He let Beerencreutz receive the storm. In indolent calm this man, tested in many adventures, stood over by the fire. He had set his foot up on the grating, rested his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand, and looked at those who came storming in.
“What is all this supposed to mean?” the little count roared at him.
“It means,” he said, “that as long as there are womenfolk on the earth, there will also be fools who dance to their tune.”
The young count became red in the face.
“I am asking what this means!” he repeated.
“I’m asking that too,” mocked Beerencreutz. “I’m asking what it means that Henrik Dohna’s countess doesn’t want to dance with Gösta Berling.”
The count turned questioningly toward his wife.
“I couldn’t do it, Henrik!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t dance with him or any of them. I was thinking about the majoress, whom they let languish in jail.”
The little count straightened out his stiff body and raised his old man’s head.
“We cavaliers,” said Beerencreutz, “allow no one to insult us. Anyone who doesn’t want to dance with us must ride with us. No harm has been done to the countess, and with that the matter can be over.”
“No!” said the count. “The matter cannot be over with that. I am the one who answers for my wife’s actions. Now I am asking why Gösta Berling did not turn to me to get satisfaction when my wife had offended him.”
Beerencreutz smiled.
“I am asking!” repeated the count.
“You don’t ask the fox for permission to take his hide off,” said Beerencreutz.
The count put his hand on his narrow chest.
“I have a reputation for being a just man,” he burst out. “I can judge my servants. Why should I not be able to judge my wife? The cavaliers do not have the right to judge her. I void the punishment which they have applied to her. It has never happened, do you understand, gentlemen? It has never happened.”
The count shouted out these words in the highest falsetto. Beerencreutz cast a quick glance out over the congregation. There was not one of those present—Sintram and Daniel Bendix and Dahlberg and all, whoever it might have been who had followed along inside—who was not enjoying how he was fooling the stupid Henrik Dohna.
The young countess understood at once. What was it that should count for nothing? Her anxiety, the cavaliers’ hard grip on her tender body, the wild song, the wild words, the wild kisses, should all that not have happened? Did this evening not exist, over which the gray twilight goddess did not rule?
“But, Henrik—”
“Silence!” he said. And he straightened up to give her a lecture as punishment. “Curse you, that you who are a woman have wanted to set yourself up as a judge over men!” he says. “Curse you, that you who are my wife dares to offend someone whose hand I gladly grasp! What do you have to do with the cavaliers having put the majoress in jail? Didn’t they have the right? You can never know how a man must be enraged in the depths of his soul when he hears talk of women’s infidelity. Do you yourself intend to walk that evil path, since you are coming to the defense of such a woman?”
“But, Henrik—”
She complained like a child and stretched out her arms as if to ward off the angry words. She had perhaps never heard such hard words directed at her. She was so helpless among these hard men, and now her only defender turned against her. Never more would her heart have the power to light up the world.
“But, Henrik, it’s you after all who should protect me!”
Gösta Berling was attentive now, when it was too late. To be sure, he didn’t know what he should do. He wished her so well. But he dared not force his way in between husband and wife.
“Where is Gösta Berling?” the count inquired.
“Here!” said Gösta. And he made a pitiful attempt to laugh off the matter. “The count was just about to give a speech, and I fell asleep. What would the count say if we were to go home now and let you go to bed?”
“Gösta Berling, because my countess has refused to dance with you, I command that she kiss your hand and ask you for forgiveness.”
“My dear Count Henrik,” said Gösta smiling, “this is not a hand that is suitable for a young woman to kiss. Yesterday it was red with blood from a wounded moose, tonight black with soot after a fistfight with a charcoal burner. The count has pronounced a noble and high-minded sentence. That is satisfaction enough. Come, Beerencreutz!”
The count placed himself in his way.
“Don’t go!” he said. “My wife must obey me. I want my countess to know where willful behavior will lead.”
Gösta stopped, helpless. The countess was completely pale, but she did not move.
“Go!” said the count.
“Henrik, I cannot.”
“You can,” said the count sternly. “You can. But I know what you want. You want to force me to fight with this man, because you, in your capriciousness, do not like him. Well then, if you do not want to give him satisfaction, then I will. It is always dear to you women, if men are killed for your sakes. You have committed the wrong, but will not redeem it. So I have to do it. I will fight a duel, my countess. In a few hours I will be a bloody corpse.”
She gave him a long look. And she saw him as he was: stupid, cowardly, inflated with arrogance and vanity, the most lamentable of people.
“Calm down!” she said. And she had become as cold as ice. “I will do it.”
But now Gösta Berling was completely beside himself.
“You may not, countess! No, you may not! You are only a child, after all, a weak, innocent child, and you would kiss my hand! You have such a white, lovely soul. I will never get close to you again. Oh, never again! I bring death and destruction over everything good and guiltless. You must not touch me. I tremble before you like fire before water. You may not!”
He stuck his hands behind his back.
“That means nothing to me, Mr. Berling. Now it means nothing to me. I ask you for forgiveness. I ask you, to let me kiss your hand.”
Gösta kept his hands behind his back. He considered his position. He approached the door.
“If you do not accept this satisfaction that my wife is offering, I must fight with you, Gösta Berling, and I must impose another, harder punishment on her besides.”
The countess shrugged her shoulders. “He is crazy with cowardice,” she whispered. “Let it happen now! It means nothing that I am humiliated. That is just what you wanted the whole time.”
“Did I want that? Do you think that I wanted that? Well, if I no longer have any hands to kiss, then you must see that I haven’t wanted that,” he exclaimed.
He ran over to the fire and put his hands into it. The flames wrapped around them, the skin wrinkled, the nails crackled. But at the same moment Beerencreutz caught him by the neck and threw him headlong onto the floor. He stumbled against a chair and remained sitting. He was almost ashamed at such a stupid prank. Would she not think that he simply did it to show off? Doing a thing like that in a room full of people would have to look like stupid showing off. There hadn’t been a hint of danger.
Before he could think about getting up, the countess was on her knees beside him. She took hold of the red, sooty hands and observed them.
“I will kiss them, kiss them,” she exclaimed, “as soon as they are not too tender and sore!” And the tears were streaming from her eyes as she saw the blisters rise up under the singed skin.
Then he became like a revelation of an unknown magnificence for her. That such things could still happen on this earth, that such a thing could be done for her! No, what a man, what a man was this, ready for everything, magnificent in good as in evil, a man of great deeds, powerful words, a man of spectacular actions! A hero, a hero made from a different substance than others! Slave of a caprice, of the desire of the moment, wild and terrible, but possessor of a savage power, shrinking from nothing.
She had been so
dejected the entire evening, seen nothing but sorrow and cruelty and cowardice. Now all was forgotten. The young countess was again happy at being alive. The twilight goddess was beaten. The young countess saw light and color brighten the world.
It was the same night up in the cavaliers’ wing.
There they were calling down curses over Gösta Berling. The old gentlemen wanted to sleep, but it was impossible. He did not allow them any peace. It was in vain that they drew the bed curtains and blew out the candles. He simply talked.
Now he let them know what an angel the young countess was and how he worshipped her. He would serve her, adore her. He was now content that everyone had abandoned him. Now he could devote a lifetime to her service. She despised him, naturally. But he would be satisfied to lie at her feet like a dog.
Had they given any notice to the island Lagön out in Löven? Had they seen it from the south, where the rugged cliff rises precipitously out of the water? Had they seen it from the north, where it sinks toward the lake in a slow descent, and where the narrow sandbank, overgrown with large, magnificent spruce trees, meanders up to the water’s edge and forms the most marvelous ponds? Up there on the steep cliff top, where remnants of an old pirate fort still remain, he would build a palace to the young countess, a palace of marble. Broad stairs, at which boats covered with streamers could land, would be carved into the rock down to the lake. There would be radiant halls and high towers with gilded pinnacles. It would be a suitable residence for the young countess. The old wooden hovel on Borg’s point was not worthy for her to even set foot in.
When he had held forth like that for a while, a few snores began to sound behind the yellow-checked curtains. But most of them swore and complained at him and his follies.
“People,” he then says solemnly, “I see the green earth covered by human works or by remnants of human works. The pyramids weigh down the earth, the tower of Babel has pierced the sky, lovely temples and gray castles have risen out of the gravel. But of all the things that hands have built, what is there that has not fallen or will not fall? Oh, people, throw down the trowel and the clay form! Spread the mason’s apron over your head and lie down to build the bright palace of dreams! What does the spirit have to do with temples of stone and clay? Learn to build imperishable castles of dreams and visions!”
With that he went laughing to rest.
When the countess shortly afterward found out that the majoress was freed, she sent a dinner invitation to the cavaliers.
And with that began her long friendship with Gösta Berling.
CHAPTER 11
GHOST STORIES
Oh, latter-day children!
I have nothing new to tell you, only what is old and almost forgotten. Legends I have from the nursery, where the little ones sat on low stools around the storyteller with the white hair, or from the log fire in the cabin, where farmhands and crofters sat and talked, as steam rose from their wet clothes and they pulled knives from leather sheaths at their necks to spread butter onto thick, soft bread, or from the parlor, where old gentlemen sat in rocking chairs and, enlivened by a steaming toddy, talked of bygone times.
Then a child who had listened to the storyteller, to the work ingmen, to the old gentlemen, stood at the window in the winter evening; then the child saw no clouds at the sky’s edge, instead the clouds were cavaliers, who sped across the firmament in rickety one-horse carriages, the stars were wax candles lit in the old count’s estate on Borg’s point, and the spinning wheel that whirred in the next room was pedaled by old Ulrika Dillner. For the child’s head was filled by the people of olden times. The child loved and lived for them.
But if such a child, whose entire soul was fed with legends, was sent across the dark attic into the pantry after linen or rusks, then those small feet hurried, then the child came flying down the stairway through the landing and into the kitchen. For up there in the darkness the child must think about all the old stories it had heard about the malevolent mill owner at Fors, who had gone in league with the devil.
The malevolent Sintram’s remains have long rested at Svartsjö cemetery, but no one believes that his soul has been called to God, as it says on the gravestone.
While he lived, he was one of those to whose home a heavy coach, harnessed with black horses, might drive up on long, rainy Sunday afternoons. A dark-clad, elegant gentleman then climbs from the carriage and, with cards and refreshment, helps to pass away the sluggish hours, which in their monotony have brought the master of the house to despair. The card party continues until after midnight, and when the stranger leaves in the morning light, he always leaves a calamitous farewell gift behind.
As long as Sintram was on the earth, he was one of those whose arrival was boded by spirits. Specters go before them: their carriages roll into the yard, their whips crack, their voices sound on the stairs, the entry door opens and shuts. Dogs and people awaken from the clamor, it is so strong, and yet no one comes; it is only specters who go before them.
Ugh, these ghastly people whom the evil spirits seek out! What kind of big, black dog might it have been that showed itself at Fors in Sintram’s time? He had terrible, sparkling eyes and a long, blood-dripping tongue that hung far out of his panting throat. One day, just as the farmhands had been in the kitchen and had dinner, he had scratched on the kitchen door, and all the maids had screamed in terror, but the biggest and strongest of the farmhands had taken a burning stick of wood out of the stove, thrown open the door, and thrown it into the dog’s mouth.
Then he fled with a terrible howling, flames and smoke coming out of his mouth, sparks whirling around him, and his tracks on the road shining like fire.
And was it not dreadful, that every time the mill owner drove home from a journey, the team was changed for him? He rode with horses, but when he came at night, he always had black bulls before the wagon. The people who lived along the road saw the large, black horns silhouetted against the night sky as he passed by, and heard the animals’ bellowing, and were horror-struck at the row of sparks that claws and wagon wheels coaxed out of the dry gravel.
Yes, no doubt those little feet needed to hurry to get across the large, dark attic. What if something terrible, if the one whose name cannot be said, had come out of a dark corner up there! Who could be certain? It was not only the bad ones he showed himself to. Hadn’t Ulrika Dillner seen him? Both she and Anna Stjärnhök could tell of times that they had seen him.
Friends, children of humankind, you who dance, you who laugh! I beg you sincerely, dance carefully, laugh gently, for so much misfortune may arise, if your thin-soled silk shoes trample sensitive hearts instead of hard planks, and your lusty, silver-ringing laughter may drive a soul to despair.
It was certainly so that the feet of the young had trampled too hard on old Ulrika Dillner, and the laughter of the young had sounded too presumptuously in her ear, for an irresistible longing suddenly came over her for the title and dignity of a married woman. She finally said yes to the malevolent Sintram’s long courtship, followed him to Fors as his wife, and lived apart from her old friends at Berga, the dear old chores, and the familiar worry about daily bread.
It was a match that went quickly and merrily. Sintram courted at yuletide, and the wedding was in February. That year Anna Stjärnhök was living in Captain Uggla’s home. She was a good replacement for old Ulrika, who could go out and capture the title of Mrs. without pangs of conscience.
Without pangs of conscience, but not without remorse. It was not a good place she was moving to: the large, empty rooms were filled with eerie fright. As soon as it got dark, she started to shudder and feel scared. She was about to lose her mind with homesickness.
The long Sunday afternoons were harder than anything else. They never had an end, neither them nor the long line of painful thoughts that dragged along through her mind.
Then one day in March, when Sintram had not come home from church for dinner, it happened that she went into the parlor on the upper floor and sat
down at the piano. It was her final consolation. The piano, with a flute player and a shepherdess painted on the white cover, was her own, inherited from her parental home. She could complain her woes to it; it understood her.
But is that not both deplorable and ridiculous? Do you know what she is playing? Only a polska, and she, who is so sorely distressed!
She doesn’t know anything else. Before her fingers stiffened around whisk and carving knife, she learned this one polska. It still sits in her fingers, but she cannot play any other piece, no funeral march, no passionate sonata, not even a lamenting folk song, only that polska.
She plays it as often as she has something to confide to the old piano. She plays it both when she wants to cry and when she wants to smile. When she celebrated her wedding, she played it, and when she entered her home for the first time, and likewise now.
The old strings seem to understand her; she is unhappy, unhappy.
A wayfarer who passes by and hears the polska might believe that the malevolent mill owner is holding a ball for neighbors and relatives, so merrily it sounds. It is an exceedingly jaunty and lusty melody. In former days she has played levity in and hunger out at Borga farm with it. When it sounded, everyone got up to dance. It broke the bonds of rheumatism around joints and fooled eighty-year-old cavaliers up onto the floor. The whole world might want to dance to that polska, so lusty it sounds—but old Ulrika is weeping.
She has moody, peevish servants around her and bad-tempered animals. She longs for friendly faces and smiling mouths. It is this, her desperate longing, which the happy polska must interpret.
People have a hard time realizing that she is Mrs. Sintram. Everyone calls her Miss Dillner. See, that is the idea, that the polska melody should explain her remorse over the vanity that enticed her to chase after the title of wife.