The Saga of Gosta Berling

by Selma Lagerlof

  Farther than that she could not escape, and he had been content to see her there, crouched down behind the stairs, awaiting hard blows, perhaps death. He let her remain there, but he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. She could sit there then, while the auction was going on. She didn’t have to starve, and his ear was in peace from her lamentation.

  There she sat, still imprisoned in her own pantry, when Gösta came walking through the corridor between the kitchen and the drawing room. There he saw Mrs. Gustava’s face in a small window that sat high up on the wall. She had climbed up on the stair step and was looking out of her prison.

  “What are you doing up there, aunt Gustava?” asked Gösta.

  “He’s shut me in,” she whispered.

  “The mill owner?”

  “Yes, I thought he was going to kill me. But listen, Gösta, take the key to the drawing room door and go into the kitchen and unlock the pantry door with it, then I’ll come out. That key goes here.”

  Gösta obeyed, and in a few minutes the small woman was standing out in the kitchen, which was completely empty.

  “You should have let one of the maids open up with the drawing room key,” said Gösta.

  “Do you think I want to teach them that trick? Then I would never again have anything left alone in the pantry. And besides, I took the opportunity to clean on the topmost shelves. They needed it, you know. I don’t understand how I could have let them get so full of rubbish.”

  “You have a lot to take care of, aunt,” said Gösta apologetically.

  “Yes, you can say that. If I’m not everywhere, then neither spinning wheel nor loom is going at the right speed. And if . . .”

  Here she stopped and dried a corner of her eyes.

  “God help me, the way I’m talking,” she said, “I likely won’t have anything to look after anymore, not me. He’s selling off all that we have.”

  “Yes, that is a misery,” said Gösta.

  “You know that big mirror in the drawing room, Gösta. It was so remarkable, for the glass in it was whole, and there was nothing wrong with the gilding. I got it from my mother, and now he wants to sell it.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “You can say that. I guess he’s no better than that. He won’t stop before we have to go and beg on the highway, like the majoress.”

  “It won’t go that far anyway,” answered Gösta.

  “Yes, Gösta. When the majoress went away from Ekeby, she prophesied misfortune for us, and now it’s coming. She would not have let it happen, that he would sell Björne. And just think, his own porcelain, the genuine cups from his own home, are to be sold. The majoress would never have allowed it.”

  “But what is going on with him?” asked Gösta.

  “Oh, it’s just that Marianne hasn’t come back. He has been waiting and waiting here. He has walked up and down the lane for days on end, waiting for her. He is longing himself crazy; but I don’t dare say anything, not me.”

  “Marianne believes that he is angry with her.”

  “Listen, you, she doesn’t believe that. She knows him well enough, but she is proud and won’t take the first step. They’re rigid and hard the both of them, and they have nothing to complain about. I’m the one who is stuck in the middle.”

  “You do know, don’t you, that Marianne is going to marry me?”

  “Oh, Gösta, she’ll never do that. She says that just to annoy him. She is too spoiled to marry a poor man, and too proud as well. Go on home and tell her that if she doesn’t come soon, all of her inheritance will go to waste. Oh, he’s probably throwing away everything without getting anything for it.”

  Gösta became downright angry with her. There she sat at a large kitchen table and did not have the heart for anything other than her mirrors and her porcelain.

  “You ought to be ashamed, aunt!” he burst out. “There you throw your daughter out into the snowdrift, and then you think that it is only spitefulness on her part not to come back. And you think she is no better than that she would abandon the one she cares for, just because she would otherwise lose her inheritance.”

  “Dear Gösta, don’t be angry, not you too. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I tried everything to open the door for Marianne, but he took me and dragged me away. They’re always saying here at home that I don’t understand anything. I won’t begrudge you Marianne, Gösta, if you can make her happy. It isn’t so easy to make a woman happy, Gösta.”

  Gösta looked at her. How could he have just raised his voice in wrath against a person such as her! She was frightened and persecuted, but with such a good heart.

  “You haven’t asked how Marianne is doing,” he said slowly.

  She burst into tears.

  “Won’t you get angry if I ask you?” she said. “I’ve been longing to ask the whole time. Think, I don’t know any more about her, other than that she’s alive. Not a greeting have I had from her the whole time, not even when I sent clothes to her, and then I thought that you and her didn’t want me to know anything about her.”

  Gösta could not stand it anymore. He was wild, he was dizzy—at times God must send his wolves after him to force him into obedience—but the tears of the old woman, the old woman’s complaints were harder for him to endure than the howling of wolves. He let her know the truth.

  “Marianne has been sick the whole time,” he said. “She has had smallpox. She was supposed to get up today and lie on the sofa. I haven’t seen her since that first night.”

  Mrs. Gustava rose to the floor with a leap. She let Gösta stand there, rushing without a word in to her husband.

  The people in the auction room saw her coming up to him and excitedly whisper something in his ear. They saw how his face became even redder, and his hand, resting on the tap, twisted it around so that the liquor streamed out onto the floor.

  It struck all of them that if Mrs. Gustava had come with such important news, the auction would immediately end. The auctioneer’s gavel did not strike, the scriveners’ pens halted, no new offers were heard.

  Melchior Sinclaire emerged from his thoughts.

  “Well,” he shouted, “what about it?”

  And the auction was in full swing again.

  Gösta remained sitting in the kitchen, and Mrs. Gustava came weeping out to him.

  “It didn’t help,” she said. “I thought he would stop if he heard that Marianne had been sick, but he’s letting it go on. I know he wants to, but now he’s ashamed.”

  Gösta shrugged his shoulders and said farewell to her without further ado.

  In the entryway he encountered Sintram.

  “Such damn fun entertainment!” exclaimed Sintram, rubbing his hands together. “You’re a master, Gösta, you are. Heavens, what a mess you’ve been able to make!”

  “It will get more fun in a while,” whispered Gösta. “The Broby minister is here with a sleigh full of money. They’re saying that he wants to buy all of Björne and pay cash. Then I’ll be wanting to see the great mill owner, uncle Sintram.”

  Sintram drew his head down between his shoulders and laughed to himself for a long time. But then he was off to the auction room and all the way over to Melchior Sinclaire.

  “If you want a drink, Sintram, then you’ve got to God help me make a bid first.”

  Sintram came all the way up to him.

  “You’re lucky now as always, brother,” he said. “There’s a big man come to the farm with a sleigh full of money. He’s buying Björne and all the inside and outside inventory. He’s talked to a good many to buy up things for him. It seems he doesn’t want to be seen here too long.”

  “You can surely say who he is, brother, then I’ll surely offer you a drink for your trouble.”

  Sintram took the drink and two steps back, before he replied: “It seems to be the Broby minister, brother Melchior.”

  Melchior Sinclaire had many better friends than the Broby minister. There had been a feud going on between them for years. There were s
tories going around about how the great mill owner would lie in wait on dark nights on roads where the minister might pass, and how he had given him many an honorable thrashing, that fawner and tormentor of farmers.

  It was well that Sintram had taken a few steps backward; however, he did not completely escape the great man’s wrath. He got a liquor glass between the eyes and the whole cask of liquor at his feet. But then came a scene that gave his heart joy for a long time.

  “Does the Broby minister want my farm?” roared Squire Sinclaire. “Are you here buying my things for the Broby minister? Oh, you ought to be ashamed. You ought to learn some manners!”

  He got hold of a candlestick and an inkhorn and threw them out among the throng of people.

  It was all the bitterness of his poor heart that could finally be vented. Roaring like a wild animal, he clenched his fists at those standing around and threw whatever missiles he had at them. Liquor glasses and bottles flew across the room. He was beside himself in his wrath.

  “This is the end of the auction,” he roared. “Out with you! Never in my day shall the Broby minister have Björne. Out with you! I’ll teach you, I will, to buy for the Broby minister!”

  He let loose on the auctioneer and the scriveners. They rushed away. In their confusion they turned over the counter, and the mill owner broke into the throng of peaceful people with indescribable fury.

  There was flight and wild confusion. A few hundred people crowded toward the door, fleeing from a single man. And he stood still, roaring his “Out with you!” He sent curses after them, now and then sweeping at the piles with a chair that he swung like a club.

  He pursued them out into the entryway, but no farther. When the last outsider had left the stairs, he went back into the drawing room, locking the door behind him. Then he pulled together a mattress and a few pillows, lay down on them, fell asleep in the midst of all the destruction, and did not awaken again until the next day.

  When Gösta got home, he found out that Marianne wanted to speak with him. That was a good coincidence. He had just been wondering how he would talk things over with her.

  As he came into the murky room where she was lying, he had to stop a moment by the door. He did not see where she was.

  “Stay where you are, Gösta!” Marianne then said to him. “It may be dangerous to come close to me.”

  But Gösta had come, taking the stairs two steps at a time, quivering with eagerness and longing. What did he care about contagion! He wanted to enjoy the blessedness of seeing her.

  For she was beautiful, his beloved. No one had such soft hair, such a clear, radiant forehead. Her entire face was a play of beautifully contoured lines.

  He thought of her eyebrows, clearly and sharply outlined like the honeyguide on a lily, and of the bold curve of her nose and of her lips, softly contoured like rolling waves, and of the elongated oval of her cheek and the exquisitely fine form of her chin.

  And he thought of the pale rose color of her skin, of the enchanting impression of her coal-black eyebrows under the light hair and of the blue eyes, swimming in clear white, and of the glimmer of light in the corners of her eyes.

  She was splendid, his beloved. He thought about what a warm heart she concealed under her proud exterior. She had energy for devotion and sacrifice, concealed under her fine skin and proud words. It was blessedness to see her.

  In two leaps he had stormed up the stairs, and she thought that he would stay over by the door. He stormed through the room and fell to his knees by her pillow.

  But his intention was to see her, kiss her, and bid her farewell.

  He loved her. He would no doubt never stop loving her; but his heart was accustomed to being trampled.

  Oh, where would he find her, this rose without support and roots, that he could take up and call his own? Not even her, whom he had found cast out and half dead by the roadside, would he be able to hold on to.

  When would his love raise its song so loud and clear that no discord cut through it? When would his castle of happiness be built on a foundation that no other heart longed for in worry and loss?

  He thought about how he would say farewell to her.

  “There is great lamentation in your home,” he would say. “My heart is torn apart at the thought of it. You must go home and give your father back his reason. Your mother lives in constant mortal danger. You must go home, my love.”

  See, such words of self-denial he had on his lips, but they remained unsaid.

  He fell to his knees at her pillow, and he took her head between his hands and kissed her; but then he found no words. His heart started to pound violently, as if it would burst his chest.

  The smallpox had ravaged her fair face. Her skin had become rough and pockmarked. Never more would the red blood shimmer forth on her cheeks, or the fine blue veins be seen on her temples. Her eyes were flat under swollen eyelids. Her eyebrows had fallen off and the enamel gleam of the whites of her eyes was broken in yellow.

  All was devastated. The bold lines were changed to rough and heavy ones.

  There were more than a few who later grieved for Marianne Sinclaire’s past fairness. All over Värmland people complained of the loss of her light skin, her flashing eyes and blonde hair. Beauty was esteemed there like nowhere else. These happy people grieved, as if the land had lost a jewel in the crown of its honor, as if the sunlit radiance of its existence had been stained.

  But the first man who saw her after she had lost her beauty did not abandon himself to sorrow.

  Inexpressible feelings filled his soul. The longer he looked at her, the warmer he felt inside. Love grew and grew like a river in spring. In waves of fire it poured forth from his heart, it filled all of his being, it climbed up into his eyes as tears, sighed on his lips, trembled in his hands, in his whole body.

  Oh, to love her, to defend her, to keep her from harm, free from harm!

  To be her slave, her guardian spirit!

  Love is strong, when it has received the fiery baptism of pain. He could not speak with Marianne about separation and self-denial. He could not leave her. He owed her his life. He could commit mortal sins for her sake.

  He did not speak one reasonable word, only wept and kissed, up until the time when the old nurse found it was time to lead him out.

  When he was gone, Marianne lay thinking about him and his agitation. “It is good to be so loved,” she thought.

  Yes, it was good to be loved, but how about herself? What did she feel? Oh, nothing, less than nothing.

  Was it dead, her love, or where had it gone? Where was it hiding, child of her heart?

  Was it still alive, had it crept into the darkest corner of her heart and sat there, freezing under the eyes of ice, frightened by the pale scornful laughter, half smothered under the knotty fingers?

  “Oh, my love,” she sighed, “child of my heart! Do you live, or are you dead, dead like my beauty?”

  The next day the great mill owner went to see his wife early.

  “See to it that there’s order in the house again, Gustava!” he said. “I’m going to bring Marianne home.”

  “Yes, dear Melchior, there will surely be order here again,” she replied.

  With that everything was clear between them.

  One hour later the great iron magnate was on his way to Ekeby.

  There was no nobler, more benevolent old gentleman than the mill owner as he sat in the sleigh with its cover lowered in his best fur and his best sash. Now his hair was combed flat over his head, his face was pale, and his eyes had sunk down into their sockets.

  And there was no limit to the brilliance that streamed down from the sky over the February day. The snow glistened like the eyes of young girls when the first waltz begins. The birches stretched their fine lacework of thin, brown-red twigs toward the sky, and on some of them sat a fringe of small, glittering icicles.

  There was brilliance and festive shimmer over the day. The horses threw their forelegs up as if in a dance, and the coac
hman had to crack the whip in pure joy.

  After a short journey, the great mill owner’s sleigh stopped outside the large stairway at Ekeby.

  The servant came out.

  “Where are the masters?” asked the mill owner.

  “They are hunting the great bear at Gurlita Bluff.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them, squire. Those who don’t go along because of the bear, at least go along for the lunch basket.”

  The iron magnate laughed so that it echoed across the silent yard. He gave the servant a daler for his reply.

  “Now say to that daughter of mine that I am here to get her! She doesn’t need to freeze. I have a covered sleigh and a wolf skin to wrap her in.”

  “Would you care to step in, squire?”

  “Thank you! I’m fine where I am.”

  The fellow disappeared, and the mill owner began his wait.

  He was in such a marvelous mood that day that nothing could annoy him. He had probably thought that he would have to wait a little for Marianne; perhaps she wasn’t even up yet. For the time being he had to amuse himself by looking around.

  On the cornice hung a long icicle that the sunshine was having dreadful trouble with. It began on top, melting a drop loose and then wanting it to fall to the ground along the icicle. But before it got halfway, it was frozen again. And the sunshine continued making fresh attempts, still without success. But finally there was a freebooter of a sunbeam that clung tight to the tip of the icicle, a little one that shone and sparked with eagerness, and sure enough, it reached its goal: a drop fell resoundingly to the ground.

  The mill owner watched and laughed. “You didn’t do too bad, you,” he said to the sunbeam.

  The yard was silent and deserted. Not a sound was heard in the great house. But the iron magnate did not get impatient. He knew that women needed a lot of time before they were ready.