THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA - UPCOMING FINALE

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA - ARC IV: TIMES OF CHANGE AND TWILIGHT

FROM CHAPTER XXIII ONWARDS (LAST ARC'S FINAL CHAPTER WAS XXII)

(PREVIEW)

How often have you ever been forced to decide between your conscience and your heart?
What did you decide then?
The youngest child and only son, the spoiled and willful heir to Vänersvik, Gustav Paul von Ringstetten, also known as Gösta Skaldehand (his artistic name), is obliged, by forces beyond his control, to make such decisions.
Between his passion for literature, especially his mother's favourite author Shakespeare, which will take him both to Uppsala and to Lund, with steelworks heir René for a frenemy... and the tradition which declares that he shall be an army officer, present within his soul like a "call of the blood" whenever the motherland is in distress. A literary translator from English into Swedish, his life devoted to Shakespeare and Lord Byron, will become an army ensign and lieutenant when his country needs him, leaving his passion as a pastime (translating poetry and drama just for pleasure's sake, never to be published, and writing dithyrambs and a Homeric-Byronic epic about the War of the Sexes in ancient Bohemia, together with his wife, with the same purpose) and the sword as his profession, so our last Count of Ringstetten, fleeing his provincial life through fiction during peacetime, will both eat the cake and keep it, all in the name of the Blue Flower he once heard of as a student on the streets of Lund: an ideal like the Holy Grail, visible to the pure-hearted (children at heart) alone.
Wounded beyond the surgeon's skill at Leipzig in 1813, and initially presumed dead, Gustav Paul's injuries will lead to his fiancée marrying her other suitor, and the student-turned-lieutenant, upon receiving the news, marrying another woman: a watermark in the lives of all four young people...
Throughout his life, Gustav Paul is thus torn between Louise-Antoinette "Toinette" de Rabutin, the green-eyed and raven-haired French adoptive daughter of the van der Heide steelworks owners, his childhood best friend and his fiancée as decided since their infancy... and Christa Niemandstochter, the strawberry-blond and freckled adoptive daughter/niece of Fire-Red Emma (a drunken, abusive Prussian camp follower), the bastard child of the French officer whom Emma's ward and younger sister Sophie, raped, killed in self-defense the year before dying in childbirth: an outcast, illiterate tomboy with an overly tall frame and fuzz on her upper lip, in whom, by giving her a good education, the Ringstetten heir (like yet another Pygmalion within his Galatea), sees a learned and charming lady, probably the Blue Flower of his heart's desire. After all, isn't the cornflower the national flower of Prussia, and isn't it the colour of Christa's eyes?
Still he had promised Loulou he would bring costly porcelain over from Saxony as wedding gifts. However, given the twist of fate, she will receive the rarities as Christmas and birthday presents...
By choosing love over duty in the latter case, because he was presumed killed in action, now disabled and brooding oathbreaker Gustav Paul will drive a thorn between himself and Louise, a feud between the decadent nobles and the rising steel-lords, with Louise married against her will to her cold and aloof foster brother René, the next owner of the steel mill, the one who dreams of endowing it with steam power not to be second to other steelworks, but whose dreams, along with his brow, will be crashed by an accident upon repairing a lock in the Göta River (which will put him first in a coma, and also cost him a sought-after seat in Parliament...). And soon it will come to light that they, unlike Gustav Paul and Christa, are unhappily married, or at least their relationship is cold (after René's cranial injury, reaching the extreme of physical abuse).
When the Ringstettens suddenly have only three daughters named after Shakespearean heroines (Desdemona, Miranda, and Portia) and the van der Heides have only three sons named after Enlightened philosophers (François, Denis, and Etienne), both couples being cursed with not being able to have any more children due to their oathbreaking (a parallel to the folktale "Lunkentus" or "The Enchanted Land of Siberia" where three princesses are saved by three warriors, both cast herds being one-gender sibling trios), tragedy strikes as a fatal storm in the region, when the steelworks owner risks his own life in repairing a lock on the Göta River, injures René fatally (crashing his head against the lock), changing his personality drastically for the worse (can it have anything to do with Christa's and Toinette's forbidden relationship with one another?)... Will the count and the industrialist's abused wife then widow finally make peace? Will something grow out of the sorrows of both? Even if they have to descend to the underworld to free their respective children from trolls à la Orpheus? Like Gerda and Kaj, Gustav Paul and Louise-Antoinette will find out that they are the two halves of a whole... The frozen-hearted youth and the maid who trod on the bread were destined since their birth to be united. Will the Blue Flower ever bloom and the oathbreakers be forgiven? It seems really unlikely given the fact that Loulou and Christa have cheated on their respective husbands... with each other!
To crown it all, Gustav Paul soon realizes that this is the life he has never wanted, that he was meant to die at Leipzig, and he is soon lured into Lake Vänern by the Kelpie or Näkki, who promises eternal youth and happiness underwater... And thus, as a result, the count will be trapped in a body that has reached its thirtieth decade of life, never to grow older...
Soon, Miranda gets the duty to name all the unbaptized spirit children of the shire from René's and Toinette's stillborn daughter, whom she has named Thea. Not to mention that, while Desdemona infiltrates the steelworks in drag (becoming a "killjoy" steelworker who won't drink any schnapps and who takes every order from the masters), her younger sister will live among trolls as a maid, then as a troll crown prince's bride, and soon to be a troll queen.
Desdemona, or shall we say "Killjoy Erik", has understood that the other workers and servants at the mill share the opinion to talk about the master's flaws behind his back, but are soft and obedient before him. This reveal of their hypocrisy, and that of her true secret gender, will secure her marrying the heir to the steelworks. By about the time that she, widowed and childless, will see her father, now turned a kelpie, rising from the waters of the Vänern one Midsummer Eve for the last time and warning her: "Good lady, please tell your friends and family that the Näkki is dead!"
The pebbles containing discarded faulty iron ore will turn to gems in her hands, and a wealthy old maid from Stockholm, a former court lady, owner of Saxon porcelain and Bohemian crystal glass, who attends the van der Heides' ostentatious Christmas feasts (tablecloths embroidered with flowers, wealthy guests like the governor of the province with his wife and eldest children...),  will be her passport into Russian high society as a governess... At a court where distinguished nobles look at her stiff and lifeless as wax figures at a museum and talk to each other in French (and snicker behind her back), and by a lake which reminds her of her own Vänern, she will get to say "charmant" at least thrice a day, teach Russian society children about the history and folklore of the former enemy country Sweden, write and thoroughly/carefully illustrate a book by hand for her masters about the subject (which will become their favourite book), drink champagne on ice, experience her first intoxication, and live a contented, easy life at last.

Men då hände det, att hertigen just skulle ut och åka i
släde med silkesnät över släden och silverklockor på hä-
starna, och vid hans sida satt hans unga hertiginna.

»Vad är det för en vacker pojke, som står vid ved-
boden?» frågade hon. »Se, så välskapad och smärt han
är! Honom vill jag ha till betjänt!» Och så blev han betjänt hos hertiginnan.

Han fick sammetsbyxor och sidenväst, puder i sitt svar-
ta hår och silver på rocken. Och han fick lära sig att
stå bakom hertiginnans stol och bjuda faten och vinet om-
kring till det höga herrskapet.

Damerna vid bordet sneglade på honom och sade till
varann på franska, att han var en riktigt »charmant».

 att göra precis som de andra betjänterna. Det vill säga likna dem, 
som de uppförde sig i matsalen, ty ute i köket och serve- 
ringsrummet... hur de fnissade och skrattade åt herrskapet, och såg, hur 

de drucko ur champagnen, som var kvar i de halvt ut- 
druckna buteljerna, tills de blevo både röda och blå och 
raglade så, att de knappast kunde stå på sina ben.
»Det är en bra betjänt, den nye, du har tagit dig», sade 
hertigen till hertiginnan. »Han super inte och talar inte; 
så skall de vara.»

Annars var det just inte vidare roligt på hertigens slott. 
Det var så stelt och fyrkantigt, och allting gick så precis 
och avmätt, som om det varit en komedi de alla hade lärt 
sig utantill, och som varje dag uppfördes ånyo.

Så hände det en morgon, att betjänten bjöd hertigen

kaffe i hans frukostrum. Den lille hertigen låg djupt ned- 

sjunken i en stoppad länstol och läste i sin älsklingsbok, 
som handlade om hästar.

Just som han stod och slog kaffe i den lilla för- 
gyllda porslinskoppen, öppnade en betjänt dörren.

 Då så allting var i ordning och potatisen var kokt,
ställde sig musikkåren åter upp i mitten och spelade folk-
sången, trummorna virvlade, och herrn med den höga,
svarta hatten trädde fram, klappade i händerna och ro-
pade:

»Nu mina damer och herrar! – Det är serverat!»

Alla slogo sig ned i gräset, och det blev några ögon-
blicks helig tystnad, ty alla sysselsatte sig blott med att
äta. Man hörde endast knivar och gafflar klirra, korkar
smälla och så musiken, som, med små uppehåll, blåste
det ena stycket efter det andra. Men efter hand blev man
allt mera högröstad. Champagnen smällde, herrarna höl-
lo tal, och de unga bytte plats varje ögonblick.

Så omväxlade man med att äta och dansa, med att
dricka och sjunga.

While Portia, after turning off many an unwelcome suitor, will be happily married for love to the young schoolteacher, who is also the heir to the van der Heide steelworks since his father's coma and his older brother's death, and become the mother of his three children, and mourn the loss of her favourite, the little one and only girl...
Då hände det, att i skolhuset, där hittills endast varit 
två gossar, föddes en liten flicka. Hon var allt från fö- 
delsen späd och klen och låg alltid och pep och gnällde, 
som om hon varit ledsen över att ha kommit hit till den- 
na världen. Om nätterna kunde hon inte sova, och hen- 
nes mor blev alldeles utvakad och uttröttad av att pyssla 
med henne. Om dagarna låg hon i sin lilla vagn ute 
bland krusbärsbuskarna och humlerankorna, men inte hel- 
ler där var hon lugn. Hennes små armar fäktade i luf- 
ten, som om hon jämt höll på att försvara sig mot nå- 
got, som pinade henne. 
För varje dag blev hon 
blekare och magrare och hennes ögon större. Hon hade 
varken ro i vaggan eller på armen och låg alltid och kved 
stilla. 
Men en morgon, då man satt och vyssjade 
henne, upphörde hon med ens att kvida och låg alldeles 
tyst.

En storebror klappade och kysste henne, sjöng och viss- 

lade för henne, men hon rörde sig icke.

»Nu skall du icke göra dig mera besvär för hennes
skull», sade hennes mor stilla. »Hon vaknar inte mer
nu. Hon är död.» 

Miranda will be crowned princess, and then queen, of a troll realm, and only allowed to resurface twice a year, for Christmas and for Midsummer. Her children, half-troll and half-human, will be given as changelings to abusive caregivers, as punishment for their wickedness.

At the start of the arc, Linnéa dies in a freak accident during a storm, Tradescantia works as a maid in Carlsten Fortress to be closer to her imprisoned stepfather (and encounter convicts who will make her a convinced man-hater), Charlotte is some sort of retainer to the Ringstettens as well as a fellow teacher to Ulrika. And Gustav Paul, with those odd eyes, named after a king and a czar who both fall prey to misfortune, will have to be spirited away, redeemed, and have to make a final choice (to stay underwater, obliged by the Näkki!) as his and Christa's three daughters discover their unusual powers and follow their hearts in different directions.., The eldest one of them will marry into House Tarlenheim after a long while of preaching and retaining her independence (she will only get married to the right lover), the second will be unhappily married and start anew across the Baltic as a governess after fortunately losing her spouse, and the third will be the last Countess of Ringstetten and marry into the steelworks Walloons, who will finally steam-power their business... All three sisters are fair-haired (different shades from golden to platinum), the eldest tall and green-eyed, the middle one averagely shaped and violet-eyed, the youngest petite and blue-eyed...

Every winter solstice at midnight, the Ringstetten children of these two generations take up the dare of looking through the church door keyhole and watching the next year unfurl like a film at super speed. And a young student with large and dreamy eyes (the right one blue, the left one violet), and later on the eccentric middle daughter of the adult count, who happens to share the same feature, will be the ones to watch most eagerly...

These are times of change and of twilight, of twilight for feudal society in the Protestant North. Sweden opens even more to the outside world. Romanticism pervades the creative arts, and Shakespeare becomes legend in Scandinavia. Feminism dawns in the North. The military of Värmland rises up against the Crown, like the French smallfolk did most recently. A war on Finland is lost to the Czar. A childless king looks for a foster son. A private with a marshal's bâton in his knapsack and a silk-merchant's sister, both of them born commoners in now stormy and convoluted France, suddenly become King and Queen of Sweden, a kingdom where, though the aristocracy is still strong, its power has already begun to dwindle. The French Revolution suddenly gives way to an unstoppable imperial monarchy, leaving Sweden as one of the few free kingdoms in the West. In October 1813, for four long days, the fields of Leipzig will (once more) see the last battle so far in Swedish history: an alliance of free Europe against Bonaparte. A decisive engagement in the history of the West, the dawn of two centuries of peace in the North, and, since the absence of war will leave the military idle, the dawn of the twilight of House Ringstetten... Of course, the battle will mean that a lieutenant surnamed von Ringstetten will be wounded in the environs of Leipzig once more... and this injury, after ages tossing feverishly on his bed, will change his life even more than those the ancestors of the dynasty had sustained.
This story will reach a level of darkness unheard of since the first arc of the Saga. For this is the last arc. A sorrowful leave-taking, yet an emotive and heartwarming, cathartic and harrowing one.
A story inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Robert's Rebellion, the Kalevala, Andersen's literary tales, Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Selma Lagerlöf's legends, Calderón's drama La hija del aire... A subversive tale, where young people are drugged and spirited away by non-human and non-animal forces, where ethereal poisons and sudden storms on the Vänern test the mettle of oathbreakers, where the Fair Folk suddenly turn their backs, even more fiercely than before, on their supporters, but also fall in love with said supporters more passionately... where bonds are broken constantly, yet new bonds, less fated, are forged in their stead... where the hearts of Romantics know no limits and forbidden love rises among the unhappily married. This is the beginning of the twilight of feudal society in Sweden.
The leave-taking of the Ringstettens will become the experience of your lifetime, reader. This time, they will never leave you indifferent. Love, war, progress, yearning, passion, storms, power, dreams, Shakespeare, subverted gender roles, tiny shards of magic mirror that enter human forms, and a cathartic ending to generations of Ringstetten stories.