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

curve of her nose, and of her lips, as softly turned as rolling waves, and of her cheek’s long oval and her chin’s perfect shape.

And he thought of the rosy hue of her skin, of the magical effect of her coal-black eyebrows with her light hair, and of her blue irises swimming in clear white, and of the light in her eyes.

She was beautiful, his beloved! He thought of the warm heart which she hid under a proud exterior. She had strength for devotion and self-sacrifice concealed under that fine skin and her proud words. It was bliss to see her.

He had rushed up the stairs in two bounds, and she thought that he would stop at the door. He stormed through the room and fell on his knees at the head of her bed.

But he meant to see her, to kiss her, and to bid her farewell.

He loved her. He would certainly never cease to love her, but his heart was used to being trampled on. Oh, where should he find her, that rose without support or roots, which he could take and call his own? He might not keep even her whom he had found disowned and half dead at the roadside.

When should his love raise its voice in a song so loud and clear that he should hear no dissonance through it? When should his palace of happiness be built on a ground for which no other heart longed restlessly and with regret?

He thought how he would bid her farewell.

“There is great sorrow in your home,” he would say. “My heart is torn at the thought of it. You must go home and give your father his reason again. Your mother lives in continual danger of death. You must go home, my beloved.”

These were the words he had on his lips, but they were never spoken.

He fell on his knees at the head of her bed, and he took her face between his hands and kissed her; but then he could not speak. His heart began to beat so fiercely, as if it would burst his breast.

Smallpox had passed over that lovely face. Her skin had become coarse and scarred. Never again should the red blood glow in her cheeks, or the fine blue veins show on her temples. Her eyebrows had fallen out, and the shining white of her eyes had changed to yellow.

Everything was laid waste. The bold lines had become coarse and heavy.

They were not few who mourned over Marianne Sinclair’s lost beauty. In the whole of Värmland, people lamented the change in her bright color, her sparkling eyes, and blond hair. There beauty was prized as nowhere else. The joyous people grieved, as if the country had lost a precious stone from the crown of its honor, as if their life had received a blot on its glory.

But the first man who saw her after she had lost her beauty did not indulge in sorrow.

Unutterable emotion filled his soul. The more he looked at her, the warmer it grew within him. Love grew and grew, like a river in the spring. In waves of fire it welled up in his heart, it filled his whole being, it rose to his eyes as tears; it sighed on his lips, trembled in his hands, in his whole body.

Oh, to love her, to protect her, to keep her from all harm!

To be her slave, her guide!

Love is strong when it has gone through the baptismal fire of pain. He could not speak to Marianne of parting and renunciation. He could not leave her⁠—he owed her his life. He could commit the unpardonable sin for her sake.

He could not speak a coherent word, he only wept and kissed, until at last the old nurse thought it was time to lead him out.

When he had gone, Marianne lay and thought of him and his emotion. “It is good to be so loved,” she thought.

Yes, it was good to be loved, but how was it with herself? What did she feel? Oh, nothing, less than nothing!

Was it dead, her love, or where had it taken flight? Where had it hidden itself, her heart’s child?

Did it still live? Had it crept into her heart’s darkest corner and sat there freezing under the icy eyes, frightened by the pale sneer, half suffocated under the bony fingers?

“Ah, my love,” she sighed, “child of my heart! Are you alive, or are you dead, dead as my beauty?”

The next day Melchior Sinclair went in early to his wife.

“See to it that there is order in the house again, Gustava!” he said. “I am going to bring Marianne home.”

“Yes, dear Melchior, here there will of course be order,” she answered.

Thereupon there was peace between them.

An hour afterwards he was on his way to Ekeby.

It was impossible to find a more noble and kindly old gentleman than Melchior Sinclair, as he sat in the open sledge in his best fur cloak and his best rug. His hair lay smooth on his head, but his face was pale and his eyes were sunken in their sockets.

There was no limit to the brilliancy of the clear sky on that February day. The snow sparkled like a young girl’s eyes when she hears the music of the first waltz. The birches stretched the fine lacework of their reddish-brown twigs against the sky, and on some of them hung a fringe of little icicles.

There was a splendor and a festive glow in the day. The horses prancing threw up their forelegs, and the coachman cracked his whip in sheer pleasure of living.

After a short drive the sledge drew up before the great steps at Ekeby.

The footman came out.

“Where are your masters?” asked Melchior.

“They are hunting the great bear in Gurlitta Cliff.”

“All of them?”

“All of them, sir. Those who do not go for the sake of the bear go for the sake of the luncheon.”

Melchior laughed so that it echoed through the silent yard. He gave the man a crown for