What pleasures those twelve hours contained, from the pop of the first cork at the dinner-table to the last wail of the violins, long after midnight.
They have sunk into the background of time, those crowned hours, made magical by the most fiery wines, by the most delicate food, by the most inspiring music, by the wittiest of theatricals, by the most beautiful tableaux. They have sunk away, dizzy with the dizziest dance. Where are to be found such polished floors, such courtly knights, such lovely women?
Ah, women of the olden days, you knew well how to adorn a ball. Streams of fire, of genius, and youthful vigor thrilled each and all who approached you. It was worth wasting one’s gold on wax-candles to light up your loveliness, on wine to instil gayety into your hearts; it was worth dancing soles to dust and rubbing stiff arms which had drawn the fiddle-bow, for your sakes.
Ah, women of the olden days, it was you who owned the key to the door of Paradise.
The halls of Ekeby are crowded with the loveliest of your lovely throng. There is the young Countess Dohna, sparklingly gay and eager for game and dance, as befits her twenty years; there are the lovely daughters of the judge of Munkerud, and the lively young ladies from Berga; there is Anna Stjärnhök, a thousand times more beautiful than ever before, with that gentle dreaminess which had come over her ever since the night she had been hunted by wolves; there are many more, who are not yet forgotten but soon will be; and there is the beautiful Marianne Sinclair.
She, the famed queen of beauty, who had shone at royal courts, who had travelled the land over and received homage everywhere, she who lighted the spark of love wherever she showed herself,—she had deigned to come to the pensioners’ ball.
At that time Värmland’s glory was at its height, borne up by many proud names. Much had the beautiful land’s happy children to be proud of, but when they named their glories they never neglected to speak of Marianne Sinclair.
The tales of her conquests filled the land.
They spoke of the coronets which had floated over her head, of the millions which had been laid at her feet, of the warriors’ swords and poets’ wreaths whose splendor had tempted her.