“Oh Ekeby, you land of my longing,” he then called to himself, “may your honor shine!”
As soon as the cavaliers had the weighing master’s receipt, they loaded their iron onto a boat on Lake Vänern. It was otherwise customary that professional skippers took care of the transport down to Gothenburg, and generally the Värmland ironworks had no further concerns for their iron, once they had the weighing master’s receipt that the delivery was complete. But the cavaliers did not want to do their business by half; they would accompany the iron all the way to Gothenburg.
On the way there they encountered misfortune. A storm broke out at night, the boat went adrift, ran against a reef, and sank with all of its valuable cargo. Then horns and card games and unemptied wine bottles went to the bottom. But if one were to view the matter correctly, what did it matter if the iron was lost? The honor of Ekeby was still saved. The iron had been weighed at the scales at Kanikenäset. And even if the major had to sit down and inform the commodities traders down there in the big city in a gruff letter that he did not want their money because they had not received his iron, then that didn’t matter either. Ekeby was very rich, and its honor was saved.
But if harbors and locks, if mines and charcoal stacks, if boats and barges start to whisper strange things? If a muted sighing passes through the forests, that the entire journey was a deception, if it is asserted all across Värmland that there was never more than a meager one hundred and fifty hundredweights on the barges, and that the shipwreck was arranged on purpose? A bold deed had then been carried out, and a genuine cavalier trick completed. Such things do not injure the honor of the old estate.
But that is long ago now. It is just possible that the cavaliers had purchased iron from another place, or that they had found it in some previously unknown warehouse. The truth in such a matter will never be revealed. The weighing master at least would never hear it said that a deception had been possible, and of course he ought to know.
When the cavaliers came home, they received news. Count Dohna’s marriage was to be annulled. The count had sent his steward down to Italy to gather evidence that the marriage had not been legal. The steward also came back toward summer with satisfying information. What this consisted of, well, that I do not know for certain. You have to proceed carefully with the old legends; they are like aged roses: they lose their petals easily if you get too close to them. People say that the wedding in Italy had not been performed by the proper priest. I know nothing more myself, but it is nonetheless true that at the court in Bro the marriage between Count Dohna and Elisabet von Thurn was declared never to have been a marriage.
Of this the young woman knew nothing. She was living among peasants in distant regions, if she was even alive.
CHAPTER 18
LILLIE CRONA’S HOME
Among the cavaliers there was one whom I have often mentioned as a great musician. He was a tall, coarse-limbed man with a large head and bushy, black hair. He was surely not much more than forty years old at this time, but he had an ugly, rough-hewn face and a leisurely manner. This meant that many people counted him as old. He was a good man, but gloomy.
One afternoon he took the fiddle under his arm and went away from Ekeby. He did not say good-bye to anyone, although he did not intend to ever return. He was disgusted with life there, ever since he had seen Countess Elisabet in her misfortune. He walked the whole evening and the whole night without pausing to rest, until at early sunrise he came to a small farm, called Lövdala, which belonged to him.
It was so early that no one was yet awake. Lilliecrona sat down on the green swing outside the manor house and looked at his property. Lord God! A more beautiful place did not exist. The lawn in front of the house was on a gentle rise, covered with fine, light green grass. There was no match to this lawn. The sheep could graze on it and the children romp there in their games, but still it remained equally dense and green. The scythe never passed over it, but at least once a week the mistress of the house had all the sticks and straw and dry leaves swept out of the fresh grass. He looked at the sand pathway in front of the house and suddenly pulled in his feet. Late in the evening the children had raked it in regular patterns, and his big feet had done terrible damage to their fine work. Just imagine how everything grew at this place! The six rowan trees that guarded the farmyard were as tall as beeches and broad as oaks. Have such trees ever been seen before? They were magnificent with their thick trunks clad with yellow lichens and with large, white sprays sticking out of the dark greenery. It made him think of the sky and its stars. One had to marvel at how the trees grew there in the yard. There was an old willow so thick that two men could not reach around it. It was rotten now and hollowed out, but it would not die. Every spring a bunch of fresh greenery came up out of the broken-off main trunk to show that it was alive. That hedge at the east gable had become a tree so large that it overshadowed the whole house. The whole sod roof was white with its fallen flower petals, for the hedge was already through blooming. And the birches that stood in small clumps here and there on the fields, they certainly had their own paradise on his estate. There they developed so many different ways of growing, as if they had devoted themselves to imitating all other trees. One was like a linden, dense and shady with a white arch over it; another stood even and pyramid-like as a poplar; and the branches of a third hung like a weeping willow. Not one was like the other, and altogether they were magnificent.
Then he got up and walked around the buildings. There was the orchard so wondrous fair that he had to stop and take a breath. The apple trees were blooming. Yes, he knew that of course. He had seen that at all the other farms too, but it was simply this: in no other place did they bloom the way they did at the farm where he had seen them bloom ever since he was a child. He walked with clasped hands and careful steps up and down the sand paths. The ground was white, and the trees were white, one or two with a tinge of pink. He had never seen anything so beautiful. He knew every tree the way you know your siblings and playmates. The astrakhan trees were completely white, as were the winter fruit trees. But the blossoms of the summer yellows were pink, and the paradise apple blossoms were downright red. The most beautiful was the old, ungrafted apple tree, whose small, bitter fruits no one could eat. It was not sparing with blossoms; it looked like a large snowdrift in the morning radiance.
For consider this as well, that this was early morning! The dew made all the petals glisten, all the dust was rinsed away. Behind the forest-clad hills, close under which the estate was located, the first rays of sun hurried forth. It was as if they had ignited the tops of the spruces. Over the young clover fields, over rye and barley fields and over the newly sprouted oat crop rested the very lightest mist, one of the sheerest beauty veils, and the shadows fell sharply as in moonlight.
Thus he stood quietly and looked at the great “herb beds” between the orchard pathways. He knows that his wife and her maids have been at work here. They have dug, raked, and fertilized, pulled up couch grass, and tended the earth until it has become fine and light. After they have made the bed even and the edges sharp, they have taken cord and marking sticks and drawn borders and squares. And the children have been there and been pure happiness and eagerness at getting to help out, although it has been heavy work for them to stand bent over and stretch their arms across the wide beds. And they have been unbelievably helpful, as anyone can understand.
Now what had been sown was starting to come up.
God bless them, so bravely they stood there, peas and beans with their two thick heart-shaped leaves! And so even and nice the carrots and turnips had come up! Funniest of all were the small curly parsley leaves, which lifted a little on the ground level above it, playing peekaboo with life for the time being.
And here was a small bed where the lines were not as even, and where the little squares seemed to be a test map of everything that might be planted and sown. It was the children’s garden.
And Lilliecrona hastily brought his fiddle up to his chin and be
gan to play. The birds began to sing in the large thicket that shielded the orchard from the north wind. There was no way for any being gifted with a voice to remain silent; the morning was that splendid. The strings moved all on their own.
Lilliecrona walked up and down the paths and played. “No,” he thought, “a more beautiful place does not exist.” What was Ekeby against Lövdala! His home was sod covered and just one story high. It was at the edge of the forest with the mountain above it and the long valley before it. There was nothing remarkable about it: there was no lake there, no waterfall, no shore meadows and parks, but it was beautiful all the same. It was beautiful because it was a good, peaceful home. Life was easy to live there. Everything, which at other places would have brought forth bitterness and hatred, was smoothed out there with gentleness. That is how it should be in a home.
Inside the house the wife lies sleeping in a room that faces toward the orchard. She awakens suddenly and listens, but she does not move. She lies smiling and listens. Then the music comes closer and closer, and finally it is as if the fiddler has stopped under her window. It is not the first time she has heard fiddle playing under her window. He usually comes like that, her husband, when they have been up to some unusually wild deed over there at Ekeby.
He stands there, confessing and asking for forgiveness. He describes for her the dark forces that lure him away from what he loves the most: from her and the children. But he loves them. Oh, certainly he loves them!
While he is playing, she gets up and puts her clothes on without really knowing what she is doing. She is so completely occupied by his playing.
“It is not luxury and good living that has lured me away,” he plays, “not love for other women, not honor, but life’s tempting multiplicity; I must feel its sweetness, its bitterness, its richness around me. But now I have had enough of that, now I am tired and satisfied. I will no longer leave my home. Forgive me, have mercy on me!”
Then she pulls the curtain aside and opens the window, and he sees her beautiful, good face.
She is good, and she is wise. Her glances fall like the sun’s, bringing blessings on all they meet. She directs and she tends. Where she is, everything must grow and flourish. She bears happiness within her.
He swings himself up onto the windowsill by her and is happy as a young lover.
Then he lifts her out into the orchard and carries her down under the apple trees. There he explains to her how beautiful everything is and shows her the herb beds and the children’s planting and the small, comical parsley leaves.
When the children wake up, there is rejoicing and rapture that Father has come. They commandeer him. He must see all the new and remarkable things: the small, water-driven nail hammer pounding over in the brook, the bird’s nest in the willow, and the small carp fry in the pond, swimming at the water’s edge by the thousands.
Then father, mother, and children take a long walk out on the fields. He has to see how thickly the rye stands, how the clover is growing, and how the potatoes are starting to poke up their wrinkled leaves.
He has to see the cows as they come in from the pasture, greet the newcomers in the calf pens and sheep barn, search for eggs, and give all the horses sugar.
The children hang at his heels the whole day. No lessons, no work, just roaming around with Father!
In the evening he plays polskas for them, and he has been such a good comrade and playmate to them the whole day that they fall asleep with a pious prayer that Father will always stay with them.
He stays a whole eight days too, and is happy as a boy the whole time. He is in love with everything there at home, with his wife and children, and never thinks about Ekeby.
But then comes a morning when he is gone. He couldn’t hold out any longer, it was too much happiness for him. Ekeby was a thousand times worse, but Ekeby was in the midst of the whirl of events. Oh, how much there was to dream about and play about there! How could he live separated from the deeds of the cavaliers and from Löven’s long lake, around which the wild pursuit of adventures surged forth?
On his property everything was calm as usual. Everything flourished and grew under the protection of the gentle mistress of the house. Everything moved in a quiet happiness there on the farm. Everything, which in other places would have brought forth discord and bitterness, passed there without complaint and pain. Everything was as it should be. And if the master of the house longed to live as a cavalier at Ekeby, what of it? Does it serve anything to complain about the sun in the heavens because every evening he disappears in the west and leaves the earth in darkness?
Who is unconquerable without submissiveness? Who is certain of victory without patience?
CHAPTER 19
THE WITCH OF DOVRE
Now the witch of Dovre is walking on the shore of Löven. She has been seen there, small and round backed, in a leather skirt and with a silver-mounted belt. How does she emerge from wolf dens to the world of people? What does the old woman from the mountains seek in the greenery of the valley?
She comes begging. She is stingy, greedy for gifts, rich as she is. In the mountain clefts the old woman conceals heavy ingots of white silver, and on succulent meadows deep among the mountains she pastures her large herds of black, yellow-horned cows. Nonetheless she wanders forth in birch-bark shoes and greasy leather garment, on which gaudy border seams can be glimpsed under centuries of dirt. She has moss in her pipe and begs from the poorest. Shame on such a one, who never says thank you, never gets enough!
She is old. When did the rosy luster of youth rest on the wide face with the brown skin, glistening with grease, over the flat nose and the narrow eyes, which gleam out of the dirt like fiery coals from gray ashes? When did she sit as a young lass on the mountain pasture and with birch-bark horn answer the shepherd boy’s love songs? She has lived for several hundred years. The oldest people do not recall a time when she wasn’t wandering through the countryside. Their parents saw her old, when they were young. Nor is she dead yet. I, who am writing this, have seen her myself.
She is powerful. She, daughter of Finns skilled in magic, submits to no one. Her wide feet set no timid tracks on the highway’s gravel. She can call forth hail, she can control lightning. She can lead herds astray and send wolves onto the sheep. She can work little good, but much evil. Best to be on good terms with her. Even if she were to beg for the only goat and an entire bale of wool, then give it to her! Otherwise the horse will fall dead, otherwise the cottage will burn, otherwise the cow will be ruined, otherwise the child will die, otherwise the frugal housewife will lose her mind.
She is never a welcome guest. Best, however, to meet her with a smile. Who knows on whose account this bringer of misfortune is roaming through the valley? She never comes simply for the purpose of filling her beggar’s pouch. Evil omens accompany her: armyworms appear, fox and owl howl frightfully in the twilight, red and black lizards that spit venom creep out of the forest all the way to the threshold of the door.
She is proud. In her head the powerful wisdom of her ancestors is hidden. Such things elevate the mind. Priceless runes are carved on her staff. She will not sell it for all the gold in the valley. She can sing troll songs, she can brew ancient magic, she has plant knowledge, she can fire magic bullets across a water mirror, and she can tie storm knots.
If only I could interpret the strange thoughts of a centuries-old brain! Coming from the dark of the forests and from the mighty mountains, what does she think of the people in the valley? To her, who believes in Thor, the killer of giants, and in powerful Finnish gods, the Christians are like tame farm dogs before a gray wolf. Untamed like the snowstorm, strong as the rapids, she can never love the sons of the cultivated plain.
Yet still she comes back down from the mountains to see their dwarfish ways. People shudder with terror when they see her, but the strong daughter of the wilderness walks confidently among them, protected by that fear. The deeds of her tribe are not forgotten, nor her own deeds either. As the
cat believes in his claws, she believes in the wisdom of her brain and in the power of divinely granted troll song. No king is more certain of his dominion than she of the realm of terror that she rules.
Thus the witch of Dovre has roamed through many villages. Now she has come to Borg and does not shrink from wandering up to the count’s estate. She seldom takes the kitchen entrance. Right up on the stairs of the terrace she comes. She sets her broad birch-bark shoes on flower-edged gravel paths, just as confident as if she walked on pasture paths.
It happens that Countess Märta has just then stepped out onto the stairs to observe the splendor of the June day. Down below on the sand path, two maids have stopped on their way to the larder. They have come from the sauna, where the ham is being smoked, and are carrying the freshly smoked hams on a pole between them. “Does our gracious countess wish to smell and feel them?” say the maids. “Is the ham smoked enough?”
Countess Märta, mistress of the household at Borg at that time, leans over the railing and looks at the ham, but at the same moment the old woman puts her hand on one of the hams.
Just look at this brown, shining bacon, this thick layer of fat! Smell the fresh aroma of juniper from the freshly smoked hams! Oh, food for the bygone gods! The witch wants all of it. She puts her hand on the ham.
Oh, the daughter of the mountains is not used to begging and pleading! Is it not from her mercy that flowers flourish and people live? The frost and the devastating storm and the water flood, all are in her power to send. Therefore, it does not become her to plead and beg. She puts her hand on what she wants, and it is hers.
Countess Märta, however, knows nothing about the old woman’s power.
“Away with you, beggar hag!” she says.
“Give me the ham!” says the witch of Dovre, the horsewoman of wolves.
“She’s crazy!” the countess cries out. And she orders the maids to go to the larder with their burden.
The Saga of Gosta Berling Page 29