Book Three — The Ingmar Farm
A blizzard. The pastor, called to a sick person in the north of the forest, struggles toward the Ingmar Farm through snow that always banks against the high boarding Big Ingmar refused to remove.
Summary
A blizzard. The pastor, called to the bedside of a sick person up in the north forest, makes his way by sledge toward the Ingmar Farm. In some places the snow is manageable; in others it is deep and hard. The worst obstacle is always the same: a massive drift that banks against the high boarding near the Ingmar Farm, as hard as rock and impossible to turn aside from.
The pastor remembers that he has asked Big Ingmar many times to remove the high boarding that causes the drift. Nothing was ever done. Everything else on the farm was kept in order — Big Ingmar was meticulous — but this particular problem never got fixed. The drift reappears every winter, exactly as before.
They push through. The pastor arrives to find the farm in the condition that the blizzard outside has framed appropriately: things are in order on the surface, but the shape of what's coming is already present. The boarding stays. The drift stays. The farm is being sold.
- Book OneFour generations of Ingmarssons on one Dalecarlian farm. Young Ingmar inherits the farm and the family method: when a hard...
- At The Schoolmaster'sThe schoolmaster Storm's household and the Dalecarlian parish before any religious movement reaches it. Conservative, Lutheran...
- And They Saw Heaven OpenThe Dal River floods in spring. The mission house is newly built. Something extraordinary happens there that the parish cannot...
- Karin, Daughter Of IngmarKarin Ingmarsson returns to the valley after her disastrous marriage to Elof Ersson, who deliberately ruined them before dying....
- In ZionStorm discovers that his authority in the parish is not sufficient to keep the Hellgum movement from taking hold. Lagerlöf is...
- The Wild HuntIngmar, penniless after Elof's ruin, returns to the schoolmaster's as a student. He and Gertrude grow close in the careful...
- HellgumKarin collapses after a dream-visitation from the dead Elof. Seeking explanation at the mission house, she encounters Hellgum. Her...
- The New WayIngmar returns from winter in the forest to find Karin fully converted to Hellgumism. She urges him to join. He cannot find a...
- Loss Of L'UniversA French liner crossing the Atlantic in 1880. A sailor has a premonition. The ship sinks. Lagerlöf renders the disaster with...
- Unity, UnitySurvivors of the L'Univers sinking. A woman hears the noise of catastrophe as an answer from God. A Norwegian ship finds bodies....
- Hellgum's LetterOld Eva Gunnersdotter, the most zealous of Hellgum's converts, walks to a meeting at the Ingmar Farm remembering when the movement...
- The Big LogIngmar brings down the first log toward a new house he is building for himself and Gertrude. One log, five years in the making....
- The Ingmar FarmThe pastor struggles toward the Ingmar Farm in a blizzard, hampered by a drift that has banked in the same place for generations...
- Hoek Matts EricssonHoek Matts Ericsson walks the parish on a beautiful spring day, unable to stop admiring the crops and the calves. His son Gabriel...
- The AuctionThe Ingmar Farm is auctioned. Mother Stina walks there through the flowering May countryside, picking wildflowers and thinking the...
- GertrudeGertrude cannot bear to see Ingmar after his marriage to Brita. Lagerlöf follows her fear through its daily mechanics — the...
- The Dean's WidowThe authorities try to stop the departure with practical arguments. The Hellgumists have an answer for each one. An ancient dean's...
- The Departure Of The PilgrimsThe pilgrims' wagons leave the Ingmar Farm on a July morning. The most moving moment comes not from the pilgrims themselves but...