The Story of Gösta Berling, Selma Lagerlöf [best way to read books txt] 📗

away. This spring, no day had passed without her coming out to the stone at the top of Broby hill and looking down the road. And she had put in order new clothes for him, home-woven clothes, on which she herself had done nearly all the work. By that one could see that he was expected, even if she said nothing.

“They don’t believe it, then?” said Captain Lennart.

“No, captain,” answered the peasant woman. “Nobody believes it.”

Then Captain Lennart would stop no longer; then he wished to go home.

It happened that outside the door he met some dear old friends. The pensioners at Ekeby had just come to the inn. Sintram had invited them thither to celebrate his birthday. And the pensioners did not hesitate a minute before shaking the convict’s hand and welcoming him home. Even Sintram did it.

“Dear Lennart,” he said, “were you certain that God had any meaning in it all?”

“Do you not think I know,” cried Captain Lennart, “that it was not our Lord who saved you from the block?”

The others laughed. But Sintram was not at all angry. He was pleased when people spoke of his compact with the devil.

Yes, then they took Captain Lennart in with them again to empty a glass of welcome; after, he could go his way. But it went badly for him. He had not drunk such treacherous things for five years. Perhaps he had eaten nothing the whole day, and was exhausted by his long journey on foot. The result was that he was quite confused after a couple of glasses.

When the pensioners had got him into a state when he no longer knew what he was doing, they forced on him glass after glass, and they meant no harm by it; it was with good intention towards him, who had not tasted anything good for five years.

Otherwise he was one of the most sober of men. It is also easy to understand that he had no intention to get drunk; he was to have gone home to wife and children. But instead he was lying on the bench in the barroom, and was sleeping there.

While he lay there, temptingly unconscious, Gösta took a piece of charcoal and a little cranberry-juice and painted him. He gave him the face of a criminal; he thought that most suitable for one who came direct from jail. He painted a black eye, drew a red scar across his nose, plastered his hair down on his forehead in matted tangles, and smeared his whole face.

They laughed at it for a while, then Gösta wished to wash it off.

“Let it be,” said Sintram, “so that he can see it when he wakes. It will amuse him.”

So they left it as it was, and thought no more of the captain. The feasting lasted the whole night. They broke up at daybreak. There was more wine than sense in their heads.

The question was what they should do with Captain Lennart. “We will go home with him,” said Sintram. “Think how glad his wife will be! It will be a pleasure to see her joy. I am moved when I think of it. Let us go home with him!”

They were all moved at the thought. Heavens, how glad she would be!

They shook life into Captain Lennart and lifted him into one of the carriages which the sleepy grooms had long since driven up. And so the whole mob drove up to Helgesäter; some of them, half-asleep, nearly fell out of the carriage, others sang to keep awake. They looked little better than a company of tramps, with dull eyes and swollen faces.

They arrived at last, left the horses in the backyard and marched with a certain solemnity up to the steps. Beerencreutz and Julius supported Captain Lennart between them.

“Pull yourself together, Lennart,” they said to him, “you are at home. Don’t you see that you’re at home?”

He got his eyes open and was almost sober. He was touched that they had accompanied him home.

“Friends,” he said, and stopped to speak to them all, “have asked God, friends, why so much evil has passed over me.”

“Shut up, Lennart, don’t preach!” cries Beerencreutz.

“Let him go on,” says Sintram. “He speaks well.”

“Have asked Him and not understood; understand now. He wanted to show me what friends I had; friends who follow me home to see mine and my wife’s joy. For my wife is expecting me. What are five years of misery compared to that?”

Now hard fists pounded on the door. The pensioners had no time to hear more.

Within there was commotion. The maids awoke and looked out. They threw on their clothes, but did not dare to open for that crowd of men. At last the bolt was drawn. The captain’s wife herself came out.

“What do you want?” she asked.

It was Beerencreutz who answered:⁠—

“We are here with your husband.”

They pushed forward Captain Lennart, and she saw him reel towards her, drunk, with a prizefighter’s face; and behind him she saw the crowd of drunken, reeling men.

She took a step back; he followed with outstretched arms. “You left me as a thief,” she cried, “and come home as a vagabond.” Whereupon she turned to go in.

He did not understand. He wished to follow her, but she struck him a blow on the breast.

“Do you think that I will receive such a man as you as master in my house and over my children?”

The door slammed and the key turned in the lock.

Captain Lennart threw himself against the door and began to shake it.

The pensioners could not help it, they began to laugh. He had been so sure of his wife, and now she would have nothing to do with him. It was absurd, they thought.

When Captain Lennart heard them laughing, he rushed after them and wished to beat them. They ran away and leaped into their carriages, he after them; but in his eagerness he stumbled over a stone and fell. He got up again, but pursued them no farther. A