“But there was evil talk of Altringer and me. If Margareta Celsing had been living, it would have given her much pain, but it made no difference to me. But as yet I did not understand that it was because I was dead that I had no feeling.
“At last the tales of us reached my father and mother, as they went among the charcoal kilns up in Älfdal’s forest. My mother did not stop to think; she travelled hither to talk to me.
“One day, when the major was away and I sat dining with Altringer and several others, she arrived. I saw her come into the room, but I could not feel that she was my mother, Gösta Berling. I greeted her as a stranger, and invited her to sit down at my table and take part in the meal.
“She wished to talk with me, as if I had been her daughter, but I said to her that she was mistaken, that my parents were dead, they had both died on my wedding day.
“Then she agreed to the comedy. She was sixty years old; a hundred and twenty miles had she driven in three days. Now she sat without ceremony at the dinner-table and ate her food; she was a strong and capable woman.
“She said that it was very sad that I had had such a loss just on that day.
“ ‘The saddest thing was,’ I said, ‘that my parents did not die a day sooner; then the wedding would never have taken place.’
“ ‘Is not the gracious lady pleased with her marriage?’ she then asked.
“ ‘Oh, yes,’ said I, ‘I am pleased. I shall always be pleased to obey my dear parents’ wish!’
“She asked if it had been my parents’ wish that I should heap shame upon myself and them and deceive my husband. I did my parents little honor by making myself a byword in every man’s mouth.
“ ‘They must lie as they have made their bed,’ I answered her. And moreover I wished her to understand, that I did not intend to allow anyone to calumniate my parents’ daughter.
“We ate, we two. The men about us sat silent and could not lift knife nor fork.
“She stayed a day to rest, then she went. But all the time I saw her, I could not understand that she was my mother. I only knew that my mother was dead.
“When she was ready to leave, Gösta Berling, and I stood beside her on the steps, and the carriage was before the door, she said to me:—
“ ‘Twenty-four hours have I been here, without your greeting me as your mother. By lonely roads I came here, a hundred and twenty miles in three days. And for shame for you my body is trembling, as if it had been beaten with rods. May you be disowned, as I have been disowned, repudiated as I have been repudiated! May the highway be your home, the haystack your bed, the charcoal-kiln your stove! May shame and dishonor be your reward; may others strike you, as I strike you!’
“And she gave me a heavy blow on the cheek.
“But I lifted her up, carried her down the steps, and put her in her carriage.
“ ‘Who are you, that you curse me?’ I asked; ‘who are you that you strike me? That I will suffer from no one.’
“And I gave her the blow again.
“The carriage drove away, but then, at that moment, Gösta Berling, I knew that Margareta Celsing was dead.
“She was good and innocent; she knew no evil. Angels had wept at her grave. If she had lived, she would not have struck her mother.”
The beggar by the door had listened, and the words for a moment had drowned the sound of the eternal forests’ alluring murmur. For see, this great lady, she made herself his equal in sin, his sister in perdition, to give him courage to live. For he should learn that sorrow and wrongdoing weighed down other heads than his. He rose and went over to the major’s wife.
“Will you live now? Gösta Berling?” she asked with a voice which broke with tears. “Why should you die? You could have been such a good priest, but it was never Gösta Berling whom you drowned in brandy, he as gleamingly innocent-white as that Margareta Celsing I suffocated in hate. Will you live?”
Gösta fell on his knees before her.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I cannot.”
“I am an old woman, hardened by much sorrow,” answered the major’s wife, “and I sit here and give myself as a prize to a beggar, whom I have found half-frozen in a snowdrift by the roadside. It serves me right. Let him go and kill himself; then at least he won’t be able to tell of my folly.”
“I am no suicide, I am condemned to die. Do not make the struggle too hard for me! I may not live. My body has taken possession of my soul, therefore I must let it escape and go to God.”
“And so you believe you will get there?”
“Farewell, and thank you!”
“Farewell, Gösta Berling.”
The beggar rose and walked with hanging head and dragging step to the door. This woman made the way up to the great forests heavy for him.
When he came to the door, he had to look back. Then he met her glance, as she sat still and looked after him. He had never seen such a change in any face, and he stood and stared at her. She, who had just been angry and threatening, sat transfigured, and her eyes shone with a pitying, compassionate love.
There was something in him, in his own wild heart, which burst before that glance; he
