Book Three — The Auction
One day in May there is an auction sale at the Ingmar Farm. It is a perfect day — as warm as summer, hawthorns in bloom on the road. Mother Stina stops to pick wildflowers and thinks there is nothing lovelier than this, not even Jerusalem.
Summary
A May morning, warm as summer. Mother Stina sets out for the auction at the Ingmar Farm, stopping along the road at every hawthorn in bloom, every hillock of lilies of the valley. "Where could you find anything lovelier than this," she thinks, "even if you were to go as far away as Jerusalem?" She has come to love the old parish more than ever since the Hellgumists called it a second Sodom.
At the farm, the auction proceeds. Ingmar has put in a bid — six thousand kroner, which is all he can raise. Tims Halvor has an offer from the Bergsana sawmills and ironworks for twenty-five thousand. Ingmar manages to borrow enough to match the commercial offer, but Halvor gets the farm. The Ingmar Farm, held by the same family since before anyone can remember, passes to a Hellgumist shopkeeper who will sell it for the money to go to Jerusalem.
Mother Stina watches, unable to bring herself to speak to Karin. The community's response is not dramatic — there are no scenes, no confrontations. There is simply the fact of it, standing in the May sunshine, as strange and irreversible as the hawthorn being in bloom. After today, the Ingmar Farm belongs to someone else.
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- 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...