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

That face belonged to the major’s wife at Ekeby, and the young woman knew that her pleasure for the evening was now spoiled.

One can be glad when one does not see sorrow, only hears it spoken of. But it is harder to keep a joyous heart when one stands face to face with black, fierce, staring trouble.

The countess knows of course that Bailiff Scharling had put the major’s wife in prison, and that she shall be tried for the assault she made on Ekeby the night of the great ball. But she never thought that she should be kept in custody there at the bailiff’s house, so near the ballroom that one could look into her room, so near that she must hear the dance music and the noise of merrymaking. And the thought takes away all her pleasure.

The young countess dances both waltz and quadrille. She takes part in both minuet and contradance; but after each dance she steals to the window in the wing. There is a light there and she can see how the major’s wife walks up and down in her room. She never seems to rest, but walks and walks.

The countess takes no pleasure in the dance. She only thinks of the major’s wife going backwards and forwards in her prison like a caged wild beast. She wonders how all the others can dance. She is sure there are many there who are as much moved as she to know that the major’s wife is so near, and still there is no one who shows it.

But every time she has looked out her feet grow heavier in the dance, and the laugh sticks in her throat.

The bailiff’s wife notices her as she wipes the moisture from the windowpane to see out, and comes to her.

“Such misery! Oh, it is such suffering!” she whispers to the countess.

“I think it is almost impossible to dance tonight,” whispers the countess back again.

“It is not with my consent that we dance here, while she is sitting shut up there,” answers Madame Scharling. “She has been in Karlstad since she was arrested. But there is soon to be a trial now, and that is why she was brought here today. We could not put her in that miserable cell in the courthouse, so she was allowed to stay in the weaving-room in the wing. She should have had my drawing-room, countess, if all these people had not come today. You hardly know her, but she has been like a mother and queen to us all. What will she think of us, who are dancing here, while she is in such great trouble. It is as well that most of them do not know that she is sitting there.”

“She ought never to have been arrested,” says the young countess, sternly.

“No, that is a true word, countess, but there was nothing else to do, if there should not be a worse misfortune. No one blamed her for setting fire to her own haystack and driving out the pensioners, but the major was scouring the country for her. God knows what he would have done if she had not been put in prison. Scharling has given much offence because he arrested the major’s wife, countess. Even in Karlstad they were much displeased with him, because he did not shut his eyes to everything which happened at Ekeby; but he did what he thought was best.”

“But now I suppose she will be sentenced?” says the countess.

“Oh, no, countess, she will not be sentenced. She will be acquitted, but all that she has to bear these days is being too much for her. She is going mad. You can understand, such a proud woman, how can she bear to be treated like a criminal! I think that it would have been best if she had been allowed to go free. She might have been able to escape by herself.”

“Let her go,” says the countess.

“Anyone can do that but the bailiff and his wife,” whispers Madame Scharling. “We have to guard her. Especially tonight, when so many of her friends are here, two men sit on guard outside her door, and it is locked and barred so that no one can come in. But if anyone got her out, countess, we should be so glad, both Scharling and I.”

“Can I not go to her?” says the young countess. Madame Scharling seizes her eagerly by the wrist and leads her out with her. In the hall they throw a couple of shawls about them, and hurry across the yard.

“It is not certain that she will even speak to us,” says the bailiff’s wife. “But she will see that we have not forgotten her.”

They come into the first room in the wing, where the two men sit and guard the barred door, and go in without being stopped to the major’s wife. She was in a large room crowded with looms and other implements. It was used mostly for a weaving-room, but it had bars in the window and a strong lock on the door, so that it could be used, in case of need, for a cell.

The major’s wife continues to walk without paying any attention to them.

She is on a long wandering these days. She cannot remember anything except that she is going the hundred and twenty miles to her mother, who is up in the Älfdal woods, and is waiting for her. She never has time to rest She must go. A never-resting haste is on her. Her mother is over ninety years old. She would soon be dead.

She has measured off the floor by yards, and she is now adding up the yards to furlongs and the furlongs to half-miles and miles.

Her way seems heavy and long, but she dares not rest. She wades through deep drifts. She hears the forests murmur over her as she goes. She rests in Finn huts and in the charcoal-burner’s log cabin. Sometimes, when