“‘They must lie as they have made their bed,’ I answered her. And moreover I wished her to understand, that I did not intend to allow any one to calumniate my parents’ daughter.
“We ate, we two. The men about us sat silent and could not lift knife nor fork.
“She stayed a day to rest, then she went. But all the time I saw her, I could not understand that she was my mother. I only knew that my mother was dead.
“When she was ready to leave, Gösta Berling, and I stood beside her on the steps, and the carriage was before the door, she said to me:—
“‘Twenty-four hours have I been here, without your greeting me as your mother. By lonely roads I came here, a hundred and twenty miles in three days. And for shame for you my body is trembling, as if it had been beaten with rods. May you be disowned, as I have been disowned, repudiated as I have been repudiated! May the highway be your home, the hay-stack your bed, the charcoal-kiln your stove! May shame and dishonor be your reward; may others strike you, as I strike you!’
“And she gave me a heavy blow on the cheek.
“But I lifted her up, carried her down the steps, and put her in her carriage.
“‘Who are you, that you curse me?’ I asked; ‘who are you that you strike me? That I will suffer from no one.’
“And I gave her the blow again.