“Yes, more ill than ever before.”
There was silence again, but then the major’s wife spoke in a hard, harsh voice:—
“It is strange to think that you, too, countess, you whom every one loves, are an adulteress.”
The young woman started.
“Yes, if not in deed, yet in thoughts and desire, and that makes no difference. I who lie here feel that it makes no difference.”
“I know it!”
“And yet you are happy now. You may possess him you loved without sin. That black spectre does not stand between you when you meet. You may belong to one another before the world, love one another, go side by side through life.”
“Oh, madame, madame!”
“How can you dare to stay with him?” cried the old woman, with increasing violence. “Repent, repent in time! Go home to your father and mother, before they come and curse you. Do you dare to consider Gösta Berling your husband? Leave him! I shall give him Ekeby. I shall give him power and glory. Do you dare to share that with him? Do you dare to accept happiness and honor? I did not dare to. Do you remember what happened to me? Do you remember the Christmas dinner at Ekeby? Do you remember the cell in the bailiff’s house?”
“Oh, madame, we sinners go here side by side without happiness. I am here to see that no joy shall find a home by our hearth. Do you think I do not long for my home? Oh, bitterly do I long for the protection and support of home; but I shall never again enjoy them. Here I shall live in fear and trembling, knowing that everything I do leads to sin and sorrow, knowing that if I help one, I ruin another. Too weak and foolish for the life here, and yet forced to live it, bound by an everlasting penance.”