The Saga of Gosta Berling

by Selma Lagerlof

  She had lived through bitter times. Her soul had been sick. She had been bent to the earth under her deep humiliation. For when she had come back to her home, she had said to herself: “I do not want to remember anything bad about my father.” But that was not what her heart said. “He has done me mortal sorrow,” it said, “he has separated me from the one I loved, he has brought me to despair when he struck Mother. I wish him no ill, but I am afraid of him.” And so she noticed how she had to force herself to sit quietly when her father sat down beside her. She only wanted to flee from him. She tried to summon her courage, she spoke with him as usual and was almost constantly in his company. She could control herself, but she suffered unspeakably. She ended by loathing everything about him: his rough, strong voice, his heavy gait, his large hands, the entire form of the enormous giant. She wished him no ill, she did not wish to hurt him, but she could no longer approach him without experiencing a sense of terror and loathing. Her suppressed heart took revenge. “You did not let me love,” it said, “but I am still your master; you will end up by hating.”

  Accustomed as she was to take note of everything that moved within her, she noticed how this loathing became deeper and deeper, how it grew with every passing day. At the same time it was as if she would be bound to her home for all time. She understood that it would be best if she traveled out among people, but she could not bring herself to it now after her illness. No relief would ever come in all this. She would only be more and more tormented, and one day her self-control would give way, and she would burst out against her father and show him the bitterness of her heart, and then there would be strife and unhappiness.

  In this way spring and early summer had passed. In July she became engaged to Baron Adrian to have a home of her own.

  One lovely forenoon Baron Adrian had burst into the yard, riding a splendid horse. His hussar’s jacket shone in the sun, his spurs and saber and sword belt glittered and gleamed, not to mention his own fresh face and smiling eyes. Melchior Sinclaire himself stood on the stairway and received him when he arrived. Marianne had been sitting at the window, sewing. She had seen him come and now heard every word that he spoke with her father.

  “Good day, knight Sunshine!” the mill owner called to him. “Heavens, so fine looking you are! You wouldn’t be out courting, would you?”

  “Well now, uncle, that is just what I’m doing,” he answered, laughing.

  “Do you have no shame, lad? What do you have to feed a wife with?”

  “Nothing, uncle. If I had anything, do you think I would marry?”

  “So you say, so you say, knight Sunshine. But that fine-looking jacket there, you’ve still had the means to acquire that.”

  “On credit, uncle.”

  “And the horse you’re riding, that’s worth a lot of money, I can tell you that, dear squire. Where did you get that from?”

  “The horse isn’t mine, uncle.”

  This was more than the great mill owner could resist. “God be with you, lad!” he said. “You surely need a wife who has something. If you can get Marianne, then take her!”

  In that way it was all cleared up between them, before Baron Adrian had even got off the horse. But Melchior Sinclaire knew what he was doing, for Baron Adrian was a good fellow.

  Then the suitor had come in to Marianne and stormed forth at once with his business.

  “Oh, Marianne, dear Marianne! I have already spoken with your father. I would like so much to have you as my wife. Say that you will, Marianne!”

  She had charmed the truth out of him. The old baron, his father, had been away and let himself be tricked into buying some empty mines again. The old baron had been buying mines his whole life, and there had never been anything in them. His mother was worried, he himself had gone into debt, and now he was courting her to rescue his ancestral home and his hussar jacket.

  His home was Hedeby Manor, which was on the other side of the lake, almost directly across from Björne. She knew him well; they were the same age and childhood playmates.

  “You may as well marry me, Marianne. I lead such a miserable life. I have to ride on borrowed horses and can’t pay my tailoring bills. In the long run this just can’t go on. I’ll be forced to leave, and then I’ll shoot myself.”

  “But, Adrian, what kind of marriage would this be? We’re not even a tiny bit in love with one another.”

  “Yes, as far as love is concerned, I don’t care a bit about that,” he then explained. “I like riding a good horse and hunting, but I’m no cavalier, yes, I’m a worker. If I could just get money, so that I could take over the estate at home and get some days of peace for Mama, then I would be content. I would both plow and sow, for I like work.”

  Then he had looked at her with his honorable eyes, and she knew that he spoke the truth, and that he was a man to rely on. She became engaged to him, mostly to get away from home, but also because she had always thought well of him.

  But she would never forget the month that followed that August evening when her engagement was announced, all that time of madness.

  With each day Baron Adrian became more sorrowful and silent. He did come to Björne very often, sometimes several times a day, but she could not help noticing how subdued he was. Together with others he could still joke, but in her company he became impossible; he was nothing but silence and boredom. She understood how it was with him. It was not as easy as he believed to marry an ugly woman. Now he had developed distaste for her. No one knew better than she did how ugly she was. She had shown him that she did not want any caresses or tokens of affection, yet still he was tormented by thinking of her as his wife, and it got worse for him day by day. Why then did he go on suffering? Why didn’t he break off the engagement? She had given him hints that were clear enough. She herself could do nothing. Her father had simply told her that her reputation would not tolerate any more adventurousness in the way of engagement. Then she despised them both just as deeply, and to her any way out seemed good enough to get away from these, her masters.

  So, only a few days after the great engagement party, the change had come suddenly and strangely.

  In the sand path right in front of the staircase at Björne was a large stone, which was the cause of much inconvenience and annoyance. Vehicles ran into it, horses and people stumbled over it, maids coming with heavy milk tubs bumped into it and spilled the milk, but the stone was still there, because it had already been there for so many years. It had been there in the time of the mill owner’s parents, long before anyone had thought of building the Björne estate. Iron mill owner Sinclaire did not understand why he should take it out of the ground.

  But one of the last days in August it happened that two maids, who were carrying a heavy tub, stumbled over the stone. They fell, hurting themselves badly, and their resentment toward the stone was great.

  It was still only breakfast time. The mill owner was out for his morning walk, but as the household help was home at the estate between eight and nine, Mrs. Gustava ordered some men to come and dig up the large stone.

  They came then with iron rods and spades, digging and prying and finally getting the old disturber of the peace out of his hole. Then they carried him away to the backyard. It was labor enough for six men.

  The stone had just been removed when the mill owner came home and immediately had his eyes on the misery. You may believe that he became angry. It wasn’t the same yard anymore, he thought. Who had dared to move the stone? Well, Mrs. Gustava had given the order. Yes, these womenfolk did not have a heart in their bodies. Did that wife of his not know that he loved that stone?

  And then he went right to the stone, lifted it with manly force, and carried it across the backyard and the yard all the way up to the place where it had been, and there he threw it down. And this was a stone that six men had barely been able to lift. That deed was greatly admired across all of Värmland.

  While he was carrying the stone across the yard, Marianne had been standing at the window i
n the dining room, watching him. She had never seen him so terrible. He was her master, this frightful man with his boundless strength, an unreasonable, capricious master, who never asked about anything other than his own pleasure.

  They were in the midst of eating breakfast, and she stood with a table knife in her hand. Uncontrollably she raised the knife.

  Mrs. Gustava took hold of her wrist.

  “Marianne!”

  “What’s going on, Mother?”

  “Oh, Marianne, you looked so strange. I was afraid.”

  Marianne observed her for a long time. She was a small, dry person, already gray haired and wrinkled at the age of fifty. She loved like a dog, she did, without counting the blows. Most often she was in good spirits, and yet she made a mournful impression. She was like a storm-lashed tree on the seashore; she had never had peace to grow. She had learned to do things in a roundabout way, lied when necessary, and made herself out to be stu pider than she was in order to avoid reproaches. In everything she was the creation of this man.

  “Would you grieve much, Mother, if Father were to die?” asked Marianne.

  “Marianne, you are angry at Father. You are always angry at him. Why can’t everything be fine now, now that you have a new fiancé?”

  “Oh, Mother! I can’t help it. Can I help that I shudder at him? Don’t you see how he is, Mother? Why should I like him? He is impetuous, he is ill-mannered, he has tortured you so that you’ve become old before your time. Why should he be our master? He carries on like a lunatic. Why should I honor and respect him? He is not good, he is not compassionate. I know that he is strong. He can throw us out of the house if he wants. Is that why I should love him?”

  But then Mrs. Gustava had not at all been the same as before. She found force and courage and spoke authoritative words.

  “You should watch yourself, Marianne. It almost seems to me as if your father was right when he locked you outside last winter. You must see that you will be punished for this. You must learn to tolerate without hating, Marianne, to suffer without taking revenge.”

  “Oh, Mother, I am so unhappy.”

  Right after that came the decisive moment. From the vestibule they heard the thunder of a heavy fall.

  They never found out whether Melchior Sinclaire had been standing on the stairs listening to Marianne’s words through the open dining room door, or whether it was simply the physical exertions that caused the stroke. When they came out, he was lying unconscious. Later they never dared ask him about it. He himself never let on that he had heard anything. Marianne never dared complete the thought that she had involuntarily avenged herself. But the sight of her father, lying there on this same staircase where she had learned to hate him, took the bitterness from her heart at once.

  He soon regained consciousness, and when he had kept quiet for a few days, he was himself again—and yet not at all himself.

  Marianne saw her parents strolling together through the garden. It was always like that now. He never went out alone, never went off anywhere, grumbling about visitors and about anything that separated him from his wife. Age had caught up with him. He could not bring himself to write a letter. His wife had to do it. He never decided anything on his own, instead asking her about everything and letting it be as she decided. And he was always gentle and amiable. He himself noticed the change that had come over him, and how happy his wife was. “Things are good for her now,” he said one day to Marianne and pointed at Mrs. Gustava.

  “Oh, dear Melchior,” she exclaimed then, “you know that I would rather that you were healthy again.”

  And she probably did wish that. It was her joy to talk about the great mill owner, the way he was in his prime. She told how he had withstood storm and strife as well as any of the Ekeby cavaliers, how he made business deals and earned lots of money, just when she thought that in his wildness he would force them from house and estate. But Marianne knew that she was happy despite all her complaining. To be everything for that man, that was enough for her. They both looked old, prematurely broken. Marianne thought that she could see their approaching lives. He would gradually get weaker and weaker, more strokes making him more and more helpless, and she would tend him until death did them part. But of course the end might be far off. Mrs. Gustava would have her happiness in peace awhile yet. So it must be, thought Marianne. Life was in debt to her.

  For her as well things had gotten better. No anxious despair compelled her to marry to get another master. Her wounded heart had found peace. Hatred had flared up there as well as love, but she no longer thought about the suffering this had cost her. She had to admit that she was a truer, richer, greater person than before. What then would she wish undone of what had happened? Was it the case that all suffering was a good thing? Could everything be turned to happiness? She had begun to regard everything as good which might contribute to developing her to a higher level of humanity. The old ballads were not right. Sorrow was not the only lasting thing. Now she would travel and look around to find some place where she was needed. If her father had been in his old temperament, he would never have allowed her to break off the engagement. Now Mrs. Gustava had mediated the matter. Marianne had even gotten the right to leave Baron Adrian the financial assistance he needed.

  She could also think about him with joy. Now she would be free from him. In his cheekiness and lust for life he had always reminded her of Gösta; now she would see him happy again. He would again become this knight of sunshine, who had come in his brilliance to her father’s estate. She would get him earth that he could plow and dig as much as his heart desired, and she would see him lead a beautiful bride to the altar.

  With such thoughts she sits down and writes to give him back his freedom. She writes tender, inspiring words, good sense wrapped up in humor, and yet in such a way that he must understand the seriousness of her intent.

  While she is writing, horse hooves are heard striking against the road.

  “My dear knight Sunshine,” she thinks, “this is the last time.”

  Right after that Baron Adrian comes directly into her room.

  “No, Adrian, are you coming in here?” and she looks with dismay at all the packing things.

  At once he becomes shy and stammers out an excuse.

  “I’m just writing to you,” she says. “Look here, you might just as well read it at once.”

  He takes the letter, and she sits observing him as he reads. She longs to be able to see his face light up with happiness.

  But he has not read far before his face turns fiery red and he throws the letter on the floor, stomps on it, and swears, a genuine storm oath.

  Then a slow tremor passes through Marianne. She is no beginner in the study of love, yet she has not understood this inexperienced boy, this large child.

  “Adrian, dear Adrian!” she says. “What kind of comedy are you playing for me? Come and tell me the truth!”

  He was about to downright smother her with caresses. Poor lad, he had been in such agony and longing!

  After a while she looked out. There Mrs. Gustava was still walking and talking with the great mill owner about flowers and birds, and here she sat babbling about love. “Life has taught us both to feel its hard seriousness,” she thought, smiling mournfully. “It will console us, we have each gotten our own big child to play with.”

  Yet it was good that she could be loved. It was sweet to hear him whisper about the enchantment that emanated from her, and how he had been ashamed of what he had said during their first conversation. He had not known then what power she had. Oh, no man could get close to her without loving her, but she had frightened him; he had felt so strangely subdued.

  It was not happiness, not unhappiness, but she would try to live with that man.

  She started to understand herself and thought about the old ballads’ words about the turtledove, that bird of longing. She never drinks clear water, but instead first she muddies it with her foot, so that it might better suit her sorrowful sensibilit
y. Neither would she go forth to the well of life and drink clear, unmixed happiness. Life, muddied by melancholy, pleased her best.

  CHAPTER 28

  DEATH THE LIBERATOR

  My pale friend, Death the liberator, came in August, when the nights were bleached by moonlight, to the home of Captain Uggla. But he dared not go directly into the hospitable home, for there are few who love him.

  My pale friend, Death the liberator, has a brave heart. He delights in riding through the air, borne by glowing cannon-balls. He takes the hissing grenade on the neck and laughs as it bursts and the shrapnel flies. He swings around in a ghost dance in the cemeteries and does not shun the plague wards of the hospital, but he trembles at the threshold of the right-minded, at the gate of the good. For he does not want to be greeted by weeping, but rather by quiet happiness, he who frees the spirits from the bonds of pain, he who frees the spirits from burdensome matter and lets them try the free, splendid life in space.

  Into the old grove behind the residence—where even today slender, white-trunked birch trees crowd to win the sky’s light for the sparse bunches of leaves at their tops—Death slipped in. In the grove, which was young then and full of concealing greenery, my pale friend hid while day prevailed, but at night he stood at the forest edge, white and pale, with his scythe flashing in the moonlight.

  Oh Eros! You were the god who most often owned the grove. The old ones can tell about how in bygone days loving couples sought its peace. And even today, when I travel past Berga farm, grumbling about the steep hills and the suffocating dust, I delight in seeing the grove with its thinned-out white trunks, which shine in the memory of the love of beautiful young people.

  But then Death was standing there, and the animals of the night saw him. Evening after evening people at Berga farm heard how the fox howled to announce his arrival. The grass snake wriggled up the sand path to the residence. He could not speak, but they still understood that he came as a harbinger of the mighty one. And in the apple tree outside the captain’s wife’s window the owl let out its shriek. For all of nature knows Death, and trembles.