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

had seen such a little woman twenty-five years ago, he must have come forward and offered himself.

She is so pretty and rosy and nimble, but her eyes are quite red with weeping. It is that which suggests such tender thoughts.

While the men eat and drink, she goes in and out of the room. Once she comes to her brother, courtesies, and says⁠—

“How do you wish me to place the cows in the stable?”

“Put twelve on the left and eleven on the right, then they can’t gore one another.”

“Have you so many cows, Faber?” bursts out the major.

The fact was that the organist had only two cows, but he called one eleven and the other twelve, that it might sound fine, when he spoke of them.

And then the major hears that Faber’s barn is being altered, so that the cows are out all day and at night are put into the woodshed.

The little maiden comes again to her brother, courtesies to him, and says that the carpenter had asked how high the barn should be made.

“Measure by the cows,” says the organist, “measure by the cows!”

Major Fuchs thinks that is such a good answer. However it comes to pass, the major asks the organist why his sister’s eyes are so red, and learns that she weeps because he will not let her marry the penniless sexton, in debt and without inheritance as he is.

Major Fuchs grows more and more thoughtful. He empties tankard after tankard, and eats sausage after sausage, without noticing it. Little Faber is appalled at such an appetite and thirst; but the more the major eats and drinks, the clearer and more determined his mind grows. The more decided becomes his resolution to do something for the little maiden Faber.

He has kept his eyes fixed on the great key which hangs on a knob by the door, and as soon as little Faber, who has had to keep up with the major in drinking the home-brewed ale, lays his head on the table and snores, Major Fuchs has seized the key, put on his cap, and hurried away.

A minute later he is groping his way up the tower stairs, lighted by his little horn lantern, and comes at last to the bell-room, where the bells open their wide throats over him. He scrapes off a little of the bell-metal with a file, and is just going to take the bullet-mould and melting-ladle out of his hunting-bag, when he finds that he has forgotten what is most important of all: he has no silver with him. If there shall be any power in the bullet, it must be cast there in the tower. Everything is right; it is Thursday evening and a new moon, and no one has any idea he is there, and now he cannot do anything. He sends forth into the silence of the night an oath with such a ring in it that the bells hum.

Then he hears a slight noise down in the church and thinks he hears steps on the stairs. Yes, it is true, heavy steps are coming up the stairs.

Major Fuchs, who stands there and swears so that the bells vibrate, is a little thoughtful at that. He wonders who it can be who is coming to help him with the bullet-casting. The steps come nearer and nearer. Whoever it is, is coming all the way up to the bell-room.

The major creeps far in among the beams and rafters, and puts out his lantern. He is not exactly afraid, but the whole thing would be spoiled if anyone should see him there. He has scarcely had time to hide before the newcomer’s head appears above the floor.

The major knows him well; it is the miserly Broby minister. He, who is nearly mad with greed, has the habit of hiding his treasures in the strangest places. He comes now with a roll of banknotes which he is going to hide in the tower-room. He does not know that anyone sees him. He lifts up a board in the floor and puts in the money and takes himself off again.

The major is not slow; he lifts up the same board. Oh, so much money! Package after package of banknotes, and among them brown leather bags, full of silver. The major takes just enough silver to make a bullet; the rest he leaves.

When he comes down to the earth again, he has the silver bullet in his gun. He wonders what luck has in store for him that night. It is marvellous on Thursday nights, as everyone knows. He goes up towards the organist’s house. Fancy if the bear knew that Faber’s cows are in a miserable shed, no better than under the bare sky.

What! surely he sees something black and big coming over the field towards the woodshed; it must be the bear. He puts the gun to his cheek and is just going to shoot, but then he changes his mind.

The little maid’s red eyes come before him in the darkness; he thinks that he will help her and the sexton a little, but it is hard not to kill the great bear himself. He said afterwards that nothing in the world had ever been so hard, but as the little maiden was so dear and sweet, it had to be done.

He goes up to the sexton’s house, wakes him, drags him out, half dressed and half naked, and says that he shall shoot the bear which is creeping about outside of Faber’s woodshed.

“If you shoot the bear, he will surely give you his sister,” he says, “for then you will be a famous man. That is no ordinary bear, and the best men in the country would consider it an honor to kill it.”

And he puts into his hand his own gun, loaded with a bullet of silver and bell-metal cast in a church tower on a Thursday evening at the new moon, and he cannot help trembling with envy that