The Saga of Gosta Berling

by Selma Lagerlof

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, “lovely lips have the right to kiss.”

  They had to remain standing, while the curtain went up and down, and each time the hundred pairs of eyes saw them, just as many hands thundered forth a storm of applause.

  For it is lovely to see two beautiful, young people portraying the happiness of love. No one could believe that these kisses were anything other than theatrical illusion; no one suspected that the señora was trembling with shame and the knight from worry. No one could believe that the whole thing wasn’t part of the tableau.

  Finally Marianne and Gösta were standing behind the stage.

  She drew her hand across her forehead toward the hairline.

  “I don’t understand myself,” she said.

  “For shame, Miss Marianne,” he said, grimacing and throwing out his hands. “Kissing Gösta Berling, for shame!”

  Marianne had to laugh.

  “Everyone knows that Gösta Berling is irresistible. My mistake is no greater than others’.”

  And they agreed in perfect accord to put on a good face, so that no one would suspect the truth.

  “Can I be sure that the truth will never come out, Gösta?” she asked, as they were about to join the audience.

  “That you can, Miss Marianne. The cavaliers can keep quiet, I can speak for them.”

  She closed her eyes. A peculiar smile crossed her lips.

  “If the truth comes out anyway, what would people think about me, Gösta?”

  “They wouldn’t think anything, they would know that this means nothing. They would think that we were in character and kept on acting.”

  Yet another question came stealthily out from under the lowered eyelids, under the assumed smile.

  “But you yourself, Gösta? What do you think about this?”

  “I think that Miss Marianne is in love with me,” he joked.

  “Don’t believe such a thing”—she smiled—“or I will have to stab you with this Spanish dagger of mine to show that you are wrong, sir.”

  “Women’s kisses are costly,” said Gösta. “Is my life the price for kissing Miss Marianne?”

  Then from Marianne’s eyes came a glance flashing at him, so sharp that it felt like a slap.

  “I want to see you dead, Gösta Berling, dead, dead!”

  These words ignited an old longing in the poet’s blood.

  “Alas,” he said, “would that these words were more than words, that they were arrows that came whirring from a dark thicket, that they were a dagger or poison and had the power to destroy this wretched body as well as grant my soul freedom!”

  She was again calm and smiling.

  “Childishness,” she said, taking his arm to make their way out among the guests.

  They kept their costumes on, and their triumphs were renewed when they showed themselves outside the stage. Everyone praised them. No one suspected anything.

  The ball began again, but Gösta fled from the ballroom.

  His heart smarted after Marianne’s glance, as if it had been wounded by sharp steel. He understood the meaning of her words well enough.

  It was shameful to love him, it was shameful to be loved by him, a shame worse than death.

  He would never dance again, he never wanted to see them again, those beautiful women.

  He knew it well enough. Those lovely eyes, those red cheeks did not blaze for him. Not for him did these light feet hover, subdued laughter ring. Yes, dance with him, feel passionate about him, that they could do; but none of them would have seriously wanted to become his.

  The poet made his way into the smoking room with the older gentlemen and took a seat at one of the gaming tables. He happened to sit down at the same table where the mighty master of Björne was playing knack, alternating with Russian bank, and gathering a tall pile of coins in front of him.

  The stakes were already high. Now Gösta’s arrival made them even more so. Green banknotes were brought out, and the pile of money in front of mighty Melchior Sinclaire steadily kept on growing.

  But the coins and banknotes were accumulating in front of Gösta as well, and soon he was the only one holding out in the battle against the great iron magnate at Björne. Soon even that large pile of money made its way from Melchior Sinclaire over to Gösta Berling.

  “Gösta, my boy,” the mill owner shouted with laughter, as he gambled away everything that was in his wallet and purse. “What should we do now? I’m broke, and I never gamble with borrowed money; I promised my mother that.”

  He found a way, however. He gambled away his watch and beaver-fur coat, and was just about to wager his horse and sleigh, when Sintram stopped him.

  “Wager something to win on,” the evil master of Fors advised him. “Wager something that can change your bad luck!”

  “Heaven knows what I will come up with then!”

  “Play for what’s dearest to your heart, Melchior, play for your daughter!”

  “You can safely venture that, squire,” said Gösta with a laugh. “I’ll never bring home those winnings.”

  The mighty Melchior could do nothing but laugh himself. He was averse to having Marianne’s name brought up at the gaming table, but this was so utterly insane that he couldn’t get angry. Gamble away Marianne to Gösta, sure, he could gladly venture that.

  “That is to say,” he explained, “that if you can win her consent, Gösta, then I’ll wager my blessing on the marriage on this card here.”

  Gösta wagered all of his winnings and the play began. He won, and iron magnate Sinclaire stopped playing. He realized that he couldn’t fight with bad luck.

  The night proceeded onward; midnight had passed. The cheeks of the lovely women started to turn pale, their curls unwind, their flounces wrinkle. The old ladies rose from their sofas and said that since the ball had now lasted for twelve hours, it might be time for them to head home.

  And the lovely party should be over, but then Lilliecrona himself took hold of the fiddle and started playing the final polska. The horses were waiting by the gate, the old wives were putting on their furs and bonnets, the old gentlemen wound their travel sashes and buttoned their overshoes.

  But the young people could not tear themselves away from the dance. They were dancing in their coats, they were dancing every kind of polska; the dancing was frantic. As soon as a lady was abandoned by a cavalier, another came and carried her off with him.

  And even the melancholy Gösta Berling was pulled into the whirl. He would dance away the sorrow and humiliation, he wanted to have a delirious lust for life in his blood again. He wanted to be happy, he like all the others. And he danced so that the walls of the room were spinning and his mind was whirling.

  So, what sort of lady was it he’d carried off with him in the midst of the flock? She was light and lithe, and he knew that currents of fire were passing between him and her. Oh, Marianne!

  While Gösta was dancing with Marianne, Sintram was already in his sleigh down in the yard, and next to him stood Melchior Sinclaire.

  The great mill owner was impatient at being forced to wait for Marianne. He stamped in the snow in his large overshoes, patting his arms against the bitter cold.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have gambled away Marianne to Gösta, Sinclaire,” said Sintram.

  “What did you say?”

  Sintram put the reins in order and lifted his whip before he replied.

  “That kissing wasn’t part of the tableau.”

  The mighty iron magnate raised his arm for a deathblow, but Sintram was already gone. He drove, whipping the horse to a furious speed without daring to look back, for Melchior Sinclaire had a heavy hand and little patience.

  The mill owner at Björne went into the ballroom to look for his daughter and saw then how Gösta and Marianne were dancing.

  The final polska appeared wild and delirious. Some couples were pale, others fiery red; the dust was like smoke in the hall, the wax candles glowing, burned down to the holders, and in t
he midst of this ghostly destruction Gösta and Marianne were flying along, royal in their inexhaustible strength, their beauty flawless, happy to abandon themselves to glorious motion.

  Melchior Sinclaire watched them awhile; but then he left and let Marianne dance. He slammed the door hard, stamped dreadfully in the stairway, and without further ado sat down in the sleigh, where his wife was already waiting, and drove home.

  When Marianne finished dancing and asked about her parents, they were gone.

  When she knew this for certain, she however showed no surprise. She got dressed silently and went out onto the yard. The women in the dressing room thought she was driving in her own sleigh.

  But she hurried in her thin silk shoes along the road without speaking to anyone about her distress. In the darkness no one recognized her as she walked along the side of the road; no one could believe that this late-night wanderer, who was driven up onto the high snowdrifts by sleighs hurrying past, was the beautiful Marianne.

  When she could safely be in the middle of the road she began to run. She ran as long as she was able, then she walked, and then she ran again. An appalling, tormenting anxiety was driving her.

  From Ekeby to Björne it can’t be farther than at the most about a mile and a half. Marianne was soon home, but she almost believed she’d gone the wrong way. As she was approaching the yard, all the doors were closed, all the lights extinguished—perhaps her parents hadn’t arrived.

  She went up and knocked a few times heavily on the entry door. She took hold of the door handle and shook it, so that it reverberated throughout the house. No one came and opened, but as she was going to release the iron, which she had taken hold of with her bare hands, the frozen skin was torn from her hand.

  The great iron magnate Melchior Sinclaire had gone home to close the gates of Björne to his only child.

  He was intoxicated from much drinking, wild with rage. He hated his daughter because she liked Gösta Berling. Now he locked the servants in the kitchen and his wife in the bedroom. With solemn oaths he promised them that he would beat senseless anyone who tried to let Marianne in. They knew well enough that he would keep his word.

  No one had ever seen him so angry. No greater sorrow had ever befallen him. If his daughter had appeared before him, perhaps he would have killed her.

  He had given her gold jewelry and silk clothes; he had had a fine sensibility and book learning inculcated in her. She had been his pride, his honor. He had been as proud of her as if she wore a crown. Oh, his queen, his goddess, his celebrated, lovely, proud Marianne! Had he spared anything for her? Had he not considered himself purely too simple to be her father? Oh, Marianne, Marianne!

  Should he not hate her, when she is in love with Gösta Berling and kisses him? Should he not reject her, close his door to her, when she wants to disgrace her loftiness by loving such a man! Let her stay at Ekeby, let her run to the neighbors to find lodging for the night, let her sleep in the snowdrifts, it’s all the same, she is already dragged in the filth, the lovely Marianne. Her sheen is gone. The sheen of her life is gone.

  He is lying in his bed in there and hears how she is pounding on the outside door. What is that to him? He is sleeping. Out there stands the one who wants to marry a defrocked minister; he has no home for such a one. If he had loved her less, if he had been less proud of her, then he might have let her in.

  Well, he couldn’t deny them his blessing. He’d gambled that away. But open his door to her, that he wouldn’t do. Oh, Marianne!

  The beautiful young woman was still standing outside the door of her home. By turns she shook the lock in impotent rage, by turns she fell to her knees, folding her wounded hands and praying for forgiveness.

  But no one heard her, no one answered, no one opened.

  Oh, wasn’t this dreadful! I am seized with alarm, when I tell it. She returned from a ball, where she had been the queen. She had been proud, rich, happy, and within a moment she was cast into such bottomless misery. Locked out of her home, abandoned to the cold, not scorned, not beaten, not cursed, simply locked out with cold, implacable lack of feeling.

  I think about the cold, starry night that arched over and around her; the great, expansive night with the empty, deserted fields of snow, with the silent forests. All was sleeping, all was sunk into painless sleep, there was only one living point in all of this slumbering whiteness. All the sorrow and anxiety and terror, which is otherwise doled out across the world, was creeping along toward this lonely point. Oh, God, to suffer alone in the midst of this sleeping, iced-over world!

  For the first time in her life she encountered mercilessness and hardness. Her mother didn’t care to leave her bed to save her. Old servants, who had guided her first steps, heard her and didn’t move a muscle for her sake. For what crime was she being punished? Where could she expect compassion, if not here at this door? If she had murdered, she would still have knocked on it, believing that those inside would forgive her. If she had degenerated into the most wretched of creatures, come devastated and in rags, she would still have gone confidently up to this door and expected a loving welcome. This door was the entrance to her home; behind it she could encounter only love.

  Had her father not tested her enough now? Wouldn’t they soon open the door?

  “Father, Father!” she cried, “let me come in! I’m freezing, I’m shaking! It’s terrible out here!”

  “Mother, Mother, you who have taken so many steps to serve me. You, who have watched over me so many nights, why are you sleeping just now? Mother, Mother, watch again this one night, and I will never more cause you sorrow!”

  She cries out and then sinks into breathless silence to listen for a reply. But no one heard her, no one obeyed her, no one answered.

  Then she wrings her hands in anguish, but her eyes have no tears.

  The long, dark house with its locked doors and unlit windows is eerily unmoving in the night. What would become of her now that she was homeless? She was branded and disgraced, as long as the sky arched over her. And her father himself was pressing the red-hot iron down into her shoulder.

  “Father,” she calls yet again, “what will become of me? People will believe everything bad about me.”

  She wept in agony, her body was stiff with cold.

  Woe, that such misery could descend on one who recently stood so high! That it is so easy to be transported into the deepest misery! Why shouldn’t we be anxious about life? Who is sailing in a secure vessel? Round about us sorrow swells like a churning sea; see the waves hungrily licking the sides of the ships, see them rush up to board. Oh, no safe redoubt, no solid ground, no secure vessel, as far as the eye can see, only an unknown sky over an ocean of sorrow!

  But hush! Finally, finally! Quiet steps are coming through the entry hall.

  “Is it you, Mother?” asked Marianne.

  “Yes, my child.”

  “May I come in now?”

  “Father doesn’t want to let you come in.”

  “I’ve run through the snowdrifts in my thin shoes from Ekeby. I’ve been standing here an hour, pounding and calling. I’m freezing to death out here. Why did you leave without me?”

  “My child, my child, why did you kiss Gösta Berling?”

  “But tell Father then, it doesn’t mean I like him. It was a game. Does he think I want Gösta to be mine?”

  “Go to the foreman’s quarters, Marianne, and ask if you can stay there tonight. Father is drunk. Father won’t listen to reason. He’s held me prisoner up there. I slipped out when I thought he was sleeping. He’ll kill you, if you come in.”

  “Mother, Mother, should I go to strangers, when I have a home? Are you as hard-hearted as Father? How can you let this happen, that I’m locked out? I’ll lie down in the snowdrift outside here, if you don’t let me in, Mother.”

  Then Marianne’s mother placed her hand on the door handle to open it, but at the same moment heavy steps were heard in the attic stairwell, and a harsh voice was calling her.

/>   Marianne listened: her mother hurried away, the harsh voice cursed her, and then . . .

  Marianne heard something dreadful—she could hear every sound from the silent house.

  She heard the thud of a blow, of the rap of a cane or a box on the ears, then she detected a faint racket and then once again a blow.

  He was beating her mother! The terrifying, the gigantic Melchior Sinclaire was beating his wife!

  And in wan dismay Marianne, writhing with anxiety, threw herself down on the doorway. Now she was crying, and her tears froze to ice on the threshold of her home.

  Mercy, pity! Open, open, so that her own back might bend under the blows! Oh, how could he beat Mother, beat her because she didn’t want to see her daughter dead in the snowdrift the next day, because she wanted to console her child!

  That night a great humiliation fell onto Marianne. She had dreamed she was a queen, and there she lay, hardly better than a whipped thrall.

  But she got up in cold rage. Once again she struck her bloody hand against the door and called, “Hear what I’m telling you, you who are beating Mother. You will weep, Melchior Sinclaire, weep!”

  Thereupon the lovely Marianne went and laid herself to rest in the snowdrift. She threw off her fur and lay in her black velvet dress, easily discernible against the white snow. She lay there and thought about how her father would come out the next day on his early morning walk and find her there. She wished only this, that he himself might find her.

  Oh Death, pale friend, is it not as true as it is consoling, that I can never avoid meeting you? Even to me, the dullest of the world’s workers, you will come, loosen the worn leather shoe from my foot, tug the whisk and the milk pail from my hand, remove the work clothes from my body. With gentle force you stretch me out on a lace-adorned bed, you adorn me with draping full-length linens. My feet no longer need shoes, but my hands are covered with snow-white gloves that no tasks will soil. Sanctified by you to the sweetness of rest, I sleep a thousand-year sleep. Oh redeemer! The dullest of the world’s workers am I, and I dream with a shiver of pleasure of that moment when I will be taken up into your kingdom.