The Story of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf (readnow txt) 📕

“Give him what belongs to him! He has brought the drought on us.”

And each one stops, each one says his word and throws his branch before he goes on.

In the corner by the path there soon lies a pile of sticks and straw⁠—a pile of shame for the Broby clergyman.

That was their only revenge. No one lifted his hand against the clergyman or said an angry word to him. Desperate hearts cast off part of their burden by throwing a dry branch on the pile. They did not revenge themselves. They only pointed out the guilty one to the God of retribution.

“If we have not worshipped you rightly, it is that man’s fault. Be pitiful, Lord, and let him alone suffer! We mark him with shame and dishonor. We are not with him.”

It soon became the custom for everyone who passed the vicarage to throw a dry branch on the pile of shame.

The old miser soon noticed the pile by the roadside. He had it carried away⁠—some said that he heated his stove with it. The next day a new pile had collected on the same spot, and as soon as he had that taken away a new one was begun.

The dry branches lay there and said: “Shame, shame to the Broby clergyman!”

Soon the people’s meaning became clear to him. He understood that they pointed to him as the origin of their misfortune. It was in wrath at him God let the earth languish. He tried to laugh at them and their branches; but when it had gone on a week, he laughed no more. Oh, what childishness! How can those dry sticks injure him? He understood that the hate of years sought an opportunity of expressing itself. What of that?⁠—he was not used to love.

For all this he did not become more gentle. He had perhaps wished to improve after the old lady had visited him; now he could not. He would not be forced to it.

But gradually the pile grew too strong for him. He thought of it continually, and the feeling which everyone cherished took root also in him. He watched the pile, counted the branches which had been added each day. The thought of it encroached upon all other thoughts. The pile was destroying him.

Every day he felt more and more the people were right. He grew thin and very old in a couple of weeks. He suffered from remorse and indisposition. But it was as if everything depended on that pile. It was as if his remorse would grow silent, and the weight of years be lifted off him, if only the pile would stop growing.

Finally he sat there the whole day and watched; but the people were without mercy. At night there were always new branches thrown on.

One day Gösta Berling passed along the road. The Broby clergyman sat at the roadside, old and haggard. He sat and picked out the dry sticks and laid them together in rows and piles, playing with them as if he were a child again. Gösta was grieved at his misery.

“What are you doing, pastor?” he says, and leaps out of the carriage.

“Oh, I am sitting here and picking. I am not doing anything.”

“You had better go home, and not sit here in the dust.”

“It is best that I sit here.”

Then Gösta Berling sits down beside him.

“It is not so easy to be a priest,” he says after a while.

“It is all very well down here where there are people,” answers the clergyman. “It is worse up there.”

Gösta understands what he means. He knows those parishes in Northern Värmland where sometimes there is not even a house for the clergyman, where there are not more than a couple of people in ten miles of country, where the clergyman is the only educated man. The Broby minister had been in such a parish for over twenty years.

“That is where we are sent when we are young,” says Gösta. “It is impossible to hold out with such a life; and so one is ruined forever. There are many who have gone under up there.”

“Yes,” says the Broby clergyman; “a man is destroyed by loneliness.”

“A man comes,” says Gösta, “eager and ardent, exhorts and admonishes, and thinks that all will be well, that the people will soon turn to better ways.”

“Yes, yes.”

“But soon he sees that words do not help. Poverty stands in the way. Poverty prevents all improvement.”

“Poverty,” repeats the clergyman⁠—“poverty has ruined my life.”

“The young minister comes up there,” continues Gösta, “poor as all the others. He says to the drunkard: Stop drinking!”

“Then the drunkard answers,” interrupts the clergyman: “Give me something which is better than brandy! Brandy is furs in winter, coolness in summer. Brandy is a warm house and a soft bed. Give me those, and I will drink no more.”

“And then,” resumes Gösta, “the minister says to the thief: You shall not steal; and to the cruel husband: You shall not beat your wife; and to the superstitious: You shall believe in God and not in devils and goblins. But the thief answers: Give me bread; and the cruel husband says: Make us rich, and we will not quarrel; and the superstitious say: Teach us better. But who can help them without money?”

“It is true, true every word,” cried the clergyman. “They believed in God, but more in the devil, and most in the mountain goblin. The crops were all turned into the still. There seemed to be no end to the misery. In most of the gray cottages there was want. Hidden sorrow made the women’s tongues bitter. Discomfort drove their husbands to drink. They could not look after their fields or their cattle. They made a fool of their minister. What could a man do with them? They did not understand what I said to them from the pulpit. They did not believe what I wanted to teach them. And no one to consult, no one who could help