The Story of Gösta Berling

speech to the pensioners. He was grieved at their fate when they now must all leave Ekeby. The ailments of old age awaited them. The old and worn-out find a cold welcome.

And so he spoke to them. Once more he called them old gods and knights who had risen up to bring pleasure into the land of iron. But he lamented that the pleasure garden where the butterfly-winged pleasure roves is filled with destructive caterpillars, and that its fruits are withered.

Well he knew that pleasure was a good to the children of the earth, and it must exist. But, like a heavy riddle, the question always lay upon the world, how a man could be both gay and good. The easiest thing and yet the hardest, he called it. Hitherto they had not been able to solve the problem. Now he wanted to believe that they had learned it, that they had all learned it during that year of joy and sorrow, of happiness and despair.

---

You dear old people! In the old days you gave me precious gifts. But what have I given you?

Perhaps it may gladden you that your names sound again in connection with the dear old places? May all the brightness which belonged to your life fall again over the tracts where you have lived! Borg still stands; Björne still stands; Ekeby still lies by lake Löfven, surrounded by falls and lake, by park and smiling meadows; and when one stands on the broad terraces, legends swarm about one like the bees of summer.

But, speaking of bees, let me tell one more old story. The little Ruster, who went as a drummer at the head of the Swedish army, when in 1813 it marched into Germany, could never weary of telling stories of that wonderful land in the south. The people there were as tall as church towers, the swallows were as big as eagles, the bees as geese.

“Well, but the beehives?”

“The beehives were like our ordinary beehives.”

“How did the bees get in?”

“Well, that they had to look out for,” said the little Ruster.

Dear reader, must I say the same? The giant bees of fancy have now swarmed about us for a year and a day; but how they are going to come into the beehive of fact, that they really must find out for themselves.

Endnotes

1. A Swedish game of cards. ↩

2. Terms used in weaving. ↩

3. In the country, in Sweden, they wash twice a year, in spring and autumn. ↩

Colophon

The Story of Gösta Berling
was published in 1898 by
Selma Lagerlöf.
It was translated from Swedish in 1898 by Pauline Bancroft Flach.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2017 by
David Edwards and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Friends,
a painting completed in 1907 by
Hanna Hirsch-Pauli.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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