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 earn 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 Haydn, 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.