The Saga of Gosta Berling

by Selma Lagerlof

  “As he died on a market day, his reputation was spread far around. After the church service thousands of people came up to the church. The entire churchyard and wall and the fields around them were covered with people. The funeral procession lined up in front of the parish hall. They were only waiting for the old dean. He was sick and did not preach. But he promised to come to Captain Lennart’s burial. And then he came, walking with lowered head and dreaming his own dreams, as he does now in his old age, and placed himself at the end of the procession. He noticed nothing unusual. The old man had walked in many funeral processions. He walked forth on the familiar road and did not look up. He read the prayers and threw earth on the casket and still noticed nothing. But then the organist started a hymn. I did not dare believe that his rough voice, which otherwise always used to sing alone, could waken the dean out of his dreams.

  “But the organist did not sing alone. Hundreds of voices and hundreds more joined in. Men, women, and children sang. Then the dean awoke from his dreams. He passed his hands over his eyes and stepped up onto the pile of earth to see. Never had he seen such a crowd of mourners. The men had on their old, worn-out funeral hats. The women had the white aprons with the broad hems. All were singing, all had tears in their eyes—all were in mourning.

  “Then the old dean started to tremble and become anxious. What should he say to these people, who were in mourning? It was necessary that he say a word of consolation for them.

  “When the song was over, he stretched his arms out over the people.

  “‘I see that the people are in mourning,’ he said, ‘and sorrow is heavier to bear for anyone who will walk the paths of earth a long time, than for me who will soon depart this life.’

  “He fell silent, dismayed. His voice was too weak, and he hesitated in his choice of words.

  “But soon he began anew. His voice had regained the force of youth, and his eyes radiated.

  “He gave a magnificent talk for us, Gösta. First he told as much as he knew about God’s pilgrim. Then he reminded us that no exterior luster or great ability had made this man as honored as he now was, but simply the fact that he had always gone the ways of God. And now he asked us, for the sake of God and Christ, to do likewise. Each one should love the other and be his help. Each one should believe good about the other. Each one should act like this good Captain Lennart, for to do so no great gifts are required, simply a pious heart. And he explained to us everything that had happened this year. He said that it was a preparation for the time of love and happiness that was now sure to come. This year he had often seen human goodness burst forth in scattered rays. Now it would emerge as a whole, shining sun.

  “And to all of us, it was as if we had heard a prophet speak. All wanted to love one another, all wanted to be good.

  “He raised his eyes and hands and pronounced peace upon the region. ‘In God’s name,’ he said, ‘may worry cease! May peace dwell in your hearts and in all of nature! May the dead things and the animals and the plants feel calm and cease doing harm!’

  “And it was as if a sacred peace settled over the area. It was as if the heights beamed and the valleys smiled and the autumn mists were clad in rose hue.

  “Then he called on a helper for the people. ‘Someone will come,’ he said. ‘It is not God’s will that you should disappear. God will awaken someone who will feed the hungry and lead you on His paths.’

  “Then we all thought of you, Gösta. We knew that the dean was talking about you. The people who had heard your announcement went home, talking about you. And you were here in the forest and wanted to die! The people expect you, Gösta. Round about in the huts they are saying that as the mad minister at Ekeby will help them now, then everything will be fine. You are their hero, Gösta. You are a hero to all of them.

  “Yes, Gösta, it is certain that the old man was talking about you, and this should entice you to live. But I, Gösta, who am your wife, I say to you that you should simply go and do your duty. You must not dream of being sent by God. Each one should be that, you know. You must work without heroic deeds, you must not shine and astonish, you must arrange that your name does not sound too often on people’s lips. Consider well, however, before you take back your word to Sintram! You have now acquired a kind of right to die for yourself, and life ought not to offer much delight from here on out. For a time it was my wish to go home to the south, Gösta. To me, debt laden, it seemed too much happiness to be your wife and accompany you through life. But now I will stay here. If you dare to live, I will stay. But do not expect any happiness from it! I will force you to wander the way of heavy duties. Never expect a word of happiness and hope from me! All the sorrow and misfortune that we both have caused, I will place as a watchman at our hearth. Can a heart that has suffered so like mine love anymore? Tearless and joyless I will wander beside you. Consider well, Gösta, before you choose to live! It is the way of penance we must wander.”

  She did not expect a reply. She waved to the Broby minister’s daughter and left. When she came into the forest, she began to weep bitterly and wept until she reached Ekeby. Once there, she remembered that she had forgotten to talk about happier things than war with Jan Hök, the soldier.

  In the forest croft all was quiet, when she was gone.

  “Praise and glory be to the Lord God!” the old soldier suddenly said.

  They looked at him. He had stood up and was looking around himself eagerly.

  “Evil, all has been evil,” he said. “All I have seen, since I had my eyes opened, has been evil. Evil men, evil women! Hate and anger in forest and field! But she is good. A good human being has stood in my home. When I am sitting here alone, I will remember her. She will be with me on the forest path.”

  He leaned down over Gösta, loosened his bonds, and helped him up. Then he solemnly took his hand.

  “Hateful to God,” he said and nodded, “that’s just the matter. But now you are no longer like that, and neither am I, since she has been in my home. She is good.”

  The next day old Jan Hök came to Sheriff Scharling. “I want to bear my cross,” he said. “I have been a bad man, therefore I got bad sons.” And he asked to go to jail instead of his son, but of course that could not happen.

  The choicest of old stories is the one about how he followed his son, walking alongside the prisoners’ cart, how he slept outside his prison, how he did not abandon him, until he had suffered his punishment. That story will no doubt also find its teller.

  CHAPTER 36

  MARGARETA CELSING

  A few days before Christmas the majoress traveled down to the Lövsjö district, but she did not come to Ekeby until Christmas Eve. She was sick during the entire journey. She had pneumonia and high fever, yet no one had ever seen her happier or heard more kindhearted words from her.

  The Broby minister’s daughter, who had been with her at the ironworks in the Älvdal forests ever since the month of October, sat by her side in the sleigh, hoping to hasten the journey, but she could not keep the old woman from stopping the horses and calling every traveler up to the sleigh to ask for news.

  “How are things going for you down here in Lövsjö?” asked the majoress.

  “It’s going well for us,” she would then get in reply. “Better times are coming. The mad minister down there at Ekeby and his wife are helping all of us.”

  “Good times have come,” replied another. “Sintram is gone. The Ekeby cavaliers are working. The Broby minister’s money was found in Bro church steeple. There’s so much money that the honor and power of Ekeby can be restored with them. There’s also enough to get bread for the hungry.”

  “Our old dean has awakened to new life and new energy,” said a third. “Every Sunday he talks with us about the coming of the kingdom of God. Who would want to sin anymore? The reign of goodness is approaching.”

  And the majoress rode slowly along, asking whomever she encountered, “How are things going for you? Aren’t you suffering want here?”

 
; And the heat of fever and the jabbing pain in her chest were quieted when they answered her, “There are two good, rich women here, Marianne Sinclaire and Anna Stjärnhök. They help Gösta Berling by going from house to house and seeing to it that no one needs to starve. And nowadays no grain is being thrown into the distilling kettle.”

  It was as if the majoress had been sitting there in the sleigh, holding a long church service. She had come to a holy land. She saw old, furrowed faces brighten as they spoke about the times that had arrived. The sick forgot their pains in order to praise the day of happiness.

  “We all want to be like good Captain Lennart,” they said. “We all want to be good. We want to believe good of everyone. We do not want to harm anyone. This kind of thing will hasten the coming of the kingdom of God.”

  She found them all seized by the same spirit. At the manor houses free feedings were held for those most in need. Anyone who had a job to perform was now having it done, and operations were in full swing at all of the majoress’s ironworks.

  She had never felt healthier than when she sat there, letting the cold air stream into her aching chest. She could not pass by any farm without stopping and asking.

  “Now all is well,” said the farm folk. “There was great distress here, but the good gentlemen from Ekeby are helping us. The majoress will marvel at everything that has been done there. Now the mill is almost finished, and the smithy is in operation, and the burned house is framed to the roof ridge.”

  It was distress and the heart-stirring events that had transformed them all. Ah, it would only last a short time! But it was still good to return to a land where the one served the other, and where everyone wanted to do good. The majoress felt that she could forgive the cavaliers, and for that she thanked God.

  “Anna Lisa,” she said, “I, an old person, sit here thinking that I am already traveling into the heaven of the blessed.”

  When she finally came up to Ekeby and the cavaliers hurried to help her out of the sleigh, they could scarcely recognize her, for she was just as good and gentle as their own young countess. The older ones, who had seen her when she was young, whispered to each other, “It’s not the majoress at Ekeby, it is Margareta Celsing who is coming back.”

  Great was the joy of the cavaliers at seeing her arrive so good and so free from all thoughts of revenge, but soon this changed to sorrow when they found how ill she was. She must be carried at once into the guest room in the office wing and be put to bed. But on the threshold she turned and spoke to them.

  “It has been God’s storm,” she said, “God’s storm. I know now that everything has been for the best.”

  With that the door to the sickroom was closed, and they were not allowed to see her anymore.

  Yet there is so much to say to anyone who is about to die. The words crowd the tongue, when you know that in the next room there is someone whose ear will soon be closed for all time. “Ah, my friend, my friend,” you want to say, “can you forgive? Can you believe that I have loved you, despite everything? Yet how could it be that I should cause so much sorrow while we wandered here together? Ah, my friend, thanks for all the joy you have granted me!”

  This is what you want to say, and so much, much more.

  But the majoress had a burning fever, and the voice of the cavaliers could not reach her. Would she never find out how they had labored, how they had taken up her work, how they had saved the honor and brilliance of Ekeby? Would she never find out?

  Shortly thereafter the cavaliers went down to the smithy. There all work had stopped, but they were throwing fresh charcoal and new pig iron into the furnace and preparing to smelt. They did not call the smiths, who had gone home to celebrate Christmas, but instead worked at the hearth themselves. If only the majoress could live until the hammer started working, then they would state their case to her.

  It became evening, and it became night during the work. Several of them thought how peculiar it was that they had now come to celebrate Christmas night in the smithy.

  The versatile Kevenhüller, who had been the master builder for the smithy and mill during this busy time, and Kristian Bergh, the strong captain, stood at the hearth and tended the smelting. Gösta and Julius carried coal. Of the others, several sat at the anvil under the upraised hammer, and others were sitting on coal carts and piles of pig iron. Lövenborg, the old mystic, was speaking with uncle Eberhard, the philosopher, who sat next to him on the anvil.

  “Tonight Sintram will die,” he said.

  “Why just tonight?” asked Eberhard.

  “Brother, you know perfectly well that last year we made a bet. Now we have done nothing that has not been like a cavalier, and therefore he has lost.”

  “If you believe in such things, brother, then you also know full well that we have done many things that have not been like cavaliers. For one thing, we did not help the majoress, for another we started working, for a third it was not really right that Gösta Berling didn’t kill himself when he had promised to do it.”

  “I’ve thought about that too,” Lövenborg stated, “but I think, brother, that you do not understand the matter correctly. It was forbidden to us to act with the thought of personal, narrow-minded advantage, but not to act such as love or honor or our eternal salvation would require. I believe that Sintram has lost.”

  “You may be right, brother.”

  “I tell you, brother, I know it. I have heard his sleigh bells the entire evening, but these are not real sleigh bells. Soon he’ll be here.”

  And the little old man sat staring ahead toward the smithy door, which stood open, and toward the patch of blue sky set with sparse stars that was visible through it.

  After a while he got up.

  “Do you see him, brother?” he whispered. “There he comes now, stealing in. Don’t you see him in the door opening, brother?”

  “I see nothing,” replied uncle Eberhard. “You’re sleepy, brother, that’s the whole thing.”

  “I saw him so clearly against the light sky. He had his long wolf-skin fur and fur cap on. Now he’s inside the darkness there, and I can’t see him. Look, now he’s over by the furnace! He’s standing close beside Kristian Bergh, but Kristian of course doesn’t see him. Now he’s leaning forward and throwing something into the fire. Oh, how evil he looks! Watch out, friends, watch out!”

  As he said this, a puff of flame shot out of the furnace, covering the smiths and their assistants with cinders and sparks. There was no damage, however.

  “He wants vengeance,” whispered Lövenborg.

  “You’re crazy, brother!” exclaimed Eberhard. “You ought to have had enough of such things.”

  “One may well think and wish such things, but it hardly helps. Don’t you see, brother, how he is standing there at the post, leering at us? But truly, I believe he’s loosening the hammer!”

  He leaped up, pulling Eberhard with him. The very next moment the hammer struck thundering against the anvil. It was only a clamp that had come loose, but Eberhard and Lövenborg had narrowly escaped death.

  “Look, brother, he has no power over us!” said Lövenborg triumphantly. “But it appears that he wants revenge.”

  And he called Gösta Berling to him.

  “Go up to the women, Gösta! Perhaps he is showing himself to them too. They are not as accustomed as I am to seeing such things. They might be afraid. And be on your guard, Gösta, for he has much rancor toward you, and perhaps he has power over you because of that promise. Perhaps he does.”

  Later it was heard that Lövenborg was right, and that Sintram had died on Christmas night. Some said that he hanged himself in the prison. Others believed that the servants of justice had him killed in secret, for the trial seemed to be going well for him, and of course it would not do to let him loose on the people in Lövsjö again. There were still others who believed that a dark gentleman had come riding in a black wagon, pulled by black horses, and taken him away from the prison. And Lövenborg was not the only one who saw hi
m during Christmas night. He was seen at Fors too and in Ulrika Dillner’s dreams. Many told about how he had shown himself to them, until Ulrika Dillner moved his corpse to Bro cemetery. She also had the wicked servants from Fors driven away and established a good regime there. After that there was no more haunting.

  It is said that before Gösta Berling made it up to the manor house, a stranger came to the office wing and there delivered a letter to the majoress. No one knew the courier, but the letter was brought in and set on the table beside the sick woman. Immediately thereafter she unexpectedly got better: the fever was stilled, the pains receded, and she was in a condition to read the document.

  The old people readily believed that this improvement was due to the influence of dark powers. Sintram and his friends might profit from the majoress having read this letter.

  It was a document written in blood on black paper. The cavaliers would no doubt have recognized it. It was authored the previous Christmas night in the smithy at Ekeby.

  And the majoress was lying there now, reading that because she had been a witch and sent cavalier souls to hell, she was sentenced to lose Ekeby. She read this and other, similar folly. She inspected the date and signatures and found the following notation alongside Gösta’s name: “Because the majoress has made use of my weakness to lure me away from honorable labor and retain me as a cavalier at Ekeby, because she has made me Ebba Dohna’s murderer by revealing to her that I was a defrocked minister, I am signing this.”

  The majoress slowly folded up the paper and placed it in its cover. Then she quietly pondered what she had found out. She realized with bitter pain that this was how people thought of her. She was a witch and a sorceress to all those she had served, to whom she had given labor and bread. This was her reward, such would be her obituary. They could not believe better of an adulteress.

  But what did she care about these ignorant people? In any event, they had not been close to her. But these poor cavaliers, who had lived off her grace and knew her well, even they believed it, or pretended to believe it to have a pretext to seize Ekeby. Her thoughts were racing. Wild wrath and thirst for revenge flared in her fever-hot brain. She had the Broby minister’s daughter, who along with Countess Elisabet was watching over her, send word to Högfors for the manager and the inspector. She wanted to make her will.