"I put my hands before my eyes, and turned away from the window; it would not go away. Next time I looked out, there it was, just as before, a splendid place to see, standing out against the black hills behind. And looking at a place like that in reality, you would surely think it must be rich and powerful people that lived there. Everything was well kept, except that one gatepost.
"And I tried not to look at it, because it made me afraid, but just as I turned my eyes away from it, I saw that there was someone in the house after all. Someone sitting at the window of the little room above the cellar, almost opposite the gatepost, and looking down at it.
"It was an old woman, with a stern but beautiful face, and white hair set up under a cap—I had never seen anyone wear a cap like that before. She sat quite still, with folded hands, and her eyes fixed on the post. Sitting there like a stone, just looking and looking at it all the time.
"Now I felt more afraid of her than of the post itself, and I turned away from the window, and tried to make her go away, by thinking of Sigrun.
"I thought what good friends we had been, and still were. There was nothing that could separate us. The winter before, Sigrun had been away, to visit some relatives in the south, and stayed with them for several months, but when she came back, we were just as good friends as before.
"I never needed to do more than just call for Sigrun to make all darkness vanish away. But it did not help me this time. When I turned to the window again, there was the farmhouse, just as before, and the old woman still staring darkly and fixedly down at the same spot.
"Father and mother, sitting by the hearth, were talking the same way as before.
"'Yes, it will be hard for Lotta,' said mother. 'But she's young, and young folks soon forget.'
"'Yes, that's true. As long as you're young,' said father.
"And then they sighed, and puffed away at their pipes.