She fell asleep, only for a second; she absolutely could not help it.
Perhaps, too, God wished to open to her the gates of the land of dreams.
In that single second when she slept, she saw her stern father, her lovely, beautifully-dressed mother, and the ugly, little Petrea sitting in the church. And the soul of the child was compressed by an anguish greater than has ever been felt by a grown person. The priest stood in the pulpit and spoke of the stern, avenging God, and the child sat pale and trembling, as if the words had been axe-blows and had gone through its heart.
“Oh, what a God, what a terrible God!”
In the next second she was awake, but she trembled and shuddered, as after the kiss of death on the church-road. Her heart was once more caught in the wild grief of her childhood.
She wished to hurry from the church. She must go home and write her book, her glorious book on the God of peace and love.
Nothing else that can be deemed worth mentioning happened to Mamsell Fredrika before New Year’s night. Life and death, like day and night, reigned in quiet concord over the earth during the last week of the year, but when New Year’s night came, Death took his sceptre and announced that now old Mamsell Fredrika should belong to him.
Had they but known it, all the people of Sweden would certainly have prayed a common prayer to God to be allowed to keep their purest spirit, their warmest heart. Many homes in many lands where she had left loving hearts would have watched with despair and grief. The poor, the sick and the needy would have forgotten their own wants to remember hers, and all the children who had grown up blessing her work would have clasped their hands to pray for one more year for their best friend. One year, that she might make all fully clear and put the finishing-touch on her life’s work.
For Death was too prompt for Mamsell Fredrika.