The cavaliers are standing up in the main building and see the people coming. They already know why they are accused. For once they are innocent. If the poor girl has gone out to die in the forest, then it is not because they incited the dogs on her— they never did that—but rather because eight days ago, Gösta Berling married the Countess Elisabet.
But what good does it do to talk with these raging people? They are tired, they are hungry; revenge incites them, rapacity entices them. They come rushing with wild shouts, and ahead of them rides the crofter, whom terror has made crazy.
“The bears are coming, the wolves are coming, the trolls are coming to take Ekeby!”
The cavaliers have hidden the young countess in the innermost room. Lövenborg and uncle Eberhard will sit there and watch over her; the rest go out toward the people. They stand on the stairway before the main building, unarmed, smiling, when the first clamorous band arrives there.
And the people stop before this little band of calm men. There are those who in fiery resentment wanted to throw them down on the ground and trample them under their iron-shod heels, as the people at Sund’s ironworks did with stewards and inspectors fifty years before. But they had expected closed doors, resolutely raised weapons, they expected resistance and struggle.
“Dear friends,” say the cavaliers, “dear friends, you are tired and hungry, let us give you some food, and first taste a dram of Ekeby’s own home-brewed liquor!”
The people do not want to hear such talk; they howl and threaten. But the cavaliers do not lose patience.
“Just wait,” they say, “just wait a moment! See, Ekeby stands open. The cellar door stands open, the storehouse stands open, the dairy stands open. Your women are dropping from fatigue, your children are crying. Let us first get them food! Then you can kill us. We will not run away. But the attic is full of apples. Let us go after apples for the children!”
An hour later the party is in full swing at Ekeby. The greatest party the great estate has ever seen is celebrated there in the autumn night, under the great shining full moon.
Stacks of wood have been toppled and set afire; across the entire yard, bonfire flames by bonfire. The people sit there in groups, enjoying the heat and rest, while all the good gifts of the earth are strewn upon them.
Resolute men have gone into the barn and taken what might be needed. Calves and sheep have been killed and even one or two of the large animals. The animals have been butchered and roasted in the blink of an eye. These hundreds of hungry people gobble up the food. Animal after animal is led out and killed. It looks as though the entire barn will be emptied in one night.
There has been fall baking at Ekeby just at that time. Since the young Countess Elisabet had arrived, there had once again been energy in domestic activities. It was as if the young woman did not remind them for a moment that she was Gösta Berling’s wife. Neither he nor she made any pretense about it, but on the contrary she made herself into the wife at Ekeby. Like a good, capable woman must always do, she sought with consuming fervor to remedy the extravagance and carelessness that prevailed at the estate. And she was obeyed. The people experienced a certain well-being from once again having a mistress of the house over them.
But what did it help now that she had the kitchen ceiling filled with bread, that curdling and churning and brewing had been done during the month of September that she had been there? What did it help?
Out to the people with everything there was, so that they won’t burn Ekeby and kill the cavaliers! Out with bread, butter, cheese! Out with the barrels and beer kegs, out with the hams from the storehouse, out with the casks of liquor, out with the apples!
How can all the wealth of Ekeby suffice to soften the wrath of the people? If we get them away from here without any black deed having been done, then we ought to be happy.
Everything that happens is, however, ultimately for her sake, she who is now the housewife at Ekeby. The cavaliers are courageous men, skilled with weapons; they would have defended themselves if they had followed their own inclinations. They would rather have driven away these greedy mobs with their sharp shooting, if it had not been for her sake, who is gentle and tender and prays for the people.
As the night goes on, the groups become gentler. The heat and rest and food and liquor assuage their terrifying agitation. They start to joke and laugh. They are at the Nygård girl’s funeral feast. “Shame on anyone, who fails at drinking and joking at a funeral feast! That is where it’s needed.”
The children throw themselves on the masses of fruit that are brought to them. Poor croft children, who think of cranberries and lingonberries as delicacies, throw themselves over clear astrakhan apples that melt in their mouths, oblong, sweet paradise apples, yellow-white citron apples, pears with red cheeks, and plums of all types, yellow, red, and blue. Oh, nothing is good enough for the people, when it pleases them to show their power.
As it approaches midnight, it appears as if the groups are preparing to break camp. The cavaliers stop bringing food and wine, pulling out corks, and tapping beer kegs. They heave a sigh of relief, sensing that the danger is passed.
But just then a light is seen in one of the windows of the main building. All who see it let out a shriek. It is a young woman who carries the candle.
It was just for a moment. The sight disappears, but the people think they have recognized the woman.
“She had long, black hair and red cheeks,” they shout. “She is here. They have her hidden here.”
“Oh, cavaliers, do you have her here? Do you have our child, whose reason God has taken, here at Ekeby? Godless men, what are you doing with her? Here you let us worry about her the whole week, search for her for a whole three days! Away with wine and food! Woe on us, that we have taken anything from your hands! First, out with her now, then we will know what we need to do with you.”
The tamed wild animal roars and bellows. With a few wild leaps it rushes up toward Ekeby.
The people are quick, quicker than the cavaliers are. They rush up and bar the door. But what can they accomplish against this surging mob? Door after door is thrown open. The cavaliers are cast aside; they have no weapons. They are crowded in among the dense mob so that they cannot move. The people want in, to find the girl from Nygård.
In the innermost room they find her. No one has time to look to see if she is light or dark. They lift her up and carry her out. She should not be afraid, they say. It is only the cavaliers they are after. They are here to rescue her.
But they who now stream out of the building are met by another procession.
No longer resting in the most desolate place in the forest is the body of a woman who has fallen from the high precipice above and died in the fall. A child has found her. Searchers who were left behind in the forest lifted her up on their shoulders. There they come. She is lovelier in death than in life. Fair she lies with her long, dark hair. Splendid is her face, since eternal peace rests over it.
Raised high on the men’s shoulders, she is borne along through the crowd of people. They become silent as she passes. With bowed heads all hail the majesty of death.
“She is recently dead,” whisper the men. “She has probably been walking in the forest until today. We think she wanted to flee from us, who have been searching for her, and so she fell down the precipice.”
But if this is the girl from Nygård, who then is she who has been carried out from Ekeby?
The procession from the forest meets the procession from the building. The bonfires flame around the whole yard. The people can see both women and know them. The other one is of course the young countess at Borg.
“Oh, what does this mean? Is this a new outrage that we have stumbled upon? Why have we been told that she was far away or even dead? In the name of holy righteousness, should we not now throw ourselves upon the cavaliers and trample them to dust under iron-shod heels!”
Then a far-resounding voice is heard. Gösta Berling has climbed up on the railing of
the stairway and speaks from there.
“Hear me, you monsters, you devils! Do you not think that there are rifles and powder at Ekeby, you lunatics? Do you not believe that I have had the desire to shoot all of you down like mad dogs? But she prayed for you. Oh, if I had known that you would have touched her, not one of you would have been alive!
“What is it you are hissing about tonight, coming upon us like robbers and threatening us with murder and arson? What do I have to do with your crazy girls? Do I know where they run off to? I have been too good to her, that is the matter. I should have set the dogs on her—it would have been better for us both—but I haven’t done that. Nor have I promised her that I would marry her, that I have never done. Remember that!
“But now I say to you, that you will release her whom you have dragged out of the house here. Release her, I say, and may those fists that have touched her ache in eternal fire! Don’t you understand that she is as much above you as the sky is above the earth, she is just as fine as you are rough, just as good as you are wicked?
“Now I will tell you who she is. First, she is an angel from heaven; second, it is she who has been married to the count at Borg. But her mother-in-law tormented her both night and day. She had to stand by the lake and wash clothes like an ordinary maid, she was beaten and tortured so that none of you women can have it worse. Yes, she almost threw herself into the river, because the life was being tortured out of her. I wonder just which one of you, you rascals, would have been on hand to save her life then. None of you were there, but we cavaliers, we did it. Yes, we did it.
“And then she gave birth to a child away on a farm and the count sent her greetings to say: ‘We were married in a foreign country, we did not follow law and ordinance. You are not my wife, I am not your husband. I do not care about your child,’ yes, when it was like that and she did not want the child to be recorded as fatherless in the church register, then you would probably have been haughty, if she had said to any of you, ‘Come and marry me! I must have a father for the child.’ But she chose none of you. She took Gösta Berling, the poor minister who may never again speak God’s word. Yes, I say to you, farmers, that I have never done a more difficult thing, for I was so unworthy of her that I did not dare look her in the eyes, but I dared not say no either, for she was in great distress.
“And now you may think what evil you want to about us cavaliers, but toward her we have done what good we could. And it is due to her that we haven’t shot all of you dead tonight. But now I say to you: let her go and go your way, otherwise I think the earth will open up and swallow you! And when you leave here, then pray to God to forgive you, that you have frightened and grieved one who is so good and innocent! And now away with you! We have had enough of you!”
Long before he had finished speaking, those who had carried out the countess had set her down on one of the stone stair steps, and now a big farmer came over to her quite deliberately and extended his large hand to her.
“Thanks and good night!” he said. “We wish you no harm, countess.”
After him came another and gave her a careful handshake. “Thanks and good night! You must not be annoyed with us!”
Gösta jumped down and placed himself at her side. They took him by the hand too.
So they now came up slowly and leisurely, one by one, to say good night to them before they left. They were subdued again, again they were human, as they were when in the morning they left their homes, before hunger and revenge had turned them into wild animals.
They looked the countess right in the eyes, and Gösta noticed how the sight of the innocence and piety they saw there brought tears to many eyes. There was in all of them a silent adoration of the noblest thing they had seen. These were people who were happy that one of them had such a great love for the good.
Of course they could not all shake hands with her. There were so terribly many, and the young woman was tired and weak. But they all wanted to go up and see her, and then they could take Gösta by the hand; his arms could no doubt handle the shaking.
Gösta stood as if in a dream. In his heart this evening a new love rose up.
“Oh, my people,” he thought, “Oh, my people, how I love you!” He felt how he loved this entire crowd, which wandered off in the night darkness with the dead girl at the head of the procession, all of these in rough clothes and foul-smelling footwear, all of these who lived in the gray cabins by the forest edge, all of these who could not wield a pen and often could not read either, all of these who did not know the fullness and richness of life, only the striving for daily bread.
He loved them with a painful, ardent tenderness, which brought tears to his eyes. He did not know what he wanted to do for them, but he loved them, each and every one, with faults and vices and infirmities. Oh, Lord God, if the day might come when he was also loved by them!
He awakened from his dream: his wife laid her hand on his arm. The people were gone. They were alone on the stairway.
“Oh, Gösta, Gösta, how could you?”
She put her hands before her face and wept.
“It is true what I said,” he exclaimed. “I never promised the girl from Nygård that I would marry her. ‘Come here next Friday, then you’ll see something funny!’ was all that I said to her. I can’t help it if she liked me.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that, but how could you say to the people that I was good and pure? Gösta, Gösta, don’t you know that I loved you when I didn’t yet have leave to do so? I was ashamed before the people, Gösta. I wanted to die of shame.”
And she was shaking with sobs.
He stood, looking at her.
“Oh, my friend, my beloved!” he said quietly. “How fortunate you are, who is so good! How fortunate you are, who has such a lovely soul within you!”
CHAPTER 33
KEVENHÜLLER
In the 1770s the subsequently learned and versatile Kevenhüller was born in Germany. He was the son of a burgrave and could have lived in tall castles and ridden at the emperor’s side if he had had the desire, but he did not.
He would have liked to attach windmill sails to the castle’s highest tower, turn the ceremonial hall into a blacksmith shop and the ladies’ quarters into a clockmaker’s workshop. He would have liked to fill the castle with whirring wheels and working levers. But as such things could not be done, he left it all and entered the clockmaker’s trade. There he learned everything there was to be learned about gears, springs, and pendulums. He learned to make sundials and sidereal clocks, ornamental clocks with chirping canaries and horn-blowing gentlemen, carillons that filled an entire church steeple with their marvelous machinery, and clockworks so small that they could be contained in a medallion.
When he had become a master of his trade, he put a knapsack on his back, took his knobbed stick in hand, and wandered from place to place to study everything that worked with cylinders and wheels. Kevenhüller was no ordinary clockmaker; he wanted to become a great inventor and reformer.
When he had wandered through many lands, he also made his way to Värmland to study mill wheels and the mining arts. One beautiful summer morning he happened to be walking across the square in Karlstad. But at that same beautiful morning moment, the wood nymph found it pleasing to extend her wanderings all the way into the city. The high lady was also walking across the square, but from the opposite direction, and thus she encountered Kevenhüller.
What an encounter for a journeyman clockmaker! She had shining, green eyes and flowing, light hair that almost reached the ground, and she was dressed in green, rustling silk. Troll and heathen that she was, she was lovelier than all the Christian women Kevenhüller had ever seen. He stood looking at her as if thunderstruck as she came toward him.
She came straight from the thickets in the innermost part of the forest, where the ferns are high as trees, where the gigantic pines shut out the sunlight so that it only falls as golden splashes on the yellow moss, and where the twinflower creeps across lichen-clad stones.
I would dearly like to have been in Kevenhüller’s place, to see her as she came with fern leaves and spruce needles entangled in her flowing hair and a little black viper around her neck. Imagine her, lithe of gait as a wild animal and conveying a fresh scent of resin and wild strawberry, of twinflower and moss!
And how people must have stared at her as she strolled across the square in Karlstad! Horses bolted in fright at her long hair, which flew before the summer wind. Street urchins ran after her. Men let go of scale and meat cleaver to gape at her. Women ran screaming for the bishop and church council to drive the witch out of the city.
She herself walked calmly and majestically, simply smiling at the excitement with which Kevenhüller watched her small, pointed predator’s teeth shine behind her red lips.
She had hung a cloak across her back so that no one would notice who she was, but as bad luck would have it, she had forgotten to cover her tail. Now it was dragging along the cobblestones.
Kevenhüller saw the tail too, but it hurt him that a highborn lady should expose herself to the ridicule of city dwellers. Therefore he bowed to the lovely and said in a courtly manner, “Does it not please your grace to elevate her train?”
The wood nymph was moved, as much by his goodwill as by his courtesy. She stopped right in front of him and looked at him, so that he thought that flashing sparks darted from her eyes into his heart. “Mark this, Kevenhüller,” she said, “hereafter shall you with your two hands be able to execute whatever work of art you wish, but only one of each type.”
Thus she spoke, and she could keep her word. For who does not know that the green-clad woman from the forest thickets has the power to grant genius and marvelous powers to those who win her favor?
Kevenhüller stayed in Karlstad and rented a workshop there. He hammered and worked night and day. In eight days he had made a marvel. It was a wagon that moved by itself. It went uphill and downhill, went fast and slow, could be steered and turned, stopped and put into motion, exactly as you wished. A splendid wagon it was.
The Saga of Gosta Berling Page 40
