was something in him, in his own wild heart, which burst before that glance; he leaned his forehead against the door-post, stretched his arms up over his head, and wept as if his heart would break.
The major’s wife tossed her clay-pipe into the fire and came over to Gösta. Her movements were as tender as a mother’s.
“There, there, my boy!”
And she got him down beside her on the bench by the door, so that he wept with his head on her knees.
“Will you still die?”
Then he wished to rush away. She had to hold him back by force.
“Now I tell you that you may do as you please. But I promise you that, if you will live, I will take to me the daughter of the Broby minister and make a human being of her, so that she can thank her God that you stole her meal. Now will you?”
He raised his head and looked her right in the eyes.
“Do you mean it?”
“I do, Gösta Berling.”
Then he wrung his hands in anguish. He saw before him the peering eyes, the compressed lips, the wasted little hands. This young creature would get protection and care, and the marks of degradation be effaced from her body, anger from her soul. Now the way up to the eternal forests was closed to him.
“I shall not kill myself as long as she is under your care,” he said. “I knew well enough that you would force me to live. I felt that you were stronger than I.”
“Gösta Berling,” she said solemnly, “I have fought for you as for myself. I said to God: ‘If there is anything of Margareta Celsing living in me, let her come forward and show herself, so that this man may not go and kill himself.’ And He granted it, and you saw her, and therefore you could not go. And she whispered to me that for that poor child’s sake you would give up your plan of dying. Ah, you fly, you wild birds, but our Lord knows the net which will catch you.”
“He is a great and wonderful God,” said Gösta Berling. “He has mocked me and cast me out, but He will not let me die. May His will be done!”
From that day Gösta Berling became a guest at Ekeby. Twice he tried to leave and make himself a way to live by his own work. The first time the major’s wife gave him a cottage near Ekeby; he moved thither and meant to live as a laborer. This succeeded for a while, but he soon wearied of the loneliness and the daily labor, and again returned as a guest. There was another time, when he became tutor at Borg for Count Henry Dohna. During this time he fell in love with the young Ebba Dohna, the count’s sister; but when she died, just as he thought he had nearly won her, he gave up every thought of being anything but guest at Ekeby. It seemed to him that for a dismissed priest all ways to make amends were closed.
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE LANDSCAPE
I must now describe the long lake, the rich plains and the blue mountains, since they were the scene where Gösta Berling and the other knights of Ekeby passed their joyous existence.
The lake has its sources far up in the north, and it is a perfect country for a lake. The forest and the mountains never cease to collect water for it; rivulets and brooks stream into it the whole year round. It has fine white sand to stretch itself over, headlands and islands to mirror and to look at, river sprites and sea nymphs have free play room there, and it quickly grows large and beautiful. There, in the north, it is smiling and friendly; one needs but to see it on a summer morning, when it lies half awake under a veil of mist, to perceive how gay it is. It plays first for a while, creeps softly, softly, out of its light covering, so magically beautiful that one can hardly recognize it; but then it casts from it, suddenly, the whole covering, and lies there bare and uncovered and rosy, shining in the morning light.
But the lake is not content with this life of play; it draws itself together to a narrow strait, breaks its way out through the sand-hills to the south, and seeks out a new kingdom for itself. And such a one it also finds; it gets larger and more powerful, has bottomless depths to fill, and a busy landscape to adorn. And now its water is darker, its shores less varying, its winds sharper, its whole character more severe. It has become a stately and magnificent lake. Many are the ships and the rafts of timber which pass there; late in the year it finds time to take its winter rest, rarely before Christmas. Often is it in peevish mood, when it grows white with wrath and drags down sailing-boats; but it can also lie in a dreamy calm and reflect the heavens.
But still farther out into the world will the lake go, although the mountains become bolder and space narrower; still farther down it comes, so that it once again must creep as a narrow strait between sand-bound shores. Then it broadens out for the third time, but no longer with the same beauty and might.
The shores sink down and become tame, gentler winds blow, the lake takes its winter rest early. It is still beautiful, but it has lost youth’s giddiness and manhood’s strength—it is now a lake like any other. With two arms it gropes after a way to Lake Vänern, and when that is found it throws itself with the feebleness of old age over the slopes and goes with a last thundering leap to rest.
The plain is as long as the lake; but it has no easy time to find a place between sea and mountain, all the way from the valley of the basin at the lake’s northern end, where it first dares to spread itself out, till it lays itself to easy rest by the Vänern’s shore. There is no doubt that the plain would rather follow the shore of the lake, long as it is, but the mountains give it no peace. The mountains are mighty granite walls, covered with woods, full of cliffs difficult to cross, rich in moss and lichen—in those old days the home of many wild things.
On the far-stretching ridges one often comes upon a wet swamp or a pool with dark water. Here and there is a charcoal kiln or an open patch where timber and wood have been cut, or a burnt clearing, and these all bear witness that there is work going on on the mountains; but as a rule they lie in careless peace and amuse themselves with watching the lights and shadows play over their slopes.
And with these mountains the plain, which is peaceful and rich, and loves work, wages a perpetual war, in a friendly spirit, however.
“It is quite enough,” says the plain to the mountains; “if you set up your walls about me, that is safety enough for me.”
But the mountains will not listen. They send out long rows of hills and barren table-lands way down to the lake. They raise great look-out towers on every promontory, and leave the shores of the lake so seldom that the plain can but rarely stretch itself out by the soft, broad sands. But it does not help to complain.
“You ought to be glad that we stand here,” the mountains say. “Think of that time before Christmas, when the icy fogs, day after day, rolled up from the Löfven. We do you good service.”
The plain complains that it has no space and an ugly view.
“You are so stupid,” answer the mountains; “if you could only feel how it is blowing down
