The Story of Gösta Berling quotes

The minister was young, tall, slender, and strikingly handsome. With a helmet on his head, and girt with sword and shirt of mail, he could have been cut in marble and taken for an ideal of Grecian beauty.

He had a poet’s deep eyes, and a general’s firm, rounded chin; everything about him was beautiful, noble, full of feeling, glowing with genius and spiritual life.

The people in the church felt themselves strangely subdued to see him so. They were more used to see him come reeling out of the public house with his good friends, Beerencreutz, the Colonel with the thick, white moustaches, and the stalwart Captain Christian Bergh.

They defended him with one voice. He was so young, their minister; there was nothing wrong with him. No; if he would only always preach as he had done today they would not exchange him for the bishop himself.

There were no accusers; there could be no judge.

The minister felt how his heart swelled and how swiftly the blood flew through his veins. Could it be that he was no longer among enemies; that he had won them over when he had least thought of it;

All this happened in the beginning of the twenties in a far-a-way parish in Western Värmland.

It was the first misfortune which befell Gösta Berling; it was not the last.

For colts who cannot bear spur or whips find life hard. For every pain which comes to them they bolt down wild ways to yawning chasms.

It was the first misfortune which befell Gösta Berling; it was not the last.

For colts who cannot bear spur or whips find life hard.

For every pain which comes to them they bolt down wild ways to yawning chasms. As soon as the road is stony and the way hard they know no other remedy than to cast off their load and rush away in frenzy.

She was abandoned by all, and yet she had strength to turn away her last friend that he should not be a murderer.

She was a woman great in strength and love of action. We shall not soon see her like again.

The next day Major Samzelius moved from Ekeby to his own farm of Sjö, which lies next to the large estate.

“I have possessed happiness and driven her from me; I myself drove her from me. Why did I not keep her?”

Ah, Gösta Berling, strongest and weakest of men!

His foot gives way; he cannot rise on his toe. He kicks a couple of times with one leg; he can do no more, he falls back on the bed.

Handsome señor, you have grown old.

Perhaps the señorita has too.

No, play on, Lilliecrona, play the cachucha, always the cachucha!

Teach us that, although we have got slow bodies and stiff joints, in our feelings we are always the same, always Spaniards.

Say that you love the trumpet-blast, which decoys you into a gallop, even if you also cut your foot to the bone on the steel-link of the tether.

It was worth wasting one’s gold on wax-candles to light up your loveliness, on wine to instil gayety into your hearts; it was worth dancing soles to dust and rubbing stiff arms which had drawn the fiddle-bow, for your sakes.

Ah, women of the olden days, it was you who owned the key to the door of Paradise.

The halls of Ekeby are crowded with the loveliest of your lovely throng. There is the young Countess Dohna, sparklingly gay and eager for game and dance, as befits her twenty years;

“Think no such thing,” she smiled, “for then I must run you through with my stiletto to show you that you are wrong.”

“Women’s kisses are precious,” said Gösta. “Does it cost one’s life to be kissed by Marianne Sinclair?”

A glance flashed on him from Marianne’s eyes, so sharp that it felt like a blow.

It was to secure their salvation that these unhappy pensioners persecuted the major’s wife.

People have often been cruel and tortured one another with the greatest hardness, when they have trembled for their souls.

When the pensioners late at night reeled from the drinking-tables to the window to see if the night was calm and clear, they often noticed a dark shadow, which glided over the grass, and knew that the major’s wife had come to see her beloved …

Verily, lovelessness and arrogance began to take possession of the penniless adventurers’ hearts. Sintram had planted hate. Their souls could not have been in greater danger if the major’s wife had remained at Ekeby.

More die in flight than in battle.

The major’s wife cherished no great anger against the pensioners.

And they turn away from the poor old horses; they have not courage to meet their glance. And they dare not stand by the gate and see the cattle come home from pasture.

There is no spot on earth so sad to visit as an old home in ruin.

When I think what that proud Ekeby must have suffered under the pensioners’ rule, I wish that the plan of the major’s wife had been fulfilled, and that Ekeby had been taken from them.

“How do you wish me to place the cows in the stable?”

“Put twelve on the left and eleven on the right, then they can’t gore one another.”

“Have you so many cows, Faber?” bursts out the major.

The little maiden comes again to her brother, courtesies to him, and says that the carpenter had asked how high the barn should be made.

“Measure by the cows,” says the organist, “measure by the cows!”

Major Fuchs thinks that is such a good answer.

But however he has aimed, the bear falls. So it is when one shoots with a silver bullet.

One shoots the bear through the heart, even if one aims at the Dipper.

People come rushing out from all the neighboring farmyards and wonder what is going on, for never had a shot sounded so loud nor waked so many sleeping echoes as this one, and the sexton wins much praise, for the bear had been a real …

Then the icy eyes were blinded, then the sneer was weakened, for passion had raged through her soul. The roar of adventure’s wild hunt had thundered in her ears. She had been a whole person during that one terrible night.

Oh, you god of self-mockery, when Marianne with infinite difficulty succeeded in lifting her stiffened arms and putting them about Gösta’s neck, you too, like old Beerencreutz, had to turn away your eyes from the earth and look at the stars.

That night you had no power. You were dead while she sang her love-song, dead while she hurried down to Sjö after the major, dead when she saw the flames redden the sky over the tops of the trees.

But now the sickness and the fever were gone. She was once more cold and sensible. It seemed to her as if she alone was sensible in this world of fools. She neither hated nor loved. She understood her father; she understood them all.

He who understands does not hate.

She had heard that Melchior Sinclair meant to have an auction at Björne and make way with all his wealth, that she might inherit nothing after him. People said that he would make the devastation as thorough as possible;

To be her slave, her guide!

Love is strong when it has gone through the baptismal fire of pain.

He could not speak to Marianne of parting and renunciation. He could not leave her—he owed her his life. He could commit the unpardonable sin for her sake.

“Gösta,” she said, “was I selfish when I went to Sjö after the major; I knew that they had smallpox there. Nor is it pleasant to go out in satin slippers in the cold and snow.”

“Love lives on love, and not on services and deeds,” said Gösta.

“You wish, then, that we shall be as strangers from now on, Gösta?”

The young countess sleeps till ten o’clock in the morning, and wants fresh bread on the breakfast-table every day. The young countess embroiders, and reads poetry. She knows nothing of weaving and cooking.

The young countess is spoiled.

But the young countess is gay, and lets her joyousness shine on all and everything. One is so glad to forgive her the long morning sleep and the fresh bread, for she squanders kindness on the poor and is friendly to everyone.

No one who sees the young countess can help wondering why she married stupid Count Henrik.

It is a pity for him who is stupid, wherever he may be. And it is the greatest pity for him who is stupid and lives in Värmland.

There are already many stories of Count Henrik’s stupidity, and he is only a little over twenty years old. They tell how he entertained Anna Stjärnhök on a sleighing party a few years ago.

Suddenly he loosens the grip of iron with which he has held her. He stands up in the sledge and waves his cap.

“I am Gösta Berling,” he cries, “lord of ten thousand kisses and thirteen thousand love-letters! Hurra for Gösta Berling! Take him who can!”

And in the next minute he whispers in the countess’s ear:—

“What is the meaning of all this?” roared the little count at him.

“The meaning is,” he said, “that as long as there are women on earth, there will be fools to dance after their piping.”

The young count’s face grew red.

“I ask that,” repeated the count.

“One does not ask leave of the fox to take his skin from him,” said Beerencreutz.

The count laid his hand on his narrow chest.

Poor old Ulrika, so tortured, so lonely, so helpless, astray in a hostile country, without a friend to complain to, without any consoler but a cracked piano, which answers her with a polka.

It is like loud laughter at a funeral, a drinking song in a church.

While the rocking-chair is still rocking she hears suddenly how the piano is laughing at her sorrows, and she stops in the middle of a bar. She rises and turns to the rocking-chair.

Mamselle Marie, as she was always called, had her own ideas on many things, as one always does who sits much alone and lets her thoughts dwell on what her eyes have seen.

Mamselle Marie thought that love was the root and origin of all evil in this sorrowful world.

Every evening, before she fell asleep, she used to clasp her hands and say her evening prayers. After she had said “Our Father” and “The Lord bless us” she always ended by praying that God would preserve her from love.

She had learned to cherish Love with all his pain, his tears, his longing.

“Better to be sorrowful with him than happy without him,” she said.

The time passed.

He goes once more into the pensioners’ wing, lights the fire, and puts away his uniform. Again he sits down at the fire, and every day he gets more rough and more gray.

He is dying by degrees, as old eagles do in captivity.

He is no longer a prisoner; but he does not care to make use of his freedom. The world stands open to him. The battlefield, honor, life, await him. But he has not the strength to spread his wings in flight.

Weary are the ways which men have to follow here on earth.

Paths through the desert, paths through the marshes, paths over the mountains.

How long shall a proud heart be able to bend? How long can impatient lips keep silent; how long a passionate hand be held back?

Sweet is the misery of humiliation. When the back aches from the heavy work the heart is at peace.

To one who sleeps a few short hours on a hard bed of straw, sleep comes uncalled.

Everything was as it should be. If now the master of the house longed to live as pensioner at Ekeby, what then? Does it help to complain of heaven’s sun because it disappears every evening in the west, and leaves the earth in darkness?

What is so unconquerable as submission? What is so certain of victory as patience?

But it is so, although that poor wayfarer did not know it, that the soul is ever hungry. On frivolity and play it cannot live.

If it gets no other food, it will like a wild beast first tear others to pieces and then itself.

That is the meaning of the story.

… all your life, you who have heard every tree in the forest, every tuft in the meadow preach of resignation and patience, you who have been brought up in a land where the winter is severe and the summer short—have you forgotten how to endure?”

Ah Gösta, a man must bear all that life offers with a brave heart and smiling lip, or he is no man.

Regret as much as you like if you have lost what you hold dearest, let remorse tear at your vitals, but show yourself a man. Let your glance shine with gladness, and meet your friends with cheerful words!

Regret as much as you like if you have lost what you hold dearest, let remorse tear at your vitals, but show yourself a man. Let your glance shine with gladness, and meet your friends with cheerful words!

Life is hard, nature is hard. But they both give courage and cheerfulness as compensations for their hardness, or no one could hold out.

Courage and cheerfulness! It is as if they were the first duties of life. You have never failed in them before, and shall not now.

She was twenty when I saw her last, and it is now forty years ago! Help me, that I may see her in my house! Here is money, if money can help, but here more than money is needed.”

Oh, Eros, women love you. They would rather go a hundred steps for you than one for other gods.

In the deanery at Bro the rooms are emptied, the kitchen is emptied, the larder is emptied. Wagons are piled up and driven to the vicarage.

She remembers that he once carried her up the steps to the terrace. She, who believed that her love had lived all these years, had forgotten what it was to be clasped in strong arms, to look into young, glowing eyes.

She does not see that he is old. She only sees his eyes.

She does not see the black floors, the mildewed ceilings, she only sees his glowing eyes. The Broby clergyman is a stately man, a handsome man in that hour. He grows handsome when he looks at her.

She does not see the black floors, the mildewed ceilings, she only sees his glowing eyes. The Broby clergyman is a stately man, a handsome man in that hour.

He grows handsome when he looks at her.

She hears his voice, his dear, strong voice; caressingly it sounds. He only speaks so to her. Why did he need furniture from the deanery for his empty rooms; why food, why servants? The old lady would never have missed anything.

beauty. May life be like a rosebush, with blossoms of love, wine, and pleasure, and may its roses be within every man’s reach! Yes, that is what we wish, and our land wears the features of sternness, earnestness, renunciation.

Our land is the eternal symbol of meditation, but we have no thoughts.

“Oh, Värmland, beautiful and glorious!”

“Woe is me, woe to us all, children of Värmland!

Beauty, beauty and nothing else, we demand of life.

We, children of renunciation, of seriousness, of poverty, raise our hands in one long prayer, and ask the one good: beauty. May life be like a rosebush, with blossoms of love, wine, and pleasure, and may its roses be within every man’s reach!

For the pensioners remembered that this was exactly the seventeenth time Patron Julius had tried to leave Ekeby, once for every departing year. Now Patron Julius had already forgotten both this attempt and all the others. His conscience slept once more its yearlong sleep.

He was a doughty man, Patron Julius. He was light in the dance, gay at the card-table.

Pen, pencil, and fiddle-bow lay equally well in his hand. He had an easily moved heart, fair words on his tongue, a throat full of songs.

It was a pity to come with wild pranks into the church; but both the clergyman and the congregation knew that they had been about to play a greater trick on the Omniscient. And they stood ashamed before the misguided old madmen.

“When man is silent, the stones must speak,” they said.

But after that day Count Henrik was not happy at Borg. One dark night in the beginning of August a closed carriage drove close up to the big steps.

May the dead man have known and felt that not everyone has forgotten him or his forsaken grave.

Strange homage wild hearts bring to them they love; but he who lies outside the wall, he whose dead body was not allowed to rest in consecrated ground, he ought to be glad that not everyone has rejected him.

Friends, children of men, when I die I shall surely rest in the middle of the churchyard, in the tomb of my ancestors.

In what shall one believe? In tears and sorrow!

He who is sorrowful can force himself to smile, but he who is glad cannot weep.

But joy is only sorrow disguised. There is nothing real on earth but sorrow.

He who is sorrowful can force himself to smile, but he who is glad cannot weep.

But joy is only sorrow disguised. There is nothing real on earth but sorrow.

She went to the window and looked out into the garden, where her parents were walking. They went up and down the broad paths and talked of everything which met their eyes, of the grass and the birds.

It never drinks clear water, but first muddies it with its foot so that it may better suit its sorrowful spirit. So too should she never go to the spring of life and drink pure, unmixed happiness.

Troubled with sorrow, life pleased her best.

The snake crawled up the sandy path to the very house. He could not speak, but they well understood that he came as a presage. And in the apple-tree outside the window of the captain’s wife the owl hooted.

For everything in nature feels Death and trembles.

It happened that the judge from Munkerud, who had been at a festival at the Bro deanery, drove by Berga at two o’clock in the night and saw a candle burning in the window of the guestroom.

They are dead. Dead is Bel, the mighty warrior, and Thot, the hawk-headed champion. The glorious ones are dead who rested on the cloud banks of Olympus; so too the mighty who dwelt in the turreted Valhalla.

All the old gods are dead except Eros, Eros, the all-powerful!

His work is in everything you see. He supports the race. See him everywhere! Whither can you go without finding the print of his foot? What has your ear perceived, where the humming of his wings has not been the keynote?

Ever since Moses dragged him out of Sinai’s thundercloud and put him on the throne of grace in the innermost sanctuary of the temple, ever since then he has sat secure, the old Jehovah; but now men shall see what he is:

Imagination, emptiness, exhalation, the stillborn child of our own brain.

He shall sink into nothingness,” said the old man, and laid his wrinkled hand on the pile of manuscript. “It stands here; and when people read this, they will have to believe. They will rise up and acknowledge their own stupidity;

Still he was not liked, for he thought evil of everybody. He felt himself like a hated stranger. Now the forest animals were his enemies. The mountain, which shut out the sun, and the swamp, which sent up the mist, were his foes.

The forest is a terrible place for one who has evil thoughts.

He who will live in the wilderness should have bright memories. Otherwise he sees only murder and oppression among plants and animals, just as he had seen it before among men. He expects evil from everything he meets.

now he thought he really was a spirit from the lower regions. He had fed and fostered the evil in him until it had taken possession of his soul.

For wickedness can drive people mad, as well as love and brooding.

He was furious, and in his anger he began to tear the wreaths from off the coffin; but then Gösta Berling cried: “Let the coffin be!”

“I too have been in the Bro church today, Gösta. I have a message to you from two women.

‘Tell Gösta,’ said Marianne Sinclair, ‘that a woman does not like to be ashamed of him she has loved.’

‘Tell Gösta,’ said Anna Stjärnhök, ‘that all is now well with me. I manage my own estates. I do not think of love, only of work. At Berga too they have conquered the first bitterness of their sorrow. But we all grieve for Gösta.

“Do you hear? Are you cast off by men?” continued the countess. “

Your misfortune is that you have been met with too much love.

Women and men have loved you. If you only jested and laughed, if you only sang and played, they have forgiven you everything. Whatever it has pleased you to do has seemed right to them. And you dare to call yourself an outcast!