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

He awoke from his dream; his wife laid her hand on his arm. The people were gone. They were alone on the steps.

“Oh, Gösta, Gösta, how could you!”

She put her hands before her face and wept.

“It is true what I said,” he cried. “I have never promised the broom-girl to marry her. ‘Come here next Friday, and you shall see something funny!’ was all I ever said to her. It is not my fault that she cared for me.”

“Oh, it was not that; but how could you say to the people that I was good and pure? Gösta, Gösta! Do you not know that I loved you when I had no right to do it? I was ashamed, Gösta! I was ready to die of shame!”

And she was shaken by sobs.

He stood and looked at her.

“Oh, my friend, my beloved!” he said quietly. “How happy you are, who are so good! How happy to have such a beautiful soul!”

In the year 1770, in Germany, the afterwards learned and accomplished Kevenhüller was born. He was the son of a count, and could have lived in lofty palaces and ridden at the Emperor’s side if he had so wished; but he had not.

He could have liked to fasten windmill sails on the castle’s highest tower, turn the hall into a locksmith’s workshop, and the boudoir into a watchmaker’s. He would have liked to fill the castle with whirling wheels and working levers. But when he could not do it he left all the pomp and apprenticed himself to a watchmaker. There he learned everything there was to learn about cogwheels, springs, and pendulums. He learned to make sundials and star-dials, clocks with singing canary-birds and horn-blowing shepherds, chimes which filled a whole church-tower with their wonderful machinery, and watch-works so small that they could be set in a locket.

When he had got his patent of mastership, he bound his knapsack on his back, took his stick in his hand, and wandered from place to place to study everything that went with rollers and wheels. Kevenhüller was no ordinary watchmaker; he wished to be a great inventor and to improve the world.

When he had so wandered through many lands, he turned his steps towards Värmland, to there study mill-wheels and mining. One beautiful summer morning it so happened that he was crossing the marketplace of Karlstad. But that same beautiful summer morning it had pleased the wood-nymph to extend her walk as far as the town. The noble lady came also across the marketplace from the opposite direction, and so met Kevenhüller.

That was a meeting for a watchmaker’s apprentice. She had shining, green eyes, and a mass of light hair, which almost reached the ground, and she was dressed in green, changeable silk. She was the most beautiful woman Kevenhüller had ever seen.

He stood as if he had lost his wits, and stared at her as she came towards him.

She came direct from the deepest thicket of the wood, where the ferns are as high as trees, where the giant firs shut out the sun, so that it can only fall in golden drops on the yellow moss.

I should like to have been in Kevenhüller’s place, to see her as she came with ferns and pine-needles tangled in her yellow hair and a little black snake about her neck.

How the people must have stared at her! Horses bolted, frightened by her long, floating hair. The street boys ran after her. The men dropped their meat-axes to gape at her.

She herself went calm and majestic, only smiling a little at the excitement, so that Kevenhüller saw her small, pointed teeth shine between her red lips.

She had hung a cloak over her shoulders so that none should see who she was; but as ill-luck would have it, she had forgotten to cover her tail. It dragged along the paving stones.

Kevenhüller saw the tail; he was sorry that a noble lady should make herself the laughingstock of the town; so he bowed and said courteously:⁠—

“Would it not please your Grace to lift your train?”

The wood-nymph was touched, not only by his kindness, but by his politeness. She stopped before him and looked at him, so that he thought that shining sparks passed from her eyes into his brain. “Kevenhüller,” she said, “hereafter you shall be able with your two hands to execute whatever work you will, but only one of each kind.”

She said it and she could keep her word. For who does not know that the wood-nymph has the power to give genius and wonderful powers to those who win her favor?

Kevenhüller remained in Karlstad and hired a workshop there. He hammered and worked night and day. In a week he had made a wonder. It was a carriage, which went by itself. It went up hill and down hill, went fast or slow, could be steered and turned, be stopped and started, as one wished.

Kevenhüller became famous. He was so proud of his carriage that he journeyed up to Stockholm to show it to the king. He did not need to wait for post-horses nor to scold ostlers. He proudly rode in his own carriage and was there in a few hours.

He rode right up to the palace, and the king came out with his court ladies and gentlemen and looked at him. They could not praise him enough.

The king then said: “You might give me that carriage, Kevenhüller.” And although he answered no, the king persisted and wished to have the carriage.

Then Kevenhüller saw that in the king’s train stood a court lady with light hair and a green dress. He recognized her, and he understood that it was she who had advised the king to ask him for his carriage. He was in despair. He could not bear that another should have his carriage, nor did he dare to say no to the king. Therefore he drove it with such speed against the palace wall that