great curled moustaches, a pointed beard, aquiline nose, and narrow, squinting eyes in a net of intersecting wrinkles. There sat the great warrior cousin, Christopher, who never went outside the walls of the bachelors’ wing unless there was to be a bear-hunt or some foolhardy adventure; and beside him Uncle Eberhard, the philosopher, who had not come to Ekeby for pleasure and play, but in order to be able, undisturbed by concern for daily bread, to complete his great work in the science of sciences.
Last of all, and the best, the gentle Löwenborg, who sought the good in the world, and understood little of its ways, and Lilliecrona, the great musician, who had a good home, and was always longing to be there, but still remained at Ekeby, for his soul needed riches and variety to be able to bear life.
These eleven men had all left youth behind them, and several were in old age; but in the midst of them was one who was not more than thirty years old, and still possessed the full, undiminished strength of his mind and body. It was Gösta Berling, the Knight of Knights, who alone in himself was a better speaker, singer, musician, hunter, drinking companion and card-player than all of the others together. He possessed all gifts. What a man the major’s wife had made of him!
Look at him now in the speaker’s chair! The darkness sinks from the black roof in great festoons over him. His blond head shines through it like a young god’s. Slender, beautiful, eager for adventure, he stands there.
But he is speaking very seriously.
“Gentlemen and brothers, the time passes, the feast is far advanced, it is time to drink a toast to the thirteenth at the table!”
“Little brother Gösta,” cries Master Julius, “there is no thirteenth; we are only twelve.”
“At Ekeby a man dies every year,” continues Gösta with a more and more gloomy voice. “One of the guests of the bachelors’ wing dies, one of the glad, the careless, the eternal youth dies. What of that? Gentlemen should never be old. Could our trembling hands not lift a glass, could our quenched eyes not distinguish the cards, what has life for us, and what are we for life? One must die of the thirteen who celebrate Christmas eve in the smithy at Ekeby; but every year a new one comes to complete our number; a man, experienced in pleasure, one who can handle violin and card, must come and make our company complete. Old butterflies should know how to die while the summer sun is shining. A toast to the thirteenth!”
“But, Gösta, we are only twelve,” remonstrate the pensioners, and do not touch their glasses.
Gösta Berling, whom they called the poet, although he never wrote verses, continues with unaltered calmness: “Gentlemen and brothers! Have you forgotten who you are? You are they who hold pleasure by force in Värmland. You are they who set the fiddle-bows going, keep up the dance, make song and music resound through the land. You know how to keep your hearts from the love of gold, your hands from work. If you did not exist the dance would die, summer die, the roses die, card-playing die, song die, and in this whole blessed land there would be nothing but iron and owners of iron-works. Pleasure lives while you live. For six years have I celebrated Christmas eve in the Ekeby smithy, and never before has any one refused to drink to the thirteenth?”
“But, Gösta,” cry they all, “when we are only twelve how can we drink to the thirteenth?”
“Are we only twelve?” he says. “Why must we die out from the earth? Shall we be but eleven next year, but ten the year after. Shall our name become a legend, our company destroyed? I call upon him, the thirteenth, for I have stood up to drink his toast. From the ocean’s depths, from the bowels of the earth, from heaven, from hell I call him who shall complete our number.”
Then it rattled in the chimney, then the furnace-door opened, then the thirteenth came.
He was hairy, with tail and cloven-hoof, with horns and a pointed beard, and at the sight of him the pensioners start up with a cry.
But in uncontrollable joy Gösta Berling cries, “The thirteenth has come—a toast to the thirteenth!”
Yes, he has come, the old enemy of mankind, come to these foolhardy men who trouble the peace of the Holy Night. The friend of witches on their way to hell, who signs his bargains in blood on coal-black paper, he who danced with the countess at Ivarsnäs for seven days, and could not be exorcized by seven priests—he has come.
In stormy haste thoughts fly through the heads of the old adventurers at the sight of him. They wonder for whose sake he is out this night.
Many of them were ready to hurry away in terror, but they soon saw that the horned one had not come to carry them down to his dark kingdom, but that the ring of the cups and their songs had attracted him. He wished to enjoy a little human pleasure in this holy night, and cast aside his burden during this glad time.
Oh, pensioners, pensioners, who of you now remembers it is the night before Christmas; that even now angels are singing for the shepherds in the fields? Children are lying anxious lest they sleep too soundly, that they may not wake in time for the beautiful morning worship. Soon it will be time to light the Christmas candles in the church at Bro, and far away in the forest homes the young man in the evening has prepared a resin torch to light his girl to church. In all the houses the mistress has placed dip-lights in the windows, ready to light as the people go by to church. The sexton takes up the Christmas psalm in his sleep, and the old minister lies and tries if he has enough voice left to sing: “Glory be to God on high, on earth peace, good-will towards men!”
Oh, pensioners, better had it been for you if you had spent this peaceful night quietly in your beds than to trouble the company with the Prince of Darkness.
But they greet him with cries of welcome, as Gösta had done. A goblet filled with burning brandy is placed in his hand. They give him the place of honor at the table, and they look upon him with gladness, as if his ugly satyr face wore the delicate features of their youth’s first love.
Beerencreutz invites him to a game of cards, Master Julius sings his best songs for him, and Örneclou talks to him of lovely women, those beautiful creatures who make life sweet.
He enjoys everything, the devil, as with princely bearing he leans back on the old coach-box, and with clawed hand lifts the brimming goblet to his smiling mouth.
But Gösta Berling of course must make a speech in his honor.
“Your Grace,” he says, “we have long awaited you here at Ekeby, for you have little access, we suppose, to any other paradise. Here one can live without toiling or spinning, as your Grace perhaps knows. Here roasted ortolans fly into one’s mouth, and the bitter ale and the sweet brandy flow in brooks and rivulets. This is a good place, your Grace! We pensioners have waited for you, I tell you, for we have never been complete before. See, we are something finer than we seem; we are the mighty twelve of the poet, who are of all time. We were twelve when we steered the world, up there on Olympus’s cloud-veiled top, and twelve when we lived like birds in Ygdrasil’s green crown. Wherever there has been poetry there have we followed. Did we not sit twelve men strong about King Arthur’s Round Table, and were there not twelve paladins at Charlemagne’s court? One of us has been a Thor, a Jupiter; any one can see that in us now. They can perceive the divine splendor under our rags, the lion’s mane under the ass’s head. Times are bad with us, but if we are there a smithy becomes Olympus and the bachelors’ wing Valhalla.
“But, your Grace, our number has not been complete. Every one knows that in the poet’s twelve there must always be a Loki, a Prometheus. Him have we been without.”
“Your Grace, I wish you welcome!”
