The beautiful point on L?fven’s eastern shore, about which the bay glides with lapping waves, the proud point where the manor of Borg lies, beware of approaching.

L?fven never looks more glorious than from its summit.

No one can know how lovely it is, the lake of my dreams, until he has seen from Borg’s point the morning mist glide away from its smooth surface; until he, from the windows of the little blue cabinet, where so many memories dwell, has seen it reflect a pink sunset.

But I still say, go not thither!

For perhaps you will be seized with a desire to remain in that old manor’s sorrowful halls; perhaps you will make yourself the owner of those fair lands; and if you are young, rich, and happy, you will make your home there with a young wife.

No, it is better never to see the beautiful point, for at Borg no one can live and be happy. No matter how rich, how happy you may be, who move in there, those old tear-drenched floors would soon drink your tears as well, and those walls, which could give back so many moans, would also glean your sighs.

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An implacable fate is on this lovely spot. It is as if misfortune were buried there, but found no rest in its grave, and perpetually rose from it to terrify the living. If I were lord of Borg I would search through the ground, both in the park and under the cellar floor in the house, and in the fertile mould out in the meadows, until I had found the witch’s worm-eaten corpse, and then I would give her a grave in consecrated earth in the Svartsj? churchyard. And at the burial I would not spare on the ringer’s pay, but let the bells sound long and loud over her; and to the clergyman and sexton I should send rich gifts, that they with redoubled strength might with speech and song consecrate her to everlasting rest.

Or, if that did not help, some stormy night I would set fire to the wooden walls, and let it destroy everything, so that no one more might be tempted to live in the home of misfortune. Afterwards no one should be allowed to approach that doomed spot; only the church-tower’s black jackdaws should build in the great chimney, which, blackened and dreadful, would raise itself over the deserted foundations.

Still, I should certainly mourn when I saw the flames close over the roof, when thick smoke, reddened by the fire and flecked with sparks, should roll out from the old manor-house. In the crackling and the roaring I should fancy I heard the wails of homeless memories; on the blue points of the flames I should see disturbed spirits floating. I should think how sorrow beautifies, how misfortune adorns, and weep as if a temple to the old gods had been condemned to destruction.

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But why croak of unhappiness? As yet Borg lies and shines on its point, shaded by its park of mighty pines, and the snow-covered fields glitter in March’s burning sun; as yet is heard within those walls the young Countess Elizabeth’s gay laughter.

Every Sunday she goes to church at Svartsj?, which lies near Borg, and gathers together a few friends for dinner. The judge and his family from Munkerud used to come, and the Ugglas from Berga, and even Sintram. If G?sta Berling happens to be in Svartsj?, wandering over L?fven’s ice, she invites him too. Why should she not invite G?sta Berling?

She probably does not know that the gossips are beginning to whisper that G?sta comes very often over to the east shore to see her. Perhaps he also comes to drink and play cards with Sintram; but no one thinks so much of that; every one knows that his body is of steel; but it is another matter with his heart. No one believes that he can see a pair of shining eyes, and fair hair which curls about a white brow, without love.

The young countess is good to him. But there is nothing strange in that; she is good to all. She takes ragged beggar children on her knee, and when she drives by some poor old creature on the high-road she has the coachman stop, and takes the poor wanderer up into her sledge.

G?sta used to sit in the little blue cabinet, where there is such a glorious view over the lake, and read poetry to her. There can be no harm in that. He does not forget that she is a countess, and he a homeless adventurer; and it is good for him to be with some one whom he holds high and holy. He could[217] just as well be in love with the Queen of Sheba as with her.

He only asks to be allowed to wait on her as a page waits on his noble mistress: to fasten her skates, to hold her skeins, to steer her sled. There cannot be any question of love between them; he is just the man to find his happiness in a romantic, innocent adoration.

The young count is silent and serious, and G?sta is playfully gay. He is just such a companion as the young countess likes. No one who sees her fancies that she is hiding a forbidden love. She thinks of dancing,—of dancing and merry-making. She would like the earth to be quite flat, without stones, without hills or seas, so that she could dance everywhere. From the cradle to the grave she would like to dance in her small, thin-soled, satin slippers.

But rumor is not very merciful to young women.

When the guests come to dinner at Borg, the men generally, after the meal, go into the count’s room to sleep and smoke; the old ladies sink down in the easy-chairs in the drawing-room, and lean their venerable heads against the high backs; but the countess and Anna Stj?rnh?k go into the blue cabinet and exchange endless confidences.

The Sunday after the one when Anna Stj?rnh?k took Ulrika Dillner back to Berga they are sitting there again.

No one on earth is so unhappy as the young girl. All her gayety is departed, and gone is the glad defiance which she showed to everything and everybody who wished to come too near her.

Everything which had happened to her that day has sunk back into the twilight from which it was[218] charmed; she has only one distinct impression left,—yes, one, which is poisoning her soul.

“If it really was not God who did it,” she used to whisper to herself. “If it was not God, who sent the wolves?”

She asks for a sign, she longs for a miracle. She searches heaven and earth. But she sees no finger stretched from the sky to point out her way.

As she sits now opposite the countess in the blue cabinet, her eyes fall on a little bunch of hepaticas which the countess holds in her white hand. Like a bolt it strikes her that she knows where the flowers have grown, that she knows who has picked them.

She does not need to ask. Where else in the whole countryside do hepaticas bloom in the beginning of April, except in the birch grove which lies on the slopes of Ekeby?

She stares and stares at the little blue stars; those happy ones who possess all hearts; those little prophets who, beautiful in themselves, are also glorified by the splendor of all the beauty which they herald, of all the beauty which is coming. And as she watches them a storm of wrath rises in her soul, rumbling like the thunder, deadening like the lightning. “By what right,” she thinks, “does Countess Dohna hold this bunch of hepaticas, picked by the shore at Ekeby?”

They were all tempters: Sintram, the countess, everybody wanted to allure G?sta Berling to what was evil. But she would protect him; against all would she protect him. Even if it should cost her heart’s blood, she would do it.

She thinks that she must see those flowers torn out of the countess’s hand, and thrown aside,[219] trampled, crushed, before she leaves the little blue cabinet.

She thinks that, and she begins a struggle with the little blue stars. Out in the drawing-room the old ladies lean their venerable heads against the chair-backs and suspect nothing; the men smoke their pipes in calm and quiet in the count’s room; peace is everywhere; only in the little blue cabinet rages a terrible struggle.

Ah, how well they do who keep their hands from the sword, who understand how to wait quietly, to lay their hearts to rest and let God direct! The restless heart always goes astray; ill-will makes the pain worse.

But Anna Stj?rnh?k believes that at last she has seen a finger in the sky.

“Anna,” says the countess, “tell me a story!”

“About what?”

“Oh,” says the countess, and caresses the flowers with her white hand. “Do not you know something about love, something about loving?”

“No, I know nothing of love.”

“How you talk! Is there not a place here which is called Ekeby,—a place full of pensioners?”

“Yes,” says Anna, “there is a place which is called Ekeby, and there are men there who suck the marrow of the land, who make us incapable of serious work, who ruin growing youth, and lead astray our geniuses. Do you want to hear of them? Do you want to hear love-stories of them?”

“Yes. I like the pensioners.”

So Anna Stj?rnh?k speaks,—speaks in short sentences, like an old hymn-book, for she is nearly choking with stormy emotions. Suppressed suffering[220] trembles in each word, and the countess was both frightened and interested to hear her.

“What is a pensioner’s love, what is a pensioner’s faith?—one sweetheart to-day, another to-morrow, one in the east, another in the west. Nothing is too high for him, nothing too low; one day a count’s daughter, the next day a beggar girl. Nothing on earth is so capacious as his heart. But alas, alas for her who loves a pensioner. She must seek him out where he lies drunk at the wayside. She must silently look on while he at the card-table plays away the home of her childhood. She must bear to have him hang about other women. Oh, Elizabeth, if a pensioner asks an honorable woman for a dance she ought to refuse it to him; if he gives her a bunch of flowers she ought to throw the flowers on the ground and trample on them; if she loves him she ought rather to die than to marry him. There was one among the pensioners who was a dismissed priest; he had lost his vestments for drunkenness. He was drunk in the church. He drank up the communion wine. Have you ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“After he had been dismissed he wandered about the country as a beggar. He drank like a madman. He would steal to get brandy.”

“What is his name?”

“He is no longer at Ekeby. The major’s wife got hold of him, gave him clothes, and persuaded your mother-in-law, Countess Dohna, to make him tutor to your husband, young Count Henrik.”

“A dismissed priest!”

“Oh, he was a young, powerful man, of good intelligence. There was no harm in him, if he only[221] did not drink. Countess M?rta was not particular. It amused her to quarrel with the neighboring clergymen. Still, she ordered him to say nothing of his past life to her children. For then her son would have lost respect for him, and her daughter would not have endured him, for she was a saint.

“So he came here to Borg. He always sat just inside the door, on the very edge of his chair, never said a word at the table, and fled out into the park when any visitors came.

“But there in the lonely walks he used to meet young Ebba Dohna. She was not one who loved the noisy feasts which resounded in the halls at Borg after the countess became a widow. She was so gentle, so shy. She was still, although she was seventeen, nothing but a tender child; but she was very lovely, with her brown eyes, and the faint, delicate color in her cheeks. Her thin, slender body bent forward. Her little hand would creep into yours with a shy pressure. Her little mouth was the most silent of mouths and the most serious. Ah, her voice, her sweet little voice, which pronounced the words so slowly and so well, but never rang with the freshness and warmth of youth,—its feeble tones were like a weary musician’s last chord.

“She was not as others. Her foot trod so lightly, so softly, as if she were a frightened fugitive. She kept her eyelids lowered in order not to be disturbed in her contemplation of the visions of her soul. It had turned from the earth when she was but a child.

“When she was little her grandmother used to tell her stories; and one evening they both sat by the fire; but the stories had come to an end. But still the little girl’s hand lay on the old woman’s dress,[222] and she gently stroked the silk,—that funny stuff which sounded like a little bird. And this stroking was her prayer, for she was one of those children who never beg in words.

“Then the old lady began to tell her of a little child in the land of Judah; of a little child who was born to become a great King. The angels had filled the earth with songs of praise when he was born. The kings of the East came, guided by the star of heaven, and gave him gold and incense; and old men and women foretold his glory. This child grew up to greater beauty and wisdom than all other children. Already, when he was twelve years old, his wisdom was greater than that of the chief-priests and the scribes.

“Then the old woman told her of the most beautiful thing the earth has ever seen: of that child’s life while he remained among men,—those wicked men who would not acknowledge him their King.

“She told her how the child became a man, but that the glory surrounded him still.

“Everything on the earth served him and loved him, except mankind. The fishes let themselves be caught in his net, bread filled his baskets, water changed itself to wine when he wished it.

“But the people gave the great King no golden crown, no shining throne. He had no bowing courtiers about him. They let him go among them like a beggar.

“Still, he was so good to them, the great King! He cured their sicknesses, gave back to the blind their sight, and waked the dead.

“But,” said the grandmother, “the people would not have the great King for their lord.

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“‘They sent their soldiers against him, and took him prisoner; they dressed him, by way of mockery, in crown and sceptre, and in a silken cloak, and made him go out to the place of execution, bearing a heavy cross. Oh, my child, the good King loved the high mountains. At night he used to climb them to talk with those who dwelt in heaven, and he liked by day to sit on the mountain-side and talk to the listening people. But now they led him up on a mountain to crucify him. They drove nails through his hands and feet, and hung the good King on a cross, as if he had been a robber or a malefactor.

“‘And the people mocked at him. Only his mother and his friends wept, that he should die before he had been a King.

“‘Oh, how the dead things mourned his death!

“‘The sun lost its light, and the mountains trembled; the curtain in the temple was rent asunder, and the graves opened, that the dead might rise up and show their grief.’

“The little one lay with her head on her grandmother’s knee, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

“‘Do not weep, little one; the good King rose from his grave and went up to his Father in heaven.’

“‘Grandmother,’ sobbed the poor little thing, ‘did he ever get any kingdom?’

“‘He sits on God’s right hand in heaven.’

“But that did not comfort her. She wept helplessly and unrestrainedly, as only a child can weep.

“‘Why were they so cruel to him? Why were they allowed to be so cruel to him?’

“Her grandmother was almost frightened at her overwhelming sorrow.

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“‘Say, grandmother, say that you have not told it right! Say that it did not end so! Say that they were not so cruel to the good King! Say that he got a kingdom on earth!’

“She threw her arms around the old woman and beseeched her with streaming tears.

“‘Child, child,’ said her grandmother, to console her. ‘There are some who believe that he will come again. Then he will put the earth under his power and direct it. The beautiful earth will be a glorious kingdom. It shall last a thousand years. Then the fierce animals will be gentle; little children will play by the viper’s nest, and bears and cows will eat together. No one shall injure or destroy the other; the lance shall be bent into scythes, and the sword forged into ploughs. And everything shall be play and happiness, for the good will possess the earth.’

“Then the little one’s face brightened behind her tears.

“‘Will the good King then get a throne, grandmother?’

“‘A throne of gold.’

“‘And servants, and courtiers, and a golden crown?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Will he come soon, grandmother?’

“‘No one knows when he will come.’

“‘May I sit on a stool at his feet?’

“‘You may.’

“‘Grandmother, I am so happy,’ says the little one.

“Evening after evening, through many winters, they both sat by the fire and talked of the good[225] King and his kingdom. The little one dreamed of the kingdom which should last ............