The Story of Gösta Berling. Selma Lagerlöf
to meet a new attack. He marches up to the horse-shoe table. His heavy tread resounds through the hall. He stands opposite her, with the table between them.
“Turn him out!” cries the major’s wife again.
But he is raging; none dare to face his frowning brow and great clenched hand. He is big as a giant, and as strong. The guests and servants tremble, and dare not approach him. Who would dare to touch him now, when rage has taken away his reason?
He stands opposite the major’s wife and threatens her.
“I took the crow and threw it against the wall. And I did right.”
“Out with you, captain!”
“Shame, woman! Offer Christian Bergh crows! If I did right I would take you and your seven hell’s—”
“Thousand devils, Christian Bergh! don’t swear. Nobody but I swears here.”
“Do you think I am afraid of you, hag? Don’t you think I know how you got your seven estates?”
“Silence, captain!”
“When Altringer died he gave them to your husband because you had been his mistress.”
“Will you be silent?”
“Because you had been such a faithful wife, Margareta Samzelius. And the major took the seven estates and let you manage them and pretended not to know. And the devil arranged it all; but now comes the end for you.”
The major’s wife sits down; she is pale and trembling. She assents in a strange, low voice.
“Yes, now it is the end for me, and it is your doing, Christian Bergh.”
At her voice Captain Christian trembles, his face works, and his eyes are filled with tears of anguish.
“I am drunk,” he cries. “I don’t know what I am saying; I haven’t said anything. Dog and slave, dog and slave, and nothing more have I been for her for forty years. She is Margareta Celsing, whom I have served my whole life. I say nothing against her. What should I have to say against the beautiful Margareta Celsing! I am the dog which guards her door, the slave who bears her burdens. She may strike me, she may kick me! You see how I hold my tongue and bear it. I have loved her for forty years. How could I say anything against her?”
And a wonderful sight it is to see how he kneels and begs for forgiveness. And as she is sitting on the other side of the table, he goes on his knees round the table till he comes to her; then he bends down and kisses the hem of her dress, and the floor is wet with his tears.
But not far from the major’s wife sits a small, strong man. He has shaggy hair, small, squinting eyes, and a protruding under-jaw. He looks like a bear. He is a man of few words, who likes to go his own quiet way and let the world take care of itself. He is Major Samzelius.
He rises when he hears Captain Christian’s accusing words, and the major’s wife rises, and all the fifty guests. The women are weeping in terror of what is coming, the men stand dejected, and at the feet of the major’s wife lies Captain Christian, kissing the hem of her dress, wetting the floor with his tears.
The major slowly clenches his broad, hairy hands, and lifts his arm.
But the woman speaks first. Her voice sounds hollow and unfamiliar.
“You stole me,” she cried. “You came like a thief and took me. They forced me, in my home, by blows, by hunger, and hard words to be your wife. I have treated you as you deserved.”
The major’s broad fist is clenched. His wife gives way a couple of steps. Then she speaks again.
“Living eels twist under the knife; an unwilling wife takes a lover. Will you strike me now for what happened twenty years ago? Do you not remember how he lived at Ekeby, we at Sjö? Do you not remember how he helped us in our poverty? We drove in his carriages, we drank his wine. Did we hide anything from you? Were not his servants your servants? Did not his gold weigh heavy in your pocket? Did you not accept the seven estates? You held your tongue and took them; then you should have struck, Berndt Samzelius—then you should have struck.”
The man turns from her and looks on all those present. He reads in their faces that they think she is right, that they all believe he took the estates in return for his silence.
“I never knew it!” he says, and stamps on the floor.
“It is well that you know it now!” she cries, in a shrill, ringing voice. “Was I not afraid lest you should die without knowing it? It is well that you know it now, so that I can speak out to you who have been my master and jailer. You know now that I, in spite of all, was his from whom you stole me. I tell you all now, you who have slandered me!”
It is the old love which exults in her voice and shines from her eyes. Her husband stands before her with lifted hand. She reads horror and scorn on the fifty faces about her. She feels that it is the last hour of her power. But she cannot help rejoicing that she may speak openly of the tenderest memory of her life.
“He was a man, a man indeed. Who were you, to come between us? I have never seen his equal. He gave me happiness, he gave me riches. Blessed be his memory!”
Then the major lets his lifted arm fall without striking her; now he knows how he shall punish her.
“Away!” he cries; “out of my house!”
She stands motionless.
But the pensioners stand with pale faces and stare at one another. Everything was going as the devil had prophesied. They now saw the consequences of the non-renewal of the contract. If that is true, so is it also true that she for more than twenty years had sent pensioners to perdition, and that they too were destined for the journey. Oh, the witch!
“Out with you!” continues the major. “Beg your bread on the highway! You shall have no pleasure of his money, you shall not live on his lands. There is no more a mistress of Ekeby. The day you set your foot in my house I will kill you.”
“Do you drive me from my home?”
“You have no home. Ekeby is mine.”
A feeling of despair comes over the major’s wife. She retreats to the door, he following close after her.
“You who have been my life’s curse,” she laments, “shall you also now have power to do this to me?”
“Out, out!”
She leans against the door-post, clasps her hands, and holds them before her face. She thinks of her mother and murmurs to herself:—
“ ‘May you be disowned, as I have been disowned; may the highway be your home, the hay-stack your bed!’ It is all coming true.”
The good old clergyman from Bro and the judge from Munkerud came forward now to Major Samzelius and tried to calm him. They said to him that it would be best to let all those old stories rest, to let everything be as it was, to forget and forgive.
He shakes the mild old hands from his shoulder. He is terrible to approach, just as Christian Bergh had been.
“It is no old story,” he cries. “I never knew anything till to-day. I have never been able before to punish the adulteress.”
At that word the major’s wife lifts her head and regains her old courage.
“You shall go out before I do. Do you think that I shall give in to you?” she says. And she comes forward from the door.
The major does not answer, but he watches her every movement, ready to strike if he finds no better way to revenge himself.
“Help me, good gentlemen,” she cries, “to get this man bound and carried out, until he gets back the use of his senses. Remember who I am and who he is! Think of it, before I must give in to him! I arrange all the work at Ekeby, and he sits the whole day long and