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

He stops the horse.

“Well, well,” he says; “what a piece of luck! Dear Miss Stjärnhök, let me move my companion over to your sledge. He is going to Berga tonight, and I am in a hurry to get home.”

“Where is your companion?”

Sintram lifts his blanket, and shows Anna a man who is lying asleep on the bottom of the sledge. “He is a little drunk,” he says; “but what does that matter? He will sleep. It’s an old acquaintance, moreover; it is Gösta Berling.”

Anna shudders.

“Well, I will tell you,” continues Sintram, “that she who forsakes the man she loves sells him to the devil. That was the way I got into his claws. People think they do so well, of course; to renounce is good, and to love is evil.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” asks Anna, quite disturbed.

“I mean that you should not have let Gösta Berling go from you, Miss Anna.”

“It was God’s will.”

“Yes, yes, that’s the way it is; to renounce is good, and to love is evil. The good God does not like to see people happy. He sends wolves after them. But if it was not God who did it, Miss Anna? Could it not just as well have been I who called my little gray lambs from the Dovre mountains to hunt the young man and the young girl? Think, if it was I who sent the wolves, because I did not wish to lose one of my own! Think, if it was not God who did it!”

“You must not tempt me to doubt that,” says Anna, in a weak voice, “for then I am lost.”

“Look here,” says Sintram, and bends down over the sleeping Gösta Berling; “look at his little finger. That little sore never heals. We took the blood there when he signed the contract. He is mine. There is a peculiar power in blood. He is mine, and it is only love which can free him; but if I am allowed to keep him he will be a fine thing.”

Anna Stjärnhök struggles and struggles to shake off the fascination which has seized her. It is all madness, madness. No one can swear away his soul to the odious tempter. But she has no power over her thoughts; the twilight lies so heavy over her, the woods stand so dark and silent. She cannot escape the dreadful terror of the moment.

“You think, perhaps,” continues Sintram, “that there is not much left in him to ruin. But don’t think that! Has he ground down the peasants, has he deceived poor friends, has he cheated at cards? Has he, Miss Anna, has he been a married woman’s lover?”

“I think you are the devil himself!”

“Let us exchange. You take Gösta Berling, take him and marry him. Keep him, and give them at Berga the money. I yield him up to you, and you know that he is mine. Think that it was not God who sent the wolves after you the other night, and let us exchange!”

“What do you want as compensation?”

Sintram grinned.

“I⁠—what do I want? Oh, I am satisfied with little. I only want that old woman there in your sledge, Miss Anna.”

“Satan, tempter,” cries Anna, “leave me! Shall I betray an old friend who relies on me? Shall I leave her to you, that you may torture her to madness?”

“There, there, there; quietly, Miss Anna! Think what you are doing! Here is a fine young man, and there an old, worn-out woman. One of them I must have. Which of them will you let me keep?”

Anna Stjärnhök laughed wildly.

“Do you think that we can stand here and exchange souls as they exchange horses at the market at Broby?”

“Just so, yes. But if you will, we shall put it on another basis. We shall think of the honor of the Stjärnhöks.”

Thereupon he begins to call in a loud voice to his wife, who is sitting in Anna’s sledge; and, to the girl’s unspeakable horror, she obeys the summons instantly, gets out of the sledge, and comes, trembling and shaking, to them.

“See, see, see!⁠—such an obedient wife,” says Sintram. “You cannot prevent her coming when her husband calls. Now, I shall lift Gösta out of my sledge and leave him here⁠—leave him for good, Miss Anna. Whoever may want to can pick him up.”

He bends down to lift Gösta up; but Anna leans forward, fixes him with her eyes, and hisses like an angry animal:⁠—

“In God’s name, go home! Do you not know who is sitting in the rocking-chair in the drawing-room and waiting for you? Do you dare to let him wait?”

It was for Anna almost the climax of the horrors of the day to see how these words affect him. He drags on the reins, turns, and drives homewards, urging the horse to a gallop with blows and wild cries down the dreadful hill, while a long line of sparks crackle under the runners and hoofs in the thin March snow.

Anna Stjärnhök and Ulrika Dillner stand alone in the road, but they do not say a word. Ulrika trembles before Anna’s wild eyes, and Anna has nothing to say to the poor old thing, for whose sake she has sacrificed her beloved.

She would have liked to weep, to rave, to roll on the ground and strew snow and sand on her head.

Before, she had known the sweetness of renunciation, now she knew its bitterness. What was it to sacrifice her love compared to sacrificing her beloved’s soul? They drove on to Berga in the same silence; but when they arrived, and the hall-door was opened, Anna Stjärnhök fainted for the first and only time in her life. There sat both Sintram and Gösta Berling, and chatted quietly. The tray with toddy had been brought in; they had been there at least an hour.

Anna Stjärnhök fainted, but old Ulrika stood calm. She had noticed that everything was not right with him who had followed them on the road.

Afterwards