'Yes, mostly of goats.'
He had stood clutching her by the wrist the whole time. He now flung her hand away from him—simply flung it. He turned away from Ingrid in a rage, as if she had maliciously told him an infamous lie.
But this feeling gave way for something else which excited him still more. He saw before his eyes, as distinctly as if it had been a picture, a tall Dalar man, weighed down by a huge pack. He was going into a peasant's house, but a wretched little dog came rushing at him. He stopped and curtsied and curtsied, and did not dare to go in until a man came out of the house, laughing, and drove the dog away.
When he saw this he again felt that terrible fear. In this anguish the vision disappeared, but then he heard voices. They shouted and shrieked around him. They laughed. Derision was showered upon him. Worst and loudest were the shrill voices of children. One word, one name came over and over again: it was shouted, shrieked, whispered, wheezed into his ear—'The Goat! the Goat!' And that all meant him, Gunnar Hede. All that he had lived in. He felt in full consciousness the same unspeakable fear he had suffered whilst out of his mind. But now it was not fear for anything outside himself—now he was afraid of himself.
'It was I! it was I!' he said, wringing his hands. The next moment he was kneeling against a low seat. He laid his head down and cried, cried: 'It was I!' He moaned and sobbed. 'It was I!' How could he have courage to bear this thought—a madman, scorned and laughed at by all? 'Ah! let me go mad again!' he said, hitting the seat with his fist. 'This is more than a human being can bear.'
He held his breath a moment. The darkness came towards him as the saviour he invoked. It came gliding towards him like a mist. A smile passed over his lips. He could feel the muscles of his face relax, feel that he again had the look of a madman. But that was better. The other he could not bear. To be pointed at, jeered at, scorned, mad! No, it was better to be so again and not to know it. Why should he come back to life? Everyone must loathe him. The first light, fleeting clouds of the great darkness began to enwrap him.
Ingrid stood there, seeing and hearing all his anguish, not knowing but that all would soon be lost again. She saw clearly that madness was again about to seize him. She was so frightened, so frightened, all her courage had gone. But before he again lost his senses, and became so scared that he allowed no one to come near him, she would at least take leave of him and of all her happiness.
Gunnar Hede felt that Ingrid came and knelt down beside him, laid her arm round his neck, put her cheek to his, and kissed him. She did not think herself too good to come near him, the madman, did not think herself too good to kiss him.
There was a faint hissing in the darkness. The mist lifted, and it was as if serpents had raised their heads against him, and now wheezed with anger that they could not reach to sting him.
'Do not be so unhappy,' Ingrid said. 'Do not be so unhappy. No one thinks of the past, if you will only get well.'