The Saga of Gosta Berling Read online

  Over there, where the trees stand up straight like pillars from the even ground, where the snow rests in heavy layers on the motionless branches, where the wind is powerless, only playing quietly in the topmost needles, there he wished to wander farther and farther in, until one day his strength would fail him, and he would fall down under the great trees, dying of hunger and cold.

  He longed for the great, murmuring grave above Löven, where he would be overpowered by the forces of disintegration, where hunger, cold, weariness, and liquor would finally succeed in killing this poor body, which could endure anything.

  He had arrived at the inn; there he would wait for evening. He went into the serving room and sat in dull repose on the bench by the door, dreaming of the endless forests.

  The proprietress took pity on him and gave him a dram of liquor. She even gave him two, because he asked so eagerly.

  But more than that she would not give him, and the beggar fell into drunken despair. He must drink more of this strong, sweet liquor. He must once again feel his heart dance in his body and his thoughts flare in intoxication. Oh, this sweet grain wine! Summer sun, summer birdsong, summer scent and beauty were floating around in its white wake. One more time, before he vanishes in night and darkness, he wants to drink sun and happiness.

  So first he traded away the flour, then the flour sack, and finally the sled for liquor. From this he got good and drunk, and slept away a good part of the afternoon on a bench at the inn.

  When he awoke, he realized that there was only one thing left for him to do. Because this wretched body had taken all dominion over his soul, because he could drink up what a child had entrusted to him, because he was a disgrace to the earth, he must free it from the burden of so much wretchedness. He must give freedom back to his soul, let it go to God.

  Lying on the bench in the inn, he judged himself: “Gösta Berling, defrocked minister, accused of having drunk up the flour of a hungry child, sentenced to death. Death by what means? Death in the snowdrifts.”

  He seized his cap and stumbled out. He was neither completely awake nor completely sober. He wept in pity for himself, for his pitiful, soiled soul, which he must set free.

  He did not go far and he did not stray from the road. By the roadside itself there was a high snowdrift. There he threw himself down to die. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  No one knows how long he lay like that, but there was still life in him when the daughter of the Broby minister came running along the road with a lantern in her hand and found him in the drift by the roadside. She had stood for hours, waiting for him; now she had run up the hills of Broby trying to find him.

  She recognized him at once, and then she started shaking him and shouting with all her might to get him to wake up.

  She had to know what he had done with her sack of flour.

  She had to call him back to life at least long enough so that he could tell her what had become of her sled and her flour sack. Dear Father would kill her if she had frittered away his sled. She bit the beggar on the finger and clawed him in the face, all the while shrieking in despair.

  Then someone came driving up the road.

  “Who the hell is it who’s shrieking?” came a gruff voice.

  “I want to know what this fellow has done with my flour sack and my sled,” sobbed the child, pounding with clenched fists on the beggar’s chest.

  “Are you clawing a frozen person like that? Up with you, wildcat!”

  The rider was a tall, heavyset woman. She got out of the sledge and walked over to the drift. She took the child by the neck and tossed her up on the road. After that she leaned over, stuck her arms under the beggar’s body, and lifted him up. Then she carried him to the sledge and laid him in it.

  “Come along into the inn, wildcat,” she called to the minister’s daughter, “so we can hear what you know about this business.”

  An hour later the beggar was sitting on a chair by the door in the best room of the inn, and the commanding woman who had rescued him from the snowdrift was standing in front of him.

  The way Gösta Berling saw her now, on the way home from a charcoal run in the forest, with sooty hands and a chalk pipe in her mouth, dressed in a short, unlined sheepskin and striped, handwoven wool skirt, with brogues on her feet and a knife sheath across her chest, the way he saw her with gray hair brushed straight back over an aged, beautiful face, this was the way he had heard her described a thousand times, and he realized that he had met up with the renowned majoress of Ekeby.

  She was the most powerful woman in Värmland, the sovereign of seven ironworks, accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed; and he was only a wretched man under a death sentence, bereft of everything, knowing that every road was too heavy for him, every room too confined. His body shivered with terror, while her gaze rested upon him.

  She stood silently, looking at the human wretchedness before her: the swollen red hands, the emaciated countenance, and the splendid head, which even in decline and negligence radiated a wild beauty.

  “So this is Gösta Berling, the mad minister,” she said inquiringly.

  The beggar sat motionless.

  “I am the majoress at Ekeby.”

  A shiver passed through the beggar’s body. He clasped his hands, raising his eyes in a longing gaze. What would she do with him? Would she force him to live? He shuddered before her strength. And yet he had been so close to reaching the peace of the endless forests.

  She began the struggle by telling him that the daughter of the Broby minister had got back her sled and flour sack, and that she, the majoress, had a refuge for him, as for many another homeless wretch, in the cavaliers’ wing at Ekeby. She offered him a life of play and pleasure, but he replied that he must die.

  Then she struck the table with her fist and let him hear her unvarnished thoughts.

  “So then, he wants to die, so that’s what he wants. I wouldn’t wonder much about that, if only he were alive. Look, such an emaciated body and such powerless limbs and such dull eyes, and he thinks he has something left to kill. Do you think you have to be lying stiff and cold, nailed under a coffin lid, to be dead? Don’t you think I can see how dead you are, Gösta Berling?

  “I see that you have a skull for a head, and I can picture the worms creeping out of your eye sockets. Don’t you feel that your mouth is full of dirt? Don’t you hear how your bones rattle, when you move?

  “You have drowned yourself in liquor, Gösta Berling, and dead you are.

  “The only life left in you is in your skeleton, and you won’t begrudge those bones the chance to live, if you call that living. It’s as if you would begrudge the dead a dance over the grave mounds in the starlight.

  “Are you ashamed of having been defrocked, since you now want to die? I will tell you, there would be more honor in using your gifts and becoming something useful on God’s green earth. Why didn’t you come to me at once—then I would have put everything right again for you. Yes, I suppose you must be expecting great honor from being shrouded and laid out on sawdust and called a beautiful corpse?”

  The beggar sat calm, almost smiling, while she thundered out her angry words. No danger, he rejoiced, no danger. The endless forests are waiting, and she has no power to turn my soul away from there.

  But the majoress fell silent and paced a few times back and forth in the room; then she took a seat by the stove, put her feet up on the hearth, and rested her elbows on her knees.

  “Hell’s bells,” she said, chuckling to herself. “What I’m saying is truer than I realize myself. Don’t you think, Gösta Berling, that most people in this world are dead, or half dead? Do you think I’m living? Oh my, no! Oh my, no!

  “Yes, look at me, you! I am the majoress at Ekeby, and I am no doubt the most powerful woman in Värmland. If I wave my finger, the governor comes running, if I wave two fingers, the bishop comes running, and if I wave three, then consistory and aldermen and all the mill owners in Värmland dance a polska on the squa
re in Karlstad. Hell’s bells, lad, I’m telling you that I am nothing more than a dressed-up corpse. God knows how little life there is in me.”

  The beggar leaned forward on the chair and listened with senses alert. The old majoress sat rocking before the fire. She did not look at him as she spoke.

  “Don’t you think,” she continued, “that if I were a living person, who saw you sitting there, worthless and wretched, contemplating suicide, don’t you think I could take those thoughts from you in a breath? Then I would have tears for you, and prayers going up one side and down the other, and I would save your soul—but I am dead.

  “Have you heard that I was once the beautiful Margareta Celsing? That wasn’t yesterday, but I can still cry my old eyes out over her. Why should Margareta Celsing be dead, and Margareta Samzelius live; why should the majoress at Ekeby live, tell me, Gösta Berling?

  “Do you know what Margareta Celsing was like? She was slim and slender and shy and innocent, Gösta Berling. She was the sort on whose grave the angels weep.

  “She knew nothing of evil, no one had done her sorrow, she was good to everyone. And she was beautiful, truly beautiful.

  “There was a stately man, his name was Altringer. God knows how he happened to be traveling up there in the wilds of Älvdalen, where her parents had their ironworks. Margareta Celsing saw him; he was a handsome, stately man, and he loved her.

  “But he was poor, and they agreed to wait for each other for five years, as the ballad says.

  “When three years had passed, she had another suitor. He was ugly and mean, but her parents thought he was rich, and they forced Margareta Celsing, by hook and by crook, with blows and harsh words, to take him as her husband. You see, on that day Margareta Celsing died.

  “Since then there has been no Margareta Celsing, only Majoress Samzelius, and she was not good, not shy, she believed in much that was evil and gave no heed to what was good.

  “I’m sure you know what happened next. We were living at Sjö by Löven here, the major and I. But he was not rich, like people said. I often had difficult days.

  “Then Altringer came back, and now he was rich. He became the master at Ekeby, which borders on Sjö; he made himself master over six other ironworks on Löven. He was capable, enterprising; he was a wonderful man.

  “He helped us in our poverty: we rode in his wagons, he sent food to our kitchen, wine to our cellar. He filled my life with banquets and amusements. The major went off to war, but what did we care about that! Oh, it was like a long dance of amusements around the shores of Löven.

  “But there was evil talk about Altringer and me. If Margareta Celsing had been alive then, this would have caused her great sorrow, but it was nothing to me. I did not yet understand, however, that it was because I was dead that I had no feelings.

  “Then the talk about us came up to my father and mother, where they lived among the charcoal stacks in the forests of Älvdal. The old woman did not hesitate long; she came down here to talk with me.

  “One day, when the major was away and I was sitting at table with Altringer and several others, she came traveling. I saw her enter the dining room, but I could not feel that she was my mother, Gösta Berling. I greeted her as if she were a stranger and invited her to sit down at my table and take part in the meal.

  “She wanted to talk to me, as if I had been her daughter, but I said to her that she was mistaken: my parents were dead, they had both died on my wedding day.

  “Then she went along with the game. She was seventy years old, and she had ridden more than a hundred and twenty miles in three days. Now she sat down at the dining table without further ado and helped herself to some food; she was a very strong person.

  “She said that it was unfortunate that I had suffered such a loss on just that day.

  “‘The most unfortunate thing,’ I said, ‘was that my parents hadn’t died the day before; then the wedding would not have taken place.’

  “‘Are you not content with your marriage, gracious majoress? ’ she then asked.

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘now I am content. I will always be content and obey the will of my dear parents!’

  “She asked if it had been my parents’ will that I should heap shame upon myself, and them, and betray my husband. I showed little honor to my parents by letting myself be talked about by one and all.

  “‘They made their bed, now let them lie in it,’ I answered her. ‘And besides, you, strange woman, should understand that I do not intend to allow anyone to defame my parents’ daughter.’

  “We ate, the two of us. The men around us sat silently and did not dare raise knife and fork.

  “The old woman stayed a day to rest; then she left.

  “But as long as I saw her, I could not understand that she was my mother. I knew only that my mother was dead.

  “As she was about to leave, Gösta Berling, and I was standing beside her on the stair, and the wagon had pulled up, she said to me: ‘I have been here a whole day, without you greeting me as your mother. On desolate roads I traveled here, more than a hundred and twenty miles in three days. And my body trembles with shame for your sake, as if it were being whipped with branches. May you be denied, as I have been denied; disowned, as I have been disowned! May the highway be your home, the haystack your bed, the charcoal pile your stove! Shame and disgrace be your wage, may others strike you, as I strike you!’

  “And she gave me a hard slap on the cheek.

  “But I lifted her up, carried her down the stairs, and set her in the wagon.

  “‘Who are you to curse me?’ I asked, ‘who are you to strike me? I won’t tolerate that from anyone.’

  “And I gave her a slap in return.

  “The wagon left at once, but then, at that moment, Gösta Berling, I knew that Margareta Celsing was dead.

  “She was good, and innocent; she knew nothing of evil. The angels had wept on her grave. If she had lived, she would not have struck her mother.”

  The beggar over by the door had listened, and for a moment the words had deadened the sound of the enticing murmur of the endless forests. Look, look at this powerful woman; she made herself his equal in sin, his sister in perdition, to give him courage to live. Thus would he learn that there was sorrow and guilt on other heads than his. He got up and went over to the majoress.

  “Now will you live, Gösta Berling?” she asked with a voice that broke into tears. “What should you die for? A good minister might well have been made out of you, but never was the Gösta Berling that you drowned in liquor so gleamingly innocent-white as the Margareta Celsing I smothered in hatred. Will you live?”

  Gösta fell down on one knee before the majoress.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “I cannot.”

  “I am an old woman, tempered by much sorrow,” answered the majoress, “and I am sitting here, laying bare my soul to a beggar, whom I found half frozen in a snowdrift by the side of the road. It serves me right. If you go and become a suicide, then at least you cannot tell anyone about my craziness.”

  “Majoress, I am no suicide, I am a doomed man. Don’t make the fight too hard for me! I must not live. My body has taken dominion over my soul, so I must let him go free, let him go to God.”

  “I see. Do you think that’s where you’re going?”

  “Farewell, majoress, and thanks!”

  “Farewell, Gösta Berling.”

  The beggar got up and went toward the door with hanging head and dragging steps. This woman made the road up to the great forests heavy for him.

  When he came to the door, he had to look back. Then he met the gaze of the majoress, where she sat quietly looking at him. He had never seen such a transformation in a face, and he remained standing and stared at her. She, who had just been enraged and threatening, sat in quiet transfiguration, and her eyes shone with merciful, compassionate love. There was something within him, in his own uncivilized heart, which burst at that gaze; he leaned his head against the doorpost, extended his arms ov
er his head, and wept until his heart would have burst.

  The majoress tossed her chalk pipe into the stove and came over to Gösta. Her movements were suddenly as tender as a mother’s.

  “There, there, my boy!”

  And she pulled him down alongside her on the bench by the door, so that he wept with his head against her lap.

  “Are you still going to die?”

  Then he wanted to leap to his feet. She had to hold him back by force.

  “Now I say to you that you may do as you wish. But I promise you that if you want to live, then I will take the Broby minister’s daughter to me and make a person out of her, so that she can thank her God that you stole her flour. So, will you?”

  He lifted his head and looked her right in the eyes.

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Yes I do, Gösta Berling.”

  Then he wrung his hands in anguish. He saw before him those piercing eyes, the pinched lips, and emaciated little hands. So the young creature would get protection and care, and the marks of degradation would be erased from her body, the evil from her soul. Now the road up to the endless forests was closed to him.

  “I will not kill myself as long she is under the majoress’s care,” he said. “I knew well enough that the majoress would force me to live. I knew right away that the majoress was too much for me.”

  “Gösta Berling,” she said solemnly, “I have fought for you as though for myself. I said to God: ‘If there is anything of Margareta Celsing alive in me, then allow her to come forth and show herself, so that this man may not go and kill himself.’ And he allowed it, and you saw her, and therefore you could not go. And she whispered to me that at least for the sake of the poor child, you ought to give up your intent to die. Oh, you may fly boldly, you wild birds, but our Lord knows the net that will catch you.”

  “He is a great and strange God,” said Gösta Berling. “He has eluded me and rejected me, but he will not let me die. His will be done!”