The Saga of Gosta Berling

by Selma Lagerlof

  There she is, the young conqueror of the old gentlemen! She, whom they serve and adore more than grandparents serve and adore the first grandson. There she is, whom they found in poverty and illness and now have granted all the splendor of the world, like the king in the fairy tale did with the poor lovely he found in the forest. It is for her that horns and fiddles now sound at Ekeby. It is for her that everything moves, breathes, labors at the great estate.

  She is healthy now, even if still very weak. The solitude in the great house seemed long to her, and as she knows that the cavaliers are away, she wants to see how it looks up in the cavaliers’ wing, this renowned room.

  So she comes slowly in and glances up at the plastered walls and the yellow-checked bedcovers, but she becomes embarrassed when she notices that the room is not empty.

  Uncle Eberhard walks solemnly toward her and leads her over to the large pile of written paper.

  “Look, countess!” he says. “Now my work is finished. Now what I have written will go out into the world. Now great things will happen.”

  “What is it that will happen, uncle Eberhard?”

  “Oh, countess, it will come down like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that will illuminate and kill. Ever since Moses drew him out of the cloud of thunder on Sinai and set him on the mercy seat in the innermost part of the tabernacle, ever since then he has sat securely, old Jehovah, but now the people will see what he is: imagination, emptiness, smoke and mirrors, the stillborn fetus of our own minds. He will sink into nothing,” said the old man, setting his wrinkled hand on the pile of papers. “Here it is, and when people read it, they will have to believe. They will rise up and see their own stupidity, they will use crosses for firewood, churches for grain bins, and ministers will plow the earth.”

  “Oh, uncle Eberhard,” the countess says with a slight shudder, “are you such a frightful person? Are there such frightful things there?”

  “Frightful!” repeats the old man. “It’s just the truth. But we are like children who hide their faces in a woman’s skirts as soon as they meet a stranger. We have gotten used to hiding from the truth, from the eternally strange. But now she will come and live among us, now she will be known by everyone.”

  “By everyone?”

  “Not only by the philosophers, but by everyone, you see, countess, by everyone.”

  “And so Jehovah will die?”

  “He and all the angels, all the saints, all the devils, all the lies.”

  “Who will guide the world then?”

  “Do you think, countess, that anyone has guided it before? Do you believe in that providence that took note of sparrows and hairs? No one has guided it, no one will guide it.”

  “But we, we people, what will become of us then?”

  “The same as we have been—dust. Anyone who is burned up cannot burn more, he is dead. We are wood, which is flickered around by the flames of life. The spark of life flies from one to another. You are ignited, flare up, and go out. That is life.”

  “Oh, uncle Eberhard, is there no spirit life then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing on the other side of the grave?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No good, no evil, no goal, no hope?”

  “Nothing.”

  The young woman goes over to the window. She looks out over autumn’s yellowing leaves, over dahlias and asters, which with heavy heads hang on stalks broken by the autumn wind. She sees the black waves of Löven, the dark storm sky of autumn, and for a moment she surrenders to denial.

  “Uncle Eberhard,” she says, “how gray and ugly the world is, how useless everything is! I want to lie down and die.”

  But then she hears as it were a groaning in her soul. The strong forces of life and seething emotions cry out loudly for the good fortune to live.

  “Is there nothing then,” she exclaims, “that can give life beauty, since you have taken God and immortality away from me?”

  “Work,” answers the old man.

  But she looks out again, and a feeling of contempt for this pitiful wisdom rises up before her, she feels the spirit dwelling in everything, she senses the power that lies bound in apparently dead matter, but which can develop into a thousandfold varied lives. With a dizzying thought she searches for names for the presence of the spirit of God in nature.

  “Oh, uncle Eberhard,” she says, “what is work? Is it a god? Does it have a goal in itself? Name another!”

  “I know no other,” answers the old man.

  Then she has found the name she was searching for, a pitiful, often sullied name.

  “Uncle Eberhard, why do you not mention love?”

  Then a smile slips across the empty mouth, where the thousand wrinkles crisscross.

  “Here,” says the philosopher, striking the heavy packet with clenched fists, “here all gods are murdered, and I have not forgotten Eros. What is love other than a yearning of the flesh? Why does he stand higher than other physical demands? Make hunger into a god! Make tiredness into a god! They are just as worthy. May there be an end to follies! May the truth live!”

  Then the young countess lowers her head. It is not so, this is not true, but she cannot struggle.

  “Your words have wounded my soul,” she says, “but still I do not believe you. You may be able to kill the gods of vengeance and violence, but no more.”

  But the old man takes her hand, sets it on the book, and answers in the fanaticism of disbelief.

  “When you have read this, you must believe.”

  “May it never come before my eyes then!” she says. “For if I believe this, I cannot live.”

  And submerged in sorrow, she leaves the philosopher. But he sits for a long time, brooding, when she has gone.

  These old bundles, scribbled full of heretical writing, have not yet been tested before the world. Uncle Eberhard’s name has not yet reached the pinnacles of fame.

  His great work lies hidden in a chest in the rubbish room under the balcony staircase in Svartsjö church. Only at the end of the century will it see the light of day.

  But why has he done this? Did he fear that he had not proven his case? Was he afraid of persecution? Little do you know uncle Eberhard.

  Now understand: he loved the truth, not personal glory. So he sacrificed the latter, not the former, so that a child, loved in a fatherly way, could die believing that which she held dear.

  Oh love, you are the assuredly eternal!

  CHAPTER 32

  THE GIRL FROM NYGÅRD

  No one knows the place under the hill where the spruce trees are densest and deep layers of soft moss cover the ground. How could anyone know it? Never before has it been trampled by a human foot, no human tongue has given it a name. No path leads to this hidden place. Boulders tower round about it, entangling junipers guard it, windfalls close it in, the shepherd does not find it, the fox despises it. It is the most desolate part of the forest, and now thousands of people are searching for it.

  What an endless procession of searchers! They would fill Bro church, not only Bro, but Lövvik and Svartsjö. No, what an endless procession of searchers!

  Children of the gentry, not allowed to follow the parade, stand by the roadside or hang on the gates as the great procession passes by. The little ones did not think this world held such a crowd of people, such an innumerable quantity. When they grow up, they will recall this long, billowing river of people. Their eyes will fill with tears at the very memory of how overwhelming it was to see this endless procession pass by on roads where only a few lonely wanderers, a few bands of beggars, or a farmer’s cart might be seen for whole days.

  Everyone who lives by the road rushes up and asks, “Has misfortune come upon the land? Is the enemy upon us? Where are you going, wanderers? Where to?”

  “We are searching,” they answer. “We have searched for two days. We will search today too, then we won’t be able to go on. We will search through Björne forest and the pine-clad heights west
of Ekeby.”

  The procession first departed from Nygård, a poor area over in the eastern hills. The beautiful girl with heavy, black hair and red cheeks has been missing for eight days. The broom girl, whom Gösta Berling wanted to be his intended, has gone astray in the great forests. For eight days no one has seen her.

  So the people from Nygård went out to search through the forest. And every person they met followed along to search. From every cottage people came to join the procession.

  Often too it happens that a new arrival asks, “You men from Nygård, how did all this come about? Why do you let that beautiful girl walk alone on strange paths? The forest is deep, and God has taken her reason.”

  “No one harms her,” they answer then, “she harms no one. She goes as securely as a child. Who goes more safely than someone whom God himself must care for? She has always come back before.”

  So the procession of searchers has proceeded across the eastern forests that separate Nygård from the plain. Now on the third day it is moving past Bro church up toward the forests west of Ekeby.

  But where the procession proceeds, a storm of wonder is also brewing. A man from the crowd must constantly stop to answer questions. “What do you want? What are you searching for?”

  “We are searching for the blue-eyed, dark-haired girl. She has gone out to die in the forest. She has been gone for eight days.”

  “Why has she gone out to die in the forest? Was she hungry? Was she unhappy?”

  “She has not gone hungry, but she met with misfortune last spring. She has seen the mad minister, Gösta Berling, and loved him for several years. She didn’t know any better. God has taken her reason.”

  “God has truly taken her reason from her, you men of Nygård.”

  “The misfortune came last spring. Before that he had never looked at her. Then he said to her that she should become his intended. It was only in jest, he let her go again, but she could not be consoled. She kept coming back to Ekeby. She hung on his tracks, wherever he went. He grew tired of her. When she was there last, they set the dogs on her. Since then no one has seen her.”

  Out of the house, out of the house! This is a matter of life and death. Someone has gone out to die in the forest. Perhaps she is already dead! Perhaps she is still wandering there without finding the right path! The forest is large and her reason is with God.

  Follow the procession, follow it! Let the oats hang on the shocks, until the thin kernel falls from the husk, let the potatoes rot in the ground, let the horses loose so that they may not die of thirst in the stable, leave the sheep pen door open so that the cows may go under a roof at night, let the children come along, for children belong to God! God is with the little ones, he guides their steps. They will help, where the wisdom of men is baffled.

  Come all, men and women and children! Who can dare stay home? Who knows whether or not God intends to use him in particular? Come all who need compassion, that your soul may not one day wander helplessly around dry places, seeking rest and finding none! Come! God has taken her reason, and the forest is large.

  Who finds their way to the place where the spruce trees are densest and the moss is softest? Is there something dark in there close under the rock wall? Only the brown ants’ mound of needles. Praised be the one who guides the way of fools, nothing else!

  Oh, what a procession! Not a procession adorned for a holiday that greets the victor, that strews flowers in his path and fills his ears with shouts of jubilation, not the march of the pilgrims to hymn singing and swishing strokes of the scourge en route to the sacred tombs, not the train of emigrants on creaking wagons, who seek new homes for those in distress, not an army with drums and rifles, only farmers in homespun work clothes with worn leather aprons, only their wives with knitting in hand and children on their backs or dragging along at their skirts.

  A great thing it is to see people united in great goals. May they go out to greet their benefactors, to praise their God, to seek earth, to defend their land, may they go! But it is not hunger, not fear of God, not war that has driven these people out. Their efforts are useless, their striving without benefit. They go simply to find a madwoman. However many drops of sweat, however many steps, however much anxiety, however many prayers it costs, yet it will not be rewarded with anything other than finding a poor stray again, whose reason is with God.

  Oh, don’t you love these people! Wouldn’t anyone who has stood at the roadside and seen them pass by get tears in his eyes when he sees them again in his thoughts, men with coarse features and hard hands, women with brows furrowed early, and the tired children, whom God would lead to the right place?

  It fills the highway, this procession of distressed searchers. They measure the forest with serious glances, gloomily they go forth, for they know that they are more likely searching for a dead person than a living one.

  That black thing under the rock wall, is that nonetheless not the ants’ needle stack, but a downed tree? Praised be heaven, only a downed tree! But it is difficult to see clearly, as the spruce trees stand so close together.

  The procession is so long that those in front, the strong men, are up at the forest west of Björne, when the last, the cripples, the work-broken old men, and the women carrying their small children, have scarcely made it past Broby church.

  And then the whole winding procession disappears into the dark forest. The morning sun shines in under the spruce trees—the sinking sun of evening will meet the bands as they are coming out of the forest.

  It is the third day of their search: they are used to this labor. They search under the steep rock wall, on which a foot can slide; under the windfalls, where arms and legs can easily be broken; under the dense branches of the spruce trees, which, trailing down over soft moss, invite to rest.

  The bear’s lair, the fox’s den, the badger’s deep nest, the black base of the charcoal stack, the red lingonberry patch, the spruce with its white needles, the hill that the forest fire ravaged a month earlier, the stone that the giant threw: all this they have found, but not the place under the rock wall where the black thing lies. No one has been there to see if it is an anthill or a tree trunk or a person. Oh, it is probably a person, but no one has been there to see her.

  The evening sun sees them on the other side of the forest, but the young woman, whose reason God has taken, has not been found. What will they do now? Will they search through the forest one more time? The forest is dangerous in the darkness: there are bottomless marshes and steep cliffs. And what could they, who found nothing when the sun was shining, find when the sun has vanished?

  “Let us go to Ekeby!” someone in the crowd cries out.

  “Let us go to Ekeby!” they all cry out together. “Let us go to Ekeby!”

  “Let us ask these cavaliers why they let the dogs loose on someone whose reason God has taken, why they incited a madwoman to despair! Our poor, hungry children are crying, our clothes are torn, the grain is hanging on the shocks until the kernel falls from its husk, the potatoes are rotting in the ground, our horses are running around wild, our cows are not tended, we ourselves are close to collapsing from fatigue, and all this is their fault. Let us go to Ekeby and call them to account! Let us go to Ekeby!

  “During this cursed year everything bad happens to us farmers. God’s hand rests heavily over us, the winter will offer us starvation. Who is it that God’s hand is seeking? It wasn’t the Broby minister. His prayers could still reach God’s ear. Who then, if not these cavaliers? Let us go to Ekeby!

  “They have destroyed the estate, they have driven the majoress begging out onto the highway. It is their fault that we must go without work. It is their fault that we must go hungry. This distress is their doing. Let us go to Ekeby!”

  So dark, embittered men jostle down toward Ekeby’s great estate; hungry women with crying children on their arms follow them; and last come the cripples and the work-broken elderly. And the bitterness flows like a growing stream through the ranks, from the old to the
women, from the women to the strong men at the head of the procession.

  It is the autumn flood that is coming. Cavaliers, do you recall the spring flood? Now new waves come streaming down from the hills, now a new devastation befalls the glory and power of Ekeby.

  A crofter who is plowing a pasture at the forest edge hears the raging cry of the people. He unharnesses one horse, gets up on it, and hurries off down to Ekeby. “Misfortune is coming!” he shouts, “the bears are coming, the wolves are coming, the trolls are coming to take Ekeby!”

  He rides around the whole estate, wild with terror. “All the trolls in the forest are loose!” he shouts. “The trolls are coming to take Ekeby! Save yourselves, those who can! The trolls are coming to set fire to the estate and kill the cavaliers!”

  And behind him is heard the thunder and howling of the surging crowd of people. The autumn flood is rushing down toward Ekeby.

  Does it know what it wants, this storming stream of resentment? Does it want fire, does it want murder, does it want plunder?

  It is not people who are coming: it is the trolls of the forest, the wild animals of the wilderness. We, dark powers who must keep hidden under the earth, we are free for a single blessed moment. Revenge has released us.

  It is the hill spirits who have mined ore, it is the forest spirits who have felled trees and guarded charcoal piles, it is the field spirits who have let the bread grow: they are free, they turn to destruction. Death to Ekeby, death to the cavaliers!

  It is here that liquor flows in currents. It is here that gold lies heaped in the cellar vaults. It is here that the storehouses are filled with grain and meat. Why should the children of righteousness starve and malefactors have enough?

  But now their time has run out; the cup is full to the brim, cavaliers. You lilies, who have never spun, you birds, who have never gathered, the cup is full. In the forest lies the one who judges you: we are her emissaries. It is not judge and sheriff who pronounce your sentence. The one who lies in the forest has convicted you.