“But there was evil talk of Altringer and me. If Margareta Celsing had been living, it would have given her much pain, but it made no difference to me. But as yet I did not understand that it was because I was dead that I had no feeling.
“At last the tales of us reached my father and mother, as they went among the charcoal kilns up in Älfdal’s forest. My mother did not stop to think; she travelled hither to talk to me.
“One day, when the major was away and I sat dining with Altringer and several others, she arrived. I saw her come into the room, but I could not feel that she was my mother, Gösta Berling. I greeted her as a stranger, and invited her to sit down at my table and take part in the meal.
“She wished to talk with me, as if I had been her daughter, but I said to her that she was mistaken, that my parents were dead, they had both died on my wedding day.
“Then she agreed to the comedy. She was sixty years old; a hundred and twenty miles had she driven in three days. Now she sat without ceremony at the dinner-table and ate her food; she was a strong and capable woman.
“She said that it was very sad that I had had such a loss just on that day.
“‘The saddest thing was,’ I said, ‘that my parents did not die a day sooner; then the wedding would never have taken place.’
“‘Is not the gracious lady pleased with her marriage?’ she then asked.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said I, ‘I am pleased. I shall always be pleased to obey my dear parents’ wish!’
“She asked if it had been my parents’ wish that I should heap shame upon myself and them and deceive my husband. I did my parents little honor by making myself a byword in every man’s mouth.