Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt comes driving down the rocky road, while the lone silver bell tinkles feebly and almost mournfully. In the days of his power and glory the sixty silver bells which hung from the harness and trappings jingled right merrily. They had, so to speak, rung in his triumphs, had heralded the coming of a conqueror. But now when there is only one solitary bell, it seems merely to announce the approach of a man whose day of fortune and happiness is over.
The Colour-Sergeant rides behind his old horse, Kalle, which is so noticeably small that everyone he meets in the road turns to look after it. But, on the other hand, no one turns to look at the horse’s owner.
Driving past Gunnarsby Inn, he sees two young girls standing at the well. He salutes them with a flourish of his whip, and from force of habit gives them one of his most seductive smiles, but receives in return an indifferent glance. The girls do not drop the well bucket in wonder, or stand rapt with cheeks aglow, to gaze after him.
Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt gives his horse a lash of the whip. He is no fool. He knows that his hair is gray and his face full of wrinkles, that his moustache is thin and faded, that one eye is filmed with a gray cataract, while the other, having been operated upon, is distorted by a magnifying monocle. He knows that he is old and nothing to look at now; yet he feels that people should not entirely forget what he once was. True, he has no better home nowadays than two hired rooms at a farmhouse in Stor Kil Parish. His only possessions are a horse, a carriole, a sleigh, and a few pieces of furniture, and his only subordinate is a crotchety old serving woman. For all that, he thinks it should not be completely forgotten that once he was Vackerfeldt, the celebrated Vackerfeldt.
He sits there in a mangy old fur coat and a still shabbier seal-skin cap. He wears thick lynx mittens to protect his gouty hands, but the distorted joints are noticeable even through the thick mittens. Nevertheless it is he, Wachenfeldt—he who has held so many beautiful women in his arms! The memory of that none can take from him. Who else in these parts has lived such a life and been so adored?
Pressing his lips together he tells himself he has nothing to regret. If he could live his life over again he would have it the same. All that youth and health and good looks can give a man he has enjoyed—love and adventure in fullest measure.
One thing perhaps Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt wishes he had left undone. He should not have married Anna Lagerlöf, the noblest woman he had ever known. He had loved her madly, but he never should have espoused her.
Was it fitting that a Vackerfeldt should settle down to the prudent management of a farm and not try to harvest gold in some easier and pleasanter way? If his wife was adorable, must he needs think her the only adorable one? Could he change his nature by marrying? Was it not through his success as gambler and lover he had won his fame?
Yes, he regrets his marriage. His wife was not suited to him, but he concedes that she was too good for him. She had wanted orderliness, industry, tranquillity, and comfort, and had worn herself out trying to make a home for them, such as she had had at Mårbacka.
Others might think he should not so much regret having married as having caused his wife grief and humiliation. After seventeen years of domestic infelicity, when Anna von Wachenfeldt could endure no more, she died. Then misfortunes of all sorts befell him. The creditors showed no further indulgence, but took away his home. He had to give up gambling, for now he lost as soon as he touched a card. The gout had also come, and the gray cataract. Before he had reached sixty he was white-haired, stiff-jointed, half-blind, helpless, and poverty-stricken. It would have been no small comfort to him now to have had his good, loving wife still with him.