Gustav

“ Without breakfast, for I had not wished to betray myself to my landlady, with a false beard on my face and a wig on my head, and an enormous pair of horn spectacles on my nose—my feelings can readily be imagined. And with all that I felt it incumbent upon me to feign a cheerful manner to keep Gustav—for I judged him to be the possessor of the bass voice—in good spirits.
“The weather will be gorgeous to-day,” I said, apparently in the best of humour, while my teeth were chattering with cold. Gustav grunted like a bear disturbed in his winter’s sleep. ”

“ The King asked if the rest of them thought the same way. Only one voice was raised, and to say yes.
“Then,” said Gustav, “I don’t want to be your King any more. If it does not rain, you blame me; if the sun does not shine, you do the same. It is always so. All of you want to be masters. After all my trouble and labor for you, you would as lief see my head split with an axe, though none of you dare lay hold of the handle. Give me back what I have spent in your service and I will go away and never come back.” And go he did, to his castle, with half a dozen of his nearest friends. ”

“ Gustav [holding him back] . No, stay here. Be rude to her. If she's got a good conscience she'll let you have it so hot and strong that you won't know where you are. But if she feels guilty she'll come and caress you.
Adolf. Are you so sure of it?
Gustav. Not absolutely. At times a hare goes back in the tracks, but I'm not going to let this one escape me. My room is just here. [Points to the door on the right and goes behind Adolf's chair.] ”

“ There was the crucial fact, too, that Karl's ruin meant Gustav's advantage. Every one expressed regret that Karl and not Gustav was to be the future Duke; and if others felt this, was Gustav himself likely to hold a different opinion? From such an opinion it was no doubt a far cry to form a deliberate plot to secure the dukedom; but Gustav was no more than a man; and men had done such things before.
I hoped they would send for me, that I might judge for myself. I could understand how my interference with such a scheme, if he had formed it, would rouse his resentment ”

“ Gustav. That means he's left off loving you.
Thekla. What he means by love lies outside my line of country.
[She goes behind the sofa on the left. Gustav goes after her as far as the table on the left.]
Gustav. You've played hide and seek so long with each other that the "he" can't catch the she, nor the she the "he," don't you know. Of course it's just the kind of thing one would expect. You had to play the little innocent, and that makes him quite tame. As a matter of fact a change has its disadvantages—yes, it has its disadvantages. ”

“ There is no such thought in Count Gustav's mind. Everything you wish to say, every charge you mistakenly bring, shall be disproved to your entire satisfaction. You are maligning the most honourable man in Pesth, a member of the most illustrious family. ”

“ Gustav’s pen was as sharp as his tongue. When Hans Brask, the oldest prelate in the land, who had stood stoutly by the old régime, left the country and refused to come back, he wrote to him: “As long as you might milk and shear your sheep, you staid by them. When God spake and said you were to feed them, not to shear and slaughter them, you ran away. Every honest man can judge if you have done well.” Hard words to a good old man; but there were plenty of others who deserved them. That was the end of the hierarchy in Sweden.
But not of the unruly peasants who had tasted the joys of king-making. ”

“ Gustav. Shall I guess?
[He goes behind the round table, toward the left, and sits on the sofa.]
Adolf. You'll get nothing for your pains.
Gustav. Not so fast! From the insight which you've given me into your own character, and that of your wife, I find it pretty easy to work out the sequence of the whole thing. Listen to me and you'll be quite convinced. [Dispassionately and in an almost jocular tone.] The husband happened to be traveling on study and she was alone. At first she found a pleasure in being free. ”

“ Where is the man, indeed, whose title to immortal fame was ever better founded than that of the heroic Gustavus-Adolphus?—A monarch mighty among kings: though receiving a kingdom, distracted by dissensions, and surrounded by enemies, he transmitted it to his successors in perfect peace, aggrandized by his efforts, dreaded by the neighbouring potentates, and respected throughout all Europe—A monarch mighty among heroes ”

“ Three times Karl Gustav hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven back, broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only to be dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and their homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over the breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams and rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the enemy. In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king’s councillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face, saw that it was his own son breathing his last. ”

“ But in his last year in the Gymnasium he had, for what reason I never knew, excited the animosity of a cantankerous old professor who had publicly declared that Gustav was not the kind of boy who should have a Gymnasium diploma and that he, the professor, was determined never to give him a passing grade. My father had admired the boy very much, and at one juncture when my marks looked perilously low, he had employed Gustav to tutor me. Gustav had been so successful that Father was delighted and made him a present of a silver cigarette case with Gustav's initials and mine engraved on it. ”

“ Gustav made sure that they had no backing elsewhere, then went up and persuaded them to be good by cutting off the heads of their leaders, who both happened to be priests: one was even a bishop. He had been taught in a school that always found an axe ready to hand. Let those who lament the savagery of modern warfare consider what happened then to a Danish fleet that tried to bring relief to hard-pressed Stockholm. It was beaten in a fight in which six hundred men were taken prisoners. ”

“ Schoolboys remember with gratitude that he forbade teachers to “spank their pupils overmuch and without judgment, as was their wont.”
At the Diet of Vadstena the people had offered Gustav the crown, but he put it from him. Scarce eight months had passed since he hid under the bridge, hunted and starving. When Stockholm had fallen after a siege of two years and all Sweden was free, the people met (1523) and made him King, whether or no. He still objected, but gave in at last and was crowned.
Popular favor is fickle. ”

“ All day they rush along,—out of the rimy hazes of morning into the olive-colored clouds of evening again,—with huge loud-grinding rumble;—and do arrive in time at Gilge. A notable streak of things, shooting across those frozen solitudes, in the New-Year, 1679;—little short of Karl Gustav's feat, which we heard of, in the other or Danish end of the Baltic, twenty years ago, when he took Islands without ships. ”

“ The good parson was hardly out of sight on his way back when the sheriff’s men came looking for Gustav. It did not occur to them that the yokel who stood warming himself by the stove might be the man they were after. But the gamekeeper’s wife was quick to see his peril. She was baking bread and had just put the loaves into the oven with a long-handled spade. “Here, you lummox!” she cried, and whacked him soundly over the back with it, “what are ye standing there gaping at? Did ye never see folks afore? Get back to your work in the barn.” And Gustav, taking the hint, slunk out of the room. ”

“ There's nothing like it, Gustav; for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear, white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, and rosy lips on yours, even if it is your sister. Bless the sweet creatures!
'What do you want to marry Snowe for?'
'Well, you see, Len, it's so grand to have such a great beauty always at one's hand, and the girls are all dying for him ”

“ They refused to lend Gustav two siege-guns when he lay before Stockholm, though he offered to pledge a castle for each. He had no money. Happily his enemy, Christian, was even worse off. Neither pledges nor promises could get him the money he needed. His chief men were fighting among themselves and made peace only to turn upon him. Within a year after the Swedish people had chosen Gustav Vasa to be Regent at the Diet of Vadstena, Christian went into exile and, when he tried to get his kingdom back, into prison, where he languished the rest of his life. ”

“ How are we to live! for my husband had no settled profession, and his parents, though wealthy, could not deprive their more obedient children of their rights to benefit the perverse Gustav. They gave him sufficient to start him in business, with the understanding that he would emigrate to America, their idea being that a German gentleman with a little capital could not fail to make a fortune among the comparatively illiterate Columbians. To New York accordingly we came, and Gustav labored assiduously to establish a business as importer of German manufactures ”

“ The stone rolls, but it was not the last drop of water that made it roll, nor yet the first—everything taken together brought it about.
Gustav. Let it roll, then; it won't have any peace until it does. Good-by, for the time being.
[Exit on the right. Adolf nods to him, stands up for a short time, looking at the photograph, tears it to pieces, and throws the fragments behind the circular table on the right; he then sits down in his previous place, nervously arranges his tie, runs his fingers through his hair, fumbles with the lapels of his coat, etc. Thekla enters on the left.] ”

“ Gustave loved his parents as only a Frenchman can venture to love his father and mother—with a devotion for the gentleman that bordered on enthusiasm, with a fond reverence for the lady that was the very essence of chivalry. There was a sister, who regarded her brother Gustave as the embodiment of all that is perfect in youthful mankind ”

“ In 1631, at Michaelmas, King Gustavus came from Sweden suddenly through the wood, just as if he had wings. He took Königshofen and many other places, and went on very flourishingly. Our nobles enlisted people for the king, who were as bad as the enemy in pilfering and robbing. They more especially took from the neighbouring Catholics their cows, horses, pigs, and sheep; then was there a great sale; a ducat for one cow, and a thaler for a pig. The Papists often came hither and saw how and who bought their cattle, and frequently redeemed them themselves. ”

“ Freytag, Gustav, an eminent German novelist and dramatist, born at Kreuzburg, Silesia; from 1839 was teacher of German language and literature at Breslau, and became editor of a journal, a position he held till 1870; was a member of the North German Diet, and accompanied the Crown Prince during the war of 1870-71; from 1879 resided at Wiesbaden; his many novels and plays and poems, which reveal a powerful and realistic genius, place him in the front rank of modern German littérateurs ”

“ His eldest son, Eilhard Ernst Gustav, born at Berlin on the 1st of August 1852, became professor of physics at Erlangen in 1886, and his younger son, Alfred, born at Berlin on the 18th of July 1856, was appointed to the extraordinary professorship of Egyptology at Bonn in 1892. ”

“ Gustav. Perhaps there is a distant relationship between us: all men and women are related of course. Anyway, there's no getting away from the strangeness of it, and it will be interesting for me to make the acquaintance of your wife, so as to observe this remarkable characteristic.
Adolf. But just think of this, she doesn't take a single expression from me; why, she seems rather to make a point of avoiding all my special tricks of speech; all the same, I have seen her make use of one of my gestures ”

“ We, with our small philosophy, can make allowance for the greater dangers of the higher sphere; and shall we arrogate to ourselves a larger judgment and ampler sympathies than we allow to God? Yet Gustavus was happy. Among soldiers and statesmen, if there is a greater, there is hardly a purer name. He had won not only honour but love, and the friend and comrade was as much bewailed as the deliverer and the king. In him his Sweden appeared for the first and last time with true glory on the scene of universal history. ”

“ Adolf. Nonsense.
Gustav. Pray excuse me, woman's love consists simply in this—in taking in, in receiving. She does not love the man from whom she takes nothing: she has never loved you.
[He turns round behind the square table and walks to Adolf's right.]
Adolf. I suppose you don't think that she'd be able to love more than once?
Gustav. No. Once bit, twice shy. After the first time, one keeps one's eyes open, but you have never been really bitten yet. You be careful of those who have; they're dangerous customers. ”

“ He will hear neither of reason nor expediency. You had the misfortune to be born a Turk, and it is your fatality. He has some curious idea that man cannot enter into strife with fate. He never had much brains for aught but books, and I have observed that books have a naturally weakening effect upon the intelligence.”
Gustav laughed tolerantly, and ostentatiously trifled with his papers. ”

“ Him the country calls affectionately “Gamle Kong Gosta” and no less was its love and pride in his noble descendant, Gustaf Adolf, “the Lion of the North, the bulwark of the Protestant faith,” who casts the only gleam of brightness over the dull waste of the Thirty Years' War. Thus it is no wonder that so many bear his name, Gustav, Gosta, Gjosta, that it is considered in the North as the national nickname of a Swede; and it has the feminine Gustava.
Section II.—The Aasir. ”