Copyright © 1991, 2011 by Cinematograph AB
Translation copyright © 1989, 1993, 2011 by Joan Tate
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Originally published in Sweden by Norstedts Förlag, Stockholm, under the title Den goda viljan
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ISBN 987-1-61145-491-8
PROLOGUE
The Åkerblom family were great ones for taking photographs. After my father's and mother's deaths, I inherited a marvelous collection of albums, the earliest dating from the middle of the nineteenth century, the most recent from the beginning of the 1960s. There is undoubtedly a great deal of magic in those photographs, particularly when looked at with the help of a gigantic magnifying glass: the faces, the faces, hands, postures, clothes, jewelry, the faces, the pets, views, lighting, the faces, curtains, pictures, rugs, summer flowers, birches, rivers, coiffures, angry pimples, budding breasts, handsome mustaches— this could continue ad infinitum, so it is best to stop. But most of all the faces. I go into the photographs and touch the people in them, the ones I remember and those I know nothing about. It is almost more fun than old silent films that have lost their explanatory texts. I invent patterns of my own.
Ever since the autobiographical The Magic Lantern, I have had it in mind to make a film about when my parents were young, the beginning of their marriage, their hopes, shortcomings, and good intentions. I look at the photographs and feel a strong attraction to those two people, who in almost every way are so unlike the somewhat introspective, mythical, larger-than-life creatures who dominated my childhood and youth.
Because film and photography are my particular form of expression, I started rather aimlessly to draw up a pattern of action based on statements, documentation, and, as I say, photographs. In my imagination, I roamed the streets of Upsala, when Upsala was a small, inward-looking, and sleepy university town. I visited Dufnäs in Dalarna when Våroms, my maternal grandparents' summer house, was still a special and illusory paradise off the beaten track.
I wrote as I have been used to writing for fifty years, in cinematic, dramatic form. In my imagination the actors spoke their lines on a brilliantly lit stage, surrounded by somewhat softened but wonderfully clear decorations. In the center of this considerable staging moved my mother and my father in Pernilla Östergren's and Samuel Fräler's personifications.
I do not wish to maintain that I have always been so conscientious with the truth in my story. I have drawn on my imagination, added, subtracted, and transposed, but as is often the case with this sort of game, the game has probably become clearer than reality.
Since I knew, with no bitterness, that I would not be directing my saga, I was extra thorough with my explanations, right down to describing fairly insignificant details, even certain things that would never be registered by a camera. Except possibly some suggestions to the actors.
In that way, the story unfolded during six months one summer on Faro Island. I cautiously touched my parents' faces and destinies and felt I learned quite a bit about myself, things which had been concealed under layers of dusty inhibitions and conciliatory wording with no real content.
This book has not in any way been adapted to the finished film. It has had to remain as it was written: The words stand unchallenged and I hope have a life of their own, like a performance of its own in the mind of the reader.
Faro, August 25, 1991
Ingmar Bergman
I
I choose an early spring day at the beginning of April, 1909. Henrik Bergman has just turned twenty-three and is studying theology at Upsala University. He is on his way up Östra Slottsgatan toward Drottninggatan and the Grand Hotel, where he is to meet his paternal grandfather. There is still some snow on Slottsbacken, but it is thawing fast, the water rushing along the gutters and the clouds marching along.
The hotel is a long, two-story building squeezed below the cathedral, the jackdaws screaming around the tower and a small blue tram cautiously making its way up the slope. There is no one in sight. It is Saturday morning; the students are all asleep, and the professors are preparing their lectures.
A distinguished elderly man is sitting at the porter’s counter reading Upsala Nya Tidning. He keeps Henrik waiting for an appropriate spell of time, then lowers the paper and says with nasal courtesy, “Yes, your grandfather is expecting you in room seventeen, up the stairs there, on the left.” After which he straightens his pince-nez and returns to his reading. Clattering sounds and women’s voices can be heard coming from the kitchen, and the smell of stale cigar smoke and fried herring combines with the fumes from a huge coal stove rumbling away in one corner.
Henrik’s impulse is to flee, but his legs take him up the creaking carpeted stairs, along the mud-yellow corridor to door seventeen. His grandfather’s polished boots are standing by the doorpost. Henrik takes a deep breath, then exhales and knocks. A rather light, sonorous voice says, “Come on in, the door’s open.”
The room is large, with three windows facing onto the cobbled yard, the stables, and the still bare elms. Two beds with mahogany ends are against one wall; a commode is enthroned against the opposite wall, with jug and basin, and towels embroidered in red. The rest of the furnishings include sofa and chairs and a round table with a breakfast tray on it. A worn rug of doubtful oriental origin lies on the knotted floorboards, and engravings of hunting scenes hang on the dimly patterned brown wallpaper.
Fredrik Bergman rises from his armchair with some difficulty and goes to meet his grandson. He is an impressive man, taller than the boy, broad and gnarled, with a large nose, iron-gray hair cut short, and sideburns, but neither beard nor mustache. Behind the gold-rimmed glasses are dark blue, slightly red-rimmed eyes. He holds out a powerful hand with ragged but clean nails. The two men greet each other without smiling. The old man gestures to his grandson to take a chair with a worn cover and carved legs.
Fredrik Bergman remains standing, gazing at Henrik with curiosity but noncommittally. Henrik looks out the window. A carriage drawn by two horses rumbles across the cobbles in the yard. When the noise has subsided, the grandfather takes the floor. He speaks ceremoniously and clearly, a man used to being understood and obeyed.
Fredrik Bergman: As you may have heard, your grandmother is ill. Professor Oldenburg operated on her at the Academic Hospital a few days ago. He says there is no hope.
Fredrik Bergman falls silent and sits down. He traces the pattern on the rug with his stick, an activity that seems to interest him. Henrik hardens his heart and remains indifferent. His handsome face is calm, his eyes large and mildly blue, the mouth below the neat mustache clamped shut: I’ll say nothing. I’ll listen. The man over there has nothing of importance to say to me.
His grandfather clears his throat, his voice steady, his speech slow and clear, with a slight touch of dialect.
Fredrik Bergman: Your grandmother and I have been talking about
you over the last few days.
Someone out in the corridor laughs, then walks quickly away. A clock strikes three quarters past the hour.
Fredrik Bergman: Your grandmother says, and has said for a great many years, that we wronged you and your mother. I maintain each and every man is responsible for his own life and his own actions. Your father broke away from us and moved elsewhere with his family. That was his decision and his responsibility. Your grandmother says, and has always said, that we ought to have taken care of you and your mother when your father died. I thought he had made his choice, both for himself and his family. In that respect, death changes nothing. Your grandmother has always said that we have been without mercy, that we have not behaved like Christians. That’s an argument I do not understand.
Henrik (suddenly): Grandfather, if you have summoned me here to clarify your attitude toward my mother and myself, then I have known that as long as I can remember. Everyone is responsible for himself. And his deeds. In that we are agreed. Please, may I go now? I’m actually studying for my exams. I’m sorry Grandmother is ill. Perhaps you would be kind enough to give her my regards.
Henrik gets to his feet and looks at his grandfather with calm and genuine contempt. Fredrik Bergman makes a gesture of impatience, which transmits itself through his whole great body.
Fredrik Bergman: Sit down and let me finish. I shall not be long-winded. Sit down, I say! You have no cause to love me, but that’s no excuse for being discourteous.
Henrik (sitting down): And . . . ?
Fredrik Bergman: Your grandmother has told me to seek you out. She says it is her last wish. She says you are to go and see her in the hospital. She says she wishes to beg your forgiveness for all the hardships both she and I, as well as our family, have inflicted on you and your mother.
Henrik: When I was born and my mother was a widow, we traveled the long way down from Kalmar to your farm to ask for help. We were directed to two small rooms in Söderhamn and an allowance of thirty kronor a month.
Fredrik Bergman: My brother Hindrich took care of all the details. I had nothing to do with the financial arrangements. Your grandmother and I were living in Stockholm when I was a member of Parliament.
Henrik: Nothing could be more pointless than this conversation. It is also embarrassing to have to witness an old gentleman I have always respected for his inhumanity suddenly changing and becoming sentimental.
Fredrik Bergman gets up and places himself in front of his grandson, then whips off his gold-framed glasses, a gesture of violent rage.
Fredrik Bergman: I can’t go to your grandmother and tell her you have rejected me. I can’t go to her and tell her you don’t want to go and see her.
Henrik: I don’t think that’ll be necessary.
Fredrik Bergman: I have a suggestion to make. I know your aunts in Elfvik have guaranteed a loan so that you can study here in Upsala. I also know your mother earns her living as a piano teacher. I am offering to pay off that loan. I am offering you and your mother an appropriate allowance.
Henrik does not answer. He looks at the old man’s forehead, his cheeks, his chin, where there is a small cut from his morning shave. He looks at the great ear, at the neck and the pulse beating above the stiff collar.
Henrik: What do you want me to say, Grandfather?
Fredrik Bergman: You’re very like your father. Did you know that, Henrik?
Henrik: So they say, yes. Mother says so.
Fredrik Bergman: I never did understand why he hated me so terribly.
Henrik: I understand that you have never understood, Grandfather.
Fredrik Bergman: I became a farmer, and my brother became a priest. No one asked us what we wanted or didn’t want. Is that of any great significance?
Henrik: Significance?
Fredrik Bergman: I never felt either hatred or bitterness for my parents. Or else I’ve forgotten.
Henrik: How practical of you.
Fredrik Bergman: What? Oh, practical! Well, yes, you could say that. Your father had such vivid ideas about freedom. He was always talking about having to “have his freedom.” So he became a bankrupt pharmacist in Öland. That was his freedom.
Henrik: You’re mocking him, Grandfather. (Silence.)
Fredrik Bergman: What do you say to my offer? I’ll be responsible for your studies. I’ll pay a monthly allowance for the rest of your mother’s life and pay off your loan. All you have to do is to go to ward twelve at the Academic Hospital and make things up with your grandmother.
Henrik: How do I know you won’t cheat me, Grandfather?
Fredrik Bergman laughs briefly, not a friendly laugh, but it contains appreciation.
Fredrik Bergman: My word of honor, Henrik. (Pause.) You’ll have it in writing. (Cheerfully.) Let’s draw up an agreement. You decide on the sums of money, and I’ll sign it. What do you say, Henrik? (Suddenly.) Grandmother and I have lived together for almost forty years. It hurts now, Henrik. It hurts most horribly. Her physical torment is terrible, but they can relieve that sort of thing at the hospital, at least for the time being. What’s difficult is that she is suffering spiritually. I beg of you for one moment of mercy. Not toward me; I don’t ask that. But toward her. You’re going to be a minister, Henrik, aren’t you? You must know something about love. I mean Christian love. To me, that’s all talk and evasions, but to you, talk about love must be something real. Have mercy on a sick and desperate person. I’ll give you whatever you want. You decide on the sum. I won’t haggle. But you must help your grandmother in her distress. (Pause.) Are you listening to what I’m saying?
Henrik: Go to the woman who’s called my grandmother and tell her from me that she lived a whole life at her husband’s side without helping Mother or me. Without standing up to you, my grandfather. She was aware of our misery and sent small presents at Christmas and birthdays. Tell that woman she chose her life and her death. She will never have my forgiveness. Tell her that I despise her on behalf of my mother, just as I loathe you and people like you. I will never become like you.
Fredrik Bergman takes the boy’s arm in a hard grip and slowly shakes him. Henrik looks at him.
Henrik: Are you going to hit me, Grandfather?
He frees himself and slowly walks across the room, closing the door carefully behind him and going down the dark corridor, some gas lamps flickering in the faint daylight from three dirty windows high up in the roof.
Henrik has an oral exam in church history with the dreaded Professor Sundelius in the first week in May.
This is Monday, half past five in the morning. The sun is bright behind the tattered blind in the young man’s modest lodgings, containing a sagging bed, a rickety table heaped with books and files, a chair, a heavily loaded bookcase that has seen better days but never better books, a washstand with a cracked basin, a jug, a pail, and a chamber pot. A three-legged armchair propped up on four volumes of Malmström’s unreadable exegetics. Two paraffin lamps (a surprising luxury!), one hanging from the low ceiling, where damp patches form continents, the other on the table, watching over two photographs: his mother when she was still young and pretty, and as a fiancée, white and good-looking with bright eyes and wide smiling mouth. On the sloping floor, a few rag rugs of the indestructible kind. On the bulging wallpaper, reproductions with motifs from the Old Testament. In the corner by the door, a tall narrow tiled stove with a floral pattern on the tiles. The room breathes poverty, ingrained Lutheran cleanliness scrubbed with soft soap, and stale pipe smoke. The view out to the courtyard is of a blank wall and seven outhouses anxiously propped up against each other and the wall. Small birds are chattering away in the lilac bushes, now almost in bloom. The old wood cutter in the basement has already started sawing. Somewhere, a baby is crying for its mother’s breast. As mentioned before, it is half past five, and Henrik wakes with a stab in his stomach — the church history exam. The dreaded Professor Sundelius.
Justus Bark comes in without knocking. He is Henrik’s contemporary, but sma
ll and stocky, with dark eyes, a large nose, and black hair. He speaks with a Hälsinge accent and has bad teeth. He is clad in a dark suit, white shirt, loose collar, loose cuffs, black necktie, and frenziedly polished but worn shoes.
Justus: Ecclesia invisibilis, ecclesia militans, ecclesia pressa, ecclesia regnans, and, last but not least, ecclesia triumphanus. You know what’s the worst thing about old man Sundelius? Gyllen told me last night. He flunked ecumenics because he didn’t know the Roman Catholic Church had held twenty assemblies, but that the Greek Orthodox Church only approved the first seven. Which assemblies did the Greeks approve?
Henrik: Nicaea in 325 A.D., Constantinople in 381 A.D., Ephesus in 431, Chalcedon in 451. Constantinople again in 553 and in 680, and Nicaea in 787.
Justus: Bravo, bravo. Gyllen failed, and the dreaded Sundelius threw him out. First question, wrong answer, out. We’re scared now, scared stiff. I have consumed far too much coffee or something called coffee. Can you lend me some tea? My stomach’s burning like Gehenna.
Henrik: The cupboard, Justus. See you in ten minutes. At the bottom of the stairs. Fully conscious.
Justus: Gyllen is wealthy. He’ll be chucked out by Sundelius in three minutes, will shrug his shoulders, and will take a summer holiday after the Spring Ball. Then he’ll scrape through church history at Christmas. Would you like to be . . . ?
Henrik: No thanks. Amicus.
Justus: What are those blue marks on your chest?
Henrik: That’s Frida. She bites.
Justus: See you in ten minutes.
Henrik: Pax tecum.
After Justus has left, Henrik stands naked for a moment in the bright sunlight, trying to breathe calmly, then says quietly: “Lord, are you going to help me? If it goes badly today, it’ll be a catastrophe. Old man Sundelius could be a little unwell, couldn’t he, and will send his kindly senior lecturer instead. It’s happened before.”
But on this particular morning, the dreaded Professor Sundelius is not the slightest bit ill. At ten to eight, the three candidates are sitting and waiting in the spacious hall. The professor has married into money and lives in a handsome twelve-room apartment in Vaksala Square. The door to the dining room is open, and two servant girls in blue and white are clearing away breakfast. For a few moments, they glimpse the professor’s wife, handsome but lame. She briefly raises her lorgnette to the three young candidates and their pale faces. They rise to their feet and bow respectfully with ingratiating smiles — as if that would help. The salon clock dully strikes eight. “Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell,” thinks Henrik, quoting Macbeth, act 2, scene 1. The secretary to the professor (he actually has a secretary, so he is very wealthy; it’s rumored he will be a minister in the next cabinet shuffle) is a fairly dusty creature with psoriasis and watery eyes, secretly enjoying the terror he is spreading as in humble tones he summons the three young men into the professor’s study.
The Best Intentions Page 1
