CHAPTER II
THE PATHS OF LIFE
Weary are the ways which men have to follow here on earth.
Paths through the desert, paths through the marshes, paths over the mountains.
Why is so much sorrow allowed to go undisturbed, until it loses itself in the desert or sinks in the bog, or falls on the mountain? Where are the little flower-pickers, where are the little princesses of the fairy tale about whose feet roses grow, where are they who should strew flowers on the weary ways?
Gösta Berling has decided to get married. He is searching for a bride who is poor enough, humble enough for a mad priest.
Beautiful and high-born women have loved him, but they may not compete for his hand. The outcast chooses from among outcasts.
Whom shall he choose, whom shall he seek out?
To Ekeby a poor girl sometimes comes from a lonely forest hamlet far away among the mountains, and sells brooms. In that hamlet, where poverty and great misery exist, there are many who are not in possession of their full intellect, and the girl with the brooms is one of them.
But she is beautiful. Her masses of black hair make such thick braids that they scarcely find room on her head, her cheeks are delicately rounded, her nose straight and not too large, her eyes blue. She is of a melancholy, Madonna-like type, such as is still found among the lovely girls by the shores of Löfven’s long lake.