Book Three — The Dean's Widow

Everybody tried to dissuade the Hellgumists. The bailiff, the judge, and the councilmen asked how they could trust Americans they didn't know. The doctor told them Jerusalem was full of smallpox and malignant fevers; they were going only to die. The Hellgumists answered that they knew this, and that this was precisely why they were going — to fight the diseases, to build roads, to till the holy land, to transform God's country into a paradise.

Down in the village, an old lady — the widow of the Dean — has lived above the post office for years without leaving her room. The well-to-do peasant women bring her freshly baked bread on Sundays; sometimes people forget her entirely and then remember with a start. She sits by her window with an old Postil, more and more detached from the things of this world. But she has not been unaware of what is happening in the parish.

The Dean's widow sends for the Hellgumists before departure. She has something to say to them that the practical arguments of bailiff and doctor could not say. Lagerlöf renders the encounter with her characteristic restraint — the old woman's words are not reported directly; only their effect on the pilgrims is shown. After her, the opposition is spent. The departure will happen.