The Virgin Spring (1960)

Allan Edwall: Beggar

Photos 

Quotes 

• Beggar : See the smoke trembling under the roof as if with fright? Yet when it gets out in the air, it has the whole sky to swirl about in. But it doesn't know that, so it huddles and trembles in the soot under the roof. It's the same with people. They quiver like a leaf in the storm, afraid of what they know and what they don't know.

• Beggar : Flying birds find something, sitting birds only find death. I have found both women and churches.

• Beggar : You... shall cross a narrow plank, so narrow you can't find your footing. Below you roars a great river. It's black and wants to swallow you up. But you pass over it unharmed. Before you lies a chasm so deep you can't see the bottom. Hands grope for you, but they can't reach you. At last you stand before a mountain of terror. It spews fire like a furnace, and a vast abyss opens at its feet. A thousand colors blaze there: Copper and iron, blue vitriol and yellow sulfur. Flames dazzle and flash and lash at the rocks. And all about men leap and writhe, small as ants, for this is the furnace that swallows up murderers and evildoers. But at the very moment you think you're doomed, a hand shall grasp you and arm circle around you, and you'll be taken far away... where evil no longer has power over you.

• Beggar : A day can start out beautifully yet end in misery. Rarely have I seen a morning so full of promise as this morning. The sun shone in all its fairness and made you forget winter's rages. My legs wanted to dance for joy, but before nightfall she lay dead. I saw the May Queen herself ride into the sun, but she never returned.

• Beggar : [singing]  So lovely an apple orchard I know, A maiden with virtues so dear, Her hair like spun gold does flow, Her eyes like the heavens so clear, The streams flow so merrily, All under the verdant trees, In Springtime's breeze...