One can be glad when one does not see sorrow, only hears it spoken of. But it is harder to keep a joyous heart when one stands face to face with black, fierce, staring trouble.
The countess knows of course that Bailiff Scharling had put the major’s wife in prison, and that she shall be tried for the assault she made on Ekeby the night of the great ball. But she never thought that she should be kept in custody there at the bailiff’s house, so near the ball-room that one could look into her room, so near that she must hear the dance music and the noise of merry-making. And the thought takes away all her pleasure.
The young countess dances both waltz and quadrille. She takes part in both minuet and contra-dance; but after each dance she steals to the window in the wing. There is a light there and she can see how the major’s wife walks up and down in her room. She never seems to rest, but walks and walks.
The countess takes no pleasure in the dance. She only thinks of the major’s wife going backwards and forwards in her prison like a caged wild beast. She wonders how all the others can dance. She is sure there are many there who are as much moved as she to know that the major’s wife is so near, and still there is no one who shows it.
But every time she has looked out her feet grow heavier in the dance, and the laugh sticks in her throat.
The bailiff’s wife notices her as she wipes the moisture from the window-pane to see out, and comes to her.
“Such misery! Oh, it is such suffering!” she whispers to the countess.
“I think it is almost impossible to dance to-night,” whispers the countess back again.
“It is not with my consent that we dance here, while she is sitting shut up there,” answers Madame Scharling. “She has been in Karlstad since she was arrested. But there is soon to be a trial now, and that is why she was brought here to-day. We could not put her in that miserable cell in the courthouse, so she was allowed to stay in the weaving-room in the wing. She should have had my drawing-room, countess, if all these people had not come to-day. You hardly know her, but she has been like a mother and queen to us all. What will she think of us, who are dancing here, while she is in such great trouble. It is as well that most of them do not know that she is sitting there.”