“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.”
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:—
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:—
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.
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.
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.”
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.