She gave him a long look. And she saw him as he was,—stupid, cowardly, puffed up with pride and vanity, the most pitiful of men.
“Be calm,” she said. And she became as cold as ice. “I will do it.”
But now Gösta Berling became quite beside himself.
“You shall not, countess! No, you shall not! You are only a child, a poor, innocent child, and you would kiss my hand. You have such a white, beautiful soul. I will never again come near you. Oh, never again! I bring death and destruction to everything good and blameless. You shall not touch me. I shudder for you like fire for water. You shall not!”
He put his hands behind his back.
“It is all the same to me, Herr Berling. Nothing makes any difference to me any more. I ask you for forgiveness. I ask you to let me kiss your hand!”
Gösta kept his hands behind his back. He approached the door.
“If you do not accept the amends my wife offers, I must fight with you, Gösta Berling, and moreover must impose upon her another, severer, punishment.”
The countess shrugged her shoulders. “He is mad from cowardice,” she whispered. “Let me do it! It does not matter if I am humbled. It is after all what you wanted the whole time.”
“Did I want that? Do you think I wanted that? Well, if I have no hands to kiss, you must see that I did not want it,” he cried.