The Story of Gösta Berling. Selma Lagerlöf
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the road, drawn by the black Don Juan, followed by the white Tancred, and the joy of adventure filled his soul. He felt like a young conqueror, the spirit was in him.
His way took him past the vicarage at Svartsjö. He turned in there and asked if he might drive Anna Stjärnhök to the ball. And that he was permitted.
A beautiful, self-willed girl it was who sat in his sledge. Who would not want to drive behind the black Don Juan?
The young people were silent at first, but then she began the conversation, audaciousness itself.
“Have you heard what the minister read out in church to-day?”
“Did he say that you were the prettiest girl between the Löfven and the Klar River?”
“How stupid you are! but every one knows that. He called the banns for me and old Dahlberg.”
“Never would I have let you sit in my sledge nor sat here myself, if I had known that. Never would I have wished to drive you at all.”
And the proud heiress answered:—
“I could have got there well enough without you, Gösta Berling.”
“It is a pity for you, Anna,” said Gösta, thoughtfully, “that your father and mother are not alive. You are your own mistress, and no one can hold you to account.”
“It is a much greater pity that you had not said that before, so that I might have driven with some one else.”
“The minister’s wife thinks as I do, that you need some one to take your father’s place; else she had never put you to pull in harness with such an old nag.”
“It is not she who has decided it.”
“Ah, Heaven preserve us!—have you yourself chosen such a fine man?”
“He does not take me for my money.”
“No, the old ones, they only run after blue eyes and red cheeks; and awfully nice they are, when they do that.”
“Oh, Gösta, are you not ashamed?”
“But remember that you are not to play with young men any longer. No more dancing and games. Your place is in the corner of the sofa—or perhaps you mean to play cribbage with old Dahlberg?”
They were silent, till they drove up the steep hill to Borg.
“Thanks for the drive! It will be long before I drive again with you, Gösta Berling.”
“Thanks for the promise! I know many who will be sorry to-day they ever drove you to a party.”
Little pleased was the haughty beauty when she entered the ball-room and looked over the guests gathered there.
First of all she saw the little, bald Dahlberg beside the tall, slender, golden-haired Gösta Berling. She wished she could have driven them both out of the room.
Her fiancé came to ask her to dance, but she received him with crushing astonishment.
“Are you going to dance? You never do!”
And the girls came to wish her joy.
“Don’t give yourselves the trouble, girls. You don’t suppose that any one could be in love with old Dahlberg. But he is rich, and I am rich, therefore we go well together.”
The old ladies went up to her, pressed her white hand, and spoke of life’s greatest happiness.
“Congratulate the minister’s wife,” she said. “She is gladder about it than I.”
But there stood Gösta Berling, the gay cavalier, greeted with joy for his cheerful smile and his pleasant words, which sifted gold-dust over life’s gray web. Never before had she seen him as he was that night. He was no outcast, no homeless jester; no, a king among men, a born king.
He and the other young men conspired against her. She should think over how badly she had behaved when she gave herself with her lovely face and her great fortune to an old man. And they let her sit out ten dances.
She was boiling with rage.
At the eleventh dance came a man, the most insignificant of all, a poor thing, whom nobody would dance with, and asked her for a turn.
“There is no more bread, bring on the crusts,” she said.
They played a game of forfeits. The fair-haired girls put their heads together and condemned her to kiss the one she loved best. And with smiling lips they waited to see the proud beauty kiss old Dahlberg.
But she rose, stately in her anger, and said:—
“May I not just as well give a blow to the one I like the least!”
The moment after Gösta’s cheek burned under her firm hand. He flushed a flaming red, but he conquered himself, seized her hand, held it fast a second, and whispered:—
“Meet me in half an hour in the red drawing-room on the lower floor!”
His blue eyes flashed on her, and encompassed her with magical waves. She felt that she must obey.
She met him with proud and angry words.
“How does it concern you whom I marry?”
He was not ready to speak gently to her, nor did it seem to him best to speak yet of Ferdinand.
“I thought it was not too severe a punishment for you to sit out ten dances. But you want to be allowed unpunished to break vows and promises. If a better man than I had taken your sentence in his hand, he could have made it harder.”
“What have I done to you and all the others, that I may not be in peace? It is for my money’s sake you persecute me. I shall throw it into the Löfven, and any one who wants it can fish it up.”
She put her hands before her eyes and wept from anger.
That moved the poet’s heart. He was ashamed of his harshness. He spoke in caressing tones.
“Ah, child, child, forgive me! Forgive poor Gösta Berling! Nobody cares what such a poor wretch says or does, you know that. Nobody weeps for his anger, one might just as well weep over a mosquito’s bite. It was madness in me to hope that I could prevent our loveliest and richest girl marrying that old man. And now I have only distressed you.”
He sat down on the sofa beside her. Gently he put his arm about her waist, with caressing tenderness, to support and raise her.
She did not move away. She pressed closer to him, threw her arms round his neck, and wept with her beautiful head on his shoulder.
O poet, strongest and weakest of men, it was not about your neck those white arms should rest.
“If I had known that,” she whispered, “never would I have taken the old man. I have watched you this evening; there is no one like you.”
From between pale lips Gösta forced out—
“Ferdinand.”
She silenced him with a kiss.
“He is nothing; no one but you is anything. To you will I be faithful.”
“I am Gösta Berling,” he said gloomily; “you cannot marry me.”
“You are the man I love, the noblest of men. You need do nothing, be nothing. You are born a king.”
Then the poet’s blood seethed. She was beautiful and tender in her love. He took her in his arms.
“If you will be mine, you cannot remain at the vicarage. Let me drive you to Ekeby to-night; there I shall know how to defend you till we can be married.”
That was a wild drive through the night. Absorbed in their love, they let Don Juan take his own pace. The noise of