child’s mother worked at it
the whole summer.
It never occurred to any one that she needed to be spared; she had to
work like a peasant girl the whole time. She liked too to have much
work. She was not unhappy. Life among the peasants pleased her, although
she lacked all her accustomed conveniences. But everything was taken so
simply and quietly there. Every one’s thoughts were on his or her work;
the days passed so uniform and monotonous that one mistook the day and
thought it was the middle of the week when Sunday came.
One day at the end of August there had been haste with the oat crop, and
the child’s mother had gone out with the others to bind the sheaves. She
had strained herself, and the child had been born, but too soon. She had
expected it in October.
Now the farmer’s wife stood with the child in the living room to warm it
by the fire, for the poor little thing was shivering in the August heat.
The child’s mother lay in a room beyond and listened to what they said
of the little one. She could imagine how the men and maids came up and
looked at him.
“Such a poor little thing,” they all said, and then followed always,
without fail:—
“Poor little thing, with no father!”
They did not complain of the child’s crying: they thought a child needed
to cry; and, when everything was considered, the child was strong for its
age; had it but a father, all would have been well.
The mother lay and listened and wondered. The matter suddenly seemed to
her incredibly important. How would he get through life, the poor little
thing?
She had made her plans before. She would remain at the farm-house the
first year. Then she would hire a room and earn her bread at the loom.
She meant to earn enough to feed and clothe the child. Her husband could
continue to believe that she was unworthy. She had thought that the child
perhaps would be a better man if she alone brought it up, than if a
stupid and conceited father should guide it.
But now, since the child was born, she could not see the matter in the
same way. Now she thought that she had been selfish. “The child must have
a father,” she said to herself.
If he had not been such a pitiful little thing, if he had been able to
eat and sleep like other children, if his head had not always sunk down
on one shoulder, and if he had not so nearly died when the attack of
cramp came, it would not have been so important.
It was not so easy to decide, but decide she must immediately. The child
was three days old, and the peasants in Värmland seldom wait longer to
have the child baptized. Under what name should the baby be entered in
the church-register, and what would the clergyman want to know about the
child’s mother?
It was an injustice to the child to let him be entered as fatherless. If
he should be a weak and sickly man, how could she take the responsibility
of depriving him of the advantages of birth and riches?
The child’s mother had noticed that there is generally great joy and
excitement when a child comes into the world. Now it seemed to her that
it must be hard for this baby to live, whom every one pitied. She wanted
to see him sleeping on silk and lace, as it behoves a count’s son. She
wanted to see him encompassed with joy and pride.
The child’s mother began to think that she had done its father too great
an injustice. Had she the right to keep him for herself? That she could
not have. Such a precious little thing, whose worth it is not in the
power of man to calculate, should she take that for her own? That would
not be honest.
But she did not wish to go back to her husband. She feared that it would
be her death. But the child was in greater danger than she. He might die
any minute, and he was not baptized.
That which had driven her from her home, the grievous sin which had dwelt
in her heart, was gone. She had now no love for any other than the child.
It was not too heavy a duty to try to get him his right place in life.
The child’s mother had the farmer and his wife called and told them
everything. The husband journeyed to Borg to tell Count Dohna that his
countess was alive, and that there was a child.
The peasant came home late in the evening; he had not met the count, for
he had gone away, but he had been to the minister at Svartsjö, and talked
with him of the matter.
Then the countess heard that her marriage had been declared invalid, and
that she no longer had a husband.
The minister wrote a friendly letter to her, and offered her a home in
his house.
A letter from her own father to Count Henrik, which must have reached
Borg a few days after her flight, was also sent to her. It was just that
letter in which the old man had begged the count to hasten to make his
marriage legal, which had indicated to the count the easiest way to be
rid of his wife.
It is easy to imagine that the child’s mother was seized with anger more
than sorrow, when she heard the peasant’s story.
She lay awake the whole night. The child must have a father, she thought
over and over again.
The next morning the peasant had to drive to Ekeby for her, and go for
Gösta Berling.
Gösta asked the silent man many questions, but could find out nothing.
Yes, the countess had been in his house the whole summer. She had been
well and had worked. Now a child was born. The child was weak; but the
mother would soon be strong again.
Gösta asked if the countess knew that the marriage had been annulled.
Yes, she knew it now. She had heard it yesterday.
And as long as the drive lasted Gösta had alternately fever and chills.
What did she want of him? Why did she send for him?
He thought of the life that summer on Löfven’s shores. They had let the
days go by with jests and laughter and pleasure parties, while she had
worked and suffered.
He had never thought of the possibility of ever seeing her again. Ah, if
he had dared to hope! He would have then come into her presence a better
man. What had he now to look back on but the usual follies!
About eight o’clock in the evening he arrived, and was immediately taken
to the child’s mother. It was dark in the room. He could scarcely see her
where she lay. The farmer and his wife came in also.
Now you must know that she whose white face shone in the dimness was
always the noblest and the purest he knew, the most beautiful soul which
had ever arrayed itself in earthly dust. When he once again felt the
bliss of being near her, he longed to throw himself on his knees and
thank her for having again appeared to him; but he was so overpowered by
emotion that he could neither speak nor act.
“Dear Countess Elizabeth!” he only cried.
“Good-evening, Gösta.”
She gave him her hand, which seemed once more to have become soft and
transparent. She lay silent, while he struggled with his emotion.
The child’s mother was not shaken by any violently raging feelings when
she saw Gösta. It surprised her only that he seemed to consider her of
chief importance, when he ought to understand that it now only concerned
the child.
“Gösta,” she said gently, “you must help me now, as you once promised.
You know that my husband has abandoned me, so that my child has no
father.”
“Yes, countess; but that can certainly be changed. Now that there is a
child, the count can be forced to make the marriage legal. You may be
certain that I shall help you!”
The countess smiled. “Do you think that I will force myself upon Count
Dohna?”
The blood surged up to Gösta’s head. What did she wish then? What did she
want of him?
“Come here, Gösta,” she said, and again stretched out her hand. “You
must not be angry with me for what I am going to say; but I thought that
you who are—who are—”
“A dismissed priest, a drunkard, a pensioner, Ebba Dohna’s murderer; I
know the whole list—”
“Are you already angry, Gösta?”
“I would rather that you did not say anything more.”
But the child’s mother continued:—
“There are many, Gösta, who would have liked to be your wife out of love;
but it is not so with me. If I loved you I should not dare to speak as I
am speaking now. For myself I would never ask such a thing, Gösta; but
do you see, I can do it for the sake of the child. You must understand
what I mean to beg of you. Of course it is a great degradation for you,
since I am an unmarried woman who has a child. I did not think that you
would be willing to do it because you are worse than others; although,
yes, I did think of that too. But first I thought that you could be
willing, because you are kind, Gösta, because you are a hero and can
sacrifice yourself. But it is perhaps too much to ask. Perhaps such a
thing would be impossible for a man. If you despise me too much, if it is
too loathsome for you to give your name to another man’s child, say so!
I shall not be angry. I understand that it is too much to ask; but the
child is sick, Gösta. It is cruel at his baptism not to be able to give
the name of his mother’s husband.”
He, hearing her, experienced the same feeling as when that spring day he
had put her on land and left her to her fate. Now he had to help her to
ruin her life, her whole future life. He who loved her had to do it.
“I will do everything you wish, countess,” he said.
The next day he spoke to the dean at Bro, for there the banns were to be
called.
The good old dean was much moved by his story, and promised to take all
the responsibility of giving her away.
“Yes,” he said, “you must help her, Gösta, otherwise she might become
insane. She thinks that she has injured the child by depriving it of its
position in life. She has a most sensitive conscience, that woman.”
“But I know that I shall make her unhappy,” cried Gösta.
“That you must not do, Gösta. You must be a sensible man now, with wife
and child to care for.”
The dean had to journey down to Svartsjö and speak to both the minister
there and the judge. The end of it all was that the next Sunday, the
first of September, the banns were called in Svartsjö between Gösta
Berling and Elizabeth von Thurn.
Then the child’s mother was carried with the greatest care to Ekeby, and
there the child was baptized.
The dean talked to her, and told her that she could still recall her
decision to marry such a man as Gösta Berling. She ought to first write
to her father.
“I cannot repent,” she said; “think if my child should die before it had
a father.”
When the banns had been thrice asked, the child’s mother had been well
and up several days. In the afternoon the dean came to Ekeby and married
her to Gösta Berling. But no one thought of it as a wedding. No guests
were invited. They only gave the child a father, nothing more.
The child’s mother shone with a quiet joy, as if she had attained a great
end in life. The bridegroom was in despair. He thought how she had thrown
away her life by a marriage with him. He saw with dismay how he scarcely
existed for her. All her thoughts were with her child.
A few days after the father and mother were mourning. The child had died.
Many thought that the child’s mother did not mourn so violently nor so
deeply as they had expected; she had a look of triumph. It was as if she
rejoiced that she had thrown away her life for the sake of the child.
When he joined the angels, he would still remember that a mother on earth
had loved him.
* * * * *
All this happened quietly and unnoticed. When the banns were published
for Gösta Berling and Elizabeth von Thurn in the Svartsjö church, most
of the congregation did not even know who the bride was. The clergyman
and the gentry who knew the story said little about it. It was as if they
were afraid that some one who had lost faith in the power of conscience
should wrongly interpret the young woman’s action. They were so afraid,
so afraid lest some one should come and say: “See now, she could not
conquer her love for Gösta; she has married him under a plausible
pretext.” Ah, the old people were always so careful of that young woman!
Never could they bear to hear anything evil of her. They would scarcely
acknowledge that she had sinned. They would not agree that any fault
stained that soul which was so afraid of evil.
Another great event happened just then, which also caused Gösta’s
marriage to be little discussed.
Major Samzelius had met with an accident. He had become more and more
strange and misanthropic. His chief intercourse was with animals, and he
had collected a small menagerie at Sjö.
He was dangerous too; for he always carried a loaded gun, and shot it off
time after time without paying much attention to his aim. One day he was
bitten by a tame bear which he had shot without intending it. The wounded
animal threw itself on him, and succeeded in giving him a terrible bite
in the arm. The beast broke away and took refuge in the forest.
The major was put to bed and died of the wound, but not till just before
Christmas. Had his wife known that he lay ill, she could have resumed her
sway over Ekeby. But the pensioners knew that she would not come before
their year was out.
CHAPTER XVIII
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
Under the stairs to the gallery in the Svartsjö church is a lumber-room
filled with the grave-diggers’ worn-out shovels, with broken benches,
with rejected tin labels and other rubbish.
There, where the dust lies thickest and seems to hide it from every human
eye, stands a chest, inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the most perfect
mosaic. If one scrapes the dust away, it seems to shine and glitter
like a mountain-wall in a fairy-tale. The chest is locked, and the key
is in good keeping; it may not be used. No mortal man may cast a glance
into that chest. No one knows what is in it. First, when the nineteenth
century has reached its close, may the key be placed in the lock, the
cover be lifted, and the treasures which it guarded be seen by men.
So has he who owned the chest ordained.
On the brass-plate of the cover stands an inscription: “Labor vincit
omnia.” But another inscription would be more appropriate. “Amor vincit
omnia” ought to stand there. For the chest in the rubbish room under the
gallery stairs is a testimony of the omnipotence of love.
O Eros, all-conquering god!
Thou, O Love, art indeed eternal! Old are people on the earth, but thou
hast followed them through the ages.
Where are the gods of the East, the strong heroes who carried weapons
of thunderbolts,—they who on the shores of holy rivers took offerings
of honey and milk? They are dead. Dead is Bel, the mighty warrior, and
Thot, the hawk-headed champion. The glorious ones are dead who rested on
the cloud banks of Olympus; so too the mighty who dwelt in the turreted
Valhalla. All the old gods are dead except Eros, Eros, the all-powerful!
His work is in everything you see. He supports the race. See him
everywhere! Whither can you go without finding the print of his foot?
What has your ear perceived, where the humming of his wings has not been
the key-note? He lives in the hearts of men and in the sleeping germ. See
with trembling his presence in inanimate things!
What is there which does not long and desire? What is there which escapes
his dominion? All the gods of revenge will fall, all the powers of
strength and might. Thou, O Love, art eternal!
* * * * *
Old Uncle Eberhard is sitting at his writing-desk,—a splendid piece
of furniture with a hundred drawers, with marble top and ornaments of
blackened brass. He works with eagerness and diligence, alone in the
pensioners’ wing.
Oh, Eberhard, why do you not wander about wood and field in these last
days of the departing summer like the other pensioners? No one, you know,
worships unpunished the goddess of wisdom. Your back is bent with sixty
and some years; the hair which covers your head is not your own; the
wrinkles crowd one another on your brow, which arches over hollow eyes;
and the decay of old age is drawn in the thousand lines about your empty
mouth.
Oh, Eberhard, why do you not wander about wood and field? Death parts you
just so much the sooner from your desk, because you have not let life
tempt you from it.
Uncle Eberhard draws a thick stroke under his last line. From the desk’s
innumerable drawers he drags out yellowed, closely scribbled manuscripts,
all the different parts of his great work,—that work which is to carry on
Eberhard Berggren’s name through all time. But just as he has piled up
manuscript on manuscript, and is staring at them in silent rapture, the
door opens, and in walks the young countess.
There she is, the old men’s young mistress,—she whom they wait on and
adore more than grandparents wait on and adore the first grandson. There
she is whom they had found in poverty and in sickness, and to whom they
had now given all the glory of the world, just as the king in the fairy
tale did to the beautiful beggar girl he found in the forest. It is for
her that the horn and violin now sound at Ekeby,—for her everything
moves, breathes, works on the great estate.
She is well again, although still very weak. Time goes slowly for her
alone in the big house, and, as she knows that the pensioners are away,
she wishes to see what it looks like in the pensioners’ wing, that
notorious room.
So she comes softly in and looks up at the whitewashed walls and the
yellow striped bed-curtains, but she is embarrassed when she sees that
the room is not empty.
Uncle Eberhard goes solemnly towards her, and leads her forward to the
great pile of paper.
“Look, countess,” he says; “now my work is ready. Now shall what I have
written go out into the world. Now great things are going to happen.”
“What is going to happen, Uncle Eberhard?”
“Oh, countess, it is going to strike like a thunderbolt, a bolt which
enlightens and kills. Ever since Moses dragged him out of Sinai’s
thunder-cloud and put him on the throne of grace in the innermost
sanctuary of the temple, ever since then he has sat secure, the old
Jehovah; but now men shall see what he is: Imagination, emptiness,
exhalation, the stillborn child of our own brain. He shall sink into
nothingness,” said the old man, and laid his wrinkled hand on the pile of
manuscript. “It stands here; and when people read this, they will have to
believe. They will rise up and acknowledge their own stupidity; they will
use crosses for kindling-wood, churches for storehouses, and clergymen
will plough the earth.”
“Oh, Uncle Eberhard,” says the countess, with a slight shudder, “are you
such a dreadful person? Do such dreadful things stand there?”
“Dreadful!” repeated the old man, “it is only the truth. But we are like
little boys who hide their faces in a woman’s skirt as soon as they meet
a stranger: we have accustomed ourselves to hide from the truth, from the
eternal stranger. But now he shall come and dwell among us, now he shall
be known by all.”
“By all?”
“Not only by philosophers, but by everybody; do you understand, countess,
by everybody.”
“And so Jehovah shall die?”
“He and all angels, all saints, all devils, all lies.”
“Who shall then rule the world?”
“Do you believe that any one has ruled it before? Do you believe in that
Providence which looks after sparrows and the hair of your head? No one
has ruled it, no one shall rule it.”
“But we, we people, what will we become—”
“The same which we have been—dust. That which is burned out can burn no
longer; it is dead. We about whom the fire of life flickers are only
fuel. Life’s sparks fly from one to another. We are lighted, flame up,
and die out. That is life.”
“Oh, Eberhard, is there no life of the spirit?”
“None.”
“No life beyond the grave?”
“None.”
“No good, no evil, no aim, no hope?”
“None.”
The young woman walks over to the window. She looks out at the autumn’s
yellowed leaves, at dahlias and asters which hang their heavy heads on
broken stalks. She sees the Löfven’s black waves, the autumn’s dark
storm-clouds, and for a moment she inclines towards repudiation.
“Uncle Eberhard,” she says, “how ugly and gray the world is; how
profitless everything is! I should like to lie down and die.”
But then she hears a murmur in her soul. The vigor of life and its strong
emotions cry out for the happiness of living.
“Is there nothing,” she breaks out, “which can give life beauty, since
you have taken from me God and immortality?”
“Work,” answers the old man.
But she looks out again, and a feeling of scorn for that poor wisdom
creeps over her. The unfathomable rises before her; she feels the spirit
dwelling in everything; she is sensible of the power which lies bound
in seemingly dead material, but which can develop into a thousand forms
of shifting life. Dizzily she seeks for a name for the presence of God’s
spirit in nature.
“Oh, Eberhard,” she says, “what is work? Is it a god? Has it any meaning
in itself? Name another!”
“I know no other,” answered the old man.
Then she finds the name which she is seeking,—a poor, often sullied name.
“Uncle Eberhard, why do you not speak of love?”
A smile glides over the empty mouth where the thousand wrinkles cross.
“Here,” says the philosopher, and strikes the heavy packet with his
clenched hand, “here all the gods are slain, and I have not forgotten
Eros. What is love but a longing of the flesh? In what does he stand
higher than the other requirements of the body? Make hunger a god! Make
fatigue a god! They are just as worthy. Let there be an end to such
absurdities! Let the truth live!”
The young countess sinks her head. It is not so, all that is not true;
but she cannot contest it.
“Your words have wounded my soul,” she says; “but still I do not believe
you. The gods of revenge and violence you may be able to kill, no others.”
But the old man takes her hand, lays it on the book, and swears in the
fanaticism of unbelief.
“When you have read this, you must believe.”
“May it never come before my eyes,” she says, “for if I believe that, I
cannot live.”
And she goes sadly from the philosopher. But he sits for a long time and
thinks, when she has gone.
Those old manuscripts, scribbled over with heathenish confessions, have
not yet been tested before the world. Uncle Eberhard’s name has not yet
reached the heights of fame.
His great work lies hidden in a chest in the lumber-room under the
gallery stairs in the Svartsjö church; it shall first see the light of
day at the end of the century.
But why has he done this? Was he afraid not to have proved his point? Did
he fear persecutions? You little know Uncle Eberhard.
Understand it now; he has loved the truth, not his own glory. So he has
sacrificed the latter, not the former, in order that a deeply loved child
might die in the belief in that she has most cared for.
O Love, thou art indeed eternal!
CHAPTER XIX
THE BROOM-GIRL
No one knows the place in the lee of the mountain where the pines grow
thickest and deep layers of moss cover the ground. How should any one
know it? No man’s foot has ever trodden it before; no man’s tongue has
given it a name. No path leads to that hidden spot. It is the most
solitary tract in the forest, and now thousands of people are looking for
it.
What an endless procession of seekers! They would fill the Bro
church,—not only Bro, but Löfviks and Svartsjö.
All who live near the road rush out and ask, “Has anything happened? Is
the enemy upon us? Where are you going? Tell us where.”
“We are searching,” they answer. “We have been searching for two days.
We shall go on to-day; but afterwards we can do no more. We are going to
look through the Björne wood and the firclad heights west of Ekeby.”
It was from Nygård, a poor district far away among the eastern mountains,
the procession had first started. The beautiful girl with the heavy,
black hair and the red cheeks had disappeared a week before. The
broom-girl, to whom Gösta Berling had wished to engage himself, had been
lost in the great forests. No one had seen her for a week.
So the people started from Nygård to search through the wood. And
everybody they met joined in the search.
Sometimes one of the new-comers asks,—
“You men from Nygård, how has it all happened? Why do you let that
beautiful girl go alone in strange paths? The forest is deep, and God has
taken away her reason.”
“No one disturbs her,” they answer; “she disturbs no one. She goes as
safely as a child. Who is safer than one God himself must care for? She
has always come back before.”
So have the searching crowd gone through the eastern woods, which shut in
Nygård from the plain. Now on the third day it passes by the Bro church
towards the woods west of Ekeby.
But wherever they go, a storm of wondering rages; constantly a man from
the crowd has to stop to answer questions: “What do you want? What are
you looking for?”
“We are looking for the blue-eyed, dark-haired girl. She has laid herself
down to die in the forest. She has been gone a week.”
“Why has she laid herself down to die in the forest? Was she hungry? Was
she unhappy?”
“She has not suffered want, but she had a misfortune last spring. She has
seen that mad priest, Gösta Berling, and loved him for many years. She
knew no better. God had taken away her wits.”
“Last spring the misfortune happened,—before that, he had never looked at
her. Then he said to her that she should be his sweetheart. It was only
in jest; he let her go again, but she could not be consoled. She kept
coming to Ekeby. She went after him wherever he went. He wearied of her.
When she was there last, they set their dogs on her. Since then no one
has seen her.”
To the rescue, to the rescue! A human life is concerned! A human being
has laid herself down to die in the wood! Perhaps she is already dead.
Perhaps, too, she is still wandering there without finding the right way.
The forest is wide, and her reason is with God.
Come everybody, men and women and children! Who can dare to stay at home?
Who knows if God does not intend to use just him? Come all of you, that
your soul may not some day wander helpless in dry places, seek rest and
find none! Come! God has taken her reason, and the forest is wide.
It is wonderful to see people unite for some great object. But it is not
hunger, nor the fear of God, nor war which has driven these out. Their
trouble is without profit, their striving without reward; they are only
going to find a fool. So many steps, so much anxiety, so many prayers it
all costs, and yet it will only be rewarded by the recovery of a poor,
misguided girl, whose reason is with God.
Those anxious searchers fill the highway. With earnest eyes they gauge
the forest; they go forward sadly, for they know that they are more
probably searching for the dead than the living.
Ah, that black thing at the foot of the cliff, it is not an ant-hill
after all, but a fallen tree. Praised be Heaven, only a fallen tree! But
they cannot see distinctly, the pines grow so thick.
It is the third day of the search; they are used to the work. They search
under the sloping rock, on which the foot can slide, under fallen trees,
where arm or leg easily could have been broken, under the thick growing
pines’ branches, trailing over soft moss, inviting to rest.
The bear’s den, the fox’s hole, the badger’s deep home, the red cranberry
slope, the silver fir, the mountain, which the forest fire laid waste a
month ago, the stone which the giant threw,—all that have they found,
but not the place under the rock where the black thing is lying. No one
has been there to see if it is an ant-hill, or a tree-trunk, or a human
being. Alas! it is indeed a human being, but no one has been there to see
her.
The evening sun is shining on the other side of the wood, but the
young woman is not found. What should they do now? Should they search
through the wood once more? The wood is dangerous in the dark; there
are bottomless bogs and deep clefts. And what could they, who had found
nothing when the sun was shining, find when it was gone?
“Let us go to Ekeby!” cries one in the crowd.
“Let us go to Ekeby!” they all cry together.
“Let us ask those pensioners why they let loose the dogs on one whose
reason God had taken, why they drove a fool to despair. Our poor, hungry
children weep; our clothes are torn; the potatoes rot in the ground; our
horses are running loose; our cows get no care; we are nearly dead with
fatigue—and the fault is theirs. Let us go to Ekeby and ask about this.
“During this cursed year we have had to suffer everything. The winter
will bring us starvation. Whom does God’s hand seek? It was not the Broby
clergyman. His prayers could reach God’s ear. Who, then, if not these
pensioners? Let us go to Ekeby!
“They have ruined the estate, they have driven the major’s wife to beg on
the highway. It is their fault that we have no work. The famine is their
doing. Let us go to Ekeby!”
So the dark, embittered men crowd down to Ekeby; hungry women with
weeping children in their arms follow them; and last come the cripples
and the old men. And the bitterness spreads like an ever-increasing storm
from the old men to the women, from the women to the strong men at the
head of the train.
It is the autumn-flood which is coming. Pensioners, do you remember the
spring-flood?
A cottager who is ploughing in a pasture at the edge of the wood hears
the people’s mad cries. He throws himself on one of his horses and
gallops down to Ekeby.
“Disaster is coming!” he cries; “the bears are coming, the wolves are
coming, the goblins are coming to take Ekeby!”
He rides about the whole estate, wild with terror.
“All the devils in the forest are let loose!” he cries. “They are coming
to take Ekeby! Save yourselves who can! The devils are coming to burn the
house and to kill the pensioners!”
And behind him can be heard the din and cries of the rushing horde. Does
it know what it wants, that storming stream of bitterness? Does it want
fire, or murder, or plunder?
They are not human beings; they are wild beasts. Death to Ekeby, death to
the pensioners!
Here brandy flows in streams. Here gold lies piled in the vaults. Here
the storehouses are filled with grain and meat. Why should the honest
starve, and the guilty have plenty?
But now your time is out, the measure is overflowing, pensioners. In the
wood lies one who condemns you; we are her deputies.
The pensioners stand in the big building and see the people coming. They
know already why they are denounced. For once they are innocent. If
that poor girl has lain down to die in the wood, it is not because they
have set the dogs on her,—that they have never done,—but because Gösta
Berling, a week ago, was married to Countess Elizabeth.
But what good is it to speak to that mob? They are tired, they are
hungry; revenge drives them on, plunder tempts them. They rush down with
wild cries, and before them rides the cottager, whom fear has driven mad.
The pensioners have hidden the young countess in their innermost room.
Löwenborg and Eberhard are to sit there and guard her; the others go
out to meet the people. They are standing on the steps before the main
building, unarmed, smiling, as the first of the noisy crowd reach the
house.
And the people stop before that little group of quiet men. They had
wanted to throw them down on the ground and trample them under their
iron-shod heels, as the people at the Lund iron-works used to do with the
manager and overseer fifty years ago; but they had expected closed doors,
raised weapons; they had expected resistance and fighting.
“Dear friends,” say the pensioners; “dear friends, you are tired and
hungry; let us give you a little food and first a glass of Ekeby’s own
home-brewed brandy.”
The people will not listen; they scream and threaten. But the pensioners
are not discouraged.
“Only wait,” they say; “only wait a second. See, Ekeby stands open. The
cellar doors are open; the store-rooms are open; the dairy is open. Your
women are dropping with fatigue; the children are crying. Let us get them
food first! Then you can kill us. We will not run away. The attic is full
of apples. Let us go after apples for the children!”
* * * * *
An hour later the feasting is in full swing at Ekeby. The biggest feast
the big house has ever seen is celebrated there that autumn night under
the shining full moon.
Woodpiles have been lighted; the whole estate flames with bonfires. The
people sit about in groups, enjoying warmth and rest, while all the good
things of the earth are scattered over them.
Resolute men have gone to the farmyard and taken what was needed. Calves
and sheep have been killed, and even one or two oxen. The animals have
been cut up and roasted in a trice. Those starving hundreds are devouring
the food. Animal after animal is led out and slaughtered. It looks as if
the whole barn would be emptied in one night.
They had just baked that day. Since the young Countess Elizabeth had
come, there had once more been industry in-doors. It seemed as if the
young woman never for an instant remembered that she was Gösta Berling’s
wife. Neither he nor she acted as if it were so; but on the other hand
she made herself the mistress of Ekeby. As a good and capable woman
always must do, she tried with burning zeal to remedy the waste and
the shiftlessness which reigned in the house. And she was obeyed. The
servants felt a certain pleasure in again having a mistress over them.
But what did it matter that she had filled the rafters with bread, that
she had made cheeses and churned and brewed during the month of September?
Out to the people with everything there is, so that they may not burn
down Ekeby and kill the pensioners! Out with bread, butter, cheese! Out
with the beer-barrels, out with the hams from the store-house, out with
the brandy-kegs, out with the apples!
How can all the riches of Ekeby suffice to diminish the people’s anger?
If we get them away before any dark deed is done, we may be glad.
It is all done for the sake of her who is now mistress at Ekeby. The
pensioners are brave men; they would have defended themselves if they had
followed their own will. They would rather have driven away the marauders
with a few sharp shots, but for her, who is gentle and mild and begs for
the people.
As the night advances, the crowds become gentler. The warmth and the rest
and the food and the brandy assuage their terrible madness. They begin to
jest and laugh.
As it draws towards midnight, it looks as if they were preparing to
leave. The pensioners stop bringing food and wine, drawing corks and
pouring ale. They draw a sigh of relief, in the feeling that the danger
is over.
But just then a light is seen in one of the windows of the big house. All
who see it utter a cry. It is a young woman who is carrying the light.
It had only been for a second. The vision disappeared; but the people
think they have recognized the woman.
“She had thick black hair and red cheeks!” they cry. “She is here! They
have hidden her here!”
“Oh, pensioners, have you her here? Have you got our child, whose reason
God has taken, here at Ekeby? What are you doing with her? You let us
grieve for her a whole week, search for three whole days. Away with wine
and food! Shame to us, that we accepted anything from your hands! First,
out with her! Then we shall know what we have to do to you.”
The people are quick; quicker still are the pensioners. They rush in and
bar the door. But how could they resist such a mass? Door after door is
broken down. The pensioners are thrown one side; they are unarmed. They
are wedged in the crowd, so that they cannot move. The people will come
in to find the broom-girl.
In the innermost room they find her. No one has time to see whether she
is light or dark. They lift her up and carry her out. She must not be
afraid, they say. They are here to save her.
But they who now stream from the building are met by another procession.
In the most lonely spot in the forest the body of a woman, who had fallen
over a high cliff and died in the fall, no longer rests. A child had
found her. Searchers who had remained in the wood had lifted her on their
shoulders. Here they come.
In death she is more beautiful than in life. Lovely she lies, with her
long, black hair. Fair is the form since the eternal peace rests upon it.
Lifted high on the men’s shoulders, she is carried through the crowd.
With bent heads all do homage to the majesty of death.
“She has not been dead long,” the men whisper. “She must have wandered
in the woods till to-day. We think that she wanted to escape from us who
were looking for her, and so fell over the cliff.”
But if this is the broom-girl, who is the one who has been carried out of
Ekeby?
The procession from the wood meets the procession from the house.
Bonfires are burning all over the yard. The people can see both the women
and recognize them. The other is the young countess at Borg.
“Oh! what is the meaning of this? Is this a new crime? Why is the young
countess here at Ekeby? Why have they told us that she was far away or
dead? In the name of justice, ought we not to throw ourselves on the
pensioners and trample them to dust under iron-shod heels?”
Then a ringing voice is heard. Gösta Berling has climbed up on the
balustrade and is speaking. “Listen to me, you monsters, you devils! Do
you think there are no guns and powder at Ekeby, you madmen? Do you think
that I have not wanted to shoot you like mad dogs, if she had not begged
for you? Oh, if I had known that you would have touched her, not one of
you should have been left alive!
“Why are you raging here to-night and threatening us with murder and
fire? What have I to do with your crazy girls? Do I know where they run?
I have been too kind to that one; that is the matter. I ought to have set
the dogs on her,—it would have been better for us both,—but I did not.
Nor have I ever promised to marry her; that I have never done. Remember
that!
“But now I tell you that you must let her whom you have dragged out of
the house go. Let her go, I say; and may the hands who have touched her
burn in everlasting fire! Do you not understand that she is as much above
you as heaven is above the earth? She is as delicate as you are coarse;
as good as you are bad.
“Now I will tell you who she is. First, she is an angel from
heaven,—secondly, she has been married to the count at Borg. But her
mother-in-law tortured her night and day; she had to stand at the lake
and wash clothes like an ordinary maid; she was beaten and tormented as
none of your women have ever been. Yes, she was almost ready to throw
herself into the river, as we all know, because they were torturing the
life out of her. I wonder which one of you was there then to save her
life. Not one of you was there; but we pensioners, we did it.
“And when she afterwards gave birth to a child off in a farm-house, and
the count sent her the message: ‘We were married in a foreign land; we
did not follow law and order. You are not my wife; I am not your husband.
I care nothing for your child!’—yes, when that was so, and she did not
want the child to stand fatherless in the church register, then you would
have been proud enough if she had said to one of you: ‘Come and marry me!
I must have a father for the child!’ But she chose none of you. She took
Gösta Berling, the penniless priest, who may never speak the word of God.
Yes, I tell you, peasants, that I have never done anything harder; for I
was so unworthy of her that I did not dare to look her in the eyes, nor
did I dare say no, for she was in despair.
“And now you may believe what evil you like of us pensioners; but to her
we have done what good we could. And it is thanks to her that you have
not all been killed to-night. But now I tell you: let her go, and go
yourselves, or I think the earth will open and swallow you up. And as you
go, pray God to forgive you for having frightened and grieved one who is
so good and innocent. And now be off! We have had enough of you!”
Long before he had finished speaking, those who had carried out the
countess had put her down on one of the stone steps; and now a big
peasant came thoughtfully up to her and stretched out his great hand.
“Thank you, and good-night,” he said. “We wish you no harm, countess.”
After him came another and shook her hand. “Thanks, and good-night. You
must not be angry with us!”
Gösta sprang down and placed himself beside her. Then they took his hand
too.
So they came forward slowly, one after another, to bid them good-night
before they went. They were once more subdued; again were they human
beings, as they were when they left their homes that morning, before
hunger and revenge had made them wild beasts.
They looked in the countess’s face, and Gösta saw that the innocence and
gentleness they saw there brought tears into the eyes of many. There was
in them all a silent adoration of the noblest they had ever seen.
They could not all shake her hand. There were so many, and the young
woman was tired and weak. But they all came and looked at her, and could
take Gösta’s hand,—his arm could stand a shaking.
Gösta stood as if in a dream. That evening a new love sprang up in his
heart.
“Oh, my people,” he thought, “oh, my people, how I love you!” He felt how
he loved all that crowd who were disappearing into the darkness with the
dead girl at the head of the procession, with their coarse clothes and
evil-smelling shoes; those who lived in the gray huts at the edge of the
wood; those who could not write and often not read; those who had never
known the fulness and richness of life, only the struggle for their daily
bread.
He loved them with a painful, burning tenderness which forced the tears
from his eyes. He did not know what he wanted to do for them, but he
loved them, each and all, with their faults, their vices and their
weaknesses. Oh, Lord God, if the day could come when he too should be
loved by them!
He awoke from his dream; his wife laid her hand on his arm. The people
were gone. They were alone on the steps.
“Oh, Gösta, Gösta, how could you!”
She put her hands before her face and wept.
“It is true what I said,” he cried. “I have never promised the broom-girl
to marry her. ‘Come here next Friday, and you shall see something funny!’
was all I ever said to her. It is not my fault that she cared for me.”
“Oh, it was not that; but how could you say to the people that I was
good and pure? Gösta, Gösta! Do you not know that I loved you when I had
no right to do it? I was ashamed, Gösta! I was ready to die of shame!”
And she was shaken by sobs.
He stood and looked at her.
“Oh, my friend, my beloved!” he said quietly. “How happy you are, who are
so good! How happy to have such a beautiful soul!”
CHAPTER XX
KEVENHÜLLER
In the year 1770, in Germany, the afterwards learned and accomplished
Kevenhüller was born. He was the son of a count, and could have lived in
lofty palaces and ridden at the Emperor’s side if he had so wished; but
he had not.
He could have liked to fasten windmill sails on the castle’s highest
tower, turn the hall into a locksmith’s workshop, and the boudoir into
a watch-maker’s. He would have liked to fill the castle with whirling
wheels and working levers. But when he could not do it he left all
the pomp and apprenticed himself to a watch-maker. There he learned
everything there was to learn about cogwheels, springs, and pendulums.
He learned to make sun-dials and star-dials, clocks with singing
canary-birds and horn-blowing shepherds, chimes which filled a whole
church-tower with their wonderful machinery, and watch-works so small
that they could be set in a locket.
When he had got his patent of mastership, he bound his knapsack on his
back, took his stick in his hand, and wandered from place to place to
study everything that went with rollers and wheels. Kevenhüller was no
ordinary watch-maker; he wished to be a great inventor and to improve the
world.
When he had so wandered through many lands, he turned his steps towards
Värmland, to there study mill-wheels and mining. One beautiful summer
morning it so happened that he was crossing the market-place of Karlstad.
But that same beautiful summer morning it had pleased the wood-nymph to
extend her walk as far as the town. The noble lady came also across the
market-place from the opposite direction, and so met Kevenhüller.
That was a meeting for a watch-maker’s apprentice. She had shining, green
eyes, and a mass of light hair, which almost reached the ground, and she
was dressed in green, changeable silk. She was the most beautiful woman
Kevenhüller had ever seen.
He stood as if he had lost his wits, and stared at her as she came
towards him.
She came direct from the deepest thicket of the wood, where the ferns are
as high as trees, where the giant firs shut out the sun, so that it can
only fall in golden drops on the yellow moss.
I should like to have been in Kevenhüller’s place, to see her as she came
with ferns and pine-needles tangled in her yellow hair and a little black
snake about her neck.
How the people must have stared at her! Horses bolted, frightened by her
long, floating hair. The street boys ran after her. The men dropped their
meat-axes to gape at her.
She herself went calm and majestic, only smiling a little at the
excitement, so that Kevenhüller saw her small, pointed teeth shine
between her red lips.
She had hung a cloak over her shoulders so that none should see who she
was; but as ill-luck would have it, she had forgotten to cover her tail.
It dragged along the paving stones.
Kevenhüller saw the tail; he was sorry that a noble lady should make
herself the laughing-stock of the town; so he bowed and said courteously:—
“Would it not please your Grace to lift your train?”
The wood-nymph was touched, not only by his kindness, but by his
politeness. She stopped before him and looked at him, so that he thought
that shining sparks passed from her eyes into his brain. “Kevenhüller,”
she said, “hereafter you shall be able with your two hands to execute
whatever work you will, but only one of each kind.”
She said it and she could keep her word. For who does not know that the
wood-nymph has the power to give genius and wonderful powers to those who
win her favor?
Kevenhüller remained in Karlstad and hired a workshop there. He hammered
and worked night and day. In a week he had made a wonder. It was a
carriage, which went by itself. It went up hill and down hill, went fast
or slow, could be steered and turned, be stopped and started, as one
wished.
Kevenhüller became famous. He was so proud of his carriage that he
journeyed up to Stockholm to show it to the king. He did not need to wait
for post-horses nor to scold ostlers. He proudly rode in his own carriage
and was there in a few hours.
He rode right up to the palace, and the king came out with his court
ladies and gentlemen and looked at him. They could not praise him enough.
The king then said: “You might give me that carriage, Kevenhüller.” And
although he answered no, the king persisted and wished to have the
carriage.
Then Kevenhüller saw that in the king’s train stood a court lady with
light hair and a green dress. He recognized her, and he understood that
it was she who had advised the king to ask him for his carriage. He was
in despair. He could not bear that another should have his carriage, nor
did he dare to say no to the king. Therefore he drove it with such speed
against the palace wall that it was broken into a thousand pieces.
When he came home to Karlstad he tried to make another carriage. But he
could not. Then he was dismayed at the gift the wood-nymph had given him.
He had left the life of ease at his father’s castle to be a benefactor to
many, not to make wonders which only one could use. What good was it to
him to be a great master, yes, the greatest of all masters, if he could
not duplicate his marvels so that they were of use to thousands.
And he so longed for quiet, sensible work that he became a stone-cutter
and mason. It was then he built the great stone tower down by the west
bridge, and he meant to build walls and portals and courtyards, ramparts
and turrets, so that a veritable castle should stand by the Klar River.
And there he should realize his childhood’s dream. Everything which had
to do with industry and handicraft should have a place in the castle
halls. White millers and blacksmiths, watchmakers with green shades
before their strained eyes, dyers with dark hands, weavers, turners,
filers,—all should have their work-shops in his castle.
And everything went well. Of the stones he himself had hewn he had with
his own hand built the tower. He had fastened windmill sails on it,—for
the tower was to be a mill,—and now he wanted to begin on the smithy.
But one day he stood and watched how the light, strong wings turned
before the wind. Then his old longing came over him.
He shut himself in in his workshop, tasted no food, took no rest, and
worked unceasingly. At the end of a week he had made a new marvel.
One day he climbed up on the roof of his tower and began to fasten wings
to his shoulders.
Two street boys saw him, and they gave a cry which was heard through the
whole town. They started off; panting, they ran up the streets and down
the streets, knocking on all the doors, and screaming as they ran:—
“Kevenhüller is going to fly! Kevenhüller is going to fly!”
He stood calmly on the tower-roof and fastened on his wings, and in the
meantime crowds of people came running through the narrow streets of
old Karlstad. Soon the bridge was black with them. The market-place was
packed, and the banks of the river swarmed with people.
Kevenhüller at last got his wings on and set out. He gave a couple of
flaps with them, and then he was out in the air. He lay and floated high
above the earth.
He drew in the air with long breaths; it was strong and pure. His breast
expanded, and the old knights’ blood began to seethe in him. He tumbled
like a pigeon, he hovered like a hawk, his flight was as swift as the
swallow’s, as sure as the falcon’s. If he had only been able to make
such a pair of wings for every one of them! If he had only been able to
give them all the power to raise themselves in this pure air! He could
not enjoy it alone. Ah, that wood-nymph,—if he could only meet her!
Then he saw, with eyes which were almost blinded by the dazzling
sunlight, how some one came flying towards him. Great wings like his own,
and between the wings floated a human body. He saw floating yellow hair,
billowy green silk, wild shining eyes. It was she, it was she!
Kevenhüller did not stop to consider. With furious speed he threw himself
upon her to kiss her or to strike her,—he was not sure which,—but at any
rate to force her to remove the curse from his existence. He did not
look where he was going; he saw only the flying hair and the wild eyes.
He came close up to her and stretched out his arms to seize her. But his
wings caught in hers, and hers were the stronger. His wings were torn
and destroyed; he himself was swung round and hurled down, he knew not
whither.
When he returned to consciousness he lay on the roof of his own tower,
with the broken flying-machine by his side. He had flown right against
his own mill; the sails had caught him, whirled him round a couple of
times, and then thrown him down on the tower roof.
So that was the end.
Kevenhüller was again a desperate man. He could not bear the thought of
honest work, and he did not dare to use his magic power. If he should
make another wonder and should then destroy it, his heart would break
with sorrow. And if he did not destroy it, he would certainly go mad at
the thought that he could not do good to others with it.
He looked up his knapsack and stick, let the mill stand as it was, and
decided to go out and search for the wood-nymph.
In the course of his journeyings he came to Ekeby, a few years before the
major’s wife was driven out. There he was well received, and there he
remained. The memories of his childhood came back to him, and he allowed
them to call him count. His hair grew gray and his brain slept. He was so
old that he could no longer believe in the feats of his youth. He was not
the man who could work wonders. It was not he who had made the automatic
carriage and the flying-machine. Oh, no,—tales, tales!
But then it happened that the major’s wife was driven from Ekeby, and
the pensioners were masters of the great estate. Then a life began there
which had never been worse. A storm passed over the land; men warred on
earth, and souls in heaven. Wolves came from Dovre with witches on their
backs, and the wood-nymph came to Ekeby.
The pensioners did not recognize her. They thought that she was a poor
and distressed woman whom a cruel mother-in-law had hunted to despair.
So they gave her shelter, revered her like a queen, and loved her like a
child.
Kevenhüller alone saw who she was. At first he was dazzled like the
others. But one day she wore a dress of green, shimmering silk, and when
she had that on, Kevenhüller recognized her.
There she sat on silken cushions, and all the old men made themselves
ridiculous to serve her. One was cook and another footman; one reader,
one court-musician, one shoemaker; they all had their occupations.
They said she was ill, the odious witch; but Kevenhüller knew what that
illness meant. She was laughing at them all.
He warned the pensioners against her. “Look at her small, pointed teeth,”
he said, “and her wild, shining eyes. She is the wood-nymph,—all evil is
about in these terrible times. I tell you she is the wood-nymph, come
hither for our ruin. I have seen her before.”
But when Kevenhüller saw the wood-nymph and had recognized her, the
desire for work came over him. It began to burn and seethe in his brain;
his fingers ached with longing to bend themselves about hammer and
file; he could hold out no longer. With a bitter heart he put on his
working-blouse and shut himself in in an old smithy, which was to be his
workshop.
A cry went out from Ekeby over the whole of Värmland:—
“Kevenhüller has begun to work!”
A new wonder was to see the light. What should it be? Will he teach us to
walk on the water, or to raise a ladder to the stars?
One night, the first or second of October, he had the wonder ready. He
came out of the workshop and had it in his hand. It was a wheel which
turned incessantly; as it turned, the spokes glowed like fire, and it
gave out warmth and light. Kevenhüller had made a sun. When he came out
of the workshop with it, the night grew so light that the sparrows began
to chirp and the clouds to burn as if at dawn.
There should never again be darkness or cold on earth. His head whirled
when he thought of it. The sun would continue to rise and set, but when
it disappeared, thousands and thousands of his fire-wheels should flame
through the land, and the air would quiver with warmth, as on the hottest
summer-day. Harvests should ripen in midwinter; wild strawberries should
cover the hillsides the whole year round; the ice should never bind the
water.
His fire-wheel should create a new world. It should be furs to the poor
and a sun to the miners. It should give power to the mills, life to
nature, a new, rich, and happy existence to mankind. But at the same time
he knew that it was all a dream and that the wood-nymph would never let
him duplicate his wheel. And in his anger and longing for revenge, he
thought that he would kill her, and then he no longer knew what he was
doing.
He went to the main building, and in the hall under the stairs he put
down his fire-wheel. It was his intention to set fire to the house and
burn up the witch in it.
Then he went back to his workshop and sat there silently listening.
There was shouting and crying outside. Now they could see that a great
deed was done.
Yes, run, scream, ring the alarm! But she is burning in there, the
wood-nymph whom you laid on silken cushions.
May she writhe in torment, may she flee before the flames from room to
room! Ah, how the green silk will blaze, and how the flames will play in
her torrents of hair! Courage, flames! courage! Catch her, set fire to
her! Witches burn! Fear not her magic, flames! Let her burn! There is
one who for her sake must burn his whole life through.
Bells rang, wagons came rattling, pumps were brought out, water was
carried up from the lake, people came running from all the neighboring
villages. There were cries and wailings and commands; that was the roof,
which had fallen in; there was the terrible crackling and roaring of a
fire. But nothing disturbed Kevenhüller. He sat on the chopping-block and
rubbed his hands.
Then he heard a crash, as if the heavens had fallen, and he started up in
triumph. “Now it is done!” he cried. “Now she cannot escape; now she is
crushed by the beams or burned up by the flames. Now it is done.”
And he thought of the honor and glory of Ekeby which had had to be
sacrificed to get her out of the world,—the magnificent halls, where
so much happiness had dwelt, the tables which had groaned under dainty
dishes, the precious old furniture, silver and china, which could never
be replaced—
And then he sprang up with a cry. His fire-wheel, his sun, the model on
which everything depended, had he not put it under the stairs to cause
the fire?
Kevenhüller looked down on himself, paralyzed with dismay.
“Am I going mad?” he said. “How could I do such a thing?”
At the same moment the door of the workshop opened and the wood-nymph
walked in.
She stood on the threshold, smiling and fair. Her green dress had neither
hole nor stain, no smoke darkened her yellow hair. She was just as he
had seen her in the market-place at Karlstad in his young days; her tail
hung between her feet, and she had all the wildness and fragrance of the
wood about her.
“Ekeby is burning,” she said, and laughed.
Kevenhüller had the sledge-hammer lifted and meant to throw it at her
head, but then he saw that she had his fire-wheel in her hand.
“See what I have saved for you,” she said.
Kevenhüller threw himself on his knees before her.
“You have broken my carriage, you have rent my wings, and you have ruined
my life. Have grace, have pity on me!”
She climbed up on the bench and sat there, just as young and mischievous
as when he saw her first.
“I see that you know who I am,” she said.
“I know you, I have always known you,” said the unfortunate man; “you
are genius. But set me free! Take back your gift! Let me be an ordinary
person! Why do you persecute me? Why do you destroy me?”
“Madman,” said the wood-nymph, “I have never wished you any harm. I gave
you a great reward; but I can also take it from you if you wish. But
consider well. You will repent it.”
“No, no!” he cried; “take from me the power of working wonders!”
“First, you must destroy this,” she said, and threw the fire-wheel on the
ground in front of him.
He did not hesitate. He swung the sledge-hammer over the shining sun;
sparks flew about the room, splinters and flames danced about him, and
then his last wonder lay in fragments.
“Yes, so I take my gift from you,” said the wood-nymph. As she stood in
the door and the glare from the fire streamed over her, he looked at her
for the last time. More beautiful than ever before, she seemed to him,
and no longer malicious, only stern and proud.
“Madman,” she said, “did I ever forbid you to let others copy your works?
I only wished to protect the man of genius from a mechanic’s labor.”
Whereupon she went. Kevenhüller was insane for a couple of days. Then he
was as usual again.
But in his madness he had burned down Ekeby. No one was hurt. Still, it
was a great sorrow to the pensioners that the hospitable home, where they
had enjoyed so many good things, should suffer such injury in their time.
CHAPTER XXI
BROBY FAIR
On the first Friday in October the big Broby Fair begins, and lasts
one week. It is the festival of the autumn. There is slaughtering and
baking in every house; the new winter clothes are then worn for the first
time; the brandy rations are doubled; work rests. There is feasting on
all the estates. The servants and laborers draw their pay and hold long
conferences over what they shall buy at the Fair. People from a distance
come in small companies with knapsacks on their backs and staffs in
their hands. Many are driving their cattle before them to the market.
Small, obstinate young bulls and goats stand still and plant their
forefeet, causing much vexation to their owners and much amusement to the
by-standers. The guest-rooms at the manors are filled with guests, bits
of news are exchanged, and the prices of cattle discussed.
And on the first Fair day what crowds swarm up Broby hill and over the
wide market-place! Booths are set up, where the tradespeople spread out
their wares. Rope-dancers, organ-grinders, and blind violin-players are
everywhere, as well as fortune-tellers, sellers of sweetmeats and of
brandy. Beyond the rows of booths, vegetables and fruit are offered for
sale by the gardeners from the big estates. Wide stretches are taken up
by ruddy copper-kettles. It is plain, however, by the movement in the
Fair, that there is want in Svartsjö and Bro and Löfvik and the other
provinces about the Löfven: trade is poor at the booths. There is most
bustle in the cattle-market, for many have to sell both cow and horse to
be able to live through the winter.
It is a gay scene. If one only has money for a glass or two, one can keep
up one’s courage. And it is not only the brandy which is the cause of the
merriment; when the people from the lonely wood-huts come down to the
market-place with its seething masses, and hear the din of the screaming,
laughing crowd, they become as if delirious with excitement.
Everybody who does not have to stay at home to look after the house and
cattle has come to this Broby Fair. There are the pensioners from Ekeby
and the peasants from Nygård, horse-dealers from Norway, Finns from the
Northern forests, vagrants from the highways.
Sometimes the roaring sea gathers in a whirlpool, which turns about a
middle point. No one knows what is at the centre, until a couple of
policemen break a way through the crowd to put an end to a fight or to
lift up an overturned cart.
Towards noon the great fight began. The peasants had got it into their
heads that the tradespeople were using too short yardsticks, and it began
with quarrelling and disturbance about the booths; then it turned to
violence.
Every one knows that for many of those who for days had not seen
anything but want and suffering, it was a pleasure to strike, it made no
difference whom or what. And as soon as they see that a fight is going
on they come rushing from all sides. The pensioners mean to break through
to make peace after their fashion, and the tradesmen run to help one
another.
Big Mons from Fors is the most eager in the game. He is drunk, and he is
angry; he has thrown down a tradesman and has begun to beat him, but at
his calls for help his comrades hurry to him and try to make Mons let him
go. Then Mons sweeps the rolls of cloth from one of the counters, and
seizes the top, which is a yard broad and five yards long and made of
thick planks, and begins to brandish it as a weapon.
He is a terrible man, big Mons. It was he who kicked out a wall in the
Filipstad-jail, he who could lift a boat out of the water and carry it on
his shoulders. When he begins to strike about him with the heavy counter,
every one flies before him. But he follows, striking right and left. For
him it is no longer a question of friends or enemies: he only wants some
one to hit, since he has got a weapon.
The people scatter in terror. Men and women scream and run. But how can
the women escape when many of them have their children by the hand?
Booths and carts stand in their way; oxen and cows, maddened by the
noise, prevent their escape.
In a corner between the booths a group of women are wedged, and towards
them the giant rages. Does he not see a tradesman in the midst of the
crowd? He raises the plank and lets it fall. In pale, shuddering terror
the women receive the attack, sinking under the deadly blow.
But as the board falls whistling down over them, its force is broken
against a man’s upstretched arms. One man has not sunk down, but raised
himself above the crowd, one man has voluntarily taken the blow to save
the many. The women and children are uninjured. One man has broken the
force of the blow, but he lies now unconscious on the ground.
Big Mons does not lift up his board. He has met the man’s eye, just as
the counter struck his head, and it has paralyzed him. He lets himself be
bound and taken away without resistance.
But the report flies about the Fair that big Mons has killed Captain
Lennart. They say that he who had been the people’s friend died to save
the women and defenceless children.
And a silence falls on the great square, where life had lately roared at
fever pitch: trade ceases, the fighting stops, the people leave their
dinners.
Their friend is dead. The silent throngs stream towards the place where
he has fallen. He lies stretched out on the ground quite unconscious; no
wound is visible, but his skull seems to be flattened.
Some of the men lift him carefully up on to the counter which the giant
has let fall. They think they perceive that he still lives.
“Where shall we carry him?” they ask one another.
“Home,” answers a harsh voice in the crowd.
Yes, good men, carry him home! Lift him up on your shoulders and carry
him home! He has been God’s plaything, he has been driven like a feather
before his breath. Carry him home!
That wounded head has rested on the hard barrack-bed in the prison, on
sheaves of straw in the barn. Let it now come home and rest on a soft
pillow! He has suffered undeserved shame and torment, he has been hunted
from his own door. He has been a wandering fugitive, following the paths
of God where he could find them; but his promised land was that home
whose gates God had closed to him. Perhaps his house stands open for one
who has died to save women and children.
Now he does not come as a malefactor, escorted by reeling
boon-companions; he is followed by a sorrowing people, in whose cottages
he has lived while he helped their sufferings. Carry him home!
And so they do. Six men lift the board on which he lies on their
shoulders and carry him away from the fair-grounds. Wherever they pass,
the people move to one side and stand quiet; the men uncover their heads,
the women courtesy as they do in church when God’s name is spoken. Many
weep and dry their eyes; others begin to tell what a man he had been,—so
kind, so gay, so full of counsel and so religious. It is wonderful to
see, too, how, as soon as one of his bearers gives out, another quietly
comes and puts his shoulder under the board.
So Captain Lennart comes by the place where the pensioners are standing.
“I must go and see that he comes home safely,” says Beerencreutz, and
leaves his place at the roadside to follow the procession to Helgesäter.
Many follow his example.
The fair-grounds are deserted. Everybody has to follow to see that
Captain Lennart comes home.
When the procession reaches Helgesäter, the house is silent and deserted.
Again the colonel’s fist beats on the closed door. All the servants are
at the Fair; the captain’s wife is alone at home. It is she again who
opens the door.
And she asks, as she asked once before,—
“What do you want?”
Whereupon the colonel answers, as he answered once before,—
“We are here with your husband.”
She looks at him, where he stands stiff and calm as usual. She looks at
the bearers behind him, who are weeping, and at all that mass of people.
She stands there on the steps and looks into hundreds of weeping eyes,
who stare sadly up at her. Last she looks at her husband, who lies
stretched out on the bier, and she presses her hand to her heart. “That
is his right face,” she murmurs.
Without asking more, she bends down, draws back a bolt, opens the
hall-doors wide, and then goes before the others into the bedroom.
The colonel helps her to drag out the big bed and shake up the pillows,
and so Captain Lennart is once more laid on soft down and white linen.
“Is he alive?” she asks.
“Yes,” answers the colonel.
“Is there any hope?”
“No. Nothing can be done.”
There was silence for a while; then a sudden thought comes over her.
“Are they weeping for his sake, all those people?”
“Yes.”
“What has he done?”
“The last thing he did was to let big Mons kill him to save women and
children from death.”
Again she sits silent for a while and thinks.
“What kind of a face did he have, colonel, when he came home two months
ago?”
The colonel started. Now he understands; now at last he understands.
“Gösta had painted him.”
“So it was on account of one of your pranks that I shut him out from his
home? How will you answer for that, colonel?”
Beerencreutz shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I have much to answer for.”
“But I think that this must be the worst thing you have done.”
“Nor have I ever gone a heavier way than that to-day up to Helgesäter.
Moreover, there are two others who are guilty in this matter.”
“Who?”
“Sintram is one, you yourself are the other. You are a hard woman. I know
that many have tried to speak to you of your husband.”
“It is true,” she answers.
Then she begs him to tell her all about that evening at Broby.
He tells her all he can remember, and she listens silently. Captain
Lennart lies still unconscious on the bed. The room is full of weeping
people; no one thinks of shutting out that mourning crowd. All the doors
stand open, the stairs and the halls are filled with silent, grieving
people; far out in the yard they stand in close masses.
When the colonel has finished, she raises her voice and says,—
“If there are any pensioners here, I ask them to go. It is hard for me to
see them when I am sitting by my husband’s death-bed.”
Without another word the colonel rises and goes out. So do Gösta Berling
and several of the other pensioners who had followed Captain Lennart. The
people move aside for the little group of humiliated men.
When they are gone the captain’s wife says: “Will some of them who have
seen my husband during this time tell me where he has lived, and what he
has done?” Then they begin to give testimony of Captain Lennart to his
wife, who has misjudged him and sternly hardened her heart against him.
It lasted a long time before they all were done. All through the twilight
and the evening they stand and speak; one after another steps forward and
tells of him to his wife, who would not hear his name mentioned.
Some tell how he found them on a sick-bed and cured them. There are wild
brawlers whom he has tamed. There are mourners whom he has cheered,
drunkards whom he had led to sobriety. Every one who had been in
unbearable distress had sent a message to God’s wayfarer, and he had
helped them, or at least he had waked hope and faith.
Out in the yard the crowd stands and waits. They know what is going on
inside: that which is said aloud by the death-bed is whispered from man
to man outside. He who has something to say pushes gently forward. “Here
is one who can bear witness,” they say, and let him pass. And they step
forward out of the darkness, give their testimony, and disappear again
into the darkness.
“What does she say now?” those standing outside ask when some one comes
out. “What does she say?”
“She shines like a queen. She smiles like a bride. She has moved his
arm-chair up to the bed and laid on it the clothes which she herself had
woven for him.”
But then a silence falls on the people. No one says it, all know it at
the same time: “He is dying.”
Captain Lennart opens his eyes and sees everything.
He sees his home, the people, his wife, his children, the clothes; and
he smiles. But he has only waked to die. He draws a rattling breath and
gives up the ghost.
Then the stories cease, but a voice takes up a death-hymn. All join in,
and, borne on hundreds of strong voices, the song rises on high.
It is earth’s farewell greeting to the departing soul.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FOREST COTTAGE
It was many years before the pensioners’ reign at Ekeby.
The shepherd’s boy and girl played together in the wood, built houses
with flat stones, and picked cloud-berries. They were both born in the
wood. The wood was their home and mansion. They lived in peace with
everything there.
The children looked upon the lynx and the fox as their watch-dogs, the
weasel was their cat, hares and squirrels their cattle, owls and grouse
sat in their bird-cage, the pines were their servants, and the young
birch-trees guests at their feasts. They knew the hole where the viper
lay curled up in his winter rest; and when they had bathed they had seen
the water-snake come swimming through the clear water; but they feared
neither snake nor wild creature; they belonged to the wood and it was
their home. There nothing could frighten them.
Deep in the wood lay the cottage where the boy lived. A hilly wood-path
led to it; mountains closed it in and shut out the sun; a bottomless
swamp lay near by and gave out the whole year round an icy mist. Such a
dwelling seemed far from attractive to the people on the plain.
The shepherd’s boy and girl were some day to be married, live there
in the forest cottage, and support themselves by the work of their
hands. But before they were married, war passed over the land, and the
boy enlisted. He came home again without wound or injured limb; but he
had been changed for life by the campaign. He had seen too much of the
world’s wickedness and man’s cruel activity against man. He could no
longer see the good.
At first no one saw any change in him. With the love of his childhood he
went to the clergyman and had the banns published. The forest cottage
above Ekeby was their home, as they had planned long before; but it was
not a happy home.
The wife looked at her husband as at a stranger. Since he had come from
the wars, she could not recognize him. His laugh was hard, and he spoke
but little. She was afraid of him.
He did no harm, and worked hard. Still he was not liked, for he thought
evil of everybody. He felt himself like a hated stranger. Now the forest
animals were his enemies. The mountain, which shut out the sun, and the
swamp, which sent up the mist, were his foes. The forest is a terrible
place for one who has evil thoughts.
He who will live in the wilderness should have bright memories. Otherwise
he sees only murder and oppression among plants and animals, just as he
had seen it before among men. He expects evil from everything he meets.
The soldier, Jan Hök, could not explain what was the matter with him; but
he felt that nothing went well with him. There was little peace in his
home. His sons who grew up there were strong, but wild. They were hardy
and brave men, but they too lived at enmity with all men.
His wife was tempted by her sorrow to seek out the secrets of the
wilderness. In swamp and thicket she gathered healing herbs. She could
cure sickness, and give advice to those who were crossed in love. She won
fame as a witch, and was shunned, although she did much good.
One day the wife tried to speak to her husband of his trouble.
“Ever since you went to the war,” she said, “you have been so changed.
What did they do to you there?”
Then he rose up, and was ready to strike her; and so it was every time
she spoke of the war, he became mad with rage. From no one could he bear
to hear the word war, and it soon became known. So people were careful of
that subject.
But none of his brothers in arms could say that he had done more harm
than others. He had fought like a good soldier. It was only all the
dreadful things he had seen which had frightened him so that since then
he saw nothing but evil. All his trouble came from the war. He thought
that all nature hated him, because he had had a share in such things.
They who knew more could console themselves that they had fought for
fatherland and honor. What did he know of such things? He only felt that
everything hated him because he had shed blood and done much injury.
When the major’s wife was driven from Ekeby, he lived alone in his
cottage. His wife was dead and his sons away. During the fairs his house
was always full of guests. Black-haired, swarthy gypsies put up there.
They like those best whom others avoid. Small, long-haired horses climbed
up the wood path, dragging carts loaded with children and bundles of
rags. Women, prematurely old, with features swollen by smoking and
drinking, and men with pale, sharp faces and sinewy bodies followed the
carts. When the gypsies came to the forest cottage, there was a merry
life there. Brandy and cards and loud talking followed with them. They
had much to tell of thefts and horse-dealing and bloody fights.
The Broby Fair began on a Friday, and then Captain Lennart was killed.
Big Mons, who gave the death-blow, was son to the old man in the forest
cottage. When the gypsies on Sunday afternoon sat together there, they
handed old Jan Hök the brandy bottle oftener than usual, and talked to
him of prison life and prison fare and trials; for they had often tried
such things.
The old man sat on the chopping-block in the corner and said little. His
big lack-lustre eyes stared at the crowd which filled the room. It was
dusk, but the wood-fire lighted the room.
The door was softly opened and two women entered. It was the young
Countess Elizabeth followed by the daughter of the Broby clergyman.
Lovely and glowing, she came into the circle of light. She told them that
Gösta Berling had not been seen at Ekeby since Captain Lennart died. She
and her servant had searched for him in the wood the whole afternoon. Now
she saw that there were men here who had much wandered, and knew all the
paths. Had they seen him? She had come in to rest, and to ask if they had
seen him.
It was a useless question. None of them had seen him.
They gave her a chair. She sank down on it, and sat silent for a while.
There was no sound in the room. All looked at her and wondered at her. At
last she grew frightened at the silence, started, and tried to speak of
indifferent things. She turned to the old man in the corner, “I think I
have heard that you have been a soldier,” she said. “Tell me something of
the war!”
The silence grew still deeper. The old man sat as if he had not heard.
“It would be very interesting to hear about the war from some one who had
been there himself,” continued the countess; but she stopped short, for
the Broby clergyman’s daughter shook her head at her. She must have said
something forbidden. Everybody was looking at her as if she had offended
against the simplest rule of propriety. Suddenly a gypsy woman raised her
sharp voice and asked: “Are you not she who has been countess at Borg?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That was another thing than running about the wood after a mad priest.”
The countess rose and said farewell. She was quite rested. The woman who
had spoken followed her out through the door.
“You understand, countess,” she said, “I had to say something; for it
does not do to speak to the old man of war. He can’t bear to hear the
word. I meant well.”
Countess Elizabeth hurried away, but she soon stopped. She saw the
threatening wood, the dark mountain, and the reeking swamp. It must be
terrible to live here for one whose soul is filled with evil memories.
She felt compassion for the old man who had sat there with the dark
gypsies for company.
“Anna Lisa,” she said, “let us turn back! They were kind to us, but I
behaved badly. I want to talk to the old man about pleasanter things.”
And happy to have found some one to comfort, she went back to the cottage.
“I think,” she said, “that Gösta Berling is wandering here in the wood,
and means to take his own life. It is therefore important that he be
soon found and prevented. I and my maid, Anna Lisa, thought we saw him
sometimes, but then he disappeared. He keeps to that part of the mountain
where the broom-girl was killed. I happened to think that I do not need
to go way down to Ekeby to get help. Here sit many active men who easily
could catch him.”
“Go along, boys!” cried the gypsy woman. “When the countess does not hold
herself too good to ask a service of the forest people, you must go at
once.”
The men rose immediately and went out to search.
Old Jan Hök sat still and stared before him with lustreless eyes.
Terrifyingly gloomy and hard, he sat there. The young woman could think
of nothing to say to him. Then she saw that a child lay sick on a sheaf
of straw, and noticed that a woman had hurt her hand. Instantly she began
to care for the sick. She was soon friends with the gossiping women, and
had them show her the smallest children.
In an hour the men came back. They carried Gösta Berling bound into
the room. They laid him down on the floor before the fire. His clothes
were torn and dirty, his cheeks sunken, and his eyes wild. Terrible had
been his ways during those days; he had lain on the damp ground; he had
burrowed with his hands and face in bogs, dragged himself over rocks,
forced his way through the thickest underbrush. Of his own will he had
never come with the men; but they had overpowered and bound him.
When his wife saw him so, she was angry. She did not free his bound
limbs; she let him lie where he was on the floor. With scorn she turned
from him.
“How you look!” she said.
“I had never meant to come again before your eyes,” he answered.
“Am I not your wife? Is it not my right to expect you to come to me with
your troubles? In bitter sorrow I have waited for you these two days.”
“I was the cause of Captain Lennart’s misfortunes. How could I dare to
show myself to you?”
“You are not often afraid, Gösta.”
“The only service I can do you, Elizabeth, is to rid you of myself.”
Unspeakable contempt flashed from under her frowning brows at him.
“You wish to make me a suicide’s wife!”
His face was distorted.
“Elizabeth, let us go out into the silent forest and talk.”
“Why should not these people hear us?” she cried, speaking in a shrill
voice. “Are we better than any of them? Has any one of them caused more
sorrow and injury than we? They are the children of the forest, and of
the highway; they are hated by every man. Let them hear how sin and
sorrow also follows the lord of Ekeby, the beloved of all, Gösta Berling!
Do you think your wife considers herself better than any one of them—or
do you?”
He raised himself with difficulty onto his elbow, and looked at her with
sudden defiance. “I am not such a wretch as you think.”
Then she heard the story of those two days. The first day Gösta wandered
about in the wood, driven by remorse. He could not bear to meet any
one’s eye. But he did not think of dying. He meant to journey to far
distant lands. On Sunday, however, he came down from the hills and went
to the Bro church. Once more he wished to see the people: the poor,
hungry people whom he had dreamed of serving when he had sat by the Broby
clergyman’s pile of shame, and whom he had learned to love when he saw
them disappear into the night with the dead broom-girl.
The service had begun when he came to the church. He crept up to the
gallery, and looked down on the people. He had felt bitter agony. He
had wanted to speak to them, to comfort them in their poverty and
hopelessness. If he had only been allowed to speak in God’s house,
hopeless as he was, he would have found words of hope and salvation for
them all.
Then he left the church, went into the sacristy, and wrote the message
which his wife already knew. He had promised that work should be renewed
at Ekeby, and grain distributed to those in greatest need. He had hoped
that his wife and the pensioners would fulfil his promises when he was
gone.
As he came out, he saw a coffin standing before the parish-hall. It
was plain, put together in haste, but covered with black crape and
wreaths. He knew that it was Captain Lennart’s. The people had begged the
captain’s wife to hasten the funeral, so that all those who had come to
the Fair could be at the burial.
He was standing and looking at the coffin, when a heavy hand was laid on
his shoulder. Sintram had come up to him.
“Gösta,” he said, “if you want to play a regular trick on a person, lie
down and die. There is nothing more clever than to die, nothing which so
deceives an honest man who suspects no harm. Lie you down and die, I tell
you!”
Gösta listened with horror to what he said. Sintram complained of the
failure of well-laid plans. He had wanted to see a waste about the shores
of the Löfven. He had made the pensioners lords of the place; he had
let the Broby clergyman impoverish the people; he had called forth the
drought and the famine. At the Broby Fair the decisive blow was to have
fallen. Excited by their misfortunes, the people should have turned to
murder and robbery. Then there should have been lawsuits to beggar them.
Famine, riot, and every kind of misfortune should have ravaged them.
Finally, the country would have become so odious and detestable that no
one could have lived there, and it would all have been Sintram’s doing.
It would have been his joy and pride, for he was evil-minded. He loved
desert wastes and uncultivated fields. But this man who had known how to
die at the right moment had spoiled it all for him.
Then Gösta asked him what would have been the good of it all.
“It would have pleased me, Gösta, for I am bad. I am the grizzly bear on
the mountain; I am the snow-storm on the plain; I like to kill and to
persecute. Away, I say, with people and their works! I don’t like them.
I can let them slip from between my claws and cut their capers,—that is
amusing too for a while; but now I am tired of play, Gösta, now I want to
strike, now I want to kill and to destroy.”
He was mad, quite mad. He began a long time ago as a joke with those
devilish tricks, and now his maliciousness had taken the upper hand; now
he thought he really was a spirit from the lower regions. He had fed and
fostered the evil in him until it had taken possession of his soul. For
wickedness can drive people mad, as well as love and brooding.
He was furious, and in his anger he began to tear the wreaths from off
the coffin; but then Gösta Berling cried: “Let the coffin be!”
“Well, well, well, so I shall not touch it! Yes; I shall throw my friend
Lennart out on the ground and trample on his wreaths. Do you not see what
he has done to me? Do you not see in what a fine gray coach I am riding?”
And Gösta then saw that a couple of prison-vans with the sheriff and
constables of the district stood and waited outside the churchyard wall.
“I ought to send Captain Lennart’s wife thanks that she yesterday sat
herself down to read through old papers in order to find proof against me
in that matter of the powder, you know? Shall I not let her know that she
would have done better to occupy herself with brewing and baking, than
in sending the sheriff and his men after me? Shall I have nothing for
the tears I have wept to induce Scharling to let me come here and read a
prayer by my good friend’s coffin?”
And he began again to drag on the crape.
Then Gösta Berling came close up to him and seized his arms.
“I will give anything to make you let the coffin alone,” he said.
“Do what you like,” said the madman. “Call if you like. I can always
do something before the sheriff gets here. Fight with me, if you like.
That will be a pleasing sight here by the church. Let us fight among the
wreaths and palls.”
“I will buy rest for the dead at any price. Take my life, take
everything!”
“You promise much.”
“You can prove it.”
“Well, then, kill yourself!”
“I will do it; but first the coffin shall be safely under earth.”
And so it was. Sintram took Gösta’s oath that he would not be alive
twelve hours after Captain Lennart was buried. “Then I know that you can
never be good for anything,” he said.
It was easy for Gösta Berling to promise. He was glad to be able to give
his wife her liberty. Remorse had made him long for death. The only thing
which troubled him was, that he had promised the major’s wife not to die
as long as the Broby clergyman’s daughter was a servant at Ekeby. But
Sintram said that she could no longer be considered as servant, since
she had inherited her father’s fortune. Gösta objected that the Broby
clergyman had hidden his treasures so well that no one had been able to
find them. Then Sintram laughed and said that they were hidden up among
the pigeons’ nests in the church tower. Thereupon he went away. And Gösta
went back to the wood again. It seemed best to him to die at the place
where the broom-girl had been killed. He had wandered there the whole
afternoon. He had seen his wife in the wood; and then he had not had the
strength to kill himself.
All this he told his wife, while he lay bound on the floor of the cottage.
“Oh,” she said sadly, when he had finished, “how familiar it all is!
Always ready to thrust your hands into the fire, Gösta, always ready to
throw yourself away! How noble such things seemed to me once! How I now
value calmness and good sense! What good did you do the dead by such a
promise? What did it matter if Sintram had overturned the coffin and torn
off the crape? It would have been picked up again; there would have been
found new crape, new wreaths. If you had laid your hand on that good
man’s coffin, there before Sintram’s eyes, and sworn to live to help
those poor people whom he wished to ruin, that I should have commended.
If you had thought, when you saw the people in the church: ‘I will help
them; I will make use of all my strength to help them,’ and not laid that
burden on your weak wife, and on old men with failing strength, I should
also have commended that.”
Gösta Berling lay silent for a while.
“We pensioners are not free men,” he said at last. “We have promised one
another to live for pleasure, and only for pleasure. Woe to us all if one
breaks his word!”
“Woe to you,” said the countess, indignantly, “if you shall be the most
cowardly of the pensioners, and slower to improve than any of them.
Yesterday afternoon the whole eleven sat in the pensioners’ wing, and
they were very sad. You were gone; Captain Lennart was gone. The glory
and honor of Ekeby were gone. They left the toddy tray untouched; they
would not let me see them. Then the maid, Anna Lisa, who stands here,
went up to them. You know she is an energetic little woman who for years
has struggled despairingly against neglect and waste.
“‘To-day I have again been at home and looked for father’s money,’ she
said to the pensioners; ‘but I have not found anything. All the debts are
paid, and the drawers and closets are empty.’
“‘We are sorry for you, Anna Lisa,’ said Beerencreutz.
“‘When the major’s wife left Ekeby,’ continued Anna Lisa, ‘she told me
to see after her house. And if I had found father’s money, I would have
built up Ekeby. But as I did not find anything else to take away with me,
I took father’s shame heap; for great shame awaits me when my mistress
comes again and asks me what I have done with Ekeby.’
“‘Don’t take so much to heart what is not your fault, Anna Lisa,’ said
Beerencreutz again.
“‘But I did not take the shame heap for myself alone,’ said Anna Lisa. ‘I
took it also for your reckoning, good gentlemen. Father is not the only
one who has been the cause of shame and injury in this world.’
“And she went from one to the other of them, and laid down some of the
dry sticks before each. Some of them swore, but most of them let her go
on. At last Beerencreutz said, calmly:—
“‘It is well. We thank you. You may go now.’ When she had gone, he struck
the table with his clenched hand till the glasses rang.
“‘From this hour,’ he said, ‘absolutely sober. Brandy shall never again
cause me such shame.’ Thereupon he rose and went out.
“They followed him by degrees, all the others. Do you know where they
went, Gösta? Well, down to the river, to the point where the mill and
the forge had stood, and there they began to work. They began to drag
away the logs and stones and clear the place. The old men have had a
hard time. Many of them have had sorrow. Now they can no longer bear the
disgrace of having ruined Ekeby. I know too well that you pensioners
are ashamed to work; but now the others have taken that shame on them.
Moreover, Gösta, they mean to send Anna Lisa up to the major’s wife to
bring her home. But you, what are you doing?”
He found still an answer to give her.
“What do you want of me, of a dismissed priest? Cast off by men, hateful
to God?”
“I too have been in the Bro church to-day, Gösta. I have a message to you
from two women. ‘Tell Gösta,’ said Marianne Sinclair, ‘that a woman does
not like to be ashamed of him she has loved.’ ‘Tell Gösta,’ said Anna
Stjärnhök, ‘that all is now well with me. I manage my own estates. I do
not think of love, only of work. At Berga too they have conquered the
first bitterness of their sorrow. But we all grieve for Gösta. We believe
in him and pray for him; but when, when will he be a man?’
“Do you hear? Are you cast off by men?” continued the countess. “Your
misfortune is that you have been met with too much love. Women and men
have loved you. If you only jested and laughed, if you only sang and
played, they have forgiven you everything. Whatever it has pleased you to
do has seemed right to them. And you dare to call yourself an outcast! Or
are you hateful to God? Why did you not stay and see Captain Lennart’s
burial?
“As he had died on a Fair day, his fame had gone far and wide. After
the service, thousands of people came up to the church. The funeral
procession was formed by the town hall. They were only waiting for the
old dean. He was ill and had not preached; but he had promised to come
to Captain Lennart’s funeral. And at last he came, with head sunk on his
breast, and dreaming his dreams, as he is wont to do now in his old age,
and placed himself at the head of the procession. He noticed nothing
unusual. He walked on the familiar path and did not look up. He read the
prayers, and threw the earth on the coffin, and still noticed nothing.
But then the sexton began a hymn. Hundreds and hundreds of voices joined
in. Men, women, and children sang. Then the dean awoke from his dreams.
He passed his hand over his eyes and stepped up on the mound of earth to
look. Never had he seen such a crowd of mourners. All were singing; all
had tears in their eyes,—all were mourning.
“Then the old dean began to tremble. What should he say to these people?
He must say a word to comfort them.
“When the song ceased, he stretched out his arms over the people.
“‘I see that you are mourning,’ he said; ‘and sorrow is heavier to bear
for one who has long to live than for me who will soon be gone.’
“He stopped dismayed. His voice was too weak, and words failed him.
“But he soon began again. His voice had regained its youthful strength,
and his eyes glowed.
“First, he told all he knew of God’s wayfarer. Then he reminded us that
no outward polish nor great ability had made that man so honored as he
now was, but only that he had always followed God’s ways. And now he
asked us to do the same. Each should love the other, and help him. Each
should think well of the other. And he explained everything which had
happened this year. He said it was a preparation for the time of love and
happiness which now was to be expected.
“And we all felt as if we had heard a prophet speak. All wished to love
one another; all wished to be good.
“He lifted his eyes and hands and proclaimed peace in the neighborhood.
Then he called on a helper for the people. ‘Some one will come,’ he said.
‘It is not God’s will that you shall perish. God will find some one who
will feed the hungry and lead you in His ways.’
“Then we all thought of you, Gösta. We knew that the dean spoke of you.
The people who had heard your message went home talking of you. And you
wandered here in the wood and wanted to die! The people are waiting for
you, Gösta. In all the cottages they are sitting and saying that, as the
mad priest at Ekeby is going to help them, all will be well. You are
their hero, Gösta.
“Yes, Gösta, it is certain that the old man meant you, and that ought
to make you want to live. But I, Gösta, who am your wife, I say to you
that you shall go and do your duty. You shall not dream of being sent by
God,—any one can be that. You shall work without any heroics; you shall
not shine and astonish; you shall so manage that your name is not too
often heard on the people’s lips. But think well before you take back
your promise to Sintram. You have now got a certain right to die, and
life ought not to offer you many attractions. There was a time when my
wish was to go home to Italy, Gösta. It seemed too much happiness for
me, a sinner, to be your wife, and be with you through life. But now I
shall stay. If you dare to live, I shall stop; but do not await any joy
from that. I shall force you to follow the weary path of duty. You need
never expect words of joy or hope from me. Can a heart which has suffered
like mine love again? Tearless and joyless I shall walk beside you. Think
well, Gösta, before you choose to live. We shall go the way of penance.”
She did not wait for his answer. She nodded to Anna Lisa and went. When
she came out into the wood, she began to weep bitterly, and wept until
she reached Ekeby. Arrived there, she remembered that she had forgotten
to talk of gladder things than war to Jan Hök, the soldier.
In the cottage there was silence when she was gone.
“Glory and honor be to the Lord God!” said the old soldier, suddenly.
They looked at him. He had risen and was looking eagerly about him.
“Wicked, wicked has everything been,” he said. “Everything I have seen
since I got my eyes opened has been wicked. Bad men, bad women! Hate and
anger in forest and plain! But she is good. A good woman has stood in my
house. When I am sitting here alone, I shall remember her. She shall be
with me in the wood.”
He bent down over Gösta, untied his fetters, and lifted him up. Then he
solemnly took his hand.
“Hateful to God,” he said and nodded. “That is just it. But now you are
not any more; nor I either, since she has been in my house. She is good.”
The next day old Jan Hök came to the bailiff Scharling. “I will carry my
cross,” he said. “I have been a bad man, therefore I have had bad sons.”
And he asked to be allowed to go to prison instead of his son; but that
could not be.
The best of old stories is the one which tells of how he followed his
son, walking beside the prison van; how he slept outside his cell; how he
did not forsake him until he had suffered his punishment.
CHAPTER XXIII
MARGARETA CELSING
A few days before Christmas the major’s wife started on her journey down
to the Löfsjö district; but it was not till Christmas Eve that she came
to Ekeby. During the whole journey she was ill. Yet, in spite of cold and
fever, people had never seen her in better spirits nor heard her speak
more friendly words.
The Broby clergyman’s daughter, who had been with her in the Älfdal
forests ever since October, sat by her side in the sledge and wished to
hasten the journey; but she could not prevent the old woman from stopping
the horses and calling every wayfarer up to her to ask for news.
“How is it with you all here in Löfsjö?” she asked.
“All is well,” was the answer. “Better times are coming. The mad priest
there at Ekeby and his wife help us all.”
“A good time has come,” answered another. “Sintram is gone. The Ekeby
pensioners are working. The Broby clergyman’s money is found in the Bro
church-tower. There is so much that the glory and power of Ekeby can be
restored with it. There is enough too to get bread for the hungry.”
“Our old dean has waked to new life and strength,” said a third. “Every
Sunday he speaks to us of the coming of the Kingdom of God.”
And the major’s wife drove slowly on, asking every one she met: “How is
it here? Do you not suffer from want here?”
And the fever and the stabbing pain in her breast were assuaged, when
they answered her: “There are two good and rich women here, Marianne
Sinclair and Anna Stjärnhök. They help Gösta Berling to go from house to
house and see that no one is starving. And no more brandy is made now.”
It was as if the major’s wife had sat in the sledge and listened to
a long divine service. She had come to a blessed land. She saw old,
furrowed faces brighten, when they spoke of the time which had come. The
sick forgot their pains to tell of the day of joy.
“We all want to be like the good Captain Lennart,” they said. “We all
want to be good. We want to believe good of every one. We will not injure
any one. It shall hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom.”
She found them all filled with the same spirit. On the larger estates
free dinners were given to those who were in greatest need. All who had
work to be done had it done now.
She had never felt in better health than when she sat there and let the
cold air stream into her aching breast. She could not drive by a single
house without stopping and asking.
“Everything is well,” they all said. “There was great distress, but the
good gentlemen from Ekeby help us. You will be surprised at everything
which has been done there. The mill is almost ready, and the smithy is at
work, and the burned-down house ready for the roof.”
Ah, it would only last a short time! But still it was good to return
to a land where they all helped one another and all wished to do good.
The major’s wife felt that she could now forgive the pensioners, and she
thanked God for it.
“Anna Lisa,” she said, “I feel as if I had already come into the heaven
of the blessed.”
When she at last reached Ekeby, and the pensioners hurried to help her
out of the sledge, they could hardly recognize her, for she was as kind
and gentle as their own young countess. The older ones, who had seen her
as a young girl, whispered to one another: “It is not the major’s wife at
Ekeby; it is Margareta Celsing who has come back.”
Great was the pensioners’ joy to see her come so kind and so free from
all thoughts of revenge; but it was soon changed to grief when they found
how ill she was. She had to be carried immediately into the guest-room in
the wing, and put to bed. But on the threshold she turned and spoke to
them.
“It has been God’s storm,” she said,—“God’s storm. I know now that it has
all been for the best!”
Then the door to the sick-room closed, and they never saw her again.
There is so much to say to one who is dying. The words throng to the lips
when one knows that in the next room lies one whose ears will soon be
closed for always. “Ah, my friend, my friend,” one wants to say, “can you
forgive? Can you believe that I have loved you in spite of everything!
Ah, my friend, thanks for all the joy you have given me!”
That will one say and so much, much more.
But the major’s wife lay in a burning fever, and the voices of the
pensioners could not reach her. Would she never know how they had worked,
how they had taken up her work?
After a little while the pensioners went down to the smithy. There all
work was stopped; but they threw new coal and new ore into the furnace,
and made ready to smelt. They did not call the smith, who had gone home
to celebrate Christmas, but worked themselves at the forge. If the
major’s wife could only live until the hammer got going, it would tell
her their story.
Evening came and then night, while they worked. Several of them thought,
how strange it was that they should again celebrate the night before
Christmas in the smithy.
Kevenhüller, who had been the architect of the mill and the smithy, and
Christian Bergh stood by the forge and attended to the melting iron.
Gösta and Julius were the stokers. Some of the others sat on the anvil
under the raised hammer, and others sat on coal-carts and piles of
pig-iron. Löwenborg was talking to Eberhard, the philosopher, who sat
beside him on the anvil.
“Sintram dies to-night,” he said.
“Why just to-night?” asked Eberhard.
“You know that we made an agreement last year. Now we have done nothing
which has been ungentlemanly, and therefore he has lost.”
“You who believe in such things know very well that we have done a great
deal which has been ungentlemanly. First, we did not help the major’s
wife; second, we began to work; third, it was not quite right that Gösta
Berling did not kill himself, when he had promised.”
“I have thought of that too,” answered Löwenborg; “but my opinion is,
that you do not rightly comprehend the matter. To act with the thought of
our own mean advantage was forbidden us; but not to act as love or honor
or our own salvation demanded. I think that Sintram has lost.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“I tell you that I know it. I have heard his sleigh-bells the whole
evening, but they are not real bells. We shall soon have him here.”
And the little old man sat and stared through the smithy door, which
stood open, out at the bit of blue sky studded with stars which showed
through it.
After a little while he started up.
“Do you see him?” he whispered. “There he comes creeping. Do you not see
him in the doorway?”
“I see nothing,” replied Eberhard. “You are sleepy, that is the whole
story.”
“I saw him so distinctly against the sky. He had on his long wolfskin
coat and fur cap. Now he is over there in the dark, and I cannot see him.
Look, now he is up by the furnace. He is standing close to Christian
Bergh; but Christian seems not to see him. Now he is bending down and is
throwing something into the fire. Oh, how wicked he looks! Take care,
friends, take care!”
As he spoke, a tongue of flame burst out of the furnace, and covered the
smiths and their assistants with cinders and sparks. No one, however, was
injured.
“He wants to be revenged,” whispered Löwenborg.
“You too are mad!” cried Eberhard. “You ought to have had enough of such
things.”
“Do you not see how he is standing there by the prop and grinning at us?
But, verily, I believe that he has unfastened the hammer.”
He started up and dragged Eberhard with him. The second after the hammer
fell thundering down onto the anvil. It was only a clamp which had given
way; but Eberhard and Löwenborg had narrowly escaped death.
“You see that he has no power over us,” said Löwenborg, triumphantly.
“But it is plain that he wants to be revenged.”
And he called Gösta Berling to him.
“Go up to the women, Gösta. Perhaps he will show himself to them too.
They are not so used as I to seeing such things. They may be frightened.
And take care of yourself, Gösta, for he has a special grudge against
you, and perhaps he has power over you on account of that promise.”
Afterwards they heard that Löwenborg had been right, and that Sintram had
died that night. Some said that he had hanged himself in his cell. Others
believed that the servants of justice secretly had him killed, for the
trial seemed to be going well for him, and it would never do to let him
out again among the people in Löfsjö. Still others thought that a dark
visitor had driven up in a black carriage, drawn by black horses, and
had taken him out of prison. And Löwenborg was not the only one who saw
him that night. He was also seen at Fors and in Ulrika Dillner’s dreams.
Many told how he had shown himself to them, until Ulrika Dillner moved
his body to the Bro churchyard. She also had the evil servants sent away
from Fors and introduced there good order. After that it was no longer
haunted.
It is said that before Gösta Berling reached the house, a stranger had
come to the wing and had left a letter for the major’s wife. No one knew
the messenger, but the letter was carried in and laid on the table beside
the sick woman. Soon after she became unexpectedly better; the fever
decreased, the pain abated, and she was able to read the letter.
The old people believe that her improvement depended on the influence
of the powers of darkness. Sintram and his friends would profit by the
reading of that letter.
It was a contract written in blood on black paper. The pensioners would
have recognized it. It was composed on the last Christmas Eve in the
smithy at Ekeby.
And the major’s wife lay there now and read that since she had been a
witch, and had sent pensioners’ souls to hell, she was condemned to lose
Ekeby. That and other similar absurdities she read. She examined the
date and signatures, and found the following note beside Gösta’s name:
“Because the major’s wife has taken advantage of my weakness to tempt
me away from honest work, and to keep me as pensioner at Ekeby, because
she has made me Ebba Dohna’s murderer by betraying to her that I am a
dismissed priest, I sign my name.”
The major’s wife slowly folded the paper and put it in its envelope. Then
she lay still and thought over what she had learned. She understood with
bitter pain that such was the people’s thought of her. She was a witch
and a sorceress to all those whom she had served, to whom she had given
work and bread. This was her reward. They could not believe anything
better of an adulteress.
Her thoughts flew. Wild anger and a longing for revenge flamed up in
her fever-burning brain. She had Anna Lisa, who with Countess Elizabeth
tended her, send a message to Hogfors to the manager and overseer. She
wished to make her will.
Again she lay thinking. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her features
were terribly distorted by suffering.
“You are very ill,” said the countess, softly.
“Yes, more ill than ever before.”
There was silence again, but then the major’s wife spoke in a hard, harsh
voice:—
“It is strange to think that you, too, countess, you whom every one
loves, are an adulteress.”
The young woman started.
“Yes, if not in deed, yet in thoughts and desire, and that makes no
difference. I who lie here feel that it makes no difference.”
“I know it!”
“And yet you are happy now. You may possess him you loved without sin.
That black spectre does not stand between you when you meet. You may
belong to one another before the world, love one another, go side by side
through life.”
“Oh, madame, madame!”
“How can you dare to stay with him?” cried the old woman, with increasing
violence. “Repent, repent in time! Go home to your father and mother,
before they come and curse you. Do you dare to consider Gösta Berling
your husband? Leave him! I shall give him Ekeby. I shall give him power
and glory. Do you dare to share that with him? Do you dare to accept
happiness and honor? I did not dare to. Do you remember what happened to
me? Do you remember the Christmas dinner at Ekeby? Do you remember the
cell in the bailiff’s house?”
“Oh, madame, we sinners go here side by side without happiness. I am here
to see that no joy shall find a home by our hearth. Do you think I do not
long for my home? Oh, bitterly do I long for the protection and support
of home; but I shall never again enjoy them. Here I shall live in fear
and trembling, knowing that everything I do leads to sin and sorrow,
knowing that if I help one, I ruin another. Too weak and foolish for the
life here, and yet forced to live it, bound by an everlasting penance.”
“With such thoughts we deceive our hearts,” cried the major’s wife; “but
it is weakness. You will not leave him, that is the only reason.”
Before the countess could answer, Gösta Berling came into the room.
“Come here, Gösta,” said the major’s wife instantly, and her voice grew
still sharper and harder. “Come here, you whom everybody praises. You
shall now hear what has happened to your old friend whom you allowed to
wander about the country, despised and forsaken.
“I will first tell you what happened last spring, when I came home to my
mother, for you ought to know the end of that story.
“In March I reached the iron-works in the Älfdal forest, Gösta. Little
better than a beggar I looked. They told me that my mother was in the
dairy. So I went there, and stood for a long while silent at the door.
There were long shelves round about the room, and on them stood shining
copper pans filled with milk. And my mother, who was over ninety years
old, took down pan after pan and skimmed off the cream. She was active
enough, the old woman; but I saw well enough how hard it was for her to
straighten up her back to reach the pans. I did not know if she had seen
me; but after a while she spoke to me in a curious, shrill voice.
“‘So everything has happened to you as I wished,’ she said. I wanted to
speak and to ask her to forgive me, but it was a waste of trouble. She
did not hear a word of it,—she was stone-deaf. But after a while she
spoke again: ‘You can come and help me,’ she said.
“Then I went in and skimmed the milk. I took the pans in order, and
put everything in its place, and skimmed just deep enough, and she was
pleased. She had never been able to trust any of the maids to skim the
milk; but I knew of old how she liked to have it.
“‘Now you can take charge of this work,’ she said. And then I knew that
she had forgiven me.
“And afterwards all at once it seemed as if she could not work any more.
She sat in her arm-chair and slept almost all day. She died two weeks
before Christmas. I should have liked to have come before, Gösta, but I
could not leave her.”
She stopped. She began to find breathing difficult; but she made an
effort and went on:—
“It is true, Gösta, that I wished to keep you near me at Ekeby. There is
something about you which makes every one rejoice to be with you. If you
had shown a wish to be a settled man, I would have given you much power.
I always hoped that you would find a good wife. First, I thought that it
would be Marianne Sinclair, for I saw that she loved you already, when
you lived as wood-cutter in the wood. Then I thought that it would be
Ebba Dohna, and one day I drove over to Borg and told her that if she
would have you for husband, I would leave you Ekeby in my will. If I did
wrong in that, you must forgive me.”
Gösta was kneeling by the bed with his face hidden in the blankets, and
was moaning bitterly.
“Tell me, Gösta, how you mean to live? How shall you support your wife?
Tell me that. You know that I have always wished you well.” And Gösta
answered her smiling, while his heart almost burst with pain.
“In the old days, when I tried to be a laborer here at Ekeby, you gave
me a cottage to live in, and it is still mine. This autumn I have put
it quite in order. Löwenborg has helped me, and we have whitewashed the
ceilings and hung the walls with paper and painted them. The inner little
room Löwenborg calls the countess’s boudoir, and he has gone through all
the farm-houses round about for furniture, which has come there from
manor-house auctions. He has bought them, so that there we have now
high-backed arm-chairs and chests of drawers with shining mountings. But
in the outer big room stands the young wife’s weaving-loom and my lathe.
Household utensils and all kinds of things are there, and there Löwenborg
and I have already sat many evenings and talked of how the young countess
and I will have it in the cottage. But my wife did not know it till now.
We wanted to tell her when we should leave Ekeby.”
“Go on, Gösta.”
“Löwenborg was always saying that a maid was needed in the house. ‘In the
summer it is lovely here in the birch grove,’ he used to say; ‘but in
winter it will be too lonely for the young wife. You will have to have a
maid, Gösta.’
“And I agreed with him, but I did not know how I could afford to keep
one. Then he came one day and carried down his music, and his table with
the painted keyboard, and put it in the cottage. ‘It is you, Löwenborg,
who are going to be the maid,’ I said to him. He answered that he would
be needed. Did I mean the young countess to cook the food, and to carry
wood and water? No, I had not meant her to do anything at all, as long
as I had a pair of arms to work with. But he still thought that it would
be best if there were two of us, so that she might sit the whole day on
her sofa and embroider. I could never know how much waiting upon such a
little woman needed, he said.”
“Go on,” said the major’s wife. “It eases my pain. Did you think that
your young countess would be willing to live in a cottage?”
He wondered at her scornful tone, but continued:
“No, I did not dare to think it; but it would have been so perfect if
she had been willing. It is thirty miles from any doctor. She, who has a
light hand and a tender heart, would have had work enough to tend wounds
and allay fevers. And I thought that everybody in trouble would find the
way to the lady mistress in the forest cottage. There is so much distress
among the poor which kind words and a gentle heart can help.”
“But you yourself, Gösta Berling?”
“I shall have my work at the carpenter’s bench and lathe. I shall
hereafter live my own life. If my wife will not follow me, I cannot help
it. If some one should offer me all the riches of the universe, it would
not tempt me. I want to live my own life. Now I shall be and remain a
poor man among the peasants, and help them with whatever I can. They
need some one to play the polka for them at weddings and at Christmas;
they need some one to write letters to their distant sons,—and that some
one I will be. But I must be poor.”
“It will be a gloomy life for you, Gösta.”
“Oh, no, it would not be if we were but two who kept together. The rich
and happy would come to us as well as the poor. It would be gay enough
in our cottage. Our guests would not care if the food was cooked right
before their eyes, or be shocked that two must eat from the same plate.”
“And what would be the good of it all, Gösta? What praise would you win?”
“Great would be my reward if the poor would remember me for a year or two
after my death. I should have done some good if I had planted a couple of
apple-trees at the house-corners, if I had taught the country fiddlers
some of the old tunes, and if the shepherd children could have learnt a
few good songs to sing in the wood-paths.
“You can believe me, I am the same mad Gösta Berling that I was before.
A country fiddler is all I can be, but that is enough. I have many sins
to atone for. To weep and to repent is not for me. I shall give the poor
pleasure, that is my penance.”
“Gösta,” said the major’s wife, “it is too humble a life for a man with
your powers. I will give you Ekeby.”
“Oh,” he cried in terror, “do not make me rich! Do not put such duties
upon me! Do not part me from the poor!”
“I will give Ekeby to you and the pensioners,” repeated the major’s wife.
“You are a capable man, Gösta, whom the people bless. I say like my
mother, ‘You shall take charge of this work!’”
“No, we could not accept it,—we who have misjudged you and caused you
such pain!”
“I will give you Ekeby, do you hear?”
She spoke bitterly and harshly, without kindness. He was filled with
dismay.
“Do not tempt the old men! It would only make them idlers and drunkards
again. God in Heaven, rich pensioners! What would become of us!”
“I will give you Ekeby, Gösta; but then you must promise to set your wife
free. Such a delicate little woman is not for you. She has had to suffer
too much here in the land of the bear. She is longing for her bright
native country. You shall let her go. That is why I give you Ekeby.”
But then Countess Elizabeth came forward to the major’s wife and knelt by
the bed.
“I do not long any more. He who is my husband has solved the problem, and
found the life I can live. No longer shall I need to go stern and cold
beside him, and remind him of repentance and atonement. Poverty and want
and hard work will do that. The paths which lead to the poor and sick I
can follow without sin. I am no longer afraid of the life here in the
north. But do not make him rich; then I do not dare to stay.”
The major’s wife raised herself in the bed.
“You demand happiness for yourselves,” she cried, and threatened them
with clenched fists,—“happiness and blessing. No, let Ekeby be the
pensioners’, that they may be ruined. Let man and wife be parted, that
they may be ruined! I am a witch, I am a sorceress, I shall incite you to
evil-doing. I shall be what my reputation is.”
She seized the letter and flung it in Gösta’s face. The black paper
fluttered out and fell on the floor. Gösta knew it too well.
“You have sinned against me, Gösta. You have misjudged one who has been
a second mother to you. Do you dare to refuse your punishment? You shall
accept Ekeby, and it shall ruin you, for you are weak. You shall send
home your wife, so that there will be no one to save you. You shall die
with a name as hated as mine. Margareta Celsing’s obituary is that of a
witch. Yours shall be that of a spendthrift and an oppressor of the poor.”
She sank back on the pillows, and all was still. Through the silence rang
a muffled blow, now one and then another. The sledge-hammer had begun its
far-echoing work.
“Listen,” said Gösta Berling, “so sounds Margareta Celsing’s obituary!
That is not a prank of drunken pensioners; that is the song of the
victory of labor, raised in honor of a good, old worker. Do you hear
what the hammer says? ‘Thanks,’ it says; ‘thanks for good work; thanks
for bread, which you have given the poor; thanks for roads, which you
have opened; thanks for districts, which you have cultivated! Thanks for
pleasure, with which you have filled your halls!’—‘Thanks,’ it says,
‘and sleep in peace! Your work shall live and continue. Your house shall
always be a home for happy labor.’—‘Thanks,’ it says, ‘and do not judge
us who have sinned! You who are now starting on the journey to the
regions of peace, think gentle thoughts of us who still live.’”
Gösta ceased, but the sledge-hammer went on speaking. All the voices
which had ever spoken kindly to the major’s wife were mingled with the
ring of the hammer. Gradually her features relaxed, as if the shadow of
death had fallen over her.
Anna Lisa came in and announced that the gentlemen from Hogfors had come.
The major’s wife let them go. She would not make any will.
“Oh, Gösta Berling, man of many deeds,” she said, “so you have conquered
once more. Bend down and let me bless you!”
The fever returned with redoubled strength. The death-rattle began. The
body toiled through dreary suffering; but the spirit soon knew nothing of
it. It began to gaze into the heaven which is opened for the dying.
So an hour passed, and the short death-struggle was over. She lay there
so peaceful and beautiful that those about her were deeply moved.
“My dear old mistress,” said Gösta, “so have I seen you once before. Now
has Margareta Celsing come back to life. Now she will never again yield
to the major’s wife at Ekeby.”
* * * * *
When the pensioners came in from the forge, they were met by the news of
Margareta Celsing’s death.
“Did she hear the hammer?” they asked.
She had done so, and they could be satisfied.
They heard, too, that she had meant to give Ekeby to them; but that
the will had never been drawn. That they considered a great honor, and
rejoiced over it as long as they lived. But no one ever heard them lament
over the riches they had lost.
It is also said that on that Christmas night Gösta Berling stood by his
young wife’s side and made his last speech to the pensioners. He was
grieved at their fate when they now must all leave Ekeby. The ailments
of old age awaited them. The old and worn-out find a cold welcome.
And so he spoke to them. Once more he called them old gods and knights
who had risen up to bring pleasure into the land of iron. But he lamented
that the pleasure garden where the butterfly-winged pleasure roves is
filled with destructive caterpillars, and that its fruits are withered.
Well he knew that pleasure was a good to the children of the earth, and
it must exist. But, like a heavy riddle, the question always lay upon the
world, how a man could be both gay and good. The easiest thing and yet
the hardest, he called it. Hitherto they had not been able to solve the
problem. Now he wanted to believe that they had learned it, that they
had all learned it during that year of joy and sorrow, of happiness and
despair.
* * * * *
You dear old people! In the old days you gave me precious gifts. But what
have I given you?
Perhaps it may gladden you that your names sound again in connection
with the dear old places? May all the brightness which belonged to your
life fall again over the tracts where you have lived! Borg still stands;
Björne still stands; Ekeby still lies by lake Löfven, surrounded by falls
and lake, by park and smiling meadows; and when one stands on the broad
terraces, legends swarm about one like the bees of summer.
But, speaking of bees, let me tell one more old story. The little Ruster,
who went as a drummer at the head of the Swedish army, when in 1813 it
marched into Germany, could never weary of telling stories of that
wonderful land in the south. The people there were as tall as church
towers, the swallows were as big as eagles, the bees as geese.
“Well, but the bee-hives?”
“The bee-hives were like our ordinary bee-hives.”
“How did the bees get in?”
“Well, that they had to look out for,” said the little Ruster.
Dear reader, must I say the same? The giant bees of fancy have now
swarmed about us for a year and a day; but how they are going to come
into the bee-hive of fact, that they really must find out for themselves.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] A Swedish game of cards.
[2] Terms used in weaving.
[3] In the country, in Sweden, they wash twice a year, in spring and
autumn.
Historical Romances.
=THE KING’S HENCHMAN.= A Chronicle of the Sixteenth Century. Brought to
light and edited by WILLIAM HENRY JOHNSON. 12mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top,
$1.50.
A story of pure love and stirring action. It purports to be told by an
inseparable attendant of Henry of Navarre, and that hero of a hundred
lights and as many gallant adventures is made to live again for us.
We close the book reluctantly. The hours spent in reading “The
King’s Henchman” were richly rewarded.—_Atlanta Constitution._
What is more noticeable than the interest of the story itself is
Mr. Johnson’s intuitive insight and thorough understanding at
the period. While the book is Weyman in vigorous activity, it is
Dumas in its brilliant touches of romanticism.—_Boston Herald._
Mr. Johnson has caught the spirit of the period, and has
painted in Henry of Navarre a truthful and memorable historical
portrait.—_The Mail and Express_, New York.
=THE COUNT’S SNUFF-BOX.= A Romance of Washington and Buzzard’s Bay in the
War of 1812. By GEORGE R. R. RIVERS, author of “The Governor’s Garden,”
“Captain Shays, a Populist of 1786,” etc. Illustrated by Clyde O. DeLand.
12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.
The story of “The Count’s Snuff-Box” is founded on an incident of the War
of 1812. In January of that year an adventurer, calling himself Count
de Crillon, appeared in Washington, and for some weeks was the central
social attraction of the capital. He bore letters from prominent members
of Napoleon’s government to M. Serurier, then Minister from France. His
motive was ostensibly to help France, and injure Great Britain and the
Federalists, but his real object was to secure money for John Henry’s
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purchasing them for fifty thousand dollars.
=CAPTAIN SHAYS.= A Populist of 1786. By GEORGE R. R. RIVERS, author of
“The Count’s Snuff-Box.” 16mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top, $1.25.
=THE GOVERNOR’S GARDEN.= A Relation of some Passages in the Life
of His Excellency, Thomas Hutchinson, sometime Captain-General and
Governor-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Province of Massachusetts Bay. By
GEORGE R. R. RIVERS. With frontispiece. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
=IN BUFF AND BLUE.= Being Certain Portions from the Diary of Richard
Hilton, Gentleman of Haslet’s Regiment of Delaware Foot, in our Ever
Glorious War of Independence. By GEORGE BRYDGES RODNEY. 16mo. Cloth,
extra, gilt top, $1.25.
=HASSAN, A FELLAH.= A Romance of Palestine. By HENRY GILLMAN. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, $2.00.
The author of this powerful romance lived in Palestine for over five
years, and during his residence there had unusual and peculiar advantages
for seeing and knowing the people and the country. He has selected the
present time for the story, but has drawn freely from all the rich
treasures of the past for ornament. The portions connected with the
“Thar,” or blood-feud between the Syrian villages, and the insurrection
in Crete are not only of uncommon interest and power, but are also
intensely dramatic.
A biblical, patriarchal, pastoral spirit pervades it. Indeed, the
whole book is saturated with the author’s reverence for the Holy
Land, its legends, traditions, glory, misery,—its romance, in a
word, and its one supreme glory, the impress of the Chosen of God
and of the Master who walked among them.—_The Independent._
Mr. Gillman has certainly opened up a new field of fiction. The
book is a marvel of power, acute insight, and clever manipulation
of thoroughly grounded truths. The story is as much of a giant in
fiction as its hero is among men.—_Boston Herald._
The book is one that seems destined to take hold of the popular
heart as strongly as did “Ben Hur” or “Quo Vadis,” nor is it
less worthy of such popularity than either of those named.—_Art
Interchange._
It is romance of the strongest type. Many pages fairly glow with
color, as the author in his enthusiasm portrays the natural
beauties of the Holy Land.—_Public Opinion._
The hero of “Hassan, a Fellah.” will be a revelation even to
those who carry their ethnological studies beyond the realm of
fiction.—_N. Y. Times._
=“QUO VADIS.”= A Narrative of the Time of Nero. By HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ.
Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. Library Edition. With map
and photogravure plates. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.00.
Popular Edition. 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
_Of intense interest to the whole Christian
civilization._—Chicago Tribune.
With him we view, appalled, Rome, grand and awful, in her last
throes. The picture of the giant Ursus struggling with the wild
animal is one that will always hold place with such literary
triumphs as that of the chariot race in “Ben Hur.”—_Boston
Courier._
Mr. Curtin’s English is so limpid and fluent that one
finds it difficult to realize that he is reading a
translation.—_Philadelphia Church Standard._
=“QUO VADIS.”= ILLUSTRATED HOLIDAY EDITION. With maps and plans of
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Howard Pyle, Edmund H. Garrett, E. Van Muyden, and other artists. 2 vols.
8vo. Cloth, extra, gilt top, in box, $6.00.
Half crushed Levant morocco, extra, gilt top, $12.00.
=WITH FIRE AND SWORD.= An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia. By
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ. Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. With
portrait of the author, plates, and map. Library Editions. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, $2.00.
Popular Edition. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00.
_The only modern romance with which it can be compared for fire,
sprightliness, rapidity of action, swift changes, and absorbing
interest is “The Three Musketeers” of Dumas._—New York Tribune.
“With Fire and Sword” is the first of a trilogy of historical romances
of Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Their publication has been received
throughout the United States by readers and critics as an event in
literature. Action in the field has never before been described in any
language so briefly, so vividly, and with such a marvellous expression of
energy. The famous character of Zagloba has been described as “a curious
and fascinating combination of Falstaff and Ulysses.” Charles Dudley
Warner, in “Harper’s Magazine,” affirms that the Polish author has in
Zagloba _given a new creation to literature_.
=THE DELUGE.= An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. By
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ. Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. A
sequel to “With Fire and Sword.” With a map of the country at the period
in which the events of “The Deluge” and “With Fire and Sword” take place.
Library Edition. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $3.00.
Popular Edition. 2 vols. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
_It even surpasses in interest and power the same author’s
romance, “With Fire and Sword.” … The whole story swarms with
brilliant pictures of war, and with personal episodes of battle
and adventure._—New York Tribune.
Marvellous in its grand descriptions.—_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
One of the direct anointed line of the kings of
story-telling.—_Literary World._
_A really great novelist_ … To match this story one must turn to
the masterpieces of Scott and Dumas.—_Philadelphia Press._
=PAN MICHAEL.= An Historical Novel of Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine.
By HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ. Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. A
sequel to “With Fire and Sword” and “The Deluge.” Library Edition. Crown
8vo. Cloth, $2.00.
Popular Edition. 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents.
This work completes the great Polish trilogy. The period of the story is
1668-1674, and the principal historical event is the Turkish invasion of
1672. Pan Michael, a favorite character in the preceding stories, and
the incomparable Zagloba figure throughout the novel. The most important
historical character introduced is Sobieski, who was elected king in 1674.
_No word less than “Excelsior” will justly describe the
achievement of the trilogy of novels of which “Pan Michael” is
the last._—Baltimore American.
There is no falling off in interest in this third and last book
of the series; again Sienkiewicz looms as one of the great novel
writers of the world.—_The Nation._
From the artistic standpoint, to have created the character of
Zagloba was a feat comparable with Shakespeare’s creation of
Falstaff and Goethe’s creation of Mephistopheles.—_The Dial._
=ANDRONIKE.= The Heroine of the Greek Revolution. Translated from the
Greek of STEPHANOS THEODONUS XENOS by Edwin A. Grosvenor, Professor of
European History in Amherst College, and author of “Constantinople.”
12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
Modern Greece may be proud of having given the world an historical
romance like this. Viewed merely as a story, it is a work of absorbing
interest in its plot and execution. At the same time, no other book,
whether description, travels, or pure romance, offers so faithful
and complete a picture of Greek life to-day. The reader follows the
vicissitudes of hero and heroine with rapt attention, and all the time
seems breathing Greek air under a Greek sky and living among the Greeks.
A book well worth reading, because it is a story of thrilling
interest and it presents the best description of a memorable
conflict for national liberty.—_Detroit Tribune._
A book which is drama and action from one end to the other.
Altogether a most fascinating work.—_New York Home Journal._
=I AM THE KING.= Being the Account of some Happenings in the Life of
Godfrey de Bersac, Crusader Knight. By SHEPPARD STEVENS. 16mo. Cloth,
$1.25.
This is a romantic story of the days of Saladin and Richard Cœur de Leon.
Its author has wrought into it much of the color of the home-life of the
period and many of the quaint superstitions and folk-lore. The scene of
the story is in part laid in England and in part in the Holy Land.
=THE HEAD OF A HUNDRED.= Being an Account of Certain Passages in the Life
of Humphrey Huntoon, Esq., sometyme an Officer in the Colony of Virginia.
Edited by MAUD WILDER GOODWIN, author of “The Colonial Cavalier.” 16mo.
Cloth, extra, gilt top, $1.25.
It is as sweet and pure a piece of fiction as we have read for
many a day, breathing, as it does, the same noble air, the lofty
tone, and the wholesome sentiment of “Lorna Doone.”—_The Bookman._
=WHITE APRONS.= A Romance of Bacon’s Rebellion, Virginia, 1676. By MAUD
WILDER GOODWIN. 16mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top, $1.25.
A beautiful little story, sweet and inspiring, not less clever
than true.—_New York Times._
A charming story… Its fidelity to the conditions prevailing in
the Virginia colony at the time is carefully sustained.—_The
Review of Reviews._
=A WOMAN OF SHAWMUT.= A Romance of Colonial Times. Boston, 1640. By
EDMUND JANES CARPENTER. With twelve charming full-page illustrations and
numerous chapter headings from pen-and-ink drawings by F. T. Merrill.
16mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top, with cameo design, $1.25.
=CINQ-MARS=; or, A Conspiracy under Louis XIII. By Count ALFRED DE VIGNY.
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by Gaujean from designs by A. Dawant, and numerous smaller illustrations
(head and tail pieces) in the text. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $6.00.
It is one of the masterpieces of French romantic fiction, … and
a book to be always read and remembered.—_New York Mail and
Express._
=THE PRINCESS OF CLEVES.= An Historical Romance of the Court of Henry II.
By MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. With preface by Anatole France. Translated by
Thomas Sergeant Perry. Most exquisitely illustrated with four full page
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Madame de la Fayette was the first to introduce naturalness into
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=THE MASTER MOSAIC WORKERS (_Les Maitres Mosaïstes_).= Translated from
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A story of Venice in the time of Titian and Tintoretto, who figure
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“The Master Mosaic Workers” is _one of the most delightful of
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Mark’s were being made.—_Literary World._
=THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID=; or, Three Years in the Holy City.
Being a Series of Letters of Adina, a Jewess of Alexandria, supposed to
be sojourning in Jerusalem in the days of Herod, addressed to her father,
a wealthy Jew in Egypt, and relating, as if by an eye-witness, all the
scenes and wonderful incidents in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, from his
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12mo. Cloth, $1.00.
New Illustrated Edition. With twenty-six engravings by Victor A. Searles.
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Popular Edition. 16mo. Cloth, 50 cents.
These editions contain the author’s latest revisions, he having availed
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out errors and suggested alterations and improvements.
=THE PILLAR OF FIRE=; or, Israel in Bondage. Being an Account of
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New Illustrated Edition. With twenty-one engravings by Victor A. Searles.
12mo. $2.00.
=BULWER’S HISTORICAL ROMANCES.=
Comprising:—
=Devereux.= 2 vols.
=The Last Days of Pompeii.= 1 vol.
=Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes.= 2 vols.
=The Last of the Barons.= 2 vols.
=Leila and Calderon, Pausanias the Spartan.= 1 vol.
=Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings.= 2 vols.
12mo. With frontispiece by Edmund H. Garrett. Per volume, plain cloth,
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_Any story can be supplied separately._
The new library edition of Bulwer’s works is one of exceeding
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The Historical Romances of Alexandre Dumas.
Little, Brown, & Company’s New Library Edition of these important
historical novels comprises the only complete translations into English,
and has been accepted as the standard edition of this famous novelist in
both the United States and England. Much matter hitherto omitted will be
found only in this edition. The books are illustrated with portraits of
notable historical personages, and are printed in handsome, clear type.
The set comprises sixty volumes, 12mo, with nearly one hundred etchings,
photogravures, etc., by French and American artists. Decorated cloth,
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Half calf, extra, or half morocco, $3.00 per volume.
_Any story supplied separately in cloth._
Decorated Plain
cloth. cloth.
HISTORICAL AND REGENCY ROMANCES. Ten Volumes.
=The Two Dianas.= 3 vols. $4.50 $3.75
=The Page of the Duke of Savoy.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=The Chevalier d’Harmental.= 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
⁂ Sometimes called “The Conspirators.”
=The Regent’s Daughter.= 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=The Black Tulip.= 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=Olympe de Clèves.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
THE VALOIS ROMANCES. Six Volumes.
=Marguerite de Valois.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=La Dame de Monsoreau.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
⁂ Also known under the name of “Chicot the
Jester.”
=The Forty-Five.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
⁂ Sometimes called “The Forty-Five Guardsmen.”
THE D’ARTAGNAN ROMANCES. Ten Volumes.
=The Three Musketeers.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=Twenty Years After.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=Vicomte de Bragelonne.= 6 vols. 9.00 7.50
⁂ Portions of this powerful romance have
sometimes been issued separately under the
titles of “Ten Years Later,” “Bragelonne,”
“Louise de la Vallière,” and “The Iron Mask.”
All three stories are included in the above,
unabridged and according to the author’s own
arrangement.
THE MARIE ANTOINETTE ROMANCES. Twelve Volumes.
=Memoirs of a Physician.= 3 vols. 4.50 3.75
=The Queen’s Necklace.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=Ange Pitou.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
⁂ Sometimes called “Taking the Bastile.”
=Comtesse de Charny.= 4 vols. 6.00 5.00
⁂ Published according to the author’s own
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“Andrée de Taverney.”
=Chevalier de Maison Rouge.= 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
THE NAPOLEON ROMANCES. Six Volumes.
=The Companions of Jehu.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=The Whites and the Blues.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
⁂ This story has also been issued under the
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=The She-Wolves of Machecoul= and =The Corsican
Brothers.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
⁂ “The She-Wolves of Machecoul” has also been
issued under the title of “The Last Vendée.”
DUMAS ROMANCES, NEW SERIES. I. Six Volumes.
=Ascanio.= A Romance of François I. and Benvenuto
Cellini. 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=The War of Women.= A Romance of the Fronde.
2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=Black.= The Story of a Dog. 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=Tales of the Caucasus.= Comprising “The Ball of
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DUMAS ROMANCES, NEW SERIES. II. Six Volumes.
=Agénor de Mauléon.= 2 vols. 3.00 2.50
=The Brigand.= A Romance of the Reign of Don Carlos.
To which is added =Blanche de Beaulieu=. 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=The Horoscope.= A Romance of the Reign of François
II. 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=Sylvandire.= A Romance of the Reign of Louis XIV.
1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=Monsieur de Chauvelin’s Will= and =The Woman with the
Velvet Necklace=. 1 vol. 1.50 1.25
=The Count of Monte Cristo.= 4 vols. 6.00 5.00
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers, 254 Washington Street, Boston.
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