The Saga of Gosta Berling

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The Saga of Gosta Berling Page 19

by Selma Lagerlof


  During the entire time she has been imprisoned she has almost never slept.

  And both of the women who have come to see her look at her with anxiety.

  The young countess would later always remember her the way she was walking there then. Later she sees her often in her dreams and then awakens from the sight with her eyes wet with tears and a lament on her lips.

  The old woman is anxiously run-down; her hair looks thin, and loose strands are forcing their way out of her narrow braid. Her face is slack and sunken, her clothes untidy and torn. But despite all this she has so much of the lofty, generally inviting mistress remaining that she does not simply inspire pity, but veneration as well.

  But what the countess would clearly recall were the eyes: sunken, turned in, not yet robbed of all the light of reason, but almost ready to go out and with a spark of wildness lurking in the depths, so that you had to fear that the old woman might attack you at any moment, her teeth ready to bite, fingers ready to claw.

  They have now been standing there a good while, when the majoress suddenly stops before the young woman and looks at her with a stern gaze. The countess takes a step back and grasps Mrs. Scharling’s arm.

  The majoress’s features suddenly gain life and expression, her eyes look out into the world with complete comprehension.

  “Oh no, oh no!” she says and smiles, “it’s not that bad yet, my dear young lady.”

  She invites them to sit down and also sits down herself. She takes on an air of old-fashioned stateliness, familiar from the great parties at Ekeby and the royal balls in the governor’s residence in Karlstad. They forget the rags and the jail and see only the proudest and richest woman in Värmland.

  “My dear countess!” she says. “What might induce you to leave the dance to come and see a lonely old woman like me? You must be very good.”

  Countess Elisabet cannot reply. Her voice is choked with emotion. Mrs. Scharling answers in her place, that she has not been able to dance because she has been thinking about the majoress.

  “Dear Mrs. Scharling,” answers the majoress, “am I so far gone that I disturb the young people in their enjoyment? You mustn’t cry over me, my dear young countess,” she continued. “I am a mean old woman who deserves her fate. You don’t think it’s right to strike your mother, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  The majoress interrupts her and brushes the curly, light hair off of her forehead.

  “Child, child,” she says, “how could you go and get married to that stupid Henrik Dohna?”

  “But I love him.”

  “I see how it is, I see how it is,” says the majoress. “A nice child and nothing more, weeps with the distressed and laughs with the happy. And forced to say ‘yes’ to the first one who says, ‘I love you.’ Yes indeed, yes. Go in and dance now, my dear young countess! Dance and be happy. There is nothing bad in you.”

  “But I want to do something for the majoress.”

  “Child,” says the majoress solemnly, “an old woman lived at Ekeby who kept the winds of the heavens captive. Now she is imprisoned, and the winds are free. Is it strange that a storm is passing over the land?

  “I, who am old, have seen it before, countess. I feel it. I know that the thundering storm of God is coming over us. First it sweeps forth over the large realms, then over the small, forgotten communities. God’s storm forgets no one. So it passes over the great as well as the small. It is a fine thing to see God’s storm coming.

  “God’s storm, the blessed Lord’s weather, is blowing across the earth! Voices in the air, voices in the waters, they sound and terrify! Make God’s storm thundering! Make God’s storm terrifying! May the squalls move out across the land, rush forth against tottering walls, breaking the locks that have rusted, and the houses that lean, about to fall!

  “Anxiety will spread across the land. The small birds’ nests will fall from their strongholds on the branch. The hawk’s nest at the top of the pine will be cut to the earth with a loud boom, and the wind will hiss with its dragon tongue all the way into the owl’s nest in the crevice of the rock.

  “We thought that everything was fine here with us, but it was not. God’s storm is probably needed. I understand it, and I am not complaining. I simply want to be allowed to go to my mother.”

  She suddenly breaks down.

  “Go now, young woman!” she says. “I have no more time. I have to go. Go now, and watch out for those who are riding on the storm clouds!”

  With that she resumed her wandering. Her features slackened, her gaze turned inward. The countess and Mrs. Scharling had to leave her.

  As soon as they were in among the dancers again, the young countess went right up to Gösta Berling.

  “I bring greetings to Mr. Berling from the majoress,” she says. “She is waiting for Mr. Berling to take her out of the prison.”

  “Then she’ll just have to wait, countess.”

  “Oh, help her, Mr. Berling!”

  Gösta gazes darkly before him. “No,” he says, “why should I help her? What debt of gratitude do I have to her? Everything that she has done for me has been to my undoing.”

  “But, Mr. Berling—”

  “If she had never existed,” he says heatedly, “I would now be sleeping up there under the endless forests. Should I be obliged to risk my life for her, because she made me a cavalier at Ekeby? Do you believe, countess, that much distinction goes along with that position?”

  The young countess turns away from him without answering. She is angry.

  She goes to her place, thinking bitter thoughts about the cavaliers. They have come here with horns and fiddles and intend to let the bows rub against the strings until the horsehair is worn out, without thinking that the merry notes resound over to the prisoner’s miserable room. They have come here to dance until the soles of their shoes turn to dust, and it doesn’t occur to them that their old benefactress can see their shadows sweeping past within the steamed-up windowpanes. Oh, how gray and ugly the world became! Oh, what a shadow distress and hard-heartedness cast across the young countess’s soul!

  After a while Gösta comes to invite her to dance.

  She refuses abruptly.

  “Don’t you want to dance with me, countess?” he asks, turning very red.

  “Not with you nor with any other of the Ekeby cavaliers,” she says.

  “So we are not worthy of such an honor?”

  “It’s no honor, Mr. Berling. But I find no enjoyment in dancing with those who forget all the dictates of gratitude.”

  Gösta has already turned on his heels.

  This scene is heard and seen by many. All think the countess is right. The cavaliers’ ingratitude and heartlessness toward the majoress have aroused general indignation.

  But in those days Gösta Berling is more dangerous than a wild animal in the forest. Ever since he came home from the hunt and found Marianne gone, his heart has been like an aching sore. He has a good mind to inflict a bloody injustice on someone and spread sorrow and torment in wide circles.

  If she wants it that way, he says to himself, then it will be as she wants. But she won’t get to spare her own hide either. The young countess likes abductions. She will get her fill. He has nothing against an adventure. For eight days he has been grieving for the sake of a woman. That may be long enough. He calls Beerencreutz, the colonel, and Kristian Bergh, the strong captain, and the phlegmatic cousin Kristoffer, who never hesitates at a deranged adventure, and seeks counsel with them about how the offended honor of the cavaliers should be avenged.

  Then comes the end of the banquet. A long row of sleighs drives up to the yard. The gentlemen put on their furs. The ladies look for their coats in the hopeless disorder of the dressing room.

  The young countess has been in a hurry to leave this hateful ball. She is the first one done of the ladies. She stands, smiling, in the middle of the floor and watches the confusion, as the door is thrown open and Gösta Berling appears on the threshold.


  No man has the right to force his way into this room, however. Old ladies stand there in their thin hair, after they have pulled off their decorative caps. And the young women have hiked up their skirts under the furs, so that the stiff frills will not pinch during the ride home.

  But without paying any heed to the cries to stop, Gösta Berling rushes over to the countess and seizes her.

  And he lifts her in his arms and races out of the room to the entryway and from there out onto the stairs with her.

  The shrieks of the surprised women could not stop him. As they hurry after, they see only how he throws himself into a sleigh with the countess in his arms.

  They hear the driver crack the whip and see the horse set off. They know the driver—it is Beerencreutz. They know the horse—it is Don Juan. And in deep distress at the fate of the countess, they call on the men.

  And they do not waste time asking many questions; instead they rush to the sleighs. And with the count in the lead, they chase after the abductor.

  But he is lying in the sleigh, holding fast to the young countess. He has forgotten all sorrow, and dizzy with the intoxicating pleasure of the adventure, he is singing at full volume a ballad of love and roses.

  He holds her pressed close to him, but she makes no attempt to flee. Her face, white and stony, is close to his chest.

  Oh, what should a man do when he has a pale, helpless face so close to him, when he sees the light hair that otherwise shadows the white, radiant forehead pushed back, and when the eyelids have closed heavily over the roguish glitter of gray eyes?

  What should a man do, when the red lips are fading away under his eyes?

  Kiss then, naturally, kiss the fading lips, the closed eyes, the white forehead.

  But then the young woman wakes up. She pulls away. She is like a coiled spring. And he has to struggle with all of his strength to keep her from throwing herself out of the sleigh, until he forces her, subdued and trembling, down into one corner of the sleigh.

  “Look!” Gösta then says quite calmly to Beerencreutz, “the countess is the third one that Don Juan and I are carrying off this winter. But the others clung to my neck with kisses, and she will neither be kissed by me nor dance with me. Can you figure these women out, Beerencreutz?”

  But as Gösta drove from the farm, as the women shouted and the men swore, as the sleigh bells jingled and the whips cracked and everything was shouting and confusion, the men who were guarding the majoress began to feel strangely uneasy.

  “What’s going on?” they thought. “What are they shouting about?”

  Suddenly the door flew open, and a voice called to them, “She is gone. Now he’s leaving with her.”

  They ran out, running like madmen, without looking to see whether it was the majoress or who it was who was gone. Luck was with them, so that they even got into one of the sleighs speeding away. And they drove both long and well, before they found out whom they were pursuing.

  But Bergh and cousin Kristoffer went calmly up to the door, broke the lock, and opened it for the majoress.

  “You are free, majoress,” they said.

  She came out. They stood, straight as sticks, on either side of the door and did not look at her.

  “You have a horse and sleigh outside here, majoress.”

  Then she went out, settled into the vehicle, and drove away. No one pursued her. No one knew where she was going either.

  On the Broby hills Don Juan hurries toward the ice-covered surface of Löven. The proud runner is flying forth. Bracing, ice-cold air whistles past the riders’ cheeks. The sleigh bells ring. Stars and moon are shining. The snow is blue-white, shining with its own luster.

  Gösta senses poetic thoughts awakening within him. “Beerencreutz,” he says, “look, this is life. Just as Don Juan races away with the young woman, so time races away with every person. You are necessity, guiding the journey. I am desire, who captures free will. And so she is pulled, the powerless one, ever deeper and deeper downward.”

  “Don’t talk!” roars Beerencreutz. “Now they’re coming after us!”

  And with whistling strokes of the whip he eggs Don Juan on to an ever wilder pace.

  “There are the wolves, here the prey!” Gösta cries out. “Don Juan, my lad, imagine that you are a young moose! Rush forth through the thicket, wade through the marsh, take a leap from the mountain ridge down into the clear lake, swim across it with courageously uplifted head, and vanish, vanish into the saving darkness of the dense pine forest! Run, Don Juan, old abductor! Run like a young moose!”

  Delight fills his wild heart at the hastening pace. The shouts of the pursuers are for him a song of rejoicing. Delight fills his wild heart as he feels the countess’s body shaking with terror, as he hears her teeth rattling.

  Suddenly the iron grip by which he has held her is loosened. He stands up in the sleigh and waves his cap.

  “I am Gösta Berling!” he shouts, “lord of ten thousand kisses and thirteen thousand love letters. Cheers for Gösta Berling! Catch him, if you can!”

  And at the next moment he is whispering in the countess’s ear, “Isn’t this a good pace? Isn’t this a royal ride? Beyond Löven lies Vänern. Beyond Vänern lies the sea, everywhere endless expanses of clear, blue-black ice and beyond that a radiant world. Rolling thunder in the freezing ice, harsh cries behind us, shooting stars above, and clinging sleigh bells before us! Onward! Always onward! Do you have the desire to try that journey, young, lovely lady?”

  He has set her free. She pushes him intensely from her.

  The next moment finds him on his knees at her feet.

  “I am a wretch, a wretch! The countess should not have provoked me. You stood there so proud and fine, never believing that a cavalier’s fist could reach you. Heaven and earth love you. You should not increase the burden for those whom heaven and earth despise.”

  He pulls her hands to him and raises them to his face.

  “If you only knew,” he says, “what it is to know yourself to be rejected! No one asks what you are doing. No, no one asks.”

  At the same moment he notices that she has nothing on her hands. He pulls a pair of large leather gloves out of his pocket and puts them on her.

  With that he has once again become completely calm. He adjusts himself in the sleigh, as far from the young countess as possible.

  “The countess does not need to be afraid,” he says. “Don’t you see where we’re going, countess? You can understand that we don’t dare do you any harm.”

  She, who had been almost out of her mind with fear, now sees that they have already driven across the lake and that Don Juan is struggling up the steep hills at Borg.

  They stop the horse by the stairs to the count’s estate and let the young countess get out of the sleigh at the door to her own home.

  But when she is surrounded by servants who come rushing out, she regains her courage and presence of mind.

  “Take care of the horse, Andersson!” she says to the driver. “Would these gentlemen who have driven me home be so kind as to come in awhile? The count will be coming soon.”

  “As the countess wishes,” says Gösta, getting out of the sleigh at once. Beerencreutz casts the reins aside without a moment’s hesitation. But the young countess goes before them and shows them into the parlor with ill-concealed schadenfreude.

  The countess probably expected that the cavaliers would hesitate at the suggestion to wait for her husband.

  They didn’t know then what a stern, upright man he was. They didn’t fear the inquisition he would hold with them, who had violently seized her and forced her to ride with them. She wanted to hear him forbid them to set foot in her home ever again.

  She wanted to see him call in the servants to point out the cavaliers as men whom they would henceforth never let past the gates of Borg. She wanted to hear him express his contempt, not only at what they had done to her, but also at their way of treating the old majoress, their benefactress.

&nbs
p; He, who to her was pure tenderness and indulgence, he would rise up in righteous severity against her oppressors. Love would put fire in his words. He, who protected and respected her as a being of a finer type than any other, he would not allow vulgar men to swoop down on her like birds of prey on a sparrow. She was glowing with a thirst for vengeance.

  Beerencreutz, the colonel with the dense, white mustaches, however, stepped undauntedly into the dining room and went over to the fire, which was always lit when the countess came home from a party.

  Gösta stopped in the darkness by the door, silently observing the countess, while the servant relieved her of her outer clothes. As he watched this young woman, he became happier than he had been for many years. It became so clear to him, it was as certain to him as a revelation, although he did not understand how he had discovered it, that within her she had the loveliest soul.

  For the time being it was bound and slumbering, but it would no doubt emerge. He became so happy at having discovered all the purity and piety and innocence that dwelled deep within her. He was almost ready to laugh at her because she looked so angry and stood with cheeks glowing and eyebrows knitted.

  “You don’t know how gentle and good you are,” he thought.

  That side of her being that was turned toward the material world would never do her inner self complete justice, he thought. But Gösta Berling must be her servant from this moment, the way all that is beautiful and divine must be served. Yes, there was no use regretting that he had just carried on so violently toward her. If she had not been so afraid, if she had not pushed him aside so tempestuously, if he had not perceived how all of her being was agitated by his brutality, then he would never have known what a fine and noble spirit resided within her.

  He could not have believed it before. She had simply been merriment and an eagerness to dance. And then she had been able to get married to the stupid Count Henrik.

  Yes, now he would be her slave until his death: dog and thrall, as Captain Kristian would say, and nothing more.

  He sat down by the door, Gösta Berling, and with clasped hands held a kind of church service. Not since that day when for the first time he felt inspiration’s tongue of fire upon him, had he experienced such holiness in his soul. He did not let himself be disturbed, although Count Dohna came in with a number of people, who swore and lamented at the cavaliers’ behavior.

 

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