Book Two — Hellgum
The night of a dance at Strong Ingmar's, Karin dreams of her dead husband in the next room. When she wakes, her legs will not hold her. She goes to the mission house to find out why God has punished her — and finds Hellgum.
Summary
The night of a dance at Strong Ingmar's, Karin is alone in her little chamber. She has a frightful dream: Elof alive, holding a wild party in the next room, laughing close to her ear. She wakes to find a windowpane burst and the room full of cold wind — and her legs will not hold her. The doctor calls it fright. Karin believes Elof was in the room.
She is taken to Storm's mission house, where a lay preacher named Dagson is leading meetings. Karin sits in the crowded hall hoping to discover why God has punished her. She examines her conscience and can find no sin that merits what happened to her. "God is unjust to me," she thinks — then goes to hear Dagson.
What she hears, and the encounter with Hellgum that follows, begins her conversion. Lagerlöf does not dramatize a sudden transformation; she shows Karin finding, in the movement's certainty, an answer to the injustice she cannot account for in her own terms. The chapter ends with Karin changed — not loud about it, not theatrical, but changed. The Ingmar Farm is now in danger.
- 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...