She would have liked to weep, to rave, to roll on the ground and strew snow and sand on her head.
Before, she had known the sweetness of renunciation, now she knew its bitterness. What was it to sacrifice her love compared to sacrificing her beloved’s soul? They drove on to Berga in the same silence; but when they arrived, and the hall-door was opened, Anna Stjärnhök fainted for the first and only time in her life. There sat both Sintram and Gösta Berling, and chatted quietly. The tray with toddy had been brought in; they had been there at least an hour.
Anna Stjärnhök fainted, but old Ulrika stood calm. She had noticed that everything was not right with him who had followed them on the road.
Afterwards the captain and his wife arranged the matter so with Sintram that old Ulrika was allowed to stay at Berga. He agreed good-naturedly.
“He did not want to drive her mad,” he said.
I do not ask any one to believe these old stories. They cannot be anything but lies and fiction. But the anguish which passes over the heart, until it wails as the floor boards in Sintram’s room wailed under the swaying rockers; but the questions which ring in the ears, as the sleigh-bells rang for Anna Stjärnhök in the lonely forest,—when will they be as lies and fiction?
Oh, that they could be!