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

Kevenhüller alone saw who she was. At first he was dazzled like the others. But one day she wore a dress of green, shimmering silk, and when she had that on, Kevenhüller recognized her.

There she sat on silken cushions, and all the old men made themselves ridiculous to serve her. One was cook and another footman; one reader, one court-musician, one shoemaker; they all had their occupations.

They said she was ill, the odious witch; but Kevenhüller knew what that illness meant. She was laughing at them all.

He warned the pensioners against her. “Look at her small, pointed teeth,” he said, “and her wild, shining eyes. She is the wood-nymph⁠—all evil is about in these terrible times. I tell you she is the wood-nymph, come hither for our ruin. I have seen her before.”

But when Kevenhüller saw the wood-nymph and had recognized her, the desire for work came over him. It began to burn and seethe in his brain; his fingers ached with longing to bend themselves about hammer and file; he could hold out no longer. With a bitter heart he put on his working-blouse and shut himself in in an old smithy, which was to be his workshop.

A cry went out from Ekeby over the whole of Värmland:⁠—

“Kevenhüller has begun to work!”

A new wonder was to see the light. What should it be? Will he teach us to walk on the water, or to raise a ladder to the stars?

One night, the first or second of October, he had the wonder ready. He came out of the workshop and had it in his hand. It was a wheel which turned incessantly; as it turned, the spokes glowed like fire, and it gave out warmth and light. Kevenhüller had made a sun. When he came out of the workshop with it, the night grew so light that the sparrows began to chirp and the clouds to burn as if at dawn.

There should never again be darkness or cold on earth. His head whirled when he thought of it. The sun would continue to rise and set, but when it disappeared, thousands and thousands of his fire-wheels should flame through the land, and the air would quiver with warmth, as on the hottest summer-day. Harvests should ripen in midwinter; wild strawberries should cover the hillsides the whole year round; the ice should never bind the water.

His fire-wheel should create a new world. It should be furs to the poor and a sun to the miners. It should give power to the mills, life to nature, a new, rich, and happy existence to mankind. But at the same time he knew that it was all a dream and that the wood-nymph would never let him duplicate his wheel. And in his anger and longing for revenge, he thought that he would kill her, and then he no longer knew what he was doing.

He went to the main building, and in the hall under the stairs he put down his fire-wheel. It was his intention to set fire to the house and burn up the witch in it.

Then he went back to his workshop and sat there silently listening.

There was shouting and crying outside. Now they could see that a great deed was done.

Yes, run, scream, ring the alarm! But she is burning in there, the wood-nymph whom you laid on silken cushions.

May she writhe in torment, may she flee before the flames from room to room! Ah, how the green silk will blaze, and how the flames will play in her torrents of hair! Courage, flames! courage! Catch her, set fire to her! Witches burn! Fear not her magic, flames! Let her burn! There is one who for her sake must burn his whole life through.

Bells rang, wagons came rattling, pumps were brought out, water was carried up from the lake, people came running from all the neighboring villages. There were cries and wailings and commands; that was the roof, which had fallen in; there was the terrible crackling and roaring of a fire. But nothing disturbed Kevenhüller. He sat on the chopping-block and rubbed his hands.

Then he heard a crash, as if the heavens had fallen, and he started up in triumph. “Now it is done!” he cried. “Now she cannot escape; now she is crushed by the beams or burned up by the flames. Now it is done.”

And he thought of the honor and glory of Ekeby which had had to be sacrificed to get her out of the world⁠—the magnificent halls, where so much happiness had dwelt, the tables which had groaned under dainty dishes, the precious old furniture, silver and china, which could never be replaced⁠—

And then he sprang up with a cry. His fire-wheel, his sun, the model on which everything depended, had he not put it under the stairs to cause the fire?

Kevenhüller looked down on himself, paralyzed with dismay.

“Am I going mad?” he said. “How could I do such a thing?”

At the same moment the door of the workshop opened and the wood-nymph walked in.

She stood on the threshold, smiling and fair. Her green dress had neither hole nor stain, no smoke darkened her yellow hair. She was just as he had seen her in the marketplace at Karlstad in his young days; her tail hung between her feet, and she had all the wildness and fragrance of the wood about her.

“Ekeby is burning,” she said, and laughed.

Kevenhüller had the sledgehammer lifted and meant to throw it at her head, but then he saw that she had his fire-wheel in her hand.

“See what I have saved for you,” she said.

Kevenhüller threw himself on his knees before her.

“You have broken my carriage, you have rent my wings, and you have ruined my life. Have grace, have pity on me!”

She climbed up on the bench and sat there, just as young and mischievous as when he saw her first.

“I see that you know who I am,” she said.

“I know you, I