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

journey in the condition the roads were in was to play with his life; but he did it. It took him over bending ice and breakneck freshets. Sometimes he had to cut steps for the horse in the ice, sometimes drag him out of the deep clay in the road. It was said that the doctor refused to go with him, and that he, with pistol in hand, forced him to set out.

“When he came back the countess was ready to throw herself at his feet. ‘Take everything!’ she said. ‘Say what you want, what you desire⁠—my daughter, my lands, my money!’

“ ‘Your daughter,’ answered the tutor.”

Anna Stjärnhök suddenly stops.

“Well, what then, what then?” asks Countess Elizabeth.

“That can be enough for now,” answers Anna, for she is one of those unhappy people who live in the anguish of doubt. She has felt it a whole week. She does not know what she wants. What one moment seems right to her the next is wrong. Now she wishes that she had never begun this story.

“I begin to think that you want to deceive me, Anna. Do you not understand that I must hear the end of this story?”

“There is not much more to tell.⁠—The hour of strife was come for Ebba Dohna. Love raised itself against love, earth against heaven.

“Countess Märta told her of the wonderful journey which the young man had made for her sake, and she said to her that she, as a reward, had given him her hand.

“Ebba was so much better that she lay dressed on a sofa. She was weak and pale, and even more silent than usual.

“When she heard those words she lifted her brown eyes reproachfully to her mother, and said to her:⁠—

“ ‘Mamma, have you given me to a dismissed priest, to one who has forfeited his right to serve God, to a man who has been a thief, a beggar?’

“ ‘But, child, who has told you that? I thought you knew nothing of it.’

“ ‘I heard your guests speaking of him the day I was taken ill.’

“ ‘But, child, remember that he has saved your life!’

“ ‘I remember that he has deceived me. He should have told me who he was.’

“ ‘He says that you love him.’

“ ‘I have done so. I cannot love one who has deceived me.’

“ ‘How has he deceived you?’

“ ‘You would not understand, mamma.’

“She did not wish to speak to her mother of the kingdom of her dreams, which her beloved should have helped her to realize.

“ ‘Ebba,’ said the countess, ‘if you love him you shall not ask what he has been, but marry him. The husband of a Countess Dohna will be rich enough, powerful enough, to excuse all the follies of his youth.’

“ ‘I care nothing for his youthful follies, mamma; it is because he can never be what I want him to be that I cannot marry him.’

“ ‘Ebba, remember that I have given him my promise!’

“The girl became as pale as death.

“ ‘Mamma, I tell you that if you marry me to him you part me from God.’

“ ‘I have decided to act for your happiness,’ says the countess. ‘I am certain that you will be happy with this man. You have already succeeded in making a saint of him. I have decided to overlook the claims of birth and to forget that he is poor and despised, in order to give you a chance to raise him. I feel that I am doing right. You know that I scorn all old prejudices.’

“The young girl lay quiet on her sofa for a while after the countess had left her. She was fighting her battle. Earth raised itself against heaven, love against love; but her childhood’s love won the victory. As she lay there on the sofa, she saw the western sky glow in a magnificent sunset. She thought that it was a greeting from the good King; and as she could not be faithful to him if she lived, she decided to die. There was nothing else for her to do, since her mother wished her to belong to one who never could be the good King’s servant.

“She went over to the window, opened it, and let the twilight’s cold, damp air chill her poor, weak body.

“It was easily done. The illness was certain to begin again, and it did.

“No one but I knows that she sought death, Elizabeth. I found her at the window. I heard her delirium. She liked to have me at her side those last days.

“It was I who saw her die; who saw how she one evening stretched out her arms towards the glowing west, and died, smiling, as if she had seen someone advance from the sunset’s glory to meet her. It was also I who had to take her last greeting to the man she loved. I was to ask him to forgive her, that she could not be his wife. The good King would not permit it.

“But I have never dared to say to that man that he was her murderer. I have not dared to lay the weight of such pain on his shoulders. And yet he, who won her love by lies, was he not her murderer? Was he not, Elizabeth?”

Countess Dohna long ago had stopped caressing the blue flowers. Now she rises, and the bouquet falls to the floor.

“Anna, you are deceiving me. You say that the story is old, and that the man has been dead a long time. But I know that it is scarcely five years since Ebba Dohna died, and you say that you yourself were there through it all. You are not old. Tell me who the man is!”

Anna Stjärnhök begins to laugh.

“You wanted a love-story. Now you have had one which has cost you both tears and pain.”

“Do you mean that you have lied?”

“Nothing but romance and lies, the whole thing!”

“You are too bad, Anna.”

“Maybe. I am not so happy, either.⁠—But the ladies are awake, and the men are coming into the drawing-room. Let us join them!”

On the threshold she